Marita Golden, on reading and writing:

The symbiotic relationship between reading and writing is a cornerstone of our individual intellectual journey, and our educational system.

We write as an act of self-expression.

We read because language renders unto us the vitality of real and imagined experience.

- Marita Golden.

Recommended reading - The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories

 

The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories

Edited by Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert.
 
Published by Oxford University Press.
Published 1996.
Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 0195085817
ISBN-13: 978-0195085815
 
Description:
 
"Certain to be the standard anthology of American detective stories for years to come." – Edward D. Hoch, editor of The Year's Best Mystery and Suspense Stories.
 
"The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories is indispensable to anyone interested in the form." – Robert B. Parker, creator of the Boston private-eye, Spenser.
 

Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue" launched the detective story in 1841. The genre began as a highbrow form of entertainment, a puzzle to be solved by a rational sifting of clues. In Britain, the stories became decidedly upper crust: the crime often committed in a world of manor homes and formal gardens, the blood on the Persian carpet usually blue. But from the beginning, American writers worked important changes on Poe's basic formula, especially in use of language and locale. As early as 1917, Susan Glaspell evinced a poignant understanding of motive in a murder in an isolated farmhouse. And with World War I, the Roaring '20s, the rise of organized crime and corrupt police with Prohibition, and the Great Depression, American detective fiction branched out in all directions, led by writers such as Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, who brought crime out of the drawing room and into the "mean streets" where it actually occurred.

 

In The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories, Tony Hillerman and Rosemary Herbert bring together thirty-three tales that illuminate both the evolution of crime fiction in the United States and America's unique contribution to this highly popular genre. Tracing its progress from elegant "locked room" mysteries, to the hard-boiled realism of the '30s and '40s, to the great range of styles seen today, this superb collection includes the finest crime writers, including Erle Stanley Gardner, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald, Rex Stout, Ellery Queen, Ed McBain, Sue Grafton, and Hillerman himself. There are also many delightful surprises: Bret Harte, for instance, offers a Sherlockian pastiche with a hero named Hemlock Jones, and William Faulkner blends local color, authentic dialogue, and dark, twisted pride in "An Error in Chemistry." We meet a wide range of sleuths, from armchair detective Nero Wolfe, to Richard Sale's journalist Daffy Dill, to Robert Leslie Bellem's wise-cracking Hollywood detective Dan Turner, to Linda Barnes's six-foot tall, red-haired, taxi-driving female P.I., Carlotta Carlyle. And we sample a wide variety of styles, from tales with a strongly regional flavor, to hard-edged pulp fiction, to stories with a feminist perspective. Perhaps most important, the book offers a brilliant summation of America's signal contribution to crime fiction, highlighting the myriad ways in which we have reshaped this genre. The editors show how Raymond Chandler used crime, not as a puzzle to be solved, but as a spotlight with which he could illuminate the human condition; how Ed McBain, in "A Small Homicide," reveals a keen knowledge of police work as well as of the human sorrow which so often motivates crime; and how Ross Macdonald's Lew Archer solved crime not through blood stains and footprints, but through psychological insight into the damaged lives of the victim's family. And throughout, the editors provide highly knowledgeable introductions to each piece, written from the perspective of fellow writers and reflecting a life-long interest--not to say love--of this quintessentially American genre.

 

American crime fiction is as varied and as democratic as America itself. Hillerman and Herbert bring us a gold mine of glorious stories that can be read for sheer pleasure, but that also illuminate how the crime story evolved from the drawing room to the back alley, and how it came to explore every corner of our nation and every facet of our lives.

Born on this day – James Agee:

James Agee

Writer

Actor

Director

November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955

Credits:
 
Books and screenplays:
 

A Death in the Family; Agee on Film; Agee on Film II; Cotton Tenants: Three Families, Melville House; Face to Face; Knoxville: Summer of 1915; Let Us Now Praise Famous Men; Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Three Tenant Families; Letters of James Agee to Father Flye; Permit Me Voyage; The African Queen; The Collected Poems of James Agee; The Collected Short Prose of James Agee; The Morning Watch; The Night of the Hunter; The Tramp's New World.

 

Movies and television:
 

20 Feet from Stardom (2013); A Death in the Family (2002); Agee (1979); All the Way Home (1963 / 1971 / 1981); American Experience (1988); Experimenter (2015); Face to Face / Segment: The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (1952); Festival (1961); Genghis Khan (1950); Green Magic (1953); In the Street (1948); Omnibus / Segment: Lincoln-Rutledge Debate (1953); Omnibus / Segments: Mr. Lincoln / Lincoln Part IV: New Salem (1953–1955); The African Queen (1951); The Night of the Hunter (1955); The Quiet One (1948); Toutes les histoires / Histoire(s) du cinema (1999); Welcome to the Basement (2015); White Mane (1953).

Born on this day – Connie Sawyer:

Connie Sawyer

Actress

November 27, 1912 – January 21, 2018

Credits:

2 Broke Girls (2012); 227 (1985); 8 Simple Rules (2003); A Bell for Adano (1967); A Hole in the Head (1959); Abandoned and Deceived (1995); ABC Weekend Specials (1982); Ada (1961); All in the Family (1971); Allan (1971); And Justice for All (1979); Archie Bunker's Place (1979); Armstrong Circle Theatre (1953); Barbary Coast (1975); Barnaby Jones (1980); Becker (1999); Big Hawaii (1977); Blue Desert (1990); Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969); Bonanza (1969); Boy Meets World (1998); Bram and Alice (2002); Cavalcade of Bands (1950); Cavalcade of Broadway: Blue Angel (1950); CBS Playhouse (1967); Complete Guide to Guys (2005); CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2008); Dave's World (1996); Do You Remember Love (1985); Doc Elliot (1973); Dr. Kildare (1962); Dream On (1992); Due Date (2010); Dumb and Dumber (1994); Dynasty (1982); Entanglement (2014); ER (1999–2006); Evil Roy Slade (1972); Family (1977–1979); Far from Home (1989); Fast Break (1979); Five Desperate Women (1971); Flight 90: Disaster on the Potomac (1984); For Pete's Sake! (1966); Foul Play (1978); Get Smart (1995); Girlfriends (2003); Good Times (1974); Guestward Ho! (1960); Hawaii Five-O (1974–1979); Hawthorne (2009); Hill Street Blues (1984–1986); Home Improvement (1995); Hot Chili (1985); How I Met Your Mother (2007); In the Heat of the Night (1990); It Came from Outer Space II (1996); Jake and the Fatman (1991); Johnny Staccato (1976); Just Our Luck (1983); Kiss the Bride (2007); Kojak (1974–1977); L.A. Doctors (1998); Laverne & Shirley (1983); Legmen (1984); Life's Waltz (2008); Little Ladies of the Night (1977); Lou Grant (1977); Love on a Rooftop (1967); Lovesick (2014); Majority Rule (1992); Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976); Matlock (1987); McMillan & Wife (1973–1974); Murder, She Wrote (1986–1991); Murphy Brown (1994); My World and Welcome to It (1969); NCIS: Los Angeles (2013); Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide (2007); New Girl (2014); Nights in White Satin (1987); Nurses (1992); Oh, God! (1977); Out of Sight (1998); Peter Loves Mary (1961); Pineapple Express (2008); Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1965); Promised Land (2004); Pros & Cons (1986); Ray Donovan (2013–2014); Relative Strangers (2006); Ritoru champion (1981); Room 222 (1970); Roseanne & Tom: Behind the Scenes (1994); Scorpion Spring (1995); Seinfeld (1997); Showfolk (2014); Significant Others (2004); Silver Spoons (1984); Sliders (1998); Something to Live for: The Alison Gertz Story (1992); Something's Gotta Give (2003); Staring at the Sun (2002); Starsky and Hutch (1977–1978); Stoney Burke (1963); Studio One (1954); Stu's Show (2013); Style & Substance (1998); Summer Playhouse (1965); Sunset Over Mulholland Drive (2019); Tell Me You Love Me (2007); That '70s Show (2000); That's Adequate (1989); The Andy Griffith Show (1968); The Arrow Show (1948); The Bait (1973); The Beast (2001); The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990); The Colgate Comedy Hour (1950); The Donna Reed Show (1961); The End of Innocence (1990); The F.B.I. (1965–1972); The Fugitive (1966); The Jackie Gleason Show (1954); The Jamie Kennedy Experiment (2004); The Jeff Foxworthy Show (1995); The Judge (1987); The Last of the Secret Agents? (1966); The Man in the Glass Booth (1975); The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1975); The Michael Richards Show (2000); The Milton Berle Show (1949); The Name of the Game (1970); The New WKRP in Cincinnati (1991); The Office (2009); The Opposite Sex and How to Live with Them (1992); The People Next Door (1989); The President's Mistress (1978); The Red Skelton Hour (1967); The Rockford Files (1978); The Rookies (1972); The Rosebud Beach Hotel (1984); The Saturday Night Revue with Jack Carter (1951); The Strangers in 7A (1972); The Streets of San Francisco (1976); The Tom Ewell Show (1961); The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (2013); The Trip (2002); The Way West (1967); Troupers (2011); True Colors (1990); True Grit (1969); Unhappily Ever After (1996); Up All Night (2011); V (1984); Veronica's Closet (1998); View from the Top (2003); Visions (1978); Watch Out for Slick (2010); Webster (1988); Welcome Back, Kotter (1978); When Harry Met Sally... (1989); Where's Marlowe? (1998); Will & Grace (2000); Worst Week (2008).

Born on this day – Robert Youngson:

Robert Youngson

Director

Writer

Producer

November 27, 1917 – April 8, 1974

Born on this day – Hall Bartlett:

Hall Bartlett

Director

Producer

Writer

November 27, 1922 – September 8, 1993

Born on this day – Marshall Thompson:

Marshall Thompson

Actor

Writer

Director

Producer

November 27, 1925 – May 18, 1992

Born on this day – John Alcott:

John Alcott

Cinematographer

November 27, 1930 – July 28, 1986

John Alcott, with Stanley Kubrick and Shelley Duvall, on the set of The Shining (1980)

Credits:

No Way Out (1987); White Water Summer (1987); Miracles (1986); Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend (1985); Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984); Under Fire (1983); Triumphs of a Man Called Horse (1983); The Beastmaster (1982); Vice Squad (1982); Fort Apache the Bronx (1981); Terror Train (1980); The Shining (1980); Fangio: Una vita a 300 all'ora (1980); Fiat Strada: Figaro (1979); Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978); The Disappearance (1977); March or Die (1977); Barry Lyndon (1975); Overlord (1975); Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (1974); A Clockwork Orange (1971); 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); Othello (1965); Tamahine (1963); The Main Attraction (1962); Whistle Down the Wind (1961); The Singer Not the Song (1961); An heiligen Wassern (1960); North West Frontier (1959); A Night to Remember (1958); Violent Playground (1958); Checkpoint (1956); Tiger in the Smoke (1956); A Town Like Alice (1956); An Alligator Named Daisy (1955); Value for Money (1955); Simba (1955); Land of Fury (1954); Man with a Million (1954); Desperate Moment (1953); The Long Memory (1953); The Assassin (1952); The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men (1952); Easy Money (1948).

Born on this day – Les Blank:

Les Blank

Cinematographer

Director

Editor

Documentary filmmaker

November 27, 1935 – April 7, 2013

Born on this day – Gail Sheehy:

Gail Sheehy

Writer

November 27, 1936 – August 24, 2020

Credits:
 
Books:

Character: America's Search for Leadership (1991); Daring: My Passages: A Memoir (2014); Hillary's Choice (1999); Hustling: Prostitution in Our Wide Open Society (1973); Lovesounds (1970); Middletown, America: One Town's Passage from Trauma to Hope (2003); New Passages: Mapping Your Life Across Time (1995); Panthermania: The Clash of Black Against Black in One American City (1971); Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence (2010); Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life (1976); Pathfinders: Overcoming the Crises of Adult Life (1983); Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life (2007); Speed is of the Essence (1971); Spirit of Survival (1987); The Man Who Changed the World: The Lives of Mikhail S. Gorbachev (1991); The Silent Passage: Menopause (1993); Understanding Men's Passages: Discovering the New Map of Men's Lives (1998).

Movies and television:

Delorean: Back from the Future (2021); First Ladies (2020); Frontline (2016); Good Morning America (1976–2016); Hustling (1975); IFC News: 2008 Uncut (2008); Myth & Mogul: John DeLorean (2021); New Passages (1996); Radical Wolfe (2023); Slow Burn (2018); Tavis Smiley (2014); The Bob Braun Show (1977); The Factor (2007); The Last Editor (2002); The Mike Douglas Show (1976); Traveling Hopefully (1982).

On this day in movie history - Network (1976)

Network

directed by Sidney Lumet,

written by Paddy Chayefsky,

was released in the United States on November 27, 1976.

Music by Elliot Lawrence.

Cast:

Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Wesley Addy, Ned Beatty, Arthur Burghardt, Bill Burrows, John Carpenter, Jordan Charney, Kathy Cronkite, Ed Crowley, Jerome Dempsey, Conchata Ferrell, Gene Gross, Stanley Grover, Cindy Grover, Darryl Hickman, Mitchell Jason, Paul Jenkins, Ken Kercheval, Kenneth Kimmins, Lynn Klugman, Carolyn Krigbaum, Zane Lasky, Michael Lipton, Michael Lombard, Pirie MacDonald, Russ Petranto, Bernard Pollock, Roy Poole, William Prince, Sasha von Scherler, Lane Smith, Ted Sorel, Beatrice Straight, Fred Stuthman, Cameron Thomas, Marlene Warfield, Lydia Wilen, Lee Richardson, Robert P. Cohen, Andrew Duncan, Todd Everett, John Gabriel, Tom Gibney, Lance Henriksen, Raymond Martino, John Pashley, Michael Tucker.

Recommended reading:

Mad as Hell:
The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies

by Dave Itzkoff.

Published by Picador.

Published 2015.

ISBN-10: 1250062241

ISBN-13: 9781250062246

Description:

"Dave Itzkoff takes us on an extraordinary journey, and in the process reveals Chayefsky's prognosis for TV, a prognosis we've chosen to ignore even as it's come true before our eyes." – Forbes.

"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"

Those words, spoken by an unhinged anchorman named Howard Beale, "the mad prophet of the airwaves," took America by storm in 1976, when Network became a sensation. With a superb cast (including Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, and Robert Duvall) directed by Sidney Lumet, the film won four Oscars and indelibly shaped how we think about corporate and media power.

In Mad As Hell, Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times recounts the surprising and dramatic story of how Network made it to the screen, and of Paddy Chayefsky, the tough, driven, Oscar-winning screenwriter who envisioned a world – outlandish for its time – that is all too real today. Itzkoff vividly re-creates the action behind the camera at a time of swirling cultural turmoil. The result is a riveting account that enriches our appreciation of this prophetic and still-startling film.

On this day in movie history - Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1991)

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

directed by Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper and Eleanor Coppola,

written by Fax Bahr and George Hickenlooper,

was released in the United States on November 27, 1991.

Music by Todd Boekelheide.

Documentary on the making of Apocalypse Now (1979), directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

Cast:

Francis Ford Coppola, Eleanor Coppola, Orson Welles, John Milius, George Lucas, Tom Sternberg, Sam Bottoms, Albert Hall, Frederic Forrest, Laurence Fishburne, Gian-Carlo Coppola, Roman Coppola, Sofia Coppola, Dean Tavoularis, Fred Roos, Martin Sheen, Vittorio Storaro, Robert Duvall, Rona Barrett, Tom Snyder, Monty Cox, Doug Claybourne, Dennis Hopper, Marlon Brando, Randy Carter, Robert De Niro, J. David Jones.

On this day in television history - M Squad (1959)

 

M Squad
Season 3. Episode 10.

Episode entitled: Another Face, Another Life.

Released November 27, 1959.

Directed by Sidney Lanfield.

Written by Stuart Jerome, Irwin Winehouse and A. Sanford Wolfe.

Music by Benny Carter.

Cast:

Lee Marvin, Paul Newlan, James Douglas, Barbara Stuart, Jay Novello, John Archer, Ethel Shutta, Will J. White, John Bryant, Charles J. Conrad, Wally Rose.

On this day in the Star Trek universe - The Next Generation, Voyager, Enterprise (1993, 1995, 1996, 2002)

Star Trek: The Next Generation
Season 7. Episode 11.

Episode entitled: Parallels.

Released November 27, 1993.

Directed by Robert Wiemer.

Written by Brannon Braga, René Echevarria, Naren Shankar.

Created by Gene Roddenberry.

Music by Dennis McCarthy.

Cast:

Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, Patti Yasutake, Mark Bramhall, Majel Barrett, David Keith Anderson, Michael Braveheart, Cameron, Tracee Cocco, Debbie David, Elliot Durant III, Gunnel Eriksson, Holiday Freeman, Kevin Grover, Bill Hagy, Gary Hunter, Lorine Mendell, Christina Wegler Miles, Joyce Robinson, John Alex Tampoya, Oliver Theess, Mikki Val, Guy Vardaman.

 

Star Trek: Voyager
Season 2. Episode 12.

Episode entitled: Resistance.

Released November 27, 1995.

Directed by Winrich Kolbe.

Created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor.

Written by Lisa Klink, Michael Jan Friedman, Kevin J. Ryan, Kenneth Biller.

Based on Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry.

Music by Dennis McCarthy.

Cast:

Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Roxann Biggs-Dawson, Jennifer Lien, Robert Duncan McNeill, Ethan Phillips, Robert Picardo, Tim Russ, Garrett Wang, Alan Scarfe, Tom Todoroff, Glenn Morshower, Joel Grey, Andre Campbell, Tracee Cocco, Debbie David, Icilda Davis, Lou Degrado, Gunnel Eriksson, Norman Alexander Gibbs, Ken Gruz, Julie Jiang, Irving E. Lewis, Dennis Madalone, Mark Major, Louis Ortiz, Tami Peterson, Shepard Ross, Scott Strozier, Katy Summerland, Leland Sun.

 

Star Trek: Voyager
Season 3. Episode 11.

Episode entitled: The Q and the Grey.

Released November 27, 1996.

Directed by Cliff Bole.

Created by Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Jeri Taylor.

Written by Kenneth Biller, Shawn Piller, Lisa Klink.

Based on Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry.

Music by Dennis McCarthy.

Cast:

Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Roxann Biggs-Dawson, Jennifer Lien, Robert Duncan McNeill, Ethan Phillips, Robert Picardo, Tim Russ, Garrett Wang, Suzie Plakson, Harve Presnell, John de Lancie, Adriana del Pomar, Michele Edison, Traci Murray, Heather Rattray, Richard Sarstedt, Martin Squires.

Star Trek: Enterprise
Season 2. Episode 10.

Episode entitled: Vanishing Point.

Released November 27, 2002.

Directed by David Straiton.

Written by Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, André Bormanis.

Created by Rick Berman, Brannon Braga.

Based on Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry.

Opening theme song: Faith of the Heart, performed by Russell Watson.

Closing theme: Archer's Theme, by Dennis McCarthy.

Music by Jay Chattaway.

Cast:

Scott Bakula, John Billingsley, Jolene Blalock, Dominic Keating, Anthony Montgomery, Linda Park, Connor Trinneer, Keone Young, Gary Riotto, Ric Sarabia, Morgan H. Margolis, Carly Thomas Smith, Alexandrea Ortiz, Mark Correy, Hilde Garcia, Glen Hambly, Bryan Heiberg, John Jurgens, Marnie Martin, Lidia Sabljic.