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[josemas]

A Dirty Job-  by Christopher Moore   Moore has turned out another comic gem with this story about beta-male and second-hand store owner Charlie Asher who is recruited as a "death merchant" (a job that has some similarities to the Dead Like Me television show's "reapers").  Check it out!   

The Messiah of Morris Avenue-  by Tony Hendra   A friend gave me this to read a while back and I finally got around to it.  The only thing I know about the author is that he was a writer/editor for the National Lampoon back in the early 1970s.  It's the story of the Messiah returning in a near-future 21st century and being met with a lot of skepticism and hostility by many members of the press, the public and the religious community.  Deja vu.  I found it interesting but flawed.  His highly satirized view of the American government seemed heavy-handed when compared to his much more serious treatment of the Messiah and his message (which I found to be some of the better written parts of the book).

Washington: A Life-  by Ron Chernow   Taking advantage of recent scholarship on the period and the subject, Chernow has turned out what is probably the best single volume bio of George Washington in the last few decades.  Recommended.

Best

Joe

[josemas]

Backflash- by Richard Stark    Richard Stark is one of the pseudonyms that Donald Westlake used during his long career.  It's mostly linked with a series of hard-boiled novels featuring the criminal Parker and his associates.  Westlake turned out twenty of these as paperback originals between 1962-1974.  They were pretty popular with several of them being adapted into movies (the most famous probably being Point Blank [1967] with Lee Marvin) and then stopped.   The books went out of print but the buzz about them built and they eventually came back into print.  I read my way through the original twenty in back in the 1990s and early 2000s.  Eventually in the later 1990s Westlake revived the Stark name and started writing about Parker again.  He must have been writing them for several years before I realized he had resumed doing so and I have been slowly working my way through the newer novels the last few years. 
They're all good, fast moving reads.  This one has Parker and co. planning the heist of a riverboat casino but they don't realize that other parties have plans to heist the heisters!

Bangkok Haunts- by John Burdett   Another new author recently recommended to me.  The hero of the novel is the half-caste, Buddhist detective of the Royal Thai Police- Sonchai Jitpleecheep.  Things are done differently in Thailand as Sonchai also works part-time in his mom's bar and brothel and his superior at work seems more interested in how much dirt Sonchai can dig up on officials for blackmail purposes or how fast Sonchai can get help him get his new porn film biz off the ground than having Sonchai investigate murders and such.  Then there's all the Oriental mysticism that plays an important part in just about everything that goes on.  Joe Friday and Dragnet this ain't!!!  Still a very interesting look at a very different society using the detective/mystery genre.  I'm game for more.

Myths and Mysteries in Archeology- by Prof. Susan A. Johnston   Johnston debunks such things as ancient astronauts, the story of Atlantis, psychic archeologists and such, examines how archeology is used in relation to research in the history of religion (Stonehenge, Biblical related archeology, etc..) and covers such real historical mysteries as King Arthur and early migrations into the Americas.  All done in a very readable manner.

Best

Joe 

[paw broon]

The talk of pulps put me in the mood for some fast reads and I found a reprint of the first Black Bat story.  Went like the clappers. Also, I've been reading some old ('50's) Sexton Blake mysteries.

[josemas]

Slan- by A. E. Van Vogt   I decided to reread Van Vogt's Slan (last read about three decades ago) because I had learned that Kevin Anderson (who wrote the lengthy Saga of the Seven Suns series which I enjoyed a couple years back) had finished a Slan sequel that Van Vogt had left unfinished upon his death which I thought I'd give a read.  Then I realized that I couldn't remember a single thing about Van Vogt's original novel.   As I reread the book it was all new again to me as almost nothing came back to me from the initial read. 
Slan are basically mutants and the book is the story of mutants against humans and against other mutants.  The same sort of elements in this book became the main fodder for Stan Lee and his successors when translated to the superhero genre via the X-Men comic book a couple of decades after Slan was first published in the pulps.

Lost in a Good Book- by Jasper Fforde  Fforde has an incredible imagination!  This is the second of his Thursday Next novels.  These, along with his Jack Spratt/Nursery Crimes Division novels, are set in a universe quite different from ours.  Thursday is a literary detective, England is a Republic (George Formby was her first president), the Crimean War is still being fought, Russia is still ruled by Czars. time travel is possible, fairy tale creatures exist, and on and on.  This one ends with some things hanging so I expect I'll be tackling it's follow up fairly soon.  Recommended.

Red Wind and Trouble is My Business- by Raymond Chandler  Continuing my pulp reading with a couple of novelettes from one of the Black Mask boys.  I tend to enjoy Chandler's shorter works more as they contain all of his wonderful descriptive power and atmosphere but the plotting doesn't usually get as convoluted as his novel-length works.

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

After reading the first two Tarzan novels I think that I will quit while I am ahead. The major reliance on coincidence in Return caused me to check some reviews. It seems that coincidence is heavily relied upon often. I started to read the third book and realized that I would probably stop enjoying them as much. So I will stop with fond memories. Now I have to decide what to read next with so many good recommendations.

[josemas]

The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian- by Robert E. Howard   I first encountered Conan (and Robert E. Howard) via issue #1 of Marvel's Conan the Barbarian comics book in 1970.  This soon lead me to the Conan Lancer paperbacks then in print.  They had some great covers by Frazetta (whom I was already quite familiar with because of his wonderful covers on the Ace ERB reprints that I had been reading for a while).  Those books weren't pure Howard though as other authors (mostly L. Sprague Decamp and Lin Carter) had added to, rearranged the order of, altered, and completed unfinished REH manuscripts.  These new collections go back to the original Howard stories arranged in order of publication (rather than in the timeline that DeCamp came up with) and dump all the later pastiches by the other authors. 
I found the early Conan stories (The Tower of the Elephant, The Frost Giant's Daughter) among the best in this first collection then Howard hits a period where they are all pretty much following a similar (and somewhat monotonous) pattern where Conan hooks up with a scantily clad princess/slave girl/woman in distress and fights a tyrant and/or evil sorcerer with some monstrous ape-like creature or giant serpent usually thrown in for good measure.  According to the book's intro these stories were written during the depths of the Great Depression when Howard was desperate for money and he purposely made them very commercial (and less personal) so that a sale would almost assuredly be made quickly. 
I expect to revisit more of these "purer" Howard Conan collections next year and it will be interesting to see if he gets back to the "better stuff" in his way of writing. 

The Devil in the White City- by Erik Larson   Larson interweaves two intriguing stories taking place in Chicago during the late 1800s.  The planning, building and running of the World's Fair (aka the Columbian Exposition) and of the fiend who took advantage of the great number of people the fair brought to the city by preying upon them--the notorious serial killer Dr. H. H. Holmes (aka Herman Mudget). 
I've read of Mudget (most recently in Rick Geary's graphic novel about him) before but it is Larson's running of the two parallel stories that is the strong point in this telling.

Bye, Bye Baby- by Max Allan Collins  Another of Max Allan Collin's Nate Heller novels.  Heller is a P. I. who somehow manages to become involved with many famous real life characters over the years.  This one finds him working for Marilyn Monroe in the final months of her life and then trying to uncover the truth about her mysterious death.  Not up to the best in this series (Stolen Away, True Crime) but still a pretty good read.

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

Thanks to Roy's Conan comics I got the Lancer Conans from the Warren ads. They were unable to to supply one of the issues which I paid for. They offered anything as replacement. I got the life size Vamirella poster. My mom eventually threw it away. Worth a couple hundred bucks.

[JVJ]

Back in 1972, narf,
I visited Warren Publishing in New York along with Bud Plant, John Barrett, Dick Swan and a bunch of other San Jose comic fans. I remember I won a coin toss with Dick Swan and became the proud owner of a DOUBLE-Vampirella poster. They were printed TWO-UP (about 3' x 6') and then trimmed apart - did you know that? I still have it! Probably not very many of THOSE around.

And I remember buying the Lancer Conan paperbacks off the racks at Kepler's Bookstore in Los Altos. I still have them and Kepler's is still around. In fact, I went there today and bought some books.

Life remains interesting.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[josemas]

And I remember buying the Lancer Conan paperbacks off the racks at Kepler's Bookstore in Los Altos. I still have them and Kepler's is still around. In fact, I went there today and bought some books.

Life remains interesting.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

I bought most of my Lancer Conan novels at a long gone B Daltons bookstore. 

I sometimes bought paperbacks just because they had a neat cover by Frazetta or Jones or Krenkel or Bama, etc.. 
I had copies of some of George MacDonald's Fraser's Flashman novels (picked up solely for their Frazetta covers) for several years without reading them until Tom Yeates said I really should give them a read.  I did and I'm very glad Tom suggested that I actually read them.  Delightful funny, ribald,  swashbuckling tales that were also meticulously researched for historical details.  I read them all after that as they came out up until Fraser's death (even if they didn't have Frazetta covers)!

Best

Joe

[JVJ]

I was lucky, Joe,
Kepler's (back then, but sadly not now) had a policy of putting that week's arrivals face out on the shelves, turning all previous books spine out. So if one walked into the story the day they got the new shipment, as I did, one could walk up and down the aisles and see what was new. Because of this practice, I ended up finding dozens of Jeff Jones and Frank Frazetta covers on books other than the science fiction titles.

You can see some of Jones' covers on my Jones bio:http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/jonesjf.htm
I would have missed almost all of these if I had restricted myself to the science fiction section. Ah, the memories...

(|:{>

[narfstar]

Warren covers were my first intro to Frazetta. Then the Lancer paperbacks. My brother and I both bought some Frazetta Warren cover T shirts. Wish I still had them. I am always amazed at how much certain comic book related instances stick with me to this day. I remember a book store in Blairsville, PA where I discovered Frazetta Tarzan and other Burroughs. I never cared for Jones and considered his work imitation Frazetta. I know it has its own qualities but they did not appeal to me. I still have the Lancer Conans and many of the Burroughs books.

[JVJ]

Warren covers were my first intro to Frazetta. Then the Lancer paperbacks. My brother and I both bought some Frazetta Warren cover T shirts. Wish I still had them. I am always amazed at how much certain comic book related instances stick with me to this day. I remember a book store in Blairsville, PA where I discovered Frazetta Tarzan and other Burroughs. I never cared for Jones and considered his work imitation Frazetta. I know it has its own qualities but they did not appeal to me. I still have the Lancer Conans and many of the Burroughs books.

Someday, narf, you're going to have to admit that you were wrong about Jones.
'World renowned illustration artist Frank Frazetta called Jones "the greatest living painter".'
If Frazetta himself didn't consider Jones to be an imitator, you might consider going along with the master... One is allowed to change a first impression if time proves it otherwise.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[Drusilla lives!]

Jones could draw pretty good too.  

It just so happens that I was recently (re-)reading "Angel of Doom" in Creepy #16 (the one with that wonderful Frazetta jungle girl cover)... marvelous stuff.  Too bad he came up at the tail end of Goodwin's time there.

[Captain Audio]

You can see some of Jones' covers on my Jones bio:http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/jonesjf.htm
I would have missed almost all of these if I had restricted myself to the science fiction section. Ah, the memories...

(|:{>

Thanks for putting this online.
I remember most of this artwork, the Nick carter cover especially, and the Lady of Bankok though I didn't have that book.
I guess all of these other than a few stories in magazines were destroyed when almost all my books were scattered by a windstorm that destroyed my storage buildings and part of my roof.

Actually the first thing I did when I began to surf the net was to look up artwork and cover galleries. Just seeing the artwork again brings back memories of the books and the old news stands that disappeared nearly forty years ago.

Almost forgot.
I'm re reading Ben Bova's "Mars". Just started.

[josemas]

You can see some of Jones' covers on my Jones bio:http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/jonesjf.htm
I would have missed almost all of these if I had restricted myself to the science fiction section. Ah, the memories...

(|:{>

Cool JIm!   

Thanks for putting these paperback covers up. 

Most of them I had never seen before.  I didn't start picking up the paperbacks for their covers until the early 1970s when I got into my teens.  I did find the occasional goodie from the 1960s in used book stores but I'm sure there were many more I missed (especially as I rarely checked out genres like romance).

BTW, regarding your comment on the site about the small book stores/monolithic book chains: The little stores that have survived out here seem to be doing better these days as many of the big chains out here such as Bookstar, Barnes and Noble. etc... have closed many of their shops because of the heavy competition they have increasingly faced from online sellers.  The remaining lil' guys have ended up benefiting by picking up the customers that lost their big chain stores.

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

Well since taste is subjective there is no accounting for it. I looked again at your Jones page and I just don't get him. I also don't like later Toth and I don't like the master Van Gogh.

[JVJ]

Well since taste is subjective there is no accounting for it. I looked again at your Jones page and I just don't get him. I also don't like later Toth and I don't like the master Van Gogh.

Absolutely, narf,
I'm not saying you have to like him, I'm just saying that, given Frazetta's appraisal of Jones, it's not fair to call him "imitation Frazetta." That's not so much taste as a poor and inappropriate comparison.

ps. I don't have any understanding or appreciation for most of Van Goth and the other modern artists, either.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[Drusilla lives!]

I'd just like to mention that if anyone here has a Van Gogh they don't appreciate, please send it to me so that I may.  

[JVJ]

It really irks me just how many of his works I passed up when they were going for peanuts...

(|:{>

[narfstar]

I know now that Jones was not derivative Frazetta. I guess I should have clarified that was my first impression. I had seen some beautiful Frazetta work and along came a Jones. To my mind, at the time, this was a company hiring someone to try to imitate Frazetta. I know now that it is not so. I would say that Frazetta's popularity probably got Jones more work on Fantasy covers. I like Jone's work it just does not grab as anything very special.
I would also say that I probably would have like it more had I not seen Frazetta first.

[josemas]

Djibouti- by Elmore Leonard   Most of the action in this recent novel of Elmore Leonard's takes place in or off the coast of the small African nation of Djibouti (pronounced Juh-booty) hence the title of the book.  Elmore populates the tale with his usual assortment of interesting characters including a winning documentary film maker, her septuagenarian African-American assistant, assorted rogues, pirates, terrorists and a billionaire and his (wanna be) wife.  All come together for a good read.

In the Best Families- by Rex Stout   The book cover says that this is the 17th Nero Wolfe book.  It's also the third in which Wolfe is pitted against his arch-nemeses Arnold Zeck and things come to a head in it!  Originally published in 1950 the story only has one element I noticed that dates it to the time period.  It's repeated mentions of the then new phenomena of television and the effect it was having on people.

47- by Walter Mosley  Mosley again takes an interesting break from his usual mystery novels that feature the likes of Easy Rawlins, Socrates Fortlow and Fearless Jones.  47 starts off as a story of a young slave and his life on an Alabama plantation in the 1830s (47 is his slave name/number) and then veers off into sci-fi territory.  It seems aimed at a younger audience (teens) and leaves itself wide open for sequels.

Best

Joe (who likes Frazetta, Jones, Toth, and Van Gogh but who still doesn't "get" Jackson Pollack (and probably never will either)

[narfstar]

Pollack was a marketing miracle. The pretentious self deception of the elite art world gave him a reputation. It is all about reputation not talent.
They have done tests with the work of kids and "artists" and the elitists often pick the work of the kids when they do not know which is which. The same has been done with "fine" wines. The wild and weird hippy generation produced some garbage that was called art.

[Drusilla lives!]

If you step back a bit, you'll find the history of art can always be viewed as a succession of elitist pretense of one form or another.  

For instance, the impressionist movement was partly a creative revolt against the rigid esthetic elitism (based on realism) of the fine art (French) academies of the day (1800s)... a revolt which eventually won the day and led to the multitude of accepted modes of artistic expression we have today.  Unfortunately, the realism of the old academies (a mode of expression in and of itself) fell out of favor as the social elite embraced these new modes over the old.  I find it interesting that we might be coming full circle now, with a renewal of interest in the old esthetics.

As an artist, it should be a wonderful time because of all the acceptable modes of expression one has at one's disposal... in the end, (IMO) it's always about the artist and how he/she wants to express themselves... regardless of what any "elite" would prefer.

[JVJ]

Fair enough, narf. I'm certain that you're correct in saying that he was initially hired because he could paint in the "Frazetta manner", but that was a very fleeting instant in his career. It was a bad start, I agree. I understand more clearly your feelings. Don't agree with them, but I understand them.

(|:{>

[JVJ]

Plugged - Eoin Colfer (Best-Selling author of Artemis Fowl, this is supposedly his venture into the realm of Carl Hiaasen. Not a very good first step.)

Behind the Scenes at the Museum - Kate Atkinson (a life from birth to death, but with an ominicent voice that knew and saw more than the narrator. An odd and disconcerting approach. Okay, but not that good)

Galileo's Dream - Kim Stanley Robinson (Fascinating book and subject and realization. Future scientists trying to manipulate Galileo's interactions/reactions with the Church.)

The Discovery of France - Graham Robb (An acquired taste is needed. I've got it, as I'm fascinated by the factors that resulted in modern France. I learned a lot. This is the book that led to his amazing tour de force, The Parisians.)

The Hare with Amber Eyes - Edmund DuWaal (Highly recommended. DuWaal's family history as reconstructed around a collection of Japanese netsuke.)

Ivory and Horn - Charles de Lint (Short stories. Not usually my favorite story form, but I enjoyed this a lot. Of course, I like de Lint's work. Urban Fantasy)

Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon (From the Spanish. A mystery novel about books. How could I not like it? Well, I did. In fact I loved it. Well-written and suspenseful tale about someone trying to eradicate ALL the works of an author by burning them.)

Power & Myth - Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers (Good, but I think it works better as video. This transcription may contain the unedited interviews, but much relies on expressions and tone of voice to carry the full impact.)

Headhunters - Joe Nesbo (without the slash through last "o". Okay. Suspense/Mystery novel about a guy who goes from being a headhunter for a hiring agency to suddenly sparring with a highly trained killer-executive out to kill him. Highly implausible, but an okay read.)

Thunderstruck - Erik Larson (The true story of murderer tied in with the historical development of Marconi's wireless. Told in parallel. Good read.) Also finished his In The Garden of Beasts which I also enjoyed.

The Wise Man's Fears - Patrick Rothfuss (Sequel to The Name of the Wind. Excellent.)

REAMDE - Neal Stephenson (1000+ pages. You gotta like how he writes to tackle this. I was VERY leery after his previous, Anathem, but this is his redemption. Fantastic. Read it TWICE and enjoyed it even more the second time.)

Also reread - The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss

Tried some audio Agatha Christie that I found for pennies in Paris: One Two Buckle My Shoe and Murder in the Mews. Christie simply doesn't hold up after all these years. At least not with these Hercule Poirot tales.

The Complaints and The Impossible Dead - Ian Rankin (His new series is promising. So far so good. Fox has many of the personality traits of Rebus, but is sufficiently unique to maybe carry a series. Rankin needs to bring the focus back to The Complaints and not let Fox just intrude, Rebus-like, into the nearest murder case.)

The Fifth Witness and The Drop - Michael Connelly (If you like police mysteries, Connelly can do no wrong in my estimation. I eagerly devour his new offerings.)

Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson (Stunning and hard to swallow at the same time. He comes off as an asshole in his relationships, yet everyone respected him and many loved him. You're left to make up your own mind - which is a powerful accomplishment for a biographer. Recommended.)

The Keeper of Lost Causes - Jussi Adler-Olsen (supposed to be Denmark's answer to Stieg Larsson, but I was under-impressed. I figured out the mystery the minute the clue was dropped and didn't appreciate the abrupt manner in which the detective suddenly (almost) figured it out. Too sloppy.)

I Still Dream of You - Fanny Flagg (light, silly, easy read, but not memorable. Flagg is also an acquired taste and I'm not sure that I've got it.)

probably a couple I missed, but this pretty much catches me up to the present. Currently, I'm reading Cleopatra.

Peace, Jim (|:{>