What Are You Reading

[Turnip]

If you’re interested in the history of the NSDAP and understand some German, this is a no brainer to read. Compressed, state of the art, easy to read.

 

[Turnip]

Different topic, same comment.

 

[Fading Fast]

Requiem for a Wren by Nevil Shute originally published in 1955


Nevil Shute is an outstanding story teller. He crafts engaging tales that move along at a crisp pace, while capturing the small, telling details that make both his story and its characters come alive.

In Requiem for a Wren, Shute takes us on a trip through World War II and its immediate aftermath, as seen through the lives of two exceptional young people.

You come to appreciate the importance of the Wrens (Women's Royal Naval Service) to Britain's war effort, while also seeing how the war both elevated and broke people, sometimes doing both to the same person.

Janet Prentice, a plain looking young woman, enlisted in the Wrens early in the war and found her purpose in life in the military. Shy, the forced intimacy of military life allowed Janet to form the friendships she wasn’t able to as a civilian.

She also thrived as military discipline and hard work fit her personality, so much so, it gave her the confidence to form a romantic relationship with a handsome young sergeant, Bill.

She knew little about Bill, other than that she loved him, he grew up on a sheep farm in Australia and he had a handsome older brother, Alan, who was a fighter pilot.

Janet would have had a good life had Bill not been killed in the war. Bill's death, followed shortly afterward by her father's death, Bill's dog's death and her mother becoming ill, led to Janet having a nervous breakdown and leaving the Wrens.

All of this we learn, though, through a post-war investigation that Bill's once-dashing brother, Alan, conducted to find out what happened to Janet as he, Alan, struggles to adjust to post-war life after he lost both his feet when his plane was shot down in the war.

The core of the book is Alan's post-war search for Janet as we learn about the backgrounds of these two very different people whose paths crossed just once, during the war, but whose lives become entwined in a surprisingly odd and intimate way.

Alan's search takes us from a sheep farm in Australia, where we meet two kind parents worrying about their one remaining son, to a suburb of Seattle where a sickly aunt surprisingly gives former-Wren Janet a good home and purpose for a time.

We spend time, too, back in the war itself as we see the valuable contribution the Wrens made to the war effort in labor-starved Britain and how not all the heroism and sacrifice was made on the front lines.

Told as part mystery - what happened to Janet after she left the Wrens - and part post-war flashback to the conflict itself as seen through Alan's eyes and Janet's diary, Requiem for a Wren is an engaging page turner.

Shute also gives lie to the modern shorthand which believes that, back then, women were only allowed to have a few roles in life and all in support of men.

Shute's Janet is a smart, independent woman, who carves out her own niche and is respected for her skills and intelligence by the men she works with and the man who loves her.

Many of the bad things we attribute to the past are true, but they were also not the full story as life, then as now, was dramatically more complex, nuanced and varied than our politics, especially today's bitter version, wants to admit.

Modern authors of period novels could also learn from Shute how to write a story with a real female hero, as Janet is a hero, but she is, too, a woman of her time who thought within the conventions of the day, even if she stretched them.

She also didn't flyspeck every man and situation for prejudice and sexism and wasn't desirous to confront every single perceived injustice or slight.

The tic of virtue-signalling authors today is to write their period feminist heroes as if they were time travelers who popped up in another era, but with a present-day outlook and contemporary values.

These "heroes," then, somehow have the guts, grit and single mindedness to bend that past period's people and culture to their modern will - please.

This is why older novels by talented writers like Nevil Shute are so valuable. They provide a window into the past - into a particular period's culture, norms, foibles, values, mindsets, prejudices and struggles - without the bias and obsessions of modern prejudices.

Requiem for a Wren does all that, plus it's also just a darn good story with characters you come to care deeply about, which is what makes reading fun. The good news is if you like your first Shute novel, there are many more as he was a prolific and successful writer in his day.

 

[Edward]

My time for recreational reading has been greatly limited in the last couple of years, but I have recently had occasion to spend a little more time on the tube, and so have been able to enjoy a spot of reading. I'm currently well into Douglas Coupland's J-POd, which I am enjoying very much, as I have done all his work.

 

[Turnip]

To make it round, as well quite informative…

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Some holiday weekend read-looking. An Oct/November 2021 Forbes article dubbed 'The Croesus of Crypto.'
Sam Bankman-Fried. A crashed reborn speculative software derivative.
The yuan and dollar digitalized currency birthed Phoenix-like out from FTX's fiery crash.

 

[Trenchfriend]

you might try Stendahl's "Charterhouse of Parma" which I read a while back. Mostly I remember being surprised by how readable it was and also I was titillated by the protagonist's romantic relationship with his... (okay, no spoilers).

Funnily, I already got the book from my father's estate!

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Funnily, I already got the book from my father's estate!

Stendhahl's The Red and The Black left me lost inside this alehouse den of ill repute where I remain but still eighteen.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Stendhahl's The Red and The Black left me lost inside this alehouse den of ill repute where I remain but still eighteen.

Sorry, but I don't know, what you mean.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Sorry, but I don't know, what you mean.

A college rugby tackle that hit hard. Lost my grip and account my youthful grasp but the book is on the stove.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

A story followed in the fascinating ERA forum about the tragic murder of beautiful bride Martha James
inside a sleeping train berth passing through Oregon January 1943 titled, The Colour of Night and writ by Max G Geier.

This arrived yesterday and is an incredibly prosed investigative look at the subsequent trial that ensued set against
the struggle for Negro rights but the war itself frames this horrific snapshot.

Thanks to Chitownscion for his recommendation.

 

[Fading Fast]

The English Air by D. E. Stevenson, originally published in 1940


D. E. Stevenson's The English Air, written in 1940 and set in the late 1930s, is a well-crafted propaganda novel wonderfully free of the modern political obsessions that are destroying today’s period novels, but naturally, it's full of England's WWII-era biases.

Written right after war broke out, but before England faced The Blitz, The English Air captures the immediate pre- and post-war atmosphere and outlook of England as seen through one charming upper-middle-class family.

Middle-aged flighty and loving widow Sophie Braithwaite, her daughter, the carefree, sweet and pretty Wynne and her naval officer son Roy, live with Sophie's brother-in-law, Dane Worthington, a wealthy bachelor who is a spy for the British Government.

It is into this kind and happy household, in the summer of 1938, that Franz comes to visit. Franz is the son of Sophie's deceased English cousin, a cousin who had married a German man and went to live in Germany just after WWI.

Author Stevenson uses this construct to compare and contrast the outlook, attitudes, prejudices and values of England and Germany in the late 1930s.

Because his English mother died when he was young, Franz was raised by his German father to be a "modern" German and to "love their leader unquestionably." He was taught in the Hitler Youth that only their leader could protect Germany from its enemies.

It's with this mindset that disciplined and reserved Franz shows up at the Braithwaite's home, Fernacres, only to see a content English people enjoying life with a relaxed attitude and general bonhomie that he all but can't fathom.

Franz, raised in a country gearing up for war and taught that England is one of its potential enemies, can't understand the laid-back atmosphere and kindness he encounters as Wynne and her friends embrace him.

Franz is also thrown when Wynne's friends casually mock their government or joke around with the local police, things that would never happen in Germany. Young Franz gets further buffeted when he develops feelings for Wynne.

In conversations with Dane Worthington and others, Franz also begins to understand that England doesn't feel animosity toward Germany, but is more than willing to fight if it has to. This is not the England he expected to see.

After an eye-opening summer, a now confused Franz, but one still devoted to his leader and country, is ecstatic when England and Germany sign a peace pact, The Munich Agreement. But he is then rocked when Germany subsequently violates it.

With that reasonably long and telling setup, the novel becomes tougher as Franz's beliefs, loyalties, family obligations and friendships are tested time and again in the shadow of an aborning war between his parents' two countries.

Stevenson constructed an engaging story that shows a charming, kind and open-hearted England being dragged into a war it doesn't want. It also shows a Germany twisted into militarism by a maniacal leader who has warped the minds of Germany's youth.

Author Stevenson's characters are engaging and sympathetic. Stevenson also has a gift for picking the right details to bring a time and place to life. You can't help loving pre-war England, liking Sophie, Wynne and Dain and hoping that Franz makes the right decisions.

Like all good propaganda, it's "true" if, as Stevenson did, you put the lens in just the perfect spot to tell your side of the story and, of course, in the big historical picture, Stevenson was right.

The English Air is a fun and easy read populated with characters you quickly come to care about. And for us today, despite its period biases and agenda, it still valuably captures a moment in history when the world was about to be forcibly and irreparably changed.

 

[AmateisGal]

View attachment 511970
The English Air by D. E. Stevenson, originally published in 1940


D. E. Stevenson's The English Air, written in 1940 and set in the late 1930s, is a well-crafted propaganda novel wonderfully free of the modern political obsessions that are destroying today’s period novels, but naturally, it's full of England's WWII-era biases.

Written right after war broke out, but before England faced The Blitz, The English Air captures the immediate pre- and post-war atmosphere and outlook of England as seen through one charming upper-middle-class family.

Middle-aged flighty and loving widow Sophie Braithwaite, her daughter, the carefree, sweet and pretty Wynne and her naval officer son Roy, live with Sophie's brother-in-law, Dane Worthington, a wealthy bachelor who is a spy for the British Government.

It is into this kind and happy household, in the summer of 1938, that Franz comes to visit. Franz is the son of Sophie's deceased English cousin, a cousin who had married a German man and went to live in Germany just after WWI.

Author Stevenson uses this construct to compare and contrast the outlook, attitudes, prejudices and values of England and Germany in the late 1930s.

Because his English mother died when he was young, Franz was raised by his German father to be a "modern" German and to "love their leader unquestionably." He was taught in the Hitler Youth that only their leader could protect Germany from its enemies.

It's with this mindset that disciplined and reserved Franz shows up at the Braithwaite's home, Fernacres, only to see a content English people enjoying life with a relaxed attitude and general bonhomie that he all but can't fathom.

Franz, raised in a country gearing up for war and taught that England is one of its potential enemies, can't understand the laid-back atmosphere and kindness he encounters as Wynne and her friends embrace him.

Franz is also thrown when Wynne's friends casually mock their government or joke around with the local police, things that would never happen in Germany. Young Franz gets further buffeted when he develops feelings for Wynne.

In conversations with Dane Worthington and others, Franz also begins to understand that England doesn't feel animosity toward Germany, but is more than willing to fight if it has to. This is not the England he expected to see.

After an eye-opening summer, a now confused Franz, but one still devoted to his leader and country, is ecstatic when England and Germany sign a peace pact, The Munich Agreement. But he is then rocked when Germany subsequently violates it.

With that reasonably long and telling setup, the novel becomes tougher as Franz's beliefs, loyalties, family obligations and friendships are tested time and again in the shadow of an aborning war between his parents' two countries.

Stevenson constructed an engaging story that shows a charming, kind and open-hearted England being dragged into a war it doesn't want. It also shows a Germany twisted into militarism by a maniacal leader who has warped the minds of Germany's youth.

Author Stevenson's characters are engaging and sympathetic. Stevenson also has a gift for picking the right details to bring a time and place to life. You can't help loving pre-war England, liking Sophie, Wynne and Dain and hoping that Franz makes the right decisions.

Like all good propaganda, it's "true" if, as Stevenson did, you put the lens in just the perfect spot to tell your side of the story and, of course, in the big historical picture, Stevenson was right.

The English Air is a fun and easy read populated with characters you quickly come to care about. And for us today, despite its period biases and agenda, it still valuably captures a moment in history when the world was about to be forcibly and irreparably changed.

Excellent review! This sounds like a fantastic book.

 

[Fading Fast]

Excellent review! This sounds like a fantastic book.

Knowing you're a WWII historian, I think you'd really enjoy it. It is very interesting to see a 1940 take on 1938-1940.

 

[Fading Fast]

All Over But the Shooting by Richard Powell, originally published in 1944


The 1930s and 1940s produced a plethora of books (and movies made from the books) about husband-and-wife teams fighting crime as quasi detectives.

The Thin Man series of novels is the most famous of these husband-and-wife sleuthing combos, but author Richard Powell's Arab and Andy Blake series is also enjoyable and engaging reading.

In the series third entry, All Over But the Shooting, Arabella, "Arab," and Andy Blake take on WWII German spies on American soil, but as in most of these series, the stories are only okay. You stay around, however, for the playful squabbling of the married couple.

Andy narrates the novel, but it is Arabella, his wife, who gives the book its punch. She's a petite, early twenties blonde with an incredibly inquisitive and sharp mind, a passion for guns and anything that explodes and a penchant for finding mysteries to solve.

Arab is closer to a modern heroine than Nora Charles from The Thin Man, who can often be a bumbling wife, as Arab not only doesn't bumble, she drives the investigation and is willing to take more risks than her often exhausted and cautious husband.

When the book opens, we find Andy living in a boarding house and pushing papers as a lieutenant in the Pentagon. Arab has just come to D.C. to be with him where she quickly finds a job as a secretary in, of course, the military's ordnance department.

Owing to the war-time housing shortage in Washington, though, Arab is forced to take a room in a separate and remote boarding house until she and Andy can find an apartment together.

After a series of suspicious events happen at Arab's boarding house, a prior tenant left in a hurry, a few creepy men come and go and Andy's modest snooping at Arab's urging is met with heavy resistance, Arab goes into sleuthing overdrive.

Andy's interest in the house's setup, though, is mainly piqued out of jealousy sparked by a big, tall blonde man, who lives near Arab's house. That man takes an interest in Arab believing she is not married because Arab had to pose that way to rent the room

Andy, a guy who just wants to do his Pentagon job in peace, initially dismisses Arab's concerns about the house, but as the evidence mounts, he takes what he and Arab have found to his commanding officer at the Pentagon.

With that setup, the story becomes a traditional spy thriller as Andy and Arab discover German spies are using the boarding house to get information, from war workers who live at the house, to send back to Germany.

Thuggish spies commanded by a James Bond like supervillain, kidnappings, gun battles, an island hideout, a submarine rendezvous and plenty of explosions, head bonking and smart sleuthing follows.

It's a serviceable enough story, with some real tension and neat spy technology for the day, but you read this one, like all the books in this series and similar series, because you enjoy the characters, in particular, the fun couple at the center of it all.

Andy and Arab are truly in love and don't so much fight as exasperate each other as she's looking for adventure and he's not. Also, men just come on to pretty Arab, which doesn't make Andy happy, especially as she'll go along for a bit if it advances their investigation.

Because Andy narrates, we only see Arab through his eyes, which show her to be a spitfire of a young woman whose love of guns, mystery and excitement attracts Andy to her even if he won't fully admit it to himself.

Andy and Arab might not quite have Nick and Nora's charm, but they are a likable couple to spend a few hours with, which makes these Arab and Andy Blake books, like All Over But the Shooting, breezy, fun and perfect beach reads.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Finished John Grisham's Camino Winds (Das Manuskript).

Boring, just boring. Can't recommend it. And too much persons in the story, for my taste.

 

[FOXTROT LAMONT]

Still with The Colour of Night. Never much a reader, usually school or work.

 

[Edward]

Not long back from a fortnight in Beijing for work, during which I managed to find more time in which to read for pleasure than I have in a long time. I devoured the latter two thirds of Coupland's J-Pod, Jim Moir (better known by his stage name of Vic Reeves)'s autobiographical Me:Moir, and the first collected volume of Rogue Trooper comic book stories (original published in 2000AD in the early 1980s. I also downloaded and read eBook versions of John Niven's dark comedies Kill Your Friends and KIll Them All. Wonderful satires on the record business. The first is set in 1997, a lot of it in and around the same Camden haunts I had when I first moved to London in 1999. Great fun. I still vastly prefer a 'real' book to an e version, but it was nonetheless nice to have the option to easily buy new English language content while in China, and they were also significantly cheaper than the hardcopy. I don't mind paying less than the price of a pint for an eBook I just want to read, though being charged a hardback price for one is another matter entirely.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Natural by Bernard Malamud, originally published in 1952


The Natural is rightfully considered not just a classic baseball novel, but also a classic American novel, as it explores themes common to the American experience, where individual success or failure is determined by a mix of merit, integrity and fate.

Corruption, greed, honor and sex are also all woven into Malamud's tale of a young baseball talent whose life and career get waylaid for years owing to a senseless act of violence only to have a later resurrection that is equal parts gratifying and disillusioning.

We meet the novel's protagonist, Roy Hobbs, when he is a young professional baseball prospect on a train to a much-anticipated major league tryout. After he has a chance face-off with baseball's greatest hitter of the era, we know that he is a pitching phenom.

A mysterious, attractive and mentally disturbed woman Hobbs meets on the same train later shoots him. She, we learn, has a history of harming promising athletes.

We then reconnect with Hobbs fifteen years later after he has just been signed to the struggling professional baseball team, the New York Knights.

In his return to baseball, Hobbs is now an oddity, a thirty-four-year-old rookie. After overcoming his manager's skepticism to play him, he becomes a star outfielder and hitter who propels the heretofore woebegone Knights into a pennant race.

What follows is a series of personal and professional challenges for Hobbs driven by both his internal demons and external forces as he tries to somehow make up for all those lost years.

Hobbs' natural talent is unquestionable, even at thirty-four and despite never having played major league ball before, he proves to be an elite player. He is devoted to the game mentally and physically, but the pressures and temptations of success begin to interfere with his focus.

Women are one distraction as Hobbs is attracted to the young, pretty, but selfish and greedy niece, the wonderfully named Memo Paris, of the manager, while he talks himself out of liking the older, less-attractive, but good-hearted woman who helps pull him out of a batting slump.

Money too is a distraction as Hobbs is poorly paid because his salary was set for the year before he became a breakout star and, in an era before free agency, he has little negotiating power with the miserly, creepy and corrupt majority shareholder of the team.

As the season approaches the closing weeks of the pennant race and pressures increase, Hobbs, worrying about money, his career and the younger woman, suffers some sort of mental and physical breakdown that could ruin his future.

In a move echoing baseball's famous Black Sox scandal, Hobbs is then tempted with a huge bribe to throw a decisive game; it's enough money to set him up in business post baseball. It proves to be a game that dramatically comes down to his last swing at the plate.

Malamud imbues The Natural with a fantasy-like quality that highlights the timelessness of Hobbs' struggle - a struggle of innate ability, individual drive and personal integrity versus human failings, corrupting influences and the randomness of fate.

Very little is black and white in Malamud's world. Even in a simple pitch or the swing of a bat, life, uncertainty and corruption can rear their heads and mar those seemingly "pure" acts.

In Roy Hobbs we see the American dream both as we wish it to be - a shining city on a hill - and as it is - a complex story full of hope, opportunity, merit, faith, corruption, luck and heartbreak. The Natural isn't the American novel, but it is an American novel.


N.B. While the core story remains, the well-done 1984 movie version of Malamud's tale is changed in meaningful ways.

And finally, regular Fedora Lounge readers of this thread might notice I was late with my "spring training" baseball book read and review this year as, well, life interfered with my regular timeline. That said, The Natural has been on my to-read list for too long, so it was fun to finally sit down with it and use it to "kick off," albeit a bit late this year, the baseball season.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Starting Stendhal's Lamiel (1839-42), today.