2014 The Year in Vintage Books - History, Mystery, and Biography

So here it is my year of reading vintage books. I managed to read some things I'd said I'd get to and make new finds. Out of the 20 or so books that I read there are few regrets. So here is the list in no special order.

Counterfeit Kill - Gordon Davis (aka E. Howard Hunt) - (1963)  I enjoyed it and thought the Washington D.C. setting was well done. I think of Hunt's character as a kind of American James Bond just as sophisticated (but in a more real way) and without the misogyny.

"Dear Mr. President ..." The story of fifty years in the White House mail room -  (1949) Ira R.T. Smith - Breezy and relaxing. I had never really thought about all the mail the presidents get from the citizens of the U.S.A.

The Man Who Paid His Way - Walt Sheldon (1955) - The story of a corrupt city police department and the officer who could not play along. Much better than I expected. Sheldon is a good writer but some of his characters are a little too stilted.

Too Dead to Swing : A Katy Green Mystery by Hal Glatzer - (2002 ok so its not really vintage) - A mystery story set in the 1940's that concerns an all girl swing band called the Ultra Belles. A premise loosely based upon Phil Spitalny's and Hour of Charm All Girl Orchestra. A so-so mystery. Somehow I found it a little hard to get through.

Murder in Stained Glass - Margaret Armstrong - (1939) Another passable mystery that I would rate as just ok. While reading I kept thinking that the action was actually taking place in 1900 not the 1930's, how odd. I have learned to be wary of these Bestseller Library editions as many are abridged versions of the original novel.

John Sloan: Painter and Rebel - John Loughery - (1997, not vintage reading either) A good biography of the painter and ashcan school member. It left me more informed about turn of the century radical politics and John Sloan's complex relationship with this wife Dolly.

The Counrty Kitchen - Della Lutes - (1936) - Lovely and well written about the author's rural 1800's childhood in Michigan and the food they ate. This book is half autobiography and half cookbook. It went through 22 printings to many copies are out there.

The Coffee Train - Margarethe Erdahl Shank - (1953) Another fine autobiographical book about about growing up in a close knit Norwegian community in North Dakota. Like the Country kitchen it contains many references to food and provides a view of life as it was.