That’s one of those things Mother used to say, even though she was pretty good at sizing people UP on sight!

I will have to admit, I do.

Judge books by their covers, that is.

I’ve bought several books just because I thought the title would look good on the book shelf.  Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady and The Secret Life of Eva Hathaway come to mind.  They are both funny, funny books, and always start a conversation when someone sees them.

So, while on my last trip to Border’s, again darn that kindle, I saw a book that had a tacky, tacky cover.  I didn’t like to title, I assumed it was a romance novel, and I walked on by.  But, as luck would have it, I came back that way and realized that it was written by Robert Hicks.  Hicks wrote The Widow of The South, a great read about the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee in the War Between The States, and the woman who buried over a thousand soldiers in her front yard after the battle.

Hicks is a “tad” obsessed with Confederate General John Bell Hood.  And he’d have to be to write this well about him.  Hood was known as “the butcher of Franklin” and was a rush to judgement kind of guy, so he’d probably be ok with my not picking the book UP the first time around. 

Hicks’ new book, A Separate County is surprisingly good.  The sophomore work of a writer is generally a big let down, but A Separate County may actually be better than the first book.

It’s sort of a sequel, but you don’t have to read the first one to get the second one.  So, I guess it’s really not a sequel, just some of the characters are the same.

A Separate Country is about Hood’s life after “The War”.  He moved to New Orleans hoping to blend in, be an unknown, and make a new life for himself.  Well, he had to settle for one out of three. 

He had a new life.  Battered and maimed from “The War”, (he lost the use of his left arm at Gettysburg, and, at the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg was amputated. )  he marries a young white creole named Anna Marie Hennen and they proceed to go forth and multiply.  Eleven kids in ten years, three sets of twins, and I’m guessin’ he was making UP for lost time during the war.

The book is written from three points of view.  Eli Griffin, the main narator is given a charge by the dying Hood, and sets off to do for the man what he could never do for himself.  The rest of the book is from the writings of Hood and his wife.  Hood’s are diaries, Anna Marie’s are letters to her oldest daughter. 

There were nights when I could not stop reading, and as the action progressed, I found myself not wanting it to end.  The characters are great, seedy, merciless, complicated and conflicted.  There’s even a dwarf!  And who doesn’t love a dwarf?

So, don’t let the tacky Belva Plain cover fool you, the Miami Herald reviewer said it was “marvelous”, and they were right!  It’s on my list of “re-reads”.

You can find out more about Robert Hicks and his work at www.robert-hicks.com

Not this one…

…but, this one…

I’ve seen the movie Giant, I’ve seen the movie So Big, I’ve seen Showboat, Cimmaron, Dinner At Eight, and Ice Palace, but I never paid attention to Edna Ferber.

What a miss!

After re-watching Giant for the umpty-umpth time the weekend after Elizabeth Taylor died, I thought, “Hey, you like to read, why don’t you read some Edna Ferber?”

So I did.

I bought SoBig and Giant.

And I’m glad I did.

Ferber, an American literary giant, was part of the Algonquin Round Table and helped to shape American Literature in the early part of the 20th Century.

The first book won Ms. Ferber the Pulitizer Prize.  On the surface, it’s about a Dutch High Pararie family and community out side of Chicago, and the cultured young woman who comes to teach their children, falls in love with a big lug of a farmer, and becomes part of their community.  But, really it’s about her and how she reared her son after becoming a widow.  And how she taught him to become the man he was supposed to be in spite of himself.

It’s a great book, a good read, and I highly recommend it.

It has a message, it’s literature, but it isn’t preachy.

Giant, though it didn’t win a Pulitzer, is an even better book.  Texas:  big and bold at it’s best.

I’m glad I saw the movie first, for even though it follows the story closely, Hollywood changed a few facts, cast people who look nothing like the book’s description of them (except Taylor’s part as Leslie Benedict), and made Jett Rink far far more sympathetic than he was in the book.

It was James Dean’s final film, and one of Rock and Elizabeth’s best.  Mercedes McCambridge plays Bick’s sister and was nominated for an Academy award.  She’s mean and hateful, and you love to hate her!

Giant and SoBig are both great reads, and Ferber’s descriptions of places, people, and events bring you to them.  She knew her craft, knew her characters, and new her challenge. 

They are “must reads” as far as I’m concerned.

I’m sure your local libray has them.  If they don’t, it’s not a real library!!

I’ve caught UP on my reading this summer.

I’ve really, really enjoyed it.

Here are a few from my July list you may have tried, or may like to read. 

The Adventurers by Harold Robbins.  Written in the 1960s, before Harold got lazy, the book is long, complex, full of characters and plot twists, and a tad on the raunchy side.  One of my readers once said, “I love a good dirty book!”  I can’t remember who that was, but, and I think she lives in S. Florida, this one’s for you!

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett.  It’s his first installment of the new trilogy.  OK, I don’t usually read series books, but this one is great, hopefully he’ll keep the next two books, projected to be out in 2012 (assuming the Mayans are wrong) and 2014, as interesting.  The first book is over 700 pages.  But, a great story with complex characters with lives that intertwine.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  So I’m the last person in America to pick it UP!  I thought at first that it would be a total chick lit book, and almost passed.  But, I’m glad I didn’t stop reading.  Great story, great love story, sleazy characters who make you cringe and like them at the same time.  She puts the book together with ins and outs from one man’s life and takes the reader and the character back in time with a whip-lash to the present.  If you love the circus, you’ll love the book.

Nemesis by Peter Evans.  I love a good conspiracy theory, and this is a good one.  I won’t spoil it, but it’s about the “relationship” between Jackie O, Aristotle Onassis, and Bobby Kennedy.  Here’s a tip, they really didn’t like each other.  If 1/3 of the stuff in this book is true, and the writer seems to have the goods and facts to back it UP, holy crap!  It changes things a ‘tad’.  Not for everyone, but it’s gossipier than Kitty Kelly ever wished she was, and full of headlines I remember…so naturally, I loved it.

And of course, most recently, I finally bought a copy of The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  Ok, again, last person in America to read it, but I really paid little attention to it because the title made me think, “Oh, inspirational, self-help, how to make myself a better person”…stuff I have no interest in!  And I passed it by, ignored the reviews, and forgot about it. 

Then I saw the movie trailer!  Emma Stone (Easy A)…I don’t care who she plays or how miscast she is, I’ll go.  She’s UP there with Jessica Lange, Reese Witherspoon, and J-Lo.  They can’t make a bad movie Jersey Girl aside.  So, if they’re in it, I’ll go.

Once I realized it was a novel and not some useless self-help who moved my cheese crap, I bought it.  Border’s was having a sale after all.  You may have heard.  Damn that kindle!

There are moments when I think it should have been called the Do Everythings, because they were more than help.  A pampered, vapid, vain, silly, and pathetic bunch of women who can’t do anything but piss and moan are tended to and have their children cared for by people they don’t even like in this book, and the writer tells the story well.

It’s awesome.  Now, I’ll have to take exception to all the comparisons to To Kill A Mockingbird.  That’s heresey.  And I”m sure that as flattered as Ms. Stockett might be at the comparison, she knows better.  TKAM changed the way we think.  And Harper Lee was amazingly smart, had a vocabulary far beyond her years, and had a great story to tell, witht a great point to make.

Ms. Stockett does that too.  But, again, she, as good as she is, knows as well as every other writer, published or not, she’s no Harper Lee.   For Pete’s sake, I know I’m no Harper Lee, and I’m my biggest fan!

We’d love to be, but lightning only strikes once!

Back to the book, it’s wonderful.  Again, a chick book, sorry guys, but I like them.  And it’s literature.  Well written, well paced, and well thought out. 

As I read on and on, I waited for the come-uppance, and I waited for the main characters to win.  And as the book came to an end, I was at first displeased with the ending, just as I was with H2O for Elephants.  But when I thought about it.  It had to end that way, because IT had to end. 

Read it, you’ll get what I mean.

Summer’s not over until September regardless of what the school board says, so keep reading, and let me know what else I should read!

And for the love of Gregory Peck, pick UP a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird if you haven’t read it!

Today is Ian Fleming’s birthday.

He would have been 103.

Fleming, the father of the James Bond books, was an English aristocrat.

His UPper class family was shocked by his books.

They were also shocked by the way he lived.  He lived a littl too hard.

He said, “I have always smoked and drunk and loved too much. In fact I have lived not too long but too much. One day the Iron Crab will get me.  Then I shall have died of living too much.”

He died in 1964, on his son’s 12th birthday.

As much as I love the Bond books, and the Bond movies, I find it especially intriguing that the same man who gave us Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Thunderball, wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!