Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel! I remember loving that as a kid. It might have been at my grandparents' house (a late-1800s Victorian in northern California), along with the all-wood Erector set and other treasures found in the wonderfully mysterious "toy cupboard."
I’m the ancient one born in 1939 and therefore part of the energy behind this page. I’ve read quite a few of the books mentioned. The one I’ll read now is Magna (or maybe Miss Lulu Betts) by Zona Gale. I currently live 20 miles south of Wisconsin and have attended grad school at UW and lived in three different WI towns/cities so it’s time I read Gale. I’d heard of her but knew nothing about her. She seems to be my kind of woman!
Thanks for asking, thanks for signing on! Last summer my wife wanted to read BIRTH (1918) so we got a copy of an edition from Wabesa Press [Oregon, WI] that also included MISS LULU BETT. I have it right here so I suppose there's no excuse for not reading one of the other myself--except for all the others piled up to my immediate left.
Another Midwesterner from mid-century: Harriet Arnow. I'd always seen her title, THE DOLLMAKER (1954) but never talked myself into reading it, but working on a post recently I ran into a different novel, HUNTER'S HORN (1949) and was surprised to see that it was a bestseller and finished a close second to Faulkner in the Pulitzer voting that year. Here's a link to her Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriette_Simpson_Arnow . . . you have to see what she looked like, a beautiful, handome, intense gaze. Not at all what I pictured when I first came across references to THE DOLLMAKER years ago--which just goes to show how we (that is, I) tend to forget that older generations were just like us.
Anyway, lemme know if you try Arnow. A final note: my older boy, Montana (now age 48, yikes!) married a girl from Reedsville, outside Green Bay. Sometimes in the summer the airline situation is such that we're obliged to fly to Green Bay and drive up into the Yoop from there--my wife's family has property on Lake Superior outside MQT. Along the way we stop in Wausaukee for ice cream.
I read Mary Renault's The King Must Die when I was a teenager, and very much interested in depictions of life in the Ancient World. And frankly, her depictions of a teenaged Theseus impregnating a 13 year old was not something you'd read about in your average "Everyday Life in Ancient Greece" books aimed at school kids. But it was really the story-telling that was memorable.
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel! I remember loving that as a kid. It might have been at my grandparents' house (a late-1800s Victorian in northern California), along with the all-wood Erector set and other treasures found in the wonderfully mysterious "toy cupboard."
Glad to kick loose a memory! Oh, and don't forget Lincoln Logs.
Most definitely.
I’m the ancient one born in 1939 and therefore part of the energy behind this page. I’ve read quite a few of the books mentioned. The one I’ll read now is Magna (or maybe Miss Lulu Betts) by Zona Gale. I currently live 20 miles south of Wisconsin and have attended grad school at UW and lived in three different WI towns/cities so it’s time I read Gale. I’d heard of her but knew nothing about her. She seems to be my kind of woman!
Thanks for asking, thanks for signing on! Last summer my wife wanted to read BIRTH (1918) so we got a copy of an edition from Wabesa Press [Oregon, WI] that also included MISS LULU BETT. I have it right here so I suppose there's no excuse for not reading one of the other myself--except for all the others piled up to my immediate left.
Another Midwesterner from mid-century: Harriet Arnow. I'd always seen her title, THE DOLLMAKER (1954) but never talked myself into reading it, but working on a post recently I ran into a different novel, HUNTER'S HORN (1949) and was surprised to see that it was a bestseller and finished a close second to Faulkner in the Pulitzer voting that year. Here's a link to her Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriette_Simpson_Arnow . . . you have to see what she looked like, a beautiful, handome, intense gaze. Not at all what I pictured when I first came across references to THE DOLLMAKER years ago--which just goes to show how we (that is, I) tend to forget that older generations were just like us.
Anyway, lemme know if you try Arnow. A final note: my older boy, Montana (now age 48, yikes!) married a girl from Reedsville, outside Green Bay. Sometimes in the summer the airline situation is such that we're obliged to fly to Green Bay and drive up into the Yoop from there--my wife's family has property on Lake Superior outside MQT. Along the way we stop in Wausaukee for ice cream.
A banner year!
I’ve only read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. I’ll have to check out Good Morning, Midnight.
I read Mary Renault's The King Must Die when I was a teenager, and very much interested in depictions of life in the Ancient World. And frankly, her depictions of a teenaged Theseus impregnating a 13 year old was not something you'd read about in your average "Everyday Life in Ancient Greece" books aimed at school kids. But it was really the story-telling that was memorable.
Dalton Trumbo was my dad’s 2nd cousin. I didn’t read this book until I was in my 50s…extraordinarily hard to read.
Wow! Gotta admit I haven't had the will to read it myself. You get points for that one!