Category Archives: Project 366

A Year in Books/Day 10: The Filmgoer’s Companion

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Lars Hanson

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  • Title: The Filmgoer’s Companion Third Edition
  • Author: Leslie Halliwell (with a Foreword by Alfred Hitchcock)
  • Year Published: 1970 (Hill and Wang New York)
  • Year Purchased: 1990’s
  • Source: Antique Building, The Ohio State Fair
  • About: A dense, 1,072 page listing of nearly every player in movie history (up to the 1960’s), complete with pertinent biographical and career data, this is an info junkie’s dream. There is nothing extraneous, with Halliwell offering up facts and not opinions.
  • Motivation: I love old movie stars, especially those of the once-famous-now-obscure variety. For this reason, I collect vintage fan magazines and out-of-print, pre-1990’s genre books. Every cinema buff should own one edition of ‘The Filmgoer’s Companion’.
  • Times Read: 2
  • Random Excerpt/Page 7: “Speaking personally, I don’t know whether it is more flattering or disturbing to find oneself pinned down like a butterfly in a book which recounts all the macabre details of one’s career. But being a stickler for detail myself, I must, and do, submit; and I wish the enterprise well.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10+++ (although IMDB is splendid, sometimes only a book will do)
    English: Studio publicity photo of Alfred Hitc...

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A Year in Books/Day 9: The Greek Myths: 1

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  • Leighton depicts Hermes helping Persephone to ...

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    Title: The Greek Myths: 1

  • Author: Robert Graves
  • Year Published: First Published 1955/Reprinted 1969 (Penguin Books)
  • Year Purchased: 2009
  • Source: Goodwill
  • About: This detailed and highly readable re-telling of various Greek myths almost reads like a compelling biographical dictionary.
  • Motivation: As a child, I fell in love with Greek mythology. The adventures of the gods and goddesses, and the mortals (un)lucky enough to be consumed by their passions, seemed the natural next step along from fairy tales. Also: Robert Graves. I’m always happy to read anything he wrote. With nearly 150 published texts to his credit, I regularly stumble over ‘new’ works by this long-dead master.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 131: “Enraged because Zeus had confined their brothers, the Titans, in Tartarus, certain tall and terrible giants, with long locks and beards, and serpent-tails for feet, plotted an assault on Heaven. They had been born from Mother Earth at Thracian Phlegra, twenty-four in number.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10 (for warm, fuzzy childhood memories and because mythology is better than any soap opera or reality program)

A Year in Books/Day 8: At Home A Short History of Private Life

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  • Tea-Drinking. 1903

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    Title: At Home A Short History of Private Life

  • Author: Bill Bryson
  • Year Published: 2010 (Doubleday)
  • Year Purchased: 2010
  • Source: History Book Club
  • About: In the author’s words, he set out to “write a history of the world without leaving home”. He accomplished this by equating the rooms in a typical Victorian home with their worldly counterparts (i.e. the bedroom=sex, the bathroom=hygiene).
  • Motivation: I love Bill Bryson. ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ and ‘Bryson’s Dictionary of Troublesome Words’ are well-worn personal favorites. I am also a sucker for Victorian history; anything with a sociological aspect easily catches my fancy.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 181: “Not everyone got the hang of tea immediately. The poet Robert Southey related the story of a lady in the country who received a pound of tea as a gift from a city friend when it was still a novelty. Uncertain how to engage with it, she boiled it up in a pot, spread the leaves on toast with butter and salt, and served it to her friends, who nibbled it gamely and declared it interesting but not quite to their taste. Elsewhere, however, it raced ahead, in tandem with sugar.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10

A Year in Books/Day 7: The Pirates Own Book

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  • Title: The Pirates Own Book
  • Author: Charles Ellms
  • Year Published: 1837/reprinted 2002 (Bookspan/Book-of-the-Month Club)
  • Year Purchased: 2002/2003
  • Source: Book-of-the-Month Club
  • About: At the time of its publication, this book was the definitive guide to the history of piracy. Compiled from various sources, it remains a boisterously gritty, informative read.
  • Motivation: Included among the roster of high seas outlaws are female pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read. I also love that the book was published only a few years after some of the episodes it depicts, giving it a legitimacy that no 21st-century account could.
  • Times Read: 1 (with another about due)
  • Random Excerpt/Page 242: “This ferocious villain (Captain Edward Low) was born in Westminster, and received an education similar to that of the common people in England. He was by nature a pirate; for even when very young he raised contributions among the boys of Westminster, and if they declined compliance, a battle was the result. When he advanced a step farther in life, he began to exert his ingenuity at low games, and cheating all in his power; and those who pretended to maintain their own right, he was ready to call to the field of combat.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9
    Anne Bonny (1697-1720). Engraving from Captain...

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A Year in Books/Day 6: Arthur Conan Doyle A Life in Letters

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  • Title: Arthur Conan Doyle A Life in Letters
  • Edited by: Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower & Charles Foley
  • Year Published: 2007 (The Penguin Press New York)
  • Year Purchased: 2011
  • Source: Dollar Tree
  • About: A biography-through-letters of the struggling medical man turned world famous writer.
  • Motivation: Letter writing, once the definitive mode of communication for millions, is a nearly obsolete art. It is also the straightest path to the real feelings, opinions and events of a person’s life. When creating Sherlock Holmes is only one of many odd and diverse accomplishments for that person, then the straightest path is by far the best.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 192: “Dear Mrs. Boismaison- Though I am forced to send in my bills at regular intervals in order to keep my books square, I need hardly say that there is not the slightest reason for your settling them until it entirely suits your convenience. Hoping that you are keeping well, I remain Very sincerely yours A. Conan Doyle, MB CM”.
  • Happiness Scale: 10 (9 for content with a bonus point awarded because I read the
    Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 – 1930) English: Arth...

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    book on my honeymoon)

A Year in Books/Day 5: Dictator Style

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  • Title: Dictator Style Lifestyle’s of the World’s Most Colorful Despots
  • Author: Peter York (Foreword by Douglas Coupland)
  • Year Published: 2006 (Chronicle Books LLC)
  • Year Purchased: 2008/2009
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: It’s hardly a surprise to discover that some of history’s worst dictators, egomaniacs all, also had really execrable aesthetic preferences. By taking us behind the curtains into seldom seen private sectors, this book manages to add a new layer of psychological insight into the minds of these historical horrors. The old adage that money (and an obscene amount of power) does not buy taste or happiness has never been better proven.
  • Motivation: I am a sucker for the all-too-rare pairing of history and style. And the cheetah-print cover didn’t hurt.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 2: “An enthusiasm for railway travel may be Victorian, but (Porfirio)
    Porfirio Diaz

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    Diaz’s carriage is more suggestive of the kind of Texan whorehouse we see in Westerns. It is smothered in textiles: silk damask upholstery, squishy cushions, elaborate fringing, and there’s a raised ceiling with fanciful stencilling and small arched windows inset in the roof-the sort of thing you might find in a traditional nineteenth-century sunroom. There’s a large oval mirror in the panelling, a lot of shiny wood and a hanging brass lamp. It’s ideal for the secret assignations of an elderly Latin American soldier who liked to play away from home.”

  • Happiness Scale: 9

A Year in Books/Day 4: Thorndike Century Junior Dictionary

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William Alexander Craigie
Image via Wikipedia-William Craigie.
  • Title: Thorndike Century Junior Dictionary A Child’s Dictionary of the English Language Revised Edition
  • Author: E.L. Thorndike
  • Year Published: 1942 (a revision of the original 1935 edition/published by E.L. Thorndike)
  • Year Purchased: This copy was purchased new in 1942 for my 10-year-old Grandmother.
  • Source: This book was handed down to me by Grandma when I was 5.
  • About:The dictionary was compiled by E.L. Thorndike and 2 very impressive advisory committees, whose lists included Sir William Craigie (the third editor of the Oxford English Dictionary).
  • Motivation: I started reading dictionaries (quickly followed by any reference book within the grasp of my thin fingers) shortly before starting school. I have read entire volumes during otherwise boring road trips. I still prefer the tactile, almost sensuous quality of well-worn reference pages over the most comprehensive on-line compendium. Someone should coin a phrase for that special quality one feels when meandering through a dictionary; how the heart races when the eyes skip, so quickly, from word to word, roaming over territory new and old. E.L. Thorndike’s great work for schoolchildren made that possible for me.
  • Times Read: Countless.
  • Random Excerpt/Page vi: “To make a dictionary that comes near to this ideal requires not only adequate knowledge of the English language, but also expert scientific knowledge of children’s minds, and their needs in reading, hearing, and using words. It also requires ingenuity and thoughtfulness for every detail of every word.”
  • Happiness Scale: Off the charts.

     

A Year in Books/Day 3: George Sand A Woman’s Life Writ Large

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Eldre George Sand, fotografi

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  • Title: George Sand A Woman’s Life Writ Large
  • Author: Belinda Jack
  • Year Published: 1999 (Alfred A. Knopf New York)
  • Year Purchased: 2000/2001
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: An absorbing, fast-paced telling of the iconoclastic French novelist’s controversial life.
  • Motivation: I’ve a thing for biographies of lady writers. No, really, it’s almost an obsession.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 214: “According to Sand, “The experiment failed completely. I cried with pain, disgust and despair. Instead of finding a friendship that would allow me to unburden my feelings of resentment and discouragement, I found only bitter and frivolous mockery. That was all, and the whole story has been summed up in…words that I did not say [it was nothing], that Mme Dorval neither betrayed nor invented, and which bring little honour to the imagination of M. Dumas.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8 1/2

A Year in Books/Day 2: The Matinee Idols

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  • Title: The Matinee Idols
  • Author: David Carroll
  • Year Published: 1972 (Galahad Books New York)
  • Year Purchased: 1990’s
  • Source: Book Harbor, Columbus, Ohio
  • About: This slim volume covers all of the great American and British matinee idols of theatre and film, from John Wilkes Booth (yes, that one) to John Gilbert.
  • Motivation: I’ve loved all things related to silent cinema and the theatre since I was a child. It paid off because, as an adult, I have dedicated a meaty chunk of my professional output to the former.
  • Times Read: 3
  • Random Excerpt/Page 71: “Murmurs of excitement are heard in the audience as he displays a mounting fury over Fedora’s cross-examination. Fedora cajoles him, pleads with him, screams at him, then accuses him directly of the murder, but he denies the crime. Fedora throws herself at his feet and the scene builds to a point of almost unbearable tension. Finally he snaps.”
  • Happiness Scale: 8

A Year in Books/Day 1: February House

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  • Title: February House
  • Author: Sherill Tippins
  • Year Published: 2005 (Houghton Mifflin Company)
  • Year Purchased: 2008
  • Source: Daedalus Books
  • About: The true story of how Carson McCullers, Paul and Jane Bowles, Benjamin Britten, Gypsy Rose Lee and W.H. Auden all came to live under one roof, in a Brooklyn brownstone, during the early 1940’s.
  • Motivation: The combination of Auden and McCullers, and the quirky communal living aspect, was irresistible.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 111: “And now-running after the fire engine, laughing, and shivering in the night air-Carson experienced the moment of illumination for which she had been praying. The key to her novel, the image that would allow her to continue, had emerged at last. “I caught Gypsy’s arm,” she would recall, “and out of breath said, ‘Frankie is in love with her brother and his bride and wants to become a member of the wedding!’
  • Happiness Scale: 7