This Pulitzer Prize for History winner dates back to 1995 but if you love history and have not read this one you have missed one of the best on the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt years. The insight that Doris Kearns Goodwin has developed in No Ordinary Time is truly riveting. Linda Gordon writing for the Boston Globe in 2005 said it so very well. ” The Roosevelt marriage is endlessly gripping because it was so consequestial….The reader feels like a resident in the White House.” This volume is one of Goodwin’s very best. You will enjoy every page. It is so relevent and the characters are so vital that you might believe that Franklin and Eleanor were alive today.
Author Archives: gordonhastings
President’s Week
Beginning on President’s Day, tomorrow, I am going to post my thoughts on books I have enjoyed regarding the presidency. They will not all be biographies or autobiographies but rather some very interesting takes on the presidency itself and how relationships have had lasting impact on our democracy. As an example, one of the most fascinating books I have enjoyed regarding the modern presidency is Franklin and Winston by Jon Meacham. This incredible personal relationship may have saved the free world!
I would also love to hear your thoughts on great books you have enjoyed relating to the presidency. Just scroll down to the comments and join in.
Tom Wolfe and Thomas Wolfe Great Novelists at Opposite Ends of the 20th Century
A good friend recently commented that Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities was the best novel written in the last half of the 20th Century. Wow! Certainly the good thing about loving books is that opinions are all wonderfully subjective. Of course, I loved Bonfire, it was on everyone’s lips and the movie was fabulous but as usual, never quite as good as the book!
Another friend glanced at my bookshelf and saw I am Charlotte Simmons, another Tom Wolfe novel, but one that never received the acclaim of Bonfire. It is all in the eye of the beholder but I think Charlotte is every bit as good a read.
Arriving on the scene at a prestigious university (many think it is Duke) , comes Charlotte Simmons, poor, devout, strict, proud and beautiful. She is straight from an uneducated but loving family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. From the moment Charlotte and her folks arrive in their less than fashionable pick-up she is confronted with the swells from the well-to-do. Charlotte is not only beautiful, she is also brilliant and both of these attributes are immediately perplexing and yes threatening to her new classmates. As an incentive for you to enjoy this great book I will leave to your imagination further details of this unfolding story.
Tom Wolfe’s research into college life is impeccable and the hard work is infused into the storytelling. He has placed every character you could possibly imagine at this prestigious campus. You will grow to love and cheer Charlotte Simmons and hope for only the worst for her detractors. If you have a daughter of college age you will bite your nails and briefly consider a commuter campus! Do not overlook I Am Charlotte Simmons.
Tom Wolfe is from Virginia and now lives in New York City. There was another southern novelist, this one from North Carolina, named Thomas Wolfe. Thomas Wolfe , who died at thirty-eight in 1938, was not related to Tom Wolfe, but he wrote two great books about coming of age. The first, Look Homeward Angel, was followed by Of Time and the River.
Whereas my friend considers Tom Wolfe the best novelist of the late 20th century none other than William Faulkner described Thomas Wolfe as the best of the early 20th century. Both of Thomas Wolfe’s books are worth every reading moment. Look Homeward Angel is by far the better known and is considered an autobiographical novel. Of Time and the River is a sequel and is every bit as captivating although a bit more patience is required.
If you have read any of these Tom Wolf and Thomas Wolfe novels I would enjoy you sharing your impressions.
The Painter of Battles
The vivid images coming from Egypt, Iran, Algeria, and the recurrent reporting of violence in Afghanistan and Iraq brings to mind a novel I had read a year ago, The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte. Reverte, himself a former war photographer ( 35mm film and camera), was a photo-journalist in Angola, Bosnia, Croatia, Lebanon and the Persian Gulf.
Reverte’s The Painter of Battles is a story of a world-renowned war photographer , Andres’ Falques, who has become internationally famous from the publication of his photos depicting the horror of war. Images of individuals in despair, pain, sorrow and death. He retires to the coast of Spain and becomes obsessed with painting a huge mural of the images he has captured including the death by a land mine of a beautiful and young colleague who was his only love.
Enter Ivo Markovic, a soldier long thought dead . A Falques photograph of Markovic in the agony of battle had won awards and made Falques rich and world-renowned. This un-expected visitor, whose only mission is to kill Falques , brings an astonishing perspective of the subjects of those photographed in battle. A riveting relatively short novel with a compelling message. It is worth every minute especially considering the recent travails of reporters including Laura Logan and Anderson Cooper.
Arturo Perez-Reverte also wrote The Club Dumas and The Queen of the South.
Empire of Liberty-More Timely Than Ever
With the revolution for freedom and democracy sweeping the Middle East, I can think of no better backdrop to recommend Empire of Liberty by Pulitzer Prize Historian Gordon S. Wood. The work is part of the Oxford Series on American History and covers the period 1787 through the War of 1812.
This scholarly book traces the evolution of the American Republic from the end of the Revolutionary War into the great debates over the writing and ratification of the United States Constitution including the paradox of slavery, states rights, foreign influence and the very nature of the presidency.
What quickly becomes evident is the enormity of the issues surrounding establishing a society and government free from the old ways of European monarchies. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton play leading roles in establishing a workable, permanent and cohesive national government replacing the looseness of the Articles of Confederation.
Wood carefully brings alive individual contributions and the give and take, often antagonistic, to reach compromise. Jefferson and Madison are Wood’s central figures with the contributions of John Adams in my view somewhat marginalized. Adams has his day in the sunshine in David McCulloch’s biography, John Adams.
The more background the reader has in American history the easier the immersion into Empire of Liberty but that should not dissuade anyone with a love of our country’s history from tackling this landmark work. Despite the depth of the subject Wood has made his book an enjoyable journey and there is a clear and logical roadmap for the reader. Yes, Empire of Liberty is a good read!
Lord of Misrule. No Seabiscuit or Secretariat Here!
The most ardent “rail bird” will find Jaimy Gordon’s description of the world of horse racing at third-rate, down on their heels race tracks absolutely illuminating, intriguing and at times both sad and downright hilarious. You will also find it surprising that Jaimy Gordon is not a rail bird at all but rather a college professor. Her vivid portrait of the world or “underworld” of horseracing has earned her the National Book Award for Fiction.
You will not find a Seabiscuit or Secretariat story in Lord of Misrule. No heroes here. Only no-name horses, jockeys, trainers, hot walkers, grooms, blacksmiths, promoters and owners struggling, cajoling, doing whatever necessary to make dinner!
No one in the grandstand, at the window or even on the rail in Lord of Misrule has an inkling of what is going on in the barns behind the track. The side deals, the fix, claimers, stalking horses, ice buckets, butte, you name it and Jaimy Gordon makes it real. Her characters, mostly a tragic lot, are the personification of a world known to very few. The author has uncovered the grimness of horseracing, and the pathetic daily lives of those who survive in this gritty world.
Lord of Misrule is a fast read but the book will capture you long before the first race. A bit of history from Wikipedia. In Britain in the sixteenth century, the Lord of Misrule was an officer appointed by lot at Christmas to preside over the ” Feast of Fools!” Appropriate title, Jaimy.
RUSTPROOF! Holden Caulfield, Scout Finch, Jody Baxter
The newly released J. D. Salinger biography written by Kenneth Slawenski just a year after Salinger’s death will bring Catcher in the Rye (1951) and Holden Caulfield to the forefront again. The same is true of the recent revived interest in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) on the occasion of last year’s 50th anniversary of its publication.
Salinger’s death prompted me to revisit Catcher in the Rye and the publicity surrounding To Kill a Mockingbird’s anniversary placed me back in the center of those pages. A wonderful experience reading these works as an adult!
While hunting for Catcher in the Rye in the “Classics” section of my bookstore I found another gem, one which I had not read, The Yearling, written in 1939 by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.
The novel won a Pulitzer and was an instant best seller. Jody Baxter, growing up in back woods Florida “cracker” country with a father and mother preparing him for a life, which would be as difficult as their own. Originally it was labeled a children’s book but do not be fooled by the title, its message, descriptions and dialogue is a worthy read for all ages. The film The Yearling was released in 1946 and added tremendously to Rawlings fame.
The reference to “rustproof” in this blog title is credited to Ivan Doig, author of House in the Sky, who wrote a wonderful prologue for the The Yearling’s paperback re-issue in 2002. He is a well-known novelist raised on a ranch in Montana.
I believe the term “rustproof” is a wonderful description of so many great reads we have overlooked or forgotten. This blog aims to re Kindle the memory! Rawlings first novel; South Moon Under was published in 1933.
Older Titles Appear On Times Best Seller Print and Electronic List
You may notice in the Sunday New York Times Book Section that there are two important new categories of Best Sellers, Fiction Print and Electronic and Non-Fiction Print and Electronic.
According to the Times, the new rankings reflect weekly sales for books sold in both print and electronic formats as reported by vendors offering a wide range of general interest titles. The sales venues for print books include independent book retailers; national, regional and local chains; online and multimedia entertainment retailers; university, gift, supermarket and discount department stores; and newsstands. E-book rankings reflect sales from leading online vendors of e-books in a variety of popular e-reader formats.
Popping off the page of Non Fiction Print and Electronic, this Sunday, February 20, 2011, ranked at number 11, is the 2005 memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls! This is a new world of reporting who is reading what and when. It is the essence of Gordon’s Good Reads’ philosophy that people like to discover wonderful books that they may have overlooked.
If you have not read The Glass Castle, first published in 2005, I urge you to do so. You will find this memoir of survival in a very dysfunctional family astonishing and nearly unbelievable.
A suggestion. Why not read Walls’ second book about her family first? Half Broke Horses, published in 2009, a true-life novel, is the story of Walls’ no nonsense and resourceful grandmother Lilly Casey Smith. By doing, so you will learn from who Jeannette Walls received her grit, allowing her to survive The Glass Castle. It is every bit as captivating.
and wonderfully written.
Enjoy!
Cutting For Stone & What Matters Most
Many extensive literary reviews have delved into the inner meanings of Abraham Verghese’s magnificent novel Cutting for Stone. For many, the title itself begs that question. I was so captivated by the writing style, the evolution of the plot and the introduction of the characters that Cutting for Stone drew me in and held me close for the sheer enjoyment of the story.
Dr. Thomas Stone fathers co-joined twins with a young assistant, Sister Mary Praise Joseph . Sister Mary dies in childbirth, he abandon’s them all and flees to America .The boys are raised by foster parents as their own. The stage is set for their incredible life journey.
The story begins in India, moves to Ethiopia and ends in New York City. Page by page you will find it impossible to abandon the twins . The players you will meet that pattern their lives are unforgettable. Verghese introduces nearly every human emotion as relationships unfold.
I have shared my enthusiasm for this novel with several friends and to the person they have thanked me profusely. You can take whatever inner meaning from Cutting for Stone that you wish. I can only promise pure pleasure.
Want more?
Less sweeping in scope but every bit as compelling is another wonderful novel with plot similarity to Cutting For Stone. Luanne Rice’s What Matters Most is the story of Sister Bernadette Ignatius and Tom Kelly who conceived a son they were forced by church doctrine to leave behind in Ireland. Seamus Sullivan is raised in an orphanage and establishes a bond with a young girl that becomes the sought after love of his life.
Sister Bernadette Ignatius moves to America to become Mother Superior at the Star of the Sea Academy in Connecticut. Low and behold, Tom Kelly is the school’s caretaker! After years of their secret life, they begin the inevitable search for their abandoned son. Meanwhile, in Ireland, Seamus Sullivan , now a young man seeks the only person he has ever loved, Kathleen Murphy who was claimed from the orphanage when they were both children. As fate would have it she is a servant in a Newport, Rhode Island mansion. Now, put these circumstances together and let your imagination run as you turn to the Prologue of What Matters Most.
Thomas Stone’s sons discover their father in Cutting for Stone. In What Matters Most Sister Ignatius and Tom Kelly seek their son . Seamus begins his quest to find his beloved Kathleen. Two wonderful stories immersed in love, miracles and heartbreak.
A New York Trilogy
Several years ago I had the privilege of an e-mail communication with Mike Wallace the co-author of Gotham just after I read the book. I shared my enthusiasm for this incredible volume and when I told him I actually read the 1236 pages sequentially he allowed that I might be the only person in captivity who did that! This Pulitzer winner, written with Edwin G. Burrows, is the quintessential history of New York through the end of the 19th Century.
This preamble places in perspective my enthusiasm for New York the novel by Edward Rutherford. Rutherford tells the New York story from the time of the city’s origins through the beginning of the twenty-first century through the lives of the fictional Van Dyck and Masters families. The story masterfully unfolds generation by generation.
Rutherford is every bit as captivating as is the standard-bearer of historical novels James Michener. Every cell of Rutherford’s characters are believable as they wind, twist, love, fight, succeed and negotiate their lives through all of New York’s epic development. The Dutch settlement, Native Americans, independence, immigration, the classes, Civil War, financial booms and busts, politics, loyalists, revolutionaries, unions, heroes and villains, the swells and near-do-wells, all play a role. You can taste the oysters at Frances Tavern! Rutherford’s New York is comparable to the writing and character development in Michener’s Centennial, Chesapeake and Texas with the exception of Michener’s penchant for geological evolution! New York has earned a place on my Deserving of a Pulitzer shelf! New York will not give you the detail of Gotham but in living with the generations of the Van Dyck and Masters Families, you will personally experience the story of the great city.
Complete your New York historical journey by gaining a full understanding of the Dutch societal impact on the founding and ethos of the city by reading The Island in the Center of the World by Russell Shorto. This is a necessary read for all lovers of New York told through the voices of those that built the city and opened the New World long before the Pilgrims. You will come away with a deeper understanding of Peter Stuyvesant an all of the other prevailing Dutch names and places rich in New York’s history. You will learn why New York has always been open to new people, ideas, commerce and opportunity. Best of all you will enjoy more great storytelling.
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