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What Are You Reading

Bushman

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,138
Location
Joliet
Currently reading the Postcard History Series on Will County, where I live. It's got a ton of great old photos of buildings of towns in my area, many of which I've seen still standing, and many that I had no idea existed.
 

Harp

I'll Lock Up
Messages
8,508
Location
Chicago, IL US
... is surprisingly close to its fifteen minutes for my reading habits.

Have you ever read any of Patrick Modiano-he has the Nobel Prize and is a Parisian dyed-in-the-wool scribe.
I only flipped through several of his books, but comparisons to Proust have renewed my interest.:coffee:
 
Messages
17,198
Location
New York City
Have you ever read any of Patrick Modiano-he has the Nobel Prize and is a Parisian dyed-in-the-wool scribe.
I only flipped through several of his books, but comparisons to Proust have renewed my interest.:coffee:

I have not, but will now look into him. Thank you for the heads up. So far, enjoying "The Goldfinch." Not what I expected, but it's growing on me.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,732
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
A pristine 1938 Pelican Books paperback edition of "Psychopathology of Everyday Life," by Sigmund Freud. This was one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, if only for its introduction of the concept of the "Freudian Slip." I wonder what ol' Siggy would say if he knew I picked this book out of the recycling bin at our local dump?
 

DNO

One Too Many
Messages
1,815
Location
Toronto, Canada
I've been looking for The High Window and The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler and finally found both today in an omnibus edition at a thrift store. So it's The High Window for me right now...that man could write.

I recently discovered that Chandler joined the Canadian Army in World War One. I've obtained a copy of his service record...not as dramatic as his books! Served with the 7th Battalion until, like many, he must have realized life in the air force was, at least, a lot cleaner. Transferred to the RAF in 1918 and ended the war while still training as a cadet.
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,732
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Currently paging thru a rare copy of "The Daily Worker" from June 7, 1944 -- the day after D-Day. The Worker, the New York-based organ of what was then called "The Communist Political Association of America" was a snappy big-city tabloid which looked at first glance exactly like the News or the Mirror, and was targeted to the same sort of working-class readership. The main difference is that the Worker has only 16 pages and sells for a nickel, where the mainstream tabloids ran to at least 32 pages and sold for three cents -- and were loaded with advertising. The Worker has a few ads -- notably a big display ad for Gordon Shoe Stores, with three big locations in Brooklyn to serve you -- but otherwise the paper is made up of straight news. Some of it comes off the United Press wire, but the Worker also had a Washington DC bureau for government and other national news.

The Worker is absolutely gung-ho for the war effort. with a page two editorial signed by Earl Browder declaring that "we Communists, side by side with all patriots, pledge our strength, our lives for victory. We stand in salute to our brothers at the firing lines, saying to them 'We shall give everything for victory over Hitlerism and its Japanese accomplices. We shall give everything for freedom, peace, and progress." This is what D-Day demands of every American. This is our pledge."

Further on in the paper there's a statement by the CPA declaring its unqualified support for General Eisenhower. I wonder how McCarthy's clipping-boys overlooked this one?

There's no sports section in this day's edition -- baseball games on June 6th were cancelled -- but there's a comic strip on the back page, the continuing adventures of "Pinky Rankin," who appears to be a courageous American Red serving in the US Army in Europe. He bursts thru a doorway just as a Nazi thug is about to kill a "scientist prisoner" and plugs him right in the back.

If you didn't know the Worker was a Communist paper, you'd never give it a second look. It was that mainstream in its outlook and its presentation, a last vestige of the Popular Front.
 

Harp

I'll Lock Up
Messages
8,508
Location
Chicago, IL US
There's a telephone number... Whittaker Chambers' office?


Aeschylus' passage: "drop by drop like water falling upon a rock, and by the grace of God comes wisdom," seems fitting.
Chambers was a philosopher more often viewed as a suspicious knave.

I need to read Weinstein's Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. Lester Rodney's bio, Press Box Red is in the batting cage now.
Two fascinating figures of courage and conviction.
 
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LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,732
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Aeschylus' passage: "drop by drop like water falling upon a rock, and by the grace of God comes wisdom," seems fitting.
Chambers was a philosopher more often viewed as a suspicious knave.

I need to read Weinstein's Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case. Rod Lester's bio, Press Box Red is in the batting cage now.
Two fascinating figures of courage and conviction.

I read Weinstein years ago, and still have it around here someplace. The forensics are absolutely fascinating, and leave no doubt that Hiss did, in fact, perjure himself.
 
Messages
17,198
Location
New York City
Finished "The Goldfinch" and am starting "To Kill a Mockingbird," which I haven't read in over thirty years, but thought with the upcoming publication of "Go Tell a Watchman" by Harper Lee (written in the mid-50's but never before published), I thought it was a good time to revisit her incredible novel.
 

Harp

I'll Lock Up
Messages
8,508
Location
Chicago, IL US
Finished "The Goldfinch" and am starting "To Kill a Mockingbird," which I haven't read in over thirty years, but thought with the upcoming publication of "Go Tell a Watchman" by Harper Lee (written in the mid-50's but never before published), I thought it was a good time to revisit her incredible novel.


"Lawyers were children once." Charles Lamb That line stays in memory. Thorton Wilder's fantasia, The Ides of March
was found today and recalls Cicero's First Catilinarian which I have always tied to Mockingbird in some literary moral,
tenuous yes, but enduring still. Watchman should prove interesting. Hope Boo Radley sticks around.
 

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