Category: For Readers
Plays on The Point
Today on The Point with Mindy Todd, Jill Erickson and Nelson Ritschel, humanities professor at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, talked about plays to read by yourself or to read aloud with your Thanksgiving company! If you missed the show, you can always listen online. Thanks to those of you that called in, and you can always add your choices to this list by leaving us a comment. I highly recommend your reading two great articles about the joy of reading plays. One is by Dan Kois, where he talks of the deep and unique pleasure of reading plays, and the other is an article by Dwight Garner, “Submitting to a Play’s Spell, Without the Stage.”
Nelson’s Picks
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman
Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill
Not enough time for:
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
The Price by Arthur Miller
The Gabriels: election year in the life of one family by Richard Nelson
Red by John Logan
Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein by Marty Martin
The Clean House and other plays by Sarah Ruhl
100 Essays I Don’t Have Time To Write: on umbrellas and sword fights, parades and dogs, fire alarms, children, and theater by Sarah Ruhl
The Flick by Annie Baker
Not enough time for:
The White Card by Clauria Rankine
Betrayal by Harold Pinter
Listener Picks
Shirley Valentine by Willy Russell
The Zoo Story by Edward Albee
Books Into Film, The Point with Mindy Todd
Books Into Film was our theme this morning as Kellie Porter, Jill Erickson, and Mindy Todd talked about which they loved more the book or the film. Below is our list of titles. We pre-recorded this show, and thus could not take calls. But if you have books and films you would like to add to our list, just leave a comment below, and we’ll add them to our list! You can list to the show here.
Kellie’s Picks
Jill’s Picks
Literature Into Film: theory and practical approaches by Linda Costanzo Cahir
Mary Poppins by P. L. Travers and illustrated by Mary Shepard. There was a terrific article titled “Becoming Mary Poppins” about the making of the Disney version of Mary Poppins and P.L. Travers written by Caitlin Flanagan in 2005 for The New Yorker. Well worth a read.
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett and illustrated by Tasha Tudor
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Adaptations: from short story to big screen by Stephanie Harrison, which includes the short story from which the film Bringing Up Baby originated.
Blog regarding the film and story The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, first posted in 2011! Original story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“The Birds” by Daphne du Maurier, included in her collection Echoes from the Macabre: selected stories.
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
For more literary films try taking a look at The Literary Filmography: 6,200 Adaptations of Books, Short Stories and Other Nondramatic Works by Leonard Mustazza.
Detectives on The Point: Part Two!
Nelson Ritschel, Author and Professor in the Humanities Department at Mass Maritime Academy, rejoined Mindy Todd and Jill Erickson this morning for part two of detective fiction on The Point. If you missed the first discussion on detectives, you can listen to that here.
You will no doubt be disappointed, as I was, that there is not one library in CLAMS that has copies of the Frank Cullen and Donald McNeilly murder mysteries set in the theatre world of Boston which were so well described by Nelson! UPDATE … Falmouth Public Library now owns a copy of Murder at the Tremont Theatre!
Thanks to all of you who called, emailed, and tweeted your suggestions!
Nelson’s Picks
Murder at the Tremont Theatre: the first Porridge Sisters Mystery by Frank Cullen and Donald McNeilly
Murder at the Old Howard: the second Porridge Sisters Mystery by Frank Cullen and Donald McNeilly
Murder at the Orpheum Theatre: the third Porridge Sisters Mystery by Frank Cullen and Donald McNeilly
Murder at the Gordon’s Olympia: the fourth Porridge Sisters Mystery by Frank Cullen and Donald McNeilly
To see what Boston used to look like take a look at Lost Boston by Jane Holtz Kay, where she juxtaposes the new and the old. You might also enjoy Lost Boston by Anthony M. Sammarco.
The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
The Return of the Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin
The Beat Goes On by Ian Rankin
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Lost Stories by Dashiell Hammett
Nightmare Town by Dashiell Hammett
The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
Raymond Chandler: Collected Stories by Raymond Chandler
(And I just read this: “Dorothy Parker wrote that Hammett’s detective was so hard-boiled ‘you could roll him on the White House lawn.'”
Jill’s Picks
Dark Nantucket Noon by Jane Langton. The series stars detective & former Harvard professor Homer Kelly.
The Late Monsieur Gallet by Georges Simenon. Detective Chief Inspector Maigret is the detective and he loves eating and smoking. The complete list of the new translations can be found at Penguin Random House.
December Heat by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza. Inspector Espinosa is the detective, and he lives in Rio de Janeiro. Originally published in Portuguese.
Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers introduced Lord Peter Wimsey, aristocratic sleuth. I am particularly fond of Gaudy Night which features Harriet Vane.
A Presumption of Death by Jill Paton Walsh & Dorothy L. Sayers. Walsh finished a Lord Peter Wimsey left unfinished for 60 years by Dorothy Sayers, and is continuing to write new mysteries starring Lord Peter, Harriet Vane and other Sayers characters.
What Would Maisie Do? by Jacqueline Winspear.
Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak. And to answer Mindy’s question about what color Nancy Drew’s hair was: “The blond, blue-eyed teenager, affectionately called ‘Curly Locks’ by her father, was an all-around knockout, ‘the kind of girl who is capable of accomplishing a great many things in a comparatively short length of time.” Although in the introduction the author writes of Nancy’s “trademark red-gold hair.” (We may have to reread the original versions of the books!)
Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley. Easy Rawlins is a Louisiana-born detective living in L.A. There are 14 novels in the series.
Sleuths, Sidekicks and Stooges by Joseph Green and Jim Finch. This is an astonishing annotated bibliography of detectives, their assistants and their rivals in crime, mystery, and adventure fiction, 1795 – 1995.
LISTENER SUGGESTIONS
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King, the first Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes mystery.
Danny Beckett series by Tyler Dilts.
Dog On It by Spencer Quinn, the first in the Chet & Bernie series.
And from one twitter listener: “Hmm. In no particular order, John Cardinal, Easy Rawlins, Sherlock Holmes, Lew Griffin, Harry Bosch, Smilla Jaspersen, Cass Neary, Bruce Medway, Philip Marlowe, and Coffin Ed and Gravedigger.”
A listener sent an email after the show yesterday in which she highly recommends the British Library Crime Classics (which we do too) and suggests the blog “In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel.”
The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri, the first in the Inspector Salavo Montalbano series, set in the fictional Sicilian town of Vigata.
Death at La Fenice by Donna Leon, the first in the Police Commissario Guido Brunetti, set in Venice.
Detectives on The Point
I had the pleasure of discussing detectives in fiction this morning on The Point on WCAI, which usually is hosted by Mindy Todd, but today we were joined by the delightful Kathryn Eident. Returning to the book show this morning was Nelson Ritschel, Author and Professor in the Humanities Department at Mass Maritime Academy. Many, many thanks for all of your calls and emails! We are already thinking we might need a part two to this show, as Nelson and I both arrived with big piles of books, and only got to a handful. Below you will find what we DID have time for, including all the spectacular suggestions made by our listeners! Miss the show? You can listen online!
Nelson’s Picks
The Art of the English Murder by Lucy Worsley
Father Brown: the essential tales by G. K. Chesterton
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
Miss Marple: the complete short stories by Agatha Christie
Silent Voices by Ann Cleeves
Jill’s Picks
A Beautiful Blue Death by Charles Finch
A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George
Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neely
Great Reference Books on Mysteries:
Make Mine a Mystery: a reader’s guide to mystery and detective fiction by Gary Warren Niebuhr
Make Mine a Mystery II: a reader’s guide to mystery and detective fiction by Gary Warren Niebuhr
Listener Picks
Maisie Dobbs, first in series Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
Harry Bosch, first in series The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
Ian Rutledge, first in series A Test of Wills by Charles Todd (pseud. of Caroline Todd & Charles Todd)
Ruth Galloway, first in series The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
Maggie Hope, first in series Mr. Churchill’s Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal
Evan Evans, first in series Evans Above by Rhys Bowen
Flavia de Luce, first in series The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
Chet and Bernie, first in series Dog On It by Spencer Quinn
Irish Literature on The Point with Mindy Todd
This morning we decided to get an early start on St. Patrick’s Day by discussing books by Irish writers. It was our pleasure to welcome Nelson Ritschel to the book show this morning. Nelson is a Professor in the Department of Humanities at Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Below are our lists of books, although it was a case of too many books, not enough time! We could easily do another show on Irish writers, with a completely different reading list. Many thanks to all the listeners who called or emailed their suggestions to the show. If you want to add a title to the list, send us a comment!
If you missed the show you can always listen to the show at 7:00 PM the day of the broadcast, or online, anytime.
Nelson’s Picks
The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats
Dubliners by James Joyce
Ulysses by James Joyce
John Bull’s Other Island by George Bernard Shaw
The Playboy of the Western World by J. M. Synge
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
The Aran Islands by J. M. Synge
Jill’s Picks
New Irish Poets: representative selections from the work of 37 contemporaries edited by Devin A. Garrity (Poem read was “Diamond Cut Diamond” by Ewart Milne
Milkman by Anna Burns
Spill simmer falter wither by Sara Baume
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney Her new novel Normal People will be out in April. There were two articles about her books in THE NEW YORKER. “A New Kind of Adultery Novel” and “Sally Rooney Gets In Your Head” … both well worth reading.
Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor (Also recommended by a listener.)
Listener Picks
The Trick of the Ga Bolga by Patrick McGinley
Tiernan’s Wake by Richard T. Rook
The Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor
The Ginger Man by J. P. Donleavy
A Singular Country by J. P. Donleavy
Sebastian Barry
The Country Girls Trilogy by Edna O’Brien
A Pagan Place by Edna O’Brien
Colum McCann
This Year I Will … Resolutions for the New Year
On The Point with Mindy Todd this morning we discussed books that might inspire you to set a few resolutions for the New Year, or make you decide that there was no need to make a resolution. As Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary on Friday, January 2nd, 1931: “Then — well the chief resolution is the most important — not to make resolutions. Sometimes to read, sometimes not to read. To go out yes — but stay at home instead of being asked. As for clothes, I think to buy good ones.” Vicky Titcomb, of Titcomb’s Bookshop joined us for this show. The show was pre-recorded, so if you would like to share any of your favorite books on New Year’s Resolutions, please leave a comment and we will add it to the list!
Vicky’s Picks
The Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Make Your Bed: little things that can change your life … and maybe the world by Admiral William H. McRaven
George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior
Forks Over Knives — the cookbook: over 300 recipes for plant-based eating all through the year by Del Sroufe
Gmorning, gnight!: little pep talks for you and me by Lin-Manuel Miranda; illustrations by Johnny Sun
Wherever You Go, There You Are: mindfulness meditation in everyday life by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Little Book of Mindfulness: 10 minutes a day to less stress, more peace by Dr. Patrizia Collard
TBC30: 6 steps to a stronger, healthier you by Michael Wood
The Yoga Deck by Olivia H. Miller
1,000 Books to Read Before You Die: a life-changing list by James Mustich
What Good Should I Do This Day?: a journal inspired by Benjamin Franklin
Jill’s Picks
The Diary of Virginia Woolf, Volume Four, 1931 – 1935. Letter from Friday, January 2nd, 1931.
How to Be a Better Person by Kate Hanley
Almost Everything: Notes on Hope by Anne Lamont, particularly chapter eleven, “Food.”
Food & Life by Joël Robuchon and Dr. Nadia Volf
Letters of Wallace Stevens selected and edited by Holly Stevens. See journal entry for December 31, 1900.
The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker
The Year of Reading Dangerously: how fifty great books (and two not-so-great ones) saved my life by Andy Miller
A Calendar of Wisdom: daily thoughts to nourish the soul Written and selected from the world’s sacred texts by Leo Tolstoy
This Year I Will: how to finally change a habit, keep a resolution, or make a dream come true by M. J. Ryan
Selected Letters of Dylan Thomas, edited and with commentary by Constantine Fitzgibbon. See the letter of 25 December 1933.
Listener Picks (We weren’t live, but we still have some listener suggestions!)
You Are a Bad Ass: how to stop doubting your greatness and start living an awesome life by Jen Sincero
BONUS!
Self-Help Dewey Numbers To Use When In Your Public Library …
Aging and Longevity 155.6719
Anger 152.47
Anxiety 152.46
Assertiveness 158
Codependency 155.9
Empathy 152.41
Emotions 152.4
Fear 152.46
Forgiveness 155.92; 179.9
Grief 155.937
Habit Breaking 158.1
Left and Right Handedness 152.335
Meditation 158.12
Memory 153.12
Perfectionism 158.1
Rejection 158.2
Relationships 158.24
Relaxation Exercises 155.9042, 158.12
Self-Acceptance 158
Self-Esteem 158.1
Self-Help Techniques 155.264
Self-Hypnosis 154.7
Stress Management 155.9042
Time Management 158.1
Worry 158.1
The American West on The Point
This morning on WCAI we talked books about the American West. Clearly we could do an entire year of books about the American West! So many books, so little time, as they say. Author Peter Abrahams joined us and Kathryn Eident sat in for Mindy Todd. If you missed the show, you can listen online anytime!
Kathryn’s Pick
The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Peter’s Picks
Chet and Bernie mystery series by Spencer Quinn (aka Peter Abrahams!)
The Journals of Lewis and Clark edited by Bernard DeVoto
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Money and the Power: the making of Las Vegas and its hold on America by Sally Denton and Roger Morris
My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown
Print the Legend: the life and times of John Ford by Scott Eyman
Jill’s Picks
The Frontier in American History by Frederick Jackson Turner
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
When Women Were Birds: fifty-four variations on voice by Terry Tempest Williams
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the technological wild west by Rebecca Solnit
My Faraway One: selected letters of Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz
Sorrow of the Earth: Buffalo Bill, Sitting Bull and the Tragedy of Show Business by Éric Vuillard
The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
When Esther Morris Headed West, Women, Wyoming, and the Right to Vote by Connie Nordhielm Wooldrige, illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers
Where I Was From by Joan Didion
“John Wayne: a love song” in Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
No time for, but you should really read! The Meadow by James Glavin, West by Carys Davies, and Cowboys Are My Weakness: stories by Pam Houston.
Listener Picks
News of the World by Paulette Jiles (Recommended by Steve Junker before we went on the air!)
Old Jules by Mari Sandoz
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
This House of Sky by Ivan Doig
Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig
Scary Stories for Halloween as Heard on The Point
If you missed today’s Halloween scary story edition of the book show on THE POINT, have no fear … you can listen online! And if you enjoyed Dan Tritle’s choice of spooky sounds, you too can have spooky sounds by checking out Martha Stewart’s CD Spooky Scary Sounds for Halloween!
Mindy’s Pick
Communion: a true story by Whitley Streiber
Mary Fran’s Picks
The Shining by Stephen King
In a Dark Dark Wood by Ruth Ware
The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn
The Taker of Morrows by Stephen Sayers
Scream and Scream Again presented by R. L. Stine
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Quicksand by Malin Giolito
Not Enough Time For:
The Haunting of Cape Cod and the Islands by Barbara Sillery
Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
Jill’s Picks
Collected Stories by Roald Dahl. Particularly “Taste”, “Lamb to the Slaughter”, and “Pig”.
The So Blue Marble by Dorothy B. Hughes
American Fantastic Tales: terror and the uncanny from Poe to the Pulps, edited by Peter Straub
American Fantastic Tales: terror and the uncanny from the 1940s to now, edited by Peter Straub. And Dan Tritle’s favorite story from this collection is “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison.
The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft edited with a foreword and notes by Leslie S. Klinger, and it includes the character Cthulhu, who made his first appearance in “The Call of Cthulhu” … also a favorite of Dan Tritle!
Scream: chilling adventures in the science of fear by Margee Kerr
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” the authorized graphic adaptation by Miles Hyman
The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton (and you can pair this with Edith Wharton A to Z, in which there are many mentions of her ghost stories.)
Listener Picks
“The Colour out of Space” a story by H. P. Lovecraft, which can be found in The Classic Horror Stories by H. P. Lovecraft, Necronomicon: the best weird tales of H. P. Lovecraft, and Tales by H. P. Lovecraft. And, of course, The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft, if you want all the annotations.
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
A Rose for Emily … a story in Collected Stories by William Faulkner
Food Glorious Food on The Point with Mindy Todd
This morning on The Point our book topic was food. Here are our picks.
Kellie’s Picks
Scrambled Eggs Super! by Dr. Seuss
Adventures in Slow Cooking by Sarah DiGregorio
Homer Price by Robert McCloskey “The Doughnuts” chapter
The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book with a foreword by M. F. K. Fisher
Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder & Christmas Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which includes the character Thurston, the cook
Stories From the Kitchen edited by Diana Secker Tesdell
Cod by Mark Kurlansky
Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue: a novel of pastry, guilt, and music by Mark Kurlansky
Voracious: a hungry reader cooks her way through great books by Cara Nicoletti
The Food Activist Handbook by Ali Berlow
Not Enough Time For
Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser
The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten
Cake by Maira Kalman with recipes by Barbara Scott-Goodman
The Kitchen Book/The Cook Book by Nicolas Freeling
Blood, Bones & Butter: the inadvertent education of a reluctant chef by Gabrielle Hamilton
Listener Picks
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
On Rue Tatin: living and cooking in a French town by SusanHerrmann
La Cucina: a novel of rapture by Lily Prior
Chocolat by Joanne Harris
Guns, Germs and Steel: the fates of human societies by Jared Diamond
Smitten Kitchen Every Day by Deb Perelman
Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl
Babette’s Feast, which is both a film and a short story by Isak Dinesen