tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49620276166090721202024-03-18T03:04:06.651+00:00Briefer than Literal StatementThis seems to be mostly a walking blog. Not sure how that happened. Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.comBlogger267125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-11223356834457429212024-02-20T13:15:00.002+00:002024-02-20T13:15:27.223+00:00BTLS has been in Warsaw<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoqrAVeYHqvLGqVn-4DyHGCtRWwuDlKAfZjVmE2GHqIAfKhK5zmeJQl5hgAp5j_-SsyaDuZhxDHPhyb4BiaAOnZe2P_IgFgVgRk8rD12G-D1DRkPmoB5gztYmii8WpGe9kZWYNCUEm1ViUf_NKfDd6McjDy_IAHA_iIttRhNcyqS4JQAQ1HsZ5bprqWi0/s4080/20240216_102418.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4080" data-original-width="2296" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoqrAVeYHqvLGqVn-4DyHGCtRWwuDlKAfZjVmE2GHqIAfKhK5zmeJQl5hgAp5j_-SsyaDuZhxDHPhyb4BiaAOnZe2P_IgFgVgRk8rD12G-D1DRkPmoB5gztYmii8WpGe9kZWYNCUEm1ViUf_NKfDd6McjDy_IAHA_iIttRhNcyqS4JQAQ1HsZ5bprqWi0/w225-h400/20240216_102418.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4080" data-original-width="2296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGcJ_KsfNFobWPQocOZOEsCXTfCtn7-wuxkrVEBT3JECflCA4_p6pyl_qPLQDjRZdyaPhYSAcAbqNp-6gy-1xcaZiDU9n1SoqHu4N7C_z_w9C1ijlz1rSXT-tlRDUihSv9Udave3Sa2Dj3ggA9levPsAE4G-OXktdXJye_Yj6PX6JU3J6FpiHUwZJ9XZI/s320/20240216_104225.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-38332947901610804032024-01-01T11:59:00.011+00:002024-01-01T22:53:45.785+00:00Happy New Year<p>It's been a mixed sort of year. A permanent job (I've been temping forever) with a better pension and more money. Some great holidays both with other people and by myself, but I also lost a cousin this year who was still in his 50s, and his stepdad had a heart attack shortly afterwards and is waiting on an operation in mid-January. We also had a health scare for one of my aunts but that was stabilised, thankfully, with medication.</p><p>I've done quite a lot of decluttering - I counted items in and out (not food or toiletries but things that must be kept and cleaned and given permanent house room) and more than twice as many things went out as in, which is good. It also encouraged me to read the books already on my shelves and let some go once read or if I knew I wouldn't get round to them. </p><p>As usual though, here is the list of books I did read:</p><p><br /></p><div style="text-align: left;">The Stoat - Lynn Brock<br />To the Holy Shrines - Sir Richard Burton<br />Agatha Christie - Lucy Wolsey<br />Sound - A Story of Hearing Lost and Found - Bella
Bathurst<br />A Surfeit of Suspects - George Bellairs<br />The Kiss - Anton Chekov<br />Techniques of Persuasion - J A C Brown<br />Appointment with Death - Agatha Christie<br />Everything is Washable (almost) - Sali Hughes<br />Lonelyheart 4122 - Colin Watson<br />Charity Ends at Home - Colin Watson<br />Still More Commonplace - Mary Stocks<br />The Flaxborough Crab - Colin Watson<br />Broomsticks over Flaxborough - Colin Watson<br />Littlejohn on Leave - George Bellairs<br />How to Run Your Home Without Help - Kay Smallshaw<br />Deadly Company - Ann Granger<br />Snobbery with Violence - Colin Watson<br />Tribes - David Lammy<br />The Aspern Papers - Henry James<br />How to Be Alone - Jonathan Franzen<br />The Naked Nuns - Colin Watson<br />Novelist(a) - Claire Askew<br />Murder in the Falling Snow - Various<br />Christmas is Murder - Val Mc Dermid</div><div style="text-align: left;">Orchids on Your Budget - Marjorie Hillis</div><div style="text-align: left;">Death at Dykes Corner - E C R Lorac<br />Blue Murder - Colin Watson<br />Plaster Sinners - Colin Watson<br />Whatever’s Going on in Mumblesby - Colin Watson<br />Music - W H Hadow<br />Reality is not what it appears - Carlo Rovelli<br />A Deadly Affair - Agatha Christie<br />Mr Bazalgette's Agent - Leonard Merrick<br />Camera Lucida - Barthes<br />The Detective's Daughter - Lesley Thomson<br />Poirot - Anne Hart<br />Hercule Poirot's Christmas - Agatha Christie<br />The Adventures of Dr Thorndyke - R Austin Freeman<br />A Kind of Vanishing - Lesley Thomson<br />Size Matters Not - Warwick Davies<br />The Big Four - Agatha Christie<br />The Pilgrims - Mary Shelley<br />Content With What I Have - C Henry Warren<br />The Empty Space - Peter Brook<br />Literature, Money and the Market - Paul Delaney<br />Death of an Author - E C R Lorac<br />Death of Jezebel - Christianna Brand<br />Checkmate to Murder - E C R Lorac<br />Cross River Traffic - Chris Roberts<br />Goodbye Things - Fumio Sasaki<br />Lions and Shadows - Christopher Isherwood<br />The Ice Age - Margaret Drabble<br />Evil Under the Sun - Agatha Christie<br />The Mystery of Three Quarters - Sophie Hannah<br />The No-Spend Year - Michelle McGagh<br />The Devil and the C I D - E C R Lorac<br />Ghost Girl - Lesley Thomson<br />The Practice of Writing - David Lodge<br />Pall for a Painter - E C R Lorac<br />Artists in Crime - Ngaio Marsh<br />Murder having Once been Done - Ruth Rendell<br /> Photo-Finish - Ngaio Marsh<br />And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie<br />Pereira Maintains - Antonio Tabucchi<br />Sparkling Cyanide - Agatha Christie<br />Rock Crystal - Adalbert Stifter<br />Glimpses of Bengal - Rabindranath Tagore<br />K is for Killer - Sue Grafton<br />The Murder on the Burrows - E C R Lorac<br />The Hopkins Manuscript - R C Sherriff<br />The Assault on Jerusalem - Steven Runciman<br />Selective Memory - Katherine Whitehorn<br />A Backward Glance - Edith Wharton<br />Nightwalking – John Lewis Stempel<br />You Should Have Left - Daniel Kehlmann<br />Do It Yourself Doom - Stephen Prickett<br />Dead Famous – Greg Jenner<br />The Art of Travel - Alain de Botton<br />Anaximander- Carlo Rovelli<br />The Unpunished Vice - Edmund White<br />Unnatural Death - Dorothy L Sayers<br />The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club - Dorothy L Sayers<br />A Sentimental Journey - Sterne<br />Great Granny Webster - Caroline Blackwood<br />Gilbert Keith Chesterton - Maisie Ward<br />The Fashion in Shrouds - Margery Allingham<br />What Katy Did Next - Susan Coolidge<br />Clover - Susan Coolidge<br />Tokyo Express - Seicho Matsumoto<br />Games Without Rules - Michael Gilbert</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">91 books read in total, as ever a lot of crime - 43 murder mysteries and three crime adjacent books, being biographies of Christie, Chesterton and Hercule Poirot. 56 fiction books overall, and 35 non fiction. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Six books in translation, which is fairly good for me, especially since I made no real effort to seek books in translation this time. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This year we also have an even split between men and women, and just one anthology containing both. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Standout books include <i>Games Without Rules </i>by Michael Gilbert. Gilbert wrote <i>Smallbone Deceased, </i>one of my favourite of the British Library Classics. <i>Games Without Rules </i>is written and set later, and is a low key but very engaging and inventive series of short spy stories - I'm sure I've read the last of these before in anthologies, but it's much more effective as the culmination of a series when you've got fond of the characters.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I also really enjoyed <i>A Backward Glance </i>by Edith Wharton and <i>Great Granny Webster </i>by Caroline Blackwood. Lorac is consistently entertaining, although some of her books are better than others, and the same might be said for Colin Watson, who I mainlined early on in the year. I also loved <i>Pereira Maintains </i>and <i>You Should Have Left. </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">Conversely<i> The Big Four </i>was every bit as terrible as I remembered (I don't normally diss books here, but given how much I love Christie, and her phenomenal success, and the fact she's not alive to be hurt, I'm making an exception), and although Nightwalking had some interesting ideas and is an attractive physical object it felt terribly padded. There's really not much original material in the book.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And that's me. I haven't made any plans for next year except to continue reading from my shelves a bit more and get the ones I likely won't read again out to the bookswap, and to hopefully read a full book in Italian - even if it's just a very short one or a child's one - by this time next year.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So here's to 2024. </div><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNoSpacing"><o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcB21mbmTstRchVQGFrfV2DA_2efUANBdSdM5yQ-rn0bUdz1mNpscljuxGmP6Az9sgW2Wq4-bQjvJC_6HbigGhsz7WDfXGhSu61J4FA4islDgYlAawE29okVnHrzK7_P2NSbbrcAefqXMnOeEpUCIJxsarHIot189hvScWL2uExYsEbL377RF_kQtff3M/s3822/20231231_165326.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3822" data-original-width="2208" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcB21mbmTstRchVQGFrfV2DA_2efUANBdSdM5yQ-rn0bUdz1mNpscljuxGmP6Az9sgW2Wq4-bQjvJC_6HbigGhsz7WDfXGhSu61J4FA4islDgYlAawE29okVnHrzK7_P2NSbbrcAefqXMnOeEpUCIJxsarHIot189hvScWL2uExYsEbL377RF_kQtff3M/w370-h640/20231231_165326.jpg" width="370" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-61787456622525077382023-12-28T11:44:00.000+00:002024-01-01T22:48:02.064+00:00BTLS has been in France<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGQK1wKLc3uAqx_N_iMLB5QWeX16ozdlY4MlCBIdKknDnQF_PDQ6HOQS-kB6_lo9W7akxQAjitXmtd0XA6Y48uav_8nCclwrGY4Z_ptkTXG82RiDzq1oGRBl5-ehtpfme7y387GVBujZvLM-hoI8EypjDAepIgHH2-onaYCnyEOQrDMlPj3WkSmEWOGY/s4080/20231214_100755.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4080" data-original-width="2296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlGQK1wKLc3uAqx_N_iMLB5QWeX16ozdlY4MlCBIdKknDnQF_PDQ6HOQS-kB6_lo9W7akxQAjitXmtd0XA6Y48uav_8nCclwrGY4Z_ptkTXG82RiDzq1oGRBl5-ehtpfme7y387GVBujZvLM-hoI8EypjDAepIgHH2-onaYCnyEOQrDMlPj3WkSmEWOGY/s320/20231214_100755.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs9wD8aYFHz5FZKkoDOEIjrNe6lLYWeJl2BPwCEgb39eQOdW7HCtw45YqpqXgv6-Y26nZ0p3ul5tyeNxCmSAdy5TETaCcrVLrNnsJvlzlGRV6uHN5Wm5X5VcPeEsTf6vn3WPi7ziI3aIr4UqME13H_AQk9rayZ6Js1zNJwaWk6tMEnKezmhxtBlY4gtBQ/s4080/20231214_101129.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; 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text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGEsFfbuIJSVzaOIDskzkuv8aFsdok7UQhWhoQF9u49aKcDYDOuatYaG9a5FCNWEr-tZzC_6wxhPQ2Qh2Ho8HxAj2YdFYpynsdsOGJaaJkzisiv5FG6rDVFa6oH2wHPcsjiJbXUWWvWLWoragJmtoP77b063_t7Lt1CEq0XgZvO4f9XzfguHFPWPjy3cU/s4080/20231216_115514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4080" data-original-width="2296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGEsFfbuIJSVzaOIDskzkuv8aFsdok7UQhWhoQF9u49aKcDYDOuatYaG9a5FCNWEr-tZzC_6wxhPQ2Qh2Ho8HxAj2YdFYpynsdsOGJaaJkzisiv5FG6rDVFa6oH2wHPcsjiJbXUWWvWLWoragJmtoP77b063_t7Lt1CEq0XgZvO4f9XzfguHFPWPjy3cU/s320/20231216_115514.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI1FgzWXlfogsKLJFaVVi2ZeMPuV4amFivP2xaPIMjnRi69mp-zWIhAAuEey2F_pQbWBJDSdhwIbPu8yS-rcHC_-qCxKoLdHq045UPbv8xZ90fi84pyBwHX0IibSp5YIzwI6Mvud9dHWGwP8yewbmSRtaiiIpxrUmD091hzz07ODml4_oM1Wmksw7jmo8/s4080/20231216_120538.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4080" data-original-width="2296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI1FgzWXlfogsKLJFaVVi2ZeMPuV4amFivP2xaPIMjnRi69mp-zWIhAAuEey2F_pQbWBJDSdhwIbPu8yS-rcHC_-qCxKoLdHq045UPbv8xZ90fi84pyBwHX0IibSp5YIzwI6Mvud9dHWGwP8yewbmSRtaiiIpxrUmD091hzz07ODml4_oM1Wmksw7jmo8/s320/20231216_120538.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKUL-ZySq2z_sMYQ-i66ejkmhr_OopiAO78mssQWoeRir3ybyzXSFx7JPGa1taiQLQh47Nn1WZwcSQdG7TB9y4yYZbWTBSabUjz3eo4jYwRdl5_W7Fd_KwcCdQQkTBfKa3SXhMvlpa7lv-UQMtPCJE4cT_XZLIplh3N6le0CaMz-RWHV7ZcWKfchVInjE/s4080/20231217_154126.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4080" data-original-width="2296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKUL-ZySq2z_sMYQ-i66ejkmhr_OopiAO78mssQWoeRir3ybyzXSFx7JPGa1taiQLQh47Nn1WZwcSQdG7TB9y4yYZbWTBSabUjz3eo4jYwRdl5_W7Fd_KwcCdQQkTBfKa3SXhMvlpa7lv-UQMtPCJE4cT_XZLIplh3N6le0CaMz-RWHV7ZcWKfchVInjE/s320/20231217_154126.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiClQnovDh_YoWdaxN0Jf_QekrzNfH4wuKpECN1Lm1Z4cz1EkAXbZ0l7cXz73OnLUpYN3_bbwLBozXU9Ai3QZ5XUGGRlXwsDhmT0bIOoVFbWhW9M-vXVF4FMnPwoIwtticq6LfQpMKzgNigNk90Au0e9_A0wpa1xMMoNwpUASnswDzc7jSLAEYu1bbW94A/s4080/20231218_115848.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4080" data-original-width="2296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiClQnovDh_YoWdaxN0Jf_QekrzNfH4wuKpECN1Lm1Z4cz1EkAXbZ0l7cXz73OnLUpYN3_bbwLBozXU9Ai3QZ5XUGGRlXwsDhmT0bIOoVFbWhW9M-vXVF4FMnPwoIwtticq6LfQpMKzgNigNk90Au0e9_A0wpa1xMMoNwpUASnswDzc7jSLAEYu1bbW94A/s320/20231218_115848.jpg" width="180" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-7234363730097020062023-10-18T20:30:00.005+01:002023-10-18T20:34:36.499+01:00Do It Yourself Doom - Stephen Prickett. For the 1962 club. <p>I'd never heard of Stephen Prickett before I got this book, but a bit of googling has turned up some information and he seems to have been well thought of in his chosen career in academia, writing many respected works about English literature and religion and romanticism. </p><p>This book however is his one, youthful, punt at fiction and in theory a murder mystery. Spike, the courier of a couple of narrow boats used for holidays on the Shropshire canal, has found a dead body in the dining room. We're told this in retrospect, because the first chapter is Spike's tangled, internal, stream of consciousness as he steers the boats through the locks, deals with someone dropping keys in the river, and wonders when the body will be found. </p><p>The problem is that this style of writing was intended by the modernists to get closer to the way people actually think and make writing less artificial, not more. It doesn't function here for a number of reasons, but mostly because our writer doesn't have the experience or ability to pull it off, and certainly not against genre and while trying to stuff as many literary quotes and allusions into his characters speech as is (un)feasibly possible. </p><p>I feel mean, because he can't have been much past 21 when he wrote the thing, and it's not a terrible first novel - but it is a first novel that should either have had a good trim and suggested rewrite by a competent editor, or been seen as a trial run for a better, tighter book, and slipped quietly in a drawer without publication. </p><p>Also, despite all the lunacy and meandering and the points where it is patently impossible that any group of people would behave as this group of people are behaving (I think Prickett might have been a fan of Edmund Crispin, but without Crispin's talent for maintaining that thin thread of plausibility or the knack of making us care about the characters), the final solution does kind of make sense, the person whose point of view we see the most of does have flashes of something like three-dimensionality, and the shifts between point of view don't jar as much as they could. </p><p>Thanks as ever to Simon of <a href="https://www.stuckinabook.com/">Stuck in a Book</a> and Karen of <a href="https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/">Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings</a> for running these clubs every six months. Do check out their blogs for posts linking to other reviews. </p><p><br /></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDoYDn4c9sskOAGYvCf_N9rCbPTrX2WZN6pa1r4CssUsF2JOFVH7eEruaW1sy188kpVL6HeI2kcCvfPaVazlZigSWZtrcTRfbpLndmtretoG27qVl2URjzQAT3q32F9YeQweAdMnY2Xim9xFrIcTptxyPKhZY1DmiWY6CRm1V2R7KhLYnYECxN5LW_1Es/s600/1962-club.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDoYDn4c9sskOAGYvCf_N9rCbPTrX2WZN6pa1r4CssUsF2JOFVH7eEruaW1sy188kpVL6HeI2kcCvfPaVazlZigSWZtrcTRfbpLndmtretoG27qVl2URjzQAT3q32F9YeQweAdMnY2Xim9xFrIcTptxyPKhZY1DmiWY6CRm1V2R7KhLYnYECxN5LW_1Es/s320/1962-club.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><p></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-41969471257809249392023-09-26T22:42:00.003+01:002023-09-26T22:43:55.357+01:00The Murder on the Burrows - E C R Lorac. <p>I should start by saying that I don't know how available this book actually is. I apologise in advance to anyone who reads this review, fancies judging for themselves (or even just seeing MacDonald's first sally) and then finds it impossible. It's not one of the books republished by the British Library, and doesn't seem to be available at any of the usual second-hand sources. In fact there is at least one retailer online urgently seeking it. If it does turn up I suspect it will be as gold-dust and priced accordingly.</p><p>It <i>is</i> available at the British Library to readers, which is how I got my grubby paws on it, but I realise that's not helpful to most people. </p><p>That said, on with the review:</p><p><i>The Murder on the Burrows </i>was Lorac's first book and as debuts go it's pretty good - it starts with two mismatched holidaymakers who've decided to go for a walk, get caught by the rain, explore a car that's parked up and find a body. Some of the phrases used by the smaller of the two (described as the 'little cockney') seem to belong to wildly different social classes, but that's a minor quibble, and as always Lorac hooks you in quickly. You want to read on. </p><p>The story itself is middling. The main thing that struck me about our sleuth, compared to the later books I've read, is that MacDonald seems posher in this one - more of the gentleman 'tec and less of the police officer, chatting up society ladies but bored by it, complete with a manservant to look after him and an Oxbridge background (the war intervened before he completed his studies, alas!). </p><p>Other characters are, as usual, interesting and varied - the famous pianist and her long suffering neighbours, the dead man himself, a communist who has spent time in Russia and taken a Russian name but was born plain old John or Bob or Fred something, the young lady who was sent down or removed from Oxford because of her relationship with him, and then married a much older man because she was unhappy at home - MacDonald's natural sympathy for people and their circumstances is already firmly established in this book. </p><p>That said there were bits around AA scouts and roads that made me glaze over. Possibly it's me - I'm the same when Wimsey starts playing cricket or if there's anything in a book around railway timetables. There was a mild snob element and of course the gender politics have changed, but nothing odd for the time. If anything more liberal than you'd expect. So I'm slightly surprised it hasn't been republished - it may not be the best, but it's perfectly good, and I think there would be a market. </p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-52233286124111188132023-09-02T10:03:00.004+01:002023-09-02T10:03:39.208+01:00Short Reviews from A Brief, Unplanned, Foray into Translated Works<p> <i>Pereira Maintains</i> – Antonio Tabucchi (tr: Patrick
Creagh)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The last summer of peace before the Second World War.
Pereira is a journalist - head of the culture section for <i>The Lisboa</i>, a
small unimportant newspaper, with a small scrappy office of his own where it
constantly smells of frying food and he suspects the housekeeper of being a
police informer. Widowed and having fallen into an unhealthy lifestyle, regretting
never having had a son of his own and the younger, fitter self of his youth, he
decides to go to a health spa for a week and takes on an assistant – a young
man who writes obituaries for him that are too infused with politics to
publish. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite rejecting all his work Pereira goes on paying and befriending him anyway, buying him dinner and keeping in touch with his
girlfriend when he’s out of town. Not quite sure why, still figuring out what
his own state of mind is, and the state of Europe too. ‘Pereira maintains’ is a
recurrent line in the book, and often it means Pereira maintains that he
doesn’t know why he did such and such a thing, but like Pereira himself it
gradually evolves from something very passive to an action in
itself. That of bearing witness. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is a book that gains something from historical
knowledge – for example Pereira’s doctor is leaving for France, but the reader
will know (as of course Tabucchi knew in the 90s when he wrote it) that France wasn’t, at that point in
time, going to prove a safe refuge. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">It also has sprinklings of details about
Italian and Portuguese literature which I rather enjoyed and may well lead down a rabbit hole of
other books. It has certainly made me want to read more Tabucchi, who himself
was Italian, and a translator of Fernando Pessoa as well as an author in his
own right.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Rock Crystal</i> – Adalbert Stifter (tr: Elizabeth Mayer
and Marianne Moore).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is a brief Christmas tale that would probably be
unpleasantly sentimental if it weren’t for the glorious descriptions of the
mountain itself. There’s a real sense of place – a place not untouched by the
outside world (artists and mountain climbers are frequent enough visitors, and
the local shoemaker’s excellent mountain climbing shoes are a local export) but
with it’s own identity and a local unity that can make someone even from the
next town a foreigner. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Interesting sidelight – Christmas presents in Germany were
supposedly brought by the Christ-child, not St Nicholas. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Glimpses of Bengal – </i>Rabindranath Tagore (tr: Krishna
Dutta and Andrew Robinson). </p><p class="MsoNormal">This really was just a glimpse of glimpses, both of Bangladesh
and Tagore himself as a young man, in letters written mostly to his niece. The
letters themselves are not complete – there’s a focus on philosophy and the
natural world, a smattering of agreeable humour, but little personal detail,
and no sense of a day to day progression or who they were written to. I’d like
to read the longer book and fill in the gaps. <o:p></o:p></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-29006383104755484802023-08-20T11:34:00.003+01:002023-08-20T11:36:15.832+01:00In the Bookswap Bag<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Literature, Money and the Market</i> – Paul Delaney (from
Trollope to Amis)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I feel like I’ve gleaned random facts from this book but not
much else. For example it led me on to two other books – <i>The Ice Age</i> by
Margaret Drabble, and <i>The Information</i> by Martin Amis, which last is
mentioned both because it is about writing, but also because of the size of the massive
advance Amis got, which I do dimly remember there being a bit of a ‘the end is
nigh’ flutter about at the time, even in the national (non-bookish) press, although I couldn’t have told you the name of
the book and would have assumed it was <i>London Fields</i>. It’s amusing to me that his real big hitters were not the ones he got
the most money for. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That incident is also mentioned by David Lodge in the last read book
on this pile. Lodge’s take is that you can’t really blame Amis for taking the
money. He also describes Amis (this is in the 90s) as being ‘famous for not
winning the Booker’ which sent me off to Wikipedia to check – and astonishingly (and I say this even though he’s not really my cup of tea and
I’ve only read 2 of his books) Amis never did. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’ll let you know what I think of <i>The Information. </i>I'm cat sitting at my Dad's this week, so will take this one along. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>The Ice Age</i> – Margaret Drabble <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is the other book mentioned in the Delaney above. Written in the mid 70s, the height of the energy crisis, with the property market having collapsed and inflation running at 25%. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Anthony Keating (described on the back of my 1979 copy and
in several places in the text as ‘middle-aged’ despite being in his 30s) has
recently had a heart attack. And well he might do, frankly, even at that age. A
business associate is in jail for fraud, the country property he bought for a
fortune is worth a fraction of the price he paid for it, the London house can’t
be offloaded and has squatters in it, and the riverside location he and his
friends bought for development is a white elephant. Oh and a friend has
recently died in an IRA bombing and his step daughter been arrested behind
the iron curtain for a traffic offence. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This book is almost entirely backstory – how did Anthony,
his ex-wife, his friend in jail, and everyone else in these pages get where they are now when
the 60s looked so bright? <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It manages to avoid being a misery though, through humour
and an awareness that at least part of the reason it’s hurting so much right
now is how spoilt everyone has been up to this point. Drabble has a knack of
making the reader empathise with people they might not really agree with, and
this is of course a fabulous snapshot of a point in time.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>Death of Jezebel</i> – Christianna Brand<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Checkmate to Murder</i> – E C R Lorac</p><p class="MsoNormal">Both the above are covered in my post here: <a href="https://brieferthanliteralstatement.blogspot.com/2023/07/brand-and-lorac.html">Briefer than Literal Statement: Brand and Lorac</a>. I was in two minds about whether to let <i>Checkmate to Murder </i>go, but I'm determined to get the double shelving down and there are so many books out there. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Death of an Author</i> – E C R Lorac<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This book is reviewed extensively and well on a number
of blogs I follow and read. You don’t need my take. Very entertaining, but I won’t read
it again. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>A Natural Curiosity</i> – Margaret Drabble<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I started this after <i>The Ice Age</i> but its not working for me. It was under £1 in a charity shop, so I’m not going to fret about it.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>The Practice of Writing</i> – David Lodge<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is a book of essays and reviews over a period rather than a consistent book about writing or a book about
how to write. I do find Lodge a tad academic at times (unsurprising since he was a lecturer in Birmingham) but his awareness of it is very disarming. He also sends this
up beautifully in his campus novels. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This was most interesting when he was writing about adapting his own novel for tv, and
adapting Martin Chuzzlewit, or casting and tweaking and finding a
place for his play. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>The Empty Space</i> – Peter Brook<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is about the theatre and different theories, or perhaps it would be true to say different kinds of theatre. It’s a nice length for this sort of book – short
enough that the lay person doesn’t get bogged down. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Content With What I Have</i> – C Henry Warren<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">This was a rather charming book of vignettes of rural life in the 60s and concerns about what was being lost. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Strange Journey</i> – Maid Cairnes <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another from the British Library, this time their Women Writers series. Arguably this book is a fantasy book, given the bodyswap element, but there was also humour and middlebrow is probably as good a
genre to file it under as anything. </p><p class="MsoNormal">I enjoyed
it but couldn’t read books like this the time, any more than I could Amis’ oeuvre or constant spy novels (although I’ve read and enjoyed Amis and Buchan occasionally). I do wonder, if I hadn't gone in expecting it to be the kind of book it was, with the nice cover and the genre it's placed in, whether there might have been more tension to it. As it is there's more comedy of manners than any fear something more sinister is going on. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i>Lions and Shadows </i>– Christopher Isherwood<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Isherwood advises the reader to read this as fiction, which
I did my best to do, even though the central character is called Christopher, and has a life not a million miles from the author, starting with his school career, then sabotaging his university years, then trying to write a book while also trying to find something to do for a living. Overshadowed by something he describes as 'the Test' - the expectation boys of his generation had that they'd be growing up into a war, which then ends before they get there, leaving them with a feeling of displacement. </p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-88871878625299732372023-08-18T22:09:00.001+01:002023-08-18T22:09:21.595+01:00A Pall for a Painter - E C R Lorac<p> <i>A Pall for a Painter</i> (published 1936) begins with
Richard Carling returning to his old art college 12 years after his father died
and he had to drop out and go back to Australia to look after the ranch and
support his mother and sister.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Nostalgic for the life he could have had – the smell of turpentine
and modelling classes, the quiet of the quad and welcome of old friends – and sensitive
to the atmosphere, it doesn’t take him long to detect an uncomfortable
undercurrent to the old place. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Is it because it’s an anachronism, no longer relevant in the
modern age, and its Masters frustrated by the fact? Is it the squabbling over
the young and lovely Antoinette (who is being stalked by the model, amongst
other things) or is it that Manette, that stately and impressive old man in
charge, son of the founder, has gone distinctly odd?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Before he can figure all this out - or even sort his own feelings for Antoinette out - a plaster cast of the Venus de Milo topples over on
someone’s head and the police are not satisfied that it is the accident it
first appears… <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Favourite line: “We shall find ourselves up against the
dense stupidity of men who are besotted with the ‘Keep her name out of it’
complex.” <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Favourite passing character: the carpenter chap who arrives
to rebuild the plinth, is one of the people to find the body, and tells them
the police won’t thank them for interfering with it.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Despite a slight disappointment over part of the solution (more
me than Lorac, I suspect), this one really worked for me. I wouldn’t be
surprised to see <i>A Pall for a Painter</i> in print again in the near future.
<o:p></o:p></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-83405071983325326172023-08-09T22:17:00.007+01:002023-11-18T21:36:48.620+00:00The Devil and the C I D - E C R Lorac<p> Another E C R Lorac – and this is the point at which it
occurs to me that I’m very likely going to end up reading all her books and it
would have been neater, for the purpose of this blog, to begin at book one.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">That said, a writer’s first book
is rarely their best, and I might not have been tempted to carry on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The other problem is that I hadn’t even heard of Lorac
before I picked up <i>Fire in the Thatch, </i>and later <i>Murder by Matchlight </i>and <i>Bats in the Belfry, </i>all republished in the British Library Crime Classics series. This of course is the point
of the BLCCs, and the strand is so successful and vast by now that there must surely
be something to suit everyone’s taste, provided they have any taste for crime
at all. The trick is finding it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In my case that has mostly been George Bellairs and E C R
Lorac – so far. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Hence my seeking out the not yet published. I read <i>The Devil
and the C I D</i> over two sittings in one of the British Library Reading Rooms (Humanities 2), ordered alongside <i>Detective Stories from the Strand</i>, which
I haven’t finished yet but mean to blog about here when I do. The intro alone
is fascinating. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But I digress. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>The Devil and the C I D</i> is one of the Macdonald books,
and begins with our hero crawling along the embankment in a fog on Armistice Night in the late 30s. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My first surprise was that unlike Remembrance Day, which I would have assumed it resembled greatly, Armistice Night – twenty years or
thereabouts after the end of what was then known as the Great War – was
apparently the excuse for a big party. Macdonald is not only contending with
the fog and the rest of the traffic but crowds of revellers in fancy dress and a young
woman who has lost her sense of direction completely and had her bag snatched. </p><p class="MsoNormal">I really enjoy these unselfconscious bits of local colour. You get a
great sense of how driving a car in those days did not mean being closed in a
box away from pedestrians like it would now, and the disorientation where you can’t even see the
edge of the kerb. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Eventually of course Macdonald gets to Scotland Yard and parks up with
a sigh of relief. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Only to find next morning that during the few
minutes he was out of the car assisting the young lady (delivered safely back
to her aunt and never mentioned again) someone left a dead body in it, and he has unwittingly driven it all the way to the Yard to be locked in overnight. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sheer cheek on the behalf of the murderer? Or did they get the wrong car in the fog?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m going to get the obvious out of the way – characters and
on occasion author use ‘the language of the time’ repeatedly. The book is an uneasy hodgepodge of conscious rejection of prejudice <i>and</i> repeated stereotyping along the lines of race. The Italian is hysterical. Our half-Chinese heroine Charley is inevitably described as inscrutable (code for not fainting about the place like the British one, I suppose) and it would take too long to enumerate all the rest. But there are also sensible and surprising discussions about the police between Charley and an ex-suffragette, and a nice awareness from Macdonald that he needs to guard against assuming Catholics are less reliable. </p>
But I'm meant to be talking about the mystery, and unfortunately I can’t do that without spoilers so PLEASE
NOTE SPOILERS BELOW. <div><br /></div><div>Although not for the murderer. I’m not a monster.<div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-size: medium;">SPOILERS </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><br /></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">My first and major beef with this book is that I dislike MacGuffins. I particularly
dislike ones that turn up within a few chapters of the end and in the form of a diamond that our hysterical Italian ex opera singer once gave to
a lady and now wants to buy back because he believes it confers immortality (instead she has given it to our corpse - pre-corpsehood, obviously - to fund
Franco’s war in Spain). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I also didn’t believe in the bit of paper stuck to another car in that fog,
which was supposedly there to throw suspicion on the retired opera singer (because the corpse was meant to be left in his car and the killer realised his
mistake). </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Firstly, unless the killer is <i>incredibly</i> stupid he
would surely realise that’s not at all the same as leaving the dead body in the
car, and would only make the police think someone (i.e. the real murderer) wanted to direct their
attention that way. Otherwise, who is supposed to have left it? The owner of
the car? The chauffeur? the dead man? </p><p class="MsoNormal">On top of that, why is the note written in such an
oblique way – a bit of Milton and a bar or two of Faust? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And lastly, given the fog, where was our
killer that he managed to first put the body in the wrong car, then realise, write
this note and pin it to the right car afterwards? Would he not have faded out the moment he knew his murder was successful?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">So in summary – local colour good, characters an intriguing mix of
four and one dimensional, quite a lot of humour - but mystery a no go. <o:p></o:p></p>
<br />
<p class="MsoNormal">SPOILERS END<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I do still want to read more Lorac though, so in the spirit of still reading out of order the next one I intend to tackle is <i>A Pall for a Painter, </i>which comes before this one and was also published two years before Marsh’s <i>Artists in
Crime</i>, with which I suspect there will be comparisons. <br /><o:p></o:p></p></div></div>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-43561853167548600692023-07-20T20:27:00.001+01:002023-07-20T20:27:49.894+01:00Brand and Lorac<p> <b>Death of Jezebel – Christianna Brand</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I really, really enjoyed the background to this book – the ridiculous pageant that is being set up, part of a big
exhibition (it sounds something like the ldeal Home Show crossed with a Country Fair) and Brand being very
amusing about the daft kitchen gadgets for sale and the out of work actors who have
never ridden a horse but are only too pleased to take the work anyway, all with a second, underlying aspect - that all this pomp and nonsense is largely driven by the desire to get back to
normal after the Second World War. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Similarly there are the semi-humorous love affairs and entanglements, and behind that the memory of a young man who came from the then British Colony of Malaya to fight in the early days of the war, and committed suicide after he found his fiancée drunk and snuggled up with another man. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Three people had a role in the disillusionment and suicide, but up until now the young man's friends and family have been stranded during
the Japanese occupation, and even if they wanted revenge they couldn't have acted. Now, the war over, there are a number of people involved in the pageant from Malaya. People who have lost not only
years of their lives and any sense of security, but at least a measure of their
sanity too. The death threats start coming in. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Unfortunately I started to find the behaviour of both suspects and potential victims quite hard to take - we have multiple confessions at one point, and at least one person who has received a death threat going for a walk very late at
night because she can’t sleep, and a locked room mystery that.. was fine, as
they go (I’m lukewarm on locked room mysteries). </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">On the other hand (again) I also really enjoyed the relationship
between Inspectors Cockrill and Charlesworth. Cockrill is down from Kent for a
conference, Charlesworth is the London man. The antagonism was nicely pitched –
present but not so that they let it get in the way of working together. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b>Checkmate to Murder – E C R Lorac <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This by contrast is written while the war is going on. The
period detail is, again, really enjoyable. I often feel you get more info from
these sprinklings through the fiction of the time than you do from the history books, which repeat a lot of already known information around evacuation or gasmasks or
rationing but leave out the niceties
around accepting a cup of rare lapsang souchong or the actual logistics of digging a
trench on London clay or the attitudes there might be to someone who left
London because they were scared, and then got bombed in their ‘safe’ country
cottage. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The set up is also good. Five people are having a pleasant,
if low key, evening – a casserole cooked in the small kitchen/bathroom attached
to the run-down studio which is all the Manatons can get. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Bruce and Rosanne
are brother and sister, both artists - and with a war on artists are not exactly in
clover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still there is beer, and food, and they’ve got
the place reasonably warm and blacked out well enough that they won’t be fined
£5. They’ve got friends - Rosanne is in the kitchen when the woman who cleans
next door pops in with some herring she managed to get for them, and the guests
brought the beer as well as some rations for the pot. Her brother is taking a
sketch for a painting, one of those guests is posing for him, and the two others
playing chess. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The evening is interrupted by a special constable who has
just found the old man next door murdered, and a Canadian soldier, supposedly
his nephew or great nephew, standing over the body. The special doesn’t exactly get off
on the right foot with the group in the studio – even the respectable middle
aged chess playing civil servant – but they undertake to watch the young man
while the special goes off to call for back up. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Enter MacDonald, Lorac’s series sleuth, who, like the group
in the studio, starts to smell a rat... </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-57250401776757472842023-06-11T11:21:00.004+01:002023-06-11T11:29:42.541+01:00Some 'Female Detectives' <p>In quotes at the top there because the preface or Editor's Note or whatever it is of <i>Mr Bazalgette's Agent </i>by Leonard Merrick provides a very short history and speculation about who got the first Female/Lady/Woman Detective into print, and into a full length book. It seems it depends how you define detective and anyway Leonard Merrick may have been just pipped to the post by an American. </p><p>Miriam Lea, our heroine, is not a detective when the book begins. She is twenty eight, and has been a governess and an actress. She is very funny (the book is in the form of a diary) about how she found she was unsuitable for these posts, and manages to be quite stoic about the fact that she has failed to find anything else and soon won't even be able to live in her currently uncongenial surroundings. Then, with much soul searching, since the occupation is even less respectable than acting, she applies for a job at a detective agency. And gets it!</p><p>Everything then becomes extraordinarily easy. The man she is pursuing is likely staying in the best hotels, so must she as well, and with the right sort of clothes to carry conviction. Expenses are provided for transport to search in the cities of Europe, a maid/assistant sent along (partly to keep an eye on her, I suspect) and good wages beside. </p><p>The job is very simple -get close to this man and find one of the bonds he stole so they can prove he's the thief.</p><p>It's not a book to take too seriously. I had to suspend my disbelief about her keeping a diary while living in the same hotel as the man she's pursuing, and about the resources (money and time) that her employers allow her, and ended up with the conviction that Miss Miriam Lea is absolutely not detective material (I think she'd agree with me there) but keeping company with her a while was rather fun. </p><p><br /></p><p>The other book I've recently read is <i>The Detective's Daughter </i>by Lesley Thomson. Stella Darnell is also not a detective when the book begins, but a successful young(ish) woman who owns a cleaning company. </p><p>Then her father, Terry, who was an equally successful police officer but who she's drifted apart a bit from, dies of a heart attack while pursuing a cold case that happened not far from where he lived in Hammersmith. </p><p>It's not easy to see where Stella's coming from at first. She tells herself she doesn't care and remembers the bad times (all the times her dad let her down because the job came first, the negative things her mother said about him when they split up), but she starts to pick up the case her Dad left, and the reader (this reader anyway) eventually started wondering if they were really not at all close or if that's what she told herself. If the anger is because he died rather than what he was like in life. </p><p>There is a detached quality to Stella, an 'I don't want to be involved', even while pursuing the case. She isn't totally upfront with the police, splits up with her ex by text and then finds it backfires. I found myself wondering again if it was grief or she was naturally a bit of a berk on occasion. </p><p>This is the first book in the series and although it jumps around more than I'd like - we also see the killer, and the son of the first victim, and jump back into Terry's earlier thoughts a few times - and is quite long, I found the characters interesting enough I didn't mind seeing them amble about cleaning stuff and sorting through papers and dealing with their won't-take-a-hint ex's. It made me want to read the next one, which is always good. </p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-74702085102976802422023-05-29T10:30:00.000+01:002023-05-29T10:30:24.706+01:00BTLS has been in Holland<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijO2HMl5xTs-VQtqEFYDdHIxhpqvYKhOXNXpnw8MQtqM8nQImYpWfOUE718sKYWCjlXgriiaTiW73i3zTcC0K0wbIExsrrszPoywjr5NlByLw2t82WU331D38RvFTLEYJbzEbkWjipLBoqGu_XfsmPvjuhf1Tc9yN-DKDYGdiz3RfV2KVtklztm-Lh/s4080/20230524_113701.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4080" data-original-width="2296" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijO2HMl5xTs-VQtqEFYDdHIxhpqvYKhOXNXpnw8MQtqM8nQImYpWfOUE718sKYWCjlXgriiaTiW73i3zTcC0K0wbIExsrrszPoywjr5NlByLw2t82WU331D38RvFTLEYJbzEbkWjipLBoqGu_XfsmPvjuhf1Tc9yN-DKDYGdiz3RfV2KVtklztm-Lh/w225-h400/20230524_113701.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><br />Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-59158394806096911882023-04-15T21:27:00.006+01:002023-04-15T21:40:36.994+01:00Death at Dyke's Corner - E C R Lorac (for the 1940 club)<p>E C R Lorac is having a moment in the sun at the moment. Quite a few of her books have been republished recently as part of the British Library Crime Classics, and one published by them for the first time (Two-Way Murder). </p><p>Death at Dyke's Corner isn't one of those, I read the library's copy in Humanities 2 Reading Room in St Pancras in one sitting this morning (with a break for coffee and cake), and enjoyed it. It's an excellent book for a binge read - the set up for the murder was quite ingenious, the scene setting with the pouring rain and dangerous road very well done, and I've met Lorac's series detective MacDonald in previous books and found him unflashy but agreeable. The cast of supporting characters were also mostly good, even though the occasional aside of this sort (about Braid, the chauffeur): 'Like most Irishmen he thrived on controversy' or (about MacDonald himself): 'His rather comminatory - and extremely Scottish - train of thought.' felt not only very much of it's time but also completely superfluous, because Lorac successfully builds these characters by their dialogue and the things they notice, and doesn't need to reinforce them by telling us what we should think. </p><p>Plot-wise the murder victim, Conyers, is a successful builder of department stores, moving into towns and buying up or undercutting the small local traders until he comes out on top, and there's a rather interesting discussion between one young lady and her father (the local squire type person) where 'Daddy' is all for the old ways, and she is pointing out the lack of hygiene in the old shops, and how some of them mercilessly bully and underpay their staff, or refuse to heat the place even in miserable weather, or sell you what they think you ought to want, and not what you do. It seems Mr Conyers' business practices were not solely a force for evil.</p><p>But his business practices were not the only possible reason for someone to kill Conyers. He was an adulterer with an eye for girls more his son's age than his own, and a bully at home. Anyone's murder, MacDonald says, and he's right. Much of the book is him clearing away the dead wood, talking to people, being his sensible and almost too considerate self. </p><p>Until, that is, the last few chapters. </p><p>Firstly, because of the treatment of some gypsies who are clearing out because they found something. MacDonald allows White, the gamekeeper, to explicitly threaten the man with a shotgun and enter their caravan uninvited and without sufficient reason and frighten his wife. The language used makes it clear what the gamekeeper thinks of gypsies, but it's MacDonald's complacency about it that grated. It felt out of character, especially contrasted to how reasonable and gentle he is with everyone else (including actual suspects). </p><p>He then, a bit later, does another out of character thing by breaking into a dark house by himself rather than getting help or waiting the murderer out, which I can only think was put in to up the excitement, because even with the explanation that his colleagues are busy it's madly reckless, the kind of thing a completely different detective would do. It reminded me of those Poirot episodes that end in a chase around an airport or someone waving a gun about even though that was never in the original book. </p><p>That said, the solution is clever, and when all was explained in the last chapter there were definite moments where I realised I should have spotted what he spotted. </p><p>Incidentally gas masks and ARPs are mentioned on page 121 and there's a similar reference towards the end, but there's otherwise little or no reference to wider contemporary events in the book. </p><p>As always thanks to <a href="https://www.stuckinabook.com/">Simon</a> and <a href="https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/">Karen</a> for running the club. You can find lots more reviews of other 1940 books, and previous years they've done, on their blogs. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZ6evRsokKfXbXluarAHxz0pWs1aV0A6LGiJ5vdm9nZpCT-3DSUNJvBOiEC1youqWbVZD1afk71jptZUu8gqKtgdYmhgO92qidgXEzcmutuoL5DUMHEfUcAT2pRjkMudJhtgarWKsozsrCsXGR2rtxvxMg2y47cN2P_MaY_2Nx5jjPt_Snhz9biI-L" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="365" data-original-width="365" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhZ6evRsokKfXbXluarAHxz0pWs1aV0A6LGiJ5vdm9nZpCT-3DSUNJvBOiEC1youqWbVZD1afk71jptZUu8gqKtgdYmhgO92qidgXEzcmutuoL5DUMHEfUcAT2pRjkMudJhtgarWKsozsrCsXGR2rtxvxMg2y47cN2P_MaY_2Nx5jjPt_Snhz9biI-L" width="240" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-37911864721068849882023-04-10T10:48:00.001+01:002023-04-10T10:48:22.055+01:00Some Short Unseasonal Crime Reviews<p><i>Christmas is Murder</i> - Val McDermid</p><p>This book of Val McDermid's short stories is a bit of a mix. I had ones I really enjoyed - especially the first,<i> </i>with her series detectives, and <i>The Devil's Share. </i>Others crossed the subtle line between chilling enough and a bit too grim for my taste, so although it's made me want to read more, I'm not committing myself too far yet and have only got one McDermid queued up. </p><p>That said the only one I really struggled with was the Sherlock Holmes one, and that was mostly because<i> </i>Watson informs us early on that he has not only married Mrs Hudson but continued to call her that because he's got used to it, and I just couldn't believe in the narrator as Watson from that point. </p><p><br /></p><p><i>Murder in the Falling Snow - </i>Various</p><p>This one is a compendium of short stories by different authors - you can probably guess some of them if you know anything about classic crime at all. They're much more the puzzle type of mystery you'd read for entertainment - blood and trauma almost entirely off the page, and you don't find yourself (as you do with some of the McDermid's) sometimes sympathising with the murderer. The lightness suited me - I picked it up on a trip to my brother's with the full intention of putting it in the bookswap when I'd finished, which I will do this week - but it did feel lightweight. </p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-62322366316879847252023-03-04T13:27:00.010+00:002023-03-04T13:47:07.590+00:00Flaxborough Flair<p>Colin Watson is one of those writers - Jane Austen is another, and so is Agatha Christie - that you <i>could </i>read even if their sense of humour didn't resonate with your own, but you'd lose a good deal of the joy of the books. </p><p>You could also read just one of his stories - and for a long time that was all I had done (as ever, shout out to Kensington Central Library, for <i>Coffin Scarcely Used, </i>in a paperback dating probably from the time before the last that Watson was published).</p><p>Then I found three more, in a second hand bookshop in Paignton when I was on holiday last year, recovering from Covid and short of reading material, and discovered that reading in order, one after the other, allowed me to get a real feel for the recurring characters - the police and journalists and population of the fictional town of Flaxborough, and the character of the town itself and how it changes - just a bit at first, in those books. </p><p>By later books - which I read mostly as ebooks on my phone - we are in the world of TV ads and washing powder promotions, although Flaxborough, in its phlegmatic way, carries on carrying on without too much reference to these outside world distractions. </p><p>There is, however, all sorts of naughtiness going on behind respectable front doors within the town itself, and it's the imperturbability of Inspector Purbright and baby-faced Sergeant Love, and in later books, the slightly Machiavellian Miss Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime (arriving in Flaxborough from London and deciding she has found her spiritual home) that had me downloading and reading book after book. </p><p>That said I am a good way through <i>The Naked Nuns</i> and getting a little impatient for an actual crime. I like to think I'm not a bloodthirsty reader, but at some stage surely someone gets done in? There's any number of candidates. </p><p>Colin Watson has been described as bawdy, and although often it's the way he tells it that's really funny, or his observations of snobbery and oneupmanship, there is definite bawdiness here. Very occasionally the gender politics even tip over into 'should this be a subject for humour' - although in his defence Watson hasn't (in the eight books I've read so far) ever made the mistake of suggesting women should just expect this kind of thing, and it's their own fault if they don't. That may sound a low bar, but I've been surprised how many writers of both sexes and many different eras don't manage it. </p><p>It's also quite difficult to suggest naughty old men or dirty minded old ladies should <i>not</i> be a subject for humour if you go into a book thinking murder <i>is</i>. Still if you're the sort of person who wants a good clean puzzle, or finds that kind of humour a distraction, this probably isn't for you. For anyone else I'd say give it a go, Watson is drily funny as well, and his recurring characters likeable and consistent. </p><p>In contrast to his writing style, as a person Colin Watson seems to have been quiet and unremarkable. According to <i>The Story of Classic Crime in 100 Books </i>by Martin Edwards, Watson coined the term <i>Mayhem Parva</i> for the kind of villages that mysteries happen in, and successfully sued <i>Private Eye </i>for their description of one of his books. In <i>The Golden Age of Murder, </i>also by Martin Edwards, the fact Watson invented that <i>Mayhem Parva </i>term is mentioned again in passing in reference to Agatha Christie. If there's any other mention of Watson in the book I don't remember it and it's not in the index. </p><p>Online sources state he was educated in Croydon and provide a brief history of his working life as a journalist. His Wikipedia photo is of a slim rather gentle looking man in glasses that look too big for his face. And that folks, is all I can tell you. </p><p>Except that <i>Snobbery With Violence, </i>Watson's book about books (mostly about crime fiction but also taking in subscription libraries, elitism, and various other concepts) seems to be out of print but was easy enough to get hold of. I read it in hardback. Slightly disappointed because it doesn't have the wit and flair of his fiction (although there are still some nice turns of phrase), I don't think I really did it justice. It's a perfectly good potted history of the genre, but as I've read others, and more up to date ones, it's not a book I'll hold on to. </p><p>Instead I'll be finishing the Flaxborough Chronicles, and perhaps trying to find out more about Colin Watson outside his writing. If I do find anything I'll report back. </p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-72953790475131100602023-02-15T19:15:00.004+00:002023-02-15T19:20:35.707+00:00Deadly Company - Ann Granger<p>I can’t remember if I’ve ever blogged about Ann Granger's Mitchell and Markby books
before. In the first one – still my favourite really, although I’ve not reread
it in at least 15 years, and suspect I may find it weaker now than I did –
Meredith Mitchell, foreign office consul, comes back to England for a visit to
her cousin (I think it’s a cousin) former film star Eve (still famous and
glam but not quite as famous as she was) whose daughter is getting married to
the wrong man, and with whose husband Meredith had an affair years before,
justifying it to herself because Eve treated him very badly, and still
wondering if he would ever have left his wife for her as he promised to.</p><p>Sadly death intervened before that was meant to happen, and all these years later, Meredith still hasn't found closure. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Alan Markby is brought into the matter when a neighbour is killed,
shortly after several very unpleasant ‘gifts’ are left for the bride to be, and
between them they unravel the case, both attracted to the other in an
incredibly low key ‘is this really happening to me?’ way. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Meredith is actually quite an irritating person, but that's part of what makes her interesting. Her
internal ambivalence about Markby, her tendency to judge women more harshly
than men - especially in the first book, where there is definitely some baggage
and some denial about how young she was when she became a shoulder for her
cousin’s husband to cry on (not underage but in my opinion definitely young
enough she really shouldn’t have been dragged into their marital troubles) - her trying to figure out why
she’s spent so much time living a kind of nomadic existence. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Once she'd mellowed a bit in later books I found
my attention wandering, and got the impression that every book ended with
her being rescued from peril because she couldn't keep her nose out of things best left alone (I may be
exaggerating slightly here, it was just an impression). <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Another slight frustration is that so much of the action seems to
happen off the page – in 12 books I don’t think we’ve ever seen Markby and Meredith
kiss, and while I’m not a huge fan of gratuitous bleakness and pathology, there
is a certain skimming over unpleasant details as well. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Granger has also written three other series – I liked Fran
Varady, couldn’t really get engaged with her Victorian sleuths, felt Campbell
and Carter were just Mitchell and Markby mk 2 – but I enjoyed this return to the Cotswolds version of Mayhem Parva more than I expected to. The plotting seemed tighter, and the
rationale for the murders horribly, pointlessly, believable. Maybe taking a break from them has breathed fresh life into the characters. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Or maybe I’ve been
missing them. After all, I have read every one – there must be something that
keeps me coming back. <o:p></o:p></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-20414534042412443112023-02-12T15:31:00.004+00:002023-02-12T15:31:43.593+00:00Disembowelling Notebooks<p>I have a lot of notebooks. Many, but nowhere near all, are Moleskines.
Some bought by myself, often when I'm out and about and want to write or draw and
realise I have nothing with me to do it (it also follows that I have a lot of
pens and pencils, despite 2 lots posted out to Pens4Kids in the last year). Others, especially the more decorative ones, are presents.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGGEpgkT5lQda_FPsp6sGCTijhLJMYmefnCBghpJTB8d9wNPvUwvsEIz1h24QklN_rGJCe6L3Apz6fScY30AidlGf5v8aVst2OtJEU81AIzz2LzfyMH3yLTRCguxsd2H2SNMdB3SwZmcKz0cWfwabx2sFm5dmIxYIN6M9_h2Ybs3qMcAgBT0niusg4/s2989/original_f7ff9008-ec11-4bee-8d64-059c099a8a95_20230212_143300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1992" data-original-width="2989" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGGEpgkT5lQda_FPsp6sGCTijhLJMYmefnCBghpJTB8d9wNPvUwvsEIz1h24QklN_rGJCe6L3Apz6fScY30AidlGf5v8aVst2OtJEU81AIzz2LzfyMH3yLTRCguxsd2H2SNMdB3SwZmcKz0cWfwabx2sFm5dmIxYIN6M9_h2Ybs3qMcAgBT0niusg4/w400-h266/original_f7ff9008-ec11-4bee-8d64-059c099a8a95_20230212_143300.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I do love a new notebook – the empty pages full of promise.
New pens and pencils too - there's still a vestige of the irrational feeling Catherine Storr mentions in Marianne
Dreams (one of the most truly scary children’s books I read, and later made into
an even scarier film), that if I can find the right pencil I will magically be
able to draw better. Like most things though the trick to good drawing is practice. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Moleskines are not particularly good for decent drawing. The
paper is thin and they don’t naturally lie flat. However they make up for a lot by
attractive colours and tie ins (Minions, Alice in Wonderland, The Beatles) and
the fact you can hold them open in one hand and draw with the other. They’re
also ubiquitous. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Some of the ones bought for me as presents are so nice that
I almost feel I should keep them for a special project. But only Almost,
because I know from experience that way they will never be used. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then there are what I would loosely describe as the A4
grouping. These have mostly come in through work clear outs. A4 pads and
folders used to be a vital part of office furniture - the way information was
recorded, moved, filed - along with a whole ecosystem of hole punches and
dividers and manilla envelopes, hanging file cabinets and alphabetisation. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Now, with the rise of the computer, all this has gone and offices have had major refurbishments, taking out shelving and in trays and desk drawers and with them copious amounts of stationery there was simply
no space for. In the last two refurbs I've experienced staff were encouraged to take this stuff, or bin it. <o:p></o:p></p>
Hence:<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnxol6sDuz_4-9q9dkPUbqT1OyLP_KGqXvfkYPVDEi1dDzvUYJdtBaQCfR-AEVbGE3DkPpbMTxA79xAI6HoctU7J6tFdRt2yjdwfh0TKnR01S6xKAFuao3-8uXIZKgDjrBmCfNRuxeJ730A-DXysxx4v6s1fp6RdPRPhO37lcUFttJrNWJOBB1r2yp/s2317/original_e590e7b3-8126-4e04-af69-037d79bc10c9_20230212_145143.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2317" data-original-width="2296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnxol6sDuz_4-9q9dkPUbqT1OyLP_KGqXvfkYPVDEi1dDzvUYJdtBaQCfR-AEVbGE3DkPpbMTxA79xAI6HoctU7J6tFdRt2yjdwfh0TKnR01S6xKAFuao3-8uXIZKgDjrBmCfNRuxeJ730A-DXysxx4v6s1fp6RdPRPhO37lcUFttJrNWJOBB1r2yp/s320/original_e590e7b3-8126-4e04-af69-037d79bc10c9_20230212_145143.jpg" width="317" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>
<p class="MsoNormal">I really like these blue notebooks - they were ideal for work. They’re a little bit Back to School, but not too much (and the best bit of school was new stationery anyway), and you
can personalise them by doodling on the cover so you know which is yours. The difficulty in using them up at home is that they’re really too floppy without a desk or table to lean on, and most
of my writing at work – even the note-taking while discussions are happening –
is done on computer now (the covid lockdowns accelerated this as meetings are so
often remote, but it was going that way anyway).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What is good about the A4 group is it is impossible to feel
precious about using them or eviscerating them, tearing out pages I’ve typed
up, cutting out drawings I think are quite good and discarding the rest in the
recycling bin. Despite the lack of portability they will eventually be worked through. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Then there’s tiny and twee. In theory these ought to be used up
quickly as there's so little space to write – just enough for shopping lists, quotes,
or book titles for things I probably won’t write. However it's precisely because they are so small that I tend to pass them over for something pocket
sized like a Moleskine, which will also fit in my handbag, and has room for anything extra I want to
write down. <o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ7pI9Fz6ZcmUsvfsURs76uU7k_6xsT2suq-vxii6jDbGtlCyDXbCFGXVKNDwviEoFVwAXZgM8_JGYZn2WsXt5df_X84NZlfwoS3Zzu8rGgi97NVI2sgAbqy9cWjGgHzd3HVhp02VgYZTqe9alZ_Ll2iuJkkWF0U2pvLT5VMKT-G3RhlgDVcuClesE/s2580/original_9f28ba2b-e091-446a-8128-d171a83f93f4_20230212_150317.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2580" data-original-width="2296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZ7pI9Fz6ZcmUsvfsURs76uU7k_6xsT2suq-vxii6jDbGtlCyDXbCFGXVKNDwviEoFVwAXZgM8_JGYZn2WsXt5df_X84NZlfwoS3Zzu8rGgi97NVI2sgAbqy9cWjGgHzd3HVhp02VgYZTqe9alZ_Ll2iuJkkWF0U2pvLT5VMKT-G3RhlgDVcuClesE/s320/original_9f28ba2b-e091-446a-8128-d171a83f93f4_20230212_150317.jpg" width="285" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A fourth category are the art pads. Some of these were
bought on holidays when I was carrying watercolour paints but had no watercolour
paper (notebooks vary, but by and large notepads for writing do not like watercolour - too much water makes the pages crinkle).
Others were just shiny impulse buys in art shops. Seawhite sit somewhere between
the art pad and notebook, and I particularly like my travel journal,
which alternates lined and plain pages. I have no idea if they still do it. My
doodle book – where I stick the pictures I’m quite happy with – is a Valgra art book with ring binding, and is bearing up well considering the amount I’ve stuck in
it.<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdZgJr2wfe1Ao1uzJKfUK2U_ozhuirdjsp0bLiDDF7Q3KJKC5UK2W2pr5l-vsk1PjdmQ0bIiIyZNKCiIHX49DGnfjiiehyXU1mozDox7P8RP6iioabGw0wScnkvzmb3zR3iUMkXSs_1MdPUorgWvbbf2N9xs8a-SU2hG42azTlOqoaWxDWNJcChSFZ/s4080/20230212_150816.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2296" data-original-width="4080" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdZgJr2wfe1Ao1uzJKfUK2U_ozhuirdjsp0bLiDDF7Q3KJKC5UK2W2pr5l-vsk1PjdmQ0bIiIyZNKCiIHX49DGnfjiiehyXU1mozDox7P8RP6iioabGw0wScnkvzmb3zR3iUMkXSs_1MdPUorgWvbbf2N9xs8a-SU2hG42azTlOqoaWxDWNJcChSFZ/w400-h225/20230212_150816.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ8ZQh4pPJhpSEvhZ_S2RuRREOOkgZhbXH2bARSIxZRbaNLZykFe10fikaAvqVfjV1saooUiFMvj0sLUXeCikUM_s3XpQtqkTOXcb8bqpi36ittygHS7gNflqqkwKivA3QvCvUYa7-ZTWUuX7gGK_7dcD9jyWI8Q4Y3UQrq3HkErigPHtbYyb5nvui/s3701/original_46dbe4c2-17f6-46ed-bd6c-2a329cb2332f_20230212_151026.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2296" data-original-width="3701" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ8ZQh4pPJhpSEvhZ_S2RuRREOOkgZhbXH2bARSIxZRbaNLZykFe10fikaAvqVfjV1saooUiFMvj0sLUXeCikUM_s3XpQtqkTOXcb8bqpi36ittygHS7gNflqqkwKivA3QvCvUYa7-ZTWUuX7gGK_7dcD9jyWI8Q4Y3UQrq3HkErigPHtbYyb5nvui/w320-h199/original_46dbe4c2-17f6-46ed-bd6c-2a329cb2332f_20230212_151026.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<p class="MsoNormal">I also have a selection of very pretty A5 and exercise books – a few of
which were bought in Italy and the most recent ones at an art fair just before
Christmas. These have a nice balance of
portability and beauty without being so expensive and lovely I don’t want to
use them, and most have been used at least a few times. That said they’re so pretty I don’t always want to pull them to
pieces and throw the bits I don’t need out. <o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJCuvLul_sihT53YOgYUh5Q2vVXn0z_32oc7fbxLfJmpqzBUisATtlkr-lVrKHq1yJwqcvdMpASpTYAlrf34uW6783i4QtOXnCJkd-1W4bwluVmLG_ibqolqkuB70nfvWvNrYD59boIJ-jfLOsh5pwSkYjwuIlmOXzsxExui-2xPIC-aKDmMugaCVZ/s2840/original_78ec171c-6300-4dba-9e70-d560c5e639f9_20230212_151621.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2840" data-original-width="2145" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJCuvLul_sihT53YOgYUh5Q2vVXn0z_32oc7fbxLfJmpqzBUisATtlkr-lVrKHq1yJwqcvdMpASpTYAlrf34uW6783i4QtOXnCJkd-1W4bwluVmLG_ibqolqkuB70nfvWvNrYD59boIJ-jfLOsh5pwSkYjwuIlmOXzsxExui-2xPIC-aKDmMugaCVZ/s320/original_78ec171c-6300-4dba-9e70-d560c5e639f9_20230212_151621.jpg" width="242" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Last comes the miscellaneous category, which includes the Muji
notebook I wrote this post in originally. As you can see from the picture below it’s one of those you
can scribble on and in and again not so fancy that I mind ripping pages out when
done with them. the paper is also thick enough to take fountain pen with no bleeding through to intrude on the other side. It lies flat
nicely too. <o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzkGnxYpr4i350OucSAHpyoODFi0xyAhVPJHMgNJHdlXK59uacbSbFckm7XSC3ATDPhKicSaUeA10RV74n6VpAyUHU832Qs_EJx4to4WiV1VrJLYugjCByOc_4sbv1hPSMX3LuA5bcdQqm6LMmCjJmBPrQzkZaJ1l21K_Hu9eItfGF4n6gL9RPTKSu/s3020/original_5c737528-27a7-4a80-b513-f5b9881c11e0_20230212_152006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3020" data-original-width="2296" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzkGnxYpr4i350OucSAHpyoODFi0xyAhVPJHMgNJHdlXK59uacbSbFckm7XSC3ATDPhKicSaUeA10RV74n6VpAyUHU832Qs_EJx4to4WiV1VrJLYugjCByOc_4sbv1hPSMX3LuA5bcdQqm6LMmCjJmBPrQzkZaJ1l21K_Hu9eItfGF4n6gL9RPTKSu/s320/original_5c737528-27a7-4a80-b513-f5b9881c11e0_20230212_152006.jpg" width="243" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<p class="MsoNormal">Also in the miscellaneous category are these, which I’ve had years and not touched,
and it’s only now I’ve written and typed up this whole long spiel that I've realised why: they aren’t really portable, don’t lie flat, <i>and</i> have that
‘too nice for everyday’ vibe going on. <o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Ta12bgiOFxdAKWPDNDfqYm3r9uaMyiUOOGvtWbgQVxdIoTIoNZcg2kXdT_umSw0886fM1XbPzks9CkMwuRVuqhN7dgye8ti2FftFWrCfBn0vkSgbjfiM7BgJkPYol-86IE8dqN3tIPfBT2wyZHX1ZYumR_Uccx2-Sxw1QxRavH1mxADZ7NRY_obL/s2240/original_62c8d373-0c35-43ed-8f10-a04d10f6e906_20230212_152209.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2240" data-original-width="2053" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Ta12bgiOFxdAKWPDNDfqYm3r9uaMyiUOOGvtWbgQVxdIoTIoNZcg2kXdT_umSw0886fM1XbPzks9CkMwuRVuqhN7dgye8ti2FftFWrCfBn0vkSgbjfiM7BgJkPYol-86IE8dqN3tIPfBT2wyZHX1ZYumR_Uccx2-Sxw1QxRavH1mxADZ7NRY_obL/s320/original_62c8d373-0c35-43ed-8f10-a04d10f6e906_20230212_152209.jpg" width="293" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Anyway this longwinded post is partly a reminder to myself
not to buy any more notebooks, and to take one with me every time I go out so
the ones I have get used. I’m actually committed to discarding 365 more things
than I acquire this year (not including things like groceries or essential
toiletries), but that’s probably a subject for another post.</p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-7596970059170697772023-02-07T17:40:00.001+00:002023-02-07T17:40:21.803+00:00Littlejohn on Leave - George Bellairs<p>I read this book in three evening sittings at the British Library in a red hardback published in 1941 by John Gifford Ltd of 113 Charing Cross Rd. It's the first book of the Thomas Littlejohn series, now
out of print and as far as I can tell impossible to obtain online (25 dollars
for a facsimile dustjacket if you’re interested though!). </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bellairs, whose real name was Harold Blundell, was a prolific and popular author who doesn’t seem to have been particularly well paid for his writing. According
to <i>The Golden Age of Murder</i> by Martin Edwards, Anthony Berkeley tried to
advise Bellairs (real name Harold Blundell) to ‘cash in on the gusto while
you’ve got it’ and I’ve seen elsewhere that he had to continue in his job at
the bank, although it occurs to me that possibly he <i>liked</i> his job at the
bank and <i>liked</i> his publisher and didn’t want to change. From what I've gleaned from online sources and prologues Blundell's writing enabled him to fund holidays to France and retire to the Isle of Man, where he continued to write until his death at the age of 79,
leaving a widow, Gladys, to whom he had been married for over 50 years. He also wrote articles for the Manchester Guardian and did charity work - and this first ever book was apparently written while Bellairs/Blundell was an air raid warden. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Arguably not a jet setting lifestyle, but a full one. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Regarding the book itself I think it’s fair to say that
while it’s not terrible, I can see why it's not one of the ones that have been chosen for republishing. I've read - and enjoyed - five of Bellairs books in recent reprints, and would describe him here as a writer not yet in his stride. The
dysfunctional marriages are not as subtle, the character of Littlejohn is less
well developed, the mystery more plodding. Information we don’t need – for
example the duck eggs tasting of fish or the temperament of the villagers – is
repeated multiple times as though he were writing a serial and we might have forgotten, while information we might need repeating around keys is not. The humour doesn’t
always land like it does in the later books I’ve read either.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Bellairs likes his descriptions of place too, and where in the later books they will feel natural, arising from the thoughts of those seeing them, here it feels as if the author is dropping into a special literary mode. One particular example that actually made me cringe was: <i>The
feathered choir was busy rejoicing with it’s dawn-song, oblivious of the doings
of men. </i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But probably more annoying to the reader who expects fair
play will be how clues are held back. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Consider this line: (Inspector Totridge) <i>told him the
news he just received over the telephone. Littlejohn whistled.<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And of another phone call in a later chapter: <i>His face
grew grave as he listened to the voice excitedly chirping it’s tale from the
other end, but there was a look of satisfaction in his eyes. <o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i>“Well done.” He said. “Good man.”<o:p></o:p></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And both times the reader doesn't get told what was said. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">That said, it's readable. There is a genuinely believable frame up at the end and it
gets a bit more exciting, but in conclusion, Bellairs wrote much better books
than this and many of them are readily available. You're probably better off with one of those. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-32828442749395706832023-01-15T12:59:00.005+00:002023-01-15T13:04:31.092+00:00Wickham Gore Doesn’t Always Get His Man (Or Woman)<p> There’s a bit of a story arc to the seven Wickham Gore books
by Lynn Brock (aka Alistair McAllistair or Anthony Wharton), although it didn’t
go quite where I thought it was going in the end. By the middle of the series he’s
a professional detective with an office and a junior partner, where at the
start he’s looking around for a job as he cannot live within his
army pension and gets pulled into a mystery after a knife he gave a young woman called ‘Pickles’ as a wedding present is used to stab someone. </p><p>He
is, of course, carrying a bit of a flame for Pickles, and if affection can be
measured by first nagging him to get a job, then later in the series nagging him about the job he
eventually takes up, Pickles is fond of him too.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Not that I can’t see Pickles’ point. Gore is one of those
detectives who puts himself in danger repeatedly. During this short series he is
bopped over the head, almost electrocuted, shot and gassed in his bed. Apart
from that he’s not a bad detective – he can put two and two together (although
sometimes I didn’t quite see how a case could be proved, and in book six or seven
when it turned out one of his criminals had been acquitted for just that reason
I could have shaken Brock’s hand).<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">A likable detective, competent with flashes of brilliance
and moments of stupidity (especially, as I’ve said, where his own safety is
concerned), middle-aged (I got the impression his image of himself is older
perhaps than others perceive him) and not especially broad or narrow minded for
the time, I think.</p><p class="MsoNormal">That said I don’t think the books would have suffered from taking some
of the more offensive language out, but since the format I read was the cheap
electronic publication for Kindle I suspect they were scanned in and skim
read at best. I usually wouldn't complain given the cheapness, but for the sake of future readers I will say the transcription is far from perfect. Not so much that it’s unreadable, but it can be a distraction to find words missing or letters misplaced by numbers when tension is meant to be ramping up
or you’re looking for clues. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Anyway would I recommend this series? Definitely yes. I had
no intention of reading them all when <a href="https://brieferthanliteralstatement.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-mendip-mystery-by-lynn-brock-for.html">I started</a> but I kept downloading the next and gobbling them down. I liked old Gore,
and Brock’s lush descriptions of place and the ridiculous plots and occasional
weirdnesses, and I wanted to see what happened next. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-77325816098650933762023-01-01T20:15:00.008+00:002023-01-01T20:19:57.758+00:00New Year 2023 Happy New Year. 2022 was another year where things didn't quite get back to normal, and it felt like 'normal' shifted yet again, with energy in particular shooting up in price, the invasion of Ukraine, post-Brexit and not-yet-post-Covid still a drag on economy and spirits, and on a personal level both my holiday in May and my Christmas plans disrupted by sickness and quarantining. <div><br /></div><div>Books, on the other hand, there have been plenty of. </div><div><br /></div><div>The full list for 2022:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-align: left;">A Carribean Mystery - Agatha
Christie<br />A Murder of Quality - John LeCarre<br />A Peaceful Retirement - Miss Read<br />A Pocketful of Rye - Agatha
Christie<br />A Rose for Winter - Laurie Lee<br />A Short Book about Painting -
Andrew Marr<br />A Stranger City - Linda Grant<br />Amongst Our Weapons - Ben
Aaronovitch<br />Arthur Conan Doyle - John Dickson
Carr<br />At Bertram's Hotel - Agatha
Christie<br />Black Teacher - Beryl Gilroy<br />Bloody Murder - Julian Symons<br />Bump in the Night - Colin Watson<br />Carpe Jugulum - Terry Pratchett<br />Castle Skull - John Dickson Carr<br />Cheaper by the Dozen - Frank and
Ernestine Galbreth<br />Christian Dior by Christian Dior<br />Coffin, Barely Used - Colin Watson<br />Come, Tell Me How You Live -
Agatha Christie<br />Crime on the Coast and No Flowers
by Request - The Detection Club<br />Death and the Dancing Footman -
Ngaio Marsh<br />Death in the Tunnel - Miles Burton<br />Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie<br />Everything and Less - Mark McGurl<br />False Value - Ben Aaronovitch<br />Free Lunch (new edition) - David
Smith<br />Get Carter - Ted Lewis<br />Going Postal - Terry Pratchett<br />Guards! Guards! - Terry Pratchett<br />Hag's Nook - John Dickson Carr<br />Hidden Lives - Margaret Forster<br />Hopjoy Was Here - Colin Watson<br />In the Teeth of the Evidence -
Dorothy L Sayers<br />Jingo - Terry Pratchett<br />London is a Forest - Paul Wood<br />Love Lies Bleeding - Edmund
Crispin<br />Making Money - Terry Pratchett<br />Manhattan 45 - Jan Morris<br />Maskerade - Terry Pratchett<br />Mastering the Process - Elizabeth
George<br />Miss Marple's Final Cases - Agatha
Christie<br />Money, a User's Guide - Laura
Whateley<br />Monstrous Regiment - Terry
Pratchett<br />Murder at the Vicarage - Agatha
Christie<br />Murder in Mesopotamia - Agatha
Christie<br />Newton and the Counterfeiter -
Thomas Levenson<br />Night Watch - Terry Pratchett<br />On Writing - Stephen King<br />Our African Winter - Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle<br />Our Spoons Came From Woolworths -
Barbara Comyn<br />Payback - Debt and Shadow Side of
Wealth - Margaret Atwell<br />Portraits in Fiction - A S Byatt<br />Prater Violet - Christopher
Isherwood<br />Prelude to a Certain Midnight -
Gerald Kersch<br />Rules for Perfect Murders - Peter
Swanson<br />Safer than Love - Margery
Allingham<br />Scarp - Nick Papadimitriou<br />Settling Scores - Martin Edwards
(ed)<br />She Died a Lady - John Dickson
Carr<br />Simisola - Ruth Rendell<br />Skelton's Guide to Domestic
Poisons - David Stafford<br />Ten Day's Wonder - Ellery Queen<br />The 4.50 from Paddington<br />The Adventures of Sally - P G
Wodehouse<br />The Age of Scandal - T H White<br />The Babes in the Wood - Ruth
Rendell<br />The Bleak Age - J L and Barbara
Hammond<br />The Body in the Dumb River -
George Bellairs<br />The Brutal Art - Jesse Kellerman<br />The Case of the Constant Suicides
- John Dickson Carr<br />The Child's Books of True Crime -
Chloe Hooper<br />The Courage to Create - Rollo May<br />The Dagwort Coombe Murder - Lynn
Brock<br />The Deductions of Colonel Gore -
Lynn Brock<br />The Detection Collection - ed
Simon Brett<br />The Hollow Man - John Dickson Carr<br />The Holly-Tree Inn - Charles
Dickens et al<br />The House by the Thames - Gillian
Tindall<br />The House of Green Turf - Ellis
Peters<br />The Kink - Lynn Brock<br />The Last Continent - Terry
Pratchett<br />The Liquid Continent - Nicholas Woodsworth<br />The London Adventure or the Art of
Wandering - Arthur Machen<br />The Lost Gallows - John Dickson
Carr<br />The Mendip Mystery - Lynn Brock<br />The Murder on the Links - Agatha
Christie<br />The Mystery of the Yellow Room -
Gaston LeRoux<br />The Patient at Peacock's Hall -
Margery Allingham<br />The Plague Court Murders - Carter
Dickson<br /> The Powlett Murders - Lynn Brock<br />The Sailors' Rendezvous - Georges
Simenon<br />The Savage God - Al Alvarez<br />The Secret Body - Daniel M Davis<br />The Secret Life of Money - Daniel
Davies and Tess Read<br />The Service of all the Dead -
Colin Dexter<br />The Seven Deaths of Evelyn
Hardcastle - Stuart Turton<br />The Sittaford Mystery - Agatha
Christie<br />The Slip-Carriage Mystery - Lynn
Brock<br />The Truth - Terry Pratchett<br />The Two-Way Murder - E C R Lorac<br />They Have a Word for It - Howard
Rheingold<br />Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett<br />Thrones, Dominions - Dorothy L
Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh<br />Thud - Terry Pratchett<br />Tread Softly for you Tread on My
Jokes - Malcolm Muggeridge<br />Trent's Own Case - E C Bentley<br />Witchcraft - Nigel Williams<br />Work Won't Love You Back - Sarah
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">As always plenty of crime, including Lynn Brock, whose Wickham Gore books I was hoping to finish by the end of the year, and two excellent modern riffs on golden age crime fiction - <i>The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle</i>, and <i>Rules for Perfect Murders</i>. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Also a small Terry Pratchett re-read, which is still ongoing. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Stats: 108 books, 69 by men, 33 by women and 6 by a team of both. Figures skewed by Pratchett and John Dickson Carr, I suspect. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">34 non fiction, 74 fiction. A lot of the non fiction seems economy or finance related. This was also the year I started listening to 'Wake Up to Money' on the radio, and became more aware of the impact of macro economics on daily life. As did everyone else, I suspect. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Stand out books - I enjoyed <i>Christian Dior </i>by Christian Dior far more than I expected to and was pleased to find <i>Going Postal </i>by Pratchett was as much fun as I remembered.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Plans for next year - I still have my last 80s book to read, and was contemplating a David Lodge readathon. First though I will finish and post my thoughts on Brock's central protagonist Wickham Gore, who is one of those tec's who have breakthroughs by getting conked on the head or shot and yet always survive until next time. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPeLUKOl8PUhDZSSBK6lnKBGMvR9YbOL7gESdq8APtO4xu5CVwzZHSSlfzU3iwY7Bv_Wskb7bMFFEi8tO0AHBw62xEVu6cvYUDkDeuLyt9Pk23zq_WgQhw71lGmx4g6ZGEBQfybpCDW6DXjZQUUrFMr3aZKavvx1i5zEkdVoZ6iYqEKPL-SWmy_UDa/s902/20221130_123343.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="902" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPeLUKOl8PUhDZSSBK6lnKBGMvR9YbOL7gESdq8APtO4xu5CVwzZHSSlfzU3iwY7Bv_Wskb7bMFFEi8tO0AHBw62xEVu6cvYUDkDeuLyt9Pk23zq_WgQhw71lGmx4g6ZGEBQfybpCDW6DXjZQUUrFMr3aZKavvx1i5zEkdVoZ6iYqEKPL-SWmy_UDa/s320/20221130_123343.jpg" width="182" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p></div>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-42372982519797650242022-12-30T15:16:00.001+00:002022-12-30T15:16:13.703+00:00<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhscPaPK76rxdUi90H8qCuCHvblOzxadm9uJzXDKQ-_BTknx1PMKdytKwvWMOdxTQkRQVGUN02NuJIVTA090UN2SS23ZN3dwSsDUkUArhPI7ipx_JTdFNk16jVDDxzPf0iITf7P7iCyzHgxgB0fUU3reXqevfyP2cjOPZo_Gj21QXBG64oMay0JrZlv/s4080/20221228_151540.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4080" data-original-width="2296" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhscPaPK76rxdUi90H8qCuCHvblOzxadm9uJzXDKQ-_BTknx1PMKdytKwvWMOdxTQkRQVGUN02NuJIVTA090UN2SS23ZN3dwSsDUkUArhPI7ipx_JTdFNk16jVDDxzPf0iITf7P7iCyzHgxgB0fUU3reXqevfyP2cjOPZo_Gj21QXBG64oMay0JrZlv/w225-h400/20221228_151540.jpg" width="225" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Roof Garden, Canary Wharf</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtiFI0EZsIxG1EVpkZxA4q9qEATF16uzaq3J60ySg3PaIx-MdoD1M93an69uDndojS98f2oItWe27ABAmYeuh_TEqNt-uTICZ9cRJVkVTKbZCynlusnaFyh4TQTfLSzJ71Thzn5JJLwxZn1op_N8ndrZDy6bZgLFQo0TrWgM-oIGsaNVyJyyi_TYCo/s4080/20221228_161831.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2296" data-original-width="4080" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtiFI0EZsIxG1EVpkZxA4q9qEATF16uzaq3J60ySg3PaIx-MdoD1M93an69uDndojS98f2oItWe27ABAmYeuh_TEqNt-uTICZ9cRJVkVTKbZCynlusnaFyh4TQTfLSzJ71Thzn5JJLwxZn1op_N8ndrZDy6bZgLFQo0TrWgM-oIGsaNVyJyyi_TYCo/w400-h225/20221228_161831.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0N-kxE_EU0QVKR5A7EHXSStOI4CgouvE_7aTp0BP6C07zR1nTXXEfguofQ441SaxcCRlsfn0MxVJpxx6BA1lfpl0VmPZmul33tRISAhTa222i6ptYkr_mYNPuBYCwrG-LlfgNiO_RlNlKAq4YHfQeVjyRuw8P9J4rXkaPPe3E5bae36AzH_2l6-p7/s4080/20221228_171250.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2296" data-original-width="4080" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0N-kxE_EU0QVKR5A7EHXSStOI4CgouvE_7aTp0BP6C07zR1nTXXEfguofQ441SaxcCRlsfn0MxVJpxx6BA1lfpl0VmPZmul33tRISAhTa222i6ptYkr_mYNPuBYCwrG-LlfgNiO_RlNlKAq4YHfQeVjyRuw8P9J4rXkaPPe3E5bae36AzH_2l6-p7/w400-h225/20221228_171250.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgWbKb-QKuxAZYRPbWaeAuwkFF002v2EIdjc8hEukxO-w0jLQW7nIDZukQndZQJNMya67eKZ6mh8a9SaXRE4IHnRBJ8fagJu8s2NkH0D6OpGCEDYwbqIFDWXLxqukDye-z62pFCvv4behTSs1JQAH-A4OT5OF21gXa57QB2gRGgdSlq6h45EToIeLr/s4080/20221228_184206.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2296" data-original-width="4080" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgWbKb-QKuxAZYRPbWaeAuwkFF002v2EIdjc8hEukxO-w0jLQW7nIDZukQndZQJNMya67eKZ6mh8a9SaXRE4IHnRBJ8fagJu8s2NkH0D6OpGCEDYwbqIFDWXLxqukDye-z62pFCvv4behTSs1JQAH-A4OT5OF21gXa57QB2gRGgdSlq6h45EToIeLr/w400-h225/20221228_184206.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">And some pictures taken from the Thames Clipper. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My second dose of covid never amounted to much and cleared up very quickly - sore throat, coughing and a weak positive on Christmas Day, and negatives daily from Boxing Day, so Wednesday I went to the Courtauld Gallery and then took the clipper through Central London to Canary Wharf, then out to Barking and all the way back to Putney (changing at Canary Wharf again). It was a bit windy and drizzly, but I was fine, and these pictures don't really do justice to the lights - and the hop on-hop off ticket is really handy. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-15970883386835165422022-12-24T11:45:00.006+00:002022-12-24T16:02:40.867+00:00Day Three - again<p>Thursday morning, on a day I was planning to go into the office and pick up the cake for Christmas at lunch time, then meet my brother (down from Runcorn way) and drop the cake at my cousin's ready for Christmas Day, I tested positive for Covid-19. Cue scrambled arrangements over WhatsApp to get that cake and the main (ready 5pm Friday) picked up, divert my brother (my Dad is testing negative so met him elsewhere) and some cough sweets and more lfts dropped. </p><p>It's come in off the back of a severe cold - which feels like a pattern as the first bout came in on the back of a very severe hayfever, for which I took antihistamines. But two incidents isn't enough for a pattern. It's also come in about seven months after the first lot (I was nine months too young for the last booster) which suggests waning immunity to me. </p><p>It's true that last weekend - when I was still testing negative - was a very busy and crowded weekend. I saw a Beatles tribute band in Carshalton on Thursday and did Christmas shopping on Saturday (Tooting, Clapham, Central London) and went up the shard on Sunday and then Trafalgar Square. Everywhere felt emptier than it should be for Christmas in London, except Liberty's and Foyles, which were chaos. Trafalgar Square had mulled wine and celebrating Argentinians (world cup). </p><p>What I mean is, I could have caught it anywhere. </p><p>So now I'm stuck at home again. I did go for a socially distanced walk over the park yesterday, and I ordered contactless pizza because if I'm missing Christmas I'm blowing my usual grocery budget. It was a Napoli - anchovy and capers and tomato sauce and mozzarella - and incredibly (to me deliciously) salty. Mixed olives and Nutella covered strawberries were ordered as well, but I sampled but didn't finish those. They're in the fridge. </p><p>So here I sit. My symptoms so far are a cough (especially when I lay down), mild sore throat, a slight dip in energy levels - and possibly a dip in mood, although it's tricky to know if that's the virus or disappointment about missing Christmas. This is the third weird Christmas - last year my cousin and her son came down with it, and stopped with the ex and the ex's grandparents who all had it too, while we had Christmas at her home without them, which just felt wrong. The year before we were all locked down of course (being in London, I'm afraid my London-centric brain now can't remember if the rest of the country was locked down before Christmas as well or it was just after. I know we weren't as hard up as Leicester though, which seemed to be locked down for months and months after the rest of us were allowed out). </p><p>I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a mild dose - the worst thing last time was it triggered my eczema, which seems to be behaving itself right now, and the exhaustion, which lingered from a month to six weeks I think. </p><p>Anyway it's Christmas Eve, so Merry Christmas, if anyone's reading this, hope you're well and where you need to be, and I should be free by the New Year. </p><p><br /></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-79839032197798429692022-10-30T12:45:00.002+00:002022-10-30T12:45:23.785+00:00Our African Winter by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - for the 1929 Club<p> Since I ended the last review with mention of those diamonds
I’ll start this with them. It really does seem like diamonds were almost lying
around for the taking in that part of Africa, and that story in <i>The Mendip Mystery</i> practically plausible.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">However, the most striking thing, to the modern reader, is in
all the mention of diamond mines and artificial restriction of supply, and gold
and platinum and farming and copper and everything else, the thought ‘it doesn’t
really belong to us’ never once crosses Conan Doyle’s mind. In fact he thinks more
immigration of Brits into Africa is the answer to certain social problems. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The word savage also gets used a lot (and worse) – and yet what
the Europeans are described as doing is at least as savage, and Conan Doyle
doesn’t sugarcoat or gloss over that, either. Wants some kind of oversight to be established to ensure proper
criminal sentences are given to those who abuse or murder the natives and describes
several cases and the meagre sentences and small fines that were given, clearly
hoping to stir up outrage in his readers and get something done about it. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">He’s just – very complex, I think. The book is a journal of his and
his family's trip to Africa for him to lecture about Spiritualism, and he’s
clearly clever, and even sceptical in some ways, and yet in others he seems
utterly naïve. His faith in the British Empire as a force for good, his faith
in the Cottingley fairies and Spiritualism (although as I say he could be
highly sceptical of certain practitioners and critical of practices). His pleasure
at being greeted by crowds and spreading the message. His faith that during the
Boer War the women and children were put into a camp to be fed (this may be true,
I have no way of knowing, what I cannot help noticing though is a doubt of it
never even crosses his mind) and outrage at a perceived slight on a memorial he’s
unable to properly read.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I agree with him very little, but I would hardly expect to,
nearly a hundred years later, and with him probably already old fashioned (Conan Doyle was 70). What I do feel is that he was scrupulously honest himself, and struggled
to understand that other people could be horribly dishonest, or the world
different to the way he’d always known it. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">What is also utterly disarming is his endless curiosity –
interested in everything: diamonds, the legal system, the friction between Boer
farmers and English rule, the workload of the ship porters, what will happen to
Johannesburg when the mines are worked out. One moment he’s describing his son
collecting specimens with his killing bottle, the next giving lyrical
descriptions of scenery and twilight, the next praising his wife’s work to try
and ensure captive animals are treated better. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But of course the main thrust of the book is about Spiritualism,
news about which he believes it is his mission to spread. He gives well-attended
lectures and seems to have given good value for money, wonders why the church
is so resistant when after all the message he’s spreading is the good news of
an afterlife, describes cases and particulars, complains that scientists won’t
judge the matter scientifically but is scrupulously polite about them as
people. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And he writes extremely well. Of course he does. However
dated it’s a very, very readable book with a lot of fascinating asides about
things I’d like to know more about. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Thanks as always to <a href="https://www.stuckinabook.com/">Simon</a> and <a href="https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/">Karen</a> for running these clubs. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj08qChZoxngqysGW_nSW6pDO-hesp5kF-LDlIFCP6wPX9KQVE4mxtiff6bBj8s9ccje-H7PppwLUDqNoE9dLANxta0qmsDXiu9tIPuFHh6ZPECJiybFybQ3TMKsUCNwrRwnE7AUx1F9Qu8MWin7mIJnilV6yxuZNBfNIJSrmqzlNlZ1qDGX4e3Sgny" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj08qChZoxngqysGW_nSW6pDO-hesp5kF-LDlIFCP6wPX9KQVE4mxtiff6bBj8s9ccje-H7PppwLUDqNoE9dLANxta0qmsDXiu9tIPuFHh6ZPECJiybFybQ3TMKsUCNwrRwnE7AUx1F9Qu8MWin7mIJnilV6yxuZNBfNIJSrmqzlNlZ1qDGX4e3Sgny" width="240" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4962027616609072120.post-34748148737826083232022-10-30T12:36:00.001+00:002022-10-30T12:36:08.090+00:00The Mendip Mystery by Lynn Brock - For the 1929 Club<p> Lynn Brock published two books in 1929. The first is the
charming but light <i>The Dagwort Coombe Murder</i>, which I’ve also reviewed
for the club. The second is <i>The Mendip Mystery</i>.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In this case we are in the hands of a professional detective,
Colonel Gore (book five of seven in the series) who has been tasked with trying to trace a long-lost relation of a dapper little furniture merchant,
and, in what appears to be an unrelated matter, to meet a possible new client at an unpopular
inn to discuss another job. Despite mild annoyance at the venue, made
with no thought of his convenience but purely because his prospective client will be
hunting out that way, Gore agrees. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The set up is excellent. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>High winds and fallen trees and a
hunting accident earlier in the day result in several guests being stranded at
the inn overnight, much to the proprietor’s dissatisfaction, since he just wants to get (more)
drunk in peace and hasn’t enough sheets anyway. Understandably some of those
guests decide not to go to bed at all and of course in the morning, one is found
dead. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Brock has a great eye for detail, the state of the inn
itself, the converted storage building in town and it’s creepiness after dark,
the frustrations of a secretary who wants an extra day off for
Christmas and is trying to time the asking of it right and go above and beyond
in the meantime to earn brownie points, but resentful of the need. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If I had to criticise I would say there’s a lot going on in
this book. One subplot about escaped lunatics (whose treatment is very much of
the time I’m afraid, kicked back out into the storm and left), and another
about diamonds – a long history by one of the characters about how he stumbled
across a ditch full of rough diamonds in Namaqualand, which has since been
found and worked by the British government, that I was half inclined to think completely made up until I read my last book, a non-fiction work by Arthur Conan Doyle, where he describes
that exact place. Clearly Brock incorporated it because it was big news.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It's also often quite a funny book, although not with the
obvious humour of Dagwort Coombe, with the odd call back to earlier stories. I’m tempted to go back and start this series
from the beginning now. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Thanks as always to <a href="https://www.stuckinabook.com/">Simon</a> and <a href="https://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/">Karen</a> for running these clubs. </p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj08qChZoxngqysGW_nSW6pDO-hesp5kF-LDlIFCP6wPX9KQVE4mxtiff6bBj8s9ccje-H7PppwLUDqNoE9dLANxta0qmsDXiu9tIPuFHh6ZPECJiybFybQ3TMKsUCNwrRwnE7AUx1F9Qu8MWin7mIJnilV6yxuZNBfNIJSrmqzlNlZ1qDGX4e3Sgny" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj08qChZoxngqysGW_nSW6pDO-hesp5kF-LDlIFCP6wPX9KQVE4mxtiff6bBj8s9ccje-H7PppwLUDqNoE9dLANxta0qmsDXiu9tIPuFHh6ZPECJiybFybQ3TMKsUCNwrRwnE7AUx1F9Qu8MWin7mIJnilV6yxuZNBfNIJSrmqzlNlZ1qDGX4e3Sgny" width="240" /></a></div>Victoriahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18022928844376170229noreply@blogger.com0