The Thin Man
Nick and Nora Charles are Hammett's most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, The Thin Man is a murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners.
Stats for nerds
2recommend
5mentions
5people
2015–2023years
40% recommend40% neutral20% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Counterweight; Djuna. Good sci Fi.
The Thin Man, The Maltese Falcon; Hammett. Good books behind excellent movies.
- You can find the same logic among a lot of extremists. My take is that they start with an outcome they're excited about and reason toward it, choosing facts to fit. For those who have dealt with narcissists and abusers, it's common there, too.
For those who haven't seen it up close but want to understand it, I strongly recommend this long dive into the forums for "estranged parents": http://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/
The gist is that plenty of kids with narcissistic or abusive parents grow up and eventually cut off contact with their parents. For some, I'm sure, this forces a reckoning: they really look at what they've done and try to get better. But many do what they've done their whole lives: find ways to explain why they are still right.
Dashiell Hammett in The Thin Man gives a good description of what it's like dealing with people like this: "Most people [...] get discouraged after you’ve caught them in the third or fourth straight lie and fall back on either truth or silence, but not Mimi. She keeps trying and you’ve got to be careful or you’ll find yourself believing her, not because she seems to be telling the truth, but simply because you’re tired of disbelieving her." A description more familiar to people these days, I'm sure.
- Dashiell Hammett's novel "The Thin Man" lends itself well to a similar game.
- Apropos of the "four dog defense", Dashiell Hammett in The Thin Man has a woman say to a man she is walking out on: "I don't like crooks, and even if I did I wouldn't like crooks that are stool pigeons, and even if I did like crooks that are stool pigeons, I still wouldn't like you."
- Dune by Frank Herbert- I'm one of the few people on Earth who enjoys the David Lynch adaptation so I finally had to get around to reading the book. Kind of awkward stylistically and structurally but a lot of fun.
Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen - It's seemed to me that there are political philosophies that focus on economic needs and those that focus on personal freedom. This is the best I've read at uniting those concepts.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! - A blast to read and great insight into the thinking of a great mind.
The LA Quartet by James Ellroy (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, LA Confidential, White Jazz) - Really the pinnacle of dark gritty noir. If you like that I can't recommend highly enough.
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett - I like a lot of Hammett's other work but this seemed to have a lot of wheel spinning.
City of Quartz by Mike Davis - As an Angeleno this gave me so much insight into the city I love. I have no idea if it would be of any interest to an outsider.
Antifragile by Nassim Taleb - Nassim Taleb is great and I've definitely been influenced a lot by his ideas, but he's getting too in love with the smell of his own farts.
Various books/textbooks on programming and databases - Nothing thrilling in this category. Gotta eat your vegetables.
