You don’t want to miss Episode 56 of the Paperback Warrior Podcast. We tackle the career and work of Charles Williams. Also discussed: Vechel Howard, Howard Rigsby, Gil Brewer's Sin for Me, and a discussion of the films and fiction of S. Craig Zahler. Listen on your favorite podcast app, at paperbackwarrior.com or download directly
HERE.
Listen to "Episode 56: Charles Williams" on Spreaker.
I really enjoyed this episode guys. It is criminal that Williams has largely been forgotten. When he was in top form his writing was as evocative, sharp, and compelling as anything in Steinbeck or Hemingway. I prefer the "land-based" books over the maritime stuff, but "Scorpion Reef" is a crackling good story with a great ending. I'd love to see it get a review sometime. Much props to you both for the work you do on the site and on the podcast. It is great to see all you do in getting the gospel of vintage paperbacks out there. I stumbled onto your blog by accident a few months back and have been enjoying it and the podcast (and digging into the back catalog) ever since. Your podcast episode on building a library and acquiring books was especially great stuff. I'd been attempting to do it the expensive way paying $10-40 a pop online for the titles I really wanted. Using your tips has already resulted in some great finds. Ironic considering how I got started on vintage paperbacks. In the summer of 2016 I was perusing a local used bookstore in my hometown of Wichita, KS. I happened upon several stacks of John D. MacDonald paperbacks on the floor in a corner. There were some 1970s printings of his work but for the most part these were the yellow spined 50s and early 60s Gold Medals and the 1950s Dells. Being a guy in my mid-30s at the time, I'd never heard of JDM or Gold Medal. Not my era. But the shear nostalgia-high that the artwork shot through me made me want to buy them. I did a quick Google check as to who this MacDonald guy was and found out that he was a pretty big deal once upon a time. There must've been two dozen books there - nearly all of them in fabulous, uncreased-spine condition. And hey, they were only $1-2 a pop. So I grabbed maybe eight of them and set to reading that night. Two days and two finished JDM novels later, I tore back to the store, found the remaining stack pretty much untouched were I'd left it and bought the lot of them. That's what set the hook. JDM became my favorite fiction author (though I heavily prefer his stand-alones over the McGees) and from there I began discovering this fabulous world of vintage crime fiction I'd never known existed. I eventually even published an essay on - of all things - the religious dimension of Jim Thompson's novels. (https://livingchurch.org/covenant/2019/09/06/jim-thompson-and-the-killer-inside-us-all/ if you'll forgive me)
ReplyDeleteYour blog and podcast have only broadened my horizons. I particularly love the research you do and then share on many of these authors' backstories. I find many of these guys' lives as fascinating as the books themselves. (And would that someone out there would someday bring out a history of Fawcett Gold Medal) Anyhow thank you this blog and all the education and enjoyment it has generated for me.