1. Graham Green's The Quiet American reveals the naiveté of America at the beginning of the Vietnam War.
2. Reynolds Price's Blue Calhoun, a story of a discontent middle-aged man and a too young woman bears the distinction of being the only book I ever bought because of a review in the Wall Street Journal.
3. Marcus Porcius Cato's Di Agri Cultura is the oldest existing work of Latin prose. (There are really good English translations.) I first encountered it when I was working on an M.A. in ancient history and was researching the wine trade. I fell in love with the books practical advice and smile evoking insights, such as when Cato tells his reader to visit a farm more than once before buying it, "and while you visit and inspect", because sellers will pressure you to buy right now, "leave yourself a way out."
4. The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley gets it's name from the aromatic lawn at the house where all the main characters are gathered decades after they were all together the last time, on the eve of WWII. It has been observed that people who lived through that war divide time by saying, "...but that was before the war", "...but that was during the war". and "... but after the war we...". This book is another literary example of that phenomenon, and a very good one.
5. A.S. Byatt (Her real name is Dame Antonia Susan Duffy (She is a DBE and so is her sister.), wrote a very good book. No. That is not correct. Possession is a marvelous book. It is two, no, three stories as two historians working without knowledge of each other research two Victorian poets. I know, it sounds boring but it is a love story and mystery and a guide to the world of academic research, and all of this is given to the reader in various types of literature; poetry, narrative, epistolary, and more. It is worth every penny you will pay for it. It will keep you awake at night.
6. In some ways, Earnest Hemingway is a summer writer; his stories are often set in Phaethonic (Yes, I invented that word. Not even Shakespeare tried to adjective-ize that pagan god's name.) climes that stir up a longing for extended holidays in Spain or the Caribbean. But unlike the fiction usually recommended for summer, Hemingway's short stories compel reflection. I mean, a man dying alone in a bull ring, or just trying to get through a hot night without crawling inside a bottle is not the light airy entertainment of, say, a Cussler. Hemingway is the man who in six words wrote the saddest story ever I've ever read: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." I am not recommending any of his novels, rather his short stories, and in particular, the Finca Vigia edition. Reviewers didn't like this collection (it wasn't orderly enough for them) but I do. I have no idea how the editor made his (or her?) decisions but some of them were truly genius. For example, one of the short stories is broken up and the different pieces are placed between other stories. It recreates the feeling of a serial, like the Lone Ranger serial that used to be screened at Saturday matinees.
I doubt anyone will read all of these books in one autumn, but I hope some of my readers open at least one of these books. Happy reading.
4. The Camomile Lawn by Mary Wesley gets it's name from the aromatic lawn at the house where all the main characters are gathered decades after they were all together the last time, on the eve of WWII. It has been observed that people who lived through that war divide time by saying, "...but that was before the war", "...but that was during the war". and "... but after the war we...". This book is another literary example of that phenomenon, and a very good one.
5. A.S. Byatt (Her real name is Dame Antonia Susan Duffy (She is a DBE and so is her sister.), wrote a very good book. No. That is not correct. Possession is a marvelous book. It is two, no, three stories as two historians working without knowledge of each other research two Victorian poets. I know, it sounds boring but it is a love story and mystery and a guide to the world of academic research, and all of this is given to the reader in various types of literature; poetry, narrative, epistolary, and more. It is worth every penny you will pay for it. It will keep you awake at night.
6. In some ways, Earnest Hemingway is a summer writer; his stories are often set in Phaethonic (Yes, I invented that word. Not even Shakespeare tried to adjective-ize that pagan god's name.) climes that stir up a longing for extended holidays in Spain or the Caribbean. But unlike the fiction usually recommended for summer, Hemingway's short stories compel reflection. I mean, a man dying alone in a bull ring, or just trying to get through a hot night without crawling inside a bottle is not the light airy entertainment of, say, a Cussler. Hemingway is the man who in six words wrote the saddest story ever I've ever read: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." I am not recommending any of his novels, rather his short stories, and in particular, the Finca Vigia edition. Reviewers didn't like this collection (it wasn't orderly enough for them) but I do. I have no idea how the editor made his (or her?) decisions but some of them were truly genius. For example, one of the short stories is broken up and the different pieces are placed between other stories. It recreates the feeling of a serial, like the Lone Ranger serial that used to be screened at Saturday matinees.
I doubt anyone will read all of these books in one autumn, but I hope some of my readers open at least one of these books. Happy reading.
