Friday's Forgotten Books, April 22, 2016

 Happy Eighth Birthday Friday Forgotten Books

Here is what it looked like then.

FRIDAYS: The Book You Have to Read

This is the first of what I optimistically hope will become Friday recommendations of books we love but might have forgotten over the years. I have asked several people to help me by also remembering a favorite book. Their blog sites are listed below. I also asked each of them to tag someone to recommend a book for next Friday. I'm worried great books of the recent past are sliding out of print and out of our consciousness. Not the first-tier classics we all can name, but the books that come next. Here's my choice.

Desperate Characters by Paula Fox
It's difficult to remember, thirty years on, New York in the seventies, The City was facing bankruptcy, the streets were dangerous, frequent strikes left unattended garbage for the rodents, buildings crumbled. Paula Fox's novel Desperate Characters perfectly captures that time along with the similarly disintegrating marriage of Sophie and Otto Bentwood. The story begins with an unexpected cat bite. "Because it's savage," Otto answers Sophie's puzzled, "why?" It was a cat she was trying to feed that bit her. This well-intentioned act, this McGuffin, sends the couple off on a weekend odyssey, where ominous events continue to haunt the childless couple. They find little solace in each other and there is no easy resolution at the end. The quiet desperation that suffuses their story is heart-breaking. The writing is haunting, lucid, and succinct.
Fox has also written two books about her life (Borrowed Finery and The Coldest Winter), a few other novels (The Widow's Children) and many children's books. But nothing is finer than this one for me.

Check out other recommendations here:
http://billcrider.blogspot.com/
http://bofexler.blogspot.com/
http://anthonyneilsmith.typepad.com/crimedog_one_the_internet/
http://sandrascoppettone.blogspot.com/
http://patrickshawnbagley.blogspot.com/
http://sandrablabber.blogspot.com/
http://josephinedamian.blogspot.com/
http://traviserwin.blogspot.com/
http://randomactsofunkindness.blogspot.com/

http://eudaemoniaforall.blogspot.com/

http://crimespace.ning.com/profile/BrianL

 Here it is now


Yvette Banek, DEATH AS A DINOSAUR, Frances and Richard Lockridge
Joe Barone, STICK GAME, Peter Bowen
Elgin Bleeker, NIGHTMARE ALLEY, William Lindsay Gresham
Les Blatt, RICHARDSON'S FIRST CASE, Sir Basil Thomson
Brian Busby, Antoine Gérin-Lajoie, Jean Rivard [Vida Bruce, trans]

Bill Crider, WIPED OUT, John D. Newsome

Martin Edwards, THE RIVERSIDE VILLAS MURDERS, Kingsley Amis

Curt Evans, DEATH OF A BUSYBODY, George Bellairs
Ed Gorman, CROSS COUNTRY: THE BOOK BIZ. Herbert Kastle
Rich Horton,  Ace Double Reviews, 95: The Genetic General, by Gordon R. Dickson/Time to Teleport, by Gordon R. Dickson
Jerry House, THE BIG BOOK OF ADVENTURE STORIES, ed. Otto Penzler
Nic Jones,  DEATH OF A CITIZEN, Donald Hamilton
George Kelley, COLOR OUT OF TIME, Michael Shea
Margot Kinberg, THE PAGE 3 MURDERS, Kalpana Swaminathan
B.V. Lawson, A TIME FOR PIRATES, Gavin Black
Steve Lewis/Barry Gardner, DEATH OF A RUSSIAN PRIEST, Stuart Kaminsky 
Todd Mason, THE COMPLETE HUMBUG, edited by Harvey Kurtzman et al.
J. F. Norris, I'LL BE JUDGE, I'LL BE JURY, Elizaberth Hely
Mathew Paust, JACKSTRAW, Ron Faust
Reactions to Reading, SIX FOUR, Hideo Yokoyama 
James Reasoner, PHANTOM RAIDERS, Peter Dawson
Gerard Saylor, PARADISE SKY, Joe R. Lansdale
Kerrie Smith, PROHIBITED ZONE, Alastair Sarre
The Rap Sheet, Steven Nester. THE FEARMAKERS, Darwin L. Teilhut
Kevin Tipple/Barry Ergang, SON OF A WANTED MAN, Louis L'Amour
TomCat, THE MYSTERY OF THE INVISIBLE DOG, M.V. Carey
TracyK, WHAT IS MINE, Anne Holt; TROUBLE ON THE THAMES, Victor Bridges 
Westlake Review, ONE OF US IS WRONG, Samuel Holt