Welcome to Litsy!

The prototypical detective noir story. Great fun. Funny to read it 100 years later and have the plot twist essentially be that the woman is a person with agency and not just an accessory to the men in the story.

📚 Tagged, plus Midnight At The Well of Souls/Jack L. Chalker, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore/Robin Sloan
✒ Dennis L. McKiernan, A. Lee Martinez, David Mack
📺 Monty Python 📽 Mad Max: Fury Road, The Matrix, The Mummy (1999)
🎙 Men At Work, Midnight Oil, Metallica, Madonna
🎶 Mr. Blue Sky/ELO, Man Enough/Lloyd Cole, Money Changes Everything/Cyndi Lauper
#ManicMonday #LetterM @CBee

All the main character does is roll cigarettes and touch women.
Picked up this book in Scotland because I‘ve heard the movie was a classic, but I truly hated this book. The only reason I kept it is because there‘s a little label on the back that says “not for sale in the USA or Canada” and I wanted to fight the man.

I half expect a hard boiled crime detective to step out of the shadows into my front yard! 🤣🕵🏼‍♂️

If I hadn‘t been doing this as audio, and the narrator so enjoyable, I very likely wouldn‘t have finished this book.
***
I really, really disliked Sam Spade.

If you like Pulp Fiction movie you‘ll like this novel. What started as a piece of pulpy crime fiction came to be known as one of the best English-language novels of the 20th century.

#ifyoulikethis #pulpfiction @Klou

Thank you for the tag @Eggs #wondrouswednesday

🖤Afterlife by Julia Alvarez and Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo, both have released but I need to buy them

🖤🖤 The tagged book, Maltese Falcon.

🖤🖤🖤 Margaret Atwood and Angie Thomas

Dashiell Hammett‘s classic book The Maltese Falcon was released Feb 14, 1930. I just finished reading it yesterday for next month‘s #friendsofthelibrary meeting. Tonight D and I are watching the classic 1941 film, which was John Huston‘s directorial debut. Coincidentally, John Huston was born in Nevada, MO which is not far from here. I enjoyed the book - it was a little edgier than I expected for its time. #SpadeShagsTheLadies 😏 😂

Finished the Maltese Falcon, always heard great things but never had a chance to pick it up. Although I did find the plot a bit bland, probably from many imitations based upon the book, the storytelling was wonderful. I started out hating the main character and ended up having a respect for his behavior. Hard to put down. 7.5/10

I am looking for some good Noir and or paranormal noir. Any suggestions?

Ok, I‘m not sure what to say. This book is such a classic, and I can see why. But, it took me forever to finish. The pacing is slow, and the focus is more on dialogue than action. I actually got bored and had to put the book down a lot. I generally like mysteries that are faster paced, more character development. Hmm...maybe I‘ll try another book by him later. I‘ve read that others are better.

I love that we know what Hammett read and I love the evidence that good writers read widely. #writersreadtoo

#oldcoolbooks #whodunit I know that prompt a few days old but I just uncovered these Hammetts including the Dell map back.Older Dell mysteries featured a map of key scenes in each book .

I have somehow managed to never watch this movie or read this book. I am glad I finally read it. It was really enjoyable! Now I will have to watch the movie.

#HopIntoSpring #Birds

I don‘t know, guys. This one dragged, for me. So much description, so much talk. There were no twist surprises for me. I‘m going to watch the movie because Bogey, and I‘m hoping this is one of those times the movie is better than the book. Side Note: I know Hammett laid the foundation for many after him, but if you want a gritty, hard-boiled, one-liner, morally-ambiguous PI, I highly suggest Raymond Chandler‘s Philip Marlowe. 133/1,001 #1001Books

1 & 2- posted & tagged
3. Salad, pasta & marinara sauce
4. #coffeeandbooks, #teachersofLitsy
5. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson

Thanks for more #tuesdaytidbits @JenlovesJT47 !
1. I don't read anything scary, so mine is pretty tame, but I found Maltese Falcon to be very unsettling.
2. Sin City. Ick.
3. Mostly recently - I was on speaker phone with Chris when a semi ran into he and Bells in the car on the way back from the vet. There is nothing so terrifying as being helpless. Fortunately they were ok physically, but they're both nervous of semis now.
4. @BookMaven407 ?

#birds #noteworthynovember #birdbooks
Just a few of the books with birds in the title that I have read or as in the Nightingale, have yet to finish. Teaching TKAM right now❤️🐦🐧🦅📚

Why do people like this book? WHY?!

Maltese Falcon gets a big thumbs down from me. Boring, misogynistic, and just... unnecessary.

I'm reading The Maltese Falcon for work and oh my good am I bored and angry...

I am in awe of everyone's reading challenges so far! I tend to have a slow start...summer and winter breaks are my best reading seasons 😜📚📚📚

I just got home from a screening of the classic movie The Maltese Falcon at my library. So much fun--the audience basically consisted of the whole group that came to last week's book discussion. And I picked up my prize from last week's summer reading program drawing! 😊 It's pictured here with this evening's reading... well, I'll probably only get to three out of the four...

Finally finished a book! I've been in the worst slump, but next week is my first real week of summer, with ample free time to turn some pages 😎📖

I'm glad I read this, and I'm looking forward to the discussion at my local library next week, but it also made me realize that tough-guy PI, hard-boiled detective fiction isn't really my thing. I do want to check out the movie now, though!

Well. Here's an unintended #libraryhaul. I stopped by the library to pick up the one book I had on hold. Just the one. That's all. But you know how that story goes...

I stopped to see what was on the "New" shelf... and was met with free copies of The Maltese Falcon for a book discussion in two weeks! And Kostova's newest! And the newest in the Hogarth Shakespeare series!

I have no self control.

I'm talking about hard boiled fiction on my blog.
Any fans in here? ^_^

http://theoldshelter.com/hard-boiled-1940s-film-noir-atozchallenge/

It might be tempting to label the novel's detective, Sam Spade, as an anti-hero. In a story where the nicest compliment you could offer a character, is that their motives are dubious, there's no moral authority for Spade to challenge & contrast himself with. Spade has the detection skills of Holmes & Dupin, yet his behavior is that of a pulp archetype with all of the behaviors that entails.

Evening plans

From the description Sam Spade looks nothing like Bogart, but it's pretty hard to picture anyone else.

I don't really have any #spynovels. Can this detective story count? Private eyes spy on people for a living, right? #photoadaynov16

Listening to the Audible version of this book is a total joy. I was obsessed with the 1930s and 1940s as a kid and listened to lots of radio drama (including Sam Spade series) from that era. This took me back, which I guess makes me 31 going on 90. 👵🏻 Now I need to watch the Humphrey Bogart movie too. Major caveat: VERY dated/offensive attitudes toward women and LGBT people.

I enjoyed this book a lot despite the morally ambivalent character and what felt like a distinct lack of deduction. Sam Spade should thank his secretary for keeping him on the straight and narrow as he tracks down a group of barely competent criminals in search of the big score. Oh and also an obvious #somethingforsept #madeintoamovie pick.

I am enjoying the book, but I am having trouble warming to Sam Spade.

Fun #uniquefact : I am a potter (not currently active unless I find a studio with open sessions in my new home) and most of the pieces on my shelves were made by me, including all three of these! #augustofpages #bookphotochallenge

Happy Birthday, Dashiell Hammett!