Books with author Booth. Tarkington

Penrod sat morosely upon the back fence and gazed with envy at Duke, his wistful dog. A bitter soul dominated the various curved and angular surfaces known by a careless world as the face of Penrod Schofield. Except in solitude, that face was almost always cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod had come into his twelfth year wearing an expression carefully trained to be inscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, mere defensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to lay hold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the face of a boy who has learned this, and Penrod's was habitually as fathomless as the depth of his hatred this morning for the literary activities of Mrs. Lora Rewbush—an almost universally respected fellow citizen, a lady of charitable and poetic inclinations, and one of his own mother's most intimate friends.Mrs. Lora Rewbush had written something which she called “The Children's Pageant of the Table Round,” and it was to be performed in public that very afternoon at the Women's Arts and Guild Hall for the benefit of the Coloured Infants' Betterment Society. And if any flavour of sweetness remained in the nature of Penrod Schofield after the dismal trials of the school-week just past, that problematic, infinitesimal remnant was made pungent acid by the imminence of his destiny to form a prominent feature of the spectacle, and to declaim the loathsome sentiments of a character named upon the programme the Child Sir Lancelot.- Taken from "Penrod" written by Booth Tarkington

Penrod is a collection of comic sketches by Booth Tarkington that was first published in 1914. The book follows the misadventures of Penrod Schofield, an eleven-year-old boy growing up in the pre-World War I Midwestern United States, in a similar vein to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In Penrod, Tarkington established characters who appeared in two further books, Penrod and Sam (1916) and Penrod Jashber (1929). The three books were published together in one volume, Penrod: His Complete Story, in 1931.PlotlinesChapters 1-6: Penrod, against his will, is cast as "The Child Sir Lancelot" in the local production The Pageant of the Table Round.Chapters 7-11: After seeing a movie about the Evils of Drink, Penrod uses the film's plot as an excuse for daydreaming in class.Chapters 12-14: It's the Annual Cotillion for Penrod's Dancing Class, and Penrod, who's known as "The Worst Boy in Town", has to find a female partner.Chapters 15-17: It's summer vacation. After meeting Herman and Verman, the children of a local black family, Penrod and Sam set up a show which becomes even more popular by the addition of the son of the most socially prominent family in town, which by coincidence shares the same last name as a notorious convicted murderess.Chapters 18-20: A dollar, given to him by his sister's boyfriend to leave them alone, proves Penrod's undoing.Chapters 21-23: Penrod meets a local tough kid and falls victim to hero-worship of the same.Chapters 24-25: Penrod hates to be called a "Little Gentleman", and the local barber's urging other children to keep calling him that leads to an explosive and very sticky situation.Chapters 26-27: Penrod, Sam and other local boys' discussing what they want to be when they grow up leads to some interesting, not to say embarrassing, results.Chapters 28-31: It's Penrod's twelfth birthday, and the arrival of a pretty new girl from New York turns his party into an occasion no one in town may ever forget.

Alice Adams is a 1921 novel by Booth Tarkington that received the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel. It was adapted as a film in 1923 by Rowland V. Lee and more famously in 1935 by George Stevens. The narrative centers on the character of a young woman (the eponymous Alice Adams) who aspires to climb the social ladder and win the affections of a wealthy young man named Arthur Russell. The story is set in a lower-middle-class household in an unnamed town in the Midwest shortly after World War I.

MR. GEORGE TUTTLE, reclining at ease in his limousine, opened one eye just enough to perceive that daylight had reached his part of the world, then closed that eye, and murmured languidly. What he said, however, was not, “Home, Parker,” or “To the club, Eugene;” this murmur of his was not only languid but plaintive. A tear appeared upon the lower lid of the eye that had opened, for it was a weak and drowsy eye, and after hours of solid darkness the light fretted it. Moreover, the tear, as a greeting to the new day, harmonized perfectly with Mr. Tuttle’s murmur, which was so little more than a husky breathing that only an acute ear close by could have caught it: “Oh, Gosh!” Then he turned partly over, shifting his body so as to lie upon his left side among the shavings that made his limousine such a comfortable bedroom. After thousands of years of wrangling, economists still murder one another to emphasize varying ideas of what constitutes the ownership of anything; and some people (the most emphatic of all) maintain that everybody owns everything, which is obviously the same as saying that nobody owns anything, especially his own right hand. So it may be a little hasty to speak of this limousine, in which Mr. Tuttle lay finishing his night’s sleep, as belonging to him in particular; but he was certainly the only person who had the use of it, and no other person in the world believed himself to be its owner. A doubt better founded may rest upon a definition of the word “limousine;” for Mr. Tuttle’s limousine was not an automobile; it had no engine, no wheels, no steering-gear; neither had it cushions nor glass; yet Mr. Tuttle thought of it and spoke of it as his limousine, and took some pleasure in such thinking and speaking.

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Alice Adams is a 1921 novel by Booth Tarkington that received the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel. It was adapted as a film in 1923 by Rowland V. Lee and more famously in 1935 by George Stevens. The narrative centers on the character of a young woman (the eponymous Alice Adams) who aspires to climb the social ladder and win the affections of a wealthy young man named Arthur Russell. The story is set in a lower-middle-class household in an unnamed town in the Midwest shortly after World War I.The novel begins with Virgil Adams confined to bed with an unnamed illness. There is tension between Virgil and his wife over how he should go about recovering, and she pressures him not to return to work for J.A. Lamb once he is well. Alice, their daughter, attempts to keep peace in the family (with mixed results) and then walks to her friend Mildred Palmer's house to see what Mildred will wear to a dance that evening.After Alice's return, she spends the day preparing for the dance, going to pick violets for a bouquet because she cannot afford to buy flowers for herself. Her brother Walter initially refuses to accompany her to the dance, but because Alice cannot go without an escort, Mrs. Adams prevails upon Walter, and he rents a Tin Lizzie to drive Alice to the dance.Walter's attitude towards the upper class is one of obvious disdain—he would rather spend his time gambling with the African-American servants in the cloakroom than be in the ballroom at the dance. Alice forces him to dance with her at first because it will be a grave embarrassment for her to stand alone, but Walter eventually abandons her. Alice tries to give the impression that she is not standing by herself, and then dances with Frank Dowling (whose attentions she does not welcome) and Arthur Russell (a rich newcomer to town who is rumored to be engaged to Mildred), who she believes danced with her out of pity and at Mildred's request. She leaves the dance horribly embarrassed after Arthur discovers Walter's gambling with the servants.The next day, Alice goes on an errand for her father into town, passing Frincke's Business College on the way with a shudder (as she sees it as a place that drags promising young ladies down to "hideous obscurity"). On the walk back home, she encounters Arthur Russell, who shows an obvious interest in her. As she assumes he is all but spoken for, she doesn't know how to handle the conversation. She warns him not to believe the things girls like Mildred will say about her, and she tells a number of lies to obscure her family's humble economic status.Arthur returns, several days later, and his courtship of Alice continues. All seems well between them until he mentions a dance being thrown by the young Miss Henrietta Lamb; Arthur wants to escort Alice to the dance, and she lies to cover for the fact that she is not invited to the event. Mrs. Adams uses Alice's distress to finally goad Virgil into setting up a glue factory (which she has long insisted would be the family's ticket to success). It is eventually revealed that the glue recipe was developed by Virgil and another man under the direction and in the employ of J.A. Lamb, who over the years declined to take up its production despite repeated prodding from Virgil. Although initially reluctant to "steal" from Mr. Lamb, Virgil finally persuades himself that his improvements to the recipe over the years has made it his.

Booth Tarkington was an American novelist, dramatist and short story writer who attained enormous popularity during his lifetime. He was awarded with two Pulitzer Prizes (1918, 1921), a Gold Metal of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, in addition to many honorary doctorates. Today, Tarkington is most notable for his "American boy" stories, especially the Penrod books. This trilogy was extremely successful, bringing the author notoriety and financial stability, and have remained popular since their publication in the early 20th century. The first novel of the series, "Penrod", introduced audiences to twelve-year-old Penrod Schofield, a young boy who like most children, gets caught up in his own elaborate lies. The results of Penrod's imaginative fabrications are usually hilarious, and especially potent to readers for their true-to-life quality. This humorous, thoughtful story is a wonderful example of the real-life characterization and attention to detail that Tarkington is known for.

Alice Adams is a 1921 novel by Booth Tarkington that received the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel. It was adapted as a film in 1923 by Rowland V. Lee and more famously in 1935 by George Stevens. The narrative centers on the character of a young woman (the eponymous Alice Adams) who aspires to climb the social ladder and win the affections of a wealthy young man named Arthur Russell. The story is set in a lower-middle-class household in an unnamed town in the Midwest shortly after World War I.

Booth Tarkington’s 1919 novel The Magnificent Ambersons won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was the basis for the classic movie by Orson Welles, the original negative of which remains lost. The book's heart-shattering portrait of a wealthy family destroyed from within by psychological demons continues to haunt and enthrall each new generation. The novel traces the growth of the United States through the declining fortunes of three generations of the aristocratic Amberson family in an upper-scale Indianapolis neighborhood, between the end of the Civil War and the early part of the 20th century, a period of rapid industrialization and socio-economic change in America. The decline of the Ambersons is contrasted with the rising fortunes of industrial tycoons and other new-money families, who derived power not from family names but by "doing things." Young George Amberson Minafer, the patriarch’s grandson, is spoiled terribly by his mother, Isabel. Growing up arrogant, sure of his own worth and position, and totally oblivious to the lives of others, George falls in love with Lucy Morgan, a young though sensible debutante. But there is a long history between George’s mother and Lucy’s father, of which George is unaware…"The Magnificent Ambersons is perhaps Tarkington's best novel," said Van Wyck Brooks. "[It is] a typical story of an American family and town—the great family that locally ruled the roost and vanished virtually in a day as the town spread and darkened into a city. This novel no doubt was a permanent page in the social history of the United States, so admirably conceived and written was the tale of the Ambersons, their house, their fate, and the growth of the community in which they were submerged in the end."