What are you reading?

Films, TV shows, and books of the 'modern' era
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CharlieT
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Location: Warren G. Harding's hometown

Re: What are you reading?

Post by CharlieT »

Charlie, how great to see you posting! I have heard many good things about In "The Fullness of Time" and wondered if it changed your perception of Warren G. Harding? Did it make you want to read more about him and his administration? Thanks for mentioning this book. I will look for it at the library.
Hi, Moira.

Having grown up in Marion (and still living here), I've found that Harding has always been part of my everyday life. Vince Nicolosi and I both graduated together at the high school named for the 29th president. Every day I find myself passing his home or his magnificent tomb. I guess that's what made the book so enjoyable for me. The places and names cited in the book were those I grew up with. My grandfather even worked for the real Hamilton family that figured so prominently in the book and even my own family name gets a brief mention. The tomb is featured on the book jacket, but the photo doesn't do justice to the actual view. It is the largest marble monument outside of Washington, DC.

Vince told me that the book is doing very well in England and India, which he found surprising. For a first time novelist, I think he did a marvelous job - no Harper Lee, mind you - and I hope he can continue writing.
"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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Lzcutter
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Lzcutter »

I am finally almost done with my lunch time reading, Silent Stars. I am a bit confused by Jeanine Basinger's rehashing of Clara Bow's story at the end in one of the final chapters, Flappers especially since she devotes an entire chapter earlier to Bow.

MrC got me a Kindle for Christmas. It will come in handy at the airports and on the planes! My first Kindle book is Furious Love[/b], the love story about Liz Taylor and Richard Burton.

I may break down and read it before my next plane trip. I've wanted to read it for months.

If not, my next lunch reading will be either Dancing in the Dark, the history about the 1930s or Mark Viera's book about Irving Thalberg or William Everson's book on the history of film.

One of these days I have to start reading Kevin Starr's wonderful multi-book history on California.

I'll keep you posted.
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: What are you reading?

Post by feaito »

I finished reading Danielle Trussoni's "Angelology" a couple of weeks ago and its among the best mystery-suspense-end of the days-thrillers I have read lately...in its kind, even better than Brown's Da Vinci Code...No wonder 2 Hollywood Studios fought hard to buy the rights to make a film of it.

Then I read Gerald Benedict's "The Maya-2012 The End of the World or the dawn of enlightenment?" a very optimistic, positive book that makes one think about one's priorities in life at this moment of time...

I finished today Anne Rice's "Angel Time", good! especially half-way through...
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Birdy
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Birdy »

b]Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell[/b]
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller


14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (This one's kind of not fair.) Really?

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger I thought this was the dumbest book ever.
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis


37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
[/b

]53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


I guess I'm well-read of the boring old classics. I thought the modern choices were kind of dumb. Some of them I haven't read because I know I wouldn't like them because they are too graphic. You can't really put modern literature on the same list as Victorian literature because in the latter you would be lucky to figure out what was happening...or if it happened at all...because it was all so cloaked. And I'll take that any day. This was an interesting list and I found a few titles that I will be looking for at work! B
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mrsl
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by mrsl »

.
Gee Birdy:

I'm glad you listed all the books because it shows me that I'm pretty well-read myself. Looking at the list I kept saying "Well, I read that, I read that too", several times. I just never made a thoughtful collection out. Through the years from teen age until my mid 40's I read most of the list. Since then I've stayed with romantic mystery, so if something new has come out, I gave it no care. I'm afraid that authors, like directors, have in many ways remade various stories and plots to fit their own scenarios. I have my 5 or 6 authors who write new books all the time. I find Danielle Steele repeating a lot of her plots and ideas. There are a few that the ladies on this board listed about a year ago that gave me more fodder and I am enjoying them but my favorite is still Nora Roberts, especially when she adds her Irish twists to the plot.
.
Anne


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* * * * * * * * What is past is prologue. * * * * * * * *

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feaito

Re: What are you reading?

Post by feaito »

While in the US I bought a small book on sale at B&N, titled "Mad Kings & Queens" by Alison Rattle & Allison Vale. It's the worst book ever! A shame! Inaccurate, completely lacking of sources, written in a amateurish style which simplifies every single fact presenting the Royals profiled as one-dimentional characters. Many of the facts are not even true and there are obvious mistakes, even in the portraits attributed to some of the Royals. What a waste of time!
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CharlieT
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Joined: May 7th, 2007, 8:28 pm
Location: Warren G. Harding's hometown

Re: What are you reading?

Post by CharlieT »

Since I got my nookreader for Christmas, I've read A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens and am almost through A Connecticutt Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Twain. I'm trying to read most of the classics that I missed when I was younger.
"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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Lzcutter
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Lzcutter »

I'm reading Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Depression by Morris Dickstein. I heard many good things about this book but am having a hard time getting through it. I feel like I am back in college listening to a professor more in love with the sound of his voice (or words in this case) than in shining a new light on the subject.

If it doesn't improve soon I'm ditching it for Mark Viera's book from last year (the one with Joan Crawford on the cover).

I'll keep you posted!
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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klondike

Re: What are you reading?

Post by klondike »

CharlieT wrote: I've found that Harding has always been part of my everyday life. Vince Nicolosi and I both graduated together at the high school named for the 29th president. Every day I find myself passing his home or his magnificent tomb.
Charlie, 'Warren G' is also held in very high esteem by Freemasons like myself, as among our fellows, he embodied so many of our most cherished life principles; often, in Lodge, we refer to him specifically by his little-known middle name, kind of a fraternal mnemonic to make him feel like he's still among us, I guess.
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Lzcutter
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Lzcutter »

Has anyone read Andrew Sarris book You Ain't Heard Nothing, Yet where he revisits his "auteur theory" and the films of the classic age and along the way writing that maybe the "auteur theory" wasn't such a great theory after all?

I wish it was on Kindle as it would probably make good airplane reading.

Any opinions on the book?
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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moira finnie
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by moira finnie »

Lzcutter wrote:Has anyone read Andrew Sarris book You Ain't Heard Nothing, Yet where he revisits his "auteur theory" and the films of the classic age and along the way writing that maybe the "auteur theory" wasn't such a great theory after all?

I wish it was on Kindle as it would probably make good airplane reading.

Any opinions on the book?
I liked it better than The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968 because this history of the talkies up until the dissolution of the studio era is much less reverent (and less in awe of the Cahiers du Cinema crowd). There is much more attention paid to significant contributors to film other than the director, such as expected people like Bogart, but Mary Astor and even Wanda Hendrix gets a nod. If only the paperback weren't so unwieldy, I think that it would be ideal for a plane ride--but if you need a big book to put off a chatty stranger next to you, this might be ideal.
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feaito

Re: What are you reading?

Post by feaito »

I have been reading Michael Sragow's Bio on "Victor Fleming" and while it's well written and researched it still hasn't really captured my interest, because the author's writing style is rather dry...full of information and of facts, but I feel it somehow lacks passion...I don't know how to put it. I hope when I get to Vic's career at Paramount things will get more interesting.

Last week I came across a very unique book first published in Argentina in 1941 by Federico Zapiola and recently published again (in 1991) by two of mister Zapiola's nephews (his hephew and niece in fact). The book is titled "Luis XVII ¿murió en Buenos Aires?" ("Louis XVII, died in Buenos Aires?"). It tells the story of Pierre Benoit, who arrived mysteriously in Argentina in the 1820s, where he got married, raised a family and whose descendants believe him to have been Louis XVII, due to series of circumstances. Besides all kinds of information, paintings, facts and other proofs, the most interesting aspect of this character is that he never acknowledeged publicly to be Louis XVII and never tried to claim any right whatsoever...he wanted to leave all his previous life behind; he never referred to his parents, family, his life in France, only some isolated information. Presumably he was murdered in 1852 by a mysterious visiting (French) doctor who fled Buenos Aires immediatley after seeing & killing him and who was later guillotined in France. Very mysterious, eerie and intriguing subject.
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charliechaplinfan
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by charliechaplinfan »

That's a pity about the Victor Fleming biography, it's on my pile of books to read, Victor Fleming comes across as a colourful character in biographies of others.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself - Charlie Chaplin
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Lzcutter
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Re: What are you reading?

Post by Lzcutter »

Fie,

I had the same problem with Sragow's book on Victor Fleming. As you said, full of facts and information but his writing style is underwhelming at best. I was very disappointed by the time I had finished the book.

I'm about half way through Furious Love and it is great!
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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