What have you read lately?

[Chris]

Continuing on my Western genre theme, I just finished Walter Van Tilburg Clark's 1940 classic The Ox-Bow Incident. The prose of this novel can be likened to that of a hard-boiled detective novel. Yet the theme is as broad as frontier life, mob violence, law and order, justice in the American West.

The movie version somewhat follows the novel:




Started reading Winston Groom's El Paso. Another Western about northern Mexico and the revolution down there. Yes, same Winston Groom who wrote Forrest Gump.


Lest you all think all I read are Westerns, well, no, that's just what I read in bed at night. Last week I finished three books:

• John Keegan's The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme. A very intense and insightful book about battles and war by a master.
• Hans-Hermann Hoppe's A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism. Hoppe is heir to the Austrian School of Economics
• Robert Nisbet's Twilight of Authority. A review and revision of his earlier The Quest for Community

[Standing Wolf]

That reminded me of a photo I saw a short time ago, of Fonda and his best pal Jimmy Stewart on the set of The Ox-Bow Incident in 1942, as Stewart was preparing to deploy overseas and before Fonda joined the Navy. The other man is director William Wellman.

[Orion Rules]

TUTANKHAMUN AND THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE PHARAOHS

by ZAWI HAWASS PHOTOGRAPHS BY KENNETH GARRETT

February 2007: The Franklin Institute, Philadelphia

[Chris]

El Paso, Winston Groom, 2016.

A Western novel about a railroad tycoon's family chasing after and rescuing their children from Pancho Villa. Tom Mix, Ambrose Bierce, even George Patton play parts. Sort of a historical novel. Enjoyable, though a 100 or so too many pages.

One remarkable chapter where a bullfighter and his men chase after Pancho Villa's army to rescue his wife held hostage. They arrive at an obscure town in northern Mexico, so obscure the town doesn't even have a name, the townsfolk have no name for it, it's their entire world, and never leave, and only rarely encounter strangers passing through.

Groom is also the author of Forrest Gump.

[bdtex]

Just finished reading Bloody Roads South: The Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May-June 1864 by Noah Andre Trudeau. I am studying up for a visit to Spotsylvania, VA in June.

[NapRover]

An amazing book about Catholic Holy Communion, its origin and roots stemming from the beginning of time to the Last Supper

https://www.christianbook.com/jewish-roots-eucharist-unlocking-secrets-supper/brant-pitre/9780385531863/pd/531863?en=google&event=SHOP&kw=books-0-20|531863&p=1179710&utm_source=google&dv=c&gclid=C jwKCAjw9qiTBhBbEiwAp-GE0c8Sn6XPOUfUnkLkvkZJorrDT0BJMMv-n5l7mVw7OrAZTvFBuP0hyhoCgS0QAvD_BwE

531863_1_ftc.jpg

[jigglepete]

Re-reading The Dice Man by George $#@!croft, I forgot what a disturbing, strange, and entertaining book this is...

[Chris]

E.L. Doctorow's Welcome to Hard Times. The story of rebuilding a Western town destroyed by a bad guy, and.... This is a bleak story. It's told in short, staccato sentences. But very effective in painting the landscape, the town, the people, and the inner story of the town's defacto mayor. There's something about the style, hard to pinpoint, but the nearest I can come is to say the words are the story. It is not telling a story about some events, like Ron Hansen's Desperadoes, a novel I'm now reading about the Dalton Gang, or his The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. No, Welcome to Hard Times is the story. Kafka had this abiltity, so did Nabokov.

Anyway, highly recommended novel. I'll have to read more of Doctorow's work.

BTW, here's the movie version. Looks to capture the novel, just not the style.

[Mister D]

Just finished reading Bloody Roads South: The Wilderness to Cold Harbor, May-June 1864 by Noah Andre Trudeau. I am studying up for a visit to Spotsylvania, VA in June.

I read part of that a long time ago. I remember not liking the author's style. My favorites remain A Landscape Turned Red by Stephen Sears and the trilogy by Shelby Foote.

[Jen]

I recently finished Judgment of the Nephilim by Ryan Pitterson and now I'm reading The Final Nephilim.
I am also reading The Paradigm by Jonathan Cahn.
And I've started (for the third or fourth time) Eye of the World by Robert Jordan.

They are all good and I recommend them - though I am not that crazy about Jonathan Cahn's writing style... it's not compelling to me - so I have to make myself read his books.