First off, its great to be back.

The reason I haven’t posted all that much of late is because for the past two weeks I’ve been on vacation in lovely California.  It’s the first time in a VERY long time I’ve had that much free time in a row and I feel rested and refreshed and ready to get back to work.

Before I took off on vacation, I posted my very positive impression of the recently released Annotated Big Sleep, a book which features Raymond Chandler’s classic 1939 novel along with plenty of annotations (natch) offering information on the novel, Los Angeles back in the 1930’s (this information proved fascinating considering the first few days of my vacation were spent in LA), along with other great bits of information regarding the novel (you can read the whole thing here).

Even though I was on vacation, I couldn’t help myself and, inspired by that book, had to take on the famous Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall movie version of that novel.  As much as I like the movie, it doesn’t hold a candle to the Raymond Chandler novel (either the original cut of it, which featured less of Bacall, or the eventual theatrical release… both are available on the DVD).

Having said that, you truly should not only read the novel, but see the film.  They’re both worth taking in!