What Are You Reading

[Peacoat]

Currently reading Eric Clapton's autobiography and re-reading Robert Palmer's Deep Blues.

 

[Fading Fast]

A Town Without Time: *** Talese's New York by *** Talese, published 2024


*** Talese is one of the lesser-known names from last century's "New Journalism" movement that, as a shorthand, combined traditional journalistic practices with the literary flair of fiction to create story-like narratives about real people, places, times, and events.

Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin are some of the best-known names from this movement who wrote about New York City. *** Talese swam in the same waters as a writer at The New York Times, Esquire, and other periodicals from the 1950s on.

A Town Without Time is an eclectic collection of his essays – ranging from short to very long – that focus on a variety of topics and people related in some way to New York City. If there is an overarching theme it's something about (waves hands) New York City is special.

It really is just a collection of essays that are thematically grouped under pretentious titles such as "The Restless ******s" or "The Land Grabbers," but you'll probably just skip around depending on whether you're in the mood for a "profile" piece or something more historic or quixotic.

In the first category, "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" is an enjoyable addition to the panoply of essays on Old Blue Eyes, but more because Sinatra led a fascinating/crazy life than anything particularly special in the essay. Writing about Frank Sinatra is a crowded field.

Sinatra can be difficult; Sinatra can be a control freak; Sinatra can be generous; Sinatra can be mean; Sinatra can drink; Sinatra's gyroscope tilts when he's near Ava Gardner; Sinatra wears a toupee; Sinatra gets along with his ex-wife – nothing new here, but still, it's reasonably well done.

An essay on the workers who built the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, like several in the collection, runs longer than necessary, but remains compelling as Talese immerses us in the world of the builders – their rituals, habits, and sense of pride.

There is an essay about New York City's street cats – an impressively adaptable species – and another on the crazy events that led to a brownstone on one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the city being blown up along with its owner – all related to a divorce settlement.

You'll have to decide if Talese is for you. He is not from the Hemingway school of word economy, so you'll often find him prolix. But when he's on, he captures the textures of life, people, and culture in a way that makes their era feel vivid and immediate.

If you've never read "New Journalism" about New York City before, Pete Hamill's Downtown: My Manhattan would be an excellent place to start. Hamill evokes the history, the energy, and the crazy uniqueness of the City and its people in an insightful, warm, economical, and inviting way.

You then could move on to Talese, as A Town Without Time – uneven as it is with its odd mix of essays – at times brings the city and its people to life in a memorable, revealing, and even moving way. It's poorly organized, but here and there, good storytelling.

 

[Tiki Tom]

If you want to get strange looks from people, tell them that you are reading Dracula.
(Dracula by Bram Stoker. Published 1897. 410 pages.)
It is definitely a classic. People say Gothic Classic, but it is no doubt just a Plain old classic. It must have caused Quite a stir when it was published in that distant age. No doubt it was a little bit scandalous.
This much we know: Dracula is a dark reflection of all the fears of the late Victorian age.
1. Fear of foreigner/immigrants. The action begins as Dracula is preparing to move to London from Transylvania. The strange foreigner theme is stated explicitly in some places.
2. Modernism vs the ancient. Dracula is from an ancient family and is hundreds of years old. He is up against (except for Van Helsing) a group of young westerners who are modern in outlook and education. One critic goes so far as to suggest that ancient, aristocratic, rich Dracula from a crumbling castle represents the Victorian fear of a return to feudalism. Needless to say, class and affluence also raise their heads.
3. But —by far— the #1 Victorian fear that Dracula represents is the fear of ***uality in general, and the fear of female ***uality in particular. Dracula, though very intelligent, is motivated and driven by his baser instincts. His victims are usually young beautiful women who, once infected, outdo their master in terms of wickedness. Dracula’s three hot and beautiful brides are particularly frightening in this regard. (Reading reviews of Dracula, I was shocked by the range of deviant behavior that is supposedly hinted at in the text.). Nothing is said explicitly, but blood ******* is definitely shorthand for ***. The men of this book are brave and pure; the women are weak and corruptible. I was a little skeptical about all this talk of ***ual allusions in Dracula, but by the end of the book I was a believer —it is indeed there.
Anyway. All in all it is a worthy classic that gives an insight into the sometimes twisted worldview of the Victorians. I’m hardly surprised by Dracula’s enduring ability to capture the imagination. Some of the hinted at topics are timeless.
The books main flaw, in my view, is its pacing. The first 50 pages are exciting, then come many pages of very slow movement. This pattern is repeated more than once.
Dracula was not 100% my cup of tea. Mainly because I don’t generally go in for fear and foreboding. On the other hand, if you want to understand the whole vampire fixation in society, this book is a must read.
Between Dracula and the thoughtful reviews that can be found online, there is a lot to think about.
As I said, if you want funny looks from people, tell them you are reading Dracula.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Gregg Hurwitz - Out of the dark was a VERY good read. Thrilling nonstop, no joke! And very comfortable to read.

Now starting the predecessor Hellbent. Can't wait to dive into.

 

[Trenchfriend]

I forgot something!

Gregg Hurwitz - Out of the dark is coherent.
It was my first book of the "Orphan X" series, but the backround story is given to you, so you could start with this "episode", if you like.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Gregg Hurwitz - Hellbent seems same good! Finished page 23 and it's already thrilling.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Already finished page 86 and THIS is a thriller as it should be!

 

[Fading Fast]

Strangers When We Meet by Evan Hunter, first published 1958


One of our ridiculous modern-day myths is that 1950s America only told itself nice things about itself in its movies and books. It's complete nonsense as, despite the Motion Picture Production Code forcing "nice" endings on many movies, film noir and crime drama thrived in the 1950s.

The salacious mid-century melodrama also thrived on screen, with the same caveat that the Code often swooped in to make a "nice" ending. Yet audiences understood they hadn't just sat through two hours of people behaving badly only to believe the slapped-on happy ending.

Books didn't have a Code – just editors' interpretation of societal norms and how far they could push them – so you get a much more realistic presentation of life in books, which definitely showed things weren't all Father Knows Best perfect in the 1950s.

Strangers When We Meet is a bleak view of mid-century suburban life. It makes it clear that elite East Coast publishers' hatred of middle-class America and its postwar suburbs dates back, at least, to the late 1950s, as seen here in author Evan Hunter's takedown of suburbia.

After World War II, Americans left the crowded and older cities in droves for the suburbs – a small plot of land, a cookie-cutter house, a large car, lawns to water, bus stops to drop kids at, train stations to commute from, and backyards to have neighbors over for libatious barbecues.

People want what they want, but that isn't good enough for the highly educated, artistic types who see the conformity and "artificialness" of suburbia and feel the need to look down on it. Hunter uses his almost four-hundred pages to say the suburbs are soul-******* places.

He really says that almost everyone there feels depressed/unfulfilled/empty, so they sleep with everyone else's spouse. In Hunter's fictitious "Pinecrest Manor" development, a successful architect, with a lovely wife and two healthy children, has an affair because he's "unhappy."

He has his affair with a new-to-the-neighborhood beautiful blonde who is bored with her nice factory foreman husband. As a sign of the times, this suburb is a decidedly democratic affair with butchers, factory foremen, architects, and lawyers all living side by side.

Hunter is a skilled writer, but his characters are mainly archetypes who say or think to themselves – you get a lot of their inner thoughts here – philosophical commentaries on their and their neighbors' lives. One assumes Hunter wrote this to express his own philosophy.

If so, it's a lot of pages trying to justify an unjustifiable affair. Mature adults know that life has tradeoffs and that even in a good marriage, there will be hard days and days where another man or woman looks attractive, but mature adults don't act on every impulse.

In this development, enough of them do to turn suburbia into a mess of affairs, lies, and deceits. But Hunter is an honest enough writer to show that there are some decent people who get hurt in all this. Yet, he then asks implicitly if that really matters. As noted, it's a bleak view.

There's also a touch of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead here, as Hunter's lead character, an architect, is unhappy with the compromises he has to make to "his vision" to accommodate his clients – good grief.

Become the next Frank Lloyd Wright and dictate to your clients or shut up and compromise like most people, even most successful professionals, do to earn a good living. After a while, you want to tell several of these characters to just grow up.

All of this is in service of Hunter trying too hard to be deep and to write "literature" (some descriptions in the book are a bit much). He's got something to say, but you can feel when he's pandering for his Pulitzer (which never came).

No one book, or movie, or documentary will reveal 1950s America to you, but read enough books, see enough movies and – and this really helps – read some of that era's newspapers and a picture will start to emerge of, no surprise, an as-complex time as any.

Strangers When We Meet is a page-turner as melodramas go, but it is depressing in its relentlessly negative view of middle-class America and the suburbs. It's no wonder the movie based on the book was toned down or the ******* rate in America might have gone up.

If you want to read about an affair – an affair that is nothing more than desire trumping two people's commitment to their spouses – in excruciating detail, while also reading about how terrible it is to live a middle-class life in 1950's suburbia, this is the book for you.

If Hunter wrote this book to try to expiate his own affair (that's a pure guess), then whatever; if he wrote it because he objectively sees marriage and middle-class life this way, then whatever, to each his own opinion.

You can decide if, as entertaining as Hunter's book is at times – soap operas and salacious behavior can be quite enjoyable at a distance – you want to read nearly four hundred pages of negativity dressed up as art.


My comments on the movie version of the book are here: #31,915

 

[fthompson]

Currently reading Rites of Spring: The Great War and The Birth of The Modern Age. I’m only a few chapters in, but it’s fascinating so far.

 

[Turnip]

Currently

 

[jchance]

Thomas Moore’s books on soul (in a secular sense) and bell hooks’ books on love (written from the perspective of a black woman). I usually read by authors and read everything they have ever written on a topic of interest.

 

[saber_dii]

Walking Together By Andy Fyon. Its an interesting perspective about working together with the indigenous populations in Canada.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Starting Martin Becker - Marschmusik (2017).

It's a coming-of-age story, placed in the Ruhrgebiet and around the whole Ruhrgebiet topic.

 

[Trenchfriend]

Martin Becker - Marschmusik (2017) is good.
In the beginning, it's unfamilar, because of the three narrative levels, but after a while you get used to it. The dive into the Ruhrgebiet topic is anyways worth it. With 284 pages, it's also not a super-long novel.

 

[Fading Fast]

On the Beach by Nevil Shute, first published in 1957


Author Nevil Shute is a storyteller. He writes intelligent page-turners that aren't "literature," but are keep-you-thinking, keep-you-entertained books. In On the Beach, Shute brings his talents for writing gripping narratives to a dark corner of mid-20th-century angst.

The 1950s through the 1960s were peak Cold War-fear years. Two global superpowers, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons that could blow up the world several times over, were engaged in a somewhat open and somewhat furtive battle for dominance and survival.

The public was often on edge thinking its life – all life – could end in a literal flash. The books, movies, and newspapers of the time reflect this fear, as tale after tale of some sort of nuclear Armageddon sold copies and tickets. Culture reflects – and can amplify – society's fears.

The right and wrong of these competing ideologies is not Shute's purpose; instead, he looks at the fallout of a massive nuclear war in the northern hemisphere that not only wipes out all human life north of the equator, but creates a cloud of radiation that will slowly wipe out the rest.

Set a few years in the future (from 1957), the war has now been over for about a year. The people still alive in Australia know, based on global weather patterns, their lives will be over in a matter of months when the radiation cloud reaches them as it is slowly progressing south.

Shute’s look at nuclear Armageddon is from that offbeat perspective: not the war itself, but its aftermath. The people of Melbourne know they will die in a matter of months; what to do while waiting is the focus. For intrigue, Shute also includes a hint that some human life might have survived in the north.

You'll either accept his entire premise or not, but the majority of Australians just go on with life as it was. Yes, some have wigged out and gone on benders or worse, but many have decided the best use of their remaining time is to live normally, often including going to work.

A US Navy sub captain who was on patrol near Australia when the war happened (it took all of about a month to nuke the entire northern hemisphere) is part of this group. Realizing the US Navy is gone, he puts his nuclear-powered ship under Australian naval command.

Others include a young Australian naval officer, his wife, and baby daughter; a loner scientist who joins the crew of the sub as a radiation expert; and a single young woman who seems to be trying hard to drink herself into oblivion.

Some feign – or maybe truly are in – complete denial; others accept what is coming but just want to live normally until it happens; and others do the things they always wanted to do, but couldn't because of long-term plans, responsibilities, or funds.

In one fun version of the latter, the loner, cynical, and conservative scientist buys a Ferrari because he always wanted to be a race car driver. On the other end is the older gentleman at the country club, trying all the club's expensive sherries – everyone has his dreams.

While these are not the most developed characters, even by Shute's standards, you will come to care about several of them as you root against the science for them to have some chance. One of those Hail Mary's relates to that hint of, maybe, life in the north.

The submarine goes to investigate that sign of life in the northern hemisphere – it's a random radio signal – which is an engaging sequence showing how a nuclear sub operates and how, ironically, it can safely investigate an area contaminated by radiation.

After that, it's back to Melbourne and waiting for the radiation cloud. Nuclear Armageddon stories are inherently bleak, as that is their point: to, hopefully, warn mankind before it is too late.

Today you read On the Beach because it's a good story that is still relevant at a high level and because Shute is an outstanding storyteller. To be fair, however, unless this topic deeply appeals to you, there are better Shute books to start with.

The other reason to read On the Beach is to feel a connection to the 1950s/1960s – to absorb its zeitgeist, which – contrary to the wildly inaccurate meme that it was a “happy time” – was, like almost all times, full of worry, angst, and fear.


N.B. Shute's novel was turned into a 1959 movie with an impressive cast including Gregory Peck, Ava Gardener, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Nice write up, thanks. Reminds me of the TV movie “The Day After” that was aired in 1983. Scared the **** out of everyone, myself included. Lest we forget: Russia still has 5,400 nuclear warheads today and the USA only slightly less. Sigh.

 

[Mister Cairo]

Re-reading Austen's Persuasion, third time I think!

 

[cl206]

In the middle of Bram Stoker's dracula. At the pt when Van Helsing tells John Seward it is Lucy! Yes I have seen the movie starring Gary Oldman many years ago. Great movie! I also read Lee Child's Jack Reacher and want to finish the entire series!

 

[Biff42]

View attachment 734298
On the Beach by Nevil Shute, first published in 1957


Author Nevil Shute is a storyteller. He writes intelligent page-turners that aren't "literature," but are keep-you-thinking, keep-you-entertained books. In On the Beach, Shute brings his talents for writing gripping narratives to a dark corner of mid-20th-century angst.

The 1950s through the 1960s were peak Cold War-fear years. Two global superpowers, armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons that could blow up the world several times over, were engaged in a somewhat open and somewhat furtive battle for dominance and survival.

The public was often on edge thinking its life – all life – could end in a literal flash. The books, movies, and newspapers of the time reflect this fear, as tale after tale of some sort of nuclear Armageddon sold copies and tickets. Culture reflects – and can amplify – society's fears.

The right and wrong of these competing ideologies is not Shute's purpose; instead, he looks at the fallout of a massive nuclear war in the northern hemisphere that not only wipes out all human life north of the equator, but creates a cloud of radiation that will slowly wipe out the rest.

Set a few years in the future (from 1957), the war has now been over for about a year. The people still alive in Australia know, based on global weather patterns, their lives will be over in a matter of months when the radiation cloud reaches them as it is slowly progressing south.

Shute’s look at nuclear Armageddon is from that offbeat perspective: not the war itself, but its aftermath. The people of Melbourne know they will die in a matter of months; what to do while waiting is the focus. For intrigue, Shute also includes a hint that some human life might have survived in the north.

You'll either accept his entire premise or not, but the majority of Australians just go on with life as it was. Yes, some have wigged out and gone on benders or worse, but many have decided the best use of their remaining time is to live normally, often including going to work.

A US Navy sub captain who was on patrol near Australia when the war happened (it took all of about a month to nuke the entire northern hemisphere) is part of this group. Realizing the US Navy is gone, he puts his nuclear-powered ship under Australian naval command.

Others include a young Australian naval officer, his wife, and baby daughter; a loner scientist who joins the crew of the sub as a radiation expert; and a single young woman who seems to be trying hard to drink herself into oblivion.

Some feign – or maybe truly are in – complete denial; others accept what is coming but just want to live normally until it happens; and others do the things they always wanted to do, but couldn't because of long-term plans, responsibilities, or funds.

In one fun version of the latter, the loner, cynical, and conservative scientist buys a Ferrari because he always wanted to be a race car driver. On the other end is the older gentleman at the country club, trying all the club's expensive sherries – everyone has his dreams.

While these are not the most developed characters, even by Shute's standards, you will come to care about several of them as you root against the science for them to have some chance. One of those Hail Mary's relates to that hint of, maybe, life in the north.

The submarine goes to investigate that sign of life in the northern hemisphere – it's a random radio signal – which is an engaging sequence showing how a nuclear sub operates and how, ironically, it can safely investigate an area contaminated by radiation.

After that, it's back to Melbourne and waiting for the radiation cloud. Nuclear Armageddon stories are inherently bleak, as that is their point: to, hopefully, warn mankind before it is too late.

Today you read On the Beach because it's a good story that is still relevant at a high level and because Shute is an outstanding storyteller. To be fair, however, unless this topic deeply appeals to you, there are better Shute books to start with.

The other reason to read On the Beach is to feel a connection to the 1950s/1960s – to absorb its zeitgeist, which – contrary to the wildly inaccurate meme that it was a “happy time” – was, like almost all times, full of worry, angst, and fear.


N.B. Shute's novel was turned into a 1959 movie with an impressive cast including Gregory Peck, Ava Gardener, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins.

I read this one two or so years ago and enjoyed it. The pacing was pretty slow, but I enjoyed it.

@Fading Fast if you haven't watched it, Threads is a movie about nuclear annihilation, and is one of the scariest movies I've ever watched.

 

[Biff42]

I just finished a book titled Die with Zero which is a book that explains why and how to balance wealth, health, and time to maximize experiences in life, which pay far more life dividends than material accumulation.