Miss Garnet's Bad Gay-Dar

Miss Garnet's Angel by Salley Vickers


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I went into this with all my warning lights flashing: it's gonna be spiritual (and I'm not), "oh god, there's gonna be romance" (ew); and "she's gonna see angels, isn't she?" This was probably unfair to the author, but that hasn't stopped me before.
Miss Julia Garnet is a rather stupid woman who becomes fascinated by a story from the Apocrypha when she could be enjoying the endless art of Venice. She also has very bad "gay-dar." Vickers tries to interweave these two stories but as the outcome of the older one had already been laid out for the reader, I wished it would just go away. I've read pseudo-biblical novels and actually enjoyed them (The Red Tent by Anita Diamant) because they were saying something interesting on two levels: this is the way it was, this is us looking at it from behind the screen of the laconic biblical version.
In the end, I think this is someone who actually does write better than Dan Brown trying to write something similar to The da Vinci Code or such, but running up against the same problems: the straining of credulity chief among them. While I welcome this in cheezy mystery fiction, I expect something better from this sort of book.
The angel business is telegraphed all over, Miss Garnet (not sure if I can blame the author directly on this) makes a silly error over the usage of "Signore" [no, my dear, they aren't calling God by the homely title of "Mister" - Signore means "lord" and it and mister/master have been watered down to apply to all men], and the Apocrypha story contains such an egregious ball of lard as: "In your language, if you spell dog backwards ... well, you are not stupid, I guess, or you would not be reading this." So, this Jew in Assyrian exile knows English? Wow, how magical is that.
And I think: really, am I not stupid? Why am I reading this? Because I was ordering "Barbarella" from amazon.com and this would only be another $2.22?

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The Book That Came To Dinner

The Portable Woollcott, by Alexander Woollcott


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a compendium of over 700 pages of essays, legends, true crime, radio transcripts, reviews of plays and books (supplying me with some new reading material!), which took me a couple of months to finish relishing at bedtime. It includes an old favorite, "Entrance Fee" wherein a cadet at Saint-Cyr wins the pool to spend the night with France's most desirable (and expensive - to the tune of 5,000 francs) femme and when learning of this scam, the woman, delighted by the compliment and stricken by the expense for a poor student, graciously "returns his money." Wonderful story! I remember laughing at it at a surprisingly young age - perhaps 13.
Also in here is the Holy Grail of the "Believe It Or Not"s - perhaps inspiration for that Indiana Jones thingie, an essay on how in his own land the architect/philosopher gets no respect - "The Prodigal Father," "I Might As Well Have Played Hooky" - about success without formal education (and Harpo's first and only harp lesson), "Perfectly Gone" - a paean to youth's wide-eyed wonder, and the story of "The Sage of Fountain Inn" that intrigued me because I live quite near a town of that name - only to discover that it was that self-same town!
All of this is in Woollcott's sweetly tortured and antiquated prose that lends a mellifluous nostalgia to the whole biz. Does anyone write like this anymore?
I return this musty and fragile volume to the library, fearful that it will get the axe for not being pretty enough, never to be replaced, and our town will lose a (if tattily) beribboned box of bon-bons that continues to satisfy even if you get one of those horrid coconut ones I always hated. Ummm, block that metaphor.

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What Me Cognitive Dissonance?

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I forget, was there some evolutionary advantage to this? We choose our parties and then adapt our philosophies to fit it. Maybe this is all a part of Belonging to the Group.
Reading something else very much interested me in cognitive dissonance and this is the book to read for us lay folk! Don't try to change what someone believes, they're only going to cling to their beliefs more tenaciously. Me, I think I'll take Ben Franklin's lead and borrow a book from someone who disagrees with me vociferously and then return it promptly with a nice note. See, then that person will think, "Oh, I did marfita a favor - it must be because she's a nice person" and let it go from there, like the noise cancellation on a helicopter (that I wish could be transferred to dental drills). And I will do this over and over again until everyone thinks I'm a nice person and that my ideas must also be okay and then I can manipulate them. 'Ya think George W. has a book I can borry?
The book was very entertaining as well as informative, but I don't see anyone with some serious cognitive dissonance issues looking inward just from reading it.
Me, of course, I don't have any CDIs. Heh!

This was read in the Kindle edition. There was a typo somewhere.

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Under the Magnifying Glass

Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Wha-at? You mean there was no Carolyn Keene? As a child I devoured the Nancy Drew books, like most girls, re-reading them and demanding more (to my mother's horror - she wanted me to go to a library and get them, but how could you read and re-read as I did with books if they weren't right there on your shelf? I have solved this problem in adulthood by working in libraries!). I remember hearing that there was a woman behind them, or maybe a man who started it and his wife (turned out to be his daughter) who ground them out under the name of Keene. After that I lost track of the whos and wheres and now have learned that there was a hard-writing, tough woman reporter in the midwest who did the fleshing out of book outlines provided. The syndicate then edited them or suggested edits.
This book is certainly more than one would want to know about the making of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and other older series books. I guess you could then call it "thorough." It's disheartening to read about family squabbles over money when your associations with these books hearken to mythologies like the Easter Bunny. Harriet's sister Edna married and bowed out of the day-to-day running of the syndicate, but managed to pinch pennies from a distance. Having had a sister, I can just imagine ...
I was also right in preferring the oldest versions, the blue books with the orange print on the outside. Later editions of Nancy Drew were dumbed down, eviscerated for political correctness, and even later reduced to advertising for the shallowest of consumerism. The love of the oldest versions led me to historical fiction and period mysteries. I now prefer a little more distance in my reading. Also, the educational bits in the books (which I actually noticed as a child reader and appreciated, "Oh! I'm learning something, too!") were intentional insertions.
Disdain for series literature started early and still exists, but the nay-sayers still don't learn the lesson: kids enjoy reading them, want to read them, and they actually help young readers develop the fluidity of reading, which prepares kids for the meatier stuff they will also have to read. Whether they go on to enjoy more serious "litticher" later is up to them, but they will already be hooked on the printed word.
The book climaxes in a courtroom smack-down (if the meeting of the two long-separated, elderly ladies can be so described) when the original writer (Mildred Wirt Benson) and the Stratemeyer Syndicate head (Harriet Stratemeyer Adams) face off while Harriet attempts to defend her split from Grosset and Dunlap. They each believed themselves to be the originator, the writer of the Nancy Drew stories. Harriet went so far as to refer to Nancy as her daughter. Grosset and Dunlap had stupidly mined the Syndicate's catalog and resisted sharing even a little bit more of the gold with the Syndicate. Harriet left them for a better deal with Simon & Schuster (who virtually raped and pillaged the Nancy Drew franchise after Harriet's death, relentlessly launching watered-down series after watered-down series and never achieved the same 50 year success of the originals).
The "original" Nancy Drew series (as well as Hardy Boys) have been published in facsimile form by Applewood Books, and Good on 'em!
Long live the Nancy Drew in all of us, the real one, the one that captured our hearts in our youth, the time when our hearts were there for the taking.

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To Consume Is Human

Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by Rob Walker


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Starting with investigating his own relationship with his Converse Chucks and his rejection of Nike (who now apparently owns Converse), Walker debunks the received wisdom of Old Advertising that consumers are manipulated into needing things they had hithertofore lived happily without. Advertising now seems to just validate what the consumer had already decided. Besides, who actually makes conscious decisions? Doesn't your brain just decide and then you spend time rationalizing?
Walker was in at the inception of the Red Bull (never quite understood that) craze and describes the "new" advertising where products are just put out there and the consumer decides what it means. Sometimes that is done intentionally (Toyota's Scion) and sometimes the manufacturer wrestles with it before finally giving in (Timberland).
The people in your own neighborhood with the secret pitch are outed. Did you realize that people are hired to talk up products and brands by stealth? And, what's more, they will do it for free - without pay and without any reinforcement other than being the first to know. Stunning!


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Falling Slightly FLATulent

Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
For 14 books I have resisted the urge to eat TastyCakes and donuts despite the "product placements," but this time I started getting a craving for chicken.
Lula, after having witnessed a decapitation, decides to become a prize-winning barbecuer. Don't ask how we got there. I would have thought one decapitation would turn you vegetarian for at least a week if not forever. I am a little disturbed by the scatological (well, maybe not "scat" per se, but flatulent) turn in this book. Does Evanovich run these stories past any of her african-american friends (assuming she has any)?
This is another round of the same-old same-old that makes you wonder why you read them, but then you start picturing Stephanie's grandmother with her gun and a reluctant smile starts to form. How many cars can Stephanie have burned up in one book? you ask yourself. I lost count on this one. Yes, it's still funny. How much longer can the sexual tension/love triangle go on between Stephanie, Joe, and Ranger? Oh, Steph, just sleep with Ranger already! You don't have to describe it to us, but who really believes the reasons you give for not doing it? I mean, you already have. Why all the tsimmis?
Evanovich will keep writing this fluff-with-a-tendency-toward-violence and I will keep reading it and eating bon-bons. Who am I kidding?

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Is It All Over? A Heart-rending Read

Unseen Academicals by Terry Pratchett


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It's not up to the brilliance of Hogfather or Going Postal, but it is Pratchett and it is Discworld. Pratchett offers us new characters (and creature - you'd think he'd have run out of them by now) and glimpses of old Ankh-Morpork pals - notably Rincewind, which gives one the uneasy feeling of closure.
The main characters are Glenda and Nutt (no plurals, please) as the oddballs, and Trevor and Juliet (and here Pratchett evokes an Ankh-Morpork "Westside Story") as ... well, the pretty ones. Glenda learns what it means to be a crab in a bucket. The rest don't really learn anything of any use to us. Nutt's epiphany as an "ethnic minority" notwithstanding, it's Glenda's story - Glenda who can confront the Tyrant and the Lady and - horrors! - Mrs. Whitlow. It's Glenda who can go from the crab in the bucket to ... a crab out of the bucket.
Pratchett also gives us a pretty well thought out natural history of that endangering species, the football hooligan and what it means to be a part of the many. There is so much that is good in this book, so much that is Pratchett.
It is also heart-rending. Pratchett forgoes his erstwhile chapters and returns to the relentless narrative only to segregate out some false endings. These are concluded with mostly blank pages that blare out "You think it's all over?" To this reader, it is a reminder of the possibility that this is the end of the Discworld, Pratchett's wise and joyous gift to us. Someone else had to type "most of it" for him, as his Alzheimer's robs him of this ability. I have to keep reminding myself that we have already gotten so much from him, how can we ask for more? And I fear someone else trying to take up the baton - something I can only picture as thinning out the material even more.
I hope this isn't Discworld's last gasp, but I am willing to let my favorites retire with grace: Vimes, the witches, and the unsinkable Nobby Nobbs. Tiffany Aching doesn't have to grow up; Carrot and Angua don't have to marry and raise puppies; Moist von Lipwig needn't make paying taxes fun and exciting. I thank Mr. Pratchett for all the joy he has brought through his writing and send him my love.

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No Talking? No Way!

No Talking by Andrew Clements


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I guess everything makes me cry. Oh well. In this highly unrealistic book, Dave and Lynsey pit the fifth grade boys against the fifth grade girls to see who can go for a whole day without talking. The only vaguely realistic part was where one of the girls sabotaged a boy's silence by ... well, read it yourself. Just beware: cooties are involved. If this contest were in the real world, there would have been a whole lot more sabotage.
It would be nice to think that a principal would apologize to a kid, but I don't see that happening. I see an adult just getting angrier and blaming the child. Or maybe that's just me again.

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Oh, Look - a Coretta Scott King Award - Duhhhh!

Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It by Sundee T. Frazier


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Brendan has questions he needs answered and he'll do just about anything to get those answers. Brendan has a grandfather he knew nothing about until an accidental meeting over some rocks and minerals.
This is a good book if you like rocks or tae kwon do (both resonate with me). This is also a good book for beginning a discussion of race relations and biracial families. Had me boo-hooing though.

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Predictable Amusement

The Witness at the Wedding by Simon Brett


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Carole's son and soon-to-be daughter-in-law try to reunite her with her useless excuse for an ex-husband David while she and Jude (just Jude) pry apart the secrets of her son's fiancee's family's past. A little predictable.
Musing with friends online about why we like some series I've decided that I like the age group here: women in their mid-50s. In 5 years I guess I'll move on to women in their 60s. Anyone got any suggestions?

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So-fee-ya, So-fie-ya - Let's Call the Whole Thing Off

Blood at the Bookies: A Fethering Mystery by Simon Brett


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I learned a bit about racing in England, which seems to be slightly different than the US. Our family used to go to the "trots" when we lived in Kentucky and bet on the sulky races. And, of course, we had Derby Parties and placed friendly bets on those. I never got into betting on horses much, probably because I never won. It was still exciting, though, to have a flutter. Just not exciting enough for me to part with my money - which says a whole lot about me, dunnit?

I did yell a bit at this book - the confrontation w/ the suspected murderer was contrived and stupid. And decoding the dying man's words was just not as difficult as Jude and Carole make it out to be. That caused a bit more yelling. Other than that, I find the two characters interesting and details of their lives compelling (although I'm more likely to tell Carole to "just get over it.").

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Alliteration in the Litticher

The Stabbing In The Stables by Simon Brett


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Surprise, surprise! I had read this one before. I didn't recognize the title (although it should be memorable) before picking it up, but as I went on it started sounding more familiar. Typical with me, although I remembered bits and pieces of it, most of it was still a mystery to me and required little or no yelling at the book. In this book Jude and Carole lament their lack of access to forensic evidence. The police just make things so hard for the amateur sleuth! Jude's uncharacteristic attention to detail and an overly handy diary solve one mystery.
I like the way Brett sums things up at the end of each of these books. He tells you what happens to the various characters - I guess so you don't worry about them or you get all cross if they got away with something because they're well-connected or rich and powerful.
In a side note, I don't do the same reading Jude does ... where does one read about "the connection between horse mutilation and paedophilia"?! In The Journal of the Horse Mutilators and The Paedophilia Gazette?
Note on my edition, which was a large print version: Ha ha! Book cover is decorated with a cowboy boot and a lariat. [Shakes head at Wheeler Publishing.]

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You Are Invited to a Necktie Party

The Hanging in the Hotel by Simon Brett


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
For a change, I didn't yell once at this book. No one was doing anything particularly bone-headed. The confrontation at the end seemed a little contrived, but the results realistic and satisfying, in a non-satisfactory and realistic kind of way.
Brett must really have something against attorneys (not to mention all-male "charitable" organizations). Carole's experiences with her wannabe love-interest grows slimier by the page. Maybe he's just pandering to public tastes.

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Bonehead Villains Unite!

Death on the Downs by Simon Brett


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Who dunnit? Seems like everyone dunnit. Everyone seems to be guilty of something in this story. You just need to fit the crime to the suspicious character.
I am continually surprised how amateur sleuths can just ring someone up and ask if they can come over and talk about the murder ... and it works!
Carole's early attempt at dating ("How interesting!") was amusing. Gawd, have I been there. I once laughed at every single thing some guy said, as if he were some deadpan comic.
Anyway, enough of my dysfunctional past love life ...
Brett actually includes the obligatory Two Bad Guys Discussing Their Crimes In Front Of the Sleuth so that they have to say, "Oh, now we've said all this in front of her - what do we do with her?" And, in true cozy fashion (although I've seen the same murderer-as-doofus scheme in Stalin's Ghost), the sleuth is left in a position she can either escape from or be rescued from, so the would-be killers don't have to trouble themselves with actually and personally killing a person.
Oh! Oh! And let's not forget the old Policeman And Bad Guy Battle It Out On the Cliff While the Others Watch Helplessly From a Distance!
So, why do I read these books if I find these conventions so annoying? Oh, because I love to complain! I love to regale my poor husband (who wouldn't read one of these with a gun pointed at his head) with these lunatic stories and make tea come out his nose when he can't take it any longer and finally starts laughing. Watching him laugh is the greatest delight in my life.
Of course, books like these also make me look at him warily. I was close to telling him that if he ever wanted a divorce that I would happily grant him one just so he wouldn't strangle me with his bare hands, but when I say things like that he just looks so hurt - as if I'd actually think anything like that about him.Would I read another one? Oh, sure - let me at 'em! Let's see what bone-headed thing comes up in Blood At the Bookies, which seems to be in at the mo'.

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Oh, Gard!

Murder In The Museum by Simon Brett


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I always enjoyed the Charles Paris stories and thought I'd try this from the Fethering series. I will probably read more of these, simply because they're easy and I only yelled at the book once: when the heroine finds the secret priest hole and ventures down it without a "lifeline" (someone who knows where she is, a weapon, a functioning cell phone, enough food for a week - that sort of thing) and then, when not just one but two suspects show up, are annoyed to find her, and have with them someone else they really don't like and send her down into the hole and then ask the heroine to toss up her car keys so they "can move her car" which is in the way AND SHE DOES. Okay, maybe that was just one big looooong yell.

Here's what would happen if I were going looking for a secret priest hole: I'd take a disinterested party with me, when I found the hole, I'd look at it from a distance and then I would leave and report my findings to the local constabulary. Before going down into such a space, I would have: a flashlight with fresh batteries, stout shoes, a quick alternate escape plan (featuring the disinterested party, I'm sure), and my head examined.

The characters were realistic (they can get cartoony in the Cozies) and I suppose the victim was not totally over-the-top as pushy, overbearing, with a touch of sadism. I do have a quibble with the annoying American woman. I don't mind her being annoying and pushy, we are pretty annoying and pushy - that's fair comment. But the concession to an accent was that she said "Gard" all the time. As in, "Oh, Gard!" I'm sure the Brits roll on the floor when we try to do various Blighty accents, but where do they get this impression that we say things like "Gard" and "Americur"? Get it right, it's only in words like "Warshington" and "warter" and even then it's a minority accent. We say, "Oh, gawwwd!"

I'm afraid the dread secret of the Chadleigh's wasn't much of a secret - but it was fun getting there.

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Sparky vs. Dr. Crippen

Thunderstruck by Erik Larson


My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Two stories that should have been interesting, but were left to go on too long. I'd always heard about Dr. Crippen, so I was anxious to read about him and felt a bit disappointed. He only killed one person, someone who was clearly annoying. Granted, the disposal of the body was pretty ghoulish, but all in all you feel sorry for him, except that he was a patent medicine charlatan.
Marconi's parallel life made you wonder why no one killed him, but I guess he was too wealthy. It must be harder to bump someone off when they are staying in the best hotels. His family wealth makes it hard to feel sorry for his difficulties, but he really did work hard at developing wireless telegraphy and like William Smith had run headlong into the British caste system wherein the only thing lower than lower class was foreign. That he spoke perfect English (to the detriment of his Italian) and was from the upper class in his father's country buttered no parsnips. He was not a scientist to boot, but mostly he was foreign and they all knew that the Italians were anarchists. His equipment was confiscated at customs. This may go a long way to explain his hard-nosed business decisions which offended the men that were on his side. Larson chalks that up to his inability to read people, but after the treatment he received, it is no surprise to me that he started looking out for Number One.

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Pour Some Bush Tea and Put Up Your Feet!

The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The series continues gently on its way: Mma Makutsi and her fiance buying a bed for their future together, Mma Ramotswe searching for a woman's lost family, and Mr. JLB Matekoni looking for a miracle for their adopted daughter.
The detectives receive an anonymous letter berating them, and their reactions are differing. Mma Ramotswe takes it to heart. Mma Makutsi seems to view the world more equably with a wedding in her future - that is, until it rains.
I really enjoy these books, not so much as mysteries, but as little slices of life, like a round slice of orange held up to the light, softly shining. Mma Ramotswe can make her mistakes, but can stand up to them and make them right again, and continues with almost Solomonic wisdom.

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[Insert Bad Pun Here] In Underland

Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Promising myself to read this, I pulled a copy off the shelving cart Thursday, and then forgot it. Pulled it off the shelf yesterday and started it. Whoa! Forget exposition! We're into the action by page 13! And giant cockroaches! No one told me there would be cockroaches. Nor did anyone tell me that farther into the book I'd be crying (while sitting at the Children's Room desk) because one of them died.*

Collins apparently wrote this as a sort of urban Alice in Wonderland, with blood and gore and death and fear and no social commentary. Well, hardly any. The most important feature of this book, I think, is the presence of complex characters, of which I think I counted two. This is something you have to wade through most of the Harry Potter series to find. Is Snape a totally bad person? Who is your enemy?

Anyway, the book has two strong characters, a rollicking good plot, but I quibble with the names. "Gregor"? Who calls their kid that? It would make more sense to have him called Greg/Gregory at home and have the Underlanders call him Gregor. And "Boots" is a name you give to quadrupeds with white paws or hooves, not the baby. Also, there's a big age gap between the siblings ... makes one wonder if any other babies got sucked down the dryer exhaust. [This from someone with nine years between her and her sister.]

*I don't consider this a spoiler because, first of all, there's a prophecy that a certain number of the characters will die and, secondly, you kill one roach and there are 60,000 more to replace it.

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Nice ... ummm, Donkey - yeah, that's it, Donkey

Who Killed Marilyn Monroe? by Liz Evans


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Hmm, I'm not sure this is as cozy as I had expected. Sure, there's a bit of romance and the PI is a tad inept. There's also some deadly peril and a lot of blood - not to mention animal abuse. Marilyn Monroe is the donkey. It is apparently common to name donkey ride animals after old movie stars. According to one of my traveling friends, it's done in Greece as well - and they aren't all named Melina Mercouri. Old American film stars seem to be the norm.
Grace Smith, forced to leave The Force and now an unsuccessful private investigator and full-time mooch, is hired by the donkey ride owner to find out who killed an innocent beast of burden.
This case gets tangled with the murder of a young woman - and everyone is off looking for the Maltese Falcon (oh, whattagiveaway!). Well, that's what I was saying to myself once the statue element entered the story. And once you know there's a vicious donkey, you can predict what happens later.
This was, despite those predictable bits, a good and satisfying read that held up right to the end.

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Walk a Mile in Their Shoes

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Having read this, I now see how The Watsons go to Birmingham - 1963 was stage-managed. First, you suck people in with amusing childhood remembrances and get them all chuckling. Then you serve them what seems to be the climax and let them settle back down. At the very end you slam them with deadly peril, made to appear a little less deadly in the case of this book because all the narration seems to take place from inside a ham costume.
Both are powerful books and move me to tears. Neither of them were books I wanted to read, but in the end I was glad I read them. TKAM is difficult for me to relate to, so I may have appreciated Curtis's children's book more - a book that is much less preachy and less neatly sewn up at the end. And is there anyone as saintly as Atticus Finch?
Where TKAM tells you to walk a while in another person's skin, TWGTB actually does the walk. Writing from the black point of view after the passage of 50 years (or so) shows just how slowly society changes and how far we have to go.

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