I came home from A Grand Yarn this afternoon to find that the book and music fairy had delivered a couple of pacakages while I was gone.
One was the new book by Patrick Anderson, The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks, and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction. The reviews say that Anderson believes genre fiction is the best fiction being written in the US today. I call it crossover fiction: great novels masquerading as murder mysteries.
I'm looking forward eagerly to reading this analysis. Anderson starts with a short history of the genre then reviews some of the most popular writers of mysteries. These aren't the folks he's talking about when he talks about great literature being found in the mystery section of the bookstore.
He is talking about Thomas Harris, George Pelecanos, Michael Connelly, and my favorite, Denis Lehane, to each of whom he dedicates an entire chapter. He also devotes a chapter to "Tom Clancy's Literary Offenses," which should make for amusing reading.
The other package was my new Rosemary Clooney CD. After watching the movie, "Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont," which ends with RC singing "For All We Know," I've been searching for the song on iTunes but to no avail.
Not having found it and being a great fan of Rosemary Clooney and owning only one single CD of her work, I decided I was entitled to buy a whole album, so I did. It's called "For the Duration," and includes, in addition to the target song, "Every Time We Say Goodbye," "I'll Be Seeing You," "September Song," and "These Foolish Things." We have a treat in store.