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| Simon's amusing graphic |
Monday is start of Kaggsy and Simon's biannual year reading project; this year it's 1936 we'll be time-traveling to. Immediately after they announced the upcoming year, I created a gigantic list of books I had read, could read, might conceivably read. I've pared down, but still have more candidates than I actually will read:
Graham Greene's Journey Without MapsJohn P. Marquand's Thank You, Mr. MotoNoel Coward's Tonight at 8:30 (in a collection with other plays)Stevie Smith's Novel on Yellow PaperJames T. Farrell's A World I Never MadeKarel Čapek's War With The Newts
The bottom two would be rereads. In fact it would be the fourth (fifth?) time I've read War With The Newts, but that would be OK, it's worth it. I read Čapek's R.U.R. for the 1920 club a year ago, and I've been thinking about rereading War With The Newts since then. I'm unlikely to read them all, but I might! I'm better than halfway through the Stevie Smith currently. There are a few other things that might slip in in their place.
James T. Farrell is likely the obscure one, which makes that particularly tempting. He should be better known. He's a Irish Catholic Chicago novelist (though he later moved to New York in a fit of pique with Chicago.) He died in 1979. A World I Never Made is the first of his Danny O'Neill series, though Farrell is more famous, as much as he is, for his Studs Lonigan novels, which got the Library of America treatment a few years back. They're very good and he really oughtn't be so little-known.
I've read one 1936 novel since I started blogging: Graham Greene's A Gun For Sale. It's reviewed here.
But I definitely will *not* be reading John Maynard Keynes' General Theory, despite having read some Keynes and Keynes-related things recently and the temptation to do so...
Have you read any of these? Which look good to you? Do you have plans for the 1936 club?
What I actually did read (most likely different from above):
1.) Stevie Smith's Novel on Yellow Paper
2.) John P. Marquand's Thank You, Mr. Moto
i loved the Capek; only once tho, so far... i've read a couple of Mr. Motos i think, but not that one if i recall... i think i went gunseling with Greene but not all of them, either... the others seem sedimentary in a basic sense. i read Clarence Mulford's "Hopalong Cassidy" last week. it was surprisingly interesting; he's quite a gleeful writer when it comes to plugging holes in the bad guys...
ReplyDeleteI didn't even realize the Hopalong Cassidy stories were based on books--I think maybe I saw a few of the movies on TV when I was a kid.
DeleteToo bad you couldn't share your whole list. I'd love to participate in this event one day but so far I've just been too busy. I haven't read any of yours but if I had to choose, I'd choose Čapek's novel on your recommendation. Have fun!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Hope it's a good busy for you.
DeleteAnd well, here goes... (I was always tempted anyway):
Owned, but not read:
Barnes/Nightwood
Borges/History of Eternity (essays) (read some?)
Buchan/The Island of Sheep
Coward/Tonight at 8:30 (in Three Plays)
Greene/Journey Without Maps
Leavis/Revaluation
K. Mann/Mephisto
Myers/History of the Great American Fortunes (1-volume edition)
Dawn Powell/Turn, Magic Wheel
Roth/Confession of a Murderer
I J Singer/The Brothers Ashkenazi
Warner/Summer Will Show
Wentworth/Dead or Alive (own the Kindle edition, it seems)
Owned & read
Ambler/The Dark Frontier
Blake/Thou Shell of Death
Brooks/The Flowering of New England
Capek/War With The Newts
Carr/The Arabian Nights Murder
Christie/The ABC Murders
Connolly/The Rock Pool
Dos Passos/The Big Money (3rd in series)
Farrell/A World I Never Made
Faulkner/Absalom, Absalom!
Frost/A Further Range (won Pulitzer - Two Tramps in Mud Time, Neither Out Far nor In Deep)
Greene/A Gun For Sale
-https://reesewarner.blogspot.com/2017/08/graham-greenes-gun-for-sale.html
Howard/Red Nails
Huxley/Eyeless in Gaza
Innes/Death At The President's Lodging
Mann/Joseph in Egypt (3rd)
Marsh/Death In Ecstasy
Orwell/Keep The Aspidistra Flying
Queen/Halfway House
Sabatini/Captain Blood
Silone/Bread and Wine
Stark/Southern Gates of Arabia
Steinbeck/In Dubious Battle
Stout/The Rubber Band
Tolkien/Beowulf: Monsters & Critics
Possibly Interesting
Allingham/Flowers For The Judge
Bernanos/Diary of a Country Priest
Cain/Double Indemnity
Celine/Death on the Installment Plan
Charteris/Saint Overboard
Christie/Murder in Mesopotamia
Christie/Cards on the Table
de Montherlant/Les Jeunes Filles (1st volume - on Connolly 100 key books list)
du Maurier/Jamaica Inn
Gardner/Sleepwalking Niece, Stuttering Bishop
Stella Gibbons/Miss Linsey and Pa
Keynes/General Theory
Marquand/Thank You, Mr. Moto (at TPL)
Henri Michaux/Voyage en Grand Garabagne (Connolly)
Nabokov/Invitation To A Beheading
Sandburg/The People, Yes
Stevie Smith/Novel on Yellow Paper (at TPL)
S. S. Van Dine/The Kidnap Murder Case (Project Gutenberg Australia)
D. Thomas/Twenty-Five Poems
New Provinces (Modernist Canadian poetry anthology. E. J. Pratt, et al.)
A few late additions:
H.G.Wells/The Croquet Player
Shaw/Arthur and the Acetone, Cymbeline Refinished, Geneva
Russell/Which Way To Peace?
Rumer Godden/Chinese Puzzle
i note the Gardner: have you read A.A Fair? terrific stuff!
DeleteI have read some of the Cool & Lam novels--a long time ago not and not at all of them, I'm pretty sure--I remember quite liking them--sometimes think I should hunt them up again.
DeleteI only read one book for the club because I am trying to read mostly from my shelves this year.
ReplyDeleteI'm always willing to read anything by Greene. I only know the Studs Lonigan trilogy by Farell, though I've not yet read it.
I read Double Indemnity last year (didn't blog about it). It's very good - short and tense.
I should read more books from my shelves, sigh...always something new and shiny. The first two--hopefully not the only two--for this year will be from the library. And I own a bunch of possible books.
DeleteI've seen Double Indemnity, of course, which has slightly deterred me from reading it, though I suspect I'd still enjoy it.
You need to read Studs Lonigan, you know, that list ;-) but it is a good one, even if quite a dark story.