Click the cover to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link).
The Life of Crime (Amazon affiliate link) is a 700+ pages volume covering all kinds of crime novel, tracing the genre from its beginnings in the 18th century right up to almost the present day. Mind you, despite its comprehensiveness it doesn’t appear to include the Cormoran Strike novels by Galbraith, at least not judging by the indexes. Note that plural. There’s an index of titles, index of names and a subject index, plus a select bibliography. I love all the cross-referencing, and the little known (by myself at any rate) facts.
For example, David Goodis wrote noir fiction that apparently was so bleak that another novellist, Ed Gorman, said of Goodis that:
He didn’t write novels, he wrote suicide notes.
What a recommendation!
Like all the best books, this can be read chronologically or dipped into. It will keep you engaged for a long time.
By the way, if you are interested in trying your hand at creative writing in a friendly, no pressure (well, not much pressure!) environment, you may wish to consider signing up for a course I'm running through the City Lit.
My course is called The 60 Minute Writer, and is online. Each week, for eleven weeks, we cover a different aspect of creative writing. I ran the course in January, and I will give a few examples of what we covered. I am running the course again next January, but I will be doing different areas, so that anyone who took the course last year will still benefit from doing it again.
I haven’t finished preparing the new course yet, but here are a few things I’m considering:
Playing with time and sequence, eg writing the ending first;
Epistolary writing;
Acrostics and other tricks;
How to create atmosphere.
Last time I included topics such as:
Choosing the exactly right word (using work by David Foster Wallace as an example);
Using dialogue to tell the story (using work by Gay Talese as an example);
Employing cinematic techniques (using work by Truman Capote as an example).
Each session lasts only an hour, so it’s ideal for busy people. The way I structure the hour is along these lines:
Discussion of a reading I gave out or sent earlier.
Discussion of the homework;
Prompt.
Writing for at least 20 minutes.
Sharing in twos and threes.
Everyone enjoyed the course, and especially appreciated that I gave feedback on every piece of work people submitted.
Here is that link again: