any books i should read?

[jessesgirl08]

I love reading biographies as well as books with anything related to the golden era, any books i should not miss?

 

[dimples]

There are so many great ones but I would recommend haunting old bookshops and picking up everything you see. So many times I have picked up a book on someone I have never heard of and found a new obsession.

One book that I really enjoyed recently is Deborah Blum's "The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York" but then I am obsessed with crime, crime novelists. It is also a *tiny* bit grusome in places but has some really interesting bits about prohibition.

If you like early Hollywood I have just finished reading David Niven's autobiographies - he is brilliant and has some really fascinating stories about his career.

 

[jessesgirl08]

going to the library to see if any of those are available. They sound like just the type i am looking for. Also planning a trip to the used book store hopefully this weekend. Thanks

 

[dimples]

I would be really interested to hear what you come up with. One of my new years resolutions is to read more so always looking for good suggestions.

I also keep an eye on the "what are you reading" thread under The Reading Room.

 

[Rudie]

I'd recommend any biography written by Stefan Zweig. They are all outstanding. I especially enjoyed the ones about Joseph Fouché and about Magellan.

 

[charminglane]

Just finished the Murder Room by Michael Capuzzo. It is about how the Vidocq Society was started in Philadelphia to help solve cold cases.
Terrific book.

 

[Victoria Aldridge Washuk]

I am new here and just want to introduce my self and my blog which lists my World War ll Published Books Volume 1 and 2 of 4 Entitled World War 2 London Blitz Diaries and also an audio series . Enjoy!
http://womanlondonblitz.blogspot.com/

 

[Amy Jeanne]

 

[Shangas]

One of the great celebrity chefs of the early 20th century was Maguerite Patten. She's still alive today (aged 96). She wrote a book called "We'll Eat Again", which is, I believe, a cookbook full of recipes for food that people ate during the Second World War. Ms. Patten was a big influence during the War because she came up with some of the dishes that people could create with their severely rationed foodstuffs in the 1940s.

 

[BigFitz]

Well if you have an interest in the dark side of Hollywood, "Hollywood Babylon" is a good one. Not big on text, but has some interesting photos.

 

[Taz-man]

I like "Hot Springs" by Stephen Hunter. It is set in Arkansas mostly, during about 1946.

 

[C-dot]

Co-sign. Also, after you read this one, read his other book:

You won't be able to put it down!

 

[Miss sofia]

Dark Lover. Biog of Rudolph Valentino by Emily Leider.
The life of Colette - Judith Thurman.

Both of these i have enjoyed recently.

Find anything by Nancy Mitford and devour it!

 

[pjt113]

Just finished The Passage by Justin Cronin, great read

 

[Stanley Doble]

If you really want the feel of the Golden Age how about some books that were written during it? Scott Fitzgerald had a writing style that involved interviewing people and using their experiences almost verbatim. So his books have a lot of accurate period atmosphere if you know enough about the period to pick up on it. My favorite is The Great Gatsby. A simple book and a simple story yet you can read it over and over and find something new each time.

Another good one is "My Years With General Motors" by Alfred Sloan. You might find big business and industry was not the way you have been led to believe, if you read this biography by one of the biggest insiders. It was written at a time the auto industry employed one American in seven, directly or indirectly.

There are a lot of good memoirs and autobiographies if you look for them. Almost all of them will give you a startling slant on the past.

 

[C-dot]

Well if you have an interest in the dark side of Hollywood, "Hollywood Babylon" is a good one. Not big on text, but has some interesting photos.

Just caught this now, but: It's "a good one" for fiction only. Should anyone read this, keep in mind that there is no truth to it at all. It was written by someone who was shunned by Hollywood for his bizarre homoerotic filmmaking, and who cleverly waited until all his subjects were deceased to drag their names through the mud (notably Fatty Arbuckle and Clara Bow) and to place his own creative twists on some of their terrible deaths (i.e., Ramon Novarro). Further research into any of his stories will reveal them to be false. Ramon Novarro's, for example, can be disproved by simply reading the autopsy report.