What Are You Reading

[AmateisGal]

Love this book.
Anne's diary, The Warnings of Experience, and Charlotte's unforgettable quip, "The heart has hidden treasures; in secret kept, in silence sealed." And Heathcliff calling out to Catherine....
Men should read the Brontes as their canon wisely pierces love's veil. And, like Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes subsequent scribes have added a certain luster.

On my first trip to England, we went to the Bronte Parsonage and walked the moors. One of my favorite days.

 

[Harp]

... and walked the moors. One of my favorite days.

Memorable!!!
---moors, preferably wind swept. (Full harvest moon also desired but optional).
________________

Anne Bronte's singular The Tenant of Wildfell Hall deserves honorable mention as an exceptional novel beyond original publication era.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Currently reading "Max Perkins, Editor of Genius" by A. Scott Berg.
Wonderful book about a truly old school New England gentleman. (He was a dedicated hat wearer, btw.) Filled with stories about F Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Ring Lardner, Thomas Wolfe, James Jones, etc. Although it is 100% true, the book strikes me like the wildest, craziest, most unbelievable fiction imaginable. The amount of time that Max Perkins spends supporting unknown writers, hunting them out, stroking their egos, lending them money, helping them through dry spells, and generally propping them up through various creative and life troubles seems like the type of stuff no modern audience would or could believe. It is certainly 100% counter to what I have ever experienced with agents/editors/publishers.

 

[Fading Fast]

Currently reading "Max Perkins, Editor of Genius" by A. Scott Berg.
Wonderful book about a truly old school New England gentleman. (He was a dedicated hat wearer, btw.) Filled with stories about F Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Ring Lardner, Thomas Wolfe, James Jones, etc. Although it is 100% true, the book strikes me like the wildest, craziest, most unbelievable fiction imaginable. The amount of time that Max Perkins spends supporting unknown writers, hunting them out, stroking their egos, lending them money, helping them through dry spells, and generally propping them up through various creative and life troubles seems like the type of stuff no modern audience would or could believe. It is certainly 100% counter to what I have ever experienced with agents/editors/publishers.

⇧ I agree with everything you said. I love this book. Over the years, I've bought it several times as a gift for friends who are fans of those authors. Max Perkins is a hero - he was no small influence on so many major 20th Century authors that he should be more well known.

Berg is a heck of a biographer.

A movie "Genius," based on the book, came out this years that I'm sure won't live up to the book, but I still want to see it when it is released on DVD / Streaming.

 

[AmateisGal]

The House of Dreams by Kate Lord Brown.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26114558-the-house-of-dreams

 

[Harp]

Sword Dancer Shenanigans Proves the Public's Point; Pullthepocket.BlogSpot.com

Missed the race at the track, along with the Travers.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"You And Your Clothes," by Laura Baxter and Alpha Latzke.

Originally published in 1938 and revised and updated in 1943, this is a high school textbook directed at students in home-economics classes with an emphasis on the selection, maintenance, and ethics of one's personal wardrobe. A friend I'm teaching to sew brought this in for me to look at, and I'm very impressed with it -- there's a lot of sound basic instruction on sewing technique, operating under the assumption that the student will make most of her own wardrobe herself, an idea I can strongly endorse.

But aside from the technical end of clothing, there's fascinating discussion of the economics of wardrobe, posting sample wardrobes and clothing budgets at various income levels and emphasizing over and over again the need to stock a wardrobe with a few items of good quality clothing that will last as opposed to an abundance of highly-fashioned items that won't.

Most interesting is the discussion of the ethics of shopping. The book was written at the height of the consumer's rights and labor movements of the 1930s, and reflects a socially-conscious vew of the clothing business and its impact not just on the consumer but on the worker who produces clothing items for sale.

"Even though the price at which cotton dresses are being sold is close to the production costs, a reduction may be attempted. Pressure is exerted on the train of production and marketing which tends to cause a lowered wage for the worker and poorer conditions under which the work is done. The farmer and the laborer are in general least able to withstand this pressure even though lowered production costs are pushed on them. To sum up the matter, the result of one's desire for variety and for low-cost goods must be considered and curbed in the light of one's interest in the welfare of others. Only as we seek to understand the interplay between our wants and the lives of others can we improve conditions in America."

One can imagine the banshee wail from some quarters if such a textbook were to be introduced into classrooms today.

 

[Fading Fast]

...One can imagine the banshee wail from some quarters if such a textbook were to be introduced into classrooms today.

It would keep the NYT and WSJ Op/Ed pages and all the smaller media / internet fish that swim in their opinion wake occupied for months.

 

[Harp]

The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke; From The Sublime and Beautiful to American Independence, David Bromwich

Burke's Sublime was as much a slog as Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua, but the man himself stands a fascinating statesman for any age,
and he correctly called the ultimate consequences of the French Revolution.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Getting a big kick out of "The Superman Chronicles, Volume 1," by Siegel and Shuster.

This is the first volume in a paperback series of comic-book reprints proposing to collect every Superman story ever published, in chronological order. I don't know if they'll ever complete such an ambitious project, but the opening volume makes the series worthwhile. It collects the first fourteen stories, from June of 1938 thru June of 1939, and it's here that you see in concentrated form exactly what it was that turned the character into a national icon within just that first year. This is the real deal, the rootin' tootin' New Deal Superman who does exactly what he thinks needs to be done on behalf of the Oppressed, with absolutely no regard for private property rights, due process, the military, the police, or "Law and Order." In one story, he first knocks a "loathsome corruptor of youth" thru a wall and then shoves him head down into a barrel of tar -- and leaves him there -- after which he joyfully demolishes an entire slum single handed in order to force the Government to do something about improving housing conditions, in another he goes on a rampage against reckless driving -- by hunting down such drivers and smashing their cars into rubble while they watch in terror, and in another he infiltrates a prison chain gang and physically tortures the vicious, corrupt warden into changing his ways, and in another he destroys an entire oil field and sets the wells ablaze just to put an end to a stock-selling swindle. The "Big Blue Boy Scout" of the fifites and sixties is nowhere to be found here -- this is Comrade Superman, the Champion of the People, in full blossom.

But the best story in the volume is from the November 1938 issue of "Action Comics," just five months into the run, when Superman goes up against The Boys From Marketing! A flashy promoter decides that what Superman really needs is -- licensed merchandising!

Of course, Clark Kent figures out immediately that it's all a scam, and sure enough, the promoter has a punk actor disguised in a Superman suit as an accomplice in his scheme. But Lois Lane -- who in these stories is only a shade less rough and tough than Superman himself -- figures it out as well, and raids the promoter's office to expose the scheme.

The promoter and his stooge decide the best way to deal with the situation is to throw Lois out the window, but Guess Who is outside listening in, catches her, destroys the elevator in which the con men are trying to flee, and then hauls them off to jail, where the fake Superman immediately confesses everything when he looks out the window and sees the real Superman glaring back at him with a look of utter hate. "Throw these two vermin into the can!" shouts the police sergeant, as Superman snickers triumphantly.

I'd like to see 'em make a movie out of that one.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ so all the red in his costume wasn't happenstance.

I love that Lois had grit and moxie, the "save me Superman" Lois of later (where they kept a smidge of her gumption) is grating.

Just put a copy in my always growing and costly Amazon cart. How is the quality of the comics themselves - clear or grainy?

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's actually excellent -- the illustrations posted above are from internet grabs presumably scanned from actual old comics, the art in the books has been cleaned up considerably. Pretty good value for the money.

Lois isn't just a tough cookie in some of these stories, she's absolutely ruthless. In one story she needs to ditch Clark Kent so she can go after some hoods. She doesn't claim she needs to powder her nose or make some other prissy excuse to leave -- she distracts him and slips a mickey into his drink. Don't mess with a thirties gal.

 

[Harp]

Asked to review Rana Foroohar's Makers and Takers: The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business which posits a Copernican economic orbit shift around finance;
elevating debt as intrinsic to growth, accelerated disparity and inequality.... Keynes stimuli default and Black-Scholes hellfire damnation aside, Forhoor's Makers and Takers looks an intriguing book;
although philosophy disguised in economic garb remains inherently a flawed theory requiring proof. Still, it looks good.

 

[2jakes]

A favorite Superman toon.
At first, Superman had the ability to
"leap tall buildings at a single bound.”

With time he developed the ability to “fly”.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ so much is good in those. I love the intro music - it's serous, it has no time to waste, it says, "Superman's got important stuff to do so we have to race through this music so he can get to work."

 

[2jakes]

I grew up with “beefy” Superman from the fifties.
Later I discovered the earlier leaner & crudely drawn cape crusader which is my favorite.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ (the '30s one) those original illustrations - like the Fleischer shorts you posted an example of - are stunning, ahead of their time, iconic, I am really impressed with them.

 

[2jakes]

For me, Fleischer's Superman is toon animation at it’s finest.
2nd would be his '30s rubbery & surreal black & white toons.
And always have a soft spot for the '40s Merrie Melodies by
Warner Bros.


I have a set of “Golden Age” Famous 1st Editions.

There is not much monetary value with these books.
But the acidic odor and material of the paper along
with the images is the same as the originals that I used to own.
I treasure them.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Perhaps the best Superman work of all was done in the newspaper strip that started in 1939. The comic books started to fall into routine after about 1940, when "mad scientist" villians started to show up, but the two-fisted social-justice-radical Superman stuck around in the newspaper strip for a while longer.

Occupy Metropolis!

 

[2jakes]

One reason that I favor early Superman is the
casual attitude towards consistency.

Blond/red hair and no logo on the chest.