Got goosebumps?
April 30, 2009
You may be feeling the imminent arrival of R. L. Stine. He’s coming to Columbus for the 3rd annual Ohioana Book Festival on May 9.
R. L. Stine is the famed Ohio author of the Fear Street and Goosebumps book series for kids. He’s also authored many other scary books, including the Rotten School series.
R. L. Stine’s website claims The Cuckoo Clock of Doom as his favorite in the Goosebumps line-up, hence its place on my Currently Reading list. I’m having a conversation with this prolific, scary writer @ 1:00 pm during the festival.
Come join us! And check out the many other activities – panels, readings, book signings and more. Get the full details on the festival site.
Forgotten Pulitzer-winning novels
April 26, 2009
NPR’s All Things Considering offered a list of novels that won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and likely would provoke a perp
lexed “huh? who?”
Here’s that list. It includes three Ohio authors: Louis Bromfield, Josephine Johnson and Conrad Richter.
Johnson’s novel Now in November is not forgotten by me — it’s one I’ve given as a gift, a powerful story about a farm family struggling in the heart of the country during the 1930s drought and Great Depression. It’s written with poetic/seductive language and narrated by the memorable second of three daughters — a stunning work along the lines of best Willa Cather, totally worthy of a Pulitzer.
His Family by Ernest Poole, 1918
Early Autumn by Louis Bromfield, 1927
Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin, 1929
Laughing Boy by Oliver Lafarge, 1930
Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes, 1931
The Store by T.S. Stribling, 1933
Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller, 1934
Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson, 1935
Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis, 1936
In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow, 1942
Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin, 1944
Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens, 1949
The Way West by A.B. Guthrie, 1950
The Town by Conrad Richter, 1951
The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor, 1959
The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor, 1962
Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson, 1978
Read the NPR article. ABE books also compiled a list of Top 10 Forgotten Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novels (that also includes Now in November).
A super son nevertheless: Michael Dirda
April 15, 2009
Michael Dirda reviews Jayne Anne Phillips Lark and Termite in the current New York Review of Books (April 30, 2009). His exceptional analysis of this dreamy, multi-narrated novel unravels the complexity that IMO makes the story less accessible to all readers.
Anyone who’s already read the novel or who plans to read it will find Dirda’s review providing helpful revelations about Phillips’ recurrent themes, the novel’s structure and what Dirda describes as Phillips’ “meaningful meandering.”
It’s impressive when Dirda connects a remark by the character Leavitt - saying he used to perform the song “My Funny Valentine” – to Phillips’ mention later in the book that Chet Baker is playing on the jukebox. Dirda points out that Baker’s signature song was “My Funny Valentine.”
I heard Dirda read from his book Classics for Pleasure, and his mind is a steel trap for literary detail. His references to characters, scenes, plots, authors and more are astonishing for books read years in the past. Oh the envy.
BTW, Classics for Pleasure offers a great reading list written by “Dirda as passionate reader” rather than “Dirda as passionate critic.” His insights and summaries drove me to make a list that include Georgette Heyer’s Civil Contract and The Grand Sophy; W.H. Auden’s Letters from Iceland and his Selected Poems edited by Edward Mendelson; and Akhmatova’s early love poems. Even, as an adult, to reread The Secret Garden.
Dirda grew up in Lorain, Ohio. He is a writer and former senior editor for The Washington Post Book World. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism in 1993. His memoir about growing up in Lorain is An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland.
Here’s a fun glimpse inside An Open Book:
“Though my father had encouraged early reading by taking me to the library, he never wanted a bookworm in the family. Instead he envisioned a Super Son, adept with every known hand tool and eager to transform 1031 West 29th Street into an edifice that even Frank Lloyd Wright might envy or, alternately, a son so financially savvy that he would be hired at age eleven to manage J. Paul Getty’s investments. Having read a news story about Michael Rockefeller’s disappearance in Borneo, he commanded me to write to the Rockefeller family and offer myself as a replacement son. He wasn’t kidding. Not a bit.”
Post updated 10.16.10 with improved book photos.
Paul Lawrence Dunbar come to mind? Not as well known yet writing during the same time period, Elliott Blaine Henderson hit my radar when a book dealer handed me one of his collections, Humble Folks
, published in 1909.
I had no idea who Henderson was but fell in love with his photo in the book and also in wonder with the book’s Preface written by the editor of The Columbus Dispatch, E.G. Burkram.
Here’s some of what Burkram writes:
“In these days when passion and prejudice seem to overshadow the sense of justice it is good to turn to these pages.
“They breathe the most fascinating and admirable characteristics of a race that can sing most effectively and simply the songs of nature, sound the humble heart beats of contentment, and play upon the lyre of native philosophy and mellow wit.”
Henderson’s poems capture a rich African American dialect and heritage. ”Pawson Locus Visits Sistah Tootles” is the title of one poem. Here’s the first verse:
Howdy Sistah Tootles!
Ah’s jes’ er passin’ by.
Thought I’d kindah drap in
Let yo’ kno’ revival’s nigh.
Hain’t seed yo’ out to meetin’,
Ner Deacon Tootles needer,
Yo’ know ah miss yo’ al
Kaze yo’s so good er stawtin’ meeter.
Okay, not poetry you’d turn to for reflection or soul-searching but wonderful if read in context of its early 20th century time. Likely Henderson fell into obscurity because he’s not listed in poets.org, but his books are selling as collectibles — Hoffman’s Bookshop had some for sale at this weekend’s NOBS Bookfair (Northern Ohio Bibliophilic Society).
