[Carolyn Tillie]

Atlas Shrugged


Read ever other year (on alternate years, I re-read The Fountainhead).

[SamanthaF]

Both of mine go back to school reading.

The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Outsiders - Susan Hinton

[foodie52]

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin.

Is she Jane Austen's poor Texan relation?

It's funny I spelled it that way, because as I was writing it, I thought "Must spell it correctly..."
When I was dating my husband, he had to return to Texas (we were in Scotland) and of course, being the 70's there was only snail mail. I'd never been to Texas and didn't know that Austin is spelled the way it is. So all my airmail letters (he kept them) are addressed to him at 'Austen, Texas" !

Now I'm doing the reverse. Getting old, getting old...

[Ron Johnson]

Tender is the Night

The exhibit on Gerald and Sara Murphy (inspiration for the Divers) will be up until November 11.

I stayed in the hotel where Fitzgerald wrote the book when K. and I were in Antibes on our honeymoon. That was a really cool experience for me.

[lovelynugget]

if i had to take one book to a deserted island it would be the collected poems of auden.

God, I hate you. I pulled out Auden and a volume of Victorian poetry and read through them yesterday when Stone started this thread.

[Daisy]

That's why the question is so impossible. Auden is right up there for me, but so is Pale Fire which I think Squeat mentioned. And Light in August. And Tender is the Night and Jane Eyre (remember, Stone asked what our favorite book was, not what we thought was the best book). Dead Souls. I mean, I could go on and on...

[Stone]

Both of mine go back to school reading.

The Color Purple - Alice Walker
The Outsiders - Susan Hinton

That's two.
If you start that, this thread will devolve in random lists of good books.

[ranitidine]

Time And Again, by Jack Finney.

[Cathy]

Time And Again, by Jack Finney.

Aw, I love that book!

If I had to pick one according to Mongo's read-most-often criterion, it would be MFK's The Art of Eating.

[Wilfrid1]

Tender is the Night

The exhibit on Gerald and Sara Murphy (inspiration for the Divers) will be up until November 11.

Where? Is it online anywhere?

Previewed at the Pink Pig.

[Rail Paul]

Atlas Shrugged


Read ever other year (on alternate years, I re-read The Fountainhead).

My annual read-through is Lucius Beebe's Mixed Train Daily. Mr Beebe and his companion, Charles Clegg, travelled through America and Canada documenting backwoods and branch line railroads from 1945 to 1962. Mr Beebe had initiated the travels in the mid-1930s.

Wines from France, whiskeys from the Highlands and bluegrass country, lunches and dinners packed by Delmonico's, and often a chef and steward in tow. In the later years, they travelled in their private luxury railcars, the Gold Coast and the Virginia City.

Picture of Beebe and Clegg

Interior of the railcar

[Lippy]

Time And Again, by Jack Finney.

Aw, I love that book!

If I had to pick one according to Mongo's read-most-often criterion, it would be MFK's The Art of Eating.

Me, too, in adulthood. Through adolescence, it was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

[Behemoth]

If I had to pick one book that really stayed with me for a long time, I guess it would be George Kates' The Years that Were Fat -- Peking: 1933 - 1940. My first time in China will be next March, but his description of being an outsider in a culture you feel you really belong to, and then the sadness of being forced to leave it...I just remember being deeply moved by the overall feel of the book. It's been out of print for a while so whenever I come across a copy I buy it in case I want to give it to someone.

eta: it seems there is an online copy now! link

[Wilfrid1]

Atlas Shrugged


Read ever other year (on alternate years, I re-read The Fountainhead).

My annual read-through is Lucius Beebe's Mixed Train Daily. Mr Beebe and his companion, Charles Clegg, travelled through America and Canada documenting backwoods and branch line railroads from 1945 to 1962. Mr Beebe had initiated the travels in the mid-1930s.

Wines from France, whiskeys from the Highlands and bluegrass country, lunches and dinners packed by Delmonico's, and often a chef and steward in tow. In the later years, they travelled in their private luxury railcars, the Gold Coast and the Virginia City.

Picture of Beebe and Clegg

Interior of the railcar

[Wilfrid1]

My annual read-through is Lucius Beebe's Mixed Train Daily. Mr Beebe and his companion, Charles Clegg, travelled through America and Canada documenting backwoods and branch line railroads from 1945 to 1962. Mr Beebe had initiated the travels in the mid-1930s.

Wines from France, whiskeys from the Highlands and bluegrass country, lunches and dinners packed by Delmonico's, and often a chef and steward in tow. In the later years, they travelled in their private luxury railcars, the Gold Coast and the Virginia City.

Picture of Beebe and Clegg

Interior of the railcar

The picture link is not working for me, but I am confident a Beebe revival is on the way.

"Companion." Yes. In the Snoot collection I've been reading, there's a mind-boggling piece about the effects on home-life of his "room-mate" joining the navy at the outbreak of WWII. Such a lot of fuss about pressing uniforms, and then there's the correspondence. All seemed quite innocent at the time, I'm sure, but now hilarious high camp.

As we know, of course, Luscious turned his back on New York's cafe society sometime around the end of the thirties, hung up his top hat, and went to live with Clegg in some part of the midwest (too lazy to check). From there he pursued this train-spotting passion. Remarkable character.