When it was first published, Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned in America. I doubt if most contemporary readers would plow through D. H. Lawrence’s ponderous paragraphs to get to the passages offended censors.
Archive for January, 2009
Boring, Not Shocking
Posted in 1959 Bestselling Novels, Psychological novel, Romance, tagged banned books, D.H. Lawrence on January 28, 2009 | Comments Off
Politics, Patriotism and Platitudes
Posted in 1959 Bestselling Novels, tagged Allen Drury, Cold War, Congress, Secretary of State, US Senate on January 21, 2009 | Comments Off
Allen Drury swaddles Advise and Consent in the flag and plays “Dixie” in the background as he shows how the confirmation process affects four senators and the vice president.
Hawaii Is Reality Reading
Posted in 1959 Bestselling Novels, Historical, My Top Pics, tagged American History, Chinese, Hawaii statehood, James A. Michener, Japanese, missionaries on January 14, 2009 | Comments Off
James A. Michener’s novel Hawaii earns the adjective epic just for its length. But the novel lives up to that accolade. Michener makes his fiction read like biography, leaving readers convinced that the way he tells it was the way it was.
Exodus: Flimsy novel, substantial history
Posted in 1959 Bestselling Novels, Historical, Romance, tagged anti, Jews, Leon Uris, Middle East on January 7, 2009 | Comments Off
Exodus is an unsatisfactory novel but an intriguing introduction to the history of present day Middle East conflicts.
The story is about an American nurse working among refugee children in the Middle East after World War II.
Kitty is attracted to Ari Ben Canaan, a handsome Jewish leader, but Ari seems cold and unfeeling, capable of no [...]
Look back to 1959 bestsellers
Posted in 1959 Bestselling Novels, Lists of bestsellers by year on January 5, 2009 | Comments Off
I just discovered that I wrote but never posted my list of the books I’d be reviewing this year.
I look back at vintage bestsellers of 50 years ago. Then I skip backward in 10-year intervals to earlier bestselling novels. So this year, my books are the bestsellers of 1959, 1949, 1939, 1929, 1919 and 1909 [...]
