These books have lost their covers over the years and consequently don’t catch your eye as they sit on the library shelves but please pick them up and take a chance. They were such good reads back when they were published that they were made into pretty good movies too.
Keep them alive; give them a try. Borrow the book or the movie from the library and see what I mean.
Gentleman’s Agreement (by Laura Hobson) A magazine writer looks for a new angle when he agrees to write a series of articles on anti-Semitism. He pretends to be Jewish, and his new identity pervades his life in unexpected ways, almost destroying his relationships.
The Magnificent Ambersons (by Booth Tarkington) A wealthy turn of the century family collapses under the changing currents of progress.
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (by B. Traven) Three prospectors in search of gold in Mexico find suspicion, treachery, and greed.
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (by Eric Hodgkins) A city boy wants to become a suburbanite and the Blandings decide to build their dream house – with many complications.
Drums Along the Mohawk (by Walter Edmonds) This details the trails of a colonial newlywed couple as their village in Mohawk Valley is besieged by Indians.
From here to eternity (by James Jones) Complex, hard-hitting look at the on and off-duty life of soldiers at the Army base in Honolulu in the days before the Pearl Harbor attack.
An American Tragedy (by Theodore Dreiser) – the movie is A Place in the Sun. An ambitious laborer whose aspirations to the high life with a gorgeous debutante are threatened by his lower-class lover’s pregnancy.
Title descriptions are taken from VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever.
Scott Handville, Assistant Library Director