Comments on: Sex and Violence

Sex and Violence

fearfulsymmetry — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:04:28 -0800

London's 30 Most Erotic Writers, 50 Crime Writers To Read Before You Die

By: farishta

farishta — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:14:06 -0800

Book list pr0n in its most natural form.

By: nasreddin

nasreddin — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:32:41 -0800

No Rex Stout? No P.D. James? FAIL.

By: oh pollo!

oh pollo! — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:31:35 -0800

It's a bit weird that Gerald Kersh makes the Erotic list but not the Crime list.

By: Bookhouse

Bookhouse — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:31:40 -0800

Ahh, Europe, where mysteries are shelved in the crime-fiction section, instead of the other way around. Here in America more shelf space is given to cat-sluths and culinary mysteries (and, of course feline-sluth-culinary-mystery-cookbooks) than to anything good 'n hardboiled. It would be like if the erotica section was mostly books on tennis, with some heavy petting thrown in, or if most sci-fi books were just about people with really good HD teevees. I'll forgive the list for missing Andrew Vachss. And Ken Bruen. And David Goodis. And Kem Nunn. And Dennis Lehane. It's not an American list, after all. But missing out on Donald Goines, Chester Himes or Iceberg Slim makes the list awfully, awfully pale. I guess if there is a genre given less respect than crime fiction, it would be black crime fiction.

By: Football Bat

Football Bat — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:42:41 -0800

First off, I'd like to mention that on the final page of the crime books that they mention that all the above are available from Telegraph Books. I'm assuming this imprint is owned by the same people that run the website. I'm not accusing anybody, mind. Just saying. I am, however, accusing them of missing Derek Raymond. Fuck that. That's inexcusable, especially for Brits.

By: essexjan

essexjan — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 04:55:46 -0800

No Sue Grafton? The Kinsey Millhone alphabet series is one of my guilty pleasures.

By: RavinDave

RavinDave — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 05:24:43 -0800

Any "Best Of" crime writer list that doesn't prominently feature Ross MacDonald is clearly idiotic.

By: mattoxic

mattoxic — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 05:25:14 -0800

These lists always shit me. When reading them I imagine Toby Clements, Jeremy Jehu, Jake Kerridge, Sam Leith, Andrew McKie and Sameer Rahim under extreme pressure to get to the pub. Done! Lets go. Oh shit, we almost forgot Elmore Leaonard! Quick, google him then stick him at the end. No Peter Corris (I mean the man's only written 50 novels) No Ian Rankin?

By: KokuRyu

KokuRyu — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:24:19 -0800

She loved Metafilter. She tapped the keys of her silver silken laptop with her slender white fingers, red nails dancing like little fiery hearts, and selected "post". She sucked her fingers and made cool wet circles on her bare thighs as she waited the page to load. But something was wrong. She felt her stomach tighten. The page would not load. Someone had spoofed her password. Someone had stolen her user profile. Nothing would be the same again.

By: outlier

outlier — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:27:28 -0800

First off, I'd like to mention that on the final page of the crime books that they mention that all the above are available from Telegraph Books. I'm assuming this imprint is owned by the same people that run the website. Eyeballing the list, they seem to be focusing on getting a wide spread of writers, with some favour for the English (e.g. Charles Dickens) and some prejudice against contemporary authors. Although the absence of Ian Rankin is puzzling, given his media ubiquity over here.

By: matteo

matteo — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:27:46 -0800

the crime list is a crime

By: goatdog

goatdog — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:30:10 -0800

Ross Macdonald, who did not make the list, called Mickey Spillane, who did make the list, "the poet laureate sexual psychopathy."

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:30:39 -0800

It's a bummer to finish #50, the only thing left is to die.

By: rdone

rdone — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:54:19 -0800

No mention of the redoubtable Sir Richard Francis Burton in respect of London erotica? He of the unexpurgated Arabian Nights? The Kama Sutra? The Perfumed Garden of Shaykh Nefawzi? Come now. . .

By: grounded

grounded — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:31:42 -0800

Only three women on the erotic list. You'd think Mills & Boon would get an honorary mention based on 100 years of bodice-ripping in quantity (millions and millions sold) rather than quality. The crime division is a crime. Graham Greene and Dick Francis don't make the list but George Pelecanos does?

By: Tube

Tube — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 11:12:33 -0800

Whither Wambaugh?

By: cinemafiend

cinemafiend — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 12:43:42 -0800

Do they read Charles Willeford in the UK? I'd like to throw a little shark infested custard in the face of whoever wrote that article...

By: CCBC

CCBC — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:13:15 -0800

No Josephine Tey? Most remembered for Daughter of Time, but Miss Pym Disposes is her best. (Also, To Love and Be Wise, a mystery based on Shakespearian comedy, and The Franchise Affair, based on an actual 19th C. case, and Brat Farrar which prefigured Martin Guerre, and...)

By: graventy

graventy — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:51:09 -0800

I only clicked on one of those lists. Make of this what you will.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:41:49 -0800

Have to link an old MeFi post about Ross MacDonald, whose absence from the 2nd linked list is completely unforgivable.