Cool Literature

Over on paisleyandplaid, Cindy writes about her favorite, "non-classic" book. That got me thinking about my favorites. Actually, I concluded that generally, whether it is a book of the Bible, or pulp fiction, whatever I am reading, provided it is good, is my favorite.

For about two years I have been reading lots of fiction from the early 20th century, particularly British stuff. To my mind, it is well written. Catch this description of dawn from Louis Joseph Vance's False Faces, a part of the "Lone Wolf" series of mystery/spy books:

Awesome pallor tinged the eastern horizon, gaining strength, spread in imperceptible yet rapid gradations toward the zenith. Stars faded, winked out, vanished. Silver and purple in the sea gave place to livid gray. Almost visibly the routed night rolled back over the western rim of the world. Shafts of supernal radiance lanced the formless void between sky and sea. Swollen and angry, the sun lifted up its enormous, ensanguined portent. And the discountenanced moon withdrew hastily into the immeasurable vastnessness of a cloudless firmament, yet failed therein to find complete concealment. Keen, sweet airs of dawn raked the decks, now to port, now to starboard, as the Assyrian twisted and writhed on her corkscrew way.

Great Stuff. Thanks, Cindy, for getting me thinking!