Brautigan 5x:

James Sallis on Chester Himes.

Brooklyn-based reading before the Series.

EYE OF THE CRICKET, by James Sallis. Signed & numbered UK edition, limited to 250 copies of which just 100 are signed. You’ll never read a series crime novel as elliptical and thoughtful as Sallis’ Nola-set Lew Griffin books.

TO DIE IN CALIFORNIA, by Newton Thornburg (1973). A neglected crime drama from the author of CUTTER & BONE.

Afternoon reading: AT THE FIGHTS, one of the better collections of pieces on the hardest game.

If you know you know. Contemplating a big Vlautin reread before the new Delines album drops.

Peter Matthiessen’s three Watson novels, before he edited and condensed them into his award-winning SHADOW COUNTRY.

Rainy day double feature: the Faber Stories edition of Thom Jones’ SONNY LISTON WAS A FRIEND OF MINE and SPORTING BLOOD by The Cruelest Sport.

My new novel, SAINT OF THE NARROWS STREET, is out today from Soho Press! It's a family saga that portrays a small world in a big city. A kitchen-sink crime drama. Hope you'll pick it up! Oxford: I'll be in conversation with pal and hero Ace Atkins at 5:30 at Off Square Books.

Helluva mail day—starting the latest South Brooklyn crime drama from William Boyle tonight.

Game day.

Perhaps it was one of those mild, sunny winter days when you have a feeling of holiday and eternity-the illusory feeling that the course of time is suspended, and that you need only slip through this breach to escape the trap that is closing around you. Patrick Modiano

I wrote about one of these sketches, a magazine image of Jack Dempsey that Bacon painted over, for the latest issue of The Spit Bucket.

Bay Ridge, shot during simpler days.

WILL TO CONQUER (1953) by the great Mickey Walker, The Toy Bulldog, pound-for-pound killer, and a pal of my great grandfather from the Keighry Head section of Elizabeth. #boxinghistory

That was it. To be a rolling stone. In the romantic places of the earth. Ready for a fight, a frolic, or a feed. And since I was Irish, since I was Billy Hamill’s son, since I was from Brooklyn: a drink too. PETE HAMILL, A Drinking Life #petehamill #adrinkinglife

I hit the Strand today; here’s what I lugged back to the train.

The bigger the issue, the smaller you write. Remember that. You don’t write about the horrors of war. No. You write about a kid’s burnt socks lying on the road. You pick the smallest manageable part of the big thing, and you work off the resonance. Richard Price

Iron sharpens iron.