Book thread

[cardinalkarp]

Has anyone read any of Nelson DeMille's books?

They're fiction, but based on some factual places/events. They're GREAT books.

[Vidor]

I've been working my way through some of the early Pulitzer Prize winners that I've been able to find on the internet.

"Strange Interlude" is pretty terrible.

Yes, he's dead--my father--whose passion created me--who began me--he is ended. There is only his end living--his death. It lives now to draw nearer me, to draw me nearer, to become my end!

Ed Wood could have written that.

[sighyoung]

I've been working my way through some of the early Pulitzer Prize winners that I've been able to find on the internet.

"Strange Interlude" is pretty terrible.

Yes, he's dead--my father--whose passion created me--who began me--he is ended. There is only his end living--his death. It lives now to draw nearer me, to draw me nearer, to become my end!

Ed Wood could have written that.

A lot of Eugene O'Neill is like that. His later plays about his family are much better (but long): A Moon for the Misbegotten, A Long Day's Journey into Night.

If you think "Strange Interlude" is bad, read "Dynamo," the play he wrote after it. It's worse, but so bad it's funny.

[Jocephus]

pull the strings!

[redbirdjazzz]

I've been on a bit of a sci-fi kick lately, and I'd highly recommend both The Martian by Andy Weir and [Year Zero[/u] by Rob Reid.

[Vidor]

pull the strings!

Obviously Ed Wood was cheated out of a Pulitzer.

I read "Beyond the Horizon" before this one, and that was pretty goddamn grim but it at least didn't have such painfully wooden dialogue.

[Radbird]

Very enjoyable read.

The summer of 1927 began with Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic. Meanwhile, Babe Ruth was closing in on the home run record. In Newark, New Jersey, Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly sat atop a flagpole for twelve days, and in Chicago, the gangster Al Capone was tightening his grip on bootlegging. The first true “talking picture,” Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, was filmed, forever changing the motion picture industry.
All this and much, much more transpired in the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized things—and when the twentieth century truly became the American century. One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order.

http://www.amazon.com/One-Summer-Americ ... 0767919416

[JackofDiamonds]

Very enjoyable read.

The summer of 1927 began with Charles Lindbergh crossing the Atlantic. Meanwhile, Babe Ruth was closing in on the home run record. In Newark, New Jersey, Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly sat atop a flagpole for twelve days, and in Chicago, the gangster Al Capone was tightening his grip on bootlegging. The first true “talking picture,” Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer, was filmed, forever changing the motion picture industry.
All this and much, much more transpired in the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized things—and when the twentieth century truly became the American century. One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order.

http://www.amazon.com/One-Summer-Americ ... 0767919416

Agreed, and as crazy as the rest of the stuff was, the Lindbergh/flight chapters were the most fascinating.

[Vidor]

I enjoyed "One Summer" as well. The part that blew my mind the most was Calvin Coolidge completely blowing off the apocalyptic Mississippi River flooding. He was just the worst.

[Freed Roger]

I enjoyed "One Summer" as well. The part that blew my mind the most was Calvin Coolidge completely blowing off the apocalyptic Mississippi River flooding. He was just the worst.

He was too busy playing cowboy


Also "One Summer" does a nice job telling the tale of movie industry - "talkies".