Thursday Thirteen #63

It seems ages since I did a book list for my TT, so here’s one now.  I had a look round my books to see how many had titles that were actual sentences – subject and predicate.  There were quite a few, so I expect I’ll be able to use this idea again.  Lots of them were autobiographies, for some reason.   Anyway, here are…...

 Thirteen Books With Titles That Are Full Sentences

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Go Slowly, Come Back Quickly   by DAVID NIVEN   That charming and most entertaining actor, the late David Niven wrote two best selling volumes of autobiography.  Less well know are his two novels.  One was written in the 1950s, and for his own reasons he never allowed it back into print. This, his second, he completed shortly before his death. It was less critically acclaimed than his autobiographies but I really enjoyed it.  Time to read it again I think.   Buy it here

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That's Me In The Middle   by DONALD JACK   Canadian author Donald Jack wrote a series of nine stories about Bartholomew Bandy, a pilot in World War One and afterwards.  I have read the first two (this is the second) and they are extremely funny.  I mean, funny as in giggling out loud to myself in public and hoping no one notices.  That leaves seven left for me to read, and I'm looking forward to them.  Buy it here

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I'm Not Really Here   by TIM ALLEN   Not so much a biographical work as a series of thoughts and observations about this and that, in the style of comedians these days.  Lots of subjects are covered, from bringing up children to male fascination with power tools.  And as we expect from Tim Allen, it's all pretty funny.   Buy it here

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Everything's Eventual   by STEPHEN KING   Another book of short stories.  As with a lot of King's work these days, there are hits and misses.  But there are enough hits in this book that most readers should be able to find something they like.  I expect they will all be made in to movies eventually.    Buy it here

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Nobody's Perfect   by DONALD E. WESTLAKE   I have praised Westlake in these lists before and I am delighted to do so again.  This is a very funny story featuring one of his recurring characters, the thief John Dortmunder, a stolen painting, and bungled attempts to recover it when the thieves lose it.  A delight to read.   Buy it here

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The Idiot Played Rachmaninov   by MICHAEL BROWN   I found this in a bargain bin in a grotty little sub post office in the Hackney Road many years ago.  It's an interesting variation on the story of a small isolated rural community standing up to a thuggish government hand in hand with big business interests.  And the whole thing is set in New Zealand, which for some reason I found very surprising.   Buy it here

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Woe Is I   by PATRICIA T. O'CONNER   I have to thank lovely Di for this.  After an exchange of e-mails, in which we both bemoaned the standard of English in the world these days (completely justifiably, mind you), she recommended this book to me.  Her word is my command, so I ordered it that same day, and I'm very glad I did.  Admittedly, anyone whose first language is English should know most of this already but it does no harm to be reminded, and there are perhaps several things here that are new, or at least surprising.   Buy it here

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Buy Jupiter  by ISAAC ASIMOV   This is a collection of twenty-four short stories from one of the best ever science fiction writers, written over a period of about thirty years.  Some a lot shorter than others, but all of them enjoyable.   Buy it here

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Now, God Be Thanked   by JOHN MASTERS   This is the first volume in a beautifully written, thoughtful trilogy about two families caught up in the Great War in 1914 onwards.  Multi-layered, intelligent, and written by someone who knew what he was talking about.  One of those books that has a wealth of characters, but the reader never loses track of who is who, but is caught up with each one   Buy it here

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God Is My Broker   by CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY and JOHN TIERNEY   Monks in a monastery need to raise funds, so they consider who can best help them.  Apart from being a comedy about that set of circumstances, this is really a satire aimed at the so-called money gurus who offer us all useless advice dressed up as pearls of wisdom.  Some of them are even named by the authors.  A very amusing book.  Buy it here

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La Guerre De Troie N'Aura Pas Lieu   by JEAN GIRAUDOUX   This is a leftover from my schooldays, when this play was a required text for my French A-Level.  Written in 1935, it was very loosely based on the story of Troilus  & Cressida but it was mainly about the coming of war with Germany.  When that did eventually happen, Giraudoux, I understand, was something of a collaborator and German-sympathiser.  If you can speak French  buy it here.

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Long Live The King   by JOHN ROWE   An entertaining story about a young member of the Royal family who, though a sequence of events I won't go into, accedes to the throne and finds inevitably that his whole life has to change.  To help him through the initial upheaval, he finds himself taken under the wing of the Prime Minister, but the two men fall out and their conflict makes up the last part of the story.  All good fun!    Buy it here

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SWF Seeks Same  by JOHN LUTZ   There was a film made of this and I think it was one of those instances when the move was better than the book it was based on.  It's a story about what happens when you share an apartment with someone you do not know.  I can sympathise; in my student days one of my roommates ran away the day before the rent was due and another was arrested for armed robbery and carted off to jail one Saturday night.  Still, this book describes some much worse things!   Buy it here
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Comments

[Geriatric Nurse]

I really liked your list and your evaluation of the material. I will have to review my book shelves. Thanks for stopping by my blog.

[Journeywoman]

Neat list.

[Brian]

Thanks for stopping by and visiting. I have to admit that none of the 13 books here are on my life list.

Have a great weekend.

[bernie]

Thanks for visiting. Just FYI, I linked to your article from my TT 13 Annoying Things On the Web: http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2008/08/13_annoying_things_on_the_web.html

[bernie]

Thanks for visiting, just FYI, I linked to your article from 13 Annoying Things On the Web: http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2008/08/13_annoying_things_on_the_web.html

[bernie]

Something went wrong with my submit button - sorry about the duplicate comments.

[Di]

When I saw Woe is I, I was delighted that we both loved that book...but then I was even more delighted when I saw that you bought it from my recommendation (not to mention delighted that you refer to me as "lovely Di"...right now, most references to me start with "Mom" and are followed by "Where is the ..." God forbid anyone ELSE should unpack something and therefore know what it is!

Great list.

[Candy Minx]

It's amazing to me how many books you found that have such long/sentence style titles!

A couple on my shelves...

"And They all Sang"
"Made to stick"

uh...

"man in the middle"
"the upside of down"
"Enslaved by a duck"

Happy TT!

http://gnosticminx.blogspot.com/2008/08/13-things-about-hundertwasser.html

[bernie]

Just FYI, I linked to your TT from 13 Annoying Things On the Web