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THE RETURN OF LANNY BUDD

Name: THE RETURN OF LANNY BUDD
Author: Upton Sinclair
ISBN: 1931313113

by Upton Sinclair ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 20, 1953

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Let's put the cards on the table and confess that it was with something of relief that I accepted O Shepherd, Speak! as the end of Lanny Budd, and that his "return" was unwelcome news. After reading the new book, it seems still a mistake. The magic of the earlier heroic saga has vanished. The machinery creaks a bit, and if anything as much in the headlines could be said to date, this dates. The story revolves around the threat of the Russian propaganda war, into which Lanny is drawn from the island of the peace movement he had chosen. Once again he is sent to trouble spots,- Germany, both West and East, and Poland. Old figures, familiar to his followers, reappear,- Monck, Kurt Meissner (and his troubled son, Fritz), Lanny's sister Bess, now an ardent Communist, and her husband, Hansi, who eventually is enlisted to act in counter-intelligence, some of Lanny's old contacts in the world of art, now reduced to beggardom, and so on. The search for the basic sources of counterfeit money provides the immediate issues, but- as always- this branches out into many fields of counterespionage and there's the climax in Lanny's imprisonment and torture and escape. Once again the reader has a sense of being in the midst of recent history behind the headlines. But somehow, the plot seems synthetic, the development contrived, and the injection of modern socialism and a new approach to the peace movement arbitrary.

Pub Date: April 20, 1953

ISBN: 1931313113

Page Count: 306

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: April 11, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1953

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF UPTON SINCLAIR
by Upton Sinclair

- BOOK REVIEW
ENEMY HAD IT TOO
by Upton Sinclair

- BOOK REVIEW
ANOTHER PAMELA
by Upton Sinclair

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.