What book are you reading right now?

[Hilda]

I thought I'd share an anecdote I came across yesterday. After working my way through four books by an author called R. J. Minney, about India in the 1920s, I had this image of him as a civil servant who lived and worked in Calcutta. I decided to look him up and was astonished by what I found. After writing those four books he went on to an illustrious career in movies, wrote several best-selling biographies, and also went into UK politics.

This is the anecdote that caught my attention:

[He] wrote both the book and play ‘Clive of India’, which ran for over a year in London and was later filmed. The Royal family unexpectedly arrived for the opening night of the play. On the same night RJ took a call from Daryl Zanuk, the legendary 1930’s impresario and film-maker, asking RJ to call at Claridges. In Zanuk’s suite the next day Zanuk invited RJ to Hollywood, RJ declined as he was due to leave for Russia to work on a biography on Rasputin, to which Zanuk reputedly responded; “Now Mr Minney sit down a minute, we haven’t talked about money yet.” The next day RJ left for Hollywood.

[Hilda]

==> John Travers (Eva Mary Bell). Hot Water. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1929.

A satire about a bumbling, misguided government fact-finding commission.

On p. 36 I came across this line:

“[He] greeted her with an expression as flagrantly gay as bunting.”

If the author had written “gay as bunting” I wouldn’t have noticed, but the flagrantly + gay caught my attention.

I couldn’t help smiling as images of colorful Pride Parades flashed through my mind.

[Pornhubby]

Forbidden Sexual Behavior and Morality. I guess I have done most of these. LOL. R. E. I. Masters. 1962, Julian Press.