Everyone loves to play charades, right? Well, this is literary charades with a little help from Youtube – you have the guess the books that Beth, Christi and myself are describing without the use of speech. Enjoy.
My colleague Beth offers this video review of The Princess Bride by William Goldman. Apparently, a million copies of this book have been sold. In 1941 a young boy lies bedridden from pneumonia. His perpetually disheveled a father, an immigrant with broken English, shuffles into his bedroom carrying a book. The boy wants to know if it has any sports. His father says, “Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passions. Miracles.”
Cornell Woolrich was an incredibly successful crime writer, who also wrote under the pseudonyms of William Irish and George Hopley. Even though his novels and short stories sold in huge numbers and were adapted into numerous Hollywood thrillers, Woolrich led a sad life and most of his books are now out-of-print.
Rediscover one of the true masters of murder and mystery writing, and some of the fantastic, dark and pulpy covers of his books.
If you are a fan of Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger or Wally Lamb’s I Know This Much is True, then you might enjoy our latest selection of reading recommendations relating to twins.
It was actually surprisingly easy to find twin-themed fiction – Pat Conroy, Ken Follett, Arundhati Roy, V.C. Andrews and Madeleine L’Engle all appear on our list. Browsing through these books, you will see twins often get a bad rap and I’ve already had an email from a twin telling me that we missed off Edward Carey’s Alva & Irva or Linda Gillard’s A Lifetime Burning.
My colleague Jessica offers this video review of Ernest Hemingway’s classic novel, The Sun Also Rises. It was published in 1926 when the effects of World War I were still being felt. The story focuses around a group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfighting. If you have never read this book, it’s about time you put it on your next-to-read-list.
