What are you reading?

Films, TV shows, and books of the 'modern' era
benwhowell
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Turn the page...

Post by benwhowell »

Thanks, Sandy (via Lynn) and feaito, for the suggestions. I love James Kirkwood and Myrna Loy.
Great avatar, feaito! Fabulous photo of Myrna.
I just started a novel-"The Secret Life Of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd. I love Southern Gothic.
Anxious to read "Heyday" by Kurt Anderson. Anyone read it?
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Shonna
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Books

Post by Shonna »

HI ARKADIN!!!!
Yes, I did decide to cut back on the other board. Because of obvious reasons, my heart just wasn't in it anymore.
Good to see you and would you please tell me more about your book and who the author is?
Mr. Arkadin
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Post by Mr. Arkadin »

Hi Shonna.

The book is by Amy Lawrence and deals with women in film. It takes detailed looks at films like Rain (1932), Sunset Blvd. (1950), Mildred Pierce (1946) and other films and explores them from a woman's perspective.
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Lzcutter
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Post by Lzcutter »

I'm finishing up "Nitrate Won't Wait: A History of American Film Preservation", then I'm going to go for something lighter and read Joe Wambaugh's new book Hollywood Station.

I have been a Wambaugh fan since reading his first book almost forty years ago.

Then I'll probably get a tad nostalgic and reread one of Halberstam's books as a way to say goodbye. I'll imagine him reading out loud the interesting ones.

Then, I'll probably go for Laurel Canyon which is a history of the rock and roll scene here in Los Angeles in the early 1970s.

That should keep me busy for a day or three.
Lynn in Lake Balboa

"Film is history. With every foot of film lost, we lose a link to our culture, to the world around us, to each other and to ourselves."

"For me, John Wayne has only become more impressive over time." Marty Scorsese

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feaito

Re: Turn the page...

Post by feaito »

benwhowell wrote:Thanks, Sandy (via Lynn) and feaito, for the suggestions. I love James Kirkwood and Myrna Loy.
Great avatar, feaito! Fabulous photo of Myrna.
I just started a novel-"The Secret Life Of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd. I love Southern Gothic.
Anxious to read "Heyday" by Kurt Anderson. Anyone read it?
Thanks Ben!! And I'm getting to love even more this fabulous woman as I turn the pages of this great book. She was really a fantastic & authentic human being. A true original.
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MissGoddess
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Post by MissGoddess »

It takes me forever to finish a book these days, and I used to go through one a day. Right now I'm still in the midst of Ronald Colman: A Very Private Person, by his daughter Juliet Benita Colman. I recently finished Errol Flynn's memoirs as well as Brian Aherne's accounts of his friend George Sanders in A Dreadful Man. All these guys just seemed to either cross paths (or wives) or were otherwise uniquely outside the Hollywood "game," though I didn't really plan on reading about them in sequence.

After I'm done I'll jump on The Films of Gary Cooper. :)

Miss G
jdb1

Post by jdb1 »

Hey, everyone. I'm almost finished with Ruth Rendell's 13 Steps Down. It's terrific.

The protagonist is obsessed with Reginald Christie, the necrophiliac serial killer. Christie was the subject of Richard Attenborough's "10 Rillington Place."

I don't like "icky" books, and this one is nothing like that, even though the protagonist is pretty icky himself, and has committed murder. Great character studies, good suspense. Highly recommended.
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sandykaypax
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Post by sandykaypax »

Hey, Ben, how are you enjoying The Secret Life of Bees? I read it recently myself. I wouldn't call it Southern Gothic, though. More like a coming of age--Kennedy era theme.

I finished Five for Hollywood--not bad--a bit of a rehash of stuff that I already knew, but I liked the way that the author showed the connections between Elizabeth Taylor, Monty Clift, James Dean, Rock Hudson, and Natalie Wood.

Now I'm reading Rat Pack Confidential. Ring a ding ding! :lol:

Sandy K
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Rusty
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Post by Rusty »

Hello,

I recently finished reading the book "The Hopkins Manuscript" by R.C. Sherriff. The book was recommended by Bronxgirl over on the TCM forum.

"The Hopkins Manuscript" is a pretty good book. The style of writing reminds me of something by James Hilton. "Random Harvest"...James Hilton. "Lost Horizon"...James Hilton.

Okay. So, R.C. Sherriff and James Hilton...both British. So, James Hilton wrote many of his books during the 1930s and 1940s and "The Hopkins Manuscript" was published 1939. So, the book I finished before picking up "The Hopkins Manuscript" was "Random Harvest". Still, the two authors write using a similar style.

Anyway. "The Hopkins Manuscript" is interesting because the bad times really begin after the Moon hits the Earth. The last couple of chapters of the book (post Moon hit on Earth) are interesting. Here is somebody (R.C Sherriff), who lived through the "war to end all wars" and knows another "great war" is just around the corner. The last couple of chapters provide a good insight to the thoughts of a smart and aware person facing another horror like World War I. I think it is fortunate Mr. Sherriff did not know just how bad things would get the next few years.

"The Hopkins Manuscript"...good science fiction book. Now if I can just find that book I bought a couple of years ago, "The Children's Corner" by Jackson McCrae, I will start reading some short stories. How do things like that book disappear from my house...when I know the thing never left my house?

Rusty
benwhowell
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Post by benwhowell »

Hi, Sandy
I started reading it last saturday because I had some spare time, but, as usual-when I finally sit down and get too relaxed, I got very sleepy...
I only made it through chapter one and had to take a nap. (Haven't had the time to get back to it since...no plans this weekend so I should be able to make a bigger dent-if I can stay awake!
I LOVED chapter one with so much happening. It seemed a little Southern Gothic to me with the way her mother "dies" and her curious obsession with bees. Similar to Carson McCullers...
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sandykaypax
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Post by sandykaypax »

Ben, I see the connection to Carson McCullers in a way, but I guess that I was thinking of Southern Gothic as more like Faulkner. But after reading The Secret Life of Bees, I really had an urge to go out and buy some Burt's Bees products! :D

I finished Rat Pack Confidential. It was very well written and researched. I felt sorry for Peter Lawford--he had his problems, to be sure, but he was treated abominably by Sinatra after JFK decided not to stay at Sinatra's Palm Springs house.

Right now I'm reading Le Divorce by Diane Johnson. Some friends of mine are going to Paris this summer and it put me in the mood for something about Americans in Paris. I really like it--better than the film version with Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson.

Sandy K
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Rusty
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Post by Rusty »

Hello,

Well, it took me a week to find that book I bought two years ago...The Children's Corner by Jackson Tippet McCrae. A collection of short stories. I bought the book because I read a one sentence review of one of the stories. The story reviewed piqued my interest and I bought the book. I don't know how The Children's Corner is categorized, but it should be listed as a mystery. Why? Because, after reading two of the short stories...it is a mystery how The Children's Corner ever got published (and I bought the damn thing in the hardcover edition!). I mean, I could write more interesting stories than McCrae and I have not written a story since some creative writing class a long, long time ago.

So, I put that McCrae book back in the box and pulled out a different book from the box...The House On The Strand by Daphne Du Maurier. I've read the first twenty pages and...ahh, writing worth reading.

By the way...the books were stored in a box on a shelf at eye level. On top of the box was a glass light cover and it took me a week to remove the heavy glass thing and notice the box was labeled, "paperback books hardcover books".

Rusty
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CharlieT
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Post by CharlieT »

Currently I am reading the tenth book in Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" series. I bought a book at a discount table at the local drugstore and my daughter pointed out that it was book #9 in a series. Not wanting to start at the end of the series, I put it back for future perusal. Well, my daughter bought Book #1 for me for Christmas year before last and I began reading the series from the beginning. He has one more book in the series after this one and a prequel that I have to finish to catch up to the author. My daughter thinks that the series will finish at Book #13, since that number runs as a theme throughout the entire series (much like the number 40 seems to run through the Bible).

"The Wheel in Time" has been compared to Tolkein's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy and I can see why, but it is an easier read and falls short of being the equal of the Tolkein classic.

Prior to this series, I read "Lisey's Story" by Stephan King. Yes, I'm one of those people. I also enjoy Tom Clancy, Dan Brown and Michael Crichton. Occasionally, when I have enough time, I read Dickens. He's hard to read, but his stories are marvelous.
"I'm at my most serious when I'm joking." - Dudley

Don't sweat the petty things - don't pet the sweaty things.
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ken123
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Post by ken123 »

" Colluson" by Giuseppe D'Avanzo & Carlo Bonini deals with the "yellowcake forgeries " and the lead up to the Iraq War.

" Brothers :The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years " by David Talbot. I especially find interesting the author stinging indictment of the American Press in regard its lack of hard work to uncover the truth in the brothers murder and its rollover in buying the Warren Commission whitewash, he is equally critical of the press's non coverage of the lead up to the Iraq War .

"Bobby and J. Edgar " detailing the strained relationship of these two powerful personalities. I didn't know that Senator Barry Goldwater ( R - Arizona ) hated RFK so much until I read this book. :cry:
klondike

Post by klondike »

Ruark & Morgan Llywelyn saw me through sugaring season; last week, I finished Hearn's "Across The Nightingale Floor", a novel of destiny, revenge and irony in feudal Japan.
This week I started "Lavondyss", the sequel to Robert Holdstock's glowing pearl: "Mythago Wood".
Another month, and James Lee Burke's annual Robicheaux mystery should be out.
I'm saving King's seventh (& final) Dark Tower novel for late June; Summer's the best time for the adventures of Roland, the Last Gunslinger since the World Moved On, and after this one, there's no more.

P.S: BenH;
The missus read "Secret Life of Bees" and says it really rocked; says Kidd's "Mermaid Chair" is almost as good!

Klondike
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