This week from today it’s another of the year-reading clubs hosted by Karen and Simon – 1949 this time. Consulting the wiki page for 1949 in literature, I found I’ve read a few – see below. However, despite finding one to read on my shelves, Nelson Algren’s The Man with the Golden Arm, I doubt I’ll get to it this week, so instead, here’s a digest of what I have read from that year…
Pre-blog:
in fact as a child, I devoured all of Canadian author Willard Price’s adventure stories, and Amazon Adventure was the very first in that long-running series. They’re still in print, although I suspect, very of their time – the protagonists, a pair of teenaged boys have an animal collector as a father… but in the late 1960s, they were great fun to read and a step up from Blyton in the adventure stakes. I also read Robert A Heinlein’s Red Planet as a young adult during my major SF phase, and Hammond Innes’ Antarctic whaling novel The White South – I read all the thriller authors back in the day.
Another author I read almost everything by as a teen was Nevil Shute – A Town Like Alice was his 1949 novel. I’ve long meant to revisit some of his books, but bar revisiting Alice for book group in 2006 haven’t managed it so far. Another much-loved read, but still pre-blog, was Graham Greene’s The Third Man.
Reviewed on my blog:
- 1984 by George Orwell – this was a re-read for book group. Even more chilling read as a grown-up.
- Little Boy Lost by Marganita Laski – excellent story about a man reunited with his lost child after WWII – but is the child really his son?
- The Parent Trap by Erich Kästner – sadly, this was one of my lost blog posts when I transferred blogs. A children’s favourite in translation.
- Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford – This novel is a charming comedy of manners that is mostly frothy, but is often mordantly witty. Given that it was published in 1949 elements in it were probably seen as quite racy. Today, it would probably be considered as top class chicklit, but with added bite. However, I was of the opinion that, arguably, the Mitford family itself is more interesting than Nancy’s characters.
