The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters** by Julian Barnes.
By far, my favorite book of all time, and no one I’ve ever talked to has heard of it. Anybody here? I’d highly recommend it.
Please, tell me I’m not alone on this!
<sigh> Shoot me now. Just ignore the gratuitous underlining, please. It was a code mistake, not an attempt to be overly emphatic, believe me.
Yeah, I’ve read it. It wasn’t bad, for Julian Barnes. The stuff on The Raft of the Medusa was pretty good.
What are you moaning about? I just went over to Amazon.com; it’s still in print, and 25 people have commented on it.
Now, if your favorite book of all time was The Wandering Jew by Eugene Sue, THEN you could get all elgaic and forlorn.
Yes I’ve heard of it, it was one of my favorite books of all time, I especially liked the parts about the wood worms, and the section on the Wreck of the Medusa made me grab my copy of “Rum , Sodomy and the Lash” by the Pogues which was based on the painting of the Wreck of the Medusa (Do I win a prize for making several obscure popular and semi-popular cultural references in one post ?)
Keith
Err, that should be the cover of Rum, etc.
Keith
Keith is today’s winner of the Dennis Miller “cha cha” award
Ike, I love Eugene Sue—have you read his “Mysteries of Paris?” Haunting!
May I burst into this thread and ask if anyone has ever seen a copy of Rian James’ “42nd Street,” the much-naughtier novel on which the film was based? I’ve been searching for years . . . All that’s available is the film script, put out by some University press.
Eve, I did a quick search at Amazon.com and got this listing.
42nd Street
by Rian James
Our Price: $14.95
Its a hard cover book. Is this just the script? It didn’t say whether or not it was. Did Rian James also write the screen play?
Oh well. Hope that helps a little bit.
pat
Nope—that’s the script, put out by the U. of Wisconsin. Same one that’s available on all the used-book search sites. They really shouldn’t list Rian James as the author, as he didn’t write the screenplay!
Thanks anyway . . .
Now I am pretty confused. I looked a little bit more, and from a couple of sources, I found that someone named Bradford Ropes wrote the novel. Is that just a pen name for Rian James?
One of my sources was the IMDB. They are often wrong, so I wanted to admit that up front.
pat
Hmmmm . . . It seems Rian James did write the novel under the pen name “Bradford Ropes.” But I still come up nil on those used-book search places.
Anyone find that book, I’ll pay good money for it!
Here is an interesting essay about the Julian Marsh character in Forty Second Street. It talks about the differences between the film characterization and novel characterization, among other things. I know this is neither relevant to the original topic, nor Eve’s request for the book. But, I thought this was a good essay worthy of sharing.
“Come on Home with Me”:42nd Street and the Gay Male World of the 1930s
by Leonard J. Jeff
pat
Well as long as we’re doing obscure book searchs.
Can anyone locate a copy of Genevieve Undead by Jack Yeovil (aka Kim Newman). It’s a collection of horror novellas by Newman written under the pseudonym of Yeovil. It was published by Boxtree Press in England and not released in the United States, but it was published in 1993, for chrissakes! How hard should it be to find? Nonetheless I have ordered it from dozens of book stores and tried online book search services in Britain, the United States, Ireland, and Canada. I even emailed Kim Newman. No success.
I’ve been half-heartedly searching for the following books. Search engines and OP book sites haven’t helped:
by John Herbert Skinner:
Around the World
Under Southern Skies
Over Southern Seas
South of the Rio Grande
Winter in Hawaii
1000 Miles Up the Amazon
Second Trip Around the World
I believe they were published in the 1920s and 1930s but I don’t know for sure. Any leads will bring deep gratitude and respect.
(Full disclosure: John is my great-granduncle, whom I’d never known existed before 1992 and known nothing about until a chance look in a biographical encyclopedia in 1993.)