What have you read lately?

[apl68]

Temples and Towers:  A Survey of the World's Moral Outlook, by George Vaughan.  In 1933 George Vaughan, Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas, was concerned about the direction that the world and society were taking.  Given that in 1933 the Great Depression was still raging at home, Japan was invading and annexing large parts of China, Hitler had just come to power in Germany, and Stalin was spreading murder, famine, and terror all across the Soviet Union, who would not have been?  Vaughan decided to undertake a survey of hundreds of prominent figures in the sciences, business, politics, academia, and culture, in both the U.S. and abroad, to see what others thought. 

He sent them a survey that asked three questions:  "Do you see any sound reasons for entertaining the prospect of an early spiritual awakening?  Is such a revival desirable?  What is your general reaction to the moral outlook?"  He also asked whether he could use the replies in a book or article.  In 1941 he published some six hundred replies in Temples and Towers. 

The result is an extraordinarily broad snapshot of elite opinion in the mid- to late 1930s.  Most of the respondents have naturally fallen into obscurity over the past eight decades, but there are lots of names here that are still recognizable today--Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, J.B. Priestly, George Washington Carver, and Mary Pickford, to name only a few.  I recognized over 50 of the names myself.  The responses were all over the map.  Some were deeply pessimistic about the world's outlook (Again, who at that time wouldn't tend to feel that way?), some professed optimism.  Some hoped for the sort of revival of orthodox religious practice that Vaughan seems to have had in mind, others wanted something "spiritual" in a different sense, some didn't see the point.  Some ridiculed the whole project.  Vaughan dutifully, and honestly, let them all have their say.

The whole thing makes for a fascinating read.  Students of the history of the period could surely find it of interest, worth at least an article or two and maybe a monograph.  The book seems to have fallen into deep obscurity, but there was apparently some kind of paperback reprint some years back.  I have a copy of the original 1941 edition, autographed by the author, which I found at a Little Rock vintage market last year.

A truly remarkable literary curiosity.  Where else would you find candid thoughts expressed by Shaw, Einstein, Zane Grey, Bernard Baruch, and many others all compiled in one place?

[Parasaurolophus]

While that sounds interesting as a historical canvas, I have to confess that I find the methodology's typically inept conflation of the moral and the spiritual deeply offputting.

[apl68]

To give an idea of just how eclectic Temples and Towers is, here are some thoughts in it from Edgar Rice Burroughs, creator of Tarzan:  "It seems to me an inexorable law that, spiritually, man never "gets" anywhere.  He reaches a point where he seems to be arriving somewhere, and then the pendulum swings back."

From Einstein:  "I have a strong impression that we are living in a period of moral recession....  I am sorry to be forced to say this; however, it is my conviction."

From James Hilton, of Lost Horizon fame:  "I think...that the present depression is morally not so unhealthy as the materialistic boom-years which preceded it."

From Sinclair Lewis:  "My reading of history does not indicate any period in it when man has been "spiritually asleep.""

From Clarence Darrow:  "Isn't the whole thing silly, Judge?"

[apl68]

While that sounds interesting as a historical canvas, I have to confess that I find the methodology's typically inept conflation of the moral and the spiritual deeply offputting.

Which is what some respondents essentially said.

[Parasaurolophus]

While that sounds interesting as a historical canvas, I have to confess that I find the methodology's typically inept conflation of the moral and the spiritual deeply offputting.

Which is what some respondents essentially said.

Ah! Excellent!

[apl68]

Really, the responses to Vaughan's survey are all over the place.  That's what makes this compilation so fascinating.

[ab_grp]

I've finished another couple audiobooks recently:

Where I Come From: Life Lessons from a Latino Chef by Aaron Sanchez (also narrator)
The Actor's Life: A Survival Guide by Jenna Fischer (also narrator)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, narrated by Jeff Woodman

The first two were non-fiction.  Sanchez included much more personal background, and Fischer's was much more about trying to be and being an actor, although both were a balance of personal/professional.  I enjoyed both quite a lot.   Sanchez has kind of an excited, breathy (?) way of narrating and sometimes emphasized strange words, but he comes off as very authentic, and I liked him from some of the TV shows he was on (Chefs vs City, Chopped).  Although we come from very different backgrounds, a lot of what he shared about loss and grief really resonated with me.  He had quite an interesting journey to being a chef.

Fischer's book was so informative! I have no interest at all in being an actor but thought it was all really fascinating and has got to be a great resource for those trying to be in the business.  She talked a lot about her own journey but also things like what you want your headshots to convey and who should take them, what it's like at various types of auditions, what's the difference between an agent and a manager, how to get into the actor's union and when, what it's like to be an extra or guest actor or star on a show, nudity and smoking and eating during filming, lots of stuff that I had no idea about.  And though she does not go too deeply into her own personal life, she shares plenty of examples from her own experience.  She does seem a lot like her character from The Office: funny, responsible, and more fun than she initially seems to be.  I'd recommend both of these books for different reasons.

The third is a novel that I had certainly heard of but had never read.  The protagonist (?) and narrator is a 15-year-old boy with Asperger's who finds out that his neighbor's dog is dead, presumably murdered.  He decides to try to solve the case, leading to all sorts of secrets becoming unburied in the process.  He's a very interesting character with an uncommon perspective, and I loved the first half or more of the book, but it definitely gets a bit dark toward the end.  The narrator seems absolutely perfect for this book, though.  I can't imagine that I would have enjoyed it as much had I just read it. 

As for "real" books, we decided to ditch Redemption for now and move on to the sixth Expanse book.  We had kind of put reading together aside because we changed up our schedules a lot and didn't really have time to chat anymore and wanted to put the time toward that.  Hopefully we can figure out a good way to fit it all in.

[mamselle]

"Redemption" as in Sansom, or...??

   (or am I thinking of "Restoration"?)

M.

[apl68]

Must be interesting to hear authors narrate the audio versions of their own books.  I wonder how common that is?  The only other example I've heard of is John R. Erickson narrating audio versions of his Hank the Cowdog series.

[ergative]

Mary Robinette Kowal is a professional narrator as well as author, so I she does her own books. I'm pretty sure I've heard of some other SFF authors narrating their own books, but I can't think of who else off the top of my head.

[Puget]

Must be interesting to hear authors narrate the audio versions of their own books.  I wonder how common that is?  The only other example I've heard of is John R. Erickson narrating audio versions of his Hank the Cowdog series.

Quite a few do--for example, David Sedaris does all of his, and Neil Gaiman does most, which makes the audiobooks far superior to just reading them-- both of them are really performers who do a lot of reading aloud to audiences, so it makes sense for them also to do the audio books. A lot of narrative non-fiction and autobiography books are also read by the authors, sometimes really well and sometimes less well.

[apl68]

Must be interesting to hear authors narrate the audio versions of their own books.  I wonder how common that is?  The only other example I've heard of is John R. Erickson narrating audio versions of his Hank the Cowdog series.

Quite a few do--for example, David Sedaris does all of his, and Neil Gaiman does most, which makes the audiobooks far superior to just reading them-- both of them are really performers who do a lot of reading aloud to audiences, so it makes sense for them also to do the audio books. A lot of narrative non-fiction and autobiography books are also read by the authors, sometimes really well and sometimes less well.

Sounds like Charles Dickens must have been born too soon.

[ab_grp]

Most of the books I've listened to that have been narrated by their authors were memoirs.  In addition to the ones I've mentioned here, I have listened to Ben Folds's, Bruce Campbell's, Eric Idle's, Anthony Bourdain's, Malcolm Gladwell's, and Cary Elwes's, and I have Joe Bastianich's, Trevor Noah's, Barack Obama's, and Michelle Obama's.  Those are the only ones I could find in my list, though I don't have too many fiction books in my library.  I guess it makes sense for someone to tell their own life story.  It's interesting to hear about the fiction authors who also narrate their tales!

"Redemption" as in Sansom, or...??

   (or am I thinking of "Restoration"?)

M.

Sorry, I thought I had mentioned it earlier.  It's a novel by Leon Uris, sequel to Trinity.

[hmaria1609]

Making my way through Manga Classics: Macbeth by Shakespeare, adapted by Crystal S. Chan
It's the play with the original text presented in manga format. Thought I'd give it a read!

The historic Macbeth's story is more dramatic than Shakespeare's play.

[apl68]

A Tower of Steel, by Josephine Lawrence.  The setting is the American home front during late 1942-early 1943.  But it is not an historical novel.  This was published in 1944.  My copy's well-preserved vintage book jacket even contains a plug for war bonds.  Tower of Steel provides a glimpse into how people on the American home front experienced the war at the time, without our hindsight.

The principals are office staff at a law firm that is struggling to stay in business while most of the firm's partners are away in uniform.  One staff member is a newlywed who can only see her husband briefly on leave before he heads overseas.  Another starts wondering whether a quick wartime marriage to an attractive serviceman would be just the thing to take her away from her crowded family home.  Others have other personal and family drama. 

It's hard not to compare the situation during that dramatic, uncertain period of history with the one in which we live today.  Both we and the Americans of 80 years ago lived in a world where stuff was in short supply and prices were rising fast; where people feared for the safety of loved ones and themselves; where many felt like they'd really taken a beating and had their lives badly disrupted, and yet for some there was a sense of new opportunities for change and excitement.  One conspicuous difference--although people in the early 1940s seem to have had plenty of reasons for interpersonal drama, they lived in a society with a strong sense of pulling together in a common cause that comes through even in a story where standard wartime propaganda is absent.  As opposed to today, when so many of our leaders of all stripes in politics, the media, and even academia seem determined to set us all at each others' throats, and we, as ordinary citizens, often oblige them.

I decided to find and read this after seeing a review at "Neglected Books" that called it "Not great art, but very good craft."  Personally I'd call it okay craft.  To me a story where half or more of most conversations are told by the author, instead of shown in the characters' "own" words, in not a piece of first-rate craft.  The writing gets the job done, at least.  As for the story and characters, I didn't find them especially engaging, but then I'm a guy and not really in the target readership.  The book is still a worthwhile and interesting look at what people were thinking and feeling during one of history's great crisis periods, away from the battlefields and occupied territories that get most of the attention.  The quiet (mostly) home-front stories here are also war stories of a sort.