What Are You Reading

Just finished a neat little psychological mystery/thriller, The Hand that Feeds You, by two authors writing as "A.J. Rich." The lead character is writing her thesis on victimology, and then is victimized herself by a mysterious lover who, it turns out after he is killed (apparently by her dogs, in her apartment), had several fiancees, had been married before, and was dating her under an assumed name. This sounds like stuff we've seen plenty of times on TV and read often enough in novels. But Rich has some neat tricks up her/their double sleeve, including a villain whom we actually like before the final revelation, and a climactic scene that is actually very tense and suspenseful.

It's even more surprising in that the capsule info about the authors indicates that they were primarily "literary" authors before -- no links to the crime/suspense field. Yet Hand is never slow, never self-consciously literary, and the psychological elements serve both to illuminate character and to move the story forward.

A friend asked today on facebook that we add "with an ax" to the title of the last book we were reading. My was Heart of Darkness With an Ax. There were some other humorous entries, and so I thought it worth a share here on the Lounge.

Finished "The Nightingale" by Kristin Hannah - a solid WWII historical fiction centered around two marginally estranged French sisters who take on very different roles in the French Resistance. The book weaves a lot of family dynamics and day-to-day relationship nuances between the Germans and French living together into the story - and does it very well - to the point that the book is at least half about those interactions and half resistance "stuff." While some of it was predictable, most of the time it was engaging and a few powerful scenes toward the end made it more than worthwhile.

I also finished "So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures" by Maureen Corrigan. Basically, it's an English Professor's love note to "The Great Gatsby." Corrigan is a huge fan, has read and taught the book many, many times over many, many years and uses her book to highlight "Gatsby's" historical value in American literature. She weaves visits to Fitzgerald archives, cultural touchpoint and even her own high school that still teaches "The Great Gatsby," to discuss the structure of the novel, its elegance, its craftsmanship and its enduring relevance. She ties the novel back to Fitzgerald's personal life to show how it impacted the book's message, symbolism, and style. All in all, a fun romp if, like me, you are a fan of the book and have read it a few times - if so, I think you'd enjoy it; if not, my advice would be to pass.

Fading Fast said:

I also finished "So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures" by Maureen Corrigan. Basically, it's an English Professor's love note to "The Great Gatsby." Corrigan is a huge fan, has read and taught the book many, many times over many, many years and uses her book to highlight "Gatsby's" historical value in American literature...

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On my list, thanks for the synopsis.

The globalist legal agenda, The New Criterion; Vol 34, No. 6/February 2016

Certain areas of modern jurisprudence never cease to amaze....

Fading Fast said:

Finished "The Nightingale" by Kristin Hannah - a solid WWII historical fiction centered around two marginally estranged French sisters who take on very different roles in the French Resistance. The book weaves a lot of family dynamics and day-to-day relationship nuances between the Germans and French living together into the story - and does it very well - to the point that the book is at least half about those interactions and half resistance "stuff." While some of it was predictable, most of the time it was engaging and a few powerful scenes toward the end made it more than worthwhile.

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Good review. While I think it could have been stronger, I did enjoy it quite a bit. And yes, the scenes at the end were gripping.

I highly recommend a nonfiction book called Priscilla: The Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France. It puts a different spin on the relationship between the Germans and the French, and shows how things were rarely black and white.

I reviewed it here: http://bestofww2.blogspot.com/2014/01/priscilla-hidden-life-of-englishwoman.html

AmateisGal said:

Good review. While I think it could have been stronger, I did enjoy it quite a bit. And yes, the scenes at the end were gripping.

I highly recommend a nonfiction book called Priscilla: The Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France. It puts a different spin on the relationship between the Germans and the French, and shows how things were rarely black and white.

I reviewed it here: http://bestofww2.blogspot.com/2014/01/priscilla-hidden-life-of-englishwoman.html

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I read "Priscilla..." when it came out and just read your outstanding review. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and agree that it is always easy to condemn any collaboration and say "I wouldn't have," but (1) she wasn't selling Allied intelligence to the Germans and (2) walk a mile in her shoes before judging. Also, it continues to amaze me that fresh stories like Priscilla's come out seventy years after the war. It reminds you in an indirect way how globally encompassing and how woven into the civilian fabric of Europe the war was and how much was covered up afterwards.

"The Lindbergh Case" by Sidney B. Whipple. Published in 1935, after Richard Hauptmann's conviction but before his execution, this was the first full-length review of the kidnapping and murder of Charles A. Lindbergh Jr.. Whipple was a correspondent for the United Press, and covered every stage of the crime, investigation, and trial, and offers what's still a solid overview of the story from the prosecution's point of view. There were many exploitation books and articles about the case published around this same time, all of which have their advocates and detractors, but Whipple's work is still the definitive contemporary account. When George Waller wrote "Kidnap" in 1961, the first of the "new wave" of Lindbergh case studies, he drew heavily from Whipple's work.

^^^ Just started "Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles's War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News" (I think you recommend it to me) and, so far, it is setting the context of the media culture around the Welles' broadcast and it cites the Lindbergh kidnapping as the first event where radio's immediacy began to trump newspapers for where the public went to follow events in real time.

If you look in the footnotes for that one, you might see someone you know quoted as a source.

Just started the only remaining Chandler novel that I haven't read: Playback.

LizzieMaine said:

If you look in the footnotes for that one, you might see someone you know quoted as a source.

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Did a quick look - many, many footnotes, very small print - and didn't see, what I assume is, your name, but will look again when I can devote the necessary time.

I'm his source for his discussion of the Nelson Eddy Tune-out myth.

LizzieMaine said:

I'm his source for his discussion of the Nelson Eddy Tune-out myth.

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Thanks for the guidance, it would have taken me a long time to find otherwise (this is one seriously footnoted book). Great to see your name there - kudos.

Recently bought a "lot" of old mystery books by Leslie Charteris ("The Saint" books), Geoffrey Household and Manning Coles. I have ready many "Saint" books, but have only heard of the other two authors. Since the "collection" of twenty books was very reasonably priced, I took a shot and bought them all. I just started the Manning Coles book "Night Train to Paris."

Does anyone have any familiarity with Household or Coles books, in general, or "Night Train to Paris," specifically? Twenty pages in and it seems good not great, but I know that is not enough to fairly judge it.

Relaxing after a pleasant day off -- in which I only had to work seven and a half hours at the theatre -- and looking over the February 1941 issue of my favorite Golden Era magazine, "Consumers Union Reports."

This issue is of particular interest, as it contains CU's Buyer's Guide to the New 1941 Cars. This is a topic of much interest to me since I own a 1941 car. I do not, alas, own the CU rated "Best Buy" in its price class. That distinction belongs to the Studebaker Champion Custom 3G and the Willys Americar 441, rated tops of all cars in the low-priced field for their construction quality, their operating economy, and their reliablity.

My own car isn't exactly on the chart -- it's a Canadian Dodge D-20, but in most respects it's the same car as the US-built Plymouth P-11, and that model ranks at the top of the "Also Acceptable" class. CU was very fond of prewar Chrysler products, consistently rating them ahead of their Ford and GM competitors, and it specifically cites the 1941 Plymouth P-11 for its excellent fuel economy and well-balanced design. It is reported to "ride well," which I can second, and notes that it's very easy on oil consumption, which I can also second -- after having my engine rebuilt at 91,000 miles, I can attest that I consume exactly no oil between regular changes.

The rest of the rankings among low-priced models goes Chevrolet, Ford, Hudson, and Nash. Hudson has the best buy in the mid-price field, however, with the Dodge D-19 rating at the bottom of the list due to its use of an axle ratio which forfeits operating economy for the sake of power.

The high mid-price field is headed by the DeSoto, the low high-price field by the Packard 6 and the Buick Special, the mid-high price field by the Buick 8, the high-mid-price field by the Packard 8, and the high-price field by the Cadillac and the Packard Super 8.

Other articles in this issue measure vitamin C content in canned fruit juices -- forget nationally advertised brands, the better values for vitamin conten are from small, regional packers. But if you really care about vitamin content, forget about canned juice and extract your own.

Coming in for the rough side of CU's tongue is "Smith Bros. Cough Syrup," which claims that Vitamin A will reduce your susceptibility to colds. CU's medical advisor, Dr. Harold Aaron, considers this to be the bunk, and advises you to save your money and go to bed.

The editorial section is also interesting, exploring an ongoing campaign by the National Association of Manufacturers to censor college and high-school textbooks for any kind of thinking that might be contrary to their own particular vision of the "American Way." Such bastions of Americanism as the Hearst papers, the Daughters of the American Revolution, the American Legion, and the Daughters of Colonial Wars are on board for this campaign. Apparently beating up people who declined to salute the flag for whatever reason wasn't taking up all their time over the winter season.

Finished C. S. Lewis "Space Trilogy" last night. A good if somewhat lengthy good vs evil Sci-Fi adventure.

Andrew Wilson, Beautiful Shadow: A Life of Patricia Highsmith

Having finished re-reading the Pickwick Papers, I've started an anthology of gothic fiction, beginning with Dr. John Polidori's "The Vampyre", the second most well known product of the evening's challenge by Byron to his friends and confidantes to write something in keeping with the dark and stormy night in 1816 on the shore of Lake Geneva.

The other being something about a guy named Frankenstein and his hobby...

Mickey Spillane's Vengeance is Mine

Touchofevil said:

Mickey Spillane's Vengeance is Mine

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Thoughts, impressions, how it ranks versus other Spillane books?