1912

US Fiction

1. The Harvester, Gene Stratton Porter 76 copies on LT

2. The Street Called Straight, Basil King 1 copy

3. Their Yesterdays, Harold Bell Wright 12 copies

4. The Melting of Molly, Maria Thompson Daviess 1 copy

5. A Hoosier Chronicle, Meredith Nicholson 0 copies

6. The Winning of Barbara Worth, Harold Bell Wright 17 copies

7. The Just and the Unjust, Vaughan Kester 18? Title comes up under a different author??

8. The Net, Rex Beach 1 copy

9. Tante, Anne Douglas Sedgwick 1 copy

10. Fran, J. Breckenridge Ellis 1 copy

N O N F I C T I O N


1. The Promised Land, Mary Antin 36 copies

2. The Montessori Method, Maria Montessori 74 copies

3. South America: Observations and Impressions, James Bryce 5 copies

4. A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil, Jane Addams 3 copies

5. Three Plays, Eugène Brieux 0 copies

6. Your United States, Arnold Bennett 0 copies

7. Creative Evolution, Henri Bergson 138 copies

8. How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day, Arnold Bennett 40 copies

9. Woman and Labor, Olive Schreiner 15 copies

10. Mark Twain, Albert Bigelow Paine 13 copies maybe, multi-volume work

Boy, trouble with these old touchstones. The Combiners group needs to get a handle on some of these authors. Hello, any Combiners out there?

I also do some combining, but the Touchstone problem is not easily solved by combiners. A name like Eugene Brieux I was able to bring up by just bracketing the last name, but I had no such luck with Maria Montessori or with Henri Bergson. Certainly Montessori still has quite a bit of influence today, and to a lesser extent, so does Bergson, even if people don't still own their books.

(edited to smooth out the English. And again to fix wonkly Touchstone -- many hours later)

I was looking particularly at Gene Stratton Porter. There are quite a few variations on the name and it all seems to be the same person.

The Montessori Method was in our house because my folks sent me to a Montessori school. Believe it or not, one of my teachers is still alive.

This method of schooling hasn't seemed to have made me any smarter. Probably the opposite.

Whichever author name it's under, I own The Harvester and have read it many times.

I haven't read any of these

Wonder how many copies were read on/went down with, the Titanic?

I love the premise of this group. It just shows you how fortunate--some say lucky-- the "classics" with staying power truly are. How many of these obscure, and forgotten stories, listed in this LibraryThing group are better than the eminent "classics"?

> 4

I doubt that anyone is harmed in the least by being in a properly run Montessori school. My son thinks having him in one through sixth grade was the smartest thing we did as parents. In fact, I believe in the Montessori Method so strongly that I still work there over twenty years later.

The book is still required reading for people learning to become Montessori teachers.

The Montessori Method is now owned by 105 people in LT, but Gene Stratton Porter's The Harvester now has 129.

There is now a copy of A Hoosier Chronicle and the "Three Plays" of Eugene Brieux in Lt, and 5 copies of Your United States by Arnold Bennett.

"The street called straight" must have a New Testametn theme.

According to Amazon, The Street called straight by Basil King (1859 -1928) was written by a Canadian clergyman who retired in 1900 due to illness. It came backi into print in 2007. The Amazon cover shows a couple in an railroad car (the old types with day seats and night berths). Undoubtedly a modern novel (it has a reference to the Harvard Gallery of Fine Arts), the straight street presumably is metaphorical. Maybe, I can find an entry in the Book Review Digest from 1912 at my local library.

I did a little more investigation. Looking at Google Books, I was able to find an ad for the book which describes the problem of the heroine having to choose between two men in her life, both of whom love her. Her having to choose was listed as a result of the misdeeds of her father.

The street called straight is a reference to Damascus, and Paul and Ananias (Acts 9).

#11> I just added a copy of Your United States. I also uploaded a cover .jpg, for whomever cares about such things.

How to live on twenty-four hours a day
Finished reading:



Arnold Bennett was a very prolific writer, perhaps the most successful Edwardian author. He was a self-made man, originally from very humble origins. His success and self-confidence led him to the conviction that he could often do things better than other. At the height of his career he published a number of non-fictional works advising readers how to improve themselves.Bennett wrote two guides for aspiring writers: How to Become an Author in 1903, and The Author's Craft in 1913. His own credo about authorship was expressed as follows: "Am I to sit still and see other fellows pocketing two guineas apiece for stories which I can do better myself?"

He also wrote several books advising common people on how to improve themselves. These range from titles such as Self and Self-Management, Mental Efficiency, to guides on developing literary taste (Literary Taste: How to Form It ) and how to change one's life-style in such a way that the emerging class of white-collar workers might make more of life.

The most well-known, and still read, of these is How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. This short work may be so popular still because it is so recognizable and so practical. Everyone wastes time doing nothing, which could in a very simple manner be turned into time well spent. By getting up a bit earlier, and systematically devoting increasing amounts of time, up to an hour and a half each evening to reading Great Literature, rather than the newspaper, improve self-discipline, reflect on life and on the Great Literature one has read, and develop an interest in art, etc, anyone can improve and rise above themselves.



Other books I have read by Arnold Bennett:
The plain man and his wife
The gates of wrath

#16

Did you read this book in Chinese?

No. The book is published in a bilingual edition. I just read the English part. But if such Chinese editions have an introduction or afterword or other supplementary materials included, I read those in Chinese.