The 2020 Book List

In 2011 I began making a list of all the books I had read through out the year. On January 01 of 2012, I started the tradition of posting the annual list of the previous year on the first day of the New Year.

This year, I'm carrying on the tradition, but I'll be posting the list on two blogs simultaneously.

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that, although I was nearly finished reading Forever Amber, the novel would most likely not make it to the 2020 list. With about 10% left to read, it will be the first novel on the 2021 list.

When posting the 2017 book list, I discovered that a typed list might not be viewed properly on a mobile device. That year, I began taking a screen shot of the book list and posting the photo rather than simply typing the list. I'm continuing that today.

As I was writing this post, we experienced a brown-out. Although still early morning on January 01, it was already the 2nd brown-out of 2021. When the power went out, I lost everything I had written and had to begin again. It may be a New Year, but things are starting out as usual.

 

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

In August of 2019 I had serendipitously discovered the work of Japanese writer, Yukio Mishima. Mishima is considered one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century.

I was so impressed by what I had read about Mishima that I went into his work head-on, beginning with his tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility. Even before I had finished reading the four novels in the tetralogy, I downloaded every e-book of Mishima's work that I could find.

I have a list of novels that I return to every few years, and The Sea of Fertility is definitely on the list.

I recently finished another of Mishima's novels, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. Parts of the novel are quite disturbing, but the novel has become one of my favorites - along side, if not surpassing Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.

I'm recommending the novel, however, I'm not inclined to give a synopsis. I'm afraid any description from me would contain "spoilers".

In 1976, the novel was adapted into a film starring Kris Kristofferson and Sarah Miles. The setting was changed from Japan to England. The film is available on OK.RU.  I've plans to watch the film in a day or so.

Rest In Peace, Mr. Bond

I noted in February, that I had discovered the first four James Bond films at ok.ru. In addition to watching the four films, I also went to fadedpage.com to download copies of Ian Fleming's Bond novels. It had been my intention to read all 15 in the series, but so far, I've only read the first five.

It stands as a testament to Sean Connery that even when I read the Bond novels, I see him as James Bond.

Like millions of others, I've been a fan of Sean Connery for most of my life. I can remember the first time I saw a James Bond film. It was in 1965. Goldfinger had just recently been released, and I was almost 13. My oldest cousin, who was 18 at the time, took his younger brother, myself and my younger brother to a triple feature of the three Bond films being shown at a local drive-in theater in Atlanta.

The three films were shown in the order they were released - Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. This was my first time seeing a Bond film, and I was especially looking forward to seeing Goldfinger......it was the latest one at the time, so it had to be the best.

1965 was a long, long time ago and things have certainly changed. In those days, kids weren't allowed to stay up all hours of the night and by the time Goldfinger started, it was way past my normal bedtime. As near as I can recall from those fifty-five years ago, I fell asleep in the back of my cousin's car before the final movie started.

It would be years before I was finally able to watch Goldfinger.

Redirect

In order for my new blog to eventually qualify for Goole Adsense, I'm told I need to have unique content published on the blog. Of course, that's a relatively simple matter, but I'd also like to maintain some readers here as well.

I don't want to simply post the exact content onto both blogs. I can, however direct the readers here to the other blog by way of a link.

Today, I published a piece entitled Camus During COVID19 Days.

Here's hoping this will lead folks there.

From Russia With Love

Earlier this month, I noted that I had been watching the early James Bond films on the ok.ru website. Watching the films led me on a hunt for the Ian Fleming novels as e-books. I discovered that the books are in the public domain in Canada and thus available at fadedpage.com.

It was my original intention to read all 15 books in the series in the order they were published. My favorite of the early Bond films is From Russia With Love, and it turns out that it's also my favorite of the first five Bond books I've read. I like that the film and the novel are so similar - we all know that isn't always the case. The only difference between the two is the very different endings. I'm not the sort to do spoilers (even for 63 year old spy novels). I'll just say the endings are not the same.

I thought I'd be taking a break from James Bond after From Russia With Love, but I've gone back to my original plan, however, after reading it. Because of the ending, I wanted to go straight into book #6 - Dr. No.

The revised plan is to take a short break after Dr. No and read something unrelated. I'm thinking of reading a book recommended by Dr. Jordan Peterson - The Charterhouse of Parma.

Books and Movies

I mentioned in an earlier post that after having reread Albert Camus' The Stranger, I moved on to rereading H.G.Wells' The Invisible Man.

This must have been a "reread cycle". Following The Invisible Man, I took up Franz Kafka's The Castle. It's been years since I read - or more accurately - attempted to read The Castle and I was finally able to finish it. Years ago, I looked at the character, K as being a recreation of the character Joseph K from The Trial, but I no longer interpret him in that manner. It's obvious that in The Trial, Joseph K is in no way responsible for the persecution he faces. Looking at the main character in The Castle, I see a man who is a liar who uses people, and as someone who has no right to enter the castle, and as someone who should have left the village immediately after having spent his first night there.

While reading The Castle, I came upon an online discussion of the origins of the theme music used in the James Bond films. That led me to search for the earliest James Bond films online. I've found the first five films at ok.ru - Dr, No - From Russia With Love - Goldfinger - Thunderball  and You Only Live Twice. Unfortunately, the last one is dubbed into Russian and I haven't found an English version available.

Watching these old films led me to search for ebooks of the James Bond novels. These books are in the public domain in Canada and can be found at fadedpage.com. I decided to read all 15 in the series. I've finished the first, Casino Royale and have started on the second, Live and Let Die.

I haven't seen the 2006 version of Casino Royale and the 1967 film - which I saw in '67 - doesn't follow the novel in anyway. Prior to reading the book a day or so ago, the only thing I knew of the story was the famous "open seat - carpet beater" scene.

Live and Let Die has been full of surprises for me. I've been most surprised by the - how should I say it? - less than politically correct language in the book. I can't even write the title of Chapter Five  here.

Another of the more surprising elements of the James Bond novels, is Fleming's description of Bond's appearance as being similar to that of Hoagy Carmichael. Not exactly Sean Connery.

The Invisible Man - 2018

After I had posted The Invisible Man on Tuesday, a friend asked if I had seen a a 2018 version of the story on Youtube.

No, I hadn't. I'd have to take a look.

The movie claims to be based on the H.G.Wells novel. Other than giving the invisible man the same name as in the book, there is little resemblance.

Well, the main character does find the secret to invisibility, and like the character in the novel, he goes insane. I might have liked this version a little more if they had given one of the characters the name Kemp.

This version isn't absolutely horrible - there are entertaining portions, but I didn't care for the three main actors.

To me, the most interesting part of the movie was immediately following Griffin's having taken the drugs ...... and just prior to his becoming invisible. For just a few moments, he reminded me of comedian Bill Burr.

The Invisible Man

A few weeks ago, while watching old films on ok.ru, I came upon a link for the 1933 film version of H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man. It had been ages since I had seen this classic movie and couldn't resist watching it again.

It seems I had forgotten that I had read Wells' novel in 2017 and went to Project Gutenberg to download a copy and put the novel into the queue.

Immediately following Camus' The Stranger I began reading - or rather, re-reading Wells' 1897 novel. Of course, it was very familiar to me - however, I put this familiarity down to having just finished the movie. The movie does stray from the novel, but this isn't so noticeable at the beginning. It was not until the story had progressed to the scenes involving the cat, that I had to admit that I had read this all before.

Going through my book lists, I was able to verify that, yes I had read The Invisible Man in June, 2017. Still, after only 2 1/2 years, there were still portions of the novel which I could not recall reading.

I had forgotten, for example, that Griffin was an albino and his procedure would not have worked on him had he not been. I had also completely forgotten the ending.

How much of this forgetfulness is due to age? How much can be laid on the fact that I had read 45 books in 2017, and the speed at which I went through books may have affected my comprehension and retention?

Beau Sabreur

I've just finished reading the sequel to P.C. Wren's Beau Geste - Beau Sabreur.

As much as I enjoyed Beau Geste, I was expecting more from the sequel. Sadly, I have to agree with the New York Times' assessment - "preposterous plot and inconceivable characters."

Most of Part One was of an par with Beau Geste, but towards the end of Part One, and in all of Part Two the writing was shoddy, pulp fiction. I could not take the work seriously.

I don't know if I'll go on to the next sequel - Beau Ideal.

If I'm still in the mood to read about a Frenchman in North Africa, I'll re-read a much more serious novel - The Stranger by Albert Camus.

A much more substantial review of Beau Sabreur can be found at erbzine.com.

Celsius 233 - An Update

At the bottom of each blog post, you'll find the words "You might also like:" and displays of other posts which might appeal to the readers of this humble blog. From time to time, I'll click on one myself to return to the scene of the crime, as it were, to read something I wrote earlier.

Today, I re-read a post from February, 2017 - Celsius 233. In that post, I wrote of my having saved on Spotify the recording of Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra performing the film scores of Bernard Herrmann. I've long been a fan of Hermann's work with Alfred Hitchcock, but I had not known at the time that Hermann had also written the musical score for the 1966 film, Fahrenheit 451.

In the earlier post, I wrote :

"Listening to the work this afternoon, my attention was drawn to Hermann's score for Fahrenheit 451. It had been years since I last watched the film - long before I knew the work of Bernard Hermann, and seeing the film listed on the LP, I thought of finding a way of watching it again. After doing an Internet search, and achieving less than satisfactory results, I was finally able to locate the entire film here."

I had included a link to the film on Youtube, but sadly the video has been removed. I'm sure there was a copyright issue. Today, when I discovered the video had been removed, I searched to see if the film could be found on ok.ru - a website which cares not one whit for copyright laws. Of course, I did find the film on the ok.ru site, but ironically, it has been dubbed into Russian.

I also wrote in 2017:

"As I say, it's been years since I've seen the film and I'm not at all certain that I ever got around to actually reading Ray Bradbury's novel. Being the cheapskate that I am, I searched for a copy as an e-book - free, of course. I've located a copy as a pdf here. At some point, I will convert the pdf to mobi for reading on Kindle. I can't say when that will be - I have a long list of novels in the queue".

It never made it into the queue.

The original pdf linked to in my post gives the page count as 77. That number looks suspiciously short to me, so I started a new search today.

I found a pdf on Project Gutenberg Self Publishing Press but at 108 pages, this seems to be an excerpt as well.

At 152 pages, the longest "free" copy is found at Internet Archive.

I suppose I could have saved all this work had I been inclined to buy the e-book from Amazon.

I'm not there yet.

Beau Geste

In a blog post from late December, I wrote of my habit of visiting ok.ru to watch old movies - usually made in the 30's and 40's. After watching Mr. Skeffington, starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains, I took a look at the film that made Marlene Dietrich an international star, The Blue Angel.

I had seen the film many years ago. The version I found on ok.ru had enough English in it to make the film understandable.

Immediately after watching The Blue Angel, I began watching the six Paramount films starring Dietrich with Josef von Sternberg as director. I'll have more about those films in a later post.

The first of those six Paramount films was Morocco with Gary Cooper as Dietrich's love interest. Seeing Cooper in the role of a soldier in the French Foreign Legion reminded of another movie starring Cooper, Beau Geste. I vaguely remember seeing the film on TV as a boy and I'm sure I'll be watching it again soon. Before that, though, I want to read the novel of the same name, which I've downloaded from fadedpage.com and uploaded to my new Kindle.

I'm 25% into Beau Geste and I'm loving it. It's quite the page turner.

My New Kindle

On January 2 , in the 2nd blog post of 2020, I wrote of how another of my Kindles had gone haywire.

Two days later, I received an email from my good friend Dom, telling me how he had read my post and that he had a Kindle he wasn't using; if I'd give him my shipping address, he'd send the Kindle to me post haste. I live in an area that does not have proper street addresses - heck, we don't even live on a proper street - . I immediately replied, giving him the street address of my in-laws; their street, at least, has a name.

In a later email, Dom told me the Kindle had been shipped via LBC. He included the tracking number. He also said that the package contained additional surprises. More about those items in an upcoming blog post.

Tuesday afternoon I laid down for a nap. While I was sound asleep, my wife woke me telling me that my phone was ringing and Dom was calling. I'm afraid to say that I was absolutely fuzzy headed while speaking with Dom. He told me that LBC was having trouble locating me - Dom had more than one phone number for me and the one he supplied LBC was one I no longer used. He told me he'd contact LBC and give them my current number.

After ending the call, Dom sent me a text with the cell number for the LBC guy. Giving my wife my phone - and the tracking number - she called LBC with directions to our house in Magatas. As can be seen in the photos, the package arrived.

I was able to connect the Kindle to my wifi and I  registered it with Amazon. I connected the new Kindle to my PC long enough to transfer 3 books; a trilogy of novels from P.C. Wren, downloaded from fadedpage.com - Beau Geste, Beau Sabreur and Beau Ideal.

This Kindle is a newer model than the one I was using, which was a newer model that the Kindle damaged when I arrived in Philippines in 2014. It took a minute or two to adjust to the newer features but now I'm very excited and happy to have it.

Thanks Dom.

Mr. Skeffington - the Film

Having finished reading Mr. Skeffington by Elizabeth von Arnim, I made plans to watch the 1944 film version starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains. I'd been looking forward to watching the film - one, because I loved von Armin's novel and two, because Davis and Rains were both wonderful actors.

Unfortunately, the film doesn't live up to the novel. I had trouble seeing Bette Davis being the "renowned beauty with many suitors" as the young Fanny Skellington. She was certainly more believable as the fifty year old Fanny who had lost her beauty due to having grown older and having had diphtheria.

Of course, short cuts were taken in the story and I didn't much see the point of giving the Skeffington's a daughter not found in the novel.

After watching the film, I understand why this film hasn't received the "classic film" status you would expect of a movie starring these two actors.

Another Damaged Kindle

Back in 2014, I had somehow managed to damage my Kindle while flying to Dumaguete from Manila. Fortunately, I had purchased a Kindle for my son, and as he has never taken to reading, I've been able to use his these past five years.

As I mentioned in the last blog post of 2019, I transferred a copy of Mr. Skeffington by Elizabeth von Arnim onto the Kindle and planned to read it as the first novel of 2020. All was going well. I was enjoying von Armin's last novel as much as I had enjoyed everything else I read of hers.

If one looks at the photo used in my first blog post of this year, you'll see my Kindle opened to the page of Mr. Skeffington where I had read up to that point. I'm sure it is a coincidence, but after taking that photo and publishing that post, I began to have problems with the Kindle. As one can see in the photo accompanying this post, there is a black speck - a dot of sorts - under the words "in England" in the center of the photo. Immediately below the speck, the sentence is distorted. The page distortion was even worse while I was reading Mr. Skeffington. I had to finish reading the novel on an ebook reader on my PC.

Sadly, this is my least favorite way of reading an ebook. I've since then downloaded an ebook reader onto my phone. I haven't used it yet. This may be preferable to reading an ebook on the PC, although my phone's battery is terrible at holding a charge.

I had planned on reading In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu. I'll postpone that until I've taken a look at the new reader on my phone - or better yet, there's the chance that my Kindle will magically repair itself.

In the mean time, I'll watch the 1944 film version of Mr. Skeffington starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains.

The 2019 Book List

Following a New Year's tradition, I'm posting a list of books I'd read the preceding year. Sadly, the list for 2019 isn't as long as I would have liked it to be - it is a longer list, however, than the one I posted for 2018.

Only one of the books I read in 2019 (The Devil's Hearth by Philip DePoy) was an ink and paper book - the others being ebooks downloaded off the Internet.

A few years ago, I discovered that the book lists I've posted don't view so well when read on a mobile device. On two different occasions I've posted a screen shot of the list and published to accommodate the mobile phone user. I haven't made up my mind as yet as to whether or not I'll do that again this year.

So, without further ballyho, here is the list of books I read (or reread) in 2019.

The Good Soldier     Ford Madox Ford
The Devil's Hearth   Philip DePoy
The Master and Margarita   Mikhail Bulgakov
Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin  Benjamin Franklin
The Burning Secret   Stefan Zweig
Spring Snow   Yukio Mishima
Runaway Horses   Yukio Mishima
The Temple of Dawn   Yukio Mishima
The Decay of the Angel  Yukio Mishima
The Benson Murder Case    S.S. Van Dine
Wise Blood    Flannery O'Connor
The Violent Bear It Away   Flannery O'Connor
The Trial   Franz Kafka
Strictly Business    O. Henry
Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf     George W. M. Reynolds
Three Men in a Boat     Jerome K. Jerome

Mr. Skeffington

Three years ago, in December of 2016, I discovered the work of Elizabeth von Arnim. I had been reading E. Phillips Oppenheim's memoir, The Pool of Memory,- in it, he drops the name of a writer, Countess Elizabeth Russell, a number of times. An internet search told me that this was the name used by Elizabeth von Arnim after her second marriage. Finding copies of her novels was easy enough once I had the proper name.

Von Arnim's 1921 novel, Vera, was the last novel I read in 2016. Her first novel, Elizabeth and Her German Garden was the first thing I read in 2017. I would go on to read 12 of Von Arnim's novels . At the time, there was only one other available for download at Project Gutenberg - The April Baby's Book of Tunes. I had decided to skip that one as it had been described as a children's book.

I've recently learned that Von Arnim's novel, Mr. Skeffington is available at Project Gutenberg Australia. Having been written in 1940, the book is still under copyright in certain areas but the novel is in the public domain in Australia.

I'm currently reading Mr. Skeffington and it will be the first book I'll have read in 2020. I've also given The April Baby's Book of Tunes another look and will be reading it soon.

In 1944, Mr. Skeffington was made into a film, starring Bette Davis and Claude Rains. I'll be watching it at ok.ru, when I've finished reading the novel.

Three Men In a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)

As I sit here, typing away, I've just finished reading the last novel I will manage to read in 2019 - Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome. With only one day remaining in this year, it is unlikely that I can finish reading another before January 1st.

I discovered this gem recently while going over an online list of what someone believes to be the 100 best novels written in English. I was looking for something to read when I came upon the list. There, at number 25 was this wonderful little book.

Naturally, I didn't expect that I would have read every novel on the list, but I thought that I would have heard of either every novel, or at least the author. In this case, I was surprised that a novel I had never heard of, by a writer I didn't know, would be at number 25 on the list.

After reading a positive review and the wikipedia article on the book, I found an ebook copy and set it aside to read at first opportunity.

The novel is surprisingly funny for something written in 1889, and I'm hardly the first to say "how undated it appears to modern readers – the jokes have been praised as fresh and witty".

Although I loved the book, I don't know if I'd put it on a list of the 100 best novels written in English. The Maltese Falcon - which I also enjoyed, made the list as well. It's another book which, while I enjoyed reading it, I feel doesn't belong on such a list.

Obviously, someone else does, so what do I know?

Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf

Two weeks ago, I recommended George W. M. Reynolds' novel Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf. I stand by my recommendation albeit with a word of warning to the 21st century reader.

The novel was first published, in installments, almost 175 years ago. As reading was, in most cases, the only distraction available to the average person during the19th century, novels of that period tended to have more elaborate plots than novels written today. The stories just seemed to go on and on. That's certainly the case with Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf. Characters aren't just mentioned in passing; it seems every character in the novel has a detailed story that needs to be told.

I actually wonder why the novel was named after the Wehr-Wolf. If we calculate the space given to each character, I doubt Wagner would be number one. That honor might very well go to Nisida—the deaf and dumb daughter of Count of Riverola.

I don't know of Reynold's religious affiliation, but I suspect that like most of his English contemporaries, Reynolds may have been a Protestant. He doesn't appear to have much love for the Catholics in the novel - he's more tolerant of the Jewish and Moslem characters.

The most surprising turn in the novel, from my perspective, was the appearance of the founder of the Rosicrucian Order, Christian Rosenkreuz (spelled Christian Rosencrux in the novel).

I'm not about to give spoilers, but note that should you be inclined to read this novel, be prepared for a long read.

Some Old Films are OK By Me.

In two posts, written in March of 2018 [The Maltese Falcon (Novel) and Calling a Spade a Spade ] I wrote of my fondness for the classic 1941 film starring Humphrey Bogart, The Maltese Falcon and how the movie had lead me to hunt up the novel, which I located at a Canadian website - fadedpage.com.

When I wrote those two posts, I was able to get my old movie fix from watching TCM on my television. Sadly, my cable company has ceased having TCM in their programing. Fortunately. I have since discovered a website which has a gazillion old movies from the 1930's and 1940's for viewing - ok.ru.

To watch movies on the website, you have to go about it in a slightly indirect way. I discovered the website serendipitously while searching for an old movie. I soon discovered that going to the ok.ru home page was not for me. It's in Russian and I can't make heads or tails of it. However, it didn't take me long to figure out that if you wanted to locate a particular old movie (Duck Soup, for example) you simply go to Google and type in duck soup ok ru and if the movie is on the site you'll find a link to it in the search results.

Last night, I thought I might want to watch The Maltese Falcon again. It was there, of course, but I changed my mind. I was aware of two earlier film versions and I went in search of those two.

The earliest version was made in 1931 - two years after the novel was published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.. I located it by searching for The Maltese Falcon 1931 ok ru.

Like the later Bogart film, this one sticks fairly close to the novel. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two films is that in the 1931 version, Kasper Gutman is killed by his flunky Wilmer Cook. I especially liked seeing Thelma Todd as Iva Archer and Dwight Frye as Wilmer Cook.

In 1936, Warner Bros. remade the film as Satan Met a Lady . The studio still owned the rights and thought they could make a few bucks by changing the story a bit.

They shouldn't have.

This version is absolutely dreadful. Bette Davis thought the rewrite to be "junk" and refused to show up on the set. She was suspended by Warner Bros. but returned to work in order to cover living expenses for her mother and medical care for her sister.

For some reason, Warren William, who I had previously seen in The Gracie Allen Murder Case, wears the most ridiculously God-awful hat throughout the film.

I'd only recommend Satan Met a Lady for the curiosity seekers, and not those in search of a great film.

Recommendation - Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf

As I mentioned in in an earlier post, I had taken to my Kindle to catch up on my reading while my PC was out of sorts. One of the novels I read during that time was The Benson Murder Case , the first of the Philio Vance series by S. S. Van Dine.

In the novel, when the murdered Benson was discovered, he was found with a book in his hand. Just prior to being shot, the dead man had been reading a book of short stories by O. Henry - namely Strictly Business- the dead man had his fingers marking the story - 
A Municipal Report.

In 2015 two of O. Henry's books of short stories made my list of books read that year, but Strictly Business wasn't on the list. Naturally, I downloaded the book from Project Gutenberg and uploaded to my Kindle.

In different stories, O. Henry mentions 2 writers - George W. M. Reynolds and William Clark Russell. I'm currently reading Reynolds' Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf.

An interesting read.