“Public Lending Right: A Symposium” _New Review_ vol. 2, no. 21 (December 1975): 17-18
[...] If you’ve worked in a library, you know that a large amount of borrowing is indiscriminate. People come in wanting a book for their wife, or aunt, or grandmother. You see it in any library. Someone returning what they’ve just read, hardly even knowing its title, saying ‘I want another like this one.’ [...] I remember doing my little bit, which sounds pompous but it isn’t. They’d come in with a thriller, wanting another one, and I’d give them a Raymond Chandler.
“My First Penguin Paperback…” _The Times_ ["Penguin Festival of Fiction" section] (February 23, 1995)
My first really is too far away now to remember the title, we’re talking about 50 years ago. There was so little competition in those days that I think almost every paperback I read was a Penguin. Raymond Chandler was among the first authors I bought — that was when I was about 17, and I still think he is absolutely brilliant. I remember the green jackets they had on their crime titles, and I must have a couple of those Chandlers around even after all this time.
“A Little Night Reading” _Sunday Times_, 18 November 2001, p 42 “What J. G. Ballard has on his bedside table”
Bed is a place for treats: romps with the children, a large snoring dog, a few hours of peaceful sleep; and, for me, books that open the doorway to the dream. [...] Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles is another imaginary land that hovers between dream and waking. Recently, I read through the whole of Chandler; my favourite is _The Lady in the Lake_ (Penguin). Moody and tightly plotted, perfect for the small hours.
Thanks to David Pringle.
