BS: Books that should be better known

Subject: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 18 May 15 - 11:05 AM

I read a lot of books, a hundred or so a year. Every once in a while I come across a book that I feel has been overlooked and under appreciated. I am sure that many avid readers have that experience. Here are a few Fiction books that I feel are true classics.

The Story Of An African Farm by Olive Schreiner (!883) Amazing book, the author is a fascinating character as well.

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada (1947) One of the most heartbreaking books I have ever read, not an easy read but a good look into Berlin during The Last War.

Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, very good book. I always felt that Davies was far more worthy of a Nobel Prize than many of those who won one.

To The End of The Land by David Grossman. May help in gaining a better understanding of Modern Israel.

The Concert Ticket by Olga Grushin (known as The Line in America. Great book , tells us a lot about ordinary people in Soviet Russia

Perhaps you could share some of your choices for little known, but great books

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,DaveRo
Date: 18 May 15 - 11:14 AM

Looks like you might enjoy Life_and_Fate by Vasily Grossman

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 18 May 15 - 11:17 AM

I might, Tell me a bit about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 May 15 - 11:55 AM

'Beyond Pulditch Gates' by Henry Hudson - a hidden masterpiece about 1960/70s Dublin and the building of the Poolbeg power-station
Both humourous and tragic
Found it in a discount shop last year
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Will Fly
Date: 18 May 15 - 12:01 PM

Blimey, HiLo - I haven't even heard of any of those, much less read them.

Food for thought.

If you can get them in translation, I recommend the collections of short, witty and whimsical, off-the-wall pieces by the late 19th century French writer Alphone Allais. Very tart and often dark humour. Miles Kington, the (deceased) English humorous writer and musician, translated some of Allais' pieces into idiomatic English as The World of Alphonse Allais, in the United States.

Well worth a read.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Bert
Date: 18 May 15 - 01:04 PM

Wilt by Tom Sharpe
Trapp's War by Brian Callison
73 North by Dudley Pope
Dover goes to Pot by Joyce Porter
Looking for Dilmun by Geoffrey Bibbey
Down to the Sea by Shalimar

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 May 15 - 01:28 PM

One of my favourites as a youngster was the 35th of May. Got it from the library at least 3 or 4 times. Never been able to get it since. I am sure I did not realise it was satire then but I would like to read it again now to see if it gives me the same amount of enjoyment.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 May 15 - 01:31 PM

Ah, yes, Will -- Alphonse Allais —
Once exhibited a blank piece of paper in a frame in an exhibition titled "Anæmic Girls Walking To First Communion In Snow". My metaphysical speculation on this has always been, if one wanted to put it in an exhibition, would any sheet of white paper do, or would one have to track down and exhibit the original one?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 May 15 - 01:32 PM

Just as I pressed enter I remembered the girl who had a black and white pattern, harlequin-esque I think, because she had mixed race parents and the man who's never ending job was to sweep the equator - a steel rail which ran around the world. Unless that was either a different book or a result of my fevered imagination :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Will Fly
Date: 18 May 15 - 01:48 PM

Nice question, Michael! I think I'd have to search for the original...

I have to boast a little and say that I read them - many, many years ago, when you could buy the French editions from London bookshops - in the original French. By sheer chance, I had a 19th century French/English dictionary which helped me out as some of the argot and word usage could not be found in a modern one.

Vive Le Chat Noir! Vive Rodolphe Salis! Vive Aristide Bruant! Vive Erik Satie!

Etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Thompson
Date: 18 May 15 - 02:06 PM

Haunts of the Black Masseur by Charles Sprawson - a history of swimming in literature, fascinating and faintly seedy, with trips into ancient Rome, the Romantics, Japan, etc
Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady - truly hilarious book about growing up the 1950s Deep South
Irish Fairy Tales by James Stephens - wonderful versions of the stories of the Fianna retold in English, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham
The Pursuit of Love - very funny story of English aristocratic life by Nancy Mitford - a thinly-disguised version of her own upbringing
On Broadway, a collection of Damon Runyon's stories of people doing the best they can during the Depression

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 May 15 - 02:11 PM

Elijah Wald's biography of Josh White.
nice to see Joyce Porter getting a mention - very funny lady.
Jack in the Green by Clo Chapman

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 May 15 - 02:52 PM

Peter Currell Brown: Smallcreep's Day.

It's a sort of fantastic voyage through a surreally enormous factory in the English Midlands: English magic realism influenced by Kafka and Calvino, but more political. Brown never wrote another book and nobody else has ever written anything like it.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 May 15 - 02:55 PM

Por the politically minded:
Case of Comrade Tulayev by Victor Serge - one of the finest, non-hysterical accounts of political persecution under Stalin
Steinbecks, 'In Dubious Battle (just pipped at the post by Grapes of Wrath.
The Good Soldier Schweik by Jaroslav Hasek - hilarious account of an idiot who survives World War One because of his idiocy - a/the European Classic - read it 4 times so far.
Kingsblood Royal by Sinclair Lewis - a white, middle-class American tracing his family tree finds he is decended from a black slave and ends up defending his family from outraged neighbours.
Mornings in Jenin, - Susan Abulhawa - magic description of life in a Palestinian refugee camp - extremely moving and relevant.
Peekskil U.S.A. - Howard Fast - short account of the anti Union Labor Day Riots in New York State, 1949 (Pete Seeger and Paul Robeson were present)
Where do you stop? - lots of great books out there to be read - so little time.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 May 15 - 03:42 PM

Also for the politically minded--or anyone in an allegedly Democratic system who votes: First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea, by Paul Woodruff. A real eye-opener.

For a good read, a couple of random selections:

Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini. Set in and around the French Revolution, one heck of an adventure story. The movie with Stewart Granger doesn't come anywhere close to doing it justice.

Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. None of the movies do it justice. The novel (written by an eighteen year old girl!) raises the question of "who is the real monster here, the 'Creature' or Dr. Frankenstein?" Dr. Frankenstein creates, then forsakes his creation, leaving "Adam 2" to fend for himself....

Science fiction writer Brian Aldiss credits Frankenstein with being the real first science fiction novel ever written. Mary Shelley was extrapolation from known science at the time ("Galvanism").

The movies don't come close to the story that Mary Shelley really wrote.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Mark Ross
Date: 18 May 15 - 06:04 PM

Don Firth; Scaramouche has one of the greatest opening lines in lterature;

"He was born with the gift of laughter, and a sense that the world was mad."


Mark Ross

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 18 May 15 - 06:17 PM

The books of Oliver Rackham should be better known and read by everyone who has the slightest interest in the world around them.

The History of the Countryside

Trees and Woodlands in the British Landscape

Woodlands

The Ash Tree (his last book)

etc., etc.

Rackham was an interesting combination of a scientist and a historian. His books illuminate the relationship between man and the natural world - particularly in Britain.

Sadly, Prof. Rackham died in February of this year. I'm still distraught. RIP

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: LadyJean
Date: 18 May 15 - 06:23 PM

When my sister and I were kids we had, "The Big, Golden Book of Dog, Cat and Horse Stories" and loved it. I think we are the only people in the world who know it existed, though the stories were wonderful.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 May 15 - 06:29 PM

"He was born with the gift of laughter, and a sense that the world was mad."

Appropriately enough, that is also inscribed on Rafael Sabatini's gravestone.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Bill D
Date: 18 May 15 - 07:55 PM

Older ones, but can be found.....


The B.S. Factor: The Theory and Practice of Faking it in America A semi-light-hearted poke at how we rationalize and pontificate.

Critique_of_Religion_and_Philosophy
Simply brilliant comparison of patterns of thought in both fields. I heard him speak many years ago, and credit him for pushing me towards how to read other books.

anything on this page...books by Stephen J. Gould One can read them to educate ones self about basic evolutionary theory....or... as a basic primer on *How to Think* (no, not what to think, but the process of evaluating differences of opinion in any field. Nowhere else have I seen such detailed analyses of what is involved in sorting out conflicts & discussing the premises & reasoning used by ALL sides of an issue, both historical and current.)


why yes... there does seem to be a theme in my suggestions, doesn't there?
Even my favorite Sci-fi novel, "The Mote in God's Eye" is an exploration of thought patterns and the concepts behind looking at other cultures.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Bert
Date: 18 May 15 - 08:06 PM

Glad to see The Good Soldier Schweik I used to have a copy of that.

The British Character by Pont, another one that I USED TO HAVE.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 May 15 - 08:37 PM

Among the great books of my life that most people haven't heard of:

William Bradford Huie, The Revolt of Mamie Stover
Eugene Burdick, The Ninth Wave
Arthur Koestler, An Age of Longing
C. M. Kornbluth, Syndic
Lovejoy & Boas, Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity
Pohl & Kornbluth, The Space Merchants
George R. Stewart, Earth Abides
Philip Wylie, Finnley Wren

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 May 15 - 03:10 AM

Creative Dreaming by Dr Patricia Garfield PhD.
My copy is ISBN 0 8600 7439 0

So many great inventions/discoveries/creations have their genesis in recalling a dream. From benzine rings to great songs. Any list would be too long for here.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 19 May 15 - 03:15 AM

Brendon Chase by 'BB' (Denys Watkins-Pitchford) - three boys living as outlaws in the woods. Illustrated with the author's woodcuts.

At school I used to read 'Encounter' in the school library, mainly for Arthur Koestler's articles/essays. It wasn't so much the content, but I was really inspired by his writing style.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 May 15 - 04:13 AM

Nearly forgot - hoow could I?
The Scots Quair by Lewis Grassic Gibbon - trilogy (Sunset Song, Cloud Howe and Grey Granite) on early twentieth-century Scotland - a classic
Just discovered James Barke's five novels on Robert Burns - read the first, 'Wind That Shakes the Barley' (excellent) and a poised to embark on no. 2, 'Wind That Shakes the Barley' - then another three to go
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 19 May 15 - 04:28 AM

"Arthur Koestler's"
Koesler's 'Darkness at Noon' and the Spanish Civil War Trilogy - very strange man, excellent writer
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: CupOfTea
Date: 19 May 15 - 10:12 AM

I wonder if the novels of Dorothy Evelyn Smith are only unknown in the US. "Oh, the Brave Music" has been a favorite since childhood .I think it may have been a book club edition in the 1950, as I found it in my uncles bookshelf with other books popular in that era. I took out many of her other books from the library, only to find that in later years they'd been tossed (sold in a library book sale "cancelled" stamped on 'em). Searching used book stores has only yielded that first novel, reinforcing the book club theory.

Her detailed depictions of the life of average and poor people in the rapidly changing world around 1900, in the north of England fascinated me, and made me fall in love with Yorkshire long before "All Creatures Great and Small" hit PBS here. What do the English think of her?

Joanne the Anglophile from Cleveland

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,Modette
Date: 19 May 15 - 01:25 PM

Everything by Perec, but, most especially 'Life - A User's Manual'.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 May 15 - 02:17 PM

I wonder if the novels of Dorothy Evelyn Smith are only unknown in the US

I work in a second-hand bookshop in the UK and I'd never heard of her before. And I do keep an ear open for writers that customers recommend. That was how I heard about Patrick McGill.

Somebody very much out of fashion now: Ethel Mannin. A sort of feminist bohemian Aldous Huxley. Her books are very hard to find - I can't imagine why Virago never reprinted them, you'd think they were right up their street.

Some of the previous suggestions are for books far MORE well known than they ever ought to have been. "The Mote in God's Eye" is an evil piece of xenophobic paranoia in SF parable disguise (it advocates something close to what the EU is currently trying to do to refugees from Africa and the Middle East, only Niven and Pournelle had Mexico and south-east Asia in mind). And "Earth Abides" was a potentially fine story ruined by the stereotypes of its time - by the end of the book, the women characters are so insignificant they don't even have names, and the African Americans are presented as genetically programmed to keep on growing cotton despite living in a world where that no longer makes any sense. "The Mote" sold in millions and "Earth Abides" has hardly ever been out of print. ("Gay Hunter" by Leslie Mitchell aka Lewis Grassic Gibbon is a much better post-apocalyptic, post-technological-civilization book which is much harder to find).

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 May 15 - 03:14 PM

On Shimrod's non-fiction theme, Richard Fortey's "The Earth: An Intimate History" is wonderful.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 May 15 - 03:31 PM

Actually, Don, Bride Of Frankenstein [1934] was the best of James Whale's old Boris Karloff/Colin Clive original 1930s Frankenstein series, keeping quite a lot of the book's themes, & with a rather good invented mad-scientist character called Dr Pretorius, a fine characterisation by Ernest Thesiger. I remember that version with some affection. Mind you, they all missed the point of the original, that the really intelligent and sensitive and articulate character was the "Dæmon" {as Mrs Shelley called him, rather than Monster or Creature}, who starts out full of loving-kindness but it is perverted because no-one can relate to his ugliness, Frankenstein [who is a medical student, not a doctor BTW -- and certainly not a nobleman] having skimped on the skin so it is overstretched over the muscles and features. The films gave us the good intentions, and much of the intelligence, but none of the articulacy. The 'Bride' version contains the book's themes of the blind musician who befriends the creation because he can't see him, &c.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Bert
Date: 19 May 15 - 04:11 PM

I've just been re reading some P. G. Wodehouse, not for the plots, but for the language.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 19 May 15 - 05:10 PM

For a bit of English nostalgia, 'One Fine Day' by Mollie Panter Downes

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Don Firth
Date: 19 May 15 - 06:22 PM

Right on all counts, MGM.

I enjoyed the James Whale movies with Boris Karloff, but they went pretty far afield from what Mary Shelley wrote. I liked the final scene in "The Bride of Frankenstein," when his newly assembled and animated Bride (Elsa Lanchester), who is not exactly "'Miss Universe" material herself, rejects him with a gag of horror. Karloff's facial expressions (through the heavy make-up) are eloquent indeed. He then orders everyone out of the laboratory before he destroys it, along with himself and his "betrothed."

Boris Karloff did a pretty good job with what he had to work with.

There have been several movie attempts since then, most of which went far afield. I had high hopes of Kenneth Branaugh's 1994 attempt ("Mary Shelley's Frankenstein"—not quite!), but his change at the ending:

When cheated of his bride, "Adam" rips Elizabeth's [Frankenstein's fiancee—Helena Bonham Carter] head off. Frankenstein staples it back on and reanimates her. But then she rejects him, feeling that she is now more like "Adam."

An interesting twist. But I really wish someone would just stick to the story that Mary Shelley wrote.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 19 May 15 - 06:34 PM

Some great suggestions here. Since we seem to be including nOn fiction, I'll add some tomorrow, off to a kitchen party tonight !
Oh, I read a lot of "literary" travel books. Shall I list th here or start a new thread? What say you ?

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 May 15 - 07:11 PM

I have to stick up for non-fiction as I never read fiction (not even history books more than thirty years old). I bought a book in 1984 called In A Dark Time, an anthology of writings, sayings and poems which shine a light on the sheer madness of humanity when contemplating or enacting war, in fact, showing how we lose our humanity as well as our collective sanity, though it isn't without hope ("the eye begins to see..."). It was edited by Nicholas Humphrey and Robert Jay Lifton. My copy's going yellow now and it's stuffed full of newspaper clippings I've amassed which echo the same sentiments.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 May 15 - 07:16 PM

I often find literary travel books a bit annoying, with the author's persona getting in the way. Bruce Chatwin does that a lot. Robert Byron (The Road to Oxiana) sorta gets away with it by being so wildly camp and baroque.

Rather unliterary: E. Lucas Bridges, "The Uttermost Part of the Earth". It's the story of his family, who went to Tierra del Fuego late in the 19th century as farmers and missionaries to the Indians of the region, and lived to see their near-complete extinction. It's easy to find in the UK in the Readers Union edition from around 1960, which includes Bridges' sepia photos.

One literary travel book that included a comment I strongly identified with: Burroughs and Ginsberg's "Yage Letters", about trailing round tropical South America getting smashed on exotic drugs. Burroughs mentions that he wore the same pair of nylon socks for months of jungle travel; they rapidly settled into a state of indestructible dinginess. I had the same kind of socks when I was a student in New Zealand and they just kept going for years until I lost them - I'm not sure what colour they were meant to be but they spent most of their career snot-green. You can't buy them any more. Burroughs thought they were discontinued in a capitalist strategy of planned obsolescence and he wasn't far wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 May 15 - 08:06 PM

A lovely literary travel book is South From Granada by Gerald Brenan, an autobiographical account of his life in an Andalucian village in the earlier 20th century. I'm a bit biased because I go there now and again and love the Alpujarras. I'll be there again later in the summer, baking in the heat!

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: ranger1
Date: 19 May 15 - 09:12 PM

Lawrence Millman's travel books are excellent. I bought the first one because of the title: An Evening Among Headhunters and wasn't disappointed. I managed to get my hands on two more of his books -Last Places and Our Like Will Not Be Here Again, also excellent.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: kendall
Date: 19 May 15 - 09:35 PM

Silverlock by John Myers Myers.
The mists of Avalon.
Azincourt by Bernard Cornwell.
Travels with Charlie. Steinbeck

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 May 15 - 08:04 AM

Is Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' still recognised as the masterpiece it is?
It's been one of my 'read again' books throughout most of my life.
The ambiguity of the title is the subject of a family story.
My father was a prisoner-of-war in Spain and reading material was heavily censored by the Fascist authorities
'The Jungle' slipped under the net because they thought it was a travel book.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 20 May 15 - 10:17 AM

I read "The Jungle". didn't care for it all. But now I feel I will give it another go. As an historian I read a lot of history, I would highly recommend the following, all by Margaret MacMillan.. Paris 1919 , The Uses and Abuses of History and The War that Ended Peace. She is a very good historian.
and is an expert on the Great War. I would also suggest Barbara Tuchman, especially A Distant Mirror.
Finally, Rose Menocal, The Ornament of The World, Jews, Muslims and Christians in Medieval Spain.

For Travel books I do like Eric Newby, especially A Short Walk in The Hindu Kush, also Frey Stark and Vita Sackville Wests' book on her Journey to Tehran.
Travel with a Donkey by Robert Louis Stephenson was a book I disliked because I found Stephenson unlikeable. However, the donkey was grand.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 May 15 - 10:43 AM

The Nutmeg Tree, by Margery Sharpe (I think; I am sure of the title). A lovely, lovely novel.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Bill D
Date: 20 May 15 - 10:55 AM

Jack Campin:

" "The Mote in God's Eye" is an evil piece of xenophobic paranoia in SF parable disguise .....Niven and Pournelle had Mexico and south-east Asia in mind...."

Ummm... I have read many reviews of the book, and yours is the only one I have seen which finds that theme. Did you come to those conclusions by yourself, or did you find them in other reviews? (or have you some personal knowledge of Niven & Pournelle's minds? Niven has written about alien cultures many times, but all I ever saw was speculation.)
I found the flaws of the book to be simply that the concept was too huge to develop all the implied side stories and characters sufficiently. There were many times I wanted to say, "...but what about THIS?"

(I am halfway through re-reading the sequel, "The Gripping Hand".... now I guess I will be looking for "xenophobic paranoia" on every page.)

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: GUEST,DaveRo
Date: 20 May 15 - 11:33 AM

Arctic Dreams, by Barry Lopez, is a wonderful book. I've read it several times and often refer to it.

It's about the Arctic, the animals that live there, and the people who explored it - their motives and their attitudes to the natives.

There are chapters devoted to the polar bear (which apparently can turn green in captivity) and the musk ox, And chapters on explorers like John Davis, who sailed with a four-piece orchestra and, unusually for the time, was interested in, and willing to learn from, the eskimos.

And there are lots of maps; I love books with maps.

My copy has a sticker 'Winner of the 1986 American Book Award for Non-Fiction'. I highly recommend it, to scientists and poets alike.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 May 15 - 11:35 AM

Niven's and more especially Pournelle's politics are no great secret.

The book was published towards the end of the Vietnam War, and just about every American SF writer of the time was writing parables about it. The other source of its generally paranoic tone is long-standing white supremacist fears of being "outbred" by other races, "overrun" by immigrants, or just expropriated by the working class.

SF has always used stories about the future to sermonize about the time when it was written, going way back to the very first SF story, the Book of Revelation.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Bill D
Date: 20 May 15 - 12:00 PM

Well... I have never bothered to study authors' (of fiction) politics before reading their books.

It is possible that Marion Zimmer Bradley had deep, hidden themes in the "Darkover" series.. (yes... womens' issues were pretty clear, and cultural issues were discussed...but..)

I also listen to Burl Ives without thinking much about his sad political history, and Ewan McColl without concerning myself with his sneaky name change and attitudes.

A work of literature should stand on its own. If various moral, cultural and psychological themes 'seem' to be obvious, one can then decide whether to buy (or even just read) the book(s).

I find in science fiction the most interesting ideas expressed in many ways. "Mote" was one of the most challenging.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Bill D
Date: 20 May 15 - 12:22 PM

Just been looking up Niven's 'politics'...etc. It seems he, like many sci-fi authors, had opinions
Interview He calls himself a Libertarian. *tsk*... I am most assuredly NOT one, but the interview is fascinating.

As to his views on immigrants: Snopes seems to think his views might be..umm.. exaggerated. All sorts of theories seem to suggest that Niven was a snotty, rich guy with too much time on his hands.http://the-discourses.blogspot.com/2008/04/moron-report-13-larry-nivens-racism.html *shrug* If I could interview him personally, I might ask some questions about certain issues.... but if I re-read his books, I enjoy them, or not, on their own.

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 May 15 - 12:44 PM

"and Ewan McColl without concerning myself with his sneaky name change and attitudes
Assume you don't have the same reservation about the many writers or personalities who, for one reason or another have changed their names (like Robert Zimmerman) or is it just the politics?)
Maybe I should withdraw 'A Scot's Quair because it was actually written by Leslie Mitchell, whose politics were very much to the left.
Couldn't begin to list the hundreds of great authoors, playwrights and actors who have changed their names.
Sorry, couldn't resist this sort of aside
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Books that should be better known
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 May 15 - 12:58 PM

I knew Jerry Pournelle and his wife, Roberta, back in the late Fifties, early Sixties. Drinking buddies at the Blue Moon tavern in Seattle's University District. At the time, Jerry was working at Boeing (something to do with the space program--very "hush hush") and I was not aware that he had much interest in writing. The Pournelles were casual folk music fans and hosted a couple of "hoots" (informal songfests) in their home in the U. District.   

As I recall, Jerry said he was born in Louisiana and I think he said that he was a West Point graduate (along with a couple of other degrees, including Physics, I believe). He was, indeed, politically conservative, but I was not aware that he was any kind of white supremacist. As a Liberal/Progressive myself, I would have been a bit sensitive to that.

He and Roberta left for Southern California sometime in the mid-Sixties and it wasn't until the late Sixties that I discovered that he was writing spy novels under the pseudonym, Wade Curtis. Then, science fiction stories under his own name began appearing in Analog.

When he and Larry Niven passed through Seattle on a book signing tour (Lucifer's Hammer, as I recall), my wife, Barbara, and I wound up having dinner at Ivar's Salmon House with Jerry, Larry, Frank Herbert, and Mildred Downey Broxon. We occupied the table for about four or five hours, sipping wine and talking.

Memorable evening!

As I said, Jerry was definitely quite conservative, but I didn't detect any traces of white supremacist in him. At least, nothing blatant.

Don Firth