Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Nick Triplow

So soon we are back! I have the honour of welcoming a new guest to Grab This Book today. Another booklover who has five wonderful books to add to the shelves of my Decades Library. Five books which Nick Triplow feels no self-respecting book collection should be without.

Before I allow Nick to introduce himself and share his five chosen books I will quickly recap the Decades challenge. In assembling the Decades Library I ask each guest to nominate ANY five books they would like to see added to the collection. However, there may only be one book per decade over any five consecutive decades. So it’s five books from a 50 year publication span. I want the Library to give readers the best reading choices.

I would also like to remind you that all the books which feature in my Decades collection can be purchased through the Grab This Book Decades page at bookshop.org : https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/grab-this-book-the-decades-library This is an affiliate site and 10% of the cover price will go towards supporting Indy Bookshops. I also get a small cut. You can visit the site to see all the books which have been nominated by my guests. If you see a book which takes your fancy you can see the guest responsible for nominating that book (I have added this info) and return here to read their original post. The search function in the top left of this page is your friend.

This week brings news that Nick Triplow will be writing a forward to two Ted Lewis novels which will be returned to print by No Exit Press. E-books are out next month for Jack Carter’s Law and Billy Rags, paperbacks following in Spring 2022. I am thrilled that Nick is joining me today so it’s time I shuffled off and handed him the microphone…

DECADES

I’m Nick Triplow, author of the biography of noir fiction pioneer, Ted Lewis, Getting Carter: Ted Lewis and the Birth of Brit Noir; the South London crime noir novel, Frank’s Wild Years; and the social history books Family Ties, The Women They Left Behind, Distant Water, and Pattie Slappers; well as short stories, including Face Value, a winner of the Northern Crime Short Story competition.

Along with Nick Quantrill and Nikki East, I’m a founder/director of Hull Noir Crime Fiction Festival and co-host of Hull Noir’s Three Book Friday (Hull Noir YouTube channel). I’m a graduate of Middlesex University’s English, Writing & Publishing degree and the MA Writing course at Sheffield Hallam.

Originally from South East London, I moved to Barton upon Humber (still south of the river) in 2001.

PHILIP LARKIN – THE WHITSUN WEDDINGS 1964

Larkin had arrived in Hull in 1955. Interviewed some years later, he said, ‘I never thought about Hull until I was here. Having got here, it suits me in many ways. It is a little on the edge of things.’ Exactly that. The poems are about the reality of Larkin’s life and reflections on the society that surrounds hi. They have a sense of Saturday teatime melancholy: a recognition of how time and tide diminishes each of us and of the details that matter fleetingly along the way.

Many of the poems in The Whitsun Weddings have an anecdotal, conversational tone. The language is colloquial, the poems entirely accessible. To capture a sense of the place and how perfectly Larkin walks us into the lives of people mostly like us, I can recommend watching Dave Lee’s short film of Here, read by Tom Courtenay:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZEgh5vhPVk]

JOHN LE CARRE – TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY 1974

In John Le Carré’s classic cold war novel, the spymaster George Smiley has a classic ‘tell’. In moments of reflection, the man charged with hunting for the Soviet agent buried deep inside the British secret intelligence service, cleans his glasses with ‘the fat end of his tie’, a character trait, from which we infer that somehow, beneath the multiple layers of his intellect, Smiley has access to a deeper tier of perception than those around him.

I’m on my third copy, the other two having fallen apart on the road somewhere. It has been, by turns, a companion novel on suburban commutes, through sleepless nights in box rooms in shared flats, in London parks on summer afternoons. You get the picture: it’s a book for life.

TED LEWIS – GBH 1980

As Ted Lewis’s biographer, I should register an interest.

The critical reappraisal that followed the No Exit Press reissue of GBH last year rightly regarded it as an overlooked noir classic. A brief biographical note: by 1979, Lewis was unwell, coping with diabetes and the effects of alcoholism. Taking himself to the places GBH inhabits demanded commitment to the depths of his own imagination and experience. This is the book about which Derek Raymond, himself no stranger to dark themes in his writing, wrote, was ‘a novel as direct as it is stunning … which never relaxes its grip for a paragraph … an example of how dangerous writing can really be when it is done properly.’

PAT BARKER – REGENERATION 1991

A quite extraordinary piece of historical fiction that says as much to us now about the insanity of mental health and its treatment and it does the course and causes of the trauma among First World War combatants, and the humanity of the doctors, namely W.H. Rivers, who pioneered approaches that regard patients as individuals, rather than the sum of their symptoms.

It’s a superbly written story whose historical detail blends seamlessly into the narrative texture. It’s immediate, alarming, thought provoking and thoroughly entertaining. It’s also a go-to for me as a writer. If I’m stuck, I’ll take Regeneration down from the shelf and ask: how does Pat do it?

CATHI UNSWORTH – BAD PENNY BLUES 2009

Republished by Strange Attractor Press earlier this year with a striking mod-noir cover design and an introduction by author, music journalist and cultural critic, Greil Marcus, Bad Penny Blues is a fictionalised account of the case of a killer (or killers) who, between June 1959 and February 1965, murdered eight women and left their bodies in or along the Thames in West London.

Seen through the eyes of Stella Reade, a young art student and designer haunted by visions of the murdered women and Pete Bradley, an aid to the CID at Notting Hill Police Station transferred to the notorious West End Central, Cathi Unsworth shows what the crime novel, particularly one so committed to the truth, is capable of. It’s complex and coercive, a classic London noir.

My thanks to Nick for these five brilliant recommendations. Regeneration released when I was a young bookseller working my way through university holidays. I remember selling dozens of copies and every single time I rang a sale of Regeneration through the till I was reminded of my colleagues mocking me as when I first heard about it as I thought it was a new book about Doctor Who. I was very much a young geek in training – happy days.

DECADES WILL RETURN

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June 4

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Nick Quantrill

If you wanted to assemble a library of the very best books which have been published and you knew you would never be able to complete this mammoth task alone then you would get in touch with booklovers and ask them to help. Well you would do that if you were me because that’s what I have done.

In January I began to assemble the Decades Library. I invite a guest to join me and ask them to nominate five books which they think should be added to my Ultimate Library. I set just two rules which govern the choice of books (sometimes my guests follow the rules)

Rule 1: Choose ANY five books
Rule 2: You can only choose one book per decade over five consecutive decades

This week I am delighted to be joined by Nick Quantrill. I am hugely grateful to Nick for finding time to consider which books should be added to my Library and I was itching to see which books he selected. Nick always lights up my Twitter feed with a combination of his contributions to some amazing interview panels and also his Hull City football tweets – both brighten my days considerably.

Decades

Nick Quantrill was born and raised in Hull, an isolated industrial city in East Yorkshire. His Private Investigator novels featuring Joe Geraghty are published by Fahrenheit Press with the latest being ‘Sound of the Sinners’. Nick is also the co-founder of the Hull Noir crime writing festival.

Nick is on Twitter: @NickQuantrill and online at https://www.nickquantrill.co.uk/

1970s – “Jack’s Return Home” by Ted Lewis

Maybe an obvious choice for a co-founder of Hull Noir, but I can’t ignore the credentials of one of our own. On one level, it’s a timeless tale of revenge told through the eyes of anti-hero, Jack Carter, as he leaves London and heads north to the Humber region to avenge the death of his brother. Of course, we know the tale well due to the film it created, ‘Get Carter’, but read the book and you get a sense of Lewis’s power as a writer. Much like William McIlvanney, Lewis was pioneering something new, something that would stand the test of time. It’s a powerful fusing of the hardboiled American style of crime writing with the social realities of northern England as it started a new decade. Lewis would go on to write a better novel in the form of “GBH”, but this one is undoubtedly a building block of modern British crime writing.

1980s – “Freaky Deaky” by Elmore Leonard

No library of crime writing is complete without some representation for Elmore Leonard, and although Dutch enjoyed a career spanning almost sixty years, the 1980s capture him at his peak. A high standard indeed. As ever, the focus is on the street and the characters you’re likely to meet. Abbot and Gibbs are fresh out of prison and have a score settle, as well as their services as bomb making experts to sell. Things never run smoothly in a Leonard caper, and so it transpires, as they’re tracked by a world-weary cop. Set in Detroit, the site of all his best work, it’s fast, fun and furious with dialogue that sizzles on the page. Often imitated, but never beaten, Elmore Leonard remains the greatest of the greats.

1990s – “Divorcing Jack” by Colin Bateman

I’d stopped reading as a teenager and only rediscovered my love of it in the mid-nineties as I left those years behind. Irvine Welsh was brilliant, as were Nick Hornby and Roddy Doyle, but Colin Bateman was something else. I’d never really understand how edgy and dangerous writing could be, but still remain fun and playful. “Divorcing Jack” introduces us to journalist, Dan Starkey, Belfast his beat. Starkey’s a mess, and after being thrown out by his long-suffering wife, he sleeps with the daughter of an influential politician and opens up a whole can of worms that threaten his life. The start of a long-running series and the basis of a decent film starring David Thewlis, it shows how crime fiction can tackle serious issues from a left field perspective and use humour as its weapon.

2002s – “Exit Music” by Ian Rankin

No library is complete without at least one book by Ian Rankin in it, and such is the consistency of the DI Rebus series, it’s no exaggeration to say you can pretty much pick a personal favourite. Once Rankin and Rebus hit their stride with “Black and Blue”, it’s the gold standard. At the time, “Exit

Music”, was billed as the final Rebus novel, and no doubt genuinely so. As ever, Rebus is thrown into a complex murder investigation, possibly a mugging gone wrong, but it’s certainly no random attack. Whip smart with its social commentary, the city of Edinburgh is the quiet star of the show. And as we now know, there was to be a route back for Rebus.

2010s – “Weirdo” by Cathi Unsworth

Despite being longlisted for the Theakston Crime Novel of the Year, “Weirdo”, feels like the one that got away. Maybe it’s because it’s a rare contemporary crime novel from the writer, rather than the historical work that has made her name, but it’s the perfect meeting point of lived experience and imagination. Set in a fictionalised version of Cathi’s home town, the flashbacks to 1984 and the world of teenage Goths draws on her days as a music journalist. The contemporary time line arguably anticipates the current popularity of claustrophobic small town stories, but also features the chilling life-like characters that inhabit such places, showing how they maintain their grip and power by any means necessary. Throw in murder, corruption and a Private Investigator with something to prove, and you’ve got all the ingredients for a modern classic.

This seems an almost perfect mix of titles. We have new books by returning authors and some new authors who are joining the Library for the first time. My thanks to Nick for joining me and taking on the Decades challenge.

As ever you can visit the Library here on the blog and see all the books which have been selected thus far. The Library also allows you to see all my previous guests and visit their posts too. You can start that journey here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=5113

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April 10

Decades: Compiling the Ultimate Library with Louise Fairbairn

Back in January I decided I wanted to build up a library of essential reads as chosen by booklovers. I started with empty shelves and I invite each of my guests to nomainate five books they feel should be added to my Ultimate Library. There are two rules:

1 – Choose ANY five books
2 – You can only choose one book per decade over five consecutive decades.

Today I am joined by Louise Fairbairn. Journalist, blogger and frequent chair and contributor to many book events. Recently Louise helped me prepare for my first appearance in an online event (which still remains secretly under wraps) and her wise council was very much appreciated as the butterflies were taking hold. I am frequently in awe of the diverse range of books she is able to discuss in depth and her assistance with my Decades project was always something I had hoped would happen.

I will hand over to Louise and invite her to introduce herself and her five selections.

DECADES

I’m a freelance production journalist and proofreader, and was the crime fiction reviewer for The Scotsman newspaper for several years. I chair the occasional event, am a Bloody Scotland Book Club panellist, and currently am a judge for New Zealand’s 2021 Ngaio Marsh Award for Best First Novel. I blog about crime fiction as The Girl With All The Crime Books (www.crimebookgirl.com / @crimebookgrrl), and ramble on about other stuff as @scarletrix on Twitter.

I could read before I started school (which didn’t impress the teachers) and since then it’s been a rare day I haven’t read a chapter of something at some point. We didn’t have a lot of books at home when I was young, but there were many well-used library tickets, book tokens often appeared for birthdays, and second-hand bookshops remain something that my family is incapable of walking past without entering, “just for a look”.

Picking just five books was HARD! My “Desert Island Books” are very different to this list, too (Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Peter O’Donnell, Val McDermid and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). But I’ve chosen books I utterly love, and that I think demand to be read in one sitting while your cup of tea goes cold because you are so enthralled.

1940s

1946 Daphne du Maurier – The King’s General

I had a bit of a Daphne du Maurier binge a couple of years ago, and discovered this gem. She wrote a string of novels (most famously Rebecca) and heaps of short stories (including The Birds and Don’t Look Now), and led a rather peculiar life, if Margaret Forster’s biography is in any way accurate. All her novels are very different, all of them testament to an incredible imagination – and they’re often a bit *odd*. The King’s General is set around the time of the English Civil War, and is a romance with a bit of a mystery, but mostly is an incredible portrait of a woman’s life and the strength she finds when so much is ranged against her. I normally don’t much like historical fiction, and I’m definitely not a fan of romance, but this is just terrific – utterly gripping plot, a fascinating history lesson, and chock-full of emotional intrigues.

1950s

1955 Alistair MacLean – HMS Ulysses

I wanted to drop in an Alistair MacLean because they’re great action thrillers that sold ridiculous amounts of millions of copies in his lifetime, yet he’s all but forgotten these days and I think he shouldn’t be. But just to be awkward, I’m recommending his debut, HMS Ulysses because it’s not like all the others. As with several of his later novels, it draws on his experiences during the Second World War, but while it’s fiction, it has no need to exaggerate for effect because the experience of the Arctic convoys was so extreme. The thriller plot holds the attention fine, but what sticks in the mind is the battle against the elements as much as the enemy, and the way he evokes the deep-seated fear of the men who went through hell every time they left port. It’s a book that tears at you, but you cannot put it down. Unlike several other titles of his, it made such an emotional impact I’m not in a rush to re-read it, but it’s astonishingly powerful.

1960s

1961 Muriel Spark – The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie

I almost went with The Girls Of Slender Means, which I adore, but there’s a reason The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie is so well known and so enduring and it’s not just Maggie Smith’s amazing portrayal in the 1969 film. The novel is only 128 pages long, but it’s absolutely rammed full of plot, character work, evocation of place and some of the sharpest, wittiest, most poignant foreshadowing you’ll ever see in fiction. I studied it at university, and it was among the few books that I enjoyed rather than endured, then have re-read it several times since as it’s just so entertaining and rewarding. Spark was a poet, so stuffing lots of ideas and sensations into a tiny number of sentences was in her nature, but it’s still a masterclass in how much richness you can offer in so few words.

1970s

Ted Lewis – Get Carter (aka Jack’s Return Home)

I’ve been banging on about Ted Lewis for a few years, and it’s entirely Nick Triplow’s fault – I picked up his biogrphy of Lewis when it came out, then saw him do a Q&A at a screening of Get Carter, after which we had a pint and a chat. Thanks to him I’ve been hooked by Get Carter, the novel. It’s interesting to compare it with the film – the setting is different, being moved form Humberside to Newcastle, but to me the main change is that Michael Caine makes Jack more human than he is in the book. In Lewis’s novel he’s uncompromising, unwavering and often brutal; in teh film there’s a glimmer of something else behind the cold gaze – in part because of Caine’s film CV rather than anything he does overtly. Lewis specialised in unlikeable protagonists and grimy, unsettling true noir plots, and while he’s an uneven writer, his best are gripping reads. Get Carter is perhaps the most accessible; I’d recommend both book and film for any library. Watch/read with a pint in a thin glass to hand.

1980s

1984 William Gibson – Neuromancer

I spent a lot of my teens and 20s reading sci-fi and fantasy, and comics, and still dip into that world now and then (comics is a medium, not a genre, people!), so Neuromancer in part stands for all that. It’s also just a little slice of genius. As with SF authors since forever ago, William Gibson gives us a brave new world extrapolated from and built on the one we live in – plus here he gives us the terms “cyberspace” and “the matrix”, and is credited with creating the archetypal “cyberpunk” novel. Information is thrown at you with no explanation, just go with it and you’ll find it’s a great ride – and something of a crime novel too, if you care to look at it from a certain angle. It’s perhaps dated now, but try and read it in the spirit of 1984 (I first read it circa 1989, hat tip to my pal Neal for pressing it into my hand) and feel its freshness, and the wonder and glee of that first audience. Gibson’s whole oeuvre is worth exploring, he’s a very thoughtful writer who sees the world from interesting angles.

Some big, big titles in this selection. My thanks to Louise for taking on my Decades challenge – I know she spent quite a lot of time deliberating over her final selection as I got frequent updates which suggested I had caused some frustration!

You can see all the books which have been added to my Ultimate Library here: https://grabthisbook.net/?p=5113

DECADES WILL RETURN

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