This completes the top shelf of one of the bookcases in my house. The top and bottom books were Phil's although they were books he was always trying to get me to read, which is how they ended up in my room.
I have actually read most of the others.
DIRTY WORK is terrific. The story of two men who meet in a VA hospital room and share their life stories. One is black, the other white, they grew up in Mississippi and fought in Vietnam. Great stuff.
MIAMI PURITY opened the door wider for women wanting to write dark stories. I have spent time with Vicki over the years and she is a wonderful person. Although strangely enough for a woman who writes very dark stories, when we went to the Mutter Museum together, she had to leave. (It is a museum of medical history and oddities).
THE DAUGHTER OF TIME, Josephine Tey. you all know this one I am sure. It looks like a first edition but I doubt it.
THE SUN ALSO RISES, I have read although I am not really a Hemingway fan. My favorite, like many people, is the Nick Adams stories and A MOVEABLE FEAST.
GO WITH ME Castle Freeman, is one of the most delightful novels I have read. A woman recruits some roadside help on her quest for justice.
SALVAGE THE BONES, Jesmyn Ward, a terrific novel too about a family that supports itself by racing dogs after Katrina. Ward is a wonderful writer and has gone on to write several more books, all which deal with race.
Jhumpra Lahiri-INTERPRETER OF MALADIES, one of my favorite story collections, which won the Pulitizer Prize.
THE GIRL ON THE BEST SELLER LIST, Vin Packer (Marijane Meeker) this one I haven't read.The print is so small and the book pretty fragile. Or I just haven't gotten to it.
Some of my favorite books in this group.
14 comments:
Nice group of books, Patti. I'm enjoying people's responses to this meme, because I always like to know what everyone's reading.
I like this group too - the Lahiri stories, the Hemingway (I have always had a soft spot for THE SUN ALSO RISES because it was the first book of his I read, plus I would love to visit Pamplona), Larry Brown (terrific writer, died too soon), THE DAUGHTER OF TIME.
Clearly you like variety in your books! There's a little bit of everything in this group. If this coronavirus pandemic continues much longer, I may reread THE DAUGHTER OF TIME.
It also shows how unorganized my books are. The only organized shelves are the ones with Phil's, Megan's and my books. Other than that chaos reigns. Partly from moving things around so often.
Some interesting stuff here, Patti. The one that is calling to me most strongly is THE GIRL ON THE BEST SELLER LIST.
When this is over, remind me and I will mail it to you.
Until I finished reading your comments, I wondered why the top shelf had authors all over the alphabet. I am surprised you don't have them alpha by author. It's an interesting mix, indeed.I have been thinking of rereading that Hemingway too. I haven't read any of the others, but some sound interesting.
Like you I prefer Hemingway's Nick Adams stories over his novels.
I remember loving The Daughter of Time but can't remember much else about it.
Big fan of Larry Brown. His novel Joe was made into a pretty good movie which few people seem to have seen.
I have read a couple of Vick Hendrick's books but not this one.
This was the novel that made her name, Steve.
My books reflect the way my mind works, Rick. It is all over the place.
In a real sense, Marijane Meaker/"Vin Packer" was one of those who made it OK for women to write hardboiled. She and her womanfriend Patricia Highsmith, Leigh Brackett and their generation...
That is an interesting mix of books. I will look into DIRTY WORK and MIAMI PURITY. As for THE GIRL ON THE BEST SELLER LIST, I don't understand why they print books with such small type. Oh well.
They used to do more than they do now, in part to sell 'em cheap, and in part because the 1950s/early '60s paperbacks were a Lot cheaper to bind if they had 180pp vs. if they had four hundred. Hence the relatively expensive Bantam Giants and such in those years.
The Stark House/Black Gat reprint has more reasonable print! Better paper, too. Doesn't cost 35c any more, though.
http://starkhousepress.com/packer.php
Hi Patti,
I'm so enjoying your blog entries on this meme!
Daughter of Time--I so enjoyed this one, and actually it was one of the required reading books for the English History course I took in college. We read loads of scholarly stuff for that course, so it was so nice that the professor mixed this one in. And yes, that is one I'd love to reread, and I think I still have it...somewhere?
I love how diverse this bookshelf is--lots of fascinating books. Will keep following you now that I know you're here. Thanks for the mentioning of the meme.
I know your area has been hard hit with this virus. Please take care.
Judith
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