Magnificent Octopus

I was charmed by his conversation, and despite its illusion of being rather modern and digressive (to me, the hallmark of the modern mind is...

He couldn't go on walking until three in the morning, so he stopped along the way at cafes. A few people would be standing around a hors...

Just wow! Nightmare Alley (1946, reissued in 2010 by NYRB Classics), by William L Gresham , is hands down the best book I've read in ag...

The lovely, eclectic selection of books published by New York Review Books is meant to be read, of course, but the colours, the texture, the...

I've never really planned my summer reading before, but then, my child has never finished a school year before, so it happens that we...

They are Roberto Bolaño and Patrick Hamilton , and they more so than any other author have been the objects of my obsession, or something ...

...to reviews, in which other people have more interesting things to say than I do, and that should: 1. Convince me at long last to start re...

"Finding Patrick Hamilton feels somewhat like joining a secret society ." (Thanks, Tom .)

In the evening we went to see "Angel Street," which I recommend to anyone who wants to be absorbed and taken out of his daily roun...

I had the sense to do a little research before I headed to New York for the day, to confirm the address of the office, to check what was to ...

The Patrick Hamilton revival , in the Boston Globe: Hamilton's novels are filled with drinking, murder, madness, unrequited passion, lon...

The introduction by DJ Taylor to a single-volume reprint of Patrick Hamilton's Gorse trilogy to be published by Black Spring next month ...

The Guardian books blog toasts Patrick Hamilton. Hamilton is coming back into favour, and his books are coming back into print. The Gorse T...

Dan Rhodes lists his top 10 short novels , all under 200 pages. "All killer, no filler." (I've read, and loved, half of them.)...

I should've paced myself better. Since first tasting temptation in October, I dabbled — a bit here, a bit there, mostly according to ava...

But I need give you only one: it's painfully beautiful. Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky , by Patrick Hamilton, contains 3 volumes ...

Poor Ella! 'It's wonderful, isn't it,' said Mr Eccles. 'Just to be strolling arm-in-arm like this.' They were walkin...

We know how Jenny ends up: a prostitute. The tension in her story — her backstory — The Siege of Pleasure , the second volume in the threeso...

There are few motives so dangerous as theatricality and no wildness is so futile as deliberate wildness. Bob conceived it his duty to get wi...

Men! They thrust their hats back on their heads; they put their feet firmly on the rail; they looked you straight in the eye; they beat thei...