Weekly reviews of vintage bestsellers free to libraries.
Archive for December, 2008
The U[tterly] P[reposterous] Trail
Posted in 1918 Bestselling Novels, Adventure, Historical, Romance, tagged Historical, railroad, Romance, transcontinental, Union Pacific, Western, Zane Grey on December 30, 2008 | Comments Off
The U.P. Trail is a romantic tale of the building of America’s first transcontinental railroad, the Union Pacific. Zane Grey weaves all the traditional western cliches into his boy-meets-girl story.
Too Many Tantalizing Themes
Posted in 1918 Bestselling Novels, Philosophical on December 26, 2008 | Comments Off
The Tree of Heaven, May Sinclair’s 1918 bestseller, just misses being a great book.
The Harrisons are raising their four children in an English home whose backyard is dominated by a tree Frances calls by the country folks’ name Tree of Heaven and her timber-dealer husband calls an ash.
Frances’ life is wrapped up in her three [...]
1918 bestseller list
Posted in 1918 Bestselling Novels on December 25, 2008 | Comments Off
The books on the 1918 bestseller list for fiction are almost unknown today, yet their authors were some of the biggest name novelists of their era.
The Postman Still Delivers
Posted in My Top Pics, Suspense, tagged James M. Cain, murder on December 17, 2008 | Comments Off
James M. Cain’s slender novel The Postman Always Rings Twice is a sordid story of adultery and murder—and it is superb reading. Seventy years after publication, it is as fresh and contemporary as human nature itself.
1918 Pulitzer winner no great prize today
Posted in 1918 Bestselling Novels, Coming of age, Juvenile/Youth, Romance, tagged automobiles, Booth Tarkington, industrialization on December 3, 2008 | Comments Off
The Magnificent Ambersons is one of Booth Tarkington’s less successful stories. Georgie is too nasty to be an appropriate target for Tarkington’s usual gentle satire, and Georgie’s growing up is too sudden to be plausible.
