Live HistoricSee what matters.

Book · Book · 1969

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The Godfather

35Leave it.

The loyalty is real and aimed at the wrong throne. The novel is less pretty than the film and just as seductive.

Take controlThis scores 35. If you do not want The Godfather in the house, the steps are on Kindle. Block it

The review

The book is on the shelf because Italian-American readers have had it handed to them as if it were their epic. It is not their epic. It is a story about a tribal virtue, loyalty, with the law pulled out. Puzo is franker on the page than the film is about the grubbiness. He is still selling the power.

Read it only if you will say the sentence out loud: a family that outranks the law is a gang. Then go read Talese, or Di Donato, for people who were not the gang.

Journal

Keep The Godfather in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 35. Yours can differ.

The glance

Household and Piety and Republic and Temperance and Stewardship are the thin ones.

Is a marriage, a parent, or a child a real life here, or just a prop?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

The Crossing

50 instead of 35

The Crossing is still a novel book, and it scores 50 instead of 35. What you gain is courage: He keeps a promise to an animal at a cost no one will thank him for.

The eight

6
Industry
They are competent. The competence is criminal.
4
Household
Blood is the whole ethics. Wives and children live inside a fortress.
2
Piety
The Church is used for weddings and funerals. It does not rule.
5
Courage
Men take risks for the family. The risks are often just predation.
1
Republic
The law is the enemy. That is the failure, and the book knows it and enjoys it.
2
Temperance
Appetite, revenge, and women as spoils. Not a temperate page.
6
Truth
It understands how a closed people talks. It also flatters the closure.
2
Stewardship
What the son inherits is a crime. The inheritance is the tragedy, when it is not the fantasy.

Where to read

Finding the page.

Live Historic · The Godfather · 35IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

Book · Book · 1925

Pass it on

The Great Gatsby

33Leave it.

A true critique of rootless money. Also a book too in love with the parties it condemns.

Take controlThis scores 33. If you do not want The Great Gatsby in the house, the steps are on Kindle. Block it

The review

Fitzgerald knew that the moneyed East was a betrayal of whatever the Middle West had been for. Nick's last loyalty is to the region he came from, not to Gatsby. That loyalty is why the book can sit on this shelf. It does not teach a boy how to live. It teaches him how a certain shine lies.

Read it late in school, not early, and do not let the green light become a motivational quote. The light is the lie.

Journal

Keep The Great Gatsby in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 33. Yours can differ.

The glance

Industry and Household and Piety and Courage and Republic and Temperance and Stewardship are the thin ones.

Does anyone here do a real job, and does that job matter?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

Consider this

The Crossing

50 instead of 33

The Crossing is still a novel book, and it scores 50 instead of 33. What you gain is courage: He keeps a promise to an animal at a cost no one will thank him for.

The eight

4
Industry
Almost nobody works on the page. The valley of ashes is the work, kept at the edge.
2
Household
Marriage is a wreck and a scheme. No one is building a house.
1
Piety
No faith. The billboard is the joke where God would be.
3
Courage
Gatsby's persistence is real and spent on a fantasy.
3
Republic
East Egg is a class, not a civic body. It eats a woman and goes on.
2
Temperance
The parties are the famous part. The judgment comes too late to govern the reader.
8
Truth
The fraud is seen clearly, including the narrator's attraction to it.
3
Stewardship
Nothing is handed on but a narration and a funeral almost nobody attends.

Where to read

Finding the page.

Live Historic · The Great Gatsby · 33IMDb

The Godfather

Keep The Godfather in the record.

The Crossing

The Great Gatsby

Keep The Great Gatsby in the record.

The Crossing

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