Following are books I remember reading but cannot remember what they are about
or just have never written a review. In trying to recall the many books I’ve
read in my lifetime and in the spirit of GoodReads, I herewith make note of some
of those titles. Some of the titles that I assigned to my reading list, as
having been in the early 2000s were actually from an earlier period, but in a
random attempt to recall their readings I placed them at those later dates.
THE RED AND THE BLACK by STENDHAL
I see that LC Class: PQ2435.R72 H35 1989 would put this paperback version at
about when I was 36, which would probably be about the time I went on a
classical reading binge due to Norman’s prompting. Norman was a coworker at U.S.
Nav., who manipulated his way into becoming my supervisor. One day, he said he
was shocked that I was so lax in not having read through important books and was
wasting my time on best-selling and pop novels when there were titles everyone
at my age should have read. That was what started me off on the Whittemore
tetralogy, Regiment of Women, Fata Morgana, The Red and the Black, Madame
Bovary, Thomas Pynchon, and Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, the latter of
which I spent six months plowing through, only to have him tell me, “Well, I
have to give you credit for making it all the way. I only got as far as the
madeleine memory.”
EXCELLENT WOMEN by BARBARA PYM
In 1988, when my mom went into the hospital and I sought something to read on
the long train ride to visit her, I found Barbara Pym’s books to carry me
through and later I searched for more in that vein and discovered Anita
Brookner, Elizabeth Tayler and a host of other English writers, men and women,
who extolled the virtues of living simply, and who were mostly of the past, and
some Americans such as Dawn Powell who lived a little more raucously but told
things in that particular way.
MADAME SARAH by CONELIA OTIS SKINNER
This was published in 1966, and I remember reading it in hardcover, but it would
have to have been much later because I recall lying in my brother’s room and he
was away in the Marines which he entered at 17, so if I was 19 it would have
been around 1972. I remember being enthralled by the idea of Bernhardt sleeping
in her coffin long before she was dead, and always regarding tomorrow as, “Quand
meme?”
THE GODFATHER by MARIO PUZO
As the hardcover was published in 1969, and I remember reading the paperback,
this one must have been around 1970. Another one that had to be read because
everyone was doing so and looking forward to the film, which won the Oscar for
1972.
ROSEMARY’S BABY by IRA LEVIN
This was published in 1967, but again I read the paperback when absolutely
everyone was reading it. It was one of the best-selling books of the 60s, and I
was in junior-high, and read it along with my friend Danny. I do remember later
when the movie came out thinking it was one of the few movies that was exactly
like the book that prompted it. The movie was from 1968.
MY SECRET LIFE by WALTER (ANONYMOUS)
Another book that was far beyond my years, Victorian pornography, that I
purchased on my own from a pharmacy paperback rack and then secretly read, but
of course I had to show a passage to my younger brother, and of course, he had
to run and tell my mother, “Mom, Michael’s reading a dirty book.” This in front
of one of her friends, Marianne, and Mom although feeling embarrassed said she
really didn’t limit my reading, so let me keep it because I had bought it, but
said she was going to have a talk with the druggist asking why he allowed minors
to purchase such trash. She then later sent me to buy her a copy of Tropic of
Cancer on the advice of my aunt.
VALLEY OF THE DOLLS by JACQUELINE SUSANN
Published 1966. I was staying with my uncle and though he was unfamiliar with
the book he bought it for me in hardcover because I asked for it and I stayed up
all night reading it. I remember feeling like I was getting away with something
because I was actually too young at 13 to be reading such an “adult” themed
novel.
MYRTLE ALBERTINA’S SECRET by LILLIAN POHLMANN
This was one of the few Scholastic versions of books I purchased as a kid and
one day my mother said she had nothing to read and asked me what I had
available, so she read through this brief paperback and we sort of shared the
experience, one of the very few times we ever did that. I don’t really recall
now what this was about, but that sharing stuck with me.
MIND SWAP by ROBERT SHECKLEY
Originally published 1965. I don’t remember if I read this in hard- or
softcover, but I believe I borrowed it from my beloved Ninth Street library in
Brooklyn, so it was probably in hardcover, and may have been soon after it was
published. I do recall lounging on the kitchen fire escape outside my sister’s
apartment to read and being amazed at the concept of people in the future being
able to travel in the minds of others to distant planets, and being impressed
with Sheckley’s writing ability. I think it kicked off a Sci-Fi reading spree
with me.
LITTLE WOMEN by LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Never one to read the classics of boyhood such as Kidnapped or Treasure Island,
I read this which was considered a girl’s book because I was attracted by the
homely illustration on the cover, and it was probably one of the last books I
borrowed from the children’s section of the Ninth Street Public Library before I
was allowed to skim through the titles in the adult section, titles such as Tono
Bungay and Erewhon. I think one had to be twelve to browse that section, so I
might have read Little Women in 1964 or -65
Others may come to me, but that's all I've got for now.
