booklogging!

[kate_nepveu]

I was supposed to be doing the dishes...

Anyway, I gave up on Elizabeth E. Wein's Arthurian/Aksumite Cycle with The Sunbird, because too much whump, and then somehow I read a noir novel, Margaret Millar's Vanish in an Instant? My brain is weird. But I knew at least the first of these would be of interest to some people here, so I thought I should bring over links.

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[sovay]

and then somehow I read a noir novel, Margaret Millar's Vanish in an Instant? My brain is weird.

I really like Margaret Millar. The novel of hers I like least is, either ironically or predictably, the most acclaimed, Beast in View (1955), but otherwise everything else—I have not read her entire bibliography because I'm still missing two volumes of the comprehensive Collected Millar—has been a hit. I also, for the record, like Ross Macdonald, and agree it is delightful that he changed his name.

[kate_nepveu]

good to know, thanks! is there any way you could sum up Macdonald, as in, "if you're in the mood for X, try?"

[sovay]

is there any way you could sum up Macdonald, as in, "if you're in the mood for X, try?"

Raymond Chandler with real people. Reading the posthumous collection The Archer Files (2007) should give you an idea of whether you like his style and approach, but I have also liked all of his novels I have encountered.

[kate_nepveu]

thanks!

[intothespin]

I really like the Millar I've read (three or four books, none of which intersect with yours). The best so far has been Beast in View. I was very pleased when the vast majority of her work got rereleased in ebook over the past couple of years, making it much easier to find. I attribute this to Sarah Weinman's Library of America anthologies of noir written by women in the 40s and 50s; it brought a lot of renewed attention to Millar and some of the other writers she covered.

I tend to think of Millar as classed with Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, although Holding is less chilly and I think more critical of gender constraints; maybe I only think of them together because I discovered them around the same time. You might like The Blank Wall, especially.

[kate_nepveu]

thanks, I'll look for it!

[sovay]

I tend to think of Millar as classed with Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Hugely seconding Elisabeth Sanxay Holding and also Dorothy B. Hughes as long as we're talking about female writers of noir.

[carbonel]

I did read the entire Arthurian/Aksumite Cycle, but only because I'm a completist. I think I would have been much happier if I'd stopped after the first book (which I really liked).

[kate_nepveu]

it is definitely a bold change after the first book!

[oracne]

The Sunbird isn't even the last of the Whump. Wise choice.

[kate_nepveu]

yeah, the skimming convinced me of that quite emphatically!