September Book Challenge: Books with Three Criteria

Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away (actually not so far away) lived the black-leather-clad dominatrix known as avaland. She was always issuing book challenges to her poor over-read subjects. One day, a subject (who will remain unnamed) rebelled (sort of). Dominatrix avaland referred to the rebellion as "throwing down the gauntlet" and bade the unnamed subject to throw down the gauntlet. Now this posed a logical quandary: If one throws down a gauntlet and then is ordered to throw down a gauntlet, who has really thrown down the gauntlet? Has a gauntlet even been thrown down? In any case, here is the gauntlet (maybe):

The book must meet the following three criteria (yes three). Even though some will tell you that there are six criteria listed below, they obviously cannot count. Whatever . . . the book must meet all the following criteria.

1. The book must come from your library (personal or public).
2. It must be oldish (pre-1960s is preferable)
3. It must be physically oldish. In other words not a recent reprint.
4. It must be a hardback.
5. It must have a dust jacket (pre-1960s as well).
6. You must not previously have read said book although you are am permitted to be familiar with the author.

Yours truly,
The Much Harassed Unnamed Subject

Does it count if I'm reading the book in August? Cause I don't actually own a lot of those books, but I'm currently reading a 1958 edition --complete with dust jacket!-- of Rumer Godden's Greengage Summer. Other than that, I'm left with . . . a similar printing of the same author's Episode of Sparrows, and I rarely read the same author two months in a row.

As for Avaland being a black leather-clad dominatrix, I've seen her pics on FaceBook and never noticed that. However, now that you mention it, all her pics show her from the neck up. Hmmmm.

Hmm, the only things I can find on my pile that are that old are paperbacks.

I'm in. As I mentioned previously, I have one book that meets all of Mary's criteria, and it's a book that she recommended to me: Yesterday by Maria Dermoût. It was published in 1959, and I have the original hardback from that year, with a dust jacket.

I have a nonfiction book that I'll probably also read: The Silent Traveller in San Francisco by Chiang Yee. It's a first edition copy from W.W. Norton, published in 1964.

I need to go shopping on my shelves and see what I've got that fits this criteria.

> 2 Nickelini,
I envy you. I have a Folio Edition of The Greengage Summer, but I would rather have an old copy. If you really must, The Greengage Summer can count, but try to find something different for this challenge. I love this book. I think it is Godden's best novel.

> 3 bragan,

Go to the public library. If that does not appeal, steal a book from one of your friends, or as a last resort purchase a book that meets these criteria.

P.S. All September conspirators, be ever vigilant. Who knows when dominatrix avaland may appear.

P.P.S. There is one more third criterion. You need to post a picture of your book jacket cover. If you experience difficulty, you will be directed to the appropriate technical support department.

P.S.,

To bragan et al,

If you have absolutely nothing in your library, here is a book that I have been pushing for years (mostly without success) Messer Marco Polo. It is not historical in any sense of the word, but it is a charmingly written fairytale about Marco Polo. I just checked on abebooks. Here is one for only five dollars and free shipping. Does life get better?

Messer Marco Polo
Donn Byrne
Bookseller: Winter Ventures
(Medford, OR, U.S.A.)

Quantity Available: 1
Book Description: The Century Co, 1921. Book Condition: Good. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Shipped quickly. Hardcover. Dust jacket in Good condition. First Edition Ed. Used, good. Good overall with moderate wear. Includes dust jacket. Bookseller Inventory # 0459194

P.S. Donn Byrne, author of the aforementioned book, was an interesting character in his own right. He was Irish and the book has an Irish lilt to it. I will happily offer suggestions to any September conspirator lacking a book.

I think the overread and much harassed subjects of Club Read should rebel and read a pulp fiction novel for the October Book Challenge. I've already got mine picked out:



By the way, the title of this book in no way reflects the opinions of the poster. The Much Harassed Unnamed Subject has never heard Satan refer to Satan's gender orientation.The Much Harassed Subject suspects that Satan is an UDWM (UnDead White Male). The Much Harassed Subject has no absolutely no empirical evidence for her sexist suspicions, nor does she wish to inquire too closely.

Now if I can just locate this book. . . .

P.S. Hey avaland, when is Belletrista going to do an essay on feminist pulp fiction?

tough rules.

I have several, but most are Faulkner, Hemingway, Bellow, Robert Penn Warren - all of which intimidate me, and none of which am I itching to read just right now. Anyway, I think I want new stuff in September.

But, still some ideas I've collected:
fiction
The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier => 1957 edition. no clue what this is
The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck => 1961 edition
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath => 1971 edition - close enough??
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles => 1969 edition

non-fiction
The Guns of August by Barbara Wertheim Tuchman => 1962 edition
The Longhorns by J. Frank Dobie => 1961 edition
America in Our Time, 1896-1946 by Dwight Lowell Dumond => 1947 edition, no clue what it is
The Rothschilds : a Family Portrait by Frederic Morton => 1962 edition
The Land of the Great Sophy by Roger Stevens=> 1962 edition, on the Middle East, I think.
The Indian Heritage of America by Alvin M. Josephy jr.=> 1968 edition

Suggestions welcome.

Oops, most of those don't have dust jackets. Will Mary forgive? If not, I'm down to non-fiction only:

The Guns of August by Barbara Wertheim Tuchman => 1962 edition
The Longhorns by J. Frank Dobie => 1961 edition
The Indian Heritage of America by Alvin M. Josephy jr.=> 1968 edition

>12 dchaikin:,

I absolve you.

Mine will be Two Under The Indian Sun by Rumer Godden and Jon Godden.

#4 I have one of the Silent Traveller books, but sadly without a dust jacket...

I may have some chance of doing this without dust jackets . . . have to get back home to check boxes of books . . .

Man,

Booklovers with no covers??? You must all be Brits. I read somewhere that the British do not set as much store by book jackets as do the Americans. Oh course that is probably anti-British propaganda. Okay, slight change of rules. If and only if you must, go for a book without a book jacket, but that is the only concession being made. So no more weeping and rending of clothes. A book with a highly decorative hardcover will also count.

Yours truly,
The Much Harassed Unnamed Subject

I will be reading a book called It's a Great World by Emily Loring. I have read a couple by the author since I inherited a bunch from my grandmother, but I have not read this one. The book I have is quite old and was published in 1935 by the publisher Grosset & Dunlap.

#16, You'll have to blame my parents - most of my pre-1960 hard covers are theirs.

Hi Mary. Just wanted to let you know I'm doing your challenge over on the TIOLI thread. I'm going to read Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. It's a hardcover copy I picked up recently in a used bookstore published in 1960 by Viking Press. No dust jacket, I'm afraid.

I finished my three-criteria challenge read...the bludgeoningly boring 920 O'Farrell Street, my jacketed edition published by Doubleday in 1947...and reviewed it in my thread...post #106.

Published in 1958, but a dust jacket for the 1965 printing of a history of the modern world. I can't, i'd have constant asthma attacks with that one.

What about an older book that was published w/ leather binding, but never had a dust jacket? Our 1876 ed. of Chambers Encyclopedia has a lot less dust than older books that still have a dust jacket? And reads better. I've never read a volume end to end.

It's the damn dust jacket requirement. I was just looking at my copy of more poems - AE Housman The American edition (New York, Knopf) "was published the same day as the English. Mr. White records (p. 36) that, in addition to minor differences in the Preface, there are many variations in the text of the poems themselves." I know there was a dust jacket, although the "blue buckram w/ gilt printing" seems archaic enough. maybe?

The same is true for 1sts of Hersey's Hiroshima, 1st 3 vols of Paterson - etc (my dad was a collector of oddities - 1sts of Jurgen and much more Cabell and related obscurities that didn't cost much in the 50s-80s. Though Paterson was (were?) my mom's acknowledgment of her natal town.

Who's providing the antihistamines and epi pens?

>20 richardderus:,
Poor Richard. Shall we get you an Almanac?

>21 bobmcconnaughey: bob,
I quite approve of Chambers Encyclopedia. When I was a wee tot, I often read my grandmother's Chambers Encyclopedia, the 1898 edition I think. Old encyclopedias make for highly entertaining reads.

I love the writing in Chambers. Opinionated and very literate.

Yesterday by Maria Dermoût (Simon & Schuster, 1959)



Maria Dermoût (1888-1962) was an Indonesian writer who was born to a colonial family on Java, in the Dutch East Indies, educated in The Netherlands, and lived most of her life in Java. She did not begin writing until her sixties, and she produced two novels, Yesterday, which was originally published in Dutch in 1951 and translated into English in 1959, and The Ten Thousand Things, which was published in Dutch in 1955 and is currently available from New York Review Books.

Yesterday, based on the author's life, is narrated by a young girl whose father owns a sugar cane plantation on the island of Java at the end of the 19th century. Her life is an idyllic one, with little care or responsibility, although tensions of colonial life occasionally disturb her peaceful setting. Dermoût's description of the jungle setting is evocative, and her light touch makes for a quick read, but one that this reader will soon forget.

>22 urania1: >20 richardderus:,
Poor Richard. Shall we get you an Almanac?

I don't know if my heart could withstand the excitement after that one. But I could *write* an Almanack, as I am very Poor....

Next three-criteria read: Pepita by Vita Sackville-West. It's the 1937 Doubleday, Doran edition and the jacket is in very good condition, if you can imagine that!

>25 richardderus: I quite liked Pepita. I found it amusing in a diva sort of way.

Starting to go through the boxes to find one with a dustwrapper . . .

ETA I have found one possibility, Blue Trout and Black Truffles by Joseph Wechsberg, a 1953 publication.

Book #111: The Silent Traveller in San Francisco by Chiang Yee (W.W. Norton, 1964)



My rating:

Chiang Yee, a noted travel writer, met a San Franciscan during a trip from New York to England on an ocean liner in 1945. His new friend invited him to visit him in the City By the Bay on a future trip. Chiang spent six months in and around San Francisco in early 1953, and wrote this chronicle of his stay there.

This book was interesting in some sections, but was mainly a frustrating read for me, as Chiang would frequently diverge from his narrative of the places he visited, recounting meetings with friends and recalling other sites that he had seen previously. Reading this was akin to having a conversation with a demented man, whose flight of ideas prevented a true conversation or a linear narrative. This book is currently out of print, and, in my opinion, it should stay that way.

Both of my books for this challenge have been duds; I'll have to find a more palatable one.

Reading this was akin to having a conversation with a demented man,

Oh, no!!!!!!! :D

I'm sort of enjoying my Three Criteria read. I'll post more about it on my thread when I'm done with the book. Sorry your two were duds. I'd blame urania1! :)

HA...found a copy of Robert Lowell's life studies complete w/ somewhat torn dust jacket. While not as enjoyable as Chambers, I WILL be able to finish it this month. Library book sales uber alles.

I am reading Harlequin House (1939) by Margery Sharp. She is one of my favorite authors. I am not sure how this one ended up on the forgotten shelf, but all's well that ends well. For those of you unfamiliar with Margery Sharp, she writes light, humorous novels with just a touch of P.G. Wodehouse and Barbara Pym. With the exception of three books, her novels all involve romance, although not of the Harlequin Romance type. For those of you who were once wee tots, she wrote a children's book - The Rescuers, which Walt Disney films botched (no surprises there). Read the book; avoid the movie. In fact she wrote a whole series of Rescuer novels:

The Rescuers (1959)
Miss Bianca (1962)
The Turret (1963)
Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines (1966)
Miss Bianca in the Orient (1970)
Miss Bianca in the Antarctic (1971)
Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid (1972)
Bernard the Brave (1977)
Bernard into Battle (1978)

My favorite Margery Sharp book is Cluny Brown, which was made into a movie. I have never seen this movie.

I also loved Martha in Paris

>32 avaland: Esther Forbes' novel A Mirror for Witches is supposed to be pretty good. I just ordered a copy.

Okay, I do not hear any public outpouring of support for an October pulp fiction challenge, so here's another idea. October Book Challenge - Judging Books by Their Covers. There would be only one rule: read a book that you bought because you liked the cover.

Or what about YA Vampire Fiction for the October Book Challenge? I think avaland's hair might stand on end.

P.S. I have a list if anyone wants it ;-)

I've begun the entertaining Blue Trout and Black Truffles, published in 1953.

Oh, I liked the pulp fiction challenge idea. :(

Wait!!! Stop the presses!!! We have vigorous outpouring of two in favor of pulp fiction. Would the Twilight series count as pulp? If so, this would give me an excuse to read them.

I would join for pulp fiction! :)

>37 rebeccanyc: Is that like Green Eggs and Ham?

I love the Judging Books by Their Covers idea!

>40 christiguc: and 42: We could combine the two. Buy a pulp fiction novel for its cover.

I just stepped over to ManyBooks.net, which has a lot of good pulp fiction titles in addition to some wonderful titles. I think I may have found the 17th century version of pulp fiction, published in 1664:

The Curtezan unmasked or, The Whoredomes of Jezebel Painted to the Life: With Antidotes against them, or Heavenly Julips to cool Men in the Fever of Lust

I really want to know about those "heavenly" julips. Were they mint do you think?

We could combine the two. Buy a pulp fiction novel for its cover.

Perfect! I'll start my search tomorrow.

So it's settled? We're all off to find a pulp fiction novel for its cover???

Agreed.

That sounds fine. Thank you!

>44 urania1: Some other perfect descriptions:

It would take more than luck to find the Vatican’s missing millions—in the jungles of Brazil...

or

They all answered to...the BODYMASTER!

It's a good thing I'll be picking one for the cover because if I'm waiting for a description to catch my fancy. . . ;)

My book was Blue Trout and Black Truffles: The Peregrinations of an Epicure by Joesph Wechsberg. published in 1953 and unearthed in one of the boxes of books from my parents' apartment. It was a lively and entertaining look at two worlds that no longer exist, from the perspective of food and gourmet meals.

The first part, which I found more enjoyable, shows Wechsberg's childhood in Moravia (a Czech-speaking part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) before and in the years after the first world war, and his life as a young man in Prague, Paris, and Vienna and as a traveling musician on ocean liners in the 1920s. This part was both inherently more interesting for me, partly because I've read a lot of central European fiction more or less from this time period or slightly earlier and also because it told more of a story. It also included fascinating tidbits like the 20 cuts of boiled beef in Vienna and the exploits of ladies who frequented Maxim's in Paris in the 1890s.

The second part, which reads more like a collection of magazine articles (and probably was, since some of the chapters were published in a variety of US magazines) takes the reader on trips to French restaurants, truffle-gathering communities, and wine chateaus in the early 1950s. I found this moderately interesting in itself and as a portrait of a a way of life that, 50+ years later, seems almost as remote to us as the last days of the Austro-Hungarian empire must have seemed to Wechsberg when he wrote this book in 1953.

One of the most remarkable things about this book is Wechsberg's wonderful, lively, and humorous writing, because English is at least his fourth language (after Czech, German, and French) and he only learned it on coming to the US in 1938.

I'm afraid I have abandoned O Genteel Lady (1926) at about page 100. Set in the mid-19th century, it's the story of a young woman who, after her mother scandalously runs off with a much younger man, escapes the wagging tongues of Amherst and a stuffy, moral financé, by running off to Boston to stay with a cousin. Boston offers a great, wide world for Lanice and she is soon doing artwork for a lady's magazine and being introduced to interesting people in the city or who come through the city.

It's written with some wonderful domestic detail, particularly clothing, and, at least at the beginning of the book, seems to use the restrictiveness of the clothing, the "cage" of hoops as a metaphor for a woman's place in society. There is certainly a fair bit of well-done local detail of historical Boston...etc. I admit to skipping ahead to Chapter 10 where she is introduced to George Eliot. I'm sure the book is meant as a coming-into-her-own sort of story, as our protagonist is immature and naive when we first meet her, but I found Lanice lacking in personality and, frankly, a bit boring.

Apparently the novel was reviewed well and sold well back in 1926, but it's a bit too tame for my tastes (I've read a lot of American fiction written during the period she has set the book in and I think I prefer that to this). Anyway, I've been wanting to read this and this theme was a good excuse to do so.

I participated in this challenge as Darryl included it with our monthly TIOLI challenges over on the 75 books group.
I had 3 books at hand that met the criteria: The Caine Mutiny, The Lion and The Inspector. Because the plot appealed, though the book cover is fairly nondescript, I went with Jan de Hartog's The Inspector (1960).

This was a New York Times bestseller (Fiction, 1960) and was an enjoyable read. It starts in Holland in 1946 with a police inspector tailing a suspected white slave trader who has a sickly, young Jewish woman with him and is taking her to London to send on to a South American brothel. When official bureaucracy stalls, the disillusioned inspector decides to help the dying young woman achieve her dream of a new life in Palestine. There are obstacles most set in motion by his vindictive wife. He can't explain his motive, just that he can't bear how everyone seems to be content to get on with their lives and conveniently forget what has just happened in the war. Interesting characters and a great canal voyage from Holland to Paris add up to a satisfying story.

Wars I Have Seen by Gertrude Stein

This is the first edition, published in 1945, a Random House Wartime Book, which I purloined from my mother's library -- it has her maiden name inscribed on the flyleaf.

It's brilliant. I had read some Stein years ago, but I'm not sure I was experienced enough to really appreciate what she truly achieved. I recognized her innovation and her keen sense of observation, but what I really appreciated in this book is her sheer humanity and poetry. It is a plain, understated poetry, a poetry that captures speech and common life in its mundanity and exceptionality.

I may elaborate more in a review, but the book covers the period from June 1943 until September 1944 when Stein and Toklas were living in Culoz, France under German occupation waiting for the Allies to invade and retake France. It's an intimate view of of how those in the French countryside managed to survive the last year of WWII and welcome the triumph of the maquis (the underground French soldiers) and the entry of the Americans.

Book #136: The Words by Jean-Paul Sartre (George Braziller (1964), Hardcover)



Jean-Paul Sartre's autobiography was published in English in 1964, the year that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, and it focuses on his early childhood and the influences that led to his decision to become a writer.

Sartre's father died when he was an infant; as a result he and his mother Anne-Marie moved back into her parents' house on the edge of Paris. As an only child, the young Jean-Paul was nurtured and sheltered by his mother and his grandparents, and his greatest influence as a child was his grandfather Charles Schweitzer, a professor of German literature and nephew of the Nobel laureate Albert Schweitzer. Sartre's initial years were spent in near complete isolation from other children, and he began to read voraciously at an early age, with his greatest influences being the adventure stories that his mother and grandmother gave to him, to the chagrin of his grandfather. He began to play act stories that he created based on his reading, and soon he began to write stories about these adventures. In his later childhood his grandfather's teaching and reading became more influential, and he supported his wife and daughter in encouraging Sartre to pursue a career as a writer.

The autobiography is divided into two long chapters, Reading and Writing. The first chapter is by far the most interesting, as Sartre introduces us to his family and the joys of his young childhood. However, the last half of the book was far too long, with an overemphasis and overanalysis of his early writing and its influences, with only minimal attention given to his outside life, his family and the few friends that he made.

Despite a promising beginning I found The Words to be a disappointing and somewhat unenjoyable read, due to its lack of balance and Sartre's choppy and disjointed narrative. (3-1/2 stars)