Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I am reading: What Remains: A Memoir Of Fate, Friendship & Love by Carole Radziwill.
Also I am reading some news items from 1992-93.

What are you reading now?

I'm currently re-reading Radin's Goodbye Lizzie Borden as a guilty pleasure. But, I have and intend to delve into Eat Right for Your Type: The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your Ideal Weight by Dr.Peter J D'Adamo; which is a book about eating for your particular blood type.

Oops, sorry, got Radin on the brain, should read Sullivan!

Rereading the witness statements.





Tracy...

'The Defense Never Rests"
"Persepolis"
Rebello (such a pleasure!)

Lone Star Nation: How A Ragged Army Of Volunteers Won The Battle For Texas Independence-And Changed America by H. W. Brands


The Bible I finished the New Testament and I am up to 3 Kings in the Old Testament now. I only read a chapter or two a day so it is going to take me awhile to finish it and since I am reading the Douay-Rheims edition, which is a Catholic Bible, I even have a few extra books to read.

I just finished rereading "A Cast of Killers" by Sidney Kirkpatrick (see the William Desmond Taylor thread).
My bedtime reading consists of working my way through Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire novels. Currently I'm in the middle of "Miss Bunting."
Trips to the local bookstores are dangerous for me! Tonight I came across a new book on Rebecca Cornell, as well as a book on 19th century local crimes committed by women.

[quote="stuartwsa @ Tue Sep 12, 2006 10:50 pm"]I just finished rereading "A Cast of Killers" by Sidney Kirkpatrick (see the William Desmond Taylor thread).quote]


What did you think of it?

I enjoyed it as much as when I read it many years ago, and I thought that Vidor came up with the right answer. All of the information about the lawsuits in the Shelby family was pretty compelling. And the visit with Mary Miles Minter at the end bordered on the surreal.
I know another book came out after this one (The Deed of Death, by Robert Giroux, I think) which had a different solution, but I thought Kirpatrick's book had a much stronger case.
What is your opinion, Angel?

PS: I always waited for Hollywood to film the book, but they never did. If it were filmed today, I would want a British fimmaker to do it, as the English are concerned with accuracy in period detail, and Hollywood isn't.

I enjoyed it very much. I've developed quite an interest in old movie history recently since I read a Buster Keaton biography. I agree with you. I think King Vidor was right on the money. I am very surprised that no one has done a movie on this--it has all the right ingredients for a dashing story, if done right. Maybe they will, because someone finally picked up the Black Dahlia story again.

Only nine years late, I finally took Harry Potter on vacation in New Hampshire with us. I'n now halfway through book two "Chamber of Secrets." I can't handle anything much deeper than this right now.

By the way, an acquaintance just pulled a large bag of Lizzie books from the attic and she is interested in finding good homes for them. It's quite a collection. Harry and Kat, if I email you a list could you give us some indication of what would be reasonable asking prices for these?

The Meaning of Everything: The story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester, along with an old, old Agatha Christie which I've probably read about 10 times over my lifetime (they always soothe me out). Meanwhile I keep checking my library 'speed read' carousel for the latest Jeffrey Deaver (Cold Moon) -- hoping to catch it between a return and check-out so I don't have to pay full price for the hard-cover. And I've also got a note to myself to check out Kash's recommend, Dershowitz's America on Trial, next time I'm there.

I finished What Remains this morning.
I thought it was going to be about life as Princess Radziwill and the hobnobbing with John Kennedy and his new wife Carolyn.
It really is about (Prince) Anthony Radziwill's fight with cancer over a 5 year period until his death just weeks after John Jr. & Carolyn in that plane crash.
Very well written- good bio- which I like. Depressing tho. Falling stars.

So, as of today, I'm no longer reading a book!

Christopher, in my opinion, not speaking for Harry over this, is that our member "mbhenty" and Stefani would be the ones who would know what the Lizzie books would be worth.

Chris, I'm not a collector and don't pay much attention to prices. When I want to see what a book is selling for I use www.bookfinder.com

They usually have multiple copies, new and used, at various prices.

Thanks Kat and Harry. As soon as I get some price ideas, I post the list.

It includes The Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Lizzie Borden, a 1985 limited edition reprint of Porter, first edition Vickie Lincoln, and more.

I've started The Enigma of Borley Rectory.
Anybody heard of Borley Rectory?

Walled-up nuns, murdered brides, mysterious writings! Even better than Second Street. Glad the old rectory burned down. I had not heard of this book-just in time for Halloween reading.

One Lizzie tie-in, the old rector died in 1892 and his son, young Rev. Bull died in 1927 a la Lizzie, at Borley.

Kat: When was the Enigma of Borley Rectory written, and who is the author? (Sounds like I'll have to start hunting for a copy!)

I'll lend you mine when I'm finished. I've had it quite a while: 1996. By Ivan Banks.
I had read some of the earlier treatments of the case- and followed Mr. Price's exploits there.
I was particularly fascinated with the messages on the walls.
It's been a while- I'll be refreshing my memory by reading this. It has tons of pictures, including the famous "levitating brick" one.
(For some reason, I think there was a TV show on Borley and the family who lived there, c. 1970's. Ring any bells, anyone?)
Yes, good Halloween reading. The nearby annual Halloween Superstore just opened last week.

I am reading "Goodbye Lizzie Borden" by Robert Sullivan. Also, I am about a fourth of the way through the trial transcripts. Almost finished with "Religion Gone Bad" by Mel White and looking up information on insane asylums in the 1890's.

That's a typical Bordenite! Reading 3 things at once, some unrelated!
The other outside interests of our members are always fascinating to me!

At the moment I'm going through my Ellis Peters collection again. For those that don't know the books: they are detective novels that are staged in England and Wales around 1100-1150 AD, in which a monk is cast as the sleuth. Apart from writing a great detective story, the amount of research that the author has done to recreate the scene and atmosphere is amazing!

Airmid.

Have you been to England?
How many here have been to England?

I've been to England, but only in passing through (on my way to Ireland) and a weekend visit to friends. If it hadn't been for that awkward stretch of water and their weird driving habits (sorry) I would have been there more often!

Airmid.

I have. And I'd love to go again!

Stef and I have, too. She did all the driving. She's fabulous!
I'm a great map reader tho.
My girlfriend went too. We had to promise her we would not knowingly go anywhere that was haunted.. And no JtheR tour.

Last night I found my *Ghost Hunter* book by Price: The Most Haunted House In England.
It's got silver leaf edged pages and a purple ribbon for a page marker. It's a reproduction by Time Life.
That is where the photos are of the wall writings. I Googled a bit but couldn't find them. Turned out I had the book itself.
I had read it too. My little annotations were there in pencil.
(That must drive some people, like mbhenty crazy! )

I just got an old book I bought off of Ebay for the sole reason that it came from Fall River and had a Fall River nameplate in it. The Human Comedy, pretty sure it is an old classic. Just kind of cool having a book that has lived most of its life in Lizzies town.

Right now I'm reading Eighty Years and More Reminiscences, 1815-1897 by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. I just started it. I"ll just post the description given of the book from Amazon.com

"Editorial Reviews

Eric Foner, Columbia University
Elizabeth Cady Stanton is undoubtedly a central figure in nineteenth-century American history. Her autobiography, and her career, express in uniquely feminist perspective some of the era's central themes, including the struggles for equal rights and individual autonomy. This powerfully written book is essential reading for anyone who would understand not only the origins of the women's rights movements, but the nature of American society in Stanton's era"


When I am finished with this I already have my next bit of reading material lined up, it's a book called Going to America by Terry Coleman. Again from Amazon.com.

"Editorial Reviews

Book Description
This is the grim story of the British and Irish immigrants who came to America during the middle of the nineteenth century. Much the largest contingent was Irish, and it was above all the departure of the Irish to America, diseased, half-starved, bewildered, cheated and cheating, which made the emigrant way across the Atlantic as degrading as the convict route to the South Seas, and almost as cruel as the Middle Passage of the slave ships. Confronting the immigrants at every turn were inescapable horrors. Ship owners packed their holds like slavers; brokers misrepresented and overcharged; runners stole when they couldn't cheat; customs officials took bribes to ignore overcrowding. And when the immigrants arrived the swindling didn't stop. They were fleeced by lodging-house keepers, separated from their possessions, and sold fraudulent railroad or canal boat tickets--in short, the whole, cruel apparatus of immigration was turned against them. "

Yes Kat, I too have been to England several times. But never saw much of it. I was just passing through on my way to Swansea in Wales. It was where my fiancee lived. Almost ended up living there. But that was many moons ago. Things change. Long distance relationships rarely work; especially to those in their teens or early twenties.

But, I love the British. I loved it everytime I visited. Wonderful and kind people, who at the time, loved Americans.

Even today my main drink is "tea". In the Uk you could not get a bad cup of tea, but it was almost impossible to find a good cup of coffee. I am sure much has changed since I last visited.

My Borely Rectory book is starting to get on my nerves. I mean, I'm hearing all kinds of house noises now that I hadn't noticed since I got my new roof...

Especially since I read before I go to bed!

I recently finished reading "Frankenstein." I enjoyed it but I feel it is an over-rated book. I grew up on the Karloff movies. Everytime the monster killed one of Frankentein's friends or family members, Mary had him go through the same emotional outbursts. I felt I was re-reading the same passage several times through out the book. Repetitive. The part where he creates the monster was extreamly short. No fleshing out at all. The idea of an 8' monster being able to track Frankenstein from place to place was too far fetched for me. I got a kick out of the monster being 8' tall. Where would Frankenstein get body parts to create an 8' tall man? Or did he grow on the table? There are not too many 8 footers to glean parts from. "Let's see, I'll stick two femurs together and..." It was a good story with a much-ignored moral to it.

I recently bought a biography on the life of Mary Shelly's mom, Mary Woolstonecraft Shelly.

Last week I read, "I Am Fifteen - And I Don't Want To Die" by Christine Arnothy. A true story of a fifteen year old girl's struggle to stay alive during the German bombing of her town during World War II. It is the Scholastic kid's edition. A real good book! I would like to see school teachers read that book to their students. It may discourage the creation of future war mongers.

I also finished, "Gypsy & Me." The life of Gypsy Rose Lee by her son. It is both funny and sad.

-1bigsteve (o:

Leslie Rule's When the Ghost Screams: True Stories of Victims Who Haunt explores the world of wandering spirits by traveling across time and distance to hot-spots for hauntings and the paranormal. She then weaves the true, related stories of untimely death and strange phenomena together from the testimony of eyewitnesses and her own exhaustive research.
When the Ghost Screams suggests that violence common to locations where murder or accidental death took place may cause a victim's spirit to linger there. With considerable attention to detail, Leslie Rule retells the stories of the restless dead, narrating the events surrounding their passing and telling of the rumored ghosts seen afterward.
Also a small section on our Lizzie and talks with Lee-Ann too.

I just started "Rita Hayworth, A Memoir" by James Hill. He has a funny way of writing. I've been laughing while reading. I never cared much for Rita Hayworth but I'm discovering she had a sad life. She had Dementia for 26 years from the age of about 41.

I've also started "Maria Callas, An Intimate Biography" by Anne Edwards.

Next up is "The Onassis Women" by Kiki Feroudi Moutsatsos.

I'm also reading "The World's Best Fairy Tales", A Reader's Digest Anthology.

OK, so I'm still a kid at heart.

-1bigsteve (o:

I found this bit amusing in Eighty Years and More, it appears on page 47 of the book.

Part of the time Margaret Christie, a young girl of Scotch descent, was a member of our family circle. She taught us French, music, and dancing. Our days were too short for all we had to do, for our time was not wholly given to pleasure. We were required to keep our rooms in order, mend and make our clothes, and do our own ironing. The latter was one of my mother's politic requirements, to make our laundry lists as short as possible.

Ironing on hot days in summer was a sore trial to all of us; but Miss Christie, being of an inventive turn of mind, soon taught us a short way out of it. She folded and smoothed her undergarments with her hands and then sat on them for a specified time. We all followed her example and thus utilized the hours devoted to our French lessons and, while reading "Corinne" and "Telemaque", in this primitive style we ironed our clothes. But for dresses, collars, cuffs, and pocket handkerchiefs, we were compelled to wield that hot iron, hence with these articles we used all due economy, and my mother's object was thus accomplished.

Ha! Use those items less, yes! That's pretty smart!

My next door neighbor, Josephine, from Newton, Mass., ironed her sheets even in a Florida summer until she was 82. Then I caught her at it and talked her out of it!
I told her we had these new-fangled sheets that were non-wrinkle if she got them out of the dryer immediately.

I'm still reading the Borley Rectory book -oh and Hatchet submissions! It's that time again! Yay!

I'm so happy to reading anything at all now, I finally got my new reading glasses! I went to a place that promised new glasses in an hour, though not mine unfortunately. And especially unfortunate since I donated my old pair, so, I went for a week without glasses, not fun! But now I can read fine print again and am absolutely thrilled!

I finally got a Rebello and started reading it last night after finishing up Robert Sullivans book. The minute I would open the book, the phone would ring. AGGHHHH!!!!

Congratulations, bobarth! There's a world of Borden knowledge and sources in those pages.

If you're a Bordenite (or is it Bordenphile?) it doesn't get any better.

Thanks Harry,

I have been waiting for it to arrive. I cant hardly wait to get home to read. I blew my entire Ebay allowance on this one.

After you read Rebello, you have to go to Fall River! Then when you meet him and discuss the case he will be thrilled to know you read him. (He can always tell who has read him- it just tickles him).

You paid E-bay prices?
If so, you should get a medal!

I would suggest to all of you to read some other True Crime stories. This will give you a better background to look into the Borden Murders. Like Ann Rule's short stories from magazines.

I found the "Perry Mason" novels educational as well as entertaining. The background often tells about investigating crimes where the identity of the killer is unknown, and not the person who is accused. Yes, its fiction, but fiction must be based on fact to be believable. "Truth stranger than fiction."

There are also textbooks on police procedures. They are aimed at beginners, the advanced courses are not available to the public. They don't want smart killers to read this; Ted Bundy knew a lot about police procedures and knew what evidence to hide.

Henry Lee's books tell about his investigations into crimes. Herb McDonnell has never written a book (in my library), but he is/was the expert on blood spatter (the white-haired guy in the backgound of the photos of the "Dream Team"). Like Lee, he only takes cases he is interested in. I believe they quote him in the books on why the blood spots were planted; because a moving body would shed blood drops that fall in tear-drops shapes on the ground, not round drops.

Oh I want to go to Fall River now. Would love to meet the author and chat with him too. You guys look like you have so much fun when there.

I was the fool who spent 200 dollars on the Rebello on Ebay. I was losing sleep over not having it though. LOL

Bobarth, consider it an investment. And I don't just mean in the gaining of knowledge. It is also a financial investment. Len's book will always be coveted by true Borden scholars and researchers and will no doubt be worth more and more as time goes by. That is also true for the Knowlton Papers.

Even if these books are someday reproduced, the first editions will always have great value, if just to collectors alone. Maybe mbhenty can expand upon that.

In any case, enjoy the book.

Thanks again Harry and Kat, I knew you guys would understand.......

I feel like I have the holy grail or something to finally be reading his book. I have already learned a lot and have just started. I find I read each sentence twice so I can really absorb the information.

I have NO buyers remorse, even though one sold right after mine for I think 97 dollars.

Bookfinder. com has 4 USED ones for sale ranging in price from $197 to $417.

http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl ... 7155_1:1:1

I wish my stock investments rose as fast as these Borden books. Maybe I'll start a mutal fund made up of Borden books.

Harry I just sold some stock to cover my Lizzie purchases, been meaning to anyway and when the market hit a new high last week I unloaded some stock. Think now is a good time to get out of the market. I think you are right, Lizzie is the better investment... Let me know if you get that mutual fund going, I would like to get in on that.....

Ok now where are those Knowlton Papers!!!!!!! LOL

Kat: Believe it or not, I found a book on the Borley Rectory in our library's sale room today. It's called "The Most Haunted House In England," by Harry Price. It was originally written in 1940, but republished in sort of a pseudo-fancy edition, like Victoria Lincoln's book was. The library sale room had a bunch of Halloween-themed books out.
I also picked up a little gem called "True Tiny Tales of Terror," which has the following excerpt:

"Fructosus, an early bishop of Tarragona learned about his fate rather abruptly when he met the town;s preconsul one day in A.D. 529. This was their conversation:

Preconsul: 'Are you the bishop?'

Fructosus: 'I am.'

Preconsul: 'You were.'

And he rushed Fructosus away to be burned."

WOW Stuart!!!

I just found my Harry Price book recently too! Look at that weird writing on the wall in the pictures. That is so spooky!

*Harry Price* would be a good description of what Bobbie paid for that Rebello!

No wonder you told me you had *plenty to read* right now, Bobbie!

Just started reading "The Black Dahlia Files" by Donald H. Wolfe.

I'm just starting the Radin book "Lizzie Borden-the Untold Story" that Stuartwsa was so sweet to send me.