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Post by benedictjjones on Dec 17, 2008 10:34:11 GMT
Posted about this on the Vault and thought I'd ressurect the thread here.
these books are anthologies of short noir/crime tales linked by being set in the same city. at present i have:
Brooklyn Noir Brooklyn Noir 2 Manhatten Noir New Orleans Noir Twin Cities Noir London Noir Paris Noir
and i really fancy picking up Birmingham Noir which is edited by Joel Lane.
Has anyone read any of these??
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Post by benedictjjones on Jan 28, 2010 22:49:49 GMT
added istanbul noir, queens noir, phoenix noir and d.c noir to the collection since i posted this but have yet to see birmingham noir...
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Post by benedictjjones on Jul 28, 2010 11:45:47 GMT
still haven't found birmingham noir but picked up rome noir and have my eye on mexico city...
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Post by Calenture on Jul 29, 2010 16:02:08 GMT
Ben, I remember being a bit bemused when this thread turned up at the Vault, as my own understanding of the 'Akashic record' was derived from a series of paperbacks I'd read in the Sixties and Seventies, written by a guy calling himself Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, who claimed to be the reincarnation of a Buddhist monk (apparently the akashic record was a sort of collective memory of everything that ever existed, to be found in the astral plane). So (call me silly, yeah I know I know) the title Akashic Noir gave me a mental picture of Philip Marlow in a saffron robe carrying a begging bowl... But it does look like a very interesting and successful series of books - and there are a hell of a lot of them! Haven't read any yet, but definitely intrigued. This page gives some idea. The Joel Lane-edited anthology isn't there, but found it on Amazon:
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Post by Calenture on Jul 29, 2010 16:19:55 GMT
I've been looking at (lengthy) excerpts and comments. Here's one, from an introduction: "There is a difference, as editor, between cheering the literary accomplishment of a fiction writer who has delivered a brilliant story about a serial killer or hit man, and reading the true account, however beautifully written, of a young woman raped, murdered, and forgotten. So this book, though it has its light moments (and thank God for those), is for me the darkest of the Brooklyn Noir series. These pieces remind us that crime is personal. It happens to us and to our neighbors. Sometimes it happens because we do nothing to prevent it. Life does not always offer the moral arc we so desperately crave in fiction. If it did, weÕd have no need for myths and fables, religion or miracles . . . Read this book. Enjoy it. Be horrified by it. Carry it with you always. And the next time youÕre watching a particularly bizarre and salacious news item on the television set in your neighborhood pub, and the guy on the next stool says, ÒYou canÕt make this shit up,Ó smack him with it. --Tim McLoughlin, from the introduction Tim McLoughlin was born and raised in Brooklyn. His novel, Heart of the Old Country (Akashic Books), was hailed as reminiscent of James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan and George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London. He was editor of Brooklyn Noir, first in the Akashic Noir Series, and Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics. He is employed by the King's County (borough of Brooklyn) Supreme Court. An Edgar Award-winning novelist, Thomas Adcock is a veteran newspaper and magazine journalist. He divides his time between a Manhattan apartment and an 18th century farmhouse in upstate New York. Copied from: Brooklyn Noir 3
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Post by benedictjjones on Sept 16, 2010 17:14:06 GMT
picked up 'Moscow Noir' yesterday!
-i'm still not sure if Birmingham Noir is properly part of the Akashic series or not... and i still havent got it! might have a check on amazon, ebay etc later this week.
**edit** meant to say that there are a couple of stories in the anths that are well into the horror realm - one in Phoenix Noir about a shapeshifter and a one in Brooklyn Noir about some gingerbread men who really don't want to be eaten...
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