Books I Think I've Read--but I haven't.

RHYS BOWEN: Earlier this week I wrote about de-cluttering. That included mercilessly weeding out books from my many bookshelves.  In doing this I came across books I'd stare at and ask myself "Did I read this or not?"
In some cases the story was so unmemorable, but other books were classics that I've kept because one should have sufficient classics on the shelf to prove that one is a cultured person--right?
So I'm looking at Moby Dick. Of course I know the beginning--Call me Ishmael. Of course I know that Captain Ahab fought the great white whale and succumbed to it in the end. But as I turn the pages now I find myself asking "Did I actually ever read this?"

Then I started considering other classics and wondering "Have I been faking it all these years when I have joined in discussions on Dickens or George Eliot? So which books do I know that I've read?  Every term at school we had one Shakespeare play, on classic novel, one group of poems and sometimes one more modern work. So I really can claim to have studied much of Shakespeare, some Dickens, Eliot, Thomas Hardy etc. Also some George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde (those counted for modern at my school).

But when I think about it I've never read Tom Brown's Schooldays. I've never read The Last of the Mohicans or the Legend of Sleepy Hollow or the Pickwick Papers or even Bleak House (although I've seen the latter on Masterpiece). I know the story line of each of them but as I turn the pages I know I've never read them.  When I was a student I had to read so much in German and French that I had no time for pleasure reading. And pleasure reading would never, never NEVER have included a long, meaty, boring classic.

it was only when I matured that I chose to read all of Jane Austen and loved them so much that I've read them over and over. I chose to revisit Middlemarch that had bored me to tears in school and actually enjoyed it.  So now I'm thinking I should make a list of books I need to read before I die.

The only problem is that my friends in the mystery community keep turning out such good books that there never seems to be time to tackle old ones. Maybe when I retire (which my husband tells me is never)!

So, fellow Reds--which books do you think you've read, (but you haven't)? Which books do you still want to read?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  That happened to me with Edith Wharton. In high school, I was about to stab myself in the throat, I thought her books were so boring. Now she's my idol. But what do I think I've read that I haven't? The Fountainhead (But do I need to read that?). Maybe...what's the one in the Spanish Civil War?...For Whom the Bell Tolls. Again, because of the movie, I think I know it.  Oh--I bet I've never actually read Gone With The Wind. Huh, funny! Gosh, I'm sitting here, surrounded by books I haven't read. (LIke The Goldfinch. I know, I know.)  I can;t even think about the ones out of sight, out of mind.

HALLIE EPHRON: Oh, Hank, I haven't read "The Goldfinch" or "Secret History," either, though I have read "Gone with The Wind." My eighth-grade teacher Mrs. Diebold took it away from me as inappropriate reading.

I have not read anything by Edith Wharton, I'm ashamed to admit. And I think I started "Moby Dick." I have however read virtually all of the Greek tragedies and comedies and most of Shakespeare. And of course all of Austen (several times) and most of Alcott. And, I'm proud to say, I got all the way through 600+ pages of Günter Grass's "The Tin Drum."

The author I wish I could say I've read is Virginia Woolf. I've listened to "A Room of One's Own" on tape and read "Mrs. Dalloway" right after reading Michael Cunningham's "The Hours." To paraphrase what Salieri supposedly said (in the movie Amadeus) about Mozart, there are simply too many words in her sentences. But I know I'm missing out. Maybe I should alternate reading a novel by Woolf with a novel by Hemingway... as a palate cleanser?

RHYS: So which books do you think you've read, but haven't?
Which books are on your "to be read before I die" list?

And a message from Cindy Brown : her favorite comment from her guest blog on Wednesday was by Pat D.  So Pat D please contact Cindy at info@cindybrownwriter.com and Cindy will send you a copy of her new book, MacDeath.

Dinner Party with Dead Authors

JAN BROGAN - As I've been mentioning as of late, I've been reading Moby Dick and developing a huge crush on Herman Melville even though he is dead. Quite dead. By crush, I do not mean that I am loving the book itself. Although I AM LOVING the book itself, the prose, the adventure, the romanticism. The complete genius. What I mean by developing a crush on Herman is strictly personal. I feel as though, if I couldn't marry him, I'd at least want to sit next to him at a dinner party and monopolize his time.

And not just to get a blurb!

I am enthralled by his observations about life, people, even the whales. I think he's got an awesome sense of humor, and that I could banter with him for hours. And of course, it's totally, maniacally presumptuous, but I sort of feel like he and I would understand each other. (I am also picturing him tall, handsome and alpha male, but I won't go into all my delusions.)

And I've felt the opposite about male authors, even while liking the books. For example, when I read the Witches of Eastwick by John Updike, I felt that no matter how great an author he was, I just really didn't like that man. I was convinced that he had only a egocentric view of women (and I'm pretty sure that was the book he wrote to address criticism by feminists.) Even though one of his short stories is my all time favorite, I am sure that if I had to listen to him talk about himself at dinner party, I'd get up and move my seat.

So Reds, what dead authors would you like to sit next to at a dinner party. And who would you like to avoid?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I guess one of us should say Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers but I'd rather sit down with Robert Graves who wrote, among other things, I,Claudius and Claudius, the God. I was addicted to that television series and read both books and since then a biography of Augustus and one of Livia. What an incredible time. And how Graves humanized them. I'd want to know how much was fact and how much was fiction!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Jan, now I have to put Moby Dick on my to-read list!!! Can't believe I never have. But then I was always reading those English authors...

I'm going to cheat, and pick not one, but three, with the occasional fourth: C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, J.R.R. Tolkien (and sometimes Dorothy Sayers.) The first three were part of an Oxford group of writers who referred to themselves as The Inklings. They met for regular discussions about their writing at a pub in Oxford called The Eagle and Child (affectionately known as The Bird and Baby.) Sometimes Sayers would join them.

From the time I was in my teens I wanted more than anything to be an Inkling, to have that sort of intellectual support and camaraderie. My first trip to England, I went to Oxford, and of course made my pilgrimage to The Bird and Baby. I'd still give anything just to sit and listen to them talk.

Avoid? Too many to list. Mostly having to do with American literary male angst.

RHYS BOWEN: I think I'd find most dead male authors pretentious and patronizing to a woman who dares to write books. They'd mention my "little scribblings" then ignore me,I suspect.It would be fun to sit down beside Jane Austen because I bet she could give some lovely witty and bitchy asides about the other people at the dinner table. I'd also enjoy being with some of those 20s and 30s women--Gertrude Stein. having adored Midnight in Paris, or Virginia Woolf.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Edith Wharton. Can you imagine the scathing dinner-table conversation? I'd add in Dorothy Parker and Patricia Highsmith. We could be all catty and socially superior and talk about living abroad and the failings of American society. Dorothy would drink too much and Patricia would smoke too much and Edith would point out how sadly lacking the wait service was. Nothing like it had been when she was a girl.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Yes, absolutely. Edith Wharton. Number one choice. Then-Truman Capote. And Thomas Wolfe. And Shakespeare. F. Scott and Zelda, for sure. And Agatha Christie. Love this idea! (Hallie will cook, right?)

JAN: Definitely F. Scott Fitzgerald, but I think Zelda would annoy me. She was always diving into pools as I recall.

HALLIE EPHRON: Are we having dinner? Then most definitely Julia Child. And to make sure I mind my manners, P. L. Travers (Mary Poppins). And Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Little Princess and The Secret Garden and a gazillion other titles). And Lucy Maud Montgomery of Anne of Green Gables.

LUCY BURDETTE: I just want an invitation--you all have done such a good job. But I don't think we should have Hallie cook if the women are likely to complain about the help....

JAN: How about the rest of you, which dead authors would you invite to our dinner party and who would you shun?

Chapter One - Call me Ishmael

ROSEMARY: Okay, perhaps I shouldn't start my next book with those words, although occcasionally the task of starting a new book can seem as difficult as harpooning the white whale.

In this business we don't get much time to pat ourselves on the backs for delivering a manuscript before we have to get started on another one. That's where I am right now. It's seems the afterglow period gets shorter and shorter with each book. (There's a parallel here with the more traditional use of the word "afterglow" but I'm not going to go there.)

I won't say I'm stumped for an idea - there are a number of stories floating around in my brain - (yet to be harpooned) but the thing hasn't revealed itself yet.

Does anyone know what I'm talking about? The thing - the reason these characters are on the page doing what I want them to do. In some ways writing has gotten easier and in others, it's more challenging - not to keep repeating oneself whether it's language or situations.

Does Sue Grafton think about stuff like this?

HANK: Oh, of course she does. Of course! In fact, name dropping, she told me that she rewrote K is for Knowledge because in the midst of it, she realized what it was really about. (Something like that...as she was talking, I was thinking, don't forget this, don't forget this--when I should have been totally listening.) I've been a reporter for 30 years. After each big story, I think--oh, this is the last one. I'll never be able to think of another one. AND then I always do. And then the pattern starts again.

So, I think it's the same way with books. At least I hope so. NO. It really is.

ROBERTA: Oh yes Ro, and I've heard the very accomplished and talented Nancy Pickard talk about having to throw away 200 pages because she realized it wasn't going in the right direction. Now that would be discouraging!
I keep a file folder called "new ideas" into which I stuff newspaper articles and little snatches of thoughts. Unfortunately, when I leaf through it to mine for a new book idea, there doesn't seem to be much there. Sigh. A lot of real ideas just seem to unfold during the process of writing. Can't be forced or the writing reads exactly that way.

ROSEMARY: My idea file occasionally yields a secondary or tertiary story line but so far not the whole enchilada.

HALLIE: 200 PAGES!?!?
For every novel I keep an "out" file where I save all the lines I cut from the first (and second...and thirty-second) draft, and it usually ends up longer than the final draft of the novel. But that's not the same as, just like that, deep-sixing 200 pages.

I'm with you Ro, right now I'm thinking about the next book that I'll need to start just as soon as I finish revising the one that's due in 3 weeks. I have a few glimmers of ideas, but nothing remotely approaching a plot. A plot is pretty essential for my kind of book. Where, oh where am I going to find the plot. Sadly I find that feeling often persists months into the writing.

ROSEMARY: Et tu, Hallie? Well, I feel a little better now. Something's coming...it just hasn't jelled yet..but it's jellin.'

Ahab beckons.