Tag Archives: Liam Jose

Noir at the Bar Melbourne

Posted on March 8, 2017 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

NATB1A very brief heads up for Melbourne based readers of Pulp Curry, that if you are at a loose end on Tuesday, March 28, I have the event for you.

Myself and crime writer, Iain Ryan (whose debut novel, Four Days, I reviewed on this site here) are organising Melbourne’s first Noir at the Bar event.

What is Noir at the Bar you ask?

It is pretty much what it sounds like – a group of writers do readings in a bar (or in our case a cool second hand bookstore with a bar, Grubb Street Bookshopm 1/379 Brunswick St, Fitzroy).

Crime fiction critic and blogger Peter Rozovsky of Detectives Beyond Borders originated Noir at the Bar at Noircon in Philadelphia in 2008, and from there the idea has spread all over the US. Indeed, these days hardly a week goes by in which there’s not a Noir at the Bar somewhere in the US.

Anyway, Iain and I thought it was high time we had one in the US. After all, we get enough of the crap of the US, we may as well take the good things as well.

So, a night of readings from some of Melbourne’s best noir fiction stylists and drinks in a cool establishment, what is not to like about that.… Read more

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian noir

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

The death of a bookshop: a tribute to Melbourne’s Kill City Books

Posted on July 30, 2013 by Andrew Nette| 26 Comments

KC 4

I love poking around in second-hand bookshops. The more disorganised and dishevelled, the better. I can’t remember the last time I found one with a curtained off section where they stashed the adult stuff, the pulp fiction and true crime, but those ones were best of all.

It’s always sad to hear about the closure of a second handbook shop and they’ve been closing with alarming frequency in Melbourne over the last few years.

The latest casualty is Flinders Books, which had operated out of the basement at 119 Swanston Street, for 18 years. Before that it had reportedly been a trading card shop, and going back even further, a rest and recreation area for military personnel after World War II.

Basement Books, located at 342 Flinders Street is, as far as I know, the last second-hand bookshop in the Melbourne CBD.

The reasons behind the closure are nothing new: changing book buying habits, including the rise of e-books, coupled with a massive rent increase, all of which, according to the owner, made the business impossible to sustain at its current location.

As if the end of a good second-hand bookstore is not sad enough, the passing of Flinders Books has a wider historical significance. For the last eight years of its existence it also hosted the remnants of Kill City Books, once Melbourne’s premier bookshop specialising in crime fiction and true crime.… Read more

→ 26 Comments

Posted in Australian crime fiction, Chester Himes, Crime Factory, Crime Factory Publications, Crime fiction, Forgotten Melbourne, James Ellroy

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,