The Big Book Of Sherlock Holmes!

I was eager to my mitts on this over-sized collection of Holmesiana from the uber compiler Otto Penzler called appropriately enough The Big Book of Sherlock Holmes. I've been a big fan of his ""Big Book" collections over the last many years (Big Book of Pulps, Big Book of Adventure Stories, etc.) and this one was a no-brainer for him to gather up.

Typically the material is divided into categories, but they are such weird categories that it makes the material feel fresh. Some of this stuff I have in other volumes such as "The Adventure of the Dorset Street Lodger" by Michael Moorcock, but that often happens buying Sherlock Holmes collections. Most of this is brand new to me, though it spans decades itself. In particular I am happy to have "The Adventure of the Bogle-Wolf" by Anthony Boucher, "The Martian Crown Jewels" by Poul Anderson, as well as stories by Wade Manly Wellman, David Stuart Davies, A.A. Milne, Ring Lardner, and many more.

This is the kind of collection you will dabble in and peruse over a long period of time, not unlike a one-volume library of short and not-so-short fiction starring the world's great consulting detective.

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The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of!

I did not know that Dashiell Hammett's great 1929 detective yarn The Maltese Falcon had been adapted to comic book form until I chanced across this cover of Feature Book #48 from 1946 by the David McKay Comics company. Reports I can find are that the comic itself is pretty weak, but if the cover is any indication, it might have some of the vintage Golden Age energy which percolated up in many of those vintage comics. I'd love to read it sometime.

I consider 1941's The Maltese Falcon directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart and a delicious ensemble cast of morally bankrupt characters to perhaps be the perfect movie. I can watch it over and over without tiring of it. I compare it to great music which always carries you along with changes of intensity and tempo but never losing you and never wearing you thin. The Maltese Falcon is like that, a story that slithers along with fantastic pace but still is possessed of fascinating quiet scenes and character bits which delight but never fail to further the larger story.

I haven't read the novel is some years. I got a class set many years ago when teaching film as literature was momentarily in vogue in schools, but alas never got the opportunity to teach the book. I've since changed schools and had to leave the novels behind for someone else to perhaps make good use of. It strikes me just now I need to get funding and set up a unit for my current classes.

I bought the dvd above some years ago and have enjoyed it several times since. It's loaded with behind-the-scenes stuff as well as other extras.

Not the least of which are the two earlier 1930's adaptations of the Hammett novel, one titled simply The Maltese Falcon from 1931 and the other Satan Met a Lady from 1936
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Sam Spade himself had quite a life beyond the novel's ending, even ending up on radio, television and in these delightful Wildroot ads. My dad was a devotee of Wildroot, and the very name of the product evokes great memories.

This is probably my favorite cover for the novel which sadly often gets covers of limited merit (to not suggest it might have actual pulp action in it I guess).

I picked this up a few years ago largely because it had the original story as it ran in serial form in Black Mask magazine in 1929. I've got it set for reading this spring hopefully.

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Big Books Of Horror!

A delightfully devilish package arrived on my doorstep from Amazon yesterday containing a couple of Otto Penzler's mammoth collections of horror reading. The newest of the Penzler super-sized volumes is The Big Book of Ghosts, an over-sized treat filled with a sprawling range of spooky narratives.

I also took the time to add The Vampire Archives to my library. This equally massive volume focuses on that particular species of nightmare creature, the blood-sucking vampire. Like most Penzler books, the classics are largely intact and a number of compelling new stories (at least to me) are included as well. It's this vast range of material that makes the Penzler books so valuable.

Add these two new mammoth collections together with the Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! volume and you have enough reading for many Halloweens.

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