Hello reading friends. Welcome spring and a new month! And a new pile of books to choose from. I am still reading last month's prompt book, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. But I must not tarry (what am I saying, I am tarrying all over the place these days, but we're talking about choosing a new book to read!).
I have been toying with the idea of presenting the books to you, and letting you help choose the next book to read, but I realize it is so quiet here (on my end) that I might not have enough readers dropping by to add their voice to the comments below. Still, if you have a favorite here on this pile, a book you have read and enjoyed, or heard good things about, do feel free to leave a comment.
This month I decided (this year my prompt's are all 'places'/settings) a novel set in the world of theater or moviemaking might be entertaining (pun intended). I actually have quite a few books with that setting, but I managed to whittle the number down to a smaller stack. It is a world I am most interested in reading about, so if you have any other recommendations (for some other time) do please share.
Show Boat by Edna Ferber -- "Bringing to life the adventurous world of Mississippi show boats, the grittiness of turn-of-the-century Chicago, and the majesty of 1920s Broadway, Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Ferber's Show Boat is a classic. Magnolia Hawks spends her childhood aboard the Cotton Blossom, growing up amid simmering racial tension and struggling to survive life on the Mississippi. When she falls in love with the dashing Gaylord Ravenal and moves with him to Chicago, the joy of giving birth to their beautiful daughter, Kim, is offset by Gaylord's gambling addiction and distrustful ways. Only when Kim sets off on her own to pursue success on the New York stage does Magnolia return to the Cotton Blossom, reflecting on her own life and all who once called the show boat their home."
Lucky Us by Amy Bloom -- "Disappointed by their families, Iris, the hopeful star and Eva the sidekick, journey through 1940s America in search of fame and fortune. Iris's ambitions take the pair across the America of Reinvention in a stolen station wagon, from small-town Ohio to an unexpected and sensuous Hollywood, and to the jazz clubs and golden mansions of Long Island.With their friends in high and low places, Iris and Eva stumble and shine though a landscape of big dreams, scandals, betrayals, and war."
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters (I have read all her books but this debut novel and her very last one--shouldn't she have something new coming out soon?). "Nan King, an oyster girl, is captivated by the music hall phenomenon Kitty Butler, a male impersonator extraordinaire treading the boards in Canterbury. Through a friend at the box office, Nan manages to visit all her shows and finally meet her heroine. Soon after, she becomes Kitty's dresser and the two head for the bright lights of Leicester Square where they begin a glittering career as music-hall stars in an all-singing and dancing double act. At the same time, behind closed doors, they admit their attraction to each other and their affair begins."
Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee Koe -- "At a chance encounter at a Berlin soirée in 1928, the photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captures three very different women together in one frame: up-and-coming German actress Marlene Dietrich; Anna May Wong, the world's first Chinese American star; and Leni Riefenstahl, whose work as a director of propaganda art films would first make her famous--then, infamous.The trajectories of these women's lives wind from Weimar Berlin to LA's Chinatown, from the Bavarian Alps to the Champs-Élysées, and the different settings they inhabit are as richly textured as the roles they play: siren, victim, predator, or lover, each one a carefully calibrated performance. In the orbit of each star live secondary players whose voices and viewpoints reveal the legacy each woman left behind. Intimate and clear-eyed, this is a visceral depiction of womanhood--its particular hungers, its oblique calculations, and its eventual betrayals."
The Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin -- "It is 1914, and twenty-five-year-old Frances Marion has left her (second) husband and her Northern California home for the lure of Los Angeles, where she is determined to live independently as an artist. But the word on everyone's lips these days is 'flickers'--the silent moving pictures enthralling theatergoers. Turn any corner in this burgeoning town and you'll find made-up actors running around, as a movie camera captures it all.In this fledgling industry, Frances finds her true calling: writing stories for this wondrous new medium. She also makes the acquaintance of actress Mary Pickford, whose signature golden curls and lively spirit have earned her the title "America's Sweetheart." The two ambitious young women hit it off instantly, their kinship fomented by their mutual fever to create, to move audiences to a frenzy, to start a revolution."
Lucky Break by Esther Freud -- "It is their first day at Drama Arts, and the nervous students huddled in a circle are told in no uncertain terms that here, unlike at any other drama school, they will be taught to Act. To Be. To exist in their own world on the stage. But outside is the real world-a pitiless, alluring place in which each of them in their most fervent dreams hopes to flourish and excel."
So, which would you read?