Oct 11, , 5: I don't even have the words for what that is. It seems to revel — no, wallow! Also, that appears to be an actual photo. Which means actual people had to dress up in those costumes and re-enact it. No wonder he's smirking and she is hiding her face. It's really something, isn't it?? I'm not sure what , but something I can't help but admire the way it manages to combine all of our usual objections did not read the book and who are these people? The live-action component, though That makes it truly special. It's like the art director said, "How many different ways can we screw this up?
And finally there's the fact that the art director, the staff and the models Can you tell if it's specific to Penguin in a specific country? Then we'd know what currency they were overpaid in. It's a British edition from Possibly we can blame this on the fallout from Tom Jones winning Best Picture a couple of years earlier? Usually Penguin is pretty good with covers. Who snuck in and did that one? Belated happy new thread Liz! Very excited about The Prime Minister read and also that I think I have managed to join in with a shared read with you for the first time in ages because I'm reading Murder is Easy!
That is a truly awful cover! I am so excited! During your Trollope hiatus, I started the Palliser novels and enjoyed following the group read threads alongside the book. I'm now caught up, having just finished Phineas Redux the other day, and I hope to review it soon.
Lieutenant Michael Fitton Adventure Series by Showell Styles
Count me in for The Prime Minister!! I was shocked at that too. I've been missing our shared reads very much. It's truly terrible, isn't it? All caught up here. And awful book covers! I love this thread! I like to cater to a variety of tastes. D So good to hear you'll be joining us in November! Not to worry; pg What was that thing in the collar of his coat? I bent forward and felt as though I had swallowed a lump of ice. The thing that stuck out was the handle of a knife, and the blade was buried in the man's neck, high up on the right side That one looks like someone was trying to annoy him, not kill him!
Oct 13, , 8: I'm not touching you! I'm not good with spatial reasoning, but if I arrange myself like the decedent on the right, I'm fairly certain the knife is on the left, narrative from page 18 notwithstanding. D But hey, I got the stabbing I was demanding, so I guess I can't sweat the spatial and biological inaccuracies. Oct 15, , 7: Stevenson's novel is a story of family, but one focusing upon sibling relationships rather than those between parent and child.
As with sections of Stevenson's "Mrs Tim" series, Amberwell is set in the Scottish lowlands, an area she obviously knew and loved, at the estate founded in in midth century by William Ayrton, who made his fortune in India. When the novel opens Amberwell in the possession of another William Ayrton, his second wife, and his five children: Mr and Mrs Ayrton are the kind of parents who believe that children should be seen and not heard, and preferably not seen either: The bonds that form between them in childhood will hold them together as adults and carry them through the tragedies and hardships of war Though its focus remains characterisation, Amberwell is a novel of change, treating its Ayrton family as a microcosm via which to examine the prevailing social mores of the 20s and 30s and the upheaval wrought upon them both by time itself and by the realities of warthough the war itself is seen only obliquely, not directly but through its impact on the hitherto comfortable and privileged Ayrtons.
Stevenson also has some tart things to say about the position of women in the pre-war society, not least in the subplot of the embittered Beatrice Ayrton, who was banished from her home when her brother William inherited Amberwell, and whose brooding unhappiness has a drastic impact upon the life of the youngest Ayrton, Anne. The fate of Anne, thrown off by her resentful parents after her impulsive marriage, is starkly contrasted with that of the smug and conventional Connie.
Ultimately, however, it is the overlooked Nell who emerges as the book's focus. Shy and self-doubting, accustomed to a life of both isolation and constant surveillance by her querulous and selfish mother, Nell must find new reserves of strength and endurance in order to deal with the responsibilities that fall upon her shoulders when she is left to hold Amberwell and the family together following the enlistment of Roger and Thomas, and then the death of William Nell will go on being the boss; she's doing a splendid job, you'll agree. Goodness knows what would have happened to Amberwell without Nell.
I intend to find Anne if I possibly can. She's chosen her own way. She's cut herself off from everybody. She said, "Well, I think it's ratherrather horrid to talk like this when Father has just died. Then we know where we stand. I have yet again fallen for the alphabetical order vs publication order trick. Sorry for the midadventure in series order. Inquiring minds want to know: A medieval word for a torch the burning kind , from the French flambeau ; it was a symbol of progress.
That said, our "Flamboys" are taking over Romania in order to line their own pockets via oil exploitation before selling the country out to the Soviets, so progress is a bit questionable Francis Beeding has a thing for floridly named secret societies where the name really doesn't have anything to do with the plot. Floridly named secret societies, eh? Beeding sounds like the Dan Brown of his day. Oct 16, , That is to say, I don't know that his plots are any more believable, but you believe them while you're reading, which is what you want from a thriller, right??
Oct 18, , 4: Emma - Jane Austen challenges her readers from the outset with the character of Emma Woodhouse - "handsome, clever and rich" - who dominates this complex and subtly humorous novel, a Bildungsroman in which painful life-lessons will lead its heroine to new self-knowledge. It is not difficult to imagine the surprise that Emma caused contemporary readers, accustomed to fictional heroines who were lifelessly perfect; while modern readers struggle with Emma's almost shockingly foregrounded faultsher vanity, officiousness and snobbery. Such is Austen's art, however, that she manages to hold our attention and sympathy while unfolding around her deeply flawed heroine a nuanced portrait of the society that produced her, and of the stifling restrictions that existed for a young woman of Emma's age and social standing.
Intelligent, energetic and outgoing, Emma yet stands before as as a girl with nowhere to go, few friends her own age, and very little to do with her time. Driven back upon herself, Emma indulges an active, even overactive imagination: In this, Austen returns to a theme that she first addressed in Northanger Abbey published later, but written many years earlier , warning of the dangers, not of imagination, as such, but of allowing it to intrude upon the realities and duties of life.
In Emma , however, this theme is handled much more seriously, with Emma's actions having consequences far beyond a few moments of personal humiliation, and for others beside herself. The most disturbing aspect of this novel is the dangerously unbalanced relationship that develops between Emma and the pretty but unintelligent Harriet Smith, who is dignified with the title of "friend", but is treated like a life-sized doll, played with, posed and forced into whatever position Emma chooses.
Having ruthlessly prevented Harriet's marriage to a young farmerfor Harriet's own good, Emma tells herself, but in fact because she doesn't want to give up her new toyEmma sets about making her the focus of a series of matchmaking schemes, each more ill-judged than the last; until finally she is confronted with the appalling realisation that in encouraging Harriet in vanity and ambition, she may inadvertently have lost her own chance at happiness Emma's meddling forms a thread that runs through Austen's narrative of daily life in and around the village of Highbury, an area populated by some of the author's most wonderful characters, from the self-obsessed Mr Woodhouse, to the hilariously logorrheic Miss Bates, to the ghastly Mrs Elton who is, in effect, Emma's evil twin , to the steadfast and insightful Mr Knightley.
Another point of connection with Northanger Abbey is the tacit presentation of a man with a sense of humour as not merely attractive, but sexy. Life in Highbury, ordinarily numbingly dull, is disrupted - pleasantly and otherwise - by a series of rare events. Jane Fairfax, the granddaughter and niece of, respectively, Mrs and Miss Bates, the widow and daughter of the previous vicar, returns for a visit after a two-year absence. Knowing that she is destined for a dreary life as a governess, and prompted both by Mr Knightley's urgings and her own conscience, Emma tries to get over her instinctive resentment of the "perfect" Jane, but soon finds herself provoked by her wary reticence into weaving about her a series of lurid fantasies.
The arrival of Mrs Elton, the new bride of the Reverend Mr Elton, is painful for Emma, a constant reminder of the embarrassing failure of her first matchmaking scheme; and it is with relief that she turns her attention to another new arrival, Frank Weston Churchill. The grown son of the popular Mr Weston, Frank was surrendered as a child to the wealthy relatives of his mother following her early death, but has made his father's remarriage the occasion of a long-expected but frequently put-off visit.
Frank has always been viewed as "belonging" to Highbury; even, perhaps, as "belonging" to Miss Woodhouse; and when she discovers that the young man is not only handsome and lively, but perfectly ready to admire and flirt with her, Emma finds herself mentally toying with the idea of marriage But many things are going on in Highbury that are beyond Emma's ken; and several severe shocks lie in wait for her: Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her being in love with Frank Churchill.
Her ideas only varied as to how much Though thinking of him so much, and, as she sat drawing or working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing elegant letters, the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his side was that she refused him. Their affection was always to subside into friendship. Every thing tender and charming was to mark their parting; but still they were to part. When she became sensible of this, it struck her that she could not be very much in love; for in spite of her previous and fixed determination never to quit her father, never to marry, a strong attachment certainly must produce more of a struggle than she could foresee in her own feelings.
I do suspect that he is not really necessary to my happiness. So much the better. I certainly will not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be more. Harriet Smith, who is dignified with the title of "friend", but is treated like a life-sized doll, played with, posed and forced into whatever position Emma chooses.
Oh, spot on with that description, Liz! That exactly captures the unhealthy dynamic between them. What a review of Emma! Please post it so I can thumb it.
lyzard's list: once more unto the obscurity, dear friends - Part Five
Like Julia, I'm smitten with that line. Harriet is treated like a life-sized doll, played with, posed and forced into whatever position Emma chooses. Now reading Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison. Oct 18, , 7: Dead Man Twice - I enjoyed The Perfect Murder Case , a complicated mystery of alibi-cracking, which was the first Ludovic Travers book I read not the first in the series, though, which is effectively unobtainable , but this mystery was rather irritating.
Part of the problem is a lack of focus, with three different police inspectors, two private detectives and the amateur Travers all interesting themselves in the death of Michael France, expected to become the next heavyweight champion of the world; the narrative is, not surprisingly, all over the place. We also have the charming touch of a second murder being committed, when France's butler falls into a fatal trap meant for his employer, and presumably because the victim is a servant, everyone just shrugs and moves on.
The apparent suicide of Michael France, at the height of his fame and on the eve of his departure for America, to fight for the world title, seems inexplicableyet there is an unforged note - granted, by the butler's body, not France's own - and the trouble taken by France to be alone in his house on the fatal Sunday, including faked indications that he was going away for the weekend. On the other hand, threatening letters and an attempted break-in in the weeks prior to France's death suggest an enemy with a grudgeor perhaps, given the contradictory trails of evidence identified by investigators, two enemies with grudges.
With the question of whether France's part or present was responsible for his death, attention begins to focus on the dynamic between the dead man, his best friend and financial backer, Peter Claire who is a racing-car driver and a gentleman, which is apparently permissible , and Claire's wife, Dorothy. France's secretary, Kenneth Hayles. Shy, nervous, and worshipfully in love with Dorothy - much to the others' amusement - the retiring Hayles seems an unlikely murdererbut there is still a need to explain the odd, secretive behaviour and seemingly unnecessary lies that attract Travers' notice to him in the first place Hayles looked as if he'd blundered by accident into the Zoo.
You see, since you were here last, things have been happening Mr France is dead! Somers is dead, too. He poisoned himselfin the lounge. Hayles gave a sort of moan and lurched sideways in the chair, then slithered to the ground in a dead faint. The Mystery Girl - Life is being good to John Waring, who wins a hotly contested election for President of certain New England college, and who is shortly to be married to the attractive and warm-hearted young widow, Emily Bates.
Touchstones
But things change when a young woman arrives at the boarding-house run by Mr and Mrs Adams. Although her name is Anita Austin, her cold exterior and her refusal to explain her presence in the town of Corinth sees her dubbed "the Mystery Girl" by her annoyed yet intrigued fellow lodgers. Most people find her attitude offensive, but old Mr Adams takes a shine to her, siding with her when his wife threatens to turn her out; the feckless Pinckney 'Pinky' Payne, Emily Bates' cousin, is immediately infatuated; while Gordon Lockwood, John Waring's secretary, finds himself strongly drawn to her.
At a lecture given by Waring, the girl's interest in him is evident; and when Pinky invites her to tea with Waring and Emily, it is evident that the President-elect is strongly effected by her presence. Matters reach a crisis when, one night, a cold snap one night preserves Anita's footprints in the snow, leading to and from John Waring's studythe room in which he is found stabbed to death.
No weapon is found by the body, yet the study is locked from the inside The 'locked room' aspect of the mystery and the eventual explanation of the circumstances of John Waring's death and Wells plays fair for once: Possibly this is an outsider's view, but a college presidency seems inadequate motive for what happens in this story; while the "secret" connection between Anita and John Waring is so screamingly obvious, you feel like tearing your hair out at the other characters' obtuseness.
The other issue here, not at all an uncommon one in fiction of this period but none the less exasperating for that, is the use of a foreign servant as red herringin this case, Waring's trainee Japanese butler, who is automatically suspect because, you know, FOREIGNER!! This is one of the "Fleming Stone" stories in which Stone's teenage sidekick, 'Fibsy' McGuire, actually does all the work, including solving the mystery of the missing weapon, and so answering the fundamental question of whether John Waring's death is murder or suicide I understand she has given several contradictory statements as to where she really lives.
Stone, I guess it's up to me to go out and seek her people. Nobody else could ever ferret out the antecedents and general family doings of Miss Mystery but Yours Truly. And this is no idle boast. I'm going out for the goods and I'll fetch home the bacon. The Falcon - As Charles II tries to negotiate a secret pact with Louis XIV, requiring his own public conversion to Catholicism and a declaration of war against the Dutch in exchange for unlimited wealth and the unlimited power that comes with it, his actions are repeatedly thwarted by a band of loyalists led by a mysterious figure known only as the Falcon.
The carrying of messages between Charles and Louis is entrusted to the brave but profligate Chevalier de Toqueville and Father Papin, a Jesuit. Various details make the priest suspect that the Falcon may be Sir Richard Somerset, a hanger-on at Charles' court at Whitehall; although he has trouble convincing his co-conspirators that the apparently amiable but unintelligent Sir Richard could be the dangerous pirate of the Channel.
However, with the Falcon continuing to impede the French agents' mission, Papin devises a plot to strike back at what he believes to be their enemy's most vulnerable point: This novel by the Australian author, Edward Vivian Timms, is a fair historical romance with lots of derring-do and hair's-breadth escapes, although - as even this brief synopsis makes evident - it owes FAR too much to The Scarlet Pimpernel , right down to the central estrangement between its hero and his wife.
Why do these men marry women they can't trust with their secret? Why do they marry at all?? Sadly enough, irritating women who drive the plot through their stupid decisions seem to be a Timms specialty - I had the same problem with his Alicia Deane - and, true to form, Anne Somerset goes mighty close to getting her husband killed and handing England over to France before she's done. The most interesting character in this novel is Father Papin, who unexpectedly enough breaks the mold of the "wicked Jesuit" and is presented as a man who successfully compartmentalises his religion and his politics, but for whom religion will always come firstwhich, as it turns out, is just as well for Sir Richard Somerset Ye will never come to me now.
But I plead with ye to believe me when I say that what was done was done for England. And, my dear love, if ye cannot forgive me, I beseech ye to forget me. Then, with a choked, panting cry, she turned and fled from the vault. He watched her go, and the misery in his eyes brought to even the dead hearts of Buckingham and the Jesuit the strange, long-forgotten emotion of pity. The Duke's hands trembled a little as he read the King's decree, and when the captain of the guard made his preparations he could not bring himself to look at the axe or the red-hot brazier into which the handless wrist would be plunged to cauterise the flesh Dec 21, , 3: Vanessa - Published in , this is the final volume in Hugh Walpole's "Herries Chronicles", a family saga that in totality stretches from the midth century to the early decades of the 20th century.
Vanessa picks up precisely where its predecessor, The Fortress , left off, in the midst of the celebrations for the th birthday of the indomitable Judith Paris. At this gathering of the Herries, Vanessa Paris and Benjie Herries, though only children, begin a friendship that will become an enduring love. At first glance the two young people could not be more differentVanessa quiet, steady and religious, Benjie rackety, restless and with little belief in anything but Vanessabut the connection between them will remain unbroken throughout their lives As is often the case with long-running series, Hugh Walpole clearly had trouble letting go of his characters: However, as with all of these books, Walpole's understanding of the functioning of society, as the late Victorian era gives way to the Edwardian period, and then to the horrors of WWI, and his tendency to highlight the less obvious moments in history, make Vanessa worthwhile.
On the level of character, Walpole gets much mileage out of the contrast between the ever-increasing respectability of the Herries clan and its historical tendency to erupt suddenly in scandal and an illegitimate birth. After a moment of madness forces Benjie into an unwanted marriage, Vanessa tries to rebuild her own life through marriage to Sir Ellis Herries, who is obsessively in love with her.
But though on the surface the marriage is a success, and Vanessa herself lauded for her beauty, her poise, her success as a hostess, secretly she must deal with Ellis's crumbling sanity, which is fed by his overpowering jealousy of Benjie. Though Benjie has since been widowed, Vanessa has continued to avoid him, trying to stay true to her vows; but when Ellis's mental state puts Vanessa in physical danger, she and Benjie cause the last great Herries scandal by running away together She smiled as she lay back in her chair looking at the long dune like the back of a whale over whose brown surface little waves broke in edges of white and silver.
Benjie was not perfect. She never supposed he would be. There had been the night at Eastbourne to discover him kissing the chambermaid. Twice, once in Paris, he had left her for two days without warning. Sometimes he was out of temper, sometimes but very seldom drunk. He knew some queer people Vanessa, on her side, was not perfect either. She was impatient, suffered fools badly and some of Benjie's friends were very foolish , sometimes nagged Benjie, sometimes as she well knew bored him with her naivete, her religion, her obstinacy.
But they had been saved, both of them, by their splendid comradeship. Because they had been friends all their lives long that business of compromise, so difficult in the first year of marriage, had been quite natural for both of them. They loved for every kind of reason, but chiefly because they knew one another so well and admired and laughed at, for the most part, the same things. The wildness in Benjie Vanessa understood because, in her own way, she had the same wildness. They must both be free Can I post photos or would that be too freaky?? Well, you asked for it!
Lieutenant Michael Fitton Adventure Series
That IS big, glad to know you didn't kill it, but transferred it to the garden: I apologize for bringing this to you so late in your day actually, I think it's tomorrow over there, so I'm a day late but I just saw this on Twitter: I hope you did something suitably slothy to celebrate. Oct 20, , 4: I'm used to huntsman spiders being pretty big, but this was one of the largest I've seen.
Ordinarily they tend to lurk high up on your walls, so you can keep a respectful distance from one another. Luckily I was able to manoeuvre it into the bathroom, and it sat still until the thought of the spaghetti canister occurred to me. Try not to kill anything, although cockroaches and ants sometimes won't take a hint. Oh, Julia, trust mein Australia huntsman spiders are by far the least of your problems!
That sloth looks just as surprised as I was to find out it was International Sloth Day! Best-selling books in the United States for The Turmoil by Booth Tarkington 2. A Far Country by Winston Churchill 3. Pollyanna Grows Up by Eleanor H. K by Mary Roberts Rinehart 6. Jaffery by William J. Felix O'Day by F. The Harbor by Ernest Poole 9. Pollyanna Grows Up is the self-explanatory sequel to Eleanor Porter's previous smash hit; while K is not one of Mary Roberts Rinehart's outright mysteries, rather a romantic melodrama with elements of crime set amongst a struggling boarding-house community.
William Locke's Jaffery is the story of a quartet of friends, one of whom becomes a war correspondent and has many improbable adventures. On the whole, however, in we find the "social criticism" novel still going strong. Former chart-topper Francis Hopkinson Smith reappears with Felix O'Day , the story of a British aristocrat fallen on hard times, who finds friends and support in America amongst the so-called "common" people. Henry Sydnor Harrison's Angela's Business is an odd, sometimes comic novel about changing opportunities for women. Gene Stratton-Porter's Michael O'Halloran is about an orphaned boy struggling to survive on the streets of a midwestern city.
The Harbor was Ernest Poole's first novel, about life on the waterfront of New York and trade unionism; when Poole won the Pulitzer Prize in with His Family , it was considered by some a case of belated recognition of the earlier work. Winston Churchill's A Far Country is a semi-autobiographical story about a young lawyer's progressive loss of moral sense for more on this one, see Steve's thread. And at 1 in we find Booth Tarkington with The Turmoil , the first volume of his self-proclaimed "Growth" trilogy, a set of novels about the effects of capitalism and increasing industrialisation upon middle America.
Oct 20, , 6: Booth Tarkington was born in Indianapolis in , part of a socially prominent, "old money" family that suffered financial losses during the depression of the s: As a young man he attended both Purdue and Princeton, although he graduated from neither; at the latter he was heavily involved with the dramatic society and began writing plays; he also edited the Nassau Literary Magazine.
After returning home to Indiana, Tarkington flirted with a political life and served one term in the House of Representatives. Writing remained his passion, however, and he became one of the most successful and popular novelists of the early 20th century, one of only three writers to win the Pulitzer Prize twice for his fiction.
Tarkington was a devoted regionalist, and his novels are set predominantly in Indiana; although several are set in New England, where he often summered and later relocated. While he first gained prominence due to his humorous stories about midwestern life, Tarkington gained his greatest success via his serious works examining, in particular, the effects of increasing industrialisation and the "new money" society being created as a consequence.
Along with a number of other leading American writers of the time, Tarkington wrote of the dangers of a "money for money's sake" attitude and the attendant decline of traditional mores and standards. He examined this situation in a trio of thematically-related novels which he called his "Growth Trilogy": Oct 22, , 6: His wealth is great and still growing; his two eldest sons, James Jr and Roscoe, are being groomed to succeed him in his business; and his wife and daughter are scheming their way into acceptance by the city's traditional upper classes.
Only the youngest son, Bibbs, is a disappointment. Bibbs' first exposure to the family business ended disastrously when his forced tenure as a manual labourer drove him into a breakdown which required a period of hospitalisation. Lately returned home, but still under his doctor's care, Bibbs spends his time on dreams and poetry: As the fortunes of the Sheridans continue to rise, their new neighbours, the Vertrees family, stare poverty in the face. Although they are part of the local elite, poor financial decisions have left them ruined, forced to secretly sell their possessions in order to survive.
Daughter Mary, knowing that she has no skills which will help her get a job, makes up her mind that a wealthy marriage is her only optionand coolly sets her sights on James Sheridan Jr Booth Tarkington's study of the clash between "old" and "new" money and the moral effects of contemporary business practices is an interesting but ultimately unsatisfactory work: It is hard not to suspect editorial interference here, with what seems to be building towards a tragedy suddenly undercut by an absurd "romantic" conclusion that leaves every one of the novel's hard questions unanswered.
However, up to this point the narrative remains engaging, if not wholly persuasive. Ironically, the novel's portrait of James Sheridan Sr, a man who knows what he wants - even if he doesn't know why he wants it - may be The Turmoil 's most successful aspect. Sheridan is the personification of the "big for big's sake, money for money's sake" attitude that Tarkington saw as the root of America's moral decline; yet Sheridan is convincing and complete in a way that most of the other characters are notincluding the novel's emerging hero, Bibbs.
The other interesting thing here is the decline and fall of the Vertrees family. Though they are tacitly presented as victims of the ugly new world of the Sheridans and their ilk, Mary's decision to sell herself for money - and her parents' complicity - hardly makes them a desirable moral alternative. As The Turmoil progresses, Bibbs and Mary become its focus, each finding in the other an inspiration and a reason to do better; even though their relative situations prevent them being totally frank with one another.
A series of tragedies, both personal and professional, strikes the Sheridan family, driving a wedge between Bibbs and Mary and, in the face of his father's unexpected need of him, forcing Bibbs to consider whether he can do the one thing he has always most dreadedthe thing that once before almost killed himnamely, accept the yoke of the Sheridan Trust Company Bibbs went to the window, raised it, and let in the uproar of the streets below.
He looked down at the blurred, hurrying swarms and he looked across, over the roofs with their panting jets of vapour, into the vast, foggy heart of the smoke. Dizzy traceries of steel were rising dimly against it, chattering with steel on steel, and screeching in steam, while tiny figures of men walked on threads in the dull sky. Buildings would overtop the Sheridan. Bigness was being served. The old question came to Bibbs with a new despair. Here, where his eyes fell, had once been green fields and running brooks, and how had the kind earth been despoiled and disfigured!
The pioneers had begun the work, but in their old age their orators had said for them that they had toiled and risked and sacrificed that their posterity might live in peace and wisdom, enjoying the fruits of the earth. Well, their posterity was hereand there was only turmoil.
- How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture (American Ways Series);
- .
- Hypertension and physical activity;
- My Best Friend’s Life?
- .
Where was the promised land? It had been promised by the soldiers of all the wars; it had been promised to this generation by the pioneers; but here was the very posterity to whom it had been promised, toiling and risking and sacrificing in turnfor what? Dec 23, , 3: Daaaaaaaaaag Well, you know how that goes So it turned out the internet lied to me. Yes, I know; I was astonished too!
Fortunately most of these books are available as very inexpensive Kindle editions. Oct 20, , 9: Michael O'Halloran is one of the most sickeningly sweet books I have ever read in my life, which is saying a lot because I have a soft spot for "orphans who overcome hardship" as a plot point. I read it in grad school just because I like Stratton-Porter in general, and ended up citing the book in my research on twentieth-century Midwestern farm women.
I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so you know the argument that the farmer and his wife have over the fact that he has all this new machinery and technology to make the farm chores easier but she has to make do with all the old-fashioned ways of doing the household chores because he insists there isn't enough money to buy the new labor-saving equipment she wants? Yeah, that really happened. I don't doubt it at all. Oct 21, , 4: Mr Dooley In Peace And In War - Finley Peter Dunne was chief editorial writer for the Chicago Post when he began contributing, anonymously, short humorous commentaries on life that were supposedly the observations of an Irish publican named Dooley, usually given in conversation with his elderly crony, Mr Hennessy.
In , however, "Dooley" had things to say about the Battle of Manila Bay; this particular column attracted wide attention, and before long the increasingly politically focused commentaries were being syndicated across America, and then in England. For the modern reader, these short pieces are anything but easy: At various points in this collection, the mist does clear, as it were, and we can see why these pieces were so popular, and so controversial; but overall, Mr Dooley In Peace And In War is a lot of hard work for what might not be considered sufficient yield. People must be crazy.
I found th' life iv an ex-convict, the 'Prisoner iv Zinders,' in me high hat th' other day, where Mary Ann was hidin' it fr'm her sister. Instead iv th' chidher fightin' an' skylarkin' in th' evenin', they're settin' around th' table with their noses glued into books. Th' ol' woman doesn't read, but she picks up what's goin' on. There's no injymint in th' house, an' they're usin' me cravats f'r bookmarks.
- .
- Foolproof Kindle Formatting: Step-By-Step Guide For Formatting Your Ebook (Windows & Mac) (The Foolproof Kindle Series 1)!
- .
I have Shakespeare on thrust, Father Kelly r-reads th' Bible f'r me, an' I didn't buy Mike Ahearn's histhry because I seen more thin he cud put into it. Books is th' roon iv people, specially novels. Well, that's short and to the point! And a very nice review at that. I've heard of Finley Peter Dunne's Dooley writings, and I think I've read quotes and maybe even the occasional full piece, but I kind of hate trying to read overly literal transcriptions of dialect so I've never been tempted to read the whole thing. The quote you chose, though, is quite apt for LT, if you have a mental machete handy to hack a path through the dialect.
The Amateur Cracksman reissue title: The Amateur Cracksman - When his brother-in-law, E. Hornung, dedicated his first volume of stories to him, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was flattered but uncomfortable: Raffles and Harry "Bunny" Manders are a deliberate challenge to conventional morality: And if this wasn't quite enough taboo-breaking, it is impossible to believe that the homoerotic overtones to the relationship between Raffles and Bunny weren't deliberate on Hornung's part.
Was there such a thing as slash fiction in ? Because these two beg for iteven aside from the detail that they met at public school, when Bunny was Raffles' fag Told in the first person by Bunny, after he finds himself more-or-less accidentally assisting his old friend Raffles in the burglary of a jeweller's shop, the stories trace their various exercises in crime, some successful, some a failure; while always there is the spectre of the suspicious Inspector Mackenzie In his youth, Hornung spent time in Australia for his health, and afterwards drew upon his experiences in his writing.
This scheme is the thieves' last, however; another passenger on the ship is Inspector Mackenzie, who finally has them where he wants themhe thinks. When we have our final glimpse of Raffles, he is literally swimming off into the sunsetand, incidentally, leaving Bunny to carry the canbut of course the world had not seen the last of "the amateur cracksman" Why couldn't you trust me? Why must you lie? You may remember how I sounded you about crime, though you have probably forgotten what you said yourself.
I didn't think you meant it at the time, but I thought I'd put you to the test. Now I see you didn't, and I don't blame you. I only am to blame. Get out of it, my dear boy, as quick as you can; leave it to me. You won't give me away, whatever else you do! Had he fallen back on threats, coercion, sneers, all might have been different even yet.
But he set me free to leave him in the lurch. He would not blame me. He did not even bind me to secrecy; he trusted me. He knew my weakness and my strength, and was playing on both with his master's touch Oct 21, , 5: Yes, that was one of the times when the mist cleared! But really, you have to put so much effort into deciphering the dialect with these pieces, you tend to miss what Dunne is actually saying. You've probably not ever read any of Lawrence Block's mysteries series featuring burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr. Somewhere along the line he acquires a used bookstore, which he uses as a front for his real job of stealing valuable stuff from rich people.
The books are lighthearted and good fun, but the reason I'm telling you all this is that Bernie also acquires a cat, which comes to live in his bookstore and whom he named Raffles, after the amateur cracksman himself. Yes, that's exactly it. It's far too exhausting to wade through to appreciate the pith. The Nonesuch - When the wealthy Sir Waldo Hawkridge, a noted sportsman, inherits the estate of a distant cousin, he makes plans to convert the country house into an orphanage; creating asylums for homeless children is Sir Waldo's particular charitable work, despite the disapproval of his relatives.
When Sir Waldo travels to Yorkshire to set in motion the necessary renovations, he is accompanied by his young cousin, Lord Lindeth, who prefers country life to town amusements. The arrival of two such fashionable gentleman creates a stir in the previously quiet district, but nowhere more so than in the Underhill household: Tiffany Wield, beautiful, wealthy and only seventeen years old, is determined to marry into the aristocracy, and immediately sets her sights on the susceptible Lindeth.
Sir Waldo, seeing only shallow selfishness behind Tiffany's lovely face, makes up his mind to interfere in the budding romance, even if this complicates his own growing interest in the girl's governess-companion, Miss Ancilla Trent In this novel Georgette Heyer provides a fascinating sketch of "polite" life in the country, with families interacting via competing entertainments and boys and girls who have grown up together finding a different footing as they become young men and women. All this is only background, however, to Heyer's main plot, which finds Sir Waldo Hawkridge luring Tiffany into a flirtation meant to open Lindeth's eyes to her myriad faults while simultaneously pursuing a serious courtship of the wary Ancilla, who has personal reasons for distrusting men of his stamp: Tiffany herself is one of a subset of Heyer characters who are hilarious at a safe distance i.
Ancilla's own situation, meanwhile, could fairly be described as a mixed blessing: It is with uncertain emotions that Ancilla observes Sir Waldo's flirtation with the girl, understanding his motives but feeling that she is betraying Tiffany by looking the other way.
But this is nothing compared to Ancilla's confusion when she realises that Sir Waldo seems to have more than flirtation in mind when it comes to herself. The idea of the Nonesuch having a serious interest in a mere governess is absurd, of course; and for this and a dozen different other reasons, Ancilla knows that she must guard her own heart: I've seen how Tiffany can bring people round her thumb, and how charming she can be when she chooses.
But she hasn't a particle of that sweetness of disposition which is in your cousin She glanced at him, a puzzled expression in her eyes. They met his, and saw that they were quizzically smiling; and the suspicion flashed into her mind that he was trying to beguile her into a flirtation. It was swiftly succeeded by the startling realisation that she could easily be so beguiled. That would never do No, I don't, but I'm not surprised: The psychology surrounding the way jewel thieves are presented in popular culture is very interesting Emma by Jane Austen Newest work: Oct 21, , 7: Your reviews are always so entertaining and enlightening, Liz.
The Raffles series was one I enjoyed as a young chap and the anecdote about Doyle made me smile. Thanks for putting up that list. As you could guess such stats are guaranteed to grab my notice. Have a lovely weekend. BTW I didn't manage to keep up with Ilana, et al and your goodself for Emma , but I will take it on in my own time with liberal reference to your splendid tutoring. Hi, Paul - thank you! Yes, I think poor Arthur was a bit befuddled by the whole thing. I like those Top Ten lists not so much writing the associated review, but oh well It's fascinating to see what people were reading at particular points in history.
Actually the tutored read is still going: Ilana has been struggling very much with her migraines so we're only slowly ticking over as she feels up to it. So feel free to drop in any time! Oct 23, , 5: I think I've sorted out my statistics Third quarter stats: Cox Newest work: So have a couple more sloths! Hornung was Doyle's brother-in-law. They're not as scary as they look, though I'll agree they look pretty scary. Yes, Hornung married Doyle's sister. I thought that might make up for all the red-head covers and quotes! Speaking of which, I've got a beauty for you from Ms Braddon, when I can find it again And now I need to get back to the blog That's the good news; the bad news is, this is probably going to run to a three-parter.
So you can wait Oct 26, , 5: Murder In The House Of Commons - On a stiflingly hot night, with the House of Commons enveloped in an impenetrable London fog, government ministers try to decide how to handle a burgeoning scandal, with rumours of an affair between Charles Claverhouse Considine, the President of the Board of Trade, and a certain notorious lady.
Timothy Lester, one of those who dislikes the man but supports his policy, is dismayed to discover how badly affected by the situation is his closest friend in the House, George Bourne, who is devoted to C. The House's sitting turns into an all-night session, one in which heat and exhaustion take their toll on the gathered politicians. Lester seeks relief on the fog-drenched terrace, where he falls asleep briefly on a stone bench.
Waking suddenly, and moving carefully through the fog, Lester is suddenly confronted by the sight of Bourne standing over the dead body of C. Mary Agnes Hamilton served as Labour MP for Blackburn from to , and she puts her knowledge of the workings of the House of Commons and party politics into this disturbing mystery. What is most startling here is the lack of editorialisation: Furthermore, there's no suggestion that, for instance, the opposition getting in will plunge England into war, or anything of that magnitude.
Rather, the whole thing is couched in terms of party politics and MPs holding onto their seats, which the main characters seem to feel is good and sufficient reason for what they do; the reader may feel differently. By the end of the novel, however, an unmistakeable air of irony does creep in, with the conspirators getting a comeuppance of sorts, albeit not from the police. Timothy Lester's impulsive involvement in the disposal of the dead woman's body is prompted by his assumption that George Bourne murdered her. However, he soon realises that Bourne thinks C.
Attempting to identify the killer in order to head off an appalling scandaland, incidentally, to save Bourne's neck and his ownLester learns that the dead woman was a professional blackmailer, dealing in indiscreet letters, and that C. The murder may therefore have been committed by someone seeking either to save their own reputation, or to frame C. Underneath its appalling seriousness, this really was an absurd affair. Lester almost laughed as he realised it.
So freakishly and so closely interwoven in it were the strands of grim tragedy and screaming farce, so freakishly and in fashion so incalculable did they run in and out of one another, that logic and reason were useless to separate or order them into any coherent design. Then, at the crisis of accepted hopelessness, chance suddenly flashed before his eyesor rather before his nosethe key to the entire confused and confusing pattern The thrill of relief that passed through Lester's entire being was like being in contact with a fresh wind, with the ice of the high mountains behind it, as the climber comes out of the thick, heat-steeped woods into the open.
Doubtssickening doubtshad visited him more than once during the course of the night, as to whether he and George had not played the part of fools, and worse than fools, in removing the body: Now, however, they were justified; thanks to them, an abominable plot was going to be thwarted Still reading Murder Is Easy. The Murder Of Harvey Blake - Struggling lawyer James Price is consulted about her divorce by the embittered Mrs Blake, who insists that she has no choice but to accept a small settlement from her husband; that if she fights him in any way, he will leave her destitute.
Price tries to explain community property to her, but his efforts are met with a scornful denunciation of his profession. Angered but needing clients, Price agrees to represent herbut never gets the chance: Price learns what has happened when he phones the Blake house and his call is answered by Captain Waller, who knows him from a period spent as a police reporter. Called to the scene, Price finds Waller in company with a friend of his, Asaph Clume, an amateur criminologist. He learns that Blake was found beaten to death near his garage, presumably as he was putting his car away, with the first blow fatal but many others struck.
What Price has to say makes Mrs Price the prime suspect; but, as the police learn, Harvey Blake was a man not lacking in enemies This novel by Raymond Goldman, which introduced amateur detective Asaph Clume, is a fair mystery but thoroughly annoying on the level of characterfrom Price's patronising, dime-store psychology diagnosis of the distressed Mrs Price, which occupies the first chapter and makes an abused wife the bad guy, to the tiresome Captain Waller, a typical policeman for an American novel of this era in that he just wants to arrest someone, anyone , but whose opinions are so easily influenced that at one point he believes three different people guilty within the space of one ten-minute argument by Clume.
Mrs Price is as rude about the police as she was about lawyers earlier, so Waller really wants to arrest her As the investigation proceeds, the question becomes whether Blake's murder was the result of his cruel treatment of his wife, which included physical violence; his dishonest business practiceshe had a long history of bankruptcies, in which other people's money mysteriously vanished; or his habitual lechery, which encompassed both the young maid, Bernice, who lived in his house, and the pretty young Mrs Stevens next door, which provoked a physical confrontation between Blake and the much-older Mr Stevens on the afternoon before Blake's death.
And who was the woman with whom Blake met secretly in the empty rooms over the garage? As Waller flits from suspect to suspect, absolutely convinced of one person's guilt one moment and another's the next, the shrewd Asaph Clume begins to evolve a new and startling theory of Harvey Blake's deathbut two more people will die before the murderer is exposed Didn't you say the same thing about her only a few minutes ago? Do you know, Hank, you put me in mind of a young man in love with two pretty girls. Whichever one he saw last, that's the one he loves best.
Now what have we done this evening? We have looked at the external aspects of the affair and have succeeded in building up a strong case against three personsMrs Blake, Bernice, and Stevens. We have relied on that triumvirateMotive, Means and Opportunityand they have failed us because we have been seduced by the obvious.
My Particular Murder - When No Man Pursueth , the first book in David Sharp's series feature Arthur Henry Fielding, Professor of Philology, is effectively unobtainable, which is a great shamenot just because reading this really made me want to read that , but because events in that first novel are the reason for much of what happens in My Particular Murder. When, running late for a lecture, the Professor takes a wrong turn into a dark alley and literally stumbles over a well-dressed man who has been stabbed to death, his first reaction is exasperation; his second, not to alert the police, but to make a quick phone-call to a reporter friend before he starts his lecture.
Heading home afterwards, the Professor steps into a car that he has told his sister has sent for him, but soon finds himself in the hands of Mabberley, a criminal recently recently escaped from the jail term for which we gather the Professor's efforts were responsible. Mabberley's first idea is to give the Professor a taste of imprisonment before killing him, but when the morning papers scream that he is wanted for the murder of Dawes, a stockbroker, Mabberley sees the opportunity for an even better revenge Despite his placid demeanour, the Professor is not about to take his situation lying down.
Fortunately for him, his efforts to attract attention to his place of confinement catch the eye of the eccentric Sheridan Orford, who not only frees him from Mabberley, but helps him to evade the police while they try to find the real murderer My Particular Murder is an entertaining mystery-thriller, and one with a wicked sense of humour that helps to carry it over its plot's more improbable momentswhich are not few in number.
But certainly we're not meant to take this too seriously. Even the name of the Professor's rescuer and soon-to-be sidekick is a joke, "Sheridan Orford" being one of the names toyed with by Arthur Conan Doyle before he settled on "Sherlock Holmes". Orford is a gatherer of information, purely for his own satisfaction; nothing annoys him more than being asked to explain himself, or take action on the basis of what he knows, which often makes him a difficult collaborator.
What he does do, however, he does thoroughly, including disguising the Professor in a way that makes it possible for him to carry out his investigation of Dawes' murder. Luckily for the Professor, he has a knack of winning and keeping friends, and soon he has a small band of loyal adherentshis devoted manservant, William Francis; his brother-in-law, Edward McIntosh; young Jennifer Hassel, who Fielding helps out of a difficulty of her own; her American uncle, Mr Hassel; and Mark Penrigg, the reporter who Fielding first alerts to the murderwho join Orford in the tricky job of keeping the Professor out of the hands of both Mabberley who wants the reward on his head as well as revenge and the police, while trying to determine what got Dawes killed: Orford had been regarding me curiously from the moment he discovered my identity.
You'll want a pretty good alibi to escape hanging. It looks to me like risk against certainty. We shall never get that money now, but it's almost worth it. A real prison cell and the drop at the end of it! I could never have planned something half so magnificent. How I wish I had known it was coming; I could have lived on that all these years. Hanged as a murderer. I see there are sloths aplenty here, but I'm sad to have missed International Sloth Day.
I'll have to keep an eye out for Heather next time I get my hair done. She looks like a salon kind of gal. Always like to use a sloth as a dangling carrot to get my reviews written. If my sloths bring in visitors too, well, all the better! Only for a treatment and a trim, thoughthose flowing red locks are clearly natural! Now reading Frederica by Georgette Heyer. And I will now draw a line under October, and begin my re-read of The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope, in preparation for the group read starting next week whoo!!
Keeping it in the family, as it were. We're reading two Heyers this month? But I haven't finished False Colours yet! No, no, that's just memy interlibrary loans that I'd planned on didn't turn up on time, and I didn't want to start The Prime Minister too early and risk finishing too early. Georgette was to hand, so But please do finish False Colours!! Just for you, apropos of absolutely nothing, a slothonaut Aw, sloths don't have to be apropos of anything! That one got a little out of hand: A Ship for Mr. Fitton by Showell Styles. Shelve A Ship for Mr.
Mr Fitton's Prize by Showell Styles. First published in Mr Fitton's Prize follows… More. Shelve Mr Fitton's Prize. First published in , Mr Fitton and the Black… More. Fitton And The Black Legion. Fitton in Command by Showell Styles. Lieutenant Fitton by Showell Styles. It's the early s and Michael Fitton, now a Li… More. Fitton at the Helm by Showell Styles. First published in , "Mr Fitton at the Helm"… More.
Fitton at the Helm. The Martinique Mission by Showell Styles. The fighting career of the armed schooner Gi psy… More.