MarysLibrary

A New Book from Alexander McCall Smith

Publisher's Weekly announced yesterday a new book by Alexander McCall Smith, The Careful Use of Compliments, to be published in August.

"Best known for the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, bestseller Smith shows he's just as adept at exploring mysteries of the heart in his fourth book to feature Edinburgh philosopher-sleuth Isabel Dalhousie (after The Right Attitude to Rain). Isabel has recently become a mother, but she has an ambiguous relationship with her son's father, Jamie, whose attempts to formalize their connection have been unsuccessful.

"Their ties are further strained by Jamie's ex-girlfriend, Cat, who not only still harbors strong feelings for him but is Isabel's niece. Isabel must also deal with petty academic politics aimed at depriving her of her position as editor of the Review of Applied Ethics. Smith throws in a mystery subplot—did an obscure but talented Scottish painter drown, commit suicide or fall victim to foul play?—but the resolution of that plot thread is more noteworthy for its insights into Isabel's humanistic and optimistic philosophy than for any surprise twists. Once again, Smith displays his skill at illustrating subtle nuances of human nature."

Spokane

Karla sent me this little video about Spokane. It's a promo to encourage tourism.

Spokane - Near Nature, Near Perfect

Thing is, it's true. It doesn't exaggerate a bit. Everything in the video is within about a 30 minute drive from my house, and the Japanese garden is only a 3 minute walk away.

The Cats

Miss Darcy soaks up the rays, while Miss Woodhouse

lounges on her velvet cushion.

The Best Book on Tape Ever Recorded

Joyce Carol Oates' Black Water, read by Amanda Plummer, according to Dwight Garner in this morning's NY Times, is the best book on tape ever recorded.

Black Water is "an updating of the Chappaquiddick story (young woman, old senator, car, water). The story is related by the victim as she’s drowning. Plummer’s version pulls you right under as well . . . "

Oates' new novel, The Gravedigger's Daughter, is number 17 on the Times' best seller list this week.

Darcy and Diana

Miss Darcy has become interested in Princess Diana lately. Here she is looking over the book Dressing Diana by Tim Graham and Tamsin Blanchard.

Flag Day, etc.

I learn a lot from my morning email from Garrison Keillor, The Writer's Almanac.

He tells me this is the 230th anniversary of the day on which the US flag became official. Before we had a constitution we had a flag, which had only 13 stars in 1777. And so we celebrate June 14th as Flag Day. 

It's also the anniversary of the day the Germans marched into Paris in 1940, separating Rick and Ilsa until that night she walked into his gin joint in Casablanca a year or so later.

And it's the anniversary of UNIVAC, the first commercially produced electronic digital computer. It weighed 8 tons, had 5,000 vacuum tubes, cost $250,000, and was so big you could walk inside it. But it couldn't do the calculations I can perform today on my cell phone.

UNIVAC was the younger sister of ENIAC (see photo), which was created in 1946 and parts of which are at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. If you haven't seen it, it's worth the trip.

Elmore Leonard's Rules of Writing

At his web site, Elmore Leonard lists his rules of writing. Very sensible advice:

1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said" . . .
5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

"If it sounds like writing, I rewite it," Leonard says. To see these rules in action read Leonard's Edgar latest, Up in Honey's Room.

A Poem by Sam Walter Foss

I saw this poem in today's The Writer's Almanac. I confess I rather like following the calf path and thinking about all the creatures who followed it before me and the calf who first walked that way.

The Calf-Path

One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew,
A crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then three hundred years have fled,
And I infer the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail,
And thereby hangs my moral tale.
The trail was taken up next day
By a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell–wether sheep
Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too,
As good bell–wethers always do.
And from that day, o'er hill and glade,
Through those old woods a path was made.
And many men wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,
And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because 'twas such a crooked path;
But still they followed – do not laugh -
The first migrations of that calf,
And though this winding wood-way stalked
Because he wobbled when he walked.
This forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road,
Where many a poor horse with his load
Toiled on beneath the burning sun,
And thus a century and a half
They trod the footsteps of that calf.
The years passed on in swiftness fleet,
The road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware,
A city's crowded thoroughfare.
And soon the central street was this
Of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half
Trod in the footsteps of that calf.
Each day a hundred thousand rout
Followed this zigzag calf about
And o'er his crooked journey went
The traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led
By one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way.
And lost one hundred years a day,
For thus such reverence is lent
To well-established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach
Were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind
Along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun
To do what other men have done.
They follow in the beaten track,
And out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue,
To keep the path that others do.
They keep the path a sacred groove,
Along which all their lives they move;
But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,
Who saw the first primeval calf.
Ah, many things this tale might teach —
But I am not ordained to preach.

A New Penny

Those of us who were entertained by Louise Penny's first mystery, Still Life, will be pleased to read the following from this morning's NY Times:

"The cozy mystery, which aims to charm as much as challenge, has a graceful practitioner of that artful dodge in Louise Penny. “A Quebec winter could both enchant and kill,” she notes slyly in A Fatal Grace (St. Martin’s Minotaur, $23.95), in which she returns to the village of Three Pines, featured in her first novel, Still Life, to present an idyllic view of that peaceful hamlet at the Christmas season. But before the eerie serenity of the place can become too stifling, Penny disrupts the picturesque curling matches and réveillon parties with a dandy murder — of a cruel and overbearing woman nobody mourns — that demands real brain work from Armand Gamache, chief inspector of the Sûreté du Québec.

"Although it’s sad to see that Penny has slipped into the cozy convention of idealizing the adorable natives, it’s gratifying to note that one of these stock characters, an “elderly, wizened, bitter poet” named Ruth Zardo, remains resistant to this onslaught of sentimentality."

My review of Still Life was posted on 9 Nov 2006.

Six Frigates

Posted by Wilhelm

After a remarkably long period of time, I've finally finished Ian Toll's Six Frigates.  This is a worthy contribution to the literature of the age of fighting sail.  Toll tells of the political and personal battles, as well as the naval battles, involved in the estabishment of the United States Navy.  Toll has done an enormous amount of research and provides incredible detail regarding the early years of the Navy.  Six Frigates describes the undeclared war with France in the 1790s, the conflicts with the Barbary states, and the War of 1812.  The book tells the story of many herioc figures, among whom Stephen Decatur very much stands out.

The book does at times get a bit too involved in details that really have little to do with advancing the main theme.  At times it seems to be drifting into a foreign language as Toll uses, usually without definition, a number of nautical terms of the age.  The meanings of the more frequently used terms become apparent from context.  And, I must say that it is interesting to be exposed to the original usages of such terms as "in the offing" and "go by the boards".  Also, from some of my earlier reading on this subject, especially Theodore Roosevelt's The Naval War of 1812, I already knew that "losing the weather gauge" does NOT mean misplacing a piece of meteorological equipment.  History buffs and lovers of nautical yarns will likely find this to be a good read.