everything is weird so let's poll elmore leonard's staggering novels.

thread title should have said "staggering quantity of novels" but i fucked that up

if i'm recalling correctly, i've only read Get Shorty and Out of Sight, so i will abstain.

out of sight was a good one. i never saw the movie. i'd like to.

I've read and enjoyed quite a few of his books but have trouble remembering distinguishing details (ws LaBrava abt a photographer?), but I remember a lot abt Tishomingo Blues, so that

LaBrava was about a photographer.. and he helped an aging movie starlet in some way... but yes, I cant tell you exactly what else drove the plot.

so good. If I can't read leonard I always go to charles willeford for my Elmore-esque jones. Road Dogs is a really excellent out of sight/riding the rap/labrava sequel (features jack foley and two other characters from those novels.) it's not my favorite but I find it really memorable and foley had an ice cold line at the end that distills the criminal life down nicely.

Too tough to choose really.

Think i prefer my Leonard a bit earlier than late eighties, but that may just be because the first ones I read were the slightly tauter early 80s stuff like City Primeval, Split Images, Stick, LaBrava. Of course there are many great books after that.

I'm sure Leonard arrived at his crime writing style by himself, distilled from many years toiling in genre fiction, but things like Get Shorty are essentially George V Higgins meets Donald Westlake. Carl Hiaasen seems like the first post-Leonard crime writer (tho' Leonard would never indulge in a good cause at the expense of story, and fun - that's both the pleasure of his work, and sometimes the limits of it too)

this is wildly too broad a poll, and so many of his novels are so very good that it would be hard to separate them

how come more/all of them haven't been made into films? seeing as the ones that have are quite/very good?

Be Cool was terrible (the book was bad though, and only written as fodder for adaptation), The Big Bounce is reputedly poor (sadly, it ought to have been a good match for George Armitage), the Freaky Deaky a few years ago looked insanely dire, Stick was really ungood, Killshot was a shambles, I didn't like Touch (but it does feel like Schrader intended to make the film it was), haven't seen any of the Westerns or '70s ones or any of the TV except the first three eps of Justified.

how come more/all of them haven't been made into films?

How many novels or stories of his have been made into movies? Like, 10 or something? That's a lot! Plus "Justified," the rare short story spun into a series that inspired a novel.

Yeah, actually, it looks like there were a lot more, and a couple (Big Bounce and 3:10 To Yuma) made into movies twice. He also wrote screenplays and stuff. But they're not all good:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/every-elmore-leonard-movie-ranked-from-worst-to-best-20130514?page=2

52 Pick-Up is one of those movies that'll make you want to take about four showers after you're finished watching it. Great stuff. If you can get hold of the uncut version of Cat Chaser, directed by Abel Ferrara, that's another super grimy one.

I like the Detroit novels - 52 Pick-Up, City Primeval, The Switch, Unknown Man No. 89, Stick and Glitz are the ones that really stick out. Of the latter-day ones, the only one that really made an impression was Mr. Paradise, and I think it was because he went back to writing about Detroit.

Out of Sight also winds back to Detroit.

The Tall T and Touch are pretty good films.

freaky deaky

I voted for Swag, but other than that I've only read Killshot and Maximum Bob. I got a bit burned out on crime fiction after a couple dozen Westlakes, and before getting seriously into Leonard. Should try him again soon.

Swag is a lot of fun though.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Wound up voting for Unknown Man No. 89. I just read The Hot Kid last week; it was OK, but kept looping back to its main point too many times (we get it, the villain is obsessed with being the center of the hero's attention!).

I've read and enjoyed quite a few of his books but have trouble remembering distinguishing details

This--the titles often no good as memory aids.

I like the Detroit novels - 52 Pick-Up, City Primeval, The Switch, Unknown Man No. 89, Stick and Glitz are the ones that really stick out.

agree w/this. Out of Sight too. I discovered Geo V Higgins after reading Elmore and though the Hig is way uneven I might prefer his dialogue-driven novels but no way is Leonard not classic. this poll is like the Donald Byrd poll I did on ILM years back, too much to choose from! voting City Primeval.

I've read about 23 of these, it's hard to choose! I wonder if any of the westerns will get a vote.

there are so many goddamn good ones. voted for killshot but could've easily picked get shorty, city primeval, split images, rum punch

Read about 10 of these. Swag is far and away the best, can't believe it's never been adapted for the screen

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/sep/24/elmore-leonard-story/

totally agree w/her assessment and favorites

That's the best thing I've read about Leonard

I just read 'riding the rap', from his peak era. sublime writing, some great seeds for raylan givens in 'justified', killer ending (not in terms of a shocking scene or a shootout or whatever, but just how he writes it.)

everything I've read from him post-'out of sight' has been very good though.

thanks for the link just sayin.

the library of america collection of elmore leonard's westerns rips so hard. hombre is amazing.

halfway through Glitz right now, so good