1943

US Fiction

1. The Robe, Lloyd C. Douglas 461 copies on LT

2. The Valley of Decision, Marcia Davenport 33 copies

3. So Little Time, John P. Marquand 22 copies

4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith 2,734 copies

5. The Human Comedy, William Saroyan 228 copies

6. Mrs. Parkington, Louis Bromfield 11 copies

7. The Apostle, Sholem Asch 34 copies

8. Hungry Hill, Daphne du Maurier 105 copies

9. The Forest and the Fort, Hervey Allen 11 copies

10. The Song of Bernadette, Franz Werfel 102 copies

N O N F I C T I O N


1. Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld, John Roy Carlson 11 copies

2. One World, Wendell L. Willkie 17 copies

3. Journey Among Warriors, Eve Curie 9 copies

4. On Being a Real Person, Harry Emerson Fosdick 21 copies

5. Guadalcanal Diary, Richard Tregaskis 103 copies

6. Burma Surgeon, Lt. Col. Gordon Seagrave 7 copies

7. Our Hearts Were Young and Gay, Cornelia Otis Skinner and Emily Kimbrough 108 copies

8. U. S. Foreign Policy: Shield of the Republic, Walter Lippmann 12 copies

9. Here Is Your War, Ernie Pyle 99 copies

10. See Here, Private Hargrove, Marion Hargrove 21 copies

I've read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Song of Bernadette, (wasn't that a bestseller in another year, too?) and Their Hearts Were Young and Gay, which I can't remember at all, except that I remember liking it. I've also read some Ernie Pyle, but I'm not sure if it was this one.

Several of these lopped over into other years and were made into movies. I've read The Robe years ago. Some of the non-fiction looks interesting enough that I may have to seek them out.

Ive read A tree grows in Brooklyn

I just found Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld in an antique store outside of Ukiah, CA, and purchased it for $2.00.

I've only read A tree grows in Brooklyn and Burma Surgeon out of this lot. I might have read Our hearts were young and gay when I was a kid, but I don't remember anything about it.

I don't have Burma Surgeon any more. I wish I'd kept it because I inherited it from an aunt who was herself a military nurse, but at the time I remember finding the evangelical aspects of it hard to handle.

I've read other books by John P. Marquand, and used to see his books at booksales & used bookstores all the time, though not so much now.

Last fall I found all three of Hervey Allen's colonial America novels, (firsts with nice jackets) in a scrappy bookstore in Denver for roughly $2 apiece:
The Forest and the Fort (1943)
Bedford Village (1944),
Toward the Morning (1948).

The novels tell the story of Salathiel Albine, a frontiersman kidnapped as a boy by Shawnee Indians in the 1750s. All three works were collected and published as the City in the Dawn

I've seen the film of The Robe, does that count? Ghastly.

Actually, the book is much better. Or at least that's my opinion.

I just finished Guadalcanal Diary. Quite interesting and well written.

I read The Song of Bernadette about 25 years ago. In English. Was it in German originally? Or French? I guess I could look at the work and find out. Haven't read any of the other books. But I do have a copy of The Robe in the TBR pile.

All I remember of the film of The Robe is Victor Mature with a red blanket.

I believe I saw the movie version of The Song of Bernadette and was surprised to see Vincent Price. Until then I believed he only did horror.

Varielle, he also wrote cookbooks!

and I think he was an art collector.

I heard him speak once, at a film screening. He was understated, urbane, smart, and funny.

The Song of Bernadette is originally in German, around 1940-1, and fairly quickly translated into English and French.

I've read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I like Daphne du Maurier.