Just as I had recommended that you read Water for Elephants before seeing the movie I am making an educated guess that the same will be true for The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Based on the number of weeks of the NY Times Best Seller List, many have already done so, but I believe it will make a huge difference in appreciating the movie. Go for it while there is still time!
On the top shelf, back in the upper right hand corner sits Lonesome Dove, the 1985 Pulitzer Prize winner by Larry McMurtry. Who could forget Lonesome Dove? A blockbuster movie, television series, country music iconic song all attributed to McMurtry’s storytelling. All of the elements of a great western epic are incorporated in Lonesome Dove. Texas Rangers, a love story, Indians, a lawless frontier, and the sheer beauty and adventure of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. Recalling the pleasure of reading Lonesome Dove brings into focus the entire Lonesome Dove Series.
Lonesome Dove (1985), Streets of Laredo (1989) Dead Man’s Walk (1996) Comanche Moon (2008). Although written in the aforementioned order, if you wish to read them in the chronological order of the plot setting you would begin with Dead Man’s Walk ( set in the 1840s) dealing with the earliest adventures of Texas Rangers Augustus McRae and Woodrow Call set around the Santa Fe Expedition of 1841. You will also be introduced to Comanche worrier Buffalo Hump and several other important characters that appear in the later novels.
Comanche Moon is set in the 1850s-1860s with McRae and Call in pursuit of the Comanche horse thief Kicking Wolf. Also entering the storyline is McRae’s love interest Clara Forsythe, and his rival Bob Allen. Buffalo Hump leads the Comanche Nation to war with a detailed plot of characters and twist and turns moving through the Civil War and to Lonesome Dove.
Streets of Laredo is the fourth and final book in the series, set in the 1890s. Texas Ranger Woodrow Call is now a bounty hunter tracks a Mexican Bandit who is praying on the railroads. Gus McRae appears protecting settlers from renegade Indians and bad folks in general. Loves are won and lost; the paternity of certain children is surprisingly identified. Judge Roy Bean, “The Law West of thePecos” is hanged.
I read Lonesome Dove first, set in the mid to late 1870s but having done so my next step is to return to the beginning of the chronological order of the plots and pick up Dead Man’s Walk.
McMurtry’s ability to establish and carry forward characters reminds me of Tom Clancy with Jack Ryan, Jack Ryan Jr., et al. McMurtry has given us Augustus Gus” McCrae, Woodrow F. Call, Joshua Deets, Pea Eye Parker, Jake Spoon, Clara Forsythe Allen, Maggie Tilton, Lorena Wood Parker, Blue Duck, and Buffalo Hump. You will be fascinated with all of them.
I have previously referenced in an earlier post the pleasure of reading fourteen Tom Clancy novels in sequence! The characters appear and re-appear and of course there is the ever-present Jack Ryan as in the case of last year’s Dead or Alive.( See earlier Tom Clancy Blog). Against All Enemies is written with Peter Telep
I have just completed Against All Enemies sans Jack Ryan but ex-Navy-Seal Maxwell Moore carries forward Clancy’s genius for crafting fabulous thrillers. A warning, when you arrive at Chapter 42 clear your schedule because you will not be able to put this book down until the last page. If you love Tom Clancy do not leave for summer vacation without Against All Enemies.
Those of us who have already read Dead or Alive will have to wait for the next Clancy volume to find out who wins the election!
Gretchen Morgenson has again distinguished herself as the finest reporter of financial matters in the American free press. The added research of Joshua Rosner raises the new book RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT to an even higher level of excellence and credibility. Recognition of the full title of this work is essential. RECKLESS-ENDANGERMENT, HOW OUTSIZED AMBITION, GREED, AND CORRUPTION LED TO ECONOMIC ARMAGEDDON.
Morgenson’s and Rosner’s investigative reporting and writing ( an appropriate description) ) not only tells this nearly unbelievable story but it is a statement about the importance of newspapers and journalists who are committed to upholding the tenants of a free press in a democracy.
The following paragraphs from RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT preview the depth to which the book travels to tell the story leading up to the economic meltdown of 2008 and more disturbingly raises the prospect that at this very moment it may well be happening all over again.
“Just as drug lords know that their products pose hazards to their customers, the Wall Street firms packaging and selling mortgage pools to investors knew well before their customers did that the loans inside the securities had begun to go bad. But with the mortgage mania raging and profits still flowing the investment bankers had no interest in coming clean.”
“The Incident was the first of many times that the heads of organizations accused of improper conduct were not held accountable for the damage they did to shareholders and , later, to taxpayers.”
“Will a debacle like the credit crisis of 2008 ever happen again? Most certainly, because Congress decided against fixing the problem of too-big-to-fail institutions when it had the chance.”
Page by page with incredibly impressive detail , facts and substantiation, Morgenson and Rosner describe the lead-up to the carnage to the American economy and citizenry, and to the financial crisis that the government is still facing.
There are pages in this book that you simply will not want to believe. However, you will! All of the economic meltdown characters are there with the ironic twist that nearly all of them are still controlling the levers of economic power. The list of key players in the meltdown who are still on stage spans pages 305-308!
Just caught up with Tom Clancy’s fourteenth novel, Dead or Alive. Published just last year after a ten-year hiatus Clancy has yet another new book just out, Against All Fears ( 2011) written with Peter Telep.
Dead of Alive written in conjunction with Clint Blackwood brings back Jack Ryan, Jack Jr. and many of the familiar Clancy players in the search for the “Emir” a thinly veiled hunt for Osama Bin Laden. As always, even though it was written a year before Bin Laden was shot and killed by Navy Seals, Clancy’s novel in great part nailed the scenario including ” Hiding in plain sight!” Every Clancy fan will love the book, thick as always, filled with detail and action.
Of course Tom Clancy novels are most enjoyable if you have had the privilege of reading them in sequence, and I have been that fortunate. Starting with Hunt for Red October and just finishing Dead or Alive I have read them all and now have Against All Fears in the queue. I would find it difficult to choose one favorite so I will name three of the fourteen! The Cardinal of the Kremlin ( 1988), Clear and Present Danger( 1989), and Without Remorse ( 1991).
If you have not read Tom Clancy you have missed the master of intrigue who ties his books to reality and world events in an incredibly prescient manner.
Here is the list in order of publication : The Hunt for Red October( 1984), Red Storm Rising(1986), Patriot Games (1987), The Cardinal of the Kremlin(1988), Clear and Present Danger(1989), The Sum of All Fears(1991), Without Remorse(1993), Debt of Honor(1994), Executive Orders( 1996), Rainbow Six( 1998), The Bear and the Dragon( 2000), Red Rabbit( 2001), The Teeth of the Tiger( 2003), Dead or Alive( 2010), Against All Enemies(2011) Enjoy! Yes, many are frightenly prescient!
Gordon’s Good Reads appears in the July-August issue of VENU Magazine now available at choice cultural and retail establishments in Fairfield and Westchester Counties. This issue of VENU also contains a fabulous review of the Woody Allen movie Midnight in Paris among other great articles on art, automobiles, entertainment and fashion. Enjoy!
Several months ago on this blog I posted a review of Hadley by Gioia Diliberto. ( Biography blog archives February 11) Hadley is a wonderful biography of Hemingway’s first wife and their early life together including their move to Paris in 1921. Woody Allen may well have read the book before writing Midnight in Paris the newly released movie receiving rave reviews, including mine! I saw it this week and it is a wonderful movie, even better having read Hadley first! The irony is that Hadley Hemingway does not appear in the film but the scenario set by Deliberto in her book makes the movie all the more impactful. All the characters are there, Ernest , LuTrec, Gertrude Stein, Picasso , T.S. Eliot, et al!
Another book on Hadley Hemingway which I have not read as yet, The Paris Wife by Paula McLain, is also appearing on best seller lists and receiving good reviews. Hadley Hemingway is receiving much attention from both the new book by McLain and from Midnight in Paris . In the past week it has topped all hits on this blog! Not bad for a book published in 1992!
Personally, I am delighted to have read Hadley before seeing Midnight in Paris because it set the scene for the movie’s Moveable Feast, in a sense reincarnated in the Woody Allen film. I am sure that reading The Paris Wife would work in the same manner. It is a Hemingway renaissance! Enjoy the new but if you have not already done so, please go back to the originals! There lies the prose including a wonderful lines by Hemingway in the movie that begs you to read or re-read The Sun Also Rises and For Whom The Bell Tolls!
A book on the subject of breast cancer does not properly fall under the category of Good Reads and therefore for the purpose of this blog allow me to change the appellation to Important Reads.
The Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy is a national organization based in Connecticut that funds research and clinical trials to find new treatments for all types of cancer through gene and cell therapy. (acgtfoundation.org) The organization has in excess of $25-million dollars invested in research. A friend at ACGT brought to my attention an important book, written 15 years ago by NBC’s Chief Scientific Journalist Robert Bazell. The work is Her2 The Making of Herceptin, A Revolutionary Treatment for Breast Cancer. Her2 is the name of a cancer-causing gene. The book renews its relevance today in light of the current controversy over FDA withdrawal of Avastin as a treatment for advanced breast cancer.
Her 2 is the story of the development of the breast cancer treatment drug Herceptin, developed in conjunction with and manufactured by Genentech, the same company that is making news today with Avastin. Like Herceptin, Avastin was taken to human clinical trials and made available to cancer patients after a long and arduous process. The FDA has withdrawn Avastin as a treatment for advanced breast cancer, and emotions ran high as the FDA listened to testimony from patients. “I owe my life to Avastin,” said Patricia Howard, age 66, of New York, who has been treated for breast cancer since 2005. “I’m not just a piece of anecdotal evidence. I’m a wife, mother, sister, aunt, friend, and grammy.” Sadly, you will find dozens of similar quotations in Her2 before Herceptin was made available to terminally ill breast cancer patients.
If you have a personal connection with breast cancer, I urge you to read Her2, The Making of Herceptin. Bazell places in laser focus the science, politics, ego’s, emotion, corporate and government bureaucracy, jealously and the economics of getting a drug from the laboratory to market. It is both a clinical and human story written with extraordinary care. It is a very human story indeed.
When you read Her2, you will recognize in the Herceptin story the same emotions as being played out with Avastin and you will find it difficult not to share the frustration of those scientists, patients and doctors who are desperately waiting for new cancer fighting drugs to become readily available.
Those of you who have paged through Gordon’s Good Reads know that I have a penchant for playing catch-up with great writers who have escaped my time and attention.
Henry James, the American born novelist ( 1843-1916) whose most prolific years were spent living and writing in England, is a classic example of a novelist for whom anyone who has a love for the form will find his work a Good Read. In making my “classic” Henry James selection I chose The Wings of the Dove (1902) a book credited by many as among the best novels of the 20th Century.
Henry James writes in a unique style. His sentence and paragraph structure is complex and his character development is intricate. The characters are the narrators of the story. The Wings of the Dove is typical of many James novels in that it pits American and British traditions and values against one another. James creates eight central characters that interact in life’s dramas of love, greed, envy and deception. The book travels from America to England and Venice.
Henry James has been described as an “Impressionist” in his ability to create characters and then with the minutest attention to personality cast them in relationships and enviornments that are so complex that they sometimes defy a “Now I understand!” moment. One is constantly required to turn yet another page for answers which often lead to more questions.
The reader of Henry James ought to be prepared to traverse a hundred pages to become accustomed to the rhythm of his prose. However, once you find the tempo the paragraphs become lyrical. You will come to be accustomed to sentence structure where a half-dozen commas and a few added semi-colons are commonplace! The complexity has a magnetic effect that draws the reader to make every word count. No skimming in reading The Wings of the Dove!
James wrote his greatest works during three periods, the 1880s, 1890s and 1900s. The first period culminated with The Portrait of a Lady (1881), which remains his most popular work of fiction. In 1886 James wrote The Bostonians themed around the early feminist movement in America. Following The Wings of the Dove, James wrote The Ambassadors (1903), and then the famous short story The Turn of the Screw, later adapted for the stage.
I have often said in these pages “The best new book is one you have not read.” Henry James, The Wings of the Dove is no easy literary undertaking but I found it to be worth every minute.
Like many writers, James has favorite words which reappear throughout his work. In The Wings of the Dove you will come upon “prodigious,” again and again. It is a fitting description of The Wings of the Dove. “Impressively great in size, force and extent. Marvelous.”
During this week as we reflect upon the 67th anniversary of D-Day I completed the fourth book in Jeff Shaara’s historical novels on World War Two.
The Final Storm, which has just been released is the story of the War in the Pacific culminating and with the greatest emphasis on the battle for the island of Okinawa. Okinawa was to be the last stepping stone before an invasion of Japan. The Japanese land invasion was of course preempted by the decision to drop the Atomic Bomb.
Shaara , as always, magnificently tells his war epochs by placing the reader in the boots of the soldier, slogging through the life and death drama of war. It would be impossible to put down The Final Storm without the greatest empathy and understanding of the men who gave everything to defeat the Japanese, not only on Okinawa ,but on all of the Japanese held Pacific Islands. The book also provides dramatic personalized insight into the decision and the actual dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima.
The earlier books in this Shaara collection concern the North Africa Campaign and an introduction to Eisenhower and Rommel in The Rising Tide, the European Invasion and D-Day in The Steel Wave, and the great march across Europe including the Ardennes and the Battle of the Bulge in No Less Than Victory.
It would be difficult for anyone with an interest in WWII to overlook these four volumes.
Shaara’s portrayal of the reality of war through the prism of historical fiction is in my view unequaled. Then again, having read his father Michael Shaara’s Killer Angels, you know it is in the genes.
If your interest lies with the Civil War you will want to read Jeff Shaara’s Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure. Also do not overlook his great novel on the American Revolution, Rise to Rebellion.
Here is a promise. After reading a Shaara novel you will regard all service men and women with awe, respect and gratitude. An important thought during this period encompassing Memorial Day, D-Day and the Fourth of July.
Gordon's Good Reads 