Welcome to a hard-boiled and not without noir blog with news and reviews, occasional outbursts of maniacal Autograph Hound activity, plus archival records from the forty-five year run of The Dashiell Hammett Tour. 
The Dashiell Hammett Tour
1977-2022
Arkham House Ephemera
The Classic Years 1937–1973
Death Lit
Essays and Reviews Selected from Fifty Years of Writing 1974–2024
Willeford
The Book
Tag Archives: Book Collecting
Rediscovered: The Library of Brian — Inspiration, or Warning!?!
Brain Leno has a story about when he was a kid in Bismarck, beginning to buy paperbacks. He’d sit in front of the small bookcase he shelved them on and savor his library. His father made the bookstand “out of … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Get Yer Shiel Here
Aha. I’ve been waiting for this book — although technically I don’t really need it. You do. Beating the likes of Random House and Little Brown and their ilk to the punch, Hippocampus Press just gathered under one set of … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Arthur Machen, Book Collecting, Harold Billings, Hippocampus Press, John D. Squires, Lovecraft, M. P. Shiel, Scott Connors
Tour: By the Book
Got a note from Joe Salerno, checking to make sure I’m not actually leading the Dashiell Hammett Tour any more. Sorry, no. My big excuse — and it’s the truth — I aged out. I realized at any point something … Continue reading
Posted in Tour
Tagged 1201 California, A Man on the Inside, Book Collecting, Hammett Tour Book, Joe Salerno, Ted Danson
Rediscovered: Ex Libris Virgil Finlay
Autograph Hound Saturday. You know the drill. Another week has passed, and Autograph Hound Brian Leno has added more signatures to his collection. A thousand John Hancocks in the naked city. . . . This is the story of one. … Continue reading
Posted in Film, Lit
Tagged Autographs, Book Collecting, Brian Leno, Norman Lindsay, Seabury Quinn, Virgil Finlay
Rediscovered: Belly Band Tuesday
We’ve done belly bands before — notably, one on Michael Connelly’s first crime novel. But now I sense that our maniacal book collecting pal Brian Leno might have picked up a jones for those bands. Just in case, I better … Continue reading
Rediscovered: More Caveman Lit
Autograph Hound Saturday yet again, and as ever, Brian Leno is on the prod. Back in 2020 Brian landed an inscribed copy of The Day of the Brown Horde and thought he’d read it immediately when it rolled in. Didn’t … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Haefele Clarifies
In the recent post about The Due to the Death Series which John D. Haefele and I wrestled with, when we were wrapping up Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years, I quoted Haefele as saying that The Due to’s were … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Due to the Death
Paul Dobish checks in with his latest acquisitions in the quest to land Arkham House ephemera, in this case excavating in the fecund primordial mire that is The Due to the Death Series. In Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years … Continue reading
Posted in Lit
Tagged Arkham House Ephemera The Classic Years 1937-1973, August Derleth, Book Collecting, Paul Dobish
Rediscovered: Secrets of the Leno Library
In the shot yesterday of (at least a small part of) The Leno Library I noticed the top row of books by or about Robert E. Howard, this month’s birthday boy — and next row down, on left, the Gnome … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, REH
Tagged Autographs, Book Collecting, Brian Leno, Creeps by Night, Jeff Jones, Richard S. Shaver, Roads, Roy Krenkel, Seabury Quinn
