What a treat! This week we talk books with writing legend Joe R. Lansdale, who's won everything from the Edgar (for mysteries) to the Herodotus (for historical fiction) to the Bram Stoker (for horror, eight times over.) Joe talks to us about his short story "Room for One More" as well as his upcoming story collection "Things Get Ugly" and his new novel "The Donut Legion."
If you love mysteries, sci-fi, or horror, you're in for a good time.
Listen here!
This interview is chockablock full of book recommendations, some of which can be tricky to get your hands on. A list of books that get mentioned is below, but I don't have links for everything in our catalog. Heck, many of these books aren't in the catalog, and are very much of out of print. We can still get them for you, but this will call for some Interlibrary Loan -- talk to your local librarian.
First off, you should absolutely get Joe's new story collection "Things Get Ugly." If you liked "When a Stranger Comes to Town" -- this is a great next read. Fantastic stories of crime -- many of which are very funny. It's one of my favorite things I've read this year.
The book comes out August 16th -- so depending upon when you're reading this, it might not be out yet. But you can place a hold on it by clicking here.
Next up, you should check out Joe's newest book "The Donut Legion" which came out earlier this year. It's official plot description is this: "When his ex-wife, Meg, who works at a local donut shop run by an evangelist cult who believes in an extraterrestrial Second Coming, goes missing, Charlie Garner, along with his brother and a reporter, uncovers strange and frightening details in his quest to rescue Meg."
Which is all well and good, but it doesn't quite at the tone of the book. It's funny, and creepy and kind of a hoot. You should read it!
Beyond that, we talked about a lot of fiction! I'll add links for more things as I get copies of them.
But for starters, we mentioned:
- Frederic Brown's "Night of the Jabberwock"
- Raymond Chandler's "The Big Sleep"
- Keith Laumer's "Deadfall" (also published as "Fat Chance")
- The short stories of Charles Beaumont (many of which were adapted into Twilight Zone episodes, and can be found in our catalog)
- The many, many books of Philip José Farmer
- Gerald Kersh's "Night in the City"
- The westerns of Dorothy Johnson
- The writer Leigh Brackett who wrote westerns, sci-fi, hard-noir and, among other things, the screenplay to "The Empire Strikes Back"
- Short story minimalist Raymond Carver