What Are You Reading

[Fading Fast]

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

That's great - I've been reading "The Scarlet Letter" on my Kindle app whenever I'm stuck waiting somewhere - it's taking awhile as, fortunately, I haven't had much downtime waiting for this or that lately, but since I've read it before, the gaps in reading time aren't hurting my enjoyment of a powerful novel.

 

[Harp]

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Catching a plane out of O'Hare a decade or so ago, I stepped inside Blackstone's terminal #3 book shop and found Bo Derek browsing and alone....
An attendant approached me and asked if she could be of any assistance; so, I inquired if Hawthorne's The House of The Seven Gables might be available,
trying to look at Ms Derek and thinking of a way to start a conversation.
Hawthorne wasn't there and Bo had wandered away. A small airport book shop can prove formidable distance given certain circumstance.

 

[Fading Fast]

Catching a plane out of O'Hare a decade or so ago, I stepped inside Blackstone's terminal #3 book shop and found Bo Derek browsing and alone....
An attendant approached me and asked if she could be of any assistance; so, I inquired if Hawthorne's The House of The Seven Gables might be available,
trying to look at Ms Derek and thinking of a way to start a conversation.
Hawthorne wasn't there and Bo had wandered away. A small airport book shop can prove formidable distance given certain circumstance.

In the '80s, Bo and her husband were clients of a financial firm I worked at. I saw her from a 30 or so foot distance one day when they were in to talk with their advisor (we were all told not to make a scene and to politely pretend they weren't there, for their benefit). Even at that distance, she was arrestingly stunning - she glowed she was so beautiful - it was fun just to see her and have this silly story to tell.

 

[Harp]

de Tocqueville, The Old Regime and the French Revolution

A mirror reflection of past and present.

 

[AmateisGal]

In the '80s, Bo and her husband were clients of a financial firm I worked at. I saw her from a 30 or so foot distance one day when they were in to talk with their advisor (we were all told not to make a scene and to politely pretend they weren't there, for their benefit). Even at that distance, she was arrestingly stunning - she glowed she was so beautiful - it was fun just to see her and have this silly story to tell.

That's when she was married to John Derek, right? I first noticed him in The Ten Commandments. He played Joshua.

 

[Fading Fast]

That's when she was married to John Derek, right? I first noticed him in The Ten Commandments. He played Joshua.

Yes - he was impressive looking as well, but I was 24 years old at the time and fully focused on Bo. Living in NYC, I've seen a few stars over the years reasonably up close - sometimes you are surprised one way or the other: not as impressive in person or even more so - but Bo lived up to her ridiculous gorgeousness in person. I also remember the financial advisor saying she was very nice - no attitude at all.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. I've heard her before on NPR's This American Life but it's refreshing to actually read her humorous and fact filled accounts of the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley, and the often quirky personalities involved.

 

[Fading Fast]

Just finished two books. "The Paris Wife," by Paula McLain. A historically accurate fictionalize account of Hemingway's first marriage as seen through the eyes of his first wife Hadley. If you don't know much about this time period in Hemingway's life and enjoy getting your history via fictionalized accounts, this is a good one, but if, like me, you are pretty familiar with the material, it doesn't bringing anything dramatic or eyeopening. It is decently written, but that's it - it won't wow you, but it does get the job done.

I also just finished "Sweet Caress," by William Boyd a fictional novel that is a character study of an English woman born in the early part of the 20th Century who goes on to live a full and ricocheting life as an unconventional photo journalist. Her life experiences take her through pre-war Germany, America and England during WWII, a manor house in Scotland and the Vietnam War. Along the way, she acquires a few lovers, a husband, a couple of children and enough touches to history to give the story a bit of a Forrest-Gump-experiences-the-world feel, but without the irritating simpleton construct or absurd number of coincidences.

But the real strength of the novel and Boyd is his ability to draw three dimensional characters that become people you know and care about whose subsequent engagements with history only make them more interesting. Also, his writing is beautiful with a spirituality at the edges that gives it a slightly other-worldly feel. He is similar to Mark Helprin (author of "Soldier of the Great War," "In Sunlight and Shadows," and others) in this manner as the books are ostensibly about the characters but glow with a wider emotional impact for the time period and culture atmosphere.

 

[Harp]

Just finished two books. "The Paris Wife," by Paula McLain. A historically accurate fictionalize account of Hemingway's first marriage as seen through the eyes of his first wife Hadley. If you don't know much about this time period in Hemingway's life and enjoy getting your history via fictionalized accounts, this is a good one, but if, like me, you are pretty familiar with the material, it doesn't bringing anything dramatic or eyeopening. It is decently written, but that's it - it won't wow you, but it does get the job done.

Amanda Vaill's Hotel Florida chronicles another chapter of Hemingway's life-in Spain with Martha Gellhorn. Vaill is a bit biased though a fine work overall.

 

[Fading Fast]

Amanda Vaill's Hotel Florida chronicles another chapter of Hemingway's life-in Spain with Martha Gellhorn. Vaill is a bit biased though a fine work overall.

Thank you for the recommendation. While far, far from a Hemingway expert, IMHO, he should have stayed married to his first wife - she was a humble, decent human being and, two, Gelhorn and Hemingway were two speeding trains of ego bound to smash up.

 

[AmateisGal]

Thank you for the recommendation. While far, far from a Hemingway expert, IMHO, he should have stayed married to his first wife - she was a humble, decent human being and, two, Gelhorn and Hemingway were two speeding trains of ego bound to smash up.

I wrote an article on women war correspondents of WW2 so naturally included Gelhorn and oh my...she broke the rules whenever possible to get the story. Even escaped from custody a few times.

 

[Touchofevil]

Harry Whittington's A Ticket to Hell

 

[Harp]

Thank you for the recommendation. While far, far from a Hemingway expert, IMHO, he should have stayed married to his first wife - she was a humble, decent human being and, two, Gelhorn and Hemingway were two speeding trains of ego bound to smash up.

I believe Ernest Hemingway to have been inordinately self-absorbed, and possessed a heart of limited depth with a fragile insecurity that would ultimately cost his life.
However, he also painted bold strokes over History, a larger-than-life literary canvass made possible by a creative mind; and, incongruously by his same insecure nature.

 

[Fading Fast]

I believe Ernest Hemingway to have been inordinately self-absorbed, and possessed a heart of limited depth with a fragile insecurity that would ultimately cost his life.
However, he also painted bold strokes over History, a larger-than-life literary canvass made possible by a creative mind; and, incongruously by his same insecure nature.

In a completely different way, Fitzgerald, too, had a ego with the strength of an eggshell and, also in a different way than Hemingway, it fueled his work.

 

[AmateisGal]

I am starting a new book (and I'm already hooked) that I received from the publisher in exchange for a review: Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved, and Died Under Nazi Occupation by Anne Sebba. It will be released in October.

 

[Harp]

Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved, and Died Under Nazi Occupation by Anne Sebba.

Last year I read Caroline Moorehead's history, A Train in Winter about a January 1943 Paris prison transfer of several hundred French Resistance women to Auschwitz,
a novel that ranks with Viktor Frankel's camp memoir Man's Search For Meaning. Will look for Les Parisiennes.

 

[Fading Fast]

I am starting a new book (and I'm already hooked) that I received from the publisher in exchange for a review: Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved, and Died Under Nazi Occupation by Anne Sebba. It will be released in October.

Ooo!, that sounds really good - can't wait to hear what you think of it. I read "Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an English Woman in Wartime France" by Nicholas Shakespeare a few years back - as well as several on Coco Chanel - and "The Hotel on the Place Vendome: Life, Death and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris" by Tilar Mazzeo that all swirled around that subject - an incredibly rich mine for story telling. So many human challenges - honor, betrayal, patriotism, want of comfort, collaboration, resistance - played out in so many big and small dramas that you feel that the books will just keep coming.

 

[AmateisGal]

Ooo!, that sounds really good - can't wait to hear what you think of it. I read "Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an English Woman in Wartime France" by Nicholas Shakespeare a few years back - as well as several on Coco Chanel - and "The Hotel on the Place Vendome: Life, Death and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris" by Tilar Mazzeo that all swirled around that subject - an incredibly rich mine for story telling. So many human challenges - honor, betrayal, patriotism, want of comfort, collaboration, resistance - played out in so many big and small dramas that you feel that the books will just keep coming.

Yes! I read both of those books and reviewed them, too. I love reading this type of history.

 

[Rumor Control]

Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill.

 

[Harp]

Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding