What are you reading at the moment?

'Fall' by John Preston.

A biography of Robert Maxwell the media baron who fell off the stern of his yacht and was never seen again.

Fascinatingly well written.
Do they talk about how that happened? Or indeed IF it really happened? You can't help but wonder whether someone capable of stealing billions from his employees' pensions actually faked his own death to escape attention and justice. Or maybe someone employed on his superyacht who maybe had had his own pension robbed got an opportunity to help Robert become 'Bob' with a little shove?

Part of me suspects he's on the moon with Jeff Bezos and/or Lord Lucan!!
 
"20,000 Streets Under The Sky" by Patrick Hamilton, alcoholic author of this, "Hangover Square" and the plays "Rope" and "Gas Light" (then made into a film and the origin of the current expression "gaslighting"), among many other plays and novels. He certainly managed to produce quite a lot "under the influence" and before pegging out at 58.
 
"20,000 Streets Under The Sky" by Patrick Hamilton, alcoholic author of this, "Hangover Square" and the plays "Rope" and "Gas Light" (then made into a film and the origin of the current expression "gaslighting"), among many other plays and novels. He certainly managed to produce quite a lot "under the influence" and before pegging out at 58.
That's quite an output! Hangover Square was also made into a film with a terrific score by Bernard Herman. Rope I assume is the source of the Hitchcock film?
 
That's quite an output! Hangover Square was also made into a film with a terrific score by Bernard Herman. Rope I assume is the source of the Hitchcock film?
Indeed it is. Hamilton died at the start of the Sixties, and although he must have made some money from his works being made into films, I have the impression it wasn't a fortune.

He, along with Julian Maclaren-Ross and Jocelyn Brooke, is one of my favourite authors of the Thirties and Forties.
 
I'm ploughing on with "20,000 Streets Under The Sky", which, in my paperback copy, runs to 527 pages. That's because it's really three books together. It's a curious writing style, which in places is a bit "stream of consciousness", but with better grammar and punctuation. It's not a book to raise the spirits, but as one who lived and worked in central London, before it changed radically and lost a lot of its pre-war locales, it has the attraction, for me, of describing places I knew and frequented.

Happy New Year and Good Reading.
 
Back
Top Bottom