Some of my favorite books...
A few of these books might be out of print.
Thanks to eBay and secondhand stores, you can find a few of them around
(and for not much money!) They are in no particular order and I have
many more favorites which do not appear on this list. If you notice,
I'm more prone to read nonfiction or believable historical novels, although
I also enjoy gothic science fiction, Louis L'Amour, H.G. Wells, and fairy
tales, among many others. Happy browsing!
Caveats are written in red (some books may contain
one or two strong words but the books which are profuse are noted).
Rather than tell you which Bible I use here and take
up the whole page, here's a special link.
2. The Olympics by David Wallechinsky
This is an excellent book about the heroes and cheaters
of the Olympics. You don't have to be a sports fan to appreciate
it.
3. The Tuba Family by
Clifford Bevan
Mr. Bevan's book has been out of print for a few
years and now has a new edition (which I have not yet seen). I'm
not a big fan of his writing style, though this is probably the most informative
book on tuba history available.
4. The Whole Pop Catalog by
The Berkeley Pop Culture Project
Written about ten years ago, this describes many
of the fads of the twentieth century. I see it every once in a while
at those "closeout" bookstores (such as Foozle's).
5. In Cold Blood by
Truman Capote
This was the first book I read that made me want
to be a writer. The first chapter describes a small town in Kansas.
It sounds like a boring place, yet it is just as interesting as the murder
of a family, runaway of the perpetrators, trial, waiting, and execution
to follow. Although I have problems relating to the late Mr. Capote's
lifestyle, I think he was such a good writer he could have made the instructions
on a Bisquick box interesting! The book takes no sides on the debate
over capital punishment. It is a true story, made into a movie about
35 years ago starring Robert Blake. Warning:
Contains a due amount of violence and mature subject matter.
6. Marching Along by
John Philip Sousa
This is Sousa's autobiography. It gives the
history of the Sousa Band and the Sousaphone (you did know that the first
sousaphones had the bell turned UP and NOT to the FRONT!) Contains
a complete list of all of his marches.
7. How to Make Friends and Influence
People by Dale Carnegie
This is one of those common sense books that you
wish someone said what you need to do and someone did it way back in 1937.
The book is still one of the world's best sellers.
8. Sunday Nights at Seven by
Jack Benny (with Joan Benny)
Being sort of a connoisseur of old time radio, this
is one of the best books on the subject. It was appeared about fifteen
years after Mr. Benny's death, written by his daughter from notes he was
going to use to write his autobiography just before he died from pancreatic
cancer at the age of 80 in 1974. One of my favorite stories about
Jack Benny does not appear in this book. Jack Benny had just finished
making the movie To Be or Not To Be with Carole Lombard at
the time World War Two began. During this time Carole Lombard
and husband Clark Gable became very close with Jack Benny, his wife Mary
Livingstone, and their daughter Joan. Jack continued with his Sunday
night radio program while Carole began collecting money for War Bond Drives.
One of these drives was in her hometown in Indiana. She went back
to Hollywood with her mother, who wanted to ride the train, but Carole
said she needed to get back to her husband. Back in those days cross
country flying involved lots of stops. One of those stops was Las
Vegas. Instead of landing there the plane crashed into Table Rock
Mountain. Everyone perished. When Jack Benny got word of this
his thoughts went to his friend, Clark Gable. Carole meant the world
to him. Theirs was one of the most rock solid marriages in Hollywood.
When Clark Gable got word of the crash he drank until he was plastered
then intended to drive to Las Vegas to find his wife. Jack Benny
wouldn't let him do it. It was Sunday and there was a radio program
that night but Jack knew that Clark wanted to kill himself. He couldn't
let him do it. So he drove Clark to the crash site and missed the
program. When they got to the site, Clark saw what was left of his
wife and melted in Jack's arms. What a true friend! (Also not
to be missed in this book is Joan Benny's testimony on what it means to
be an adopted daughter.)
9. Gone with the Wind by
Margaret Mitchell
Every war has two sides to it. The ugliest
war in American history was the Civil War. A lot of people have the
idea that the South lost because of bigotry but I believe there was just
as much (or more) bigotry in the North. Yes, slavery was awful.
The idea of selling human beings as property is gut wrenching. Still,
they were people and they were Americans, too. This book, although
a melodramatic novel, gives people who only saw the war through the photographs
of Matthew Brady an insight into what people thought during that time.
Scarlet O'Hara and Rhett Butler were two of the most despicable characters
in literature. We just love to hate them! Warning:
Contains some derogatory terms for African Americans.
10. Farewell to Manzanar by
Jeanne Houston
Even uglier than slavery was what happened to those
of Japanese ancestry during the Second World War: American citizens were
placed into internment centers because their ancestry could be traced to
the present enemy! This book is the recollection of a woman who lived
in Manzanar as a little girl.
11. The Greatest Generation by
Tom Brokaw (and subsequent books)
This is the best series I've seen about the Second
World War. It's true first hand information which is priceless.
There are now three books in the series.
12. Leaving Home by
Art Buchwald
Need a good cry? This book will have you in
tears in no time! Usually thought to be a humorist, Buchwald tells
his life story, without a mother (even though she was alive, but not well)
and always doing things the hard way. His experiences in the United
States Marine Corps are especially touching! Warning:
Contains strong language.
13. The Great American Broadcast
by
Leonard Maltin
For someone who is not keen to old time radio, but
enjoy listening to some of the old shows, this is an excellent introduction
to what happened between about 1927 and the 1950s. Anything movie
reviewer Leonard Maltin writes is top notch stuff. Not as many pictures
as other books of this type, but many amazing anecdotes!
14. The Autobiography of Malcolm
X by Malcolm X (with Arthur Hailey)
Although I was assigned to read this book in college,
I read it again (for fun) when I lived in Indonesia. Too bad Martin
Luther King, Jr., didn't write a book like this; I think people who have
negative thoughts about him would feel a lot differently.
15. News at Ten by
Stan Chambers
The oldest news reporter in Los Angeles television
renders his whole life. He must be over 80 and he still appears every
night on the KTLA Channel 5 News! I think you have to buy the book
from the television station (get Stan's e-mail address from the Channel
5 website). KTLA was the first commercial television station
west of the Mississippi River. It was started by Klaus Landsberg,
who fled from the Nazis in Germany in 1938 (after introducing television
at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympic Games). He with NBC Television
at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Paramount Pictures hired him shortly
thereafter to begin experimental station W6XYZ, channel 4, using a former
garage outside the main gates to the studio off Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.
With the war standing in the way, the station changed channels and went
commercial in January 1947. He was very innovative and, one would
think, well loved. But Stan Chambers tells a different story in this
book. Landsberg was a harsh man, prone to threats, fights, and tantrums.
When Channel 5 aired its Fortieth Anniversary Special in 1987, a personality
from one of the rival stations was heard saying that he wished that he
could have worked in the early days with Mr. Landsberg. In his book,
reading between the lines, Stan Chambers reports that the biggest blessings
at KTLA were the wonderful innovations which Klaus Landsberg put
into place when the station was new and the fact that Landsberg died in
1956 at the age of 40. (I think if I worked in television I would
delight from working with Stan Chambers!)
16. Lake Wobegone Tales
by Garrison Keillor (and subsequent volumes)
Garrison Keillor is the host and story teller of
the weekly Public Radio International program, A Prairie Home Companion.
We native Californians have learned more about life in Minnesota from him
so well that when the movie Fargo came out in the mid 1990s
(in which the story actually took place in Brainerd, MN), we could understand
what was being said. The stories are so good they have to be true.
17. Holidays in Hell by
P.J. O'Rourke
Political writer O'Rourke describes living in a Third
World country in Central America. I picked up this book when I was
living in Indonesia and it helped me to survive. I especially appreciated
the dictionary of Third World terms for those from industrialized countries.
An example: Third World Brake: the button in the middle of the
steering wheel. Is that the thing that makes a loud beeping
sound when you press it?
18. It Only Hurts When I Laugh
by
Stan Freberg
I read this book when I was in the hospital with
a near fatal kidney condition in Indonesia. I learned that this Baptist
preacher's son from Alhambra (not far from downtown L.A.), who began doing
cartoon voices for Warner Brothers with Mel Blanc in high school (and was
able to continue this during his stint in the Army because he was stationed
at nearby Fort MacArthur in San Pedro) considered himself to be a failure
when his radio program in 1957 went off the air in 13 episodes. He
later made his mark as a producer of some of the greatest commercials of
television and radio. Freberg can be heard Monday through Friday
at 10:00 p.m. Los Angeles time on When
Radio Was, which is heard here on KSL
Radio (1160 kHz AM) in Salt Lake City (with 50,000 watts it reaches)
and can also be heard on the internet (requires
RealPlayer.) Freberg has always been a strong supporter of
family values. His wife Donna (who died last year of lung cancer),
son Donavan, and daughter Donna have always shared and participated in
his successes.
19. Harpo Speaks! by
Harpo Marx
My first private tuba teacher, Gene Pokorny (now
with the Chicago Symphony) is a Stoogephile, meaning he's a Three Stooges
fan. I always considered the Stooges too violent, immature, and lackadaisical
to be their fan. But I am a Marx Brothers fan. They were too
smart to lose their temper or get into a fight. Except for Harpo,
the quiet one, they could all talk their way out of a fight. Harpo,
who died in 1961, was the opposite of his brothers, who could never stay
married to one woman. He found the right girl at a party in the early
1930s and stayed with her for almost thirty years. Harpo was a committed
family man who could separate what he did in entertainment with what he
did with his family and friends. The pictures in this book are wonderful.
You can see that his children really adored him.
20. The Story of Civilization by
Will and Ariel Aurant
I had to put some "high fallutant" stuff here.
This is a multivolume set of books, much like an encyclopedia, covering
various cultures around the world. The volumes are divided up along
timelines, named for the dominant culture of that period. Although
more pages than I care to count, it's one of the easiest reading works
I've seen.
Last updated July 22, 2001
