Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Authors and Books In My Life

A Work In progress . . .

Childhood

I cannot remember when books were not an important part of my life.  My mother read to me while I could not read for myself. Three or four of us neighborhood kids would cluster around on the floor by her rocking chair in our living room and listen to the adventures of the Hardy Boys et al and to classics like The Secret Garden  and (Mother's favorite) Anne of Green Gables. (One of the rocking chair cluster of kids was Ann-next-door, but not with an "e" and I had the red hair.)  

Best of all: tales of the Land of OZ.  Mother owned about thirty of these treasures in their original hard copy (Which, alas, were destroyed in a fire years later) by their originator, L(yman). Frank Baum, and his successor, Ruth Plumly Simpson.

I was not one of those who entered kindergarten fully able to read, but by the end of the first grade I was the avid bibliophile I remain to this day.  Mother was proud of me and  my new skill, but you couldn't tell by her usual reaction to my new obsession. "Get your nose out of that book and go outside and play!  It's summer!" she would nag.

 Our house was small, and because I could read any place and in any posture, I was always in her way.  So I would leave with my book of the moment.  I had a favorite tree with a branch just right for stretching out without holding on.  I would spend hours there, absorbed, shaded and hidden by the foliage.  Often I now would read for myself books that Mother had read to us in years past. 

My first favorite author was L. Frank Baum.  Next was Hugh Lofting and his Doctor Doolittle tales which I found in the library of a family friend.  Then I became enamored of the Tarzan books of Edgar Rice Burroughs, which I discovered in our family bookcase. Tarzan taught me the lore and lure of the jungle and how to read with a dictionary.  Mother helped with that. "You will remember better if you look it up yourself.  We had an ancient tattered Funk & Wagnells dictionary, but, no, she never once ordered me to "Get out your Funk 'n Wagnells!"  Mother was a lady, and you had damn well better know it.

 Tarzan led inexorably to the true animal adventure stories of Osa and Martin Johnson, including her classic, "I Married Adventure."  I remember waiting for the bus home after checking it out from the Tulsa Public Library.  An elderly man spotting the title. asked, "Why do you want to read that book about getting married?  You're too young to get married!"  All I could do was stutter.  Perhaps to him marriage was the ultimate adventure.

Tulsa's public library was the first place I learned to get to on my own by bus.   A classic Carnegie edifice, it always ran a summer reading program for the school aged  to help them retain skills learned the previous year.  You signed up and got a paper form with room for thirty books.  Fill one out and you could get another plus a certificate of your accomplishment..  All books counted except comics.  I earned three certificates one summer.  I remember these favorite books by favored authors:

L. Frank Baum              The Wizard of OZ; The Scarecrow of OZ; Ozma of OZ; The Lost King of OZ

Victor Appleton             Tom Swift and His Airship
(Ed Stratemeyer)

Hugh Lofting                 Doctor Doolittle

W. M. Reed                   The Earth for Sam; The Stars for Sam

Edgar Rice Burroughs   Tarzan of the Apes; The Beasts of Tarzan; Tarzan and the Golden Lion

Steven W. Meader         T-Model Tommy

Joseph A. Altsheler       The Riflemen of Ohio

Albert PaysonTerhune   Lad, A Dog

 Mark Twain                  The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Felix Salten                   Bambi

A D Howden-Smith      Porto Bello Gold

R. L. Stevenson             Treasure Island; Kidnapped

Rudyard Kipling           The Jungle Book; Just So Stories

Rand McNally (pub)     World Atlas: Ideal Edition; Atlas of the United States

Osa Johnson                  I Married Adventure

Alfred Ollivant              Bob, Son of Battle

Adolescence

These were the fallow years for reading as I discovered other goals and pastimes worth pursuing, mostly sports: golf, basketball, baseball, football, girl watching.  I was best at basketball and golf, but was only instinctively adept at one on that list. But when the hormones were still I often turned to a book.  My parents belonged to the Book-of-the-Month club, which insured a steady stream of new volumes.  They occasionally let me pick bonus books, which is how I acquired and dutifully read the The Complete Short Stories of O'Henry, and The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

Just before the war, Pocket Books made their debut as the first popular paper backs.  Still in my library are two such: Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights and Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall.  They survive from among the many forgotten ones my parents bought during those years of shortage and rationing. 

 Occasionally less exalted literature occupied my attention.  "How's Amber?" my grandmother asked slyly.  I can't remember just where I got a copy of Kathleen Windsor's Forever Amber in my 13th year.  Nor do I remember the book's historical themes such as the fire of London and an outbreak of the plague.  I do remember the "good parts" which were a text book example of how to sleep your way to the top in 15th century England, as well as an educational experience any early teen would relish. It was banned in Boston, proscribed by the Catholic church and bowdlerized by Hollywood's Hays Office. You could love Amber for the enemies she made.

After Amber I became absorbed in a sea adventure tale by Garland Roark, Wake of the Red Witch, set in the islands of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia).  Some of his passages amidst the islands were purple indeed. Lotsa native girls and slipping sarongs.

Other less salacious authors became favorites as well.  Maybe Amber led me to the revisionist historical novels of Kenneth Roberts -- with help from my mother.  Northwest Passage, still in my library, bears her signature and the date 1946.  So, too, does Lydia Bailey, only with my name in her handwriting. Roberts' books kindled a passion for American history still burning.

Non fiction didn't really grab me at first.  The dumbed down history books for children bear some blame.  One that did grab, and is still in my library, which I might have read just before adolescence is The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.  Published as No. 23 by Pocket Books, its flyleaf faintly shows my name in Mother's hand writing dated 1939.  My first American history book was was cribbed from Mother.  Her signature and date of 1944 on the flyleaf shows when The Beards' Basic History of the United States was first in our home. By Charles A. and Mary R. Beard.

Certain books are remembered as most significant.  The first of these was my father's doing.  A shy, quiet upright man with ambitions to heights he was unable to reach, he was also a slow halting reader. He stuck mostly to literature that would help him advance his business career.  One of these was the father of all self help books, Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.  I was shy and awkward, too, and here was a way out of my social backwater.  I read and studied it and tried to put its precepts into practice.  Modest success came in my final year of high school -- I think. 

College

My early college years were a period of adjustment.  There is little time for reading other than text books when you are pledging a fraternity, learning to drink beer and working overtime on the college daily paper.  I also attended some classes.  The only textbook of significance that I remember was  Paul Samuelson's Economics.  I enjoyed my first brush with the dismal science, and have been its avid student ever since.  I also remember two semesters of statistics, but not the names of the texts or their authors.  Perversely, what most others found deadly dull, I found fascinating and insightful.

My reading changed radically in my final two years when I fell in with a group of bohemians (and out with my fraternity brothers) who were reading literature and debating politics from perspectives new to me.  Two books figured prominently in my transformation.  The first was Public Opinion, a Walter Lippmann study circa 1922 about the "pictures in our heads" that formed opinions held by the public and how it was cooked and fed to us by the quaintly primitive media of the day..  I was persuaded to read it by a friendly journalism professor, but never wrote to thank him.  I have continued to read Walter's works ever since.

The second was Philip Wylie's philippic, Generation of Vipers. "You got to read this," my roommate, Don Tucker, exclaimed.  "This guy trashes everybody!"  And so it seemed through the first reading of  the misanthropic Vipers.  But there were seeds of hope amid this "compleate indictment" of our self induced self satisfaction during the patriotic days of World War II.  And I had found my favorite author of all time.  My Wylie collection continues to grow and improve, although his signed and dedicated books have been getting rather pricey of late.

It was in the days of the Bohemian Co-op that I began to read again at my earlier pace.  (See my blog post, When Faith Left, for more on the Co-op.)  One of my roommates, Henry F. (Hank) Beechhold, was getting his masters in English lit by writing a thesis on James Joyce's Ulysses.  I made it through Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man but was not -- and never have been -- able to master Joyce's more demanding works, even with Hank's steady nagging.  He did successfully introduce me to Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, Stendhal's, The Red and the Black and Aldous Huxley's Point, Counterpoint.  Huxley in particular remains a favorite.

On my own, and to Hank's displeasure, I began an intense flirtation with that didactic grand dame of Capitalism, Ayn Rand.  Earlier I had seen the film version of The Fountainhead, and ultimately read (and reread) the book.  I still love it, although, with a greater detachment -- distance even -- from her underlying philosophy.  She did teach me not to live my life through others, including her.

The Long Beyond

After college my habit was set.  Aside from brief periods when work interfered, I have read constantly: for education and pleasure; properly in a chair; indolently in bed; graphically while enthroned; riding in cars, buses, trains and planes; while eating, watching the tube, and listening to music.  (Never, though, while riding a bicycle, diving a car, playing golf or enjoying sex.  It is sometimes necessary to put the book down and live.)

About six years ago I branched out.  To the pleasant avocations of collecting and reading books, I added the hobby of selling them on line, usually after a reading.  I use the on line services of the Advanced Book Exchange (www.abebooks.com), a subsidiary of Amazon.com.  A few of the books listed below are for sale at my nom de book, BruceGBooks.  ABE has a vast data base of millions of titles searchable by author, title, publisher, year of publication and other keys.  You can also find me among its 30 thousand or so booksellers world wide by a similar route: click on Book Sellers and find and search or browse my store of  about 500 titles. 

Most of my sale books are hard cover, priced above $10. Few are old, fewer still at all valuable. No Gutenberg prints or Shakespeare folios among them.  If a few are overpriced it's because I really don't care to sell to anyone who does not value them as I do.  And A Voice to Sing With, signed "Bruce. Love. Joan Baez," and priced at $1,000 is an example.  Maybe some other Bruce with the same infatuation as I will bite one day.  A growing number in the inventory are signed or inscribed (dedicated) by author.  Not one of those vile inventions known as ebooks is on offer..  How does an author sign one of those?

The list of books read that follows is intended to be comprehensive and is ordered alphabetically by author.  Rather than continuing this rambling  narrative. , I have deployed a set of symbols to date and rank by preference each author and each of his works.  An example:

Lippmann, Walter*                                   A     Public Opinion+++*; A Preface to Morals++;
                                                                             Drift and Mastery

                (1)           (4)                                  (2)                  (3)      (4)(5)                                                                  
Translation: (1) Author's last name, first name in bold face type(2) C for childhood, A for adolescence, A for adulthood.  (3) Book title in italics (4) + Liked and recommended;  ++ Outstanding read; +++ Great favorite, read and reread; [Blank] Read but no strong opinions; - Not recommended. (5) * I have written or probably will write about the author and this book especially  as an separate post to this blog. If no book followes an author's name, I plan to read him Any Day Now.  If a book title is not in italics I haven't read it yet but will some day.


The List

A – B – C
Abbott, Elizabeth                                    Haiti

Adams, Henry

Alder, Ken                                               The Lie Detector

Alexander, Holmes                                 To Covet Honor+                     
Allen, Frederick Lewis                           Back to the Future 
Ambrose, Stephen                                   D-Day, June 6, 1944
Anderson, Walter Truett                       To Govern Evolution+++
Ardrey, Robert                                       African Genesis; The Territorial Imperative   
Armstrong, Karen                                  The Case for God
Arnold, Thurman                                   The Symbols of Government; The Folklore of Capitalism

Ashworth, William                                 The Economy of Nature
Asimov, Isaac                                         
Atkins, P. W.                                           Creation Revisited++
Aurelius, Marcus                                    Meditations
Austen, Jane                                            Pride and Prejudice
Baez, Joan                                                And a Voice to Sing With+++
Baker, Dorothy                                       Young Man With a Horn
Baker, Russell                                         Growing Up; The Good Times
Baldwin, James                                       Go Tell It on the Mountain; Notes of a Native Son
                                                                  Giovanie's Room; The Fire Next Time
Barash, David                                         The Survival Game+
Barnett, Lincoln                                     The Universe and Dr Einstein
Barrow, Sir John                                    The Mutiny of H. M. S. Bounty+

Barshay, Robert Howard                       Philip Wylie: The Man and His Work
Barth, Alan                                             The Loyalty of Free Men++
Beard, Charles A; Mary R                    The Beards' Basic History of the United States              

Bellamy, Edward                                   Looking Backward

Bell, Daniel                                            The Coming of Post-Industrial Society 

Bellow, Saul                                            Humbolt's Gift; Adventures of Augie March

Benatovich, Beth (Ed.)                           What We Know So Far

Bernstein, Jeremy                                  A Comprehensible World; Three Degrees Above Zero

Bierce, Ambrose                                     The Devil's Dictionary

Bischoff, John Paul                                Mr. Iba: Basketball's Aggie Iron Duke

Blackmore, Susan                                  The Meme Machine

Blaikie, Thomas                                     To the Manner Born

Blake, William                                       Songs of Innocence and Experience

Bloom, Harold                                        The Book of J; The Western Canon

Bohailian, Chris                                     The Buffalo Soldier 

Boswell, James

Boulding, Kenneth E. (Ed.)                   The Economics of Human Betterment

Bowen, Catherine Drinker                   Miracle At Philadelphia

Branch, Taylor                                      Parting the Waters: America in the King Years: 1954-63

Brant, Irving                                         The Bill of Rights: Its Origin and Meaning

Bradbury, Ray                                      Fahrenheit 451

Braun, Ernest; Macdonald, Stuart     Revolution in Minature

Brenton, Denise; Largent, Chris         The Soul of Economics

Brodie, Fawn                                       Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History

Broder, David                                      The Party's Over

Bromfield, Louis                                  The Farm

Bronte, Emily                                       Wuthering Heights

Buck, Pearl                                           The Good Earth

Buckley, William                                 God and Man At Yale; Overdrive

Bunyan, John                                       Pilgrim's Progress

Burnett, Frances Hodgson                  The Secret Garden

Burns, James MacGregor                   Presidential Government; The Workship of Democracy;
                                                               The Vineyard of Liberty

Burns, Jennifer                                     Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right  

Burroughs, Edgar Rice                       Tarzan of the Apes; The Return of Tarzan; The Beasts of
                                                               Tarzan; Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar; The Son of 
                                                               Tarzan; Jungle Tales of Tarzan; Tarzan the Untamed;
                                                               Tarzan the Terrible; Tarzan and the Golden Lion; 
                                                               Tarzan Lord of the Jungle; Tarzan Triumphant   

Butler, Samuel                                       The Way of all Flesh

Caldwell, Erskin                                    Tobacco Road

Campbell, Joseph                                  Myths to Live By

Capote, Truman                                    Other Voices, Other Rooms; Breakfast at Tiffany's;
                                                                 In Cold Blood  

Caroll, Lewis                                          Alice In Wonderland; Through the Looking Glass

Carr, J. Revell                                        Seeds of Discontent: The Deep Roots of the American
                                                                 Revolution 1650 -- 1750    

Carson, Rachel                                       Silent Spring; The Sea Around US

Carwardine, Richard                             Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power

Case. James                                             Competition: The Birth of a New Science
                            
Cather, Willa

Chambers, Whittaker                            Witness

Chandler, Raymond

Chaucer, Geoffrey                                  Canterbury Tales

Chayefsky, Paddy

Childe, V. Gordon                                  Man Makes Himself

Childs, Marquis W.                                 Swden: The Middle Way; Ethics in a Business Society

Churchill, Sir Winston                           Thoughts and Adventures; Great Contemporaries

Cleland, John                                          Fanny Hill

Clooney, Nick                                          The Movies that Changed Us

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

Commager, Henry Steele                       The Empire of Reason

Conant, James B.                                    On Understanding Science

Coon, Carl                                               One Planet, One People

Cooper, Helene                                        The House at Sugar Beach

Costain, Thomas

Cozzens, James Gould

D

Davies, Joseph E.                                    Mission To Moscow

Defoe, Daniel                                           Robinson Carusoe

Descartes, Rene

Dickens, Charles                                     A Tale of Two Cities; A Christmas Carol

Dodge, Mary Mapes

Donne, John

Dos Pasos, John

Dostoyevsky, Fedor                                The Brothers Karamosov 

Douglass, Frederick                               Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

E - F - G

Eisley, Loren                                                 

Elliot, T. S.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Farrell, James T.

Falkner, William                                    Sanctuary; Requiem For a Nun   

Feiffer, Jules                                           Sick, Sick, Sick

Fitzgerald, F. Scott

Flaubert, Gustave                                  Madam Bovary 

Foote, Shelby

Fordham, Frieda                                    An Introduction to Jung's Psychology

Forster, E, M.

Frank, Anne                                           Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Franklin, Benjamin                               Autobiography; Poor Richard's Almanac   

Freemantle, Anna (ed)                          The Age of Belief

Freud, Sigmund                                     A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis;
                                                                 Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego;
                                                                 The Future of An Illusion

Friedan, Betty                                        The Feminine Mystique; The Fountain of Age

Friedman, Milton

Frost, Robert

Galbraith, John Kenneth

Gardner, Earl Stanley

Garland, Hamlin

Geisel, Theodor Seuss                           The Cat in the Hat

George, Henry                                       Progress and Poverty 

Gibran, Khalil

Golden, Harry

Goodman, Paul                                      Growing Up Absurd

Goodman, Paul;  Percival                     Communitas

Gould, Stephen Jay

Grafton, Sue                                           "N" Is For Noose 

Gray, Zane                                             Riders of the Purple Sage 

Gunther, John

Guthrie, A. B.

H - I - J

Halberstam, David

Haley, Alex                                             Roots  

Hall, Edward T.                                     The Silent Language

Hammett, Dashiell

Hamlin, Oscar                                        Son of the Middle Border

Hampshire, Stuart (ed)                         The Age of Reason

Hansberry, Lorraine                             A Raisin in the Son

Hardy, Thomas

Harrington, Michael

Harris, Thomas A., MD                        I'm OK--You're OK

Hart, Moss

Hart, Brett

Hartsog, Jan de

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

Hayward, De Bose

Hazlitt, Henry                                        Economics in One Lesson

Heffner, Richard                                   A Documentary History of the United States 

Heggen, Thomas                                    Mr Roberts

Heinlein, Robert

Hellman, Lillian                                     Scoundrel Time; The Little Foxes; Another part of the 
                                                                 Forest   

Hemmingway, Ernest

Henry, O.

Hersey, John

Heyerdahl, Thor                                    Kon-Tiki; Aku-Aku  

Hilton, James                                         Lost Horizon

Hobbs, Thomas

Hoffer, Eric                                            The True Believer 

Homer

Hooker, Richard                                    M*A*S*H Goes to Maine

Hume, David

Hunter, Evan

Huxley, Aldous                                       Brave New World 

Huxley, Julian                                         Evolution In Action

Irving, John

Isherwood, Christopher                         Good - Bye to Berlin

Jackson, Shirley

James, William

Jastrow, Joseph                                       Freud: His Dream and Sex Theories 

Jones, James                                            From Here To Eternity

Joyce, James                                            Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man 

K - L - M

Kafka, Franz

Keillor, Garrison

Keefer, Truman Frederick                    Philip Wylie

Kennan, George                                      Russia and the West Under Lenin and Stalin;
                                                                  American Diiplomacy

Kerouac, Jack                                         On the Road

Keys, Frances Parkinson                       Dinner at Antoines

Kirk, Russell

Kohler, Wolfgang                                   Gestalt Psychology     

Krutch, Joseph Wood

L'Amour, Louis

Langer, Susanne                                     Philosophy in a New Key                 

Lardner, Ring

Lardner, Ring Jr.

Lawrence, D. H.

Lawrence, Jerome; Lee, Robert E.        Inherit The Wind

Lee, Harper                                              To Kill a Mockingbird

Le Guin, Ursula

Leopold, Aldo                                           Sand County Almanac

Letwin, William                                       The Origins of Scientific Economics 

Lewis, Oscar

Linder, Robert                                         The Fifty Minute Hour; Must You Conform

Lippmann, Walter

Lock, John

Lofting, Hugh

London, Jack                                           South Sea Tales; The Sea Wolf;
                                                                  Burning Daylight; Call of the Wild

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth             The Scarlet Letter

Lowell, James Russell

Lucretius                                                  The Nature of Things 

MacDonald, John D.

Machiavelli, Niccolo                                The Prince

Manchester, William

Marx, Karl

Maslow, Abraham H.                              Religions, Values and Peak-Experiences 

McCarthy, Mary

McCullers, Carson

McMurtry, Larry

McNeill, William H.

McPhee, John

Mead, Margaret                                       Coming of Age in Samoa; Male and Female

Melville, Herman                                     Moby Dick 

Metalious, Grace

Michener, James                                      Hawaii; The Source; Centennial; Chesapeake;
                                                                   South Sea Tales

Mill, John Stuart

Miller, Arthur                                          Death of a Salesman 

Miller, Henry

Milton, John

Mitchell, Margaret                                  Gone With the Wind

Montaigne, Michel

Moore, Sir Thomas

Morrison, Samuel Eliot

Morley, Christopher

Muller, Herbert J.                                   The Uses of the Past 

Mumford, Lewis

N - O - P - Q

Nabokov, Vladimir

Nash, Ogden                                             The Pocket Book of Ogden Nash     

Neustadt, Richard                                    Presidential Power

Nevins, Allan

Nietzsche, Friedrich

Ninn Anaisis

Nordhoff, Charles; Hall, James Norman       Mutiny On The Bounty; Men Against the Sea;
                                                                            Pitcairn's Island 
Oates, Joyce Carol

O'Conner, Edwin

O'Hara, John                                            Ten North Frederick              

Orwell, George                                         Animal Farm; Nineteen Eighty-four  

Padover, Saul K.                                      Jefferson

Paine, Thomas

Paretsky, Sara

Parker, Dorothy

Parkinson, C. Northcote                         Parkinson's Law; The Law and the Profits;
                                                                   The Evolution of Political Thought;
                                                                    In-laws and Outlaws

Parkman, Francis

Petras, Kathryn and Ross                        Age Doesm't Matter Unless You're a Cheese

Plath, Sylvia

Plato                                                           The Last Days of Socrates

Poe, Edgar Allan

Porter, Gene Stratton                               Girl of the Limberlost

Porter, Katherine Ann

Prescott, William H.

Puzo, Mario                                               The Godfather

Pyle, Ernie                                                 Brave Men 

Pyle, Howard

Queen, Ellery

R - S - T -U

Radin, Max                                                The Law and You

Rand, Ayn                                                  The Fountainhead; Atlas Shrugged;
                                                                     Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal;
                                                                     The Night of January 28th

Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan                      Cross Creek

Remarque, Erich Maria                             All Quiet on the Western Front

Richter, Conrad

Riesman, David                                           The Lonely Crowd; Individualism Reconsidered.

Robbins, Harold

Roberts, Kenneth

Roth, Philip

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques                             The Social Contract

Russell, Bertrand                                        The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell 

Sagan, Carl                                                  The Cosmic Connection 

Salinger, J. D.                                              Catcher in the Rye; Franny and Zoie

Sanburg, Carl                                              Lincoln

Saroyan, William

Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr.

Schulberg, Budd                                          What Makes Sammy Run?

Shakespeare, William

Shaw, George Bernard                                Androcles and the Lion; Pygmalion;
                                                                       Back to Methuselah; Caesar and Cleopatra;
                                                                       Saint Joan;  Major Barbara; Man and
                                                                       Superman; Candida; The Deil's Disciple;
                                                                       Arms and the Man; The Doctor's Dilema
Shaw, Irwin

Sheehan, Neil

Shelley, Mary                                               Frankenstein 

Sherwood, Robert

Shub, David                                                  Lenin

Simpson, George Gaylord                           The Meaning of Evolution

Skinner, B. F.                                                Beyond Freedom and Dignity   

Skolnik, Richard                                           Jefferson's Decision

Smith, Adam

"Smith, Adam"                                             Supermoney; Powers of Mind

Snow, C. P.                                                    Science and Government

Sophocles                                                       Oedipus the King

Soule, George                                                Introduction to Economic Science

Stebbing, L. Susan                                        Thinking to Some Purpose

Steinbeck, John                                             Grapes of Wrath; Travels With Charley;   
                                                                        East of Eden

Stendhal                                                         The Red and The Black

Swift, Jonathan                                             Gulliver's Travels   

Tan, Amy

Tarkington, Booth                                        Penrod; Penrod and Sam; The Story of a
                                                                        Bad Boy

Tawney, R. H.                                               Religion and the Rise of Capitalism

Terkel, Studs

Thomas, Lewis                                              The Lives of a Cell; The Medusa and the Snail

Thoreau, Henry David

Thurber, James                                            The Years With Ross

Tolstoy, Leo                                                  War and Peace

Trilling, Lionel

Tuchman, Barbara

Turner, Frederick Jackson

Twain, Mark

Updyke, John

Uris, Leon

V - W - X - Y -Z

Van Loon, Hendrik William

Veblen, Thorstein

Vernon, M. D.                                              The Psychology of Perception 

Vidal, Gore                                                   Lincoln

Voltaire                                                         Candide

Vonnegat, Kurt                                            Slaughter House Five

Walker, Kenneth                                         Human Physiology

Wallace, Lew                                               Ben Hur

Ward, Barbara                                            The Rich Nations and the Poor Nations

Warren, Robert Penn                                 All The King's Men

West, Nathanael

Whatmough, Joshua                                   Language

White, E, B.

White, L. L.                                                 The Next Development In Man

White, Morton (ed)                                     The Age of Analysis 

White, Theodore H.                                    The Making of the President 1964

Wilder, Thorton

Whyte, William H. Jr.                                The Organization Man

Whitman, Walt

Williams, Tennessee                                   The Night of the Iguana; A Streetcar Named Desire; 

Wills, Garry

Wilson, Edmund

Wister, Owen                                              The Virginian

Wolfe, Thomas

Wolfe, Tom

Woodward, Bob; Bernstein, Carl             All The President's Men; The Final Daus

Woolf, Virginia

Woollcott, Alexander

Wordsworth, William

Wouk, Herman

Wright, Frank Lloyd                                 The Natural House

Wright, Harold Bell

Wright, Richard

Wrong, Dennis H.                                      Population

Wylie, Philip                                               Generation of Vipers; Gladiator; Night
                                                                     Unto Night; Opus 21; Finley Wren:
                                                                     His Notions and Opinions; An Essay On
                                                                     Morals; The Magic Animal; The Answer;
                                                                     The Disappearance; Tomorrow; Triumph;
                                                                     The End of the Dream; The Savage
                                                                     Gentleman; The Innocent Ambassadors;
                                                                     The Party; The Murderer Invisible; 
                                                                     Corpses At Indian Stones; An April
                                                                     Afternoon; The Smuggled Atom Bomb;
                                                                     Experiment In Crime; To Much of
                                                                     Everything; The Other Horseman

Wylie, Philip; Balmer, Edwin                   When Worlds Collide; After Worlds 
                                                                                             Collide

Wylie, Philip; Muir, William W.              The Army Way   

Yeats, William Butler

Yerby, Frank

Zinsser, Hans                                              Rats, Lice and History

To be continued . . .