Man. Look at this ultra-Frisco display of noir:
Left to right, the latest and greatest edition of the Hammett Tour book (trade paperback state), Nathaniel Rich’s survey of noir films shot or set in the Cool Grey City, and the noir short story classics volume from Akashic edited by Peter Maravelis — I wrote the first, got mentioned in the second, and have a tribute to Hammett in the third (one of my best reviews of all time appears on the Amazon page for Classics, where a guy says: “The 4 stories in the first section are fabulous. The Hammett stories in the second section [I don’t have the book handy, so cannot remember if there was one or two Hammett stories] are also well done.” There was one Hammett story, and me).
Devon Morf shot in a note with the photo above attached on Wednesday, saying, “I was in town for a gig and saw this in the Chronicle Books SFO shop. Maybe it was Aviator Books but I remember seeing Chronicle Books logo on the wall.” Technical details aside, a bookstore in the airport.
Devon used to live in the Bay Area, but now he’s up in the wilds of Washington state or someplace like that, but he gets around a lot with his punk rock band. One of the last times I talked with him he was telling me about a bunch of dates they’d just played in Mongolia.
I had to say, I was really surprised to see that selection of books in an airport, where I expect only bestsellers on sale. Don’t get me wrong, very cool — and kudos to the clerk who had the savvy to set up that display.
You want local noir, the book kiosk at SFO can get you started.
