I recently read a wonderful article about an inspiring graduation speech Jonathan Kistler, an English professor, gave. In this memorable speech he said that if you read the books you were supposed to read, "you will realize that no matter what your success may be, there inevitably comes a time when confidence slips, when we have a glimpse...of the abyss." He recommended 3 books for summer reading, all that emphasize not accepting the "ordinariness of being ordinary." Books, he says, can best immortalize an ordinary life. So, here are the 3 books; any other recommendations for summer reading?

1. Reinhold Niebuhr's "The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness."

2. The autobiographical "The Education of Henry Adams."

3. Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment."

Summer reading?

The problem is most are not...

It does seem like that since there have been no answers here.

Doesn't anyone have some good suggestions?

Oh, I have about a million I could recommend..I'll make out a list and post tomorrow.. You've asked this librarian the wrong question....

What would summer be without Reading??

I forgot that you are a librarian! TrossL is also a librarian in Atlanta. She was mentioning on the chat today that you 2 really ought to connect.

Anyway, I was relieved to hear that one of my favorite children's books, "Pinkerton Behave!" has not been censored by the Evanston Library, thanks to some clear-thinking librarians. What in the world has gotten into people?

During Saturday's chat I mentioned that I'm a big fanof George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman books and shu wanted more info.
Here it is then.

First of all the "biography" from Who's Who (slightly abridged).

FLASHMAN, Harry Paget, Brigadier-General, VC,KCB,KCIE;Chevalier, Legion D'Honneur; US Medal of Honor; San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth, 4th Class. b 1822.
Educated Rugby School
Served Afghanistan (1841-42 (medals, thamks of Parliament); Crimea (staff); Indian Mutiny (Lucknow etc, VC); Chaina, Taiping Rebellion. Served US Army (major, Union forces, 1862); colonel (staff) Army of the Confederacy, 1863. Travelled extensively in military and civilian capacities; ADC Emperor Maximilion of Mexico; milit. advisor, HM Queen Ranavalona of Madagascar; chief of staff to Rajan of Sarawak, dep. marshal, US.;dir. British Opium Trading Comapny

etc.

Now for some real life background. Flashman is the school Bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays and George MacDonald Fraser has weaved from that start a magnificent creation. A liar, a cheat, a coward and a bully at school he remains througout all of the books. However through one accident and another he becomes a highly respected pillar of the establishment, universally lauded as a hero.
The books are supposedly edited from the papers of the late Flashman where he tells the unvarnished truth about his life and career, not through any attempt to put the record staright but as one last symbollic thumbing of the nose at the people who have put him where he is. They are told in no particular order although each book does form a separate adventure. In publication order they are.

FLASHMAN - tells of his expulsion from school and his subsequent adventures in India and in the First Afghan Campaign. The style hasn't quite developed yet and while it's a good book th series shouldn't be judged on this entry alone.

ROYAL FLASH is the weakest and the only wholly fictional entry (until Flashman and the Tiger, many years later). The central conceit here is that Flashman was the real Prisoner of Zenda and that the novel of that name was plagiarised from his adventures.

FLASH FOR FREEDOM - is where it really hits its stride The slave trade, abolitionists on the Mississippi, a meeting with Abraham Lincoln.

FLASHMAN AT THE CHARGE - The Thin Red Line, The Charge of the Light Brigade (and the Heavy Brigade) and the rest of Flashman's adventures in the Crimea.

FLASHMAN'S LADY. It covers the jungles of Borneo, the palace of Mad Queen Ranavalona and quite a few other ports of call.

FLASHMAN AND THE REDSKINS - Custer, the Battle of the Little Bighorn (which he survived), life among the redskin and much much more.

FLASHMAN AND THE DRAGON - The opium trade, the Boxer Rebellion and other adventures in China.

FLASHMAN IN THE GREAT GAME - Back to India and the Indian Mutiny. , secret agent for the British Empire, Russian spys, Lucknow, CAwnpore, Thugs and Tsarist agents. Why don't they make this stuff into a TV series ?

FLASHMAN AND THE ANGEL OF THE LORD - sees Flashman in the US again, this time at Harper's Ferry with John Brown and in at the very beginnings of the Civil War.

FLASHMAN AND THE MOUNTAIN OF LIGHT - The Indian Mutiny and adventures in the Punjab, spiced up with some steamy action with the Maharani.

FLASHMAN AND THE TIGER - three vignettes of Flashman including a meeting with two very familiar figures in Baker Street. The first wholly fictional section since Royal Flash. Rather weaker than most it's still pretty good.

Flashman also has a cameo appearance as a very old but still lecherous retired general in Mr. American and his father appears in the book Black Ajax.


Fraser's greatest skill is to take real historical events and report them accurately with the sole exception that Flashman has been seemlessly inserted into the action. I've checked a couple of history books on them and can say that FLASHMAN IN THE GREAT GAME and FLASHMAN'S LADY at least show remarkable historical accuracy. In the historical flight from Lucknow there was indeed an unnamed Indian soldier who survived - unnamed no longer !

All in all a thundering good series.
Read a few of the reviews on Amazon for much more detail.

Oh, thanks, Bob! I am looking for a good book. I can't wait to hear KHC's suggestions, too. TrossL might have some as well?

KHC and I had a slight disagreement on a related subject when she recommended the book "A Confederacy of Dunces" to me, in part because of her love of the main character Ignatius J. Reilly (who, by the way, shares some of Flashman's more undesirable "qualities") and the book's overall Southern flavor. I was not bowled over by the book, even actively disliking certain aspects of it, and was completely confounded by the fact that it had won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

In response, I recommended "The Fan Man" since the main characters seemed to have been cut from the same cloth although Horse Badorties (great name, yes?) is, to me, far more likable. In comparing the two works, I had to go back and reread "The Fan Man" and I can wholeheartedly recommend this book without reservation. I truly love Horse Badorties!

Has anyone here read either or, better yet, both of these works? Any comments?


(Have a dorky day!)

Old KHC is going to have to email her list to someone whose posting actually works!! I'm limited to 3 lines..

Quoting from the newspaper; I've shortend the descriptions.

I once thought history was boring. Then I started reading historical fiction. Presuming to understand the minds of people who lived two centuries ago – ground where historians properly fear to tread – is the job of historical novelists. Here are books by 10 different authors who have done that job very well:

• Pat Barker, Regeneration: In a mental hospital for shell-shocked victims of WWI
  
• Andrea Barnett, Voyage of the Narwhal: 1855 ship becomes icebound in the arctic
  
• Peter Carey, Jack Maggs: Homage to "Great Expectations"; 1837 London and the Australian penal colonies. Hard-boiled and thrillingly creepy.
  
• Sébastien Japrisot, A Very Long Engagement: WWI solders murdered by their comrades; fiancée doubts the cover story given out.
  
• Matthew Kneale, English Passengers: Brutal colonization of Australia and Tasmania, in 19th century
  
• Richard Marius, After the War: Traumatized WWI veteran in rural US. (a slow starter)
  
• Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove: The US Old West, as seen during a long cattle drive.
  
• Hugh Nissenson, The Tree of Life: Whisky distiller in frontier Ohio, 1811 (out of print, but very inexpensive on the web)
  
• Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger: Sweeping account of he 18th-century slave trade: Liverpool, Africa, Virginia.
  
• Gore Vidal, Lincoln: "How Lincoln navigated the treacherous political crosscurrents of Civil War Washington, D.C."

A good word for Carter Beats The Devil by Glen David Gold

Well...

...look who finally showed up at the party.