What's Everyone Reading?
- Thread starter Said1
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Actually, my LEAST favourite Hemingway....I really don't get it. Especially when held up against For Whom the Bell Tolls or A Farewell to Arms
And when it comes to modern American writers I prefer Steinbeck.......East of Eden is a masterpiece.
BTW, I am very much enjoying Benjamin Franklin
I think it was very popular in its time because it may have led to the term "the lost generation". Young women cut their hair short, openly smoked, and adopted the flapper lifestyle because of its great influence. While the book has interesting characters, its plot is weak. Bull fighting was popular at the time because of a Rudolph Valentino movie ("Blood & Sand" I believe was the title) which made Sid Franklin (the Bull Fighter From Brooklyn) very famous. The war, like others of Hemingway's works, had an anti war theme which made it popular again in the days of the unpopular war in Vietnam. But overall, it has not been the most interesting reading I've done.
To Colpy,
I should have added, I'm glad you are enjoying that bio of Ben Franklin as it is a very good read.
One last thought on The Sun Also Rises ~ there's an anti-American tone throughout the book. One of discomfort with American idealism and materialism. The thought that European cultures and ways are better or of a higher quality than that in the USA. That Americans are weak, emo, insecure, live lives of sexual discord or deviation, and are too prone to violence. I remember people discussing the book in those terms back in the 1960s and how supposedly it is an accurate portrayal of American weakness. Why I did not read it back then is a matter I cannot recall. But am glad to have finished it now. Many critics say it was Hemingway's best book. Sorry to say, it is a consensus I cannot agree with.
I should have added, I'm glad you are enjoying that bio of Ben Franklin as it is a very good read.
One last thought on The Sun Also Rises ~ there's an anti-American tone throughout the book. One of discomfort with American idealism and materialism. The thought that European cultures and ways are better or of a higher quality than that in the USA. That Americans are weak, emo, insecure, live lives of sexual discord or deviation, and are too prone to violence. I remember people discussing the book in those terms back in the 1960s and how supposedly it is an accurate portrayal of American weakness. Why I did not read it back then is a matter I cannot recall. But am glad to have finished it now. Many critics say it was Hemingway's best book. Sorry to say, it is a consensus I cannot agree with.
Cycle Of The Werewolf by Stephen King. I got it for Christmas. I've read it a long time ago, but I really enjoyed the book so I am reading it again. The movie 'Silver Bullet' is loosely based on it.
Am now reading Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.
I enjoyed the movie many moons ago especially the role played by Lon Chaney, Jr who was one of my all time fave actors:
I enjoyed the movie many moons ago especially the role played by Lon Chaney, Jr who was one of my all time fave actors:
The Saracen Blade by Frank Yerby
Some critics believe Yerby may well have been the USA's greatest writer during the 20th century. He was a brilliant scholar but went to Spain because of a self imposed exile and spent the rest of his life there.
Some critics believe Yerby may well have been the USA's greatest writer during the 20th century. He was a brilliant scholar but went to Spain because of a self imposed exile and spent the rest of his life there.
I've just started reading "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" an amusing but incredibly touching debut novel by Rachel Joyce, in which an elderly man, just starting his retirement, decides to WALK the 467 miles (as the crow flies, longer by the roads) from his home in Kingsbridge, Devon to Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland; from one end of England on the Channel coast, to the other end of England right up near the border with Scotland; and without a map, compass, walking shoes, and change of clothes. He does so to save the life of an old friend....
When Harold Fry, a timid man in his later years, discovers that a former friend and colleague is dying of cancer, he sets out with the intention of posting her a letter wishing her to get well, but instead he decides that a letter isn't enough and so he embarks on a 600-mile walk from Devon to her hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed. He believes that in some way his journey will help his friend to live. Without maps or waterproofs and only yachting shoes on his feet, he walks and walks, while his wife Maureen waits at home.
When Harold Fry, a timid man in his later years, discovers that a former friend and colleague is dying of cancer, he sets out with the intention of posting her a letter wishing her to get well, but instead he decides that a letter isn't enough and so he embarks on a 600-mile walk from Devon to her hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed. He believes that in some way his journey will help his friend to live. Without maps or waterproofs and only yachting shoes on his feet, he walks and walks, while his wife Maureen waits at home.
"Shattered" by Kathryn Casey.
Good Author, I read most of Frank's books about 40 years ago!
The Saracen Blade by Frank Yerby
Some critics believe Yerby may well have been the USA's greatest writer during the 20th century. He was a brilliant scholar but went to Spain because of a self imposed exile and spent the rest of his life there.
Good Author, I read most of Frank's books about 40 years ago!
"Reading" via audio book two Westerns by Lauran Paine (thought to be the USA's most prolific writer):
Sheriff of Hangtown & Outlaw's Hide-Out
Sheriff of Hangtown & Outlaw's Hide-Out
Transgressions [Vol. 2] (2005) edited by Ed McBain -- three novellas by Stephen King, Walter Mosley and Lawrence Block.
"Our Gang: Starring Tricky and His Friends" (Roth)
"Our Gang (Starring Tricky and His Friends)" by Philip Roth (1971)...
"Our Gang (Starring Tricky and His Friends)" by Philip Roth (1971)...
