Never too Late to Read Classics discussion

The final nonfiction read for 2023 is My Several Worlds by Pearl S. Buck. An inductee into the National Women's Hall of Fame and a Pulitzer Prize Winner for The Good Earth, Buck wrote numerous novels, collections, and even nonfiction works in her lifetime. She also won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1938. Pearl S. Buck International is a charitable organization that honors her legacy today.

If you're already a fan of Buck or wonder what the big deal is about her, we invite you to read her autobiography.

From GR: Autobiography of Pearl S Buck. A memoir of the life of the first female Nobel Laureate for Literature, who was also a world citizen and a major humanitarian, Pearl (Sydenstricker) Buck (1892-1973) three quarters of the way through her life. Published by the John Day Company to whose president, Richard John Walsh (1886-1960), she was then married, the book was successful and temporarily revived her waning reputation. The China oriented writer Helen Foster Snow described her partnership with John Day and Walsh as "the most successful writing and publishing partnership in the history of American letters." The firm had published everything she'd written since their marriage in 1935. Her biographer, Professor Peter Conn, describes the book as "a thickly textured representation of the Chinese and American societies in which she had lived." Friend of Eleanor Roosevelt, cultural ambassador between China and America, tireless advocate for racial democracy and women's rights and founder of the first international adoption agency, this is a book by and about a special American citizen of the twentieth century.

https://www.womenofthehall.org/induct...

https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/pe...

https://pearlsbuck.org/

I'll be starting this in a few days.

Has anyone gotten to read Buck's autobiography? Kathy, I know you said you hoped to start it early this month.

I am reading it. I like Buck's writing, of her fiction I have read Peony and Letter from Peiking. Actually I enjoy her descriptions of Chinese culture and customs through the eyes of an American.

I read a little of the book but got caught up in holiday reading. I hope to get back to it. Glad you’re enjoying it, Nidhi.

Good to hear your positive thoughts on it, Nidhi.

Kathy, I understand what you mean about holiday reading. I shoved a few highly anticipated books aside to read some Christmas themed books.

I too have been reading light books and short stories, children's books... with my daughter.