Authors III

Diana Gabaldon
Her first novel was "Highlander"a spell binding read about Clair, an ex Army combat nurse who was climbing rocks in the Scottish Highlands in the year 1945. When she entered an ancient stone circle she was magically transported back in time to 1773 right smack in the middle of the English- Scottish war. She is captured and then rescued by a Scot named Jamie. She joins his group of rebels falls in love and has a torrid love affair with Jaime which goes on and on and on in great detail. Gablaldon writes a lot about "heaving breasts and swelling nipples"; any way, her adventures with Jaime and his clan go through the years through at least five novels. The first and the next two "Dragonfly in Amber" and "Voyager"were the best but I read each one as she writes them.


Ernest Hemingway
Every time we go to Key West we take the tour of the "Hemingway House and look at the rooms, the six toed cats, the grounds and listen to the same old people saying the same old things about Hemingway and Pauline and his other wives. He came from Oak Park, Illinois the same suburb of Chicago that my Dad grew up in. My favorite is "The Sun Also Rises"; I liked "Farewell to Arms", ‘The Green Hills of Africa" and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" (I always like hunting stories although both were kind of sad) I have never read "The Old Man and The Sea" but I have listened to an audio book.


John Grisham
Everyone reads Grisham!! His first novel "A Time To Kill" is unforgettable, I read "Pelican Brief", "The Firm", and "The Rainmaker"all of which I enjoyed very much and the delightful "The Painted House" which was a departure from his lawyer stories but well done. "The Broker" was also very good.


Tom Clancey
He came out like a bombshell with "Hunt for The Red October" and it’s prequel/sequel "Cardinal of The Kremlin" Everyone talked about those two books! I also liked:
"Patriot Games"
"The Sum of All Fears"
"Clear and Present Danger"
Clancey often gets much too technical for me, to the point that it interferes with the story but he is a great adventure and thriller writer.


Stephen King
The King of horror stories. My two Favorites of all the King’s are "It" and Salem’s Lot".
I thought "Pet Sematary" was one of the scariest stories I ever read, "Skeleton Crew" was a neat short story collection. "Cojo" was kind of scary. I do not follow King in everything he writes.


Francois Marie Arouet Voltair
I read a very interesting biography of Arouet for a college course which took me to: "Candide" (The optimist).It was an ironic play; Dr. Panglos, a philosopher and Candide’s mentor felt that no matter what happens everything will be Ok in "this most wonderful of all possible worlds".Lots of bad things happened, Panglos got syphilis from a girlfriend , Candide’s love Cuneqond, was stolen and raped and Candide went on a search for her with a companion, Cacambo who was much like Cervante’s Sancho Panza was for Don Quixote as he searched for the gentle Dulcina. More characters than I could keep up with but I got the gist of the play.


Robert Louis Stevenson
"The world is so full of wonderful things, I’m sure we should be as happy as kings" Stevenson wrote many poems; I only remember this one line. I do remember":
"Treasure Island"
"Kidnaped"
"Dr. Jekel and Mr. Hyde"
"The Master of Ballantrane"

Sir Walter Scott
"Ivanhoe" A medieval classic of knights and jousts. A good boy’s story
"Rob Roy" A little more serious story of a Scotsman’s problems with land owners and the fight in defense of the Stewarts


S.S. VanDine
He was an early detective story writer- I found his books in the Elmhurst Library when I was a kid. Philo Vance was the name of his master sleuth. I read the shelf; I wonder if any of his books from1934 are still around?


Ellery Queen
Another early mystery writer. Ellery was a "deduction" detective like Sherlock Holmes. I remember that his father was a police chief and Ellery didn’t do anything but help his father. We listened to a lot of his plays on radio after the authors Frederick Dannay and Drury Lee were established. They wrote maybe 50 novels starting in 1932.


Irving Wallace
Wallace was born in Chicago. His novels usually had a lot of sex in them. One of his early novels was "The Chapman Report" which was based on the Kinsey studies (Kinsey was writing papers on human sexuality) Then he wrote "The Seven Minutes" guess what that time span covers. He also wrote some interesting Historical\biblical\fiction novels - lost bible pages, priestly imposters - He wrote "The Miracle" loosely based on the story of Bernadette and he wrote "The Prize" about a man who is to receive the Nobel Prize. Still going strong but I have not read him in a while.


Charles Dickens
"The Tale of Two Cities" The first Dickens I read; "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times"; I will always remember Sidney Carlton, his unrequited love for Lucy and the "far, far better thing" he did when he went to the guillotine for the man that Lucy loved.. I also remember, clearly, the woman in the wine shop, the woman who knits, Madam De Farge

"Little Dorrit" I read the novel in a series of 100 year old magazines that were published in England between 1855 and 1857. Aunt Kate, in Tullahoma let me read them. I helped her sell them to a rare book firm in London. Poor Amy (Little Dorrit), her father was falsely imprisoned in debtors prison. The story follows Dicken’s criticism of the government and society of his time.
"Oliver Twist" My favorite characters were Fagen and The Artful Dodger. I also liked the pompous Mr Bumble and Nancy who was too a good person for Bill Sykes. Poor Oliver was a wimp.

"Nicholas Nickelby" When Nicholas’ father dies ,the family is penniless and Uncle Ralph (a bad guy) tries to take advantage of them. Nick goes to work at a boys school where he is mistreated by the school master Wackford Squeers - Don’t you just love that name!!!

"Great Expectations" Remember Pip and his brother in law Joe? Estella and Mrs.Havisham were my favorite characters. A great name in this story was Uncle Pumblechook.
They made a "modern" version of the story with a very sexy Gwyneth Paltrow as Estella and Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Havisham but she is called Nora Dinsmoor.

"David Copperfield" To me, one of the most complex. novels that Dickens wrote so many people to keep track of I just remember Mr. Micawber and Uriah Heep, (another swell name) a very bad guy.


William Shakespear
"The Merchant of Venice" I always feel sorry for Shylock; everyone hated him so - even his daughter stole from him. Portia was a tough lady, the casket business and the trial were fun. Bassinao was kind of a jerk.;

"Hamlet" I have to work to stay with it I, particularly, liked Hamlet’s instruction to the players "Speak the speech, I pray you, and pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue..." And Polonius’ talk to Laertes "give every man thy ear but few thy voice..." or ".. neither a borrower or a lender be..."

"Mid Summer Nights Dream"
I saw the movie when I was a kid; Mickey Rooney played Puck and James Cagney played Bottom. I read the play in College. I love the fantasy but viewing is better than reading in this case, for me. I have a delightful DVD with Kevin Kline as Bottom and Stanley Tucci as Robin Goodfellow - Puck. Can everyone keep the characters straight? Hermia loves Lysander and Lysander loves Hernia, Denmetrious loves Hermia, Helena loves Demetrious but Demetrius shuns Helena. Oh well................

Othello
This is one of my favorites. A tragic story about the scheming Iago convincing Othello of the gentle and loving Desdemona’s infidelity wherein Othello murders her. They made an opera of this play which is splendid..

I guess that everyone has read "Romeo and Juliet". I hope that as many have seen the beautiful ballet of the same name staring Rudolph Nureyev and Dame Margot Fontayne


Zane Grey
"Riders of The Purple Sage" my all time favorite western novel. The gunman, Lassiter on a mission of his own, protects Jane Withersteen from horse rustlers and the mean, scheming Pastor Dyer of the religious sect she belongs to. Lassiter and Jane have an exciting ride across the plains that is unforgettable.


Edgar Rice Burroughs
I read all of the "Tarzan" stories and liked every one but Burrows also wrote the "John Carter" series. John Carter had the ability to use telepathy in order to transport himself the planet Mars where he has adventures and fights battles. John used a sword. a lot and I often wondered why authors had their heros using swords in modern times. (We see this in" Starwars")


Austin Tappan Wright
"Islandia" Published in 1934. This is a special book for me I got it from a special person. I love the place and the characters and the story. Wright spent most of his life creating his country, his people and their laws and culture. There is romance, adventure, war and foreign intrigue I do not know many people who have read it; aside from Jeanne who gave it to me and I have shared it with only one other person. I reread it every 15 or 20 years I read it very recently; I could not find it in the library. I had to search the net, kinda doubt if I will do another reread. It is a "cult" novel.


J. K. Rowling
This amazing woman grabbed the attention of children (and adults) all over the world with her first "Harry Potter" story. It took me a couple of years of taking up and putting down the story until I got into it but once I finished it, I was hooked. I anxiously await each new publication like all the other kids. I think that she is an excellent writer with an imagination that won’t stop. As I think about the Harry Potter stories I think about Roberta Williams who created computer software adventures back in the 80's she is probably best known for her "Kings Quest" series. Roberta borrowed very heavily from fairy tales and nursery rhymes; she would have had a wonderful time using Rowling’s ideas in her series. Becca has been a "Harry Potter "fan from the start.


Lewis Carroll
"Alice In Wonder Land"
"Through the Looking Glass"
"The Wasp In The Wig"
Carroll was a mathematician and puzzle master; I have some of his books that deal with acrostics and anagrams. The artist Sir John Tinniel did some classical illustrations for his books. I was fortunate enough to find an episode that was left out of "Through The Looking Glass"; apparently, Carroll was not satisfied or just didn’t like it. "The Wasp in The Wig" was published more than 100 years after "Looking Glass" came out.
"When I was young, my ringlets waved and curled and crinkled on my head
And then they said you should be shaved and wear a yellow wig instead"
The puns and wordplay are great. The wasp tells Alice that she is a bee because she has a comb.
A good read with wonderful footnotes.


Edgar A.Poe
"The Cask of Amontillado"
"The Pit and The Pendulum"
"The Fall of The House of Usher"
"The Gold Bug" ( I have trouble with that coded puzzle)
"Telltale Heart"
Those are my favorites and of course: "The Raven" ("nevermore!") and "Annabel Lee" "She was a child and I was a child in this kingdom by the sea but we loved with a love that was more than a love - I and my Annabel Lee With a love that the winged seraphs in heaven coveted her and me......"
I have always been interested in the illustrator Arthur Rackham and the way he uses his bizarre creatures to illustrate fairy stories and particularly Poe’s stories. I have a collection of books with Rackham illustrations.


Washington Irving
"Rip Van Winkle"
Old Rip was the town drunkard; one day he went up in the mountains with his gun and his dog and met some "little men" dressed like old Dutchmen. Rip drank with them, bowled with them and fell asleep for the next 20 years. He woke, his gun was rusted, his dog’s bones were there and he went home to a "new town".

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"
The schoolmaster Ichabod Crane courts the fair Katrina and the rough Brom Bones has something to say and do about that!


H.G. Wells
"The Time Machine"
‘The Invisible Man"
"The War of The Worlds"
Classic science fiction but who knows what might happen? Can any one forget when Orson Wells did the Mercury Theater radio play of "The War of The Worlds" and it was so realistic that the radio audience thought we were actually being attacked by machines from the planet Mars?


Stephen Vincent Bene
"The Devil and Daniel Webster"
A poor farmer makes a deal with the devil for seven years of prosperity; when "old Scratch" comes to collect, the farmer enlists the aid of Dan Webster to get him off the hook. There is a trial; the jury is made up of the damned from hell."even the damned must admit to the eloquence of Daniel Webster".


I remember the "Pulp Magazines" so called because the paper was soft and cheap, not shiny; they sold for 10 cents to 25 cents and came out every two months or so. Mothers did not think they were good reading - probably because the covers of most of them would have a near naked girl, sometimes her remaining clothes in tatters, being attacked by a monster or alien creature. The stories were great; I have included copies of some covers with the collection:

"The Shadow" Lamont Cranston and his beautiful (they were always beautiful) companion Margo would solve mysteries and fight crime. Lamont had the ability to cloud men’s minds and become invisible to crooks and anyone he wanted to. "The weed of crime bears bitter fruit", "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of man, the Shadow Knows!"

"Captain Future" was the anchor of "Thrilling Wonder Stories", Science Fiction adventure among the planets (I don’t think we had star travel yet). Captain Future and his girl friend (beautiful of course) Dale - a popular name for consorts in those days - paired up with:
Simon "the Brain", Simon was a human brain encased in some kind of super plastic with eyes, ears and a voice. Simon was Future’s mentor.
Otho was a synthetic person who could twist himself into different shapes and was a master of disguise.
Kraig a robot, not very pretty, don’t think they thought in terms of androids back then, big, heavy, strong and intelligent. Kraig and Otho spent their time insulting each other.

"Doc Savage"(with the "gold flecked eyes") was an MD with a out-of-the-ordinary trained body, highly intelligent and a master of weaponry. He hangs out with three companions each with a special skill Monk who looks like an ape is a chemist and engineer very strong and smart
Ham is a lawyer, a dapper dresser, carries a sword cane. Sharp mind, loves a fight
Johnny a tall lanky architect who is good at deciphering documents
Savage and his gang spent a lot of time in jungles and primitive places doing research and fighting bad guys.