- Messages
- 17,263
- Location
- New York City
I''m only 60 pages in and at the point where Trevor was cast in Brief Encounter but am enjoying the biography.
Thank you, I will pick it up. That is my favorite Howard movie.
I''m only 60 pages in and at the point where Trevor was cast in Brief Encounter but am enjoying the biography.
I haven't seen nearly as many of Trevor Howard's films as I had hoped to by this point in my life but Brief Encounter is a wonderful film.
Can't even remember the last time I stopped by this thread.
Reading Little Man, Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life. Very insightful biography and social history of the "Mafia's banker", Cuba and Las Vegas casinos. Great photos from 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s.
And what do you think of it so far?
I remember reading a few Agatha Christie mysteries in the late 80s and early 90s and liking them. However, it was a real struggle getting through The Mysterious Affair at Styles because I just couldn't get into it. I'm not sure why. Anyway, to be completely honest, I skipped a few chapters just to see "whodunit." For now I won't be reading another Christie mystery, maybe my tastes in books have changed from when I was in my 20s and 30s, now that I'm in my 50s.
I read it when it came out and remember it being a not-sensationalized view of the mob and Lansky. It showed the not-glamorous side of his life - both "business" and personal. For that reason, it felt very real to me and it has stayed with me since I read it.
Some impressions I had (and these are twenty plus years old) were that the mob lost serious money in Cuba, Lansky's son's life was sad and Lansky seemed somewhat "normal" for a mobster. I believe the Hyman Roth character in "The Godfather" was based on Lansky which is interesting because you can see both where Puzo portrayed parts of Lansky's life accurately and where he took some, shall we say, liberties with the truth.
You have a very good memory.
I think there was something about how his life had a lot of normal elements to it - family problems, money worries in old age - and that he was more of a businessman mobster than a psychopath mobster that it stayed with me. He seemed more like a Tolsty character than a Puzo character.
I never felt anything more than, "it was okay" regarding Agatha Christie's books - but respect the success she had with them.
I'm currently reading "Fear in the Sunlight" which (and I only learned this after I bought it) is part of the "Josephine Tey" mysteries series (don't ask me, I had never heard of it). The book is set in the 1950s and '30s and is a basic British mystery with Hitchcock and his wife as central characters. So far - about 100 pages in - it's okay. Interesting enough for me to want to finish it, not good enough yet to recommend it.
Josephine Tey's A Daughter of Time is one of my favourites. It's basically an examination of the death of the princes in the Tower and the role of Richard III..
Just started my second try on Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck. Some books sit for years in my shelf until I'm finally in the right mood. But I'm not sure if I'll really warm up to Steinbeck.
The Larousse Encyclopedia of Ancient and Medieval History. Trying to make up for those Western Civ. classes I never took.
That is an endorsement that will get me to buy the book - have you read "Fear in Sunlight?" If so, how does it compare to "A Daughter of Time?"