James Thurber Books

I loved this book! The symbolism Thurber uses is beyond what most could imagine. I feel most everyone who reads this book will be able to identify with one or more of the characters. We are all guilty of daydreaming at one time or another and this book is a wonderful illustration of that. I also thought this would be a book most have never heard of, but to my surprise the most important person of all (DonQ) knew all about it.

Thurber and Simont were friends and neighbors in West Cornwall, Connecticut, when Simont was a young man. After Thurber lost his own eyesight, Simont illustrated such works of Thurber's as "The Thirteen Clocks" and "The Wonderful O". Recently, Simont provided new illustrations for a new edition of "Many Moons", the first illustrations of which had earned Louis Slobodkin a Caldecott Award. Simont, a native speaker and teacher of the Catalan language, won the Caldecott Award for "A Tree is Nice", in 1957.

So much fun! Great for a few minutes or hours.

A selection of sketches divided into two acts written for 5 men and 4 women by one of America's greatest humorists. Highlights include: "The Night the Bed Fell," "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," "Gentlemen Shoppers," "The Pet Department," and "File and Forget."

Alas, James Thurber grows dimmer and dimmer in reader's and public's eyes as time goes buy. This is truly a shame as Thurber is probably one of the funniest of our or social commentators of this past century. I recently took an informal survey of high school seniors (about two hundred as a matter of fact) and not one of them knew or had ever heard of James Thurber. What a pity. Be-that-as-it-may, this particular book is a collection of his writings, short story type stuff, which are really small essays on the condition of the human species. Thurber's wit is at its height here and each small piece is a gem within itself. Of course the entire book is sprinkled with his wonderfully simple drawings which just adds ice cream to the cake. This author and his work are slowly being lost and that is a true shame. Our younger readers are missing much! Recommend this one highly.

This second published collection of letters captures Thurber's wit as well as his love and compassion for his family and his host of friends. If you love Thurber, letters, the New Yorker, dogs, or an insider's look at the world of publishing, enjoy this book.

As I am a 1930's re-enactor, I have been trying to study the movie stars of the time period. Who better than the fabulous Marx Brothers! You can actually see Groucho wiggling his eyebrows as you read his words. I never knew he was an author and philosopher, as well as great comedian. Wonderful to read and then view his classic movie. Thanks, Groucho, for a great book!

I thought Groucho did a good job of telling about growing up and there are some great stories about knocking around on the vaudville circuit. It was a quick and easy read, but most enjoyable. Harpo Speaks by Harpo Marx goes more into depth and also some of the same stories are told from a slightly different perspective; it was another fun book to read.

Excellent book, well written with Groucho's unique wit and sarcasm

I Liked the book and was fascinated by it. It met most of my expectations. MP

A very easy read. A nice blend of information and funny Groucho stories. If you are a fan of their movies, then you should enjoy Groucho's accounts.

Actually, I purchased "The Thurber Carnival" for a friend who used to raised bloodhounds and who has a great sense of humor. Very shortly after I sent it to him, he called to say that he had read it from cover to cover, enjoying it immensely, getting many laughs, and loving the sketches of bloodhounds (altered somewhat). My father loved James Thurber and collected many of his books, including this one. Its stories are timeless, and I was fortunate to have found a hardcover copy in such excellent condition!

A great introduction to this wonderful humorist. I dare you not to laugh out loud at "The Night the Bed Fell." Go on, try it.

THE THURBER CARNIVAL is an excellent collection if only because it contains the complete MY LIFE AND HARD TIMES. In the early seventies, when my grandmother gave me a respectful and wonderfully brief biography called THE CLOCKS OF COLUMBUS, I became a THURBER fan. I was in Junior High and Thurber, dead more than ten years already, was enjoying something of a vogue. Most of his books were back in print. Today, we're down to about a third or less of what he wrote. The Library of America's collection looks fairly complete, but THE THURBER CARNIVAL was his own selection of greatest hits, if you will. In both cases I miss the separate volumes from which these stories and cartoons are culled. If there are concept albums, Thurber had concept collections. You don't get the sense of a Beatles album listening to bits from different albums. This is true with Thurber. You need all of LET YOUR MIND ALONE, which you can only get used now. You need all of THE MIDDLE-AGED MAN ON THE FLYING TRAPEZE; his most representative collection.
He tried writing a novel once or twice, but found he could only write short stories. This bothered him. The chief thing to remember as you read him is that he was deeply ashamed of being a humorist. His literary hero was Henry James. During Thurber's time at the New Yorker (and he arrived there about a year after its founding, staying until his death more than three decades later) the magazine was a showcase for humorists. Think of the original cast of Saturday Night Live and you'll have something of an idea of the atmosphere at the magazine in its first ten years or so. Competitive humorists travelled from all over the United States to work for THE NEW YORKER. The Algonquin Roundtable was largely a haven for NEW YORKER staffers. James Thurber learned from E. B. White and a few others and then outstripped them. If you read E. B. White's forays into humor, you'll see his clean prose shining, but you won't feel you know him. Thurber, on the other hand, leaves you with the impression that he wishes to God he never left Ohio. There is a sense of loss in Thurber's rhythms.
He is as dated as a Studebaker. If you're not willing to put yourself back in time, Thurber's not for you. But, if you notice his pain, you might notice how mightily he strove against it. Thomas Wolfe once met him at a party. Someone said, "This is James Thurber, the New Yorker writer."
Wolfe shook his hand and said, "You call those little, tiny things writing?"
All Thurber had was his writing. He was a mess otherwise. Even when his writing practically barks its bitter sentiment, Thurber turns a phrase as if he owns it. The actual content of the stories is immaterial. He should be read outloud, because he was essentially a poet.

The works and cartoons of James Thurber have had quite an influence on me over the years. At a very young age I was drawn to his cartoons (pardon the pun), and as I grew older developed a great appreciation of his writings. Decades after their inception, his works ring true.

I first came across Thurber when I was 18 in 1943. The books were in hardback and of course very cheap in those day. I sampled one and then bought the rest. Thurber is very witty, very funny and is easy to relate to. His drawings are wonderful - simple and look so easy. I liked the essays and I loved the cartoons - the one I like best is a chap introducing his wife to a friend 'That's my first wife up there (she is crouching on top of a bookcase and this is the present Mrs Harris.' Another lovely one is a couple in bed with a seal above the headborad and thei wife is snarling 'All right, have it your way -you heard a seal bark.'Thurbers dogs are so evocate. His humour and give my three grandsons the Thurber Carnvival which they are all enjoying.

I grew up with James Thurber on the shelf, his cartoons peopled my imagination from my earliest years and as reading skill grew, his stories (The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Life and Hard Times, etc.) comprised some of my first grown-up literature. Much later I discovered The New Yorker magazine, the acme of commercial journalism and cartoon art in which this author had once played such a central role. By the time I bumped into the magazine it was well into middle age, James Thurber was gone -- he died in 1961 -- and blindness had ended his drawing career ten years earlier. Prodded by a friend who is a great fan of this author, I have looked him up again in recent years and rediscovered the fresh wit and off-kilter humor of one of our best "casual" writers. (As he would label himself.) THE YEARS WITH ROSS is a biography of Harold W. Ross, the eccentric fanatic who founded and edited The New Yorker for twenty-six years (1925-51). Here is the story of how one dogged genius drew together the best editorial talent of an era and lured many of the best writers of the century to fashion his dream. Ross was capable of utter precision and befuddled oversight. His payment schedule for writers was not only the most niggardly in the magazine business, it was an arcane system of word count, add-ons, deductions, bonuses and penalties which left authors baffled. Meanwhile, Ross' personal secretary siphoned off seventy-one thousand dollars in the late 1930s without his notice. He could agonize for weeks over placement of a comma, dueling with an exalted staff which included the authority himself, E.B. White. Though I found this gem as a second-hand paperback which fell to pieces as I turned each page, I see that it and dozens of Thurber titles are in the local library system, and happily commend it to other New Yorker fans. For a taste of the best of casual writing, check out The Thurber Carnival and other collections from this prince of whimsy. (See also my review of Thurber's ALARMS AND DIVERSIONS, Harper & Brothers, 1957)

This biography (which I am very pleased to see has become a classic!) is wonderful - a fine personal memoir of the New Yorker founder and editor, Harold Ross. It talks about his life at work and otherwise, from the point of view of one of the pillars of that magazine's early life, James Thurber. The writing is funny (of course), vivid and immediate. Together with Letters From the Editor and Genius in Disguise, it will bring you as close as it is possible to get to Ross, who was, in my humble opinion, one hell of a guy. A must-read for all editors, would-be or otherwise.

Thurber got into trouble with his friend and co-New Yorker stalwart E.B. White for writing this portrait of their boss and benefactor. Between them the three wrote most of "The New Yorker" in its crucial first decades. These chapters, first written as a series of articles for "The Atlantic", are a model of the rich, primary source biography. Thurber pulls no punches. His Ross is not "a monument" as he puts it, but a man, worth looking at in all his strange glory. I would rate this book alongside Herndon's Life of Lincoln as one of the best accounts of a man by his contemporary, without the veneer of legend and without an undercurrent of envy. Thurber shared an office with Ross for who knows how many years, learned a lot about writing from him (some examples of his razor fine editing are here to learn from), and did a great deal of his best writing in the man's employ. One of Thurber's best books, and that makes it one of the best books there is. You could do worse than read this book before trying to write a life of anyone who's still living. You could do worse than reading this book before trying to write even one article about the life of somebody alive and real.

From 1927 to 1951, James Thurber, the humorist and cartoonist, worked under Harold Ross, the editor of The New Yorker. Both men became internationally famous in those years. The New Yorker was a magazine for the sophisticated.

How Ross created this aura is elusive. Thurber tells us about Ross's devotion to the magazine-he was married "for keeps" to his magazine-and about his hairsplitting attention to detail. These good points seem to be heavily outweighed by his bad points. He quit school early. He wasn't much of a reader: his favorite magazine was True Detective and most of the American writers who are now studied (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner) rarely or never appeared in his magazine. He didn't pay much attention to politics. He was a prude. And, as Thurber shows us, he was a poor administrator. He does not seem to be anything out of the ordinary. In fact, Ross often seems like a movie version of a harried editor with the gruff personality and tendency to "bark" orders, but with the heart of gold behind the exterior. He was the unsophisticated editor for the sophisticated.

The secret of his success was the way he could inspire devotion, as exhibited by Thurber writing this book in the first place. The two men's live were bound together for over 20 years. We learn how Thurber met E.B. White five minutes before a meeting with Ross; how White helped Thurber publish his cartoons despite Ross's skepticism; how Ross helped keep Thurber going despite his growing blindness. And, despite the fact that Thurber often makes Ross look foolish, it's a loving portrait. Ross shown at his worst is still endearing.

Because of this, it's probably not the best way to find the whole story about the magazine. In a way, it's just as much about Thurber as it is about Ross. That's not so bad, though.

Thurber tells us a lot about the production of magazine and the writers and cartoonists who appeared there. As mentioned before, Ross didn't publish the big names of the time and because of that, most of the New Yorker contributors of his day are now forgotten. Anecdotes about them and a chapter about Ross's system of payment are the low points of the book.

High points include a chapter about Ross and H.L. Mencken, Wolcott Gibb's guidelines for New Yorker style, and the chapter about Ross's friendship/feud with Alexander Woollcott. The story of Thurber's development as a cartoonist is interesting as well.

The Years With Ross is similar to Mencken's memoir,
Newspaper Days, in that it also is about the production of a periodical and about the lives of literary figures who aren't remembered today. However, where Mencken's style ranged from slightly acidic to vitriolic, Thurber's is gentle, even when he is poking fun. Here he describes Katherine White's visit to Alexander Woollcott: "He met her at the door clad as usual in pajama bottoms and dressing gown, and every now and then during his monologue that day his great bare belly would coyly appear and disappear, like a romping sea lion. "

Thurber has a nice style and is an amusing writer. He is the sort of writer who more often provokes a chuckle in the back of a reader's throat than he does convulsive laughter.

This isn't an indispensable American classic, but certain people will like it. Thurber's light humor can still amuse. And people who still believe in the magazine will want to read this book. Ross said that the New Yorker wanted "superior prose, funny drawings, and sound journalism, without propaganda." Recently a book review in the Nation complained that a journalist's collection of articles taken from the New Yorker was handicapped by the "the flat-footed New Yorker style." It was different in Ross's day.

James Thurber was in his 60s when he wrote THE YEARS WITH ROSS. Harold Ross was the first editor of The New Yorker. He was a homely man, awkward in manner and speech. Ross couldn't write, but he was a fine editor. He lacked a good education and was sadly unaware of most social graces so he was often uncouth, but he created one of the USA's outstanding magazines. The New Yorker is a stalwart of literary sophistication.

Thurber's study is not only an intriguing look at a real character of an editor but the story of how a magnificent magazine grew under the guidance of one of the truly talented editors of all time.

I'm a university student in Taiwan.The book has been translated in Chinese,and I've read the book.In the beginning,my professor suggest me to read it,then I did it.The book is really helpful to people to understand how's the campaigns & elections going on!

I'm a graduate student from Taiwan. I study in Graduate Institute of American Studies of Tamkang University. My professor wants each of us to have this book and read it closely. Although I haven't got the book yet. But according to my professor's recommendation. I think this should be a very good book to understand how election won.

I'm a university student in Taiwan.The book has been translated in Chinese,and I've read the book.In the beginning,my professor suggest me to read it,then I did it.The book is really helpful to people to understand how's the campaigns & elections going on!

Not a bad book. Thurber presents American campaigns from an academic perspective in describing how they operate and how they have changed over time.

This is less of a practical or "how to" book than a descriptive treatise on campaign practices. It is valuable in introducing the reader to the why's and hows of modern campaigning in America. A person who is looking for a guide to organizing their own run for local office will find this book interesting, but will want to supplement it with one of the many more practical books on the subject...I'm teaching a course in elective politics at the University of Pennsylvania's Fels Center of Government. This is one of the required reading books for the course and is also used by some other teachers in the field at colleges and universities around the country.