Marian's comments (member since Feb 26, 2008)

Marian's comments from the Constant Reader group.

Hi - I try to read 1 non-fiction book for every fiction. Here are some I didn't see on your shelves that I thought were better than average,
Guns, Germs, & Steel by Jared Diamond. A new clasic, answers a lot of questions.
Long Shadows - Truth, lies & history by Erna Paris
How the world got to be the way it is
The Geography of Nowhere by Howard Kunstler An
interesting description of the American landscape
Son of the Morning Star, Custer & the Little Big Horn by Evan S. Connell This is said to be the best book about Gen. George a. custer.
Nickel & Dimed - on (not) getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich A true, hands-on- look at America's working poor
The closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom a true look at the state of literacy in US today
The Longest Day, the story of D- Day & Dark December, the story of the Battle of the Bulge are 2 of the best WW2 books.
Death of a President by william Manchester is the best written book about the Kennedy assasination. (no theories, just facts)
April 1865 How the Civil War came to a more or less "peaceful" end by Jay Winke
That Dark & Bloody River, the settling of the Ohio River valley by Alen Eckhart. Good writing on a violent history of US settlement.

Richard Russo won a Pulitzer prize for his novel "Empire Falls". That alone would qualify him as a "literary Writer" but all his books are good.

I read "City of Refuge" & agree it's a terrific read. So was "Hell and High water."A non- fiction account. I still get the feeling that there is a lot that is just not being said about the Katrina disaster because everyone messed up so badly. A friend who is a teacher in Cleveland told me the families who took refuge there are planning on staying there & not going back as everything they knew is gone.

You have some good writers listed there. Going with contemporaty writers, I would add Charles Baxter, Anne Proulx, Ian McEwan,Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, Jon Hassler, Russell Banks, Rich Moody, Jonathan Franzen and a whole lot more.

As long as people know how to read & write, there will be stories. Mothers will read bed-time stories to their children. The ever-popular love story will continue to be ever-popular. Those who seek action & adventure will find books that liven up their boring lives. Those who love a mystery will search for, and find, mystery books. Gossip is part of the human psyche. We try to remember, but as soon as there is an opportunity, someone will write it down. The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Canterbury tales, Peyton Place &the novels of Danielle Steele -- their themes will be told & retold long after Mr.Roth & his novels are forgotten.

It might have been that Mark Twain just got fed up with all the female conversation praising the novela of Jane Austen. She was even more popular in Twain's day because there were far fewer woman writers published. Or they wrote under men's names (George Sand) Mmost men prefer action & adventure to descriptions of drawing rooms or the latest fashion. Mark Twain wasn't nasty about Jane Austen, it was a bit of a sport.
James F. Cooper is a different matter. I have tried to read a couple of his books & didn't get very far. The biggest complaint is that he did not portray the Native Americans the way they really were. He belonged to the "Noble Savage" - his Native heroes were too noble to be real. The movie versions of his books are better.

My mother belonged to a book club. They worshipped Pearl Buck. "Gone with the wind" is still around & still popular. "Lonesome Dove" will stick around for a while, budt I remember Bud Guthrie's westerns that were Big time in the 1950's & almost forgotten now.
O.K., in 1940, Robert Penn Warren was head for immortality. All the King's Men just came out in a new edition, so he might be remembered. How about Ohio Native Louis Bromfield? "The Rains Came" made it big & quite a few others were made into movies. Kenneth Roberts "Northwest Passage." "Drums Along the Mohawk." Walter D. Edmonds. "To Have & to Hold, Mary Johnston. All novels about the early settlement. pre-revolutionary era. All popular as WW2 spread ever closer. Ben Aames Williams, a lot of movies from his works. "Leave her to Heaven." He wanted to be remembered for "House divided," a Civil War epic. He wasn't.
What else was on Mom's bedside table? Faith Baldwin? - Fanny Hurst? Nevermind. Historical. Mary, Queen of Scots. Contemporary - Mrs. Miniver.
There will always be an England. All English authors were popular.
Ross Lockridge wrote a best-seller "Raintree county" It was hailed as a master-piece. Mr. Lockridge re-read it, saw that it could have been done better, killed himself. Good movie with elizabeth Taylor.
The boys came home from WW2. "From Here to Eternity" and beyond. what's remembered? Herman Wouk. James Jones? Norman Mailer?

I can't think of any author whose every book is a success. Updike was great with his short stories, his early novels, the "Rabbit" books are masterpieces, but his later novels - "neh".
Russo - yes to Empire Falls, Bridge of Sighs. Maybe I'll finish Straight Man. The Cape book sounds interesting, I'll see what the reaction here is.
There are so many good authors, so many books, so little time...
To our reader of "only classics" there are modern classics, too. Have you tried any Pulitzer's lately, or British & Canadian winners? How about Margaret Atwood? Isabel Allende, Good Heavens, there is so much great reading out there. (Good Indiana writers, too to the poster above , Dan Wakefield, Hayden Kimmel, "The Hoosier Schoolmaster"...

Congrats, Ruth. This should make it easier to have a book published

#56 Erin
The "pd problem" is parkinson's disease. I don't get around like I used to. Probably should have spelled it out, that's not a common abbreviation.

Marian

When authors I like speak or appear at local events, like a local Jr. college, I try to meet them briefly at the after-speaking hand-shaking & tell them that I've enjoyed their work. I can't do this any more because of the pd problems, but I've contacted Maeve Binchy & several other authors when they were here on Goodreads in a Q & A session.

The OP signed "...in Mexico." That's interesting. I heard a story about how much G.Greene hated Mexico. He went there at the suggestion of his editors that the Cristero Rebellion in Jalisco might make a good story. So he wrote the book, but also wrote a lot of letters complaining about the country. He made a lot of money from that adventure, but kind of soured me on Mr. Greene. So he also stereotyped readers, eh? In a way, I agree. I don't think a lot of us readers are the daring, adventerous type Mr. G. seems to admire. Usually we are too busy reading.

An honest biography & an interesting book is "Home Before Dark" a biography of the writer John cheever by his daughter Susan Cheever. John cheever tended to drink too much. His daughter writes about that & other problems, but always shows respect.

I agree with Candy #21. There was a time when a lot of stuff came together & "On the Road" was one of them. You can't go back now & read it the same way people read it then. At that time, it was something new, now it's some thing that has been done unto boredom. The "Hippie" movement was exciting when it was new, but that was 50 years ago. Someone in their teens might read Kerouac for the first time & feel "Wow!!" but we older people have been exposed to so many Kerouac followers that the novelty has worn off. Now, Kerouac appears on school reading lists as an example of his times - which are not these times.

I read War & Peace 4 or 5 years ago (my husband was still alive & he could speak a little Polish & Russian) the translation was the Oxford Univ. Press, an English edition Aylmar & Louise Maude translated. The book is fascinating, it grabs you & I remember thinking about it as I went about doing other stuff. About having life experience before reading it --it doesn't really have to be your OWN life experience. You can appreciate a battle scene without ever having fired a gun (Stephen Crane's Red Badge of Courage) is an example. Most people understand the relationship of parent & child without necessarily haveg had a child themselves. We can read about royality & millionaires & beautiful people without ever leaving Podunk OH. But Tolstoy covers every relationship known to man (or woman) ==can any one person have lived through all of them? And all at once? That is part of Tolstoy's greatness. His ability to get down to the dirt level so the reader understands what's going on. A caveat - in War & Peace there is EVERYTHING going on. Yes, it is very easy to get the characters confused. Especially with Russian names because instead of a last name, they use the name of the father, like the scandanavians did. "Leif Erikson" "Nicholai Andreevich"
The best way to continue with the story is what Yoby said, "Just go for the story" The characters will fall into place as you go along. It is a great adventure story, a love story, something for everyone.

An old Erma Bombeck fan here. So often, when something controversial is on the news, I wonder what Erma would have to say about it.

We spent the 4th. welcoming a grand-daughter & her family who have moved from N. C. into our old house. Her husband, who spent 6 years in the Navy, lost his NC job when the place was shut down. They were homesick for Ohio & like the idea of their children growing up close to their relatives.

I read On the Road many years ago, & it was a struggle. I only kept on reading (skimming here & there) because some friends (male) were so impressed. The only part I remember liking was when they were in Mexico. The book must have suggested Mexico as a cool place to a lot of people, because when i was there in the late 1980's, people were still complaining about the "Hippies" which they did't like at all & didn't want them in their country.
A Mexican teacher I knew blamed Kerouac & On the road for the Hippie invasion.

Hi
We joke about "The Muse" a lot - "She's sulking today...on vacation...left me for another poet...ect." but sometimes when I'm writing it does seem like someone is just handing me the words & often when I read over what I've written I'll wonder"Where the heck did THAT come from?"

I have been making stuff up since I can remember. I began to write stories, then little poems. I've been off & on with it over the years, sometimes novels (2 finished, none published) short stories, some published. Every 20 years or so I will go on a poetry binge. I am on one now. I just finished the "Poem-a-Day" challenge for the month of April. I try to write or revise something every day. I have also learned to always have quick acess to a pencil & paper - all it takes is a few words, a phrase, & I will try to enlarge it. sometimes it grows into a poem, sometimes not.

Jusst received a copy of Donald Hall's "The Best Day, the Worst Day" which I had ordered. My stack of TBR books is overflowing, but I'll probably start this one next.