Whether or not I can come in Nov depends on which night you hold the meeting. If you do this topic and I can come- I'd be interested in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" which was on the NY Times bestseller list for 82 weeks in the early 60s- up until May 1962. I know its 1100 pages of reading- but its supposed to be well researched from primary sources and written to read like a novel. I really enjoyed Eric Metaxas' biography of Bonhoeffer . I've  also read the Eric Larson novel  about the family of the American ambassador to Germany during that time..

On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 3:28 PM, Anne <[address removed]> wrote:

Hi to all! 

I was casting around for a mid-November meeting topic, and it crossed my mind that between the new J.D. Salinger bio, the rerelease of works of John O'Hara, Mad Men (yes, that's been around a while but it's still going strong and the early seasons are on DVD) and mid-century modern design popping up every place, the U.S. mid (twentieth!) century is having a bit of a moment. 

My kind of educated take on midcentury culture is that 1962 is an interesting year: tv had been around a while and was actually pretty sophisticated at times, rock'n'roll was here to stay, the World War II generation was in the political driver's seat, there was no hot war but the cold war was very scary, and we were pre-Kennedy assassination, pre-Beatles, and the modern civil rights movement was on the march. So, my idea was to let everyone pick a best seller from1962 (some will be very hard to find, some are readily available in libraries or online).

I'm attaching a link to fiction and nonfiction lists for July, 1962 but if you want to substitute a different best selling book from the same year, that's fine, just let me know.

If you want to participate in the "midcentury madness" project, please email me.  If you have identified a 1962 book that's not on the list I link to (easy to find via our hardworking librarian Miss Google) please let me know what it is.  If you want to read a book about midcentury U.S. life and culture, that's OK too, but please let me know what it is so I can add it to the official list and do try to pick something that would dovetail with the bestsellers of the actual era. 

If I get ten or more expressions of interest by Thursday, I will schedule a meeting with this theme, trying  to work out a time that's good for as many as possible of the yes responders.  Once we are out of the daylight savings zone, I usually schedule meetings on Sunday afternoon, but that's not an absolute.

Anne

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