FRIDAY'S "FORGOTTEN" BOOKS AND MORE on Xmas; the links to the reviews and texts: 25 December 2019

famous seasonal novel

This week's books and more, unfairly (or sometimes fairly) neglected, or simply those the reviewers below think you might find of some interest (or, infrequently, you should be warned away from); certainly, most weeks we have a few not at all forgotten titles...if I've missed your review or someone else's, please let me know in comments. Sorry for the longest delay so far, with illness, a furnace's repeated failure and a happy birthday to my friend and housemate Alice Chang, who tackles perhaps our Least Forgotten book this week. Enough miracles...and thanks to all the contributors here, and to all you readers, as well.

Patricia Abbott: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Stacy Alesi et al.: The T List: Fiction Reviews 1983-2013  

Frank Babics: The Other by Tom Tryon 

Brad Bigelow: Opium Fogs by Rosemary Tonks

Paul Bishop: Catlow by Louis L'Amour

Les Blatt: Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry by Harry Kemelman; Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie 

Joachim Boaz: "Lungfish" by John Brunner, Science Fantasy, December 1957, edited by E. J. Carnell

John Boston: Amazing: Fact and Science Fiction Stories, January 1965, edited by Cele Goldsmith Lalli

Ben Boulden: The Poker Club by Ed Gorman

Michael R. Brown: The Abyss of Wonders by Perley Poore Sheehan

Howard Browne: "Profit without Honor": working on the Ziff-Davis fiction magazines, Amazing Stories, May 1984, edited by George Scithers 

Brian Busby: The Globe and Mail's 1919 best books of the year; a recession in recessionals 

Alice Chang: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey; the foreword to the 2004 edition

Douglas Cohen: Realms of Fantasy, December 1994, edited by Shawna McCarthy

Don D'Ammassa: horror reviews 

Liz Dexter: The Green Knight by Iris Murdoch

Martin Edwards: Dr. Thorndyke Intervenes by R. Austin Freeman 

Peter Enfantino and Jack Seabrook: Warren horror comics, April-June 1970, edited by Bill Parente 

Will Errickson: Cut! Horror Writers on Horror Film edited by Christopher Golden

José Ignacio Escribano: John Dickson Carr novels: Gideon Fell; Henry Merrivale; and some attributed to "Carter Dickson"

Curtis Evans: John Dickson Carr novels: The Ten Teacups (aka The Peacock Feather Murders) as by "Carter Dickson"; The Dead Man's Knock

"Olman Feelyus": Condominium by John D. MacDonald; Loose Balls: The Short, Wild Life of the American Basketball Association by Terry Pluto 

Paul Fraser: The Best Science Fiction of the Year #6 [1977] edited by Terry Carr; 1945 Retro Hugos 

Barry Gardner: Blood and Thunder by Max Allan Collins

Sue Granquist: "The Wish" by Ray Bradbury, Woman's Day, December 1973, edited by Geraldine Rhoads 

John Grant: Angelology by Danielle Trussoni

Audrey Hamilton: Cry Guilty by Sara Woods; The Big Thaw by Donald Harstad 

Bev Hankins: Gun in Cheek by Bill Pronzini

James Wallace Harris: generation ships in sf

Lesa Heseltine: Crime Travel edited by Barb Goffman

Rich Horton: The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin; Lavender and Old Lace by Myrtle Reed; Michael Moorcock stories; Randall Garrett stories; Philip K. Dick stories; The Reproductive System and Black Aura by John Sladek; Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson

Jerry House: The Case of the Fenced-In Woman by Erle Stanley Gardner; Manly Wade Wellman 

Kate Jackson: The Case of the Abominable Snowman by "Nicholas Blake" (Cecil Day-Lewis); Death in a Bookstore by Augusto De Angelis (translated by uncredited); modernist fiction and Golden Age detective fiction; Plenty Under the Counter by Kathleen Hewitt

Tracy K: Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp

Karen/"Kaggsy": Red Circle Minis

Colman Keane: eXXXpresso by Dave Warner

George Kelley: The Hooded Gunman: An Illustrated History of the Collins Crime Club by John Curran

Joe Kenney: Paperback Writer by Mark Shipper; Mission: Impossible #2: Code Name: Judas as by "Max Walker" (author uncertain) 

Rob Kitchin: Growing Up Dead in Texas by Stephen Graham Jones; The Hollow Man by John Dickson Carr 

B. V. Lawson: Red Christmas by "Patrick Ruell" (Reginald Hill) 

Des/D. F. Lewis: The Far Tower: Stories for W. B. Yeats edited by Mark Valentine 

Evan Lewis: The film Roadhouse Nights (script based on a story by Ben Hecht) and Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett; Nero Wolfe, the comic strip

Steve Lewis: "Jangle" by "Brynn Bonner" (Brenda Witchger), Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, May 2007, edited by Janet Hutchings; "The Egyptian Lure" by Carroll John Daley, Black Mask, March 1928, edited by Joseph T. Shaw; The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers; The Door to Doom and Other Detections by John Dickson Carr; "Sinner's Alley" by Richard S. Prather, first in Have Gat, Will Travel

Library of America: "Miss Grief" by Constance Fenimore Woolson, Lippincott's Magazine, May 1880, edited by John Foster Kirk

John Locke: the beginnings of Dashiell Hammett's literary career

Robert Lopresti: "Chasing the Straight" by Trey R. Barker, The Eyes of Texas, edited by Michael Bracken

Gary Lovisi (and Ms. Lovisi): Imaginative Tales (and in its last issues Space Travel), edited and published by William Hamling/Greenleaf Publishing 


Todd Mason: Fritz Leiber, Jody Scott, James Sallis, David R. Bunch, Robert Silverberg; Gary Jennings, Josephine Saxton, Samuel Delany, Judith Merril and Gahan Wilson; Ramsey Campbell, Robert Lowndes and Seabury Quinn: blue covers for some winter/spring fantasy magazines: Fantastic, February 1969, edited by Barry N. Malzberg; The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1969, edited by Edward L. Ferman; Startling Mystery Stories, Summer 1969, edited by Robert A. W. Lowndes; Two Documents: 1992: Robert Bloch remonstrates with Joe Lansdale and David Webb for mocking Karen Finley; Fantastic absorbs Fantastic
Adventures in 1953; Fantastic: Stories of Imagination, April 1963, edited by Cele Goldsmith (Ziff-Davis); The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1964, edited by Avram Davidson (Mercury Press);  Silver Anniversary Issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, edited by Edward Ferman (Mercury Press, October 1974) and Fantastic, edited by Ted White (Ultimate Publications, June 1977)

William Patrick Maynard: novelization of classic radio and television detective drama 

Steven Nester: To Kiss, or Kill by "Day Keene" (Gunnar Hjerstedt)

John F. Norris: Nothing is the Number When You Die by Joan Fleming; best reprints of the year

John O'Neill: Occult Detective Magazine edited by John Linwood Grant; Clarkesworld, Year Ten Volumes 1 and 2 edited by Sean Wallace and Neil Clarke 

Matt Paust: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Mildred Perkins: This Dark Earth by John Hornor Jacobs

J. Kingston Pierce: To Kiss, or Kill by "Day Keene" (Gunnar Hjerstedt)

Jordan Prejean: The Twilight Zone Magazine, July 1981, edited by T. E. D. Klein

James Reasoner: Burned with the Coyote Brand by Dan Cushman

Richard Robinson: The Portrait Mystery by R. Austin Freeman 

Sandra Ruttan: Chills by Mary SanGiovanni

Gerard Saylor: Address Unknown by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor; The Hilliker Curse by James Ellroy; The Mammoth Book of Best Crime Comics edited by Paul Gravett 

Steve Scott: John D. MacDonald on marketing his work, and the Dud Drawer

Steven H Silver: the editorial and other work of Gerald W. Page; short fantasy, horror and sf fiction in 1979

Victoria Silverwolf: Fantastic: Stories of Imagination, January 1965, edited by Cele Goldsmith Lalli; Worlds of Tomorrow, January 1965, edited by Frederik Pohl

Kerrie Smith: Smoke and Mirrors by Elly Griffiths

Kevin Burton Smith: The Detective and Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp

Marina Sofia: Alberta Alone by "Cora Sandel" (Sara Cecilia Görvell Fabricius) (translated by Elizabeth Rokkan); Best of the Year: Classics and NonFiction

Kevin Tipple: By the Chimney with Care: A Holiday Crime Anthology edited by Tony Burton; Mystery Weekly, September 2019, edited by Kerry Carter  

"TomCat": The Last Warning by Gerald Verner; The Best and Worst of 2019

John Valeri: Winter and Night by S. J. Rozan

Bill Wallace: Weird Tales, May 1926, edited by Farnsworth Wright; Evergreen Review, January 1961, edited by Barney Rosset

A. J. Wright: Webster's Elementary-School Dictionary, 1925 edition