An old friend is moving back to CA from a "red state." Since I'm from CA I feel we and NY (plus the eastern seaboard) could be our own country...maybe VA too.
I live in Ohio. The cities are bright blue, but the rest of the state is deep red. It's lonely. But! As a 58-years-old childless cat lady, who used to be a lawyer and is now a public educator of mostly Black special-needs students, I am going to spend the next few years calling and writing to our new senator, who shall be nameless, so at least I have a plan. I will miss Sherrod Brown. Wow, thanks for listening!
One book I've been rereading regularly for years is 84 Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff. The film doesn’t remotely do it justice. I love epistolary novels, as well as collections of letters by real people. You get such amazingly clear pictures of the correspondents in this volume, and I absolutely love it.
Not an easy book to film, to be fair. It draws much more heavily on The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, the sequel - my paperback copy of 84 CCR contained both books.
LOVED 84 Charing Cross Road. Liked the movie, even though, films rarely do justice to the books. My ex wrote bios about James Whale and did not like the movie based of Whale's last days.
Oh, here's an oddball thing I was trying to remember. Helene Hanff's pal Maxine Stuart played Anne Bancroft's character's sister-in-law in the 1975 film of Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue. I wonder if Anne thought about that when she made the Charing Cross film in 1987.
As ever, great taste. At least, things I like too. Pontius Pilate is one of my favourite books of the last few years. It haunts me. My husband’s family has a cottage near a loch in Perthshire, Scotland where the Fortingall tree still lives. It’s thought to be the oldest tree in the Uk and that Pilate visited it though that’s probably apocryphal. I always like to visit it and think about what it has seen.
Thank you so much. I haven't thought of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for years, having read it around age 11 or 12. (Growing up in a Boston suburb, I did keep trying to place it in Brookline, which doesn't work so well. Having lived in New York since then, think I will do better now.) I will definitely look for your other suggestions too. For me, there's always Pride and Prejudice.
Thank you, Benjamin. This, after the massive piece of chocolate cake I ate, is precisely what I needed. I flipped through several books last night and couldn’t find the right one to absorb me and not annoy me.
You might do particularly well with Up the Down Staircase, as it’s written in tons of little easily digestible chunks (plus it’s really funny), which is the sort of thing I tend to read when I don’t feel like reading.
I love that you included "Up the Down Staircase" and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"--two of my favorite books as a teenager, and the first is often laugh-out-loud funny. Another favorite from that time was Carl Reiner's very funny "Enter Laughing," his semi-autobiographical story of a young man trying to break into show business.
Kudos for being productive in spite of It All, and thanks for the recommendations. I would also recommend Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith, which I might like even better than A Tree. And any mention of Now, Voyager gets massive virtual applause from me!
Required reading in 9th grade in CA (we were not advanced in 1966...thank you for reminding me of her book. Since then I have said something was like "up the down staircase" more than once.
Thanks, Benjamin. I recall reading "Staircase" in HS in the '60's (I think I have about a decade on you) and being delighted by it.
Aside: I have never gotten in to "re-reading"; one can only devote a certain portion of one's life to reading and there are always so many new books clamoring for attention. For me, thus, re-reading carries an opportunity cost. Perhaps, tho', you've inspired me to back down the staircase.
The reason I know of Ilka Chase is because she used to appear on 50s-era panel shows like What's My Line?. Not that I remember the initial run, but in the 90s they used to show them on cable. They are marvelous time capsules of an era that we will apparently be revisiting very soon. Just wait till MAGA folks find out that they won't be hob-nobbing with the cocktail party set....
(as an aside -- how much of Bennett Cerf's influence was left at RH by the time you got there?)
BC was long since gone by the time I got to Random House, to be sure, and I can't say what was left of him besides the notion that we were there to publish lots and lots of different kinds of books ("at random," as they say) and publish them with integrity, which I like to think we did.
Thank you so much. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has been one of my favorites, ever since it was assigned as summer reading going into my sophomore year of high school. I wore out two dead tree books and then got an ebook.it sounds like the perfect antidote to help tonight, along with the new pint of ice cream in the freezer that I’m going to try not to eat all of in one sitting. I feel worn out with anger and terrified.
As always, thank you. These books will go on me list, although I too read up the down staircase about at age 10.
I'm not okay right now. But I will be one day.
This post made me feel an iota less depressed today, and for that I thank you.
I'm mostly just empty today, but I don't do too well at doing nothing at all, so this constituted doing something. ❤️
An old friend is moving back to CA from a "red state." Since I'm from CA I feel we and NY (plus the eastern seaboard) could be our own country...maybe VA too.
I live in Ohio. The cities are bright blue, but the rest of the state is deep red. It's lonely. But! As a 58-years-old childless cat lady, who used to be a lawyer and is now a public educator of mostly Black special-needs students, I am going to spend the next few years calling and writing to our new senator, who shall be nameless, so at least I have a plan. I will miss Sherrod Brown. Wow, thanks for listening!
Thank you ❤️
One book I've been rereading regularly for years is 84 Charing Cross Road, by Helene Hanff. The film doesn’t remotely do it justice. I love epistolary novels, as well as collections of letters by real people. You get such amazingly clear pictures of the correspondents in this volume, and I absolutely love it.
I must (and will) get around to the book one day. I have seen the film, and it's...all right.
Yes, you must. Forget the film -- sometimes only the book will do.
Not an easy book to film, to be fair. It draws much more heavily on The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, the sequel - my paperback copy of 84 CCR contained both books.
LOVED 84 Charing Cross Road. Liked the movie, even though, films rarely do justice to the books. My ex wrote bios about James Whale and did not like the movie based of Whale's last days.
Oh, here's an oddball thing I was trying to remember. Helene Hanff's pal Maxine Stuart played Anne Bancroft's character's sister-in-law in the 1975 film of Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue. I wonder if Anne thought about that when she made the Charing Cross film in 1987.
As ever, great taste. At least, things I like too. Pontius Pilate is one of my favourite books of the last few years. It haunts me. My husband’s family has a cottage near a loch in Perthshire, Scotland where the Fortingall tree still lives. It’s thought to be the oldest tree in the Uk and that Pilate visited it though that’s probably apocryphal. I always like to visit it and think about what it has seen.
Thank you so much. I haven't thought of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for years, having read it around age 11 or 12. (Growing up in a Boston suburb, I did keep trying to place it in Brookline, which doesn't work so well. Having lived in New York since then, think I will do better now.) I will definitely look for your other suggestions too. For me, there's always Pride and Prejudice.
Thank you, Benjamin. This, after the massive piece of chocolate cake I ate, is precisely what I needed. I flipped through several books last night and couldn’t find the right one to absorb me and not annoy me.
I’ll try yours. Sending love.
Sending love back to you.
You might do particularly well with Up the Down Staircase, as it’s written in tons of little easily digestible chunks (plus it’s really funny), which is the sort of thing I tend to read when I don’t feel like reading.
I love that you included "Up the Down Staircase" and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"--two of my favorite books as a teenager, and the first is often laugh-out-loud funny. Another favorite from that time was Carl Reiner's very funny "Enter Laughing," his semi-autobiographical story of a young man trying to break into show business.
I’m so glad to hear you worked on the Pontius Pilate book. Everything Ann Wroe does is sheer perfection
Absolutely!
Thank you for the list. I read the first two long ago, but not the others. Will add to my TBR.
Kudos for being productive in spite of It All, and thanks for the recommendations. I would also recommend Joy in the Morning by Betty Smith, which I might like even better than A Tree. And any mention of Now, Voyager gets massive virtual applause from me!
Second Joy in the Morning. But those are the only two of her books I’d recommend for right now.
Thank you . 👌🏻❤️
Required reading in 9th grade in CA (we were not advanced in 1966...thank you for reminding me of her book. Since then I have said something was like "up the down staircase" more than once.
Thanks, Benjamin. I recall reading "Staircase" in HS in the '60's (I think I have about a decade on you) and being delighted by it.
Aside: I have never gotten in to "re-reading"; one can only devote a certain portion of one's life to reading and there are always so many new books clamoring for attention. For me, thus, re-reading carries an opportunity cost. Perhaps, tho', you've inspired me to back down the staircase.
Thank you! I put them all on my to-read list and ordered a couple of them second-hand already. 💙
The reason I know of Ilka Chase is because she used to appear on 50s-era panel shows like What's My Line?. Not that I remember the initial run, but in the 90s they used to show them on cable. They are marvelous time capsules of an era that we will apparently be revisiting very soon. Just wait till MAGA folks find out that they won't be hob-nobbing with the cocktail party set....
(as an aside -- how much of Bennett Cerf's influence was left at RH by the time you got there?)
BC was long since gone by the time I got to Random House, to be sure, and I can't say what was left of him besides the notion that we were there to publish lots and lots of different kinds of books ("at random," as they say) and publish them with integrity, which I like to think we did.
Thank you so much. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn has been one of my favorites, ever since it was assigned as summer reading going into my sophomore year of high school. I wore out two dead tree books and then got an ebook.it sounds like the perfect antidote to help tonight, along with the new pint of ice cream in the freezer that I’m going to try not to eat all of in one sitting. I feel worn out with anger and terrified.