What Are You Reading

[LizzieMaine]

Re-reading Sinclair Lewis's SF novel, It Can't Happen Here, as part of research for a short story I'm doing. Yes, I call it science fiction, as in "alternate history" . . . though when he wrote it in 1934 and published it in '35, it concerned the '36 Presidential election (which hadn't happened yet) and its aftermath. At that point it was a kind of predictive, "If this goes on --" kind of SF.

A great book, and Lewis's gift for delightfully-Dickensian character names was never more focused. "Berzelius 'Buzz' Windrip" as Huey Long, "Doremus Jessup" as William Allen White, "Bishop Prang" as Father Coughlin, and best of all "Adeliade Tarr Gimmitch" as the screeching Red-baiter Elizabeth Dilling all stand out.

 

[HadleyH1]

Welcome back beautiful.

Heyyy Harp! thank you very much!

 

[Harp]

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own

 

[AmateisGal]

So now it's time to get back to TLC - were you enjoying it?

To be honest? Yes and no. I really liked the descriptions and the characters, but it didn't suck me in like I thought it would. But there have been a lot of books I've started and put down lately because my life has been so topsy turvy (ex-husband's infidelity and divorce issues). Maybe I'll pick TLC again. I hope so.

 

[Fading Fast]

To be honest? Yes and no. I really liked the descriptions and the characters, but it didn't suck me in like I thought it would. But there have been a lot of books I've started and put down lately because my life has been so topsy turvy (ex-husband's infidelity and divorce issues). Maybe I'll pick TLC again. I hope so.

Is it a great book / great literature - no; its strength is its evocation of the era. I can see how if other things (euphemism alert) are going on in your life, it might not sing to you. Smart move, put it down and pick it up when you are in a place to enjoy it.

 

[AmateisGal]

Is it a great book / great literature - no; its strength is its evocation of the era. I can see how if other things (euphemism alert) are going on in your life, it might not sing to you. Smart move, put it down and pick it up when you are in a place to enjoy it.

I think that's a good idea.

I'm currently reading The Four Swans (Poldark #6).

 

[Fading Fast]

I think that's a good idea.

I'm currently reading The Four Swans (Poldark #6).

If you feel like a really well written book that take you to another culture - check out "The Makioka Sister" that I posted about a page or so back (http://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/what-are-you-reading.10557/page-380#post-2302937). Talented writer takes you to another world, but one we can easily identify with as it's really just human beings trying to live life. The surface stuff is different, but underneath it - it's just life. I think you'd like it.

 

[AmateisGal]

If you feel like a really well written book that take you to another culture - check out "The Makioka Sister" that I posted about a page or so back (http://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/what-are-you-reading.10557/page-380#post-2302937). Talented writer takes you to another world, but one we can easily identify with as it's really just human beings trying to live life. The surface stuff is different, but underneath it - it's just life. I think you'd like it.

Thanks for the recommendation! I'm off to check it out on Goodreads.

 

[scottyrocks]

I am now right smack in the middle of The Goldfinch (2013) by Donna Tartt.

The plot, so far, is relatively simple, but what makes this book such a standout is the characterization. They are fleshed out so well that I feel like I am with them as I read. I feel what they feel, see what they see. I really care where this is going to go.

Also, regarding the plot - nothing is predictable, but it is also not outrageous (except maybe for the event that sets the story in motion). Every shift has been in the range of possibility, but realistic.

 

[Fading Fast]

Thanks for the recommendation! I'm off to check it out on Goodreads.

Awesome, super girlfriend is reading it now, if you read it, then I'll have two people to talk to about it.

 

[Fading Fast]

I am now right smack in the middle of The Goldfinch (2013) by Donna Tartt.

The plot, so far, is relatively simple, but what makes this book such a standout is the characterization. They are fleshed out so well that I feel like I am with them as I read. I feel what they feel, see what they see. I really care where this is going to go.

Also, regarding the plot - nothing is predictable, but it is also not outrageous (except maybe for the event that sets the story in motion). Every shift has been in the range of possibility, but realistic.

Read it a few years back. We'll chat after you finish it - don't want to say anything now. Enjoy. Also, coincidentally, the Goldfinch painting was being shown at a museum in NYC right when I was reading the book. It was fun to see it at that moment. Insanely impressive painting.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Double Indemnity" by James M. Cain

This post by Benzadmiral says it better than I could:

My 1970 edition of Cain's three most famous novels has an intro by Tom Wolfe (he of the white suits, flowing/startling sentences, and Dickens-ish novels). He said that reading a book by Cain was like climbing into a stock racing car, and the driver (Cain) has already hit 60 before you can close the door. The hospital scene in the novel of Mildred Pierce which involves the little sister -- you don't want to continue reading it, but you have to.​

Now I'm going to say some heresy. Amongst Hammett, Chandler and Cain, I enjoy Cain's books the most (then Chandler, then Hammett) as, as indicated by the above post, they grab you by the collar, pull you in and keep you there the entire way.

My next Cain read (I've also read "Mildred Pierce," which was outstanding) is going to be something I haven't first seen as a movie as I want to experience his writing truly fresh and without the plot or images of people and places already in my mind.

 

[scottyrocks]

Read it a few years back. We'll chat after you finish it - don't want to say anything now. Enjoy. Also, coincidentally, the Goldfinch painting was being shown at a museum in NYC right when I was reading the book. It was fun to see it at that moment. Insanely impressive painting.

All righty, I'll let you know when I finish it. Zipping along smoothly as we speak.

 

[Harp]

Charlotte Bronte's Villette.

The thesis of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own is both personified and discounted by Bronte's innate genius and determined sense of purpose.
Elegant, powerful prose.

 

[Bushman]

I've read all the books in my personal library so I bought a new one. Well, it's not new. Frankly it's rather old. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is on its way to my doorstep.

 

[Benzadmiral]

"Double Indemnity" by James M. Cain

This post by Benzadmiral says it better than I could:

My 1970 edition of Cain's three most famous novels has an intro by Tom Wolfe (he of the white suits, flowing/startling sentences, and Dickens-ish novels). He said that reading a book by Cain was like climbing into a stock racing car, and the driver (Cain) has already hit 60 before you can close the door. The hospital scene in the novel of Mildred Pierce which involves the little sister -- you don't want to continue reading it, but you have to.​

Now I'm going to say some heresy. Amongst Hammett, Chandler and Cain, I enjoy Cain's books the most (then Chandler, then Hammett) as, as indicated by the above post, they grab you by the collar, pull you in and keep you there the entire way.

My next Cain read (I've also read "Mildred Pierce," which was outstanding) is going to be something I haven't first seen as a movie as I want to experience his writing truly fresh and without the plot or images of people and places already in my mind.

I doff my hat to myself. (Oh, wait, I didn't mean to say that. . . .)

Cain has a neat little novelette called "Career in C Major," which you can find in Career in C Major and Other Stories (1943). It's not crime, it's more of a fun love story, but framed with Cain's background in opera. I think a film was made out of it, but I don't know the title. Several of his short stories in The Baby in the Icebox (that story is nowhere near as gruesome as the title suggests) are very effective.

 

[Harp]

Caught last Thursday nite's Cubs vs Nationals game in a bar downtown near LaSalle Street Station but the interminable knockdown dragout,
which I enjoyed immeasurably, went past the witching hour. Hopped the El and rode the Orange Line down to Midway, then popped a cab.
Got home after 2.00am, took Friday off, and tossed a pot of coffee on and opened a book Lizzie recommended: After Many a Summer by
Robert Murphy, a tome I had planned to read after the World Series when baseball withdrawl sets in. A chronicle of the Brooklyn Dodgers
and New York Giants corporate remove to California, Murphy strikes truth in his analysis of Walter O'Malley's avarice and H. Stoneham's incompetence,
though he lets the New York political machine off far too easily. City Hall should have end ran the twins and forced the major league owners
to concede New York, kicking and screaming if necessary;found new stadium sites; arranged financing; and kept both Dodgers and Giants in town.
Instead, the fans got it in the neck. Major league baseball could have been introduced to California by means other than tearing the hearts
out of the teams' fans.

 

[Fading Fast]

I doff my hat to myself. (Oh, wait, I didn't mean to say that. . . .)

Cain has a neat little novelette called "Career in C Major," which you can find in Career in C Major and Other Stories (1943). It's not crime, it's more of a fun love story, but framed with Cain's background in opera. I think a film was made out of it, but I don't know the title. Several of his short stories in The Baby in the Icebox (that story is nowhere near as gruesome as the title suggests) are very effective.

"Career in C Major and Other Fiction" is now in my Amazon cart - thank you.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Scorched Earth: The Russian-German War 1943-1944
by Paul Carell

 

[LizzieMaine]

An article in the October 1930 "Ladies Home Journal" entitled "How We Live on $2500 A Year."

This is an interesting piece made up of four letters from readers describing their household circumstances living on what was, at the time, the average income of an LHJ reader. The Journal was always the women's magazine of choice among the petit bourgeois, and the standards of living described are about what you'd expect from such a class -- very conscious of keeping up appearances, with one correspondant indicating that her elevated spending on clothing and housing are "part of the price of being 'white collar,'" indicating that Keeping Up With Mr. and Mrs. Jones was very much an issue for some of these women even with the Depression looming up. One of the women belongs to a religious sect that practices tithing, and that family donates $250 a year to their church, but none of the others mention any serious charitable or religious donations.

In general, most of them describe a very modest standard of living with "vacations" limited to an occasional drive in the country or trip to the shore. All of the women "do their own work," which was 1930 middle-class-speak for "I don't have a maid," but one woman indicates that he has a seamstress come in once a week to help with the family sewing -- she had five sons to keep up with. None of these families own their own homes, and all are paying in the range of $75 a month for rent. All but one of the families own a car, with two of them justifiying the expense by saying that it's "necessary for my husband's work." All but Mrs. White Collar indicate that they don't have much in the way of wardrobe, with all of them indicating that they make most or all of their own clothes, and do not make much of an attempt to keep up with seasonal trends beyond altering their existing clothes to keep up with The Mode.

It's an interesting piece, and sort of a precursor to the much more extensive "How America Lives" series that would hit the Journal starting in 1940.