Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe hard-boiled detective novels are the twistiest books I’ve ever read – I’ve been having so much fun with them

I have a collection which includes Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely and The Long Goodbye. Considered the best three of the Philip Marlowe detective novels.

The descriptions feel so filmic and vivid, all the interactions and dialogue feel so lifelike and they are really really funny.

If you've been tempted to read them, just do it. Drop whatever next book or film was on your list. You will have so much fun. Best way to describe the feel of them is, it's like the plot of the Big Lebowski, very elusive but also very compelling.

And if you're a big Humphrey Bogart or Elliot Gould fan…you'll feel like you're getting hours of entertainment with those characters again. Personally, I'm picturing Bogart when I read, with flashes of Gould in some of the more humorous moments every now and again.

Chandler was such a damn genius. How could he have such a vast and precise imagination???

Currently about midway through Farewell, My Lovely. This is the twistiest book I have ever read. I am absolutely loving it.

I've read The Big Sleep and have The Long Goodbye next. Hope I'm not making a mistake in skipping the others but there's so much else to read, and that's even just in that genre.

Then I plan to read Dark Passage by David Goodis, and then either Dashielle Hammett's The Maltese Falcon or Red Harvest…I'm tempted to crack on with TMF but feel like I owe it to Hammett to go chronologically. I alrwsd read The Thin Man…which I loved…but that wasn't anywhere near the level of these Chandler books, imo.