Ten Novels Every American Should Read to Understand the Culture Part 1

We all have our favorite books that we think everyone should read, both novels and non-fiction. I could probably name a hundred that I think need to be on your Don't Miss This! list.  Why? Because they help us understand what's going on in the world and how to respond to it. I'll start with only ten of my favorite books in a two-part post. Every one is worth reading more than once and reflected upon. Each has prophetic elements that strike the tocsin, the warning bell. We would do well to pay attention! 

Guest Post: Have a Blue Christmas, A Mr. Blue Christmas, That is!

as published in American Spectator, www.spectator.org, Dec. 19, 2018

by James M. Thunder

I could not let this year go by without remarking that 2018 marks the 90th anniversary of the publication of a short novel, about 120 pages, that a young man published in 1928, and has seldom been out of print since: Myles Connolly’s debut novel, Mr. Blue. It is appropriate to do so at Christmas because, first, the protagonist, J. Blue, was in awe of the Incarnation and, secondly, because Connolly was an adviser to film director Frank Capra for what has become a Christmas-time favorite, the 1946 It’s a Wonderful Life.

It is said that many high schools and colleges, presumably Catholic, made Mr. Blue required reading at one time. It was not required in my Catholic high school in the late1960’s. Maybe it wasn’t necessary. It was one of two books that I recall my classmates made so much buzz about that I read them to keep up with what my peers were reading. (The other was James Michener’s Bridge at Andau (1957) about the Hungarian anti-Communist uprising.)

Don't You Love a Lazy Sunday with Friends?

Young Chesterton 1898

What a delightful day. I've been browsing the internet looking for information on G.K. Chesterton and Myles Connolly for a little presentation I'm doing next month at the get-together of the Northern Virginia Chesterton Society. We're looking at Chesterton's Manalive and Connolly's Mr. Blue, two absolutely delightful, light-hearted books with bigger-than-life protagonists filled with the joy of life and living it to the full.

We've discussed both books individually, although, sad to say, I missed the meeting on Mr. Blue which occupies a prominent place on my "best of all times" books. Now we'll see them side by side. That statement, "side by side," makes me laugh. Chesterton and Connolly were both physically large men, about 6'3". Chesterton weighed about 300 pounds and Connolly wasn't far behind at 270. What fun it would have been to see them together in a discussion -- a meeting of the Titans. Connolly was twenty years younger than Chesterton, but, even in those early days when he was fresh out of college, I suspect he was well aware of the bigger-than-life journalist across the pond.