Harp
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 8,508
- Location
- Chicago, IL US
New York Times article on the Supremes' latest hit, Hurst v. Florida-Sotomayor and Scalia-together at last!- take the Sixth but Alito strikes a relevant chord in dissent.
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What Are You Reading
- Thread starter Lancealot
- Start date
AmateisGal
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 6,126
- Location
- Nebraska
Finished reading The Lake House by Kate Morton. Lovely, lovely story, though I was a little caught off-guard by the ending. Still, Kate Morton remains one of my favorite novelists. She keeps me turning the pages, that's for sure.
Going to start Wolf By Wolf by Ryan Graudin. It's set in 1956 - the Axis powers have won, and Hitler commemorates their victory every year with a motorcycle race across the Continent. And in this motorcycle race, there is one participant who has a mission: to kill Hitler. Promises to be great fun!
Also reading The Women Who Wrote the War by Nancy Caldwell Sorel as research for my next article.
Going to start Wolf By Wolf by Ryan Graudin. It's set in 1956 - the Axis powers have won, and Hitler commemorates their victory every year with a motorcycle race across the Continent. And in this motorcycle race, there is one participant who has a mission: to kill Hitler. Promises to be great fun!
Also reading The Women Who Wrote the War by Nancy Caldwell Sorel as research for my next article.
Ticklishchap
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,728
- Location
- London
Looks very interesting indeed and I shall look these up.
- Messages
- 16,885
- Location
- New York City
Finished the book "Ametora" by W. David Mark on how Japan "saved" American clothing style (according to the cover).
The book explains how post-WWII Japan developed a subculture (that had periods of mainstream acceptance) of American Ivy clothing style in part because Japan was, at the time, poor, unsure of itself culturally and looking for a new direction for dress and because a few Japanese acolytes (one in particular) of American Ivy style clothing developed a marketing plan to sell Ivy style dress to a post-War generation.
There is enough Ivy clothes discussion to keep most Ivy-clothes-interested (think 1950s college clothes) Fedora Lounge members happy, but be aware that the focus is on how and why Japanese society was ready - and made ready - to embrace it. The Trad / Ivy clothing part of the story peaks about half way through when the origins and back story on the book "Take Ivy" (a 1965 Japanese book of photos taken on US Ivy league campuses to help "educate" the Japanese on how to wear Ivy clothing) are explained. After that, the book shortly moves on to discuss the various American styles of dress - hippie, punk, '50s rock and roll, etc. - that had some adoption, for some period of time, by some small segment of, mainly, the younger generation in Japan.
It also goes into (for you jean haters, it's time to cover your ears) Japan's fascination (it's fair to call it that) with American jeans (Levi's in particular) and how that morphed and evolved into a ransacking of American jeans dead-stock from the '60s on (literally, Japanese purchasers driving around America to find dead-stock Levi's [and other clothes] in the basements and storerooms of army-navy / department / etc. stores to ship back for sale in Japan), to Japanese-made lesser-quality copies, to, eventually, better-quality copies, to obsessively better-quality copies, to, finally, Japanese manufacturers deconstructing every detail of vintage American jeans so that they could build a better, strong, faster $6 million jean (okay, not that expensive, but Japan has pushed out the high-end-jeans' pricing envelope).
I was a little bored with the punk, hippie, '70s sections, but loved the first half Ivy sections and, surprisingly, found the jean narrative interesting both culturally for its obsessiveness and business-wise for its quirky, but successful, model.
If others have read or do read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
The book explains how post-WWII Japan developed a subculture (that had periods of mainstream acceptance) of American Ivy clothing style in part because Japan was, at the time, poor, unsure of itself culturally and looking for a new direction for dress and because a few Japanese acolytes (one in particular) of American Ivy style clothing developed a marketing plan to sell Ivy style dress to a post-War generation.
There is enough Ivy clothes discussion to keep most Ivy-clothes-interested (think 1950s college clothes) Fedora Lounge members happy, but be aware that the focus is on how and why Japanese society was ready - and made ready - to embrace it. The Trad / Ivy clothing part of the story peaks about half way through when the origins and back story on the book "Take Ivy" (a 1965 Japanese book of photos taken on US Ivy league campuses to help "educate" the Japanese on how to wear Ivy clothing) are explained. After that, the book shortly moves on to discuss the various American styles of dress - hippie, punk, '50s rock and roll, etc. - that had some adoption, for some period of time, by some small segment of, mainly, the younger generation in Japan.
It also goes into (for you jean haters, it's time to cover your ears) Japan's fascination (it's fair to call it that) with American jeans (Levi's in particular) and how that morphed and evolved into a ransacking of American jeans dead-stock from the '60s on (literally, Japanese purchasers driving around America to find dead-stock Levi's [and other clothes] in the basements and storerooms of army-navy / department / etc. stores to ship back for sale in Japan), to Japanese-made lesser-quality copies, to, eventually, better-quality copies, to obsessively better-quality copies, to, finally, Japanese manufacturers deconstructing every detail of vintage American jeans so that they could build a better, strong, faster $6 million jean (okay, not that expensive, but Japan has pushed out the high-end-jeans' pricing envelope).
I was a little bored with the punk, hippie, '70s sections, but loved the first half Ivy sections and, surprisingly, found the jean narrative interesting both culturally for its obsessiveness and business-wise for its quirky, but successful, model.
If others have read or do read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
MisterCairo
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 7,005
- Location
- Gads Hill, Ontario
Nearing page 600 of The Pickwick Papers!
LizzieMaine
Bartender
- Messages
- 33,081
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
Enjoying a stack of 1940 editions of one of the most unusual daily newspapers ever published -- PM, which, other than the Daily Worker, was the most successful daily paper of the Era to forego the support of the Boys From Marketing.
PM was without ads from its start in 1940 until it ended in 1948, due largely to its being underwritten by Marshall Field III, heir to the Chicago department store fortune. He had lived the life of a typical 1920s wastrel parasite until the Depression and several years of psychoanalysis completely reversed his worldview. The paper was edited by Ralph Ingersoll, former editor of Time, Life, and Fortune, who had finally gotten sick of being Henry Luce's mouthpiece, and decided to follow his own conscience. He gathered like-minded journalists from other New York papers, and PM made a huge splash in the publishing world.
The paper was a tabloid, but while the other New York tabloids -- the Patterson-McCormick Daily News and the Hearst Daily Mirror -- were decidedly down-market, PM went for a more intellectual readership, with long-form articles and analysis of the issues of the day. Its women's section was edited by noted designer-turned-radical Elizabeth Hawes, and its sports department by the well-respected Tom Meany. It cost five cents a copy compared to two cents for the News and Mirror, and three cents for the broadsheets, but it quickly built its circulation to about 165,000.
The copy I'm looking at now is the thirteenth issue published -- Thursday, July 4th, 1940. BRITISH ATTACK FRENCH FLEET -- CAPTURE MANY LARGER WARSHIPS screams the page-one headline, followed on page two by a detailed look at the capture of three French battleships by the Royal Navy as part of a continuing effort to keep the world's "fourth largest fleet" from falling into the hands of the Axis. Emphasizing the paper's firmly interventionist outlook, the following pages feature further details on the exploits of the British Navy, along with photos of British schoolchildren being evacuated to Canada, and the carcass of a Nazi plane being examined on an English beach by curious townspeople. News on the national front examines President Roosevelt's 5 billion dollar defense budget, and questions Republican presidential hopeful Wendell Willkie's ties to Wall Street.
A small photo on page 9 pictures a teenage girl in bell-bottom slacks hanging from a swing as she paints the mast of a schooner -- a photo taken in Camden, Maine, just a few miles from where I sit. The girl, one Ruth Smith, is part of a sailing instruction program for young women conducted by "veteran captains." A news brief on the same page mentions that a note in a bottle has washed up on a beach in Inglewood, California containing a note signed "Amelia Earhart," but it was believed to be a hoax.
An extraordinary full-page editorial cartoon in socialist-modern style shows a corpse crushed under the wreckage of two automobiles. MOST DANGEROUS WEEKEND STARTS TODAY. You'd be forgiven for assuming this was the work of Rockwell Kent, but it's signed "Frederick Castellon."
In local New York City news, young textile executive Barton Alexander and his bride Miss Marion Gordon are pleased to be celebrating their wedding, even though the ceremony was interrupted by a three alarm fire that destroyed the ship upon which they were plighting troth.
In labor news, the city's burlesque dancers, members of the Burlesque Artists Association, are threatening to strike against the three burlesque theatres to have escaped closure under Mayor LaGuardia's 1935 crackdown. Meanwhile, Local 65 of the United Wholesale and Warehouse Employees are deep in rehearsal for their own version of "The Mikado," featuring topical lyrics and swing arrangements. In a more serious vein, a report from the LaFollette Civil Liberties Commission credits a sharp improvement in wages and living conditions in San Francisco compared to conditions in Los Angeles to the greater penetration of unionization in the northern city.
On the Opinion page, reader Marshall M. Berg isn't too impressed with PM's no-advertising policy. "If you choose not to open your columns to paid advertising, don't -- see if I care," he writes. "But for the love of Mike stop being so smug and martyr-like about it. You remind me too much of the damsels who aren't satisified to cling to their virtue, but insist on loudly proclaiming their virginity to every ear they can reach."
In movie news, Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard have opened at the Paramount in "Ghost Breakers," which PM declares has given Mr. Hope "a measure of class," and that he has abandoned his taste for "Grade B mugging." As for Miss Goddard, PM notes that she seems to be gaining confidence -- "She may even grow to believe that she's got the ability to tease without stripping."
The day's radio highlights include Mayor LaGuardia and the Chinese Ambassador, Dr. Hi Shih, speaking on behalf of the American Bureau for Medical Aid To China. Mel Allen will be on the air at 3pm over WABC from the Polo Grounds as the Giants take on the Phillies. At 9pm over WHN, A. L. Alexander's Arbitration Board will review small claims cases, and promises "mediation for all." There's a profile of Clifford Goldsmith, the playwright whose "Aldrich Family" sketches move to Thursday as of tonight, and a photo of Ezra Stone, the pudgy twenty-three-year-old "bargain basement Orson Welles" who plays adolescent Henry.
In Elizabeth Hawes' "News For Living," we find that the federal food stamp program is to be introduced in Nassau County, providing home relief for more than 24,000 persons in over 5500 families. A fashion spread covers -- or uncovers -- what you're likely to see when you head out to Coney Island for the day, with "most any kind of bathing suit" being perfectly appropriate. Two hefty women in what appear to be wrestling singlets are sitting in the sand with big smiles on their faces, over the caption "No matter what you wear you can relax on the beach in the sun and have a wonderful time. This couple did!"
Good buys for food around the city include Carolina snap beans, available at 4 to 8 cents depending on your market. Maine blueberries are available everywhere for 17 cents a quart. And short ribs of beef will run you 14 to 18 cents a pound.
And in sports, this new rookie on the Brooklyn Dodgers looks like a keeper. Harold Reese, acquired out of the Red Sox farm system for "anywhere from $40,000 to $75,000" is impressing everyone with his fielding at shortstop, and hit a grand-slam home run to cap yesterday's Dodger victory over the Giants. "The most immature looking big leaguer since Cy Slapnicka" is known as "Pee Wee" to his teammates. Remember that name, you'll be hearing it a lot in the years to come.
And that's the 4th of July, 1940 according to "PM, The New York Daily," a tabloid paper you didn't have to pretend you found on the subway.
PM was without ads from its start in 1940 until it ended in 1948, due largely to its being underwritten by Marshall Field III, heir to the Chicago department store fortune. He had lived the life of a typical 1920s wastrel parasite until the Depression and several years of psychoanalysis completely reversed his worldview. The paper was edited by Ralph Ingersoll, former editor of Time, Life, and Fortune, who had finally gotten sick of being Henry Luce's mouthpiece, and decided to follow his own conscience. He gathered like-minded journalists from other New York papers, and PM made a huge splash in the publishing world.
The paper was a tabloid, but while the other New York tabloids -- the Patterson-McCormick Daily News and the Hearst Daily Mirror -- were decidedly down-market, PM went for a more intellectual readership, with long-form articles and analysis of the issues of the day. Its women's section was edited by noted designer-turned-radical Elizabeth Hawes, and its sports department by the well-respected Tom Meany. It cost five cents a copy compared to two cents for the News and Mirror, and three cents for the broadsheets, but it quickly built its circulation to about 165,000.
The copy I'm looking at now is the thirteenth issue published -- Thursday, July 4th, 1940. BRITISH ATTACK FRENCH FLEET -- CAPTURE MANY LARGER WARSHIPS screams the page-one headline, followed on page two by a detailed look at the capture of three French battleships by the Royal Navy as part of a continuing effort to keep the world's "fourth largest fleet" from falling into the hands of the Axis. Emphasizing the paper's firmly interventionist outlook, the following pages feature further details on the exploits of the British Navy, along with photos of British schoolchildren being evacuated to Canada, and the carcass of a Nazi plane being examined on an English beach by curious townspeople. News on the national front examines President Roosevelt's 5 billion dollar defense budget, and questions Republican presidential hopeful Wendell Willkie's ties to Wall Street.
A small photo on page 9 pictures a teenage girl in bell-bottom slacks hanging from a swing as she paints the mast of a schooner -- a photo taken in Camden, Maine, just a few miles from where I sit. The girl, one Ruth Smith, is part of a sailing instruction program for young women conducted by "veteran captains." A news brief on the same page mentions that a note in a bottle has washed up on a beach in Inglewood, California containing a note signed "Amelia Earhart," but it was believed to be a hoax.
An extraordinary full-page editorial cartoon in socialist-modern style shows a corpse crushed under the wreckage of two automobiles. MOST DANGEROUS WEEKEND STARTS TODAY. You'd be forgiven for assuming this was the work of Rockwell Kent, but it's signed "Frederick Castellon."
In local New York City news, young textile executive Barton Alexander and his bride Miss Marion Gordon are pleased to be celebrating their wedding, even though the ceremony was interrupted by a three alarm fire that destroyed the ship upon which they were plighting troth.
In labor news, the city's burlesque dancers, members of the Burlesque Artists Association, are threatening to strike against the three burlesque theatres to have escaped closure under Mayor LaGuardia's 1935 crackdown. Meanwhile, Local 65 of the United Wholesale and Warehouse Employees are deep in rehearsal for their own version of "The Mikado," featuring topical lyrics and swing arrangements. In a more serious vein, a report from the LaFollette Civil Liberties Commission credits a sharp improvement in wages and living conditions in San Francisco compared to conditions in Los Angeles to the greater penetration of unionization in the northern city.
On the Opinion page, reader Marshall M. Berg isn't too impressed with PM's no-advertising policy. "If you choose not to open your columns to paid advertising, don't -- see if I care," he writes. "But for the love of Mike stop being so smug and martyr-like about it. You remind me too much of the damsels who aren't satisified to cling to their virtue, but insist on loudly proclaiming their virginity to every ear they can reach."
In movie news, Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard have opened at the Paramount in "Ghost Breakers," which PM declares has given Mr. Hope "a measure of class," and that he has abandoned his taste for "Grade B mugging." As for Miss Goddard, PM notes that she seems to be gaining confidence -- "She may even grow to believe that she's got the ability to tease without stripping."
The day's radio highlights include Mayor LaGuardia and the Chinese Ambassador, Dr. Hi Shih, speaking on behalf of the American Bureau for Medical Aid To China. Mel Allen will be on the air at 3pm over WABC from the Polo Grounds as the Giants take on the Phillies. At 9pm over WHN, A. L. Alexander's Arbitration Board will review small claims cases, and promises "mediation for all." There's a profile of Clifford Goldsmith, the playwright whose "Aldrich Family" sketches move to Thursday as of tonight, and a photo of Ezra Stone, the pudgy twenty-three-year-old "bargain basement Orson Welles" who plays adolescent Henry.
In Elizabeth Hawes' "News For Living," we find that the federal food stamp program is to be introduced in Nassau County, providing home relief for more than 24,000 persons in over 5500 families. A fashion spread covers -- or uncovers -- what you're likely to see when you head out to Coney Island for the day, with "most any kind of bathing suit" being perfectly appropriate. Two hefty women in what appear to be wrestling singlets are sitting in the sand with big smiles on their faces, over the caption "No matter what you wear you can relax on the beach in the sun and have a wonderful time. This couple did!"
Good buys for food around the city include Carolina snap beans, available at 4 to 8 cents depending on your market. Maine blueberries are available everywhere for 17 cents a quart. And short ribs of beef will run you 14 to 18 cents a pound.
And in sports, this new rookie on the Brooklyn Dodgers looks like a keeper. Harold Reese, acquired out of the Red Sox farm system for "anywhere from $40,000 to $75,000" is impressing everyone with his fielding at shortstop, and hit a grand-slam home run to cap yesterday's Dodger victory over the Giants. "The most immature looking big leaguer since Cy Slapnicka" is known as "Pee Wee" to his teammates. Remember that name, you'll be hearing it a lot in the years to come.
And that's the 4th of July, 1940 according to "PM, The New York Daily," a tabloid paper you didn't have to pretend you found on the subway.
Hercule
Practically Family
- Messages
- 953
- Location
- Western Reserve (Cleveland)
As always I’ve got a few going all at once:
Lincoln dreamt he died : the midnight visions of remarkable Americans from Colonial times to Freud / Andrew Burstein
Operation Long Jump : Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, and the greatest assassination plot in history / Bill Yenne
The sheltering desert./ Henno Martin
Verdict on a lost flyer; the story of Bill Lancaster / Ralph Barker
Lincoln dreamt he died : the midnight visions of remarkable Americans from Colonial times to Freud / Andrew Burstein
Operation Long Jump : Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill, and the greatest assassination plot in history / Bill Yenne
The sheltering desert./ Henno Martin
Verdict on a lost flyer; the story of Bill Lancaster / Ralph Barker
oak1971
Familiar Face
- Messages
- 84
- Location
- SE Wisconsin
For a new liberty. Murray Rothbard
- Messages
- 16,885
- Location
- New York City
Read it over twenty years ago and was very impressed. One of the big libertarian thinkers who is not well known outside of the libertarian community.
Harp
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 8,508
- Location
- Chicago, IL US
Serious imagination by Noel Malcolm; a review of Robert Grant's Imagining the Real: Essays on Politics, Ideology, and Literature
Culture as bearer and guarantor of human values and an expose of those who think otherwise.
Culture as bearer and guarantor of human values and an expose of those who think otherwise.
- Messages
- 16,885
- Location
- New York City
During yesterday's snow storm, I started a Fitzgerald short story "Winter Dreams" and just finished it now. (Spoiler alert). Basically, a young man from the Mid West falls in love with an arrestingly beautiful hometown girl who uses her looks to attract - play with and play off each other - many men. This young man, tries but fails to get her to marry him and, then, moves on with his life. But the memory of her continues to haunt him.
While not exactly the same, you feel the parallels to Gatsby and Daisy and, as with "The Great Gatsby," you can't help seeing Fitzgerald in the lead role (as we know so much about his life and how his fiction was very close to home for him) and wonder, why did this man never grow up and realize that a pretty but vacuous girl who teased him or wouldn't marry him because he was poor, or for whatever reason, isn't worth the emotional energy he puts into her for the rest of his life?
The flaw for me in "The Great Gatsby" is that Daisy isn't worth it, isn't close to being worth it, isn't even interesting. I get the whole "poor boy loves the unattainable rich girl" thing, but then the poor boy grows up, goes to war, builds a shady business and, eventually, should get over a early dull crush.
While not exactly the same, you feel the parallels to Gatsby and Daisy and, as with "The Great Gatsby," you can't help seeing Fitzgerald in the lead role (as we know so much about his life and how his fiction was very close to home for him) and wonder, why did this man never grow up and realize that a pretty but vacuous girl who teased him or wouldn't marry him because he was poor, or for whatever reason, isn't worth the emotional energy he puts into her for the rest of his life?
The flaw for me in "The Great Gatsby" is that Daisy isn't worth it, isn't close to being worth it, isn't even interesting. I get the whole "poor boy loves the unattainable rich girl" thing, but then the poor boy grows up, goes to war, builds a shady business and, eventually, should get over a early dull crush.
Harp
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 8,508
- Location
- Chicago, IL US
Fitzgerald defies easy description; despite Hemingway's caustic barbs and Zelda's less than flattering comments, he will always be the American 'first act' man.
Benzadmiral
Call Me a Cab
- Messages
- 2,815
- Location
- The Swamp
Loren D. Estleman's City of Widows, a 1994 entry in his long-running Western series about Page Murdock. Murdock acts as a sort of traveling enforcement agent for the prickly Judge Blackthorne of the Federal District Court in 1880s Wyoming. Murdock's not a guy you'd want to just hang out with, unless a bunch of bandits are closing in on you and him. Then you'd be more than glad to have him. White Desert, in which Murdock tracks a bunch of outlaws to the Canadian prairies, is dynamite.
Estleman's been in the business since 1975 or so, writing Sherlock Holmes pastiches (Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula), some of the best hardboiled private eye stories around in his Amos Walker series set in Detroit, and Westerns, both Murdock stories and others. I've noticed that people who do well with hardboiled crime tales often produce excellent Westerns -- a lot of the tropes are the same, I guess. See Leonard, Elmore (Hombre), for more examples.
Estleman's been in the business since 1975 or so, writing Sherlock Holmes pastiches (Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula), some of the best hardboiled private eye stories around in his Amos Walker series set in Detroit, and Westerns, both Murdock stories and others. I've noticed that people who do well with hardboiled crime tales often produce excellent Westerns -- a lot of the tropes are the same, I guess. See Leonard, Elmore (Hombre), for more examples.
LizzieMaine
Bartender
- Messages
- 33,081
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
"A Practical Cat Book," by Ida M. Mellen. Published in 1939, this volume offers an eye-opening look at cat care practices in the Era. Mellen wasn't just a cat breeder, she was a militant advocate for feline health, and was very much a forward thinker in her approaches. While the first several chapters of the book are oriented to the cat-fancy crowd, containing breed specifications and the like, Mellen makes a point of speaking up for the common Domestic American Shorthair, the common house cat, and urges cat owners to understand that cats are as capable of feeling and emotion as dogs, and they respond as much to love and kindness as a dog does. A cat that is "vicious" or "sneaky" is not that way by feline nature, it's made that way by a cruel owner. Her section on kitten care touches on questions of feline psychology that would seem quite advanced even for today.
Mellen strongly opposes the idea of "putting out the cat" at night, and is a vehement advocate of spaying and neutering cats not being kept for breeding purposes. She is dismissive of veterinarians who view cats as less worthy of attention than dogs, and urges cat owners to be insistent on their pets receiving proper veterinary care.
Cat litter as we know it today wouldn't be invented for several more years at the time this book was written, but Mrs. Mellen nonetheless firmly advocates the use of "sanitary pans" rather than requiring the cat to void outdoors. She suggests the use of a large enamel baking pan or a galvanized steel pan lined with several thicknesses of newspaper, and filled with sawdust or shredded paper, and stresses that it should be cleaned at least daily.
Something I didn't know before reading this book was that there were several severe "cat epidemics" in the early part of the twentieth century which swept up suddenly and claimed large numbers of victims before receding. The most severe, an outbreak of infectious enteritis occuring in 1919-21, took the lives of over a million cats, and led to the development of the first vaccine intended especially for felines -- a vaccine which is still used today.
Mellen strongly opposes the idea of "putting out the cat" at night, and is a vehement advocate of spaying and neutering cats not being kept for breeding purposes. She is dismissive of veterinarians who view cats as less worthy of attention than dogs, and urges cat owners to be insistent on their pets receiving proper veterinary care.
Cat litter as we know it today wouldn't be invented for several more years at the time this book was written, but Mrs. Mellen nonetheless firmly advocates the use of "sanitary pans" rather than requiring the cat to void outdoors. She suggests the use of a large enamel baking pan or a galvanized steel pan lined with several thicknesses of newspaper, and filled with sawdust or shredded paper, and stresses that it should be cleaned at least daily.
Something I didn't know before reading this book was that there were several severe "cat epidemics" in the early part of the twentieth century which swept up suddenly and claimed large numbers of victims before receding. The most severe, an outbreak of infectious enteritis occuring in 1919-21, took the lives of over a million cats, and led to the development of the first vaccine intended especially for felines -- a vaccine which is still used today.
Benzadmiral
Call Me a Cab
- Messages
- 2,815
- Location
- The Swamp
I still have a paperback copy of Margaret Cooper Gay's How to Live with a Cat, originally published in 1949 or so. Her writing style is infectious and engaging, the more so because she uses her own cats as examples, and they come across as true and charming individuals. Some of her advice is sort of dated, but the humor in her writing, and her simple clear style, comes across to this day. "Certainly our cats love us; otherwise they'd leave."
DNO
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,815
- Location
- Toronto, Canada
Re-reading H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds, as I do occasionally. Hard to believe it was first published in 1898.
AmateisGal
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 6,126
- Location
- Nebraska
I finished re-reading A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous, a diary of a woman who lived in Berlin right when the Soviets came in. It's an absolutely chilling read. I read it about 10 years ago but wanted to refresh my memory since one of the main characters of my current novel-in-progress is a German woman who lived in Berlin during the same time.
LizzieMaine
Bartender
- Messages
- 33,081
- Location
- Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
"Black Boy," by Richard Wright, an autobiographical look at the author's experiences growing up as an African-American child in a physically and emotionally abusive family in the segregated 1920s south. A best-seller in 1945, this is a book I first read in junior high, and have carried images from it in my mind ever since. The opening chapter contains two scenes that are genuinely horrific in their implications, and it doesn't get any easier as you go along. But nevertheless, it's a compelling, powerful book that pulls absolutely no punches.
- Messages
- 16,885
- Location
- New York City
^^^ I, too, read it in junior high (we called it Middle School, but must be the same thing) and, to this day, it has stayed with me. When you are that age, everything come through your own world view and I remember thinking, thank God my parents aren't like that. It seems silly now, but it set the bar low for what I expected at home.
AmateisGal
I'll Lock Up
- Messages
- 6,126
- Location
- Nebraska
Just finished Wolf By Wolf by Ryan Graudin. Really enjoyed it.
Here's the blurb:
The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule the world. To commemorate their Great Victory over Britain and Russia, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The victor is awarded an audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor’s Ball.
Yael, who escaped from a death camp, has one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year’s only female victor, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele’s twin brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael’s every move. But as Yael begins to get closer to the other competitors, can she bring herself to be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and complete her mission?
Here's the blurb:
The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule the world. To commemorate their Great Victory over Britain and Russia, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their conjoined continents. The victor is awarded an audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor’s Ball.
Yael, who escaped from a death camp, has one goal: Win the race and kill Hitler. A survivor of painful human experimentation, Yael has the power to skinshift and must complete her mission by impersonating last year’s only female victor, Adele Wolfe. This deception becomes more difficult when Felix, Adele’s twin brother, and Luka, her former love interest, enter the race and watch Yael’s every move. But as Yael begins to get closer to the other competitors, can she bring herself to be as ruthless as she needs to be to avoid discovery and complete her mission?
