Cousin captivates, then leaves you cold

My Cousin Rachel is a murder mystery. The mystery is whether there was a murder at all—or whether there might have been two. Philip Ashley tells the story. His bachelor cousin Ambrose, who brought him up as his heir, goes off to Italy for his health. While there, Ambrose meets and marries a half-Italian distant [...]

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Steinbeck celebrates freedom to choose

Adam Trask and his brother, never on good terms, part after Adam marries Cathy Ames, whose depravity is hidden by golden beauty. Cathy bears twin boys,  leaves Adam, and worms her way into the ownership of a brothel. Sam Hamilton intervenes to see that the twins are taken care of. He helps select their names [...]

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The Caine Mutiny in top 10 second year in row

The number two best seller for 1952 was a holdover from the 1951  list: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk.  You can read my review in the archives from my reviews in 2011.

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Silver Chalice empty of plausibility

I don’t like religious fiction much. Novels such as  The Silver Chalice are the reason why. Thomas B. Costain’s  implausible tale has only minimal connection to the Bible and only slightly greater connection to psychological reality. The richest man in Antioch adopts the fictional hero, Basil. When his foster father dies, the father’s younger brother [...]

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1952 Bestseller List

Next on the schedule for 2012 is a set of reviews of the bestselling novels of 1952.  I’ll bet that at least half of them are novels you’ve heard of, even if you haven’t read them. Here, with dates you can expect to read the reviews, is the list: The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. [...]

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My picks of 1962′s doomsday novels

Impending doom seems to be the theme of the 1962 best-selling novels. My favorites are each by a pair of writers. Fail Safe and Seven Days in May are thrillers in every sense of the word. Both are marked by taut prose and tightly constructed plots. Eugene Burdick and  Harvey Wheeler’s Fail Safe, though, conveys [...]

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What are your top picks from 1962?

I’ve been telling you what I think of the 1962 bestselling novels.  Now I’d like to hear which ones you like.  Select your top three choices from the 1962 bestselling novels.

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Laughs overlay nostalgia in The Reivers

The Reivers is a zany tale of a none-too-innocent rural Mississippi childhood related by Lucius Priest to his grandson. At age 11, Lucius and two pals who work at the family’s freight business borrow his grandfather’s automobile and drive up to Memphis from Jefferson, Mississippi, no mean feat in 1905. While Boon and Lucius eat [...]

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Agony prolonged for second year

Although it dropped out of first place,  The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone made the bestseller list for the second time in 1962. You can read my review in the archives from 2011. © 2012 Linda Gorton Aragoni

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