Caesar’s Angel, by Mary Anne Amsbary (1952)
Regular readers of this site (both of you) know that I tend to save the books I want to really concentrate on for the Transatlantic flights I have to take 5-6 times a year. This …
Justly Neglected?
“Most neglected writers have been neglected for perfectly understandable reasons – usually because they are obscure, difficult or just plain boring.” Kate Saunders, The New Statesman, August 28, 1998
They, by Marya Mannes (1968)
Around the middle of Marya Mannes’ 1968 quasi-sci-fi novel They, a conversation about what is considered “dirty” goes off on several different tangents. After pages and pages that mention everything from Shakespeare to the nature …
Van Zanten’s Happy Days, by Laurids Bruun – reviewed by Helen Bevington
From Along Came the Witch: A Journal in the 1960s, by Helen Bevington: June 1966 E. B. White says a favorite book of his is a novel by Laurids Bruun, Van Zanten’s Happy Days. Since …
Out of My Time, by Marya Mannes (1971)
This is one of the most frustrating books I’ve read in a long time. Marya Mannes was a woman who got around with a capital “A.” Her parents, David Mannes and Clara Damrosch Mannes, were …
Doctor Cobb’s Game, by R. V. Cassill (1970)
Having taken a long trip over the last year through the pulp paperback fiction of R. V. Cassill, starting with his 1956 novel of wife-swapping in rural Iowa, The Wound of Love, I wasn’t surprised …
Little Dog Lost, by Tiffany Thayer (1938)
I wrote about one of Tiffany Thayer’s early novels, Thirteen Women, some years ago. For those who haven’t read that post, I’ll explain that Thayer was an eccentric and unique combination of pulp novelist, self-educated …
Left Bank of Desire, by R. V. Cassill (1955)
Down to the last few of R. V. Cassill’s pulp novels, I started Left Bank of Desire curious if I could detect any significant differences in style or approach between this novel, which Cassill co-authored …
The Revelations of Dr. Modesto, by Alan Harrington (1955)
Given the number of times it’s been reissued, it’s surprising that Alan Harrington’s fable of conformity, The Revelations of Dr. Modesto, is out of print now. In some ways, it’s a classic text of the …
Lustful Summer (1958), by R. V. Cassill
I hate to say it, but the greatest pleasure I got from reading Lustful Summer was the fact that the copy I scored is in mint condition. I regretted opening it because it will never …
Ferment, by John T. McIntyre (1937)
Published within a year of his award-winning Steps Going Down, Ferment was, in many ways, even more ambitious that that 500-page descent into the world of small-time crooks and back streets. Ferment tackles the subject …
The People Immortal, by Vasily Grossman
One of my earliest posts on this site was devoted to Vasily Grossman’s epic of the Russian experience in World War Two, Life and Fate. At the time, it was out of print in English …
Married Men, by Ira Wolfert
I like to take advantage of quiet days of the Christmas holiday to devote myself to a big, long book. Two years ago, it was Benito Perez Galdos’ masterpiece, Fortunata and Jacinta, which offers everything …
The Bitter Season, by Robert M. Coates
The Bitter Season, Robert M. Coates’ 1946 novel is, according to its dust jacket blurb, a story of “the civilian in wartime; the men a little too old, or a little too frail, to be …
Altars of the Heart, by Richard Lebherz
One never knows just how good or bad a book is when it’s wrapped in a lurid 1950s paperback cover. This was a time when publishers and cover artists were a bit like Weekly World …
Purloining Tiny, by John Franklin Bardin
I first encountered the works of John Franklin Bardin back in 1976, when Penguin published The John Franklin Bardin Omnibus, a collection of Bardin’s first three novels introduced by the British crime writer, Julian Symons. …
The Great Green, by Calvin Kentfield
“No one knows for certain how the world began, whether it was made or whether it made itself from energy or love, if it was a piece of the sun or the Word of God, …
Presidents Who Have Known Me, by George E. Allen
When I spotted Presidents Who Have Known Me on the shelves of the Montana Valley Bookstore, I knew I had to get it. With a title like that, the book was either going to turn …
The Patriot, by Harold Bienvenu
When I picked up an old paperback edition of Harold Bienvenu’s 1964 novel, The Patriot, I was hoping it might turn out to be a forgotten gem. From the cover blurbs, it was clearly a …
Quin’s Shanghai Circus, by Edward Whittemore
I first read Quin’s Shanghai Circus around my freshman year in college, when I was hot off devouring the whole series of Vonnegut’s novels in their Dell paperback editions. I found a used copy of …
Young Woman of 1914, by Arnold Zweig
Young Woman of 1914 (1931) is the first in narrative order and the second in order of publication of Arnold Zweig’s tetralogy of the First World War (the others are The Case of Sergeant Grischa …