BS: Books that should be better known

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Apr 19 - 03:14 AM

We have a community book-reading project called One Book, One Community. The book for this year is The Far Away Brothers, by Lauren Markham. It's about teenage twins who migrate from El Salvador to California. It tells the story of the issue that is most urgent in the United States right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 Apr 19 - 11:04 PM

My fave Hoban book is The Sorely Trying Day.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 04 Apr 19 - 03:10 AM

Have just started to re-read Richard Watts's 'The Kings Depart' an extremely readable account of Germany between the wars
If I still have it, I'll do the same for Paul Henissart's 'Wolves in the City' The Algerian War and how France avoided a military coup
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Apr 19 - 07:57 PM

I heard "The End of the Golden Weather" when it was first broadcast and didn't get it. I have the book and might give it another try.

Another NZ one, rather horribly topical: Janet Frame's "Intensive Care", particularly the long third story. It dates from about 1970 and Frame was extrapolating the most sinister tendencies of the time in NZ society, particularly its eugenic ideology. She projects that into a future where the people of "Waipouri City" (Wellington?) are burning the bodies of their euthanized mentally defective children in their gardens. It's a double narrative, ending with the diary of a girl who's just been incinerated. It is simply so horrific and powerful that it sank into obscurity, though almost all of Frame's other work is easily available. Perhaps it had an influence anyway, and helped build the more tolerant NZ that is now appearing on the world stage.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: robomatic
Date: 03 Apr 19 - 03:27 PM

I just finished "King Leopold's Ghost" by Hochschild and found it informative and fascinating infuriating and kind of sad about my species. I remembered someone in Mudcatreferring to the book so I did a search and turned up this thread, which is actually not the thread I recall. Anyhow, there were so many references to books and authors I have not been introduced to that I saw no harm in resurrecting it at this point in time.

New reference: A well-read Starbucks acquaintance (who had just read "King Leopold's Ghost" recommends a new book to me "Out Stealing Horses" by Per Petterson. I ordered it for my Kindle based only on that.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Apr 19 - 11:22 AM

We could do a whole series of threads like this.....

People that should be better known,,,
Meals that should be better known..
Pork pie shops that should be better known...

Perhaps if we had an umbrella thread...things that should be better known

as for books its very subjective. Jim was saying War and Peace had never really done it for him.

I remember when I was 19. The coldest winter in the coldest place in England. The woman I loved despised me. I was failing a teaching practice in a secondary modern (English teaching where none of the kids could read). Queues of kids outside the Headmasters office waiting to be caned every day. That's when I read War and Peace.

I remember thinking the Battle of Austerlitz would be a piece of piss after this lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 03 Apr 19 - 12:19 AM

The End of the Golden Weather, a play by the New Zealand playwright and actor Bruce Mason (R.I.P.) It's based on his growing up, and is a wonderful coming off age story.
-Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: robomatic
Date: 02 Apr 19 - 10:56 PM

I've just been re-watching a 1976 BBC mini-series that I saw when new: "The Glittering Prizes" and in one of the episodes there is a character modeled on either Mosley or Williamson, or both. He's living out in the country, almost unknown, unremembered, until one of the protagonists of the mini-series decides to have a go at taking him apart, and is handed some surprises.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Jun 15 - 03:25 AM

Have just launched into the latest of C J Sansom's 'Shardlake' series, 'Lamentation' - just as superb as the other five.
Came across the series by accident when I was given a copy of another of his books 'Winter in Madrid' (Spanish Civil War) - just as excellent.
For anybody vaguely interested the English Reformation, but can't manage the mountains of factual information, the Shardlake books are a must - well researched, unsensational and highly readable, but really need to be read in order if they are to be valuable for passing on the events of the period (they all come with short titles (Dissolution, Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation, Heartstone and Lamentation)
Sansom also wrote 'Dominion' which envisages a Britain which had lost the war at Dunkirk and was surviving under German rule - equally fascinating.
Damn good reads, all of them
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 10:01 AM

Found this in Mark Twain's "Sketches"

"I was sitting here," said the judge, "in this old pulpit, holding court, and we were trying a big, wicked-looking Spanish desperado for killing the husband of a bright, pretty Mexican woman. It was a lazy summer day, and an awfully long one, and the witnesses were tedious. None of us took any interest in the trial except that nervous, uneasy devil of a Mexican woman—because you know how they love and how they hate, and this one had loved her husband with all her might, and now she had boiled it all down into hate, and stood here spitting it at that Spaniard with her eyes; and I tell you she would stir me up, too, with a little of her summer lightning, occasionally. Well, I had my coat off and my heels up, lolling and sweating, and smoking one of those cabbage cigars the San Francisco people used to think were good enough for us in those times; and the lawyers they all had their coats off, and were smoking and whittling, and the witnesses the same, and so was the prisoner. Well, the fact is, there warn't any interest in a murder trial then, because the fellow was always brought in 'not guilty,' the jury expecting him to do as much for them some time; and, although the evidence was straight and square against this Spaniard, we knew we could not convict him without seeming to be rather high-handed and sort of reflecting on every gentleman in the community; for there warn't any carriages and liveries then, and so the only 'style' there was, was to keep your private graveyard. But that woman seemed to have her heart set on hanging that Spaniard; and you'd ought to have seen how she would glare on him a minute, and then look up at me in her pleading way, and then turn and for the next five minutes search the jury's faces, and by and by drop her face in her hands for just a little while as if she was most ready to give up; but out she'd come again directly, and be as live and anxious as ever. But when the jury announced the verdict—Not Guilty—and I told the prisoner he was acquitted and free to go, that woman rose up till she appeared to be as tall and grand as a seventy-four-gun ship, and says she:

"'Judge, do I understand you to say that this man is not guilty that murdered my husband without any cause before my own eyes and my little children's, and that all has been done to him that ever justice and the law can do?'

"'The same,' says I.

"And then what do you reckon she did? Why, she turned on that smirking Spanish fool like a wildcat, and out with a 'navy' and shot him dead in open court!"

"That was spirited, I am willing to admit."

"Wasn't it, though?" said the judge admiringly.

"I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I adjourned court right on the spot, and we put on our coats and went out and took up a collection for her and her cubs, and sent them over the mountains to their friends. Ah, she was a spirited wench!"

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: akenaton
Date: 11 Jun 15 - 03:52 AM

The finest Scottish novel, IMO.

"A Scots Quair" containing "Sunset Song", "Cloud Howe" and "Grey Granite", by Lewis Grassic Gibbon.

Changed my life completely

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 08:55 AM

I did not know that about Williamson, thanks, I will have to read up on him.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 08:37 AM

"I hope Mr Carroll does not think....."
I try not to think about you Dick - it gives me indigestion
Please leave me out of your postings or I shall be forced to conclude that you are trying to deliberately sabotage this thread
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 07:43 AM

HENRY WILLIAMSON was an excellent writer, it was a pity that he dabbled in fascism in the 1930s.
I hope Mr Carroll does not think that the following cut and paste is part of some vendetta, talk about paranoia.Politics

In 1935, Henry Williamson visited the National Socialist German Workers Party Congress at Nuremberg and was greatly impressed, particularly with the Hitler Youth movement, whose healthy outlook on life he compared with the sickly youth of the London slums.[1][6] He had a "well-known belief that Hitler was essentially a good man who wanted only to build a new and better Germany."[7] Opposed to war and believing that wars were caused by "usurial moneyed interests",[8] he was attracted to Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and joined it in 1937.[9]

On the day of the British and French declaration of war on Germany Williamson suggested to friends that he might fly to Germany to speak with Hitler in order to persuade him away from war. Following a meeting with Mosley later that day however he was dissuaded from his plan.[10] At the start of World War II Williamson was briefly held under Defence Regulation 18B for his political views, but was released after only a weekend in police custody.[9] Visiting London in January 1944, he observed with satisfaction that the ugliness and immorality represented by its financial and banking sector had been "relieved a little by a catharsis of high explosive" and somewhat "purified by fire." And, "in The Gale of the World, the last book of his Chronicle, published in 1969, Williamson has his main character Phillip Maddison question the moral and legal validity of the Nuremberg Trials".[1]

Williamson initially retained a close relationship with Mosley in the immediate aftermath of the war, but when he brought Mosley as his guest to the Savage Club, the former BUF leader was promptly ejected by club staff.[11] Williamson refused Mosley's request that he join the newly established Union Movement and indeed his suggestion to Mosley that he should instead join him in abandoning politics altogether led to the two men falling out.[12] Nonetheless Williamson did write for Mosley's theoretical journal The European.[13] He also continued to express admiration for aspects of Nazi Germany after the war.[14]

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 07:34 AM

Appreciation of the admirable Bennett has been increasing the past 40 years or so. Margaret Drabble wrote an excellent critical biography of him, 1974. Particularly to be recommended in terms of this thread, tho, is Bennett's "Riceyman Steps", less well-know than the Clayhanger series.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLoi
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 04:43 AM

I picked up book at a parish sale last week, "Tales of Moorland and Estuary " by Henry
Williamson, same man who wrote "Tarka The Otter". A love book about rural life in Devon before the second War.
   Also read " Anna of The Five Towns" by Arnold Bennett , very good book. I have always thought that Bennett has been under appreciated as an English novelist.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Jun 15 - 03:10 AM

I have read the book many times, neither is there a vendetta you pompous pillock, remember, action provokes reaction, your contininuous snidey cooments to some people on this forum[myself included] reveal your true character.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 08:49 PM

"clearly does not understand The Good Soldier Schweik."
Having read it 4 times, I think I do
I suggest you read the book rather than the Wiki cut-'n-paste precis you have put here.
All good literature is open to individual interpretation - the one I gave is how I understand it over the thirty odd years since first read it - it is pretty well the same as Brecht interpreted it when he moved it ito W.W.2. and turned it into a play - you don't agree with it, go dig him up and argue with him.
Please do not interrupt a discussion of books with your ongoing vendetta and ruin another thread.
Over and out
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 07:53 PM

Jim Carroll,
clearly does not understand The Good Soldier Schweik.
The novel is set during World War I in Austria-Hungary, a multi-ethnic empire full of long-standing tensions. Fifteen million people died in the War, one million of them Austro-Hungarian soldiers of whom around 140,000 were Czechs. Jaroslav Hašek participated in this conflict and examined it in The Good Soldier Švejk.

Many of the situations and characters seem to have been inspired, at least in part, by Hašek's service in the 91st Infantry Regiment of the Austro-Hungarian Army. The novel also deals with broader anti-war themes: essentially a series of absurdly comic episodes, it explores both the pointlessness and futility of conflict in general and of military discipline, Austrian military discipline, in particular. Many of its characters, especially the Czechs, are participating in a conflict they do not understand on behalf of an empire to which they have no loyalty.

The character of Josef Švejk is a development of this theme. Through (possibly feigned) idiocy or incompetence he repeatedly manages to frustrate military authority and expose its stupidity in a form of passive resistance: the reader is left unclear, however, as to whether Švejk is genuinely incompetent, or acting quite deliberately with dumb insolence. These absurd events reach a climax when Švejk, wearing a Russian uniform, is mistakenly taken prisoner by his own troops.

In addition to satirising Habsburg authority, Hašek repeatedly sets out corruption and hypocrisy attributed to priests of the Catholic Church.
Plot summary
Statue of Josef Švejk in Sanok, Poland

The story begins in Prague with news of the assassination in Sarajevo that precipitates World War I.

Švejk displays such enthusiasm about faithfully serving the Austrian Emperor in battle that no one can decide whether he is merely an imbecile or is craftily undermining the war effort. He is arrested by a member of the state police, Bretschneider, after making some politically sensitive remarks, and is sent to prison. After being certified insane he is transferred to a madhouse, before being ejected.
Statue of Josef Švejk in Przemyśl, Poland

Švejk gets his charwoman to wheel him (he claims to be suffering from rheumatism) to the recruitment offices in Prague, where his apparent zeal causes a minor sensation. Unfortunately, he is transferred to a hospital for malingerers because of his rheumatism. He finally joins the army as batman to army chaplain Otto Katz; Katz loses him at cards to Senior Lieutenant Lukáš, whose batman he then becomes. Lukáš is posted with his march battalion to barracks in České Budějovice, in Southern Bohemia, preparatory to being sent to the front. After missing all the trains to Budějovice, Švejk embarks on a long anabasis on foot around Southern Bohemia in a vain attempt to find Budějovice, before being arrested as a possible spy and deserter (a charge he strenuously denies) and escorted to his regiment.

The regiment is soon transferred to Bruck an der Leitha, a town on the border between Austria and Hungary. Here, where relations between the two nationalities are somewhat sensitive, Švejk is again arrested, this time for causing an affray involving a respectable Hungarian citizen and engaging in a street fight. He is also promoted to company orderly.

The unit embarks on a long train journey towards Galicia and the Eastern Front. Close to the front line, Švejk is taken prisoner by his own side as a suspected Russian deserter, after arriving at a lake and trying on an abandoned Russian uniform. Narrowly avoiding execution, he manages to rejoin his unit. The unfinished novel breaks off abruptly before Švejk has a chance to be involved in any combat or enter the trenches, though it appears Hašek may have conceived that the characters would have continued the war in a POW camp, much as he had done.

The book includes numerous anecdotes told by Švejk on nearly any occasion (often either to deflect the attentions of an authority figure, or to insult them in a concealed manner) which are not directly related to the plot.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 07:43 PM

pig keeping, by wd peck.
companion plants helen philbrick and richard b gregg

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 01:20 PM

Serious recommendation to anybody with the stamina
Emile Zola's 'Rougon-Macquart' series of twenty novels
Better ones include 'Germinal' and 'Nana' but some of the lesser-known ones are masterpieces 'L'Assommoir (The Drunkard)' and 'La Débâcle' being two of the best novels I have ever read
La Bête Humaine' was made into a fine classic French film in the fifties - well worth looking out for
Though the novels stand alone, it does help tor read them in some order - and abandon the ones you can't get on with (had problems with the religios ones)
Just come across a 'recommended order of reading' list I would concur with
Jim Carroll
La Fortune des Rougon (1871)
Son Excellence Eugène Rougon (1876)
La Curée (1871-2)
L'Argent (1891)
Le Rêve (1888)
La Conquête de Plassans (1874)
Pot-Bouille (1882)
Au Bonheur des Dames (1883)
La Faute de l'Abbé Mouret (1875)
Une Page d'amour (1878)
Le Ventre de Paris (1873)
La Joie de vivre (1884)
L'Assommoir (1877)
L'Œuvre (1886)
La Bête humaine (1890)
Germinal (1885)
Nana (1880)
La Terre (1887)
La Débâcle (1892)
Le Docteur Pascal (1893)

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Musket
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 12:53 PM

Cheeky bugger. I get a small discount off my membership for each one sold, as a contributing author!

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 11:59 AM

That one is obviously in the same genre as this:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Kmhn3TDQL._SL500_.jpg

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Musket
Date: 09 Jun 15 - 03:49 AM

Hopper and Silo Discharge -Successful Solutions. (IMechE Publications)

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: kendall
Date: 08 Jun 15 - 10:30 PM

Amazon has a blog up on my new book. It will be on the shelves soon.

Add to the list, Wake of the Red Witch.
The Count of Monte Cristo.

Silverlock

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jack Campin
Date: 27 May 15 - 08:54 PM

Nigel Tranter had some rather strange ideas. He was a follower of the "Catholic Apostolic Church", a sect founded by Edward Irving early in the 19th century which invented the idea of the Rapture. They have been defunct for a long time, Tranter was one of their last members. They built an enormous church in Edinburgh which has strange Byzantine-inspired Pre-Raphaelite frescoes by Phoebe Anna Traquair, and pillars along the walls which don't quite touch the floor (there is a gap of a few inches at the bottom). The idea was that on Judgement Day God would lift the entire church up to heaven with the congregation inside it.

There is a book about the Catholic Apostolics by Columba Flegg, who comes across as a fairly unpleasant person. Somebody ought to write a novel about them, they had a lot of strange connections with the powerful.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 May 15 - 08:30 PM

"The Jungle"
Strange thing about 'The Jungle' was that it was written to draw attention to the conditions of the meat packing workers in Chicago, yet its main effect was to reform the hygiene laws in that industry - people didn't take to the idea of eating their corned beef mixed in with the bodies of workers who had fallen into the machinery apparently!
I don't think I mentioned the huge output of Scots writer, Nigel Tranter
Bought my first one in Putney open market because of its title 'Lords of Misrule' (thought it was about folk traditions), but found it was about a period of Scots history that I was unfamiliar with.
Tranter's sixty-odd novels take events Scots history and their basic theme - especially recommended are 'The Bruce' and the James V trilogies
Well written and extremely digestible Sots history - all (except maybe a couple of the later ones) memorable
Alexander Cordell did the same job on Wales and Walter Macken on Ireland - also very readable if you are into history without the hard work
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: kendall
Date: 27 May 15 - 08:01 PM

"The Jungle" was required reading in my history class in college.

Another for the list, "Father fell down the well." :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 27 May 15 - 10:14 AM

I know that Cider With Rosie is well known in the UK, however, it may not be well known in America, which is why I mentioned it. I also enjoyed the sequels, but feel that the first book is the best.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,DaveRo
Date: 27 May 15 - 07:37 AM

And in a similar vein Love and War in the Appennines by Eric Newby.

(All these Picador books! When I was in a hurry I used to just pick any book from the Picador rack. Smallcreep, Turtle Diary, and several others mentioned were Picadors.)

I've enjoyed other Eric Newby books too. The Last Grain Race describes one of the last voyages on a sailing clipper, just before WW2.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 27 May 15 - 06:16 AM

I would have thought that Cider with Rosie' was already very well known, but the sequel - 'As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning' is as good if not better. This is followed by 'A Moment of War', and later, 'A Rose for Winter'.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 May 15 - 01:24 AM

Mr. Gnome, Sir, I think that even you would like Mary Oliver's Dog Songs. It really is a pleasure to read that book - more than once, preferably out loud. It may change your opinion of poetry.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 May 15 - 03:53 PM

My favourite Russell Hoban book so far is "Riddley Walker" - nobody's idea of obscure, though.

That period produced a lot of superb fractured-future books. Two you won't find easily: Janet Frame's "Intensive Care" (which ends with a shattering extrapolation of NZ's official eugenic policies) and Bernard Wolfe's "Limbo 90" (what happens when you let psychologists run the world).

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 26 May 15 - 03:40 PM

One of the best Autobiographies I have read is "Speak Memory" by Vladimir Nabakov.
I will certainly have a go at a few on the list.
Oh, and I must mention The Worm Forgives The Plow by John Stewart Colis and Cider with Rosies
by Laurie Lee.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 26 May 15 - 03:25 PM

A belated thank you to Jack Campin - for remembering Turtle Diary AND for providing me wiht a (new to me) website to purchase the book (and at MORE than reasonable prices)

Hope I didn't get back to late to say: THANKS JACK!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 May 15 - 03:44 AM

"Anyone going to read any of the books listed?"
Will try several, and have been inspired to re-try a couple that didn't take first time round.
Might even take another turn at War and Peace, but I couldn't get on with Catcher in the Rye, and I doubt if I ever shall - ah well, my loss.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 May 15 - 11:24 AM

I got a lot out of this thread in that I was reacquainted with a childhood friend. :-) What have other people taken away? Anyone going to read any of the books listed? Just idle curiosity.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Thompson
Date: 24 May 15 - 04:42 PM

Claire Keegan also has a superb long short story called Foster, which is available as a short book, or you can read it in the New Yorker (see link). There's a misprint in the middle, by the way: "take a present off a man" should (as would be obvious to any Irish person from context) read "take a present of a man".

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 May 15 - 10:01 AM

walk the blue fields by claire keegan.
ragged trousered philanthopists. gander at the gate rory o connor.
last of the donkey pilgrims, kevin o hara.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 May 15 - 08:53 AM

Funny thing - I love good song lyrics but don't really get poetry :-( I know it is me. There is nothing wrong with poetry and I do enjoy a lot of monologues when recited but for some reason I do not enjoy many poems in written form. Wish I did!

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 24 May 15 - 08:01 AM

Thanks Joe. I read some of her poems last night, very fine indeed. I read a lot of poetry, I admit to being a bit of a traditionalist, I love Yeats and Hardy and Andrew Marvel, among many others. But, I do read contemporary things as well. Check out Wendy Cope if you have a moment, I do like her rather a lot. Thanks again !

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 May 15 - 03:23 AM

I'd suggest the poetry of Mary Oliver. Her Dog Songs (2013) is particularly good for us dog lovers, but maybe a bit much for those who don't care for dogs. Her other poetry is very insightful into the human heart and the glories of nature.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 23 May 15 - 07:19 PM

"The Past Is Myself" by Chrisabel Von Bielenberg, an Englishwoman married to a German officer, she spent much of the second war Berlin. A wonderful account of one woman,s life in a horrible tIme.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: meself
Date: 22 May 15 - 10:49 PM

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill. Novel about a girl growing up in the mean streets of Montreal, in the care of a decidedly dysfunctional father. Conveys a sense of why those who grow up in such circumstances so often make the dubious choices they do, in eminently entertaining, quirky prose. If you like the title, read the book - you won't be disappointed.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: LadyJean
Date: 22 May 15 - 10:23 PM

The tale is told, that, back in the 1930s, Princeton University got a new building with quotations above each of the doorways, including the line, "He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad."
The faculty searched high and low, through the works of Shakespeare, Rabbelais, Moliere, Aristophanes etc. to find the source. Then one prof had a nervous breakdown and was told to take it easy, and read nothing too serious. Somebody suggested Scaramouche, uh huh.   I don't know if the building is still there.

"Winterdance" is a memoir about one man acquiring huskies and running the Iditarod. It is well worth reading.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 15 - 08:04 PM

Johnny Got His Gun," by Dalton Trumbo. Like Robert Altman's movie "Streamers," some of the most powerful anti-war statements can be made away from the battlefield. Trumbo makes his from inside the head of a wounded soldier in a hospital.

"Homage To Catalona," by George Orwell. Orwell's accounting of his participation in the Spanish Civil War gives insight into the makings of his most famous novel.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 15 - 07:35 PM

"A Separate Peace" by John Knowles. Salinger's "Catcher In The Rye" garnered all the attention at the time but this similarly-themed book tells a better story, and the last line of the novel alone is worth the read.

"A People's History Of The United States," by Howard Zinn. Given what fifty-eight years of living in the USA can tell you about human nature, this book rings truer than the pablum served up in any history class in any elementary school/middle school/high school in America.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 May 15 - 02:15 PM

Received the 35th of May today - Thanks for the heads up Thompson. It is just as good as I remember but certainly not up to todays politically correct standards for kids books. When a black horse called Negro Caballo takes the protagonists to the land of Cockayne you have to wonder what will be next :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jack Campin
Date: 22 May 15 - 12:31 PM

I read Cary's "The Horse's Mouth" as a set book at school. Thought it was okay, but many years later read Ethel Mannin's "Lover Under Another Name", whose main character (otherworldly artist with a thing about William Blake) is far too similar to be concidence. Mannin's book is FAR better, with real character development and a much more emotionally gripping story. I originally thought Cary had just ripped Mannin off, but in fact his book was published a few years before: my guess is they are both based on the same real character but Mannin dug deeper into what made him tick.

The Wikipedia page about Mannin shows the scale of her work. Pretty darn impressive for someone so thoroughly forgotten.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethel_Mannin

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 May 15 - 12:14 PM

Favourite literary story
Way back, J.P, Donleavey and Brendan Behan were neighbours for a time in Dublin
Donleavey was working on'The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B' at the time and it was his practice to do all his writing in longhand.
One afternoon, feeling somewhat cabin-feverish, he decided to take a walk, leaving all his work scattered around his desk.
When he returned he found that his house had been broken into - the French doors had been forced, but all he could find missing was a bottle of whiskey from the sideboard.
Relieved, he sat down to resume work on the pages he had left open, most of which he had crossed out.
Written across the bottom of the page in bold handwriting was - "leave it in".
Jim Carroll