Thursday Thirteen #23

Not so very long ago, I heard some young man on the radio remarking on how many books there are with monosyllabic titles.  He them went on to give “Lolita” as an example.  What the poor plonker meant, of course,  was that there are a lot of books with one-word titles.  Memory of his error came back to me when I was trying to think of a good TT subject.  I have more than enough for one TT, so I may do a second, or even a third, like this. But now, though, here is my first….

     List of Books On My Shelves With One-Word Titles

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“Redcoat” by BERNARD CORNWELL.  No one can write a battle scene like Cornwell, author of the Sharpe series of novels, set in the Napoleonic Wars, and the Starbuck Chronicles, set in the U.S. Civil War.  This book as its title suggests, is about British soldiers, in this instance  during the American War of Independence.  Beautifully researched, it’s a real page turner.  There are characters on both sides of the conflict and we are invited to sympathise with all of them. No need to be partisan – just watch what they do, and enjoy.  Buy it here

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“Headlong “ by EMLYN WILLIAMS, who was a well known playwright and Shakespearian actor. As far as I know, this was his first attempt at novel writing.   Set in 1935, it is a fanciful and at times a dark tale of a young actor who, following a disaster that causes thousands of deaths, finds himself king. The story is about how he copes, or sometimes doesn’t, with the role that fate and his ancestry have thrust upon him.  Buy it here

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“Headlong” by MICHAEL FRAYN.  You can’t copyright a title, which is why you can have two or more books with the same name.  This is a humorous novel about a man on the fringes of academia who discovers the location of a previously unknown painting by Brueghel, and he promptly concocts a scheme to buy the painting from the unsuspecting owner for a pittance and re-sell it at a massive profit.  But nothing is ever easy!  There is a lot of explication about Netherlandish and contemporary Renaissance art in the book, and it sent me straight to the internet to look up examples of Brueghel, Giordano and others, whose paintings are discussed during the story. I wanted to be able to see what the characters were looking at.  Buy it here

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“Max”  by HOWARD FAST.  Max is a young man who enters the fledgling movie industry, such as it was, in the very early years of the twentieth century and eventually becomes head of a major Hollywood studio.  Anyone interested in the subject, or who just likes a good story, will enjoy this book.  Buy it here

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“Exodus” by LEON URIS.  No doubt Uris is pleased that you can’t copyright a title, so he was in no danger of being sued by Moses.  This novel, possibly his best known, is about Jewish emigration to Palestine after the Second World War and the foundation of the State of Israel in 1948.  It is heavy reading at times, but never enough to put one off. Uris makes no bones about where his sympathies lie, and he succeeds in carrying the reader along with him  Buy it here

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“Hancock”  by FREDDIE HANCOCK  and DAVID NATHAN.  Tony Hancock was Britain’s best loved comedian in the 1950s and early 1960s. His series “Hancock’s Half Hour” is still regarded as a classic of comedy writing and timing.  Like so many people before and since who have achieved great success in their field, Hancock was unable to order his personal life satisfactorily. Conflicts with his friends an fellow artists drove them away one by one and when he broke with his writers, who had constantly been giving him the first class material that had made him so successful, he had nowhere to go but down. To the end he carried with him the affection of the British public, who willed him to regain the success he had had, but that he never found again.  This biography by his second wife Freddie, and David Nathan, is comprehensive and revealing.  After you read it you may want to find and watch “The Blood Donor” or “The Missing Page”  and if you do you won’t regret it.  Buy it here

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“Headwind” by JOHN NANCE.  Nance usually writes novels concerning aircraft. Headwind is mainly set in an airplane that hops from one European runway to another, for reasons that form the central motivation in the novel. Strangely enough, though, all through this book my sympathies were entirely with the bad guys and I was hoping that the main protagonist, whom Nance wants us to think of as the hero, would come to grief. If you get this book, do not read the author’s Acknowledgements, which for some reason are situated at the front of the book, not the back of it, because they contain a couple of expressions of thanks that will give away certain plot developments which you are not supposed to know until well into the story.  Buy it here

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“Hotel” by ARTHUR HALEY.  One of Haley’s mega successes. He used to write detailed novels centred on various industries and professions (e.g. “Airport”,  “Wheels”, “The Moneychangers”) and this one is set in a long-established luxury hotel in New Orleans. Haley always researched his novels exhaustively, so we cam assume that his depiction of the nuts and bolts of running a hotel is accurate.  I don’t think it was his best book but it was a fun read for all that.  A rather disappointing TV series based on the book came and went in the 1980s.  Buy it here

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“London” by EDWARD RUTHERFURD.  Following the success of “Sarum”, Rutherfurd now gives us this story of five families and their changing and varied fortunes, in London from the time of the Roman occupation to World War Two.  Given such a huge canvas, many people would paint too thinly, but not Rutherfurd.  This is a long book but it is easily devoured.  Buy it here

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“Moviola” by GARSON KANIN.  Kanin was a Hollywood writer and director of many decades experience.  This novel is about several true episodes in movie history (i.e. the Fatty Arbuckle scandal, the search for an actress to play Scarlett O’Hara) from the points of view of fictional characters whom he inserts into real life events.  Buy it here

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“Rickenbacker” by EDDIE RICKENBACKER.  This book thrills me.  It is the autobiography of Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker who, apart from being a successful racing car driver from 1912 to 1916, was America’s top fighter pilot ace in the First World War, having shot down 26 German aircraft.  That story fascinates me as it is but what thrills me, what really thrills me about this book as I hold it in my hand, is that Capt. Rickenbacker autographed it to me ,by name.  “To my young English friend Nicholas Temple-Smith” he wrote, above his signature on the flyleaf.  The hand that pressed the machine gun trigger while fighting the Red Baron’s squadron in 1918 also held the pen that wrote my name.  I was just a child when I received that book, and I was overjoyed.  I still am.  Buy it here

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“Shogun”  by JAMES CLAVELL.  I tried.  I promise you, I really did try. But this book just goes on and on forever.  I’m sure it’s excellent, and very worthy and maybe even exciting.  I got 600 pages in and realised that I was scarcely halfway through it.  What’s more, I had lost track of who was who, what with so many characters with strange unfamiliar names, and I found I didn’t really care what happened to any of them.  So I gave up.  That was my third attempt at this  book.  Buy it here

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“Scoop” by EVELYN WAUGH.  Like a lot of Waugh’s novels, this one is wickedly funny, and probably couldn’t get published today if it was a new novel.  In 1930  harmless, unworldly man who sends a weekly column to a national British newspaper about the countryside flora and fauna, is mistakenly sent to Africa as war correspondent to report on a civil war raging there.  This tale of a fish out of water takes a sharp, satirical, unflattering look at newspapers, colonialism, Africa, journalists, and just about everyone else who appears.  Waugh may not have liked people very much, but he knew how to make them laugh  Buy it here

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Comments

[Chelle Y.]

You sure read a lot. I used to do that, but now I do not have time. I try to at night, but then I am so tired, I just want to sleep! :) The only books I read right now are kid's books with my son!

Hey, I am reading Harry Potter (the sixth one). :)

[Mark Caldwell]

BERNARD CORNWELL made my 13 this week too.

Intersting list :-)

[Tink]

I have Shogun, Exodus and Hotel. I'll check out the others. Fun book TT again!
Thanks for visiting my IJmuiden TT.

[Malcolm]

"Max" sounds like an interesting book. Although I haven't read "Moviola", I did see a couple of the TV-movies adapted from it.

[Sue]

Goodly list! Would like to read Redcoat (I wear one as a re-enactor), and I could not read Shogun either! Happy TT and thanks for stopping by :)

[PJ]

Interesting list. I think we have a copy of Shogun hiding somewhere in one of our bookcases but none of us have read it.

[The Nononsense]

Good list! This week, like the others I'm getting my readers to know me a little better!

http://thenononsense.blogspot.com/

[The Gal Herself]

I remember thinking Moviola was a charming book when I read it, but I haven't thought of it in decades. Thanks for reminding me. I think I'll move it from my shelf to my TBR list.

[WFM]

Wow, quite the list. Obviously a serious reader!

[Susan Helene Gottfried]

Okay, Nicholas, you have an impossible number of books on your shelves. I am jealous, and I have a couple hundred on Mt. TBR!

[Mary Emken]

Shogun I won't even attempt to read. Moviola I read quite a while ago. There's two books I've ordered. One is, Our Own Worst Enemy by Randy Larson. Read the reviews on it Nick. It made me cringe. The other one is, Loving Frank by Nancy Horan. It's what you would call a girlie Book.

Mary Emken

[Lori]

OK...so what else do you do besides read;)Happy TT.

[Janet]

Garson Kanin...he was married to Ruth Gordon, was he not? Fatty Arbuckle lol! Makes me think of my old Commodore 64; you could make it talk and we thought it was WICKED funny to make it say, "My name is Fatty Arbuckle" cause of the weird intonation LOL!

LOVED Shogun!

[Lara]

Boy, some of these brought back memories! I loved Shogun...which made me think of Hawaii...which made me think of all the books I have with one word titles! Boy, I'm gonna be checking all night!!
Great TT!

[Lori]

More books for my reading list! Happy TT

[Merrie]

Great list, Nicholas! I was astounded as I breezed through your list of books, how many there were with just one word in the title . . . here's the wacky part (there's always a wacky part) . . .

Then I realized the book I am writing has a one-word title, as well!

Ha. You caught me.

Blessings on your journey through the Thirteen!
Merrie

[Nicole Austin]

You have so many great books! I wish I'd managed to keep more of mine over the years, but moves here and there have dwindled down my collection.
Happy TT!

[Wylie Kinson]

Ahhh... Haley's HOTEL was the reason I went into the hotel/resort business. Fond memories.

[Friday's Child]

Have not read any of them but they seem to be good books as they are shown on the cover. I know there is a saying, do not judge the book by its cover.
Thanks for the visit.

[Damozel]

Hey, where's "Elijah"???

Love the Seagulls T13 tag; you did a much better job with the edit than I did!

[mom not mum]

I think the only one I've read was Hotel. Interesting list.

[Xakara]

Always great to start the night off with a booklist. (I'm an hour behind from losing my entry TWICE. But I made it!)

Very nice list, I'm familiar with a few of the titles but not the content. So this time I get to feel left out. Now we're even. *grin*

~X

[Robin from Israel]

I've always loved Exodus (and having Paul Newman play Ari in the movie version certainly didn't hurt). I'm with you on Shogun too, I tried, but it just wouldn't happen. Borrrrrrrrring.

[Ed]

Great list. I have read most of them and Shogun and all of Clavell's work have been rereads. I will need to get my hands on Redcoats. Your book lists seem to always recommend new authors and books for me.

Thanks, Ed

[Elle Fredrix]

Great idea.

I want to know how long your laughed for when this guy said that Lolita was monosylabbic.