WWW Wednesday - Special 1961 Edition

WWW Wednesday is hosted by Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

This post is a warm-up for Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings’ 1961 Reading Challenge, which begins next week. It is always fun to select my books and see what everyone else has chosen!

Currently Reading

The Girl in the Cellar by Patricia Wentworth is a Miss Silver mystery, which begins very dramatically:

She looked into the dead unbroken dark and had neither memory nor thought.  She was not conscious of where she was, or how she had come there.  She was not conscious of anything except the darkness.  

(I've also been rereading The Frozen River - not published in 1961 - for tomorrow's Community Read - if you are a fan, you can join remotely)

Reading Next

I’ve been contemplating a classic: The Making of the President 1960 by Theodore H. White, the national bestseller and Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the 1960 presidential campaign and the election of John F. Kennedy. This was the first book to report on a campaign from within, and his access likely resulted from being from Boston himself and a Harvard classmate of JFK’s older brother Joe, who died in WWII. White is also credited with popularizing the concept of JFK’s brief presidency as a sort of Camelot.

What I’ve Read

I’ve read quite a few books published in 1961 if you need suggestions for next week:

Six Impossible Things by Elizabeth Cadell.  This is one of my favorites of her books.

Rebel in Right Field by Duane Decker.  I found this series in my grade school library.

Down in the Cellar by Nicholas Stuart Gray.  Do you say cellar or basement?  I've always used both but, apparently, a basement is usually a modern, finished, or semi-finished, livable space under a house. A cellar typically refers to an older, unfinished, or rough storage area (often with dirt floors or stone walls) used for storing items like wine or food - or my washer/dryer.

A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer.  I appreciate this as an adult but when I first read it, I thought it was extremely sad!

The Vicarage Children by Lorna Hill

Mystery of the Secret Message by Elizabeth Honess

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster 

So Young a Queen by Lois Mills - I mailed this with several other books to the de Grummond Collection in Mississippi but it never arrived.

The Reb and the Redcoats by Constance Savery.  I was halfway done with my Capstone on Savery when it got derailed by a flood at the de Grummond, which was very annoying.  Instead, I wrote about Tana Hoban.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.  My book group read this in February or it would have been a good choice for this month!

Bel Lamington by D.E. Stevenson.  This is back in print from Dean Street Books!

Bloody Instructions by Sara Woods.  This is another Dean Street Press reprint, first in a mystery series about barrister Antony Maitland.

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. I had never heard of this author until Mad Men became a hit and it became an obvious comparison - a suburban couple in 1950s Connecticut feel trapped by their conventional lives and yearn for a more extraordinary existence, which - surprise - doesn't end well. I suggested it for my book group but it wasn't very popular.

Have you read any of these books?  If you are interested in joining the 1961 Club, you can read about it here.