I'm already anticipating having a short work week next week. It will be so nice to have a little extra time off to read and relax and hopefully watch a few movies, too. My library has a really good film collection and we have recently been filling out the missing volumes from the Criterion Collection and I came across this little gem. I'd never heard of Night Train to Munich before. It was made in 1940 and directed by Carol Reed. The screenplay was written by the same man who wrote Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. Doesn't this sound like fun:
"Carol Reed's Night Train to Munich is a twisting, turning, cloak-and-dagger delight, combining comedy, romance, and thrills with the greatest of ease. Paced like an out-of-control locomotive, Night Train takes viewers on a World War I-era journey from Prague to England to the Swiss Alps, as Nazis pursue a Czech scientist and his daughter, who are being aided by a debonair British undercover agent."
I do love a good spy story and am very much in the mood for something good. I'm thinking that after this month's ambitious reading pile, next month I am going to kick back a little and read some fun and entertaining books. Earlier this year I was going to have a season os spy novels, but unsurprisingly I got distracted. Now I think I might revisit that list.
Not very long ago I was lamenting the fact that I had read so few classics this year, but I think I am making up for lost time. Earlier this month I finished Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South (which I loved and still want to write about), and just this week I've finished Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest (I have another set of questions I'll answer this weekend), and now I am reading Henry Adams's Esther. Henry is from the famous political family that produced two Presidents. I've not had a lot of time to dedicate to the novel, but now that I've finished Effi Briest I hope to spend more time with it.
"...Esther is both an unforgettable story of a courageous woman grappling with a conflict between love and integrity and an evocative portrait of the tensions between science, art, and religion."
I'm already anticipating reading Jane Austen's Emma and then I was thinking after that I might finally get around to trying John Dos Passos. Oh, and I have Heinrich Böll's The Silent Angel ready as well, which I hope to begin reading this weekend. How's that for a little planning? There are so many classics I want to read I have them lined up outside the door!
I came across another wonderful small press that is interested in bring back into print forgotten works, which of course makes me very happy. Onesuch Press is an Australian company with a small list of books, which hopefully will be expanding. Happily I was able to find their books on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. There are a number of small companies with interesting backlists, but not all of them offer their publications through US vendors. I'm not adverse to buying books from abroad but with a tighter budget now than previously I have to be a little more cautious about how often I splurge. I do admit that in my excitement I ordered two Onesuch titles: Thomas Mann's Royal Highness:
"It is undeservedly one of Mann’s most neglected books, perhaps overshadowed by later masterworks. Lyric, subtle and filled with unforgettable characterisations, Royal Highness is a highly entertaining novel with a happy romantic ending. At its heart is the courtship and marriage of a prince and the daughter of an American millionaire with a flair for horse-riding and mathematics."
I've never read Mann before, so perhaps this would be a good place to start. I also ordered John Dos Passos's One Man's Initiation-1917, which is an autobiographical novel about his experiences during WWI. He was an ambulance driver during the war and later worked for the US Medical Corps. I think I'm ready also to get back to my WWI reading as I have accumulated a number of interesting books all begging to be read.
I was thinking of the various small publishers who reprint lost classics and came up with quite a few in addition to Onesuch Press: Persephone Books, Hesperus Press (lovely new website!), Bloomsbury Reader, Grey Ladies, Capuchin Classics, Pushkin Press, One World Classics, and Felony and Mayhem Press (another lovely revamped website!). Who have I forgotten? Isn't it great to have lots of choices? More opportunity to find more books! (Because you really can never have too many books. Unless you live in a small apartment. But otherwise you really can't).
Okay. One more thing, because I know you've been sitting on pins and needles to find out which new stitching project I've decided on. One that was not even in my list, of course. But I did mention this before, and as I finally found a moment to rummage through my supply bins and find the necessary linen and floss, voilá I give you Prairie Schooler's "Tortoise and the Hare". And all of three letters already stitched. I'm just speeding along. I really do plan on stitching over my upcoming break and who knows I might even be able to form a whole word and maybe add an animal to what you see here.