In mid-October 2013 the publisher Limelight released my book A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Film Noir: The Essential Reference Guide
. The book has entries on well over 3,000 films noirs and related movies from all over the world, including over 2,000 from the US alone.
The purpose of Noirish is to act as an extension to the Encyclopedia -- an annex, if you like -- where I can add entries for movies that for one reason or another didn't make it into the printed book.
In some instances, this is just because the movie concerned was released too late for inclusion.
Most often, though, the reason was logistic. Although the Encyclopedia takes the broadest possible view of film noir, there were some movies that were either too obscure or too tangential to the theme to merit the use of precious page space: 800+ large-format pages -- nearly 700,000 words -- may seem a lot but, when you're trying to cover in excess of 3,000 movies, you soon learn to appreciate the constraints.
That's why this enterprise has the title it has: Noirish. Many of the movies here are very borderline noir, and some aren't noir at all but have associational interest.
Just because a movie's obscure doesn't mean it's lousy . . . although there'll be some lousy movies covered here. There'll also be plenty of movies that are, shall we say, undistinguished -- which is not to say they're without at least some points of interest, and certainly isn't to say they're not lots of fun to watch.
After posting a bunch of entries to get myself started, I'll be adding new movies to Noirish as and when I watch them.
Looks great! Congrats!
Thanks, Paul! Of course, this means our two books are now up against each other, fighting it out tooth-and-nail in the savage bearpit of the marketplace . . .
Congratulations, John! How exciting!
Thanks, Jacqui! Yes, it is pretty exciting — it’s been a full decade since my last collection was published, so I felt it was about damn’ time for a new one. Of course, precisely because of that decade-long gap it was a bit difficult deciding what to put into the book . . . or, more to the point, what to leave out!
Sounds like you had fun deciding which stories to include…decisions, decisions!
“Fun”? It was hell, I tell you. Hell. It was like throwing my children over the side of the boat . . .
Hope it does well
Thanks for the kind thought. Believe me, so do I!
CONGRATULATIONS JOHN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Got here late to the party, but be rest assured I’ll be picking this up and diving in!!!!!!!!!!!
What a tremendous post to come upon!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Thanks for the kind words! The publisher has high hopes for the book. I did try to enlighten them on this, but they went ahead and published it anyway.
That cover picture is mighty fine to me!!!!!!!!!! 🙂
Well, let’s just agree to differ on that one. 🙂
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Well done sir! Very impressive.
Thanks for the kind words! Not sure about the “impressive” part.