MarysLibrary

Two and a Half Classics

Silas Marner by George Eliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Back in the fall of 1963 I was practice teaching at New Bedford High School. I didn't get to choose any of the books I taught and I was distressed that I had to teach Silas Marner. I had read it myself in high school not so long before and didn't like it at all and couldn't see the point of it all. Too sentimental, too stilted in language, too unrealistic.

But of course I sat down with the book and a notepad and started to do some close reading, as they taught us to do in those days. And a masterpiece was revealed. It is a simple story of a cynical and self-absorbed man who reacted to a great disappointment in his youth by becoming a hermit and a miser and the arrival on his doorstep of a little child for which he must take responsibility. The love of this child replaced the love of gold in his heart and his need for help from his neighbors drew him to become part of the community.

A book that is not likely to appeal to a typical 16-year-old. I'm not sure I got anybody to appreciate or even to understand it. I remember we spent a lesson on strange words and the puzzled looks when I said "westcoat" was pronounced "westkit" and "wainscot" was pronounced "wainscut." An early introduction for the students to the sly and illogical ways of English pronunciation.

The one person to whom the book did appeal, and who grew to understand and appreciate it was of course the teacher. What a difference four years had made in my ability to grasp Eliot's ideas and to see the beauty of her language. And if four years improved the book, I assure you 45 more years has improved it even more. Not all the books we re-read after so many years seem as good as they did in the past - this one improved tremendously. It has become a favorite and I will undoubtedly re-read it again very soon.

2011 No 172

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm going to stick my neck out here and proclaim this recently published book by Julian Barnes a classic. It won the 2011 Booker so I don't have to stand alone in declaring it an unusually perceptive and beautifully written novel. Of all the wonderful books I read this year - and there were boatloads of them in 2011 - this one stood out.

Perhaps the book's impact was so strong because a couple of months ago an old friend sent me some letters that I had written to her in 1962 and 1963. The shock of reading my own words, long forgotten, was intense. I had just read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, a book that I loved but thought at the time was obscure. I had a distinctly negative reaction to some other author, justly so. I was so very young, so silly, emphasized all the wrong things and overlooked the important events that were happening in my life.

In Barnes' novel the narrator is sent a letter than he wrote many years before, which he has remembered as very different from the actual letter he is now faced with. The letter makes him re-examine the story he has told himself about his life and the lives of his friends from the past. The treatment of memory and one's personal myth is brilliant. The Sense of an Ending is a book not for youth but for old age. Stunning.

2011 No 173

Middlemarch by George Eliot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Over at the dovegreyreader blog a year-long reading of George Eliot's masterpiece is underway. The idea is to read the part of the book that would have been published back in 1871 and 1872. Would our reading experience change when we had only a small part of the book before? Would we, like the reeaders of the 19th century, wait eagerly for the next section of the novel to be published?

The reading began with part I on 1 December 2011. And yes, having only that small part of the enormous novel in front of me slowed me down and helped me to pay closer attention to the structure of the narrative, the way the characterization of Dorothea and Casaubon developed, and the hitherto overlooked (by me, probably not by other readers) perceptiveness and indeed wisdom of Dorothea's sister, Celia.

And yes, I'm restless thinking about when the next part of the serialization will be available.

The Cunning Man

The Cunning Man by Robertson Davies
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Should I have taken the false teeth?"

Not a bad opening sentence for a novel in which all the action is precipitated by the death at the altar on Good Friday of a beloved priest in Toronto's high church Anglican parish of St Aidan's. The narrator, the cunning man of the title, Dr Hullah, has been a police surgeon and he has his suspicions about the sudden death of the old man. But his friend from childhood, Father Charlie Iredale, won't let him beyond the communion rail and the doctor does nothing about it.

The book is a sort of diary, which Dr Hullah calls a case book, in which he reminisces about his youth at school with Father Iredale and Brocky Gilmartin, the man who married the woman Hullah loved. Many other characters weave in and out of the story, including Darcy Dwyer and DeCourcey Parry, the musical director and organist who provide the excuisite music for St Aidan's services, "the ladies," an etcher and a sculptor in whose yard next to the church the doctor has his clinic, and a hypochondriacal patient whose miraculous cure at the grave of Father Hobbes puts in motion unstoppable eddies that affect all of the church and art community.

2011 No 171

A Trollope Trio

Dr. Wortle's School by Anthony Trollope
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dr Wortle's School was written late in Anthony Trollope's career and was published the year before he died. My online Yahoo Trollope group has recently been reading books from the last years of Trollope's life and I think we have been looking for a decline in his power to portray the psychology of his varied characters. We did not find any such weakness. In fact, I find Dr Wortle's School full of complicated characters whose actions are not predictable and whose motives are not unmixed.

Dr Wortle hires a man, Mr Peacocke, to teach at his small but successful school. Mr Peacocke is a terrific teacher, the boys love him, and Dr Wortle relies on him. The man has a wife but she does not visit the ladies in the neighborhood, remaining secluded at home. Then a thunderbolt falls. The lady is not married to the man who has presented himself as her husband. She was previously married to an American who grossly mistreated her and when that man was reported dead she was married to Mr Peacocke. They now discover her first husband is alive and this is a bigamous marriage.

What would you do? Dr Whortle, an upstanding Christian gentleman who has, literally, everything to lose if he supports Mr Peacocke, does just that. He sends the man to America to find out the truth about the supposed death of the first husband and invites the purported Mrs Peacocke to stay at the school until he returns.

This is a situation that is typically Trollopian. When faced with the stern rules of society and the desperate situation of good people who have been unfortunate or made poor decisions, Trollope opts repeatedly for forgiveness and generosity.

This is one of my favorite Trollope novels, despite a somewhat heavy-handed portrayal of the uncouth Americans Mr Peacocke encounters in his trip to the US. (Those spitoons!)

2011 No 168

An Old Man's Love by Anthony Trollope
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

An Old Man's Love was written shortly before Anthony Trollope's death in 1882 and published shortly after. It is a short novel, a mere tenth of the size of some of his thick mid-career works. And it is a bit unusual for Trollope in that the story focuses on an old man rather than on the young lovers who are being kept apart by the love of old Mr Whittlestaff. The plot is reminiscent of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1859 novel, The Minister's Wooing.

William Whittlestaff, 50, is the old man of the story. When the daughter of an old friend is left penniless at the death of her step-mother he invites her to live at his house, over the strenuous objections of his housekeeper. He falls in love with Mary Lowrie and asks her to marry him. She accepts but tells him there was a young man she loved years ago who her step-mother rejected and from whom she has heard nothing for three years.

When the young lover turns up shortly after Mary has accepted Mr Whittlestaff's proposal she feels she must stick to her word though she is immediately aware that she still loves the young man. The rest of the story is the struggle of the old man to determine whether Mary wants to marry her old lover or whether he should hold her to her agreement to marry himself. The aforementioned housekeeper, who has marital troubles of her own, does not hesitate to tell Mary or Mr Whittlestaff exactly what she believes they should do.

There is a splendid introduction to the novel at The Victorian Web. 

2011 No 169

Mr. Scarborough's Family by Anthony Trollope
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mr Scarborough's Family is another novel written late in Anthony Trollope's life and published posthumously in 1883. The plot is one familiar to Trollope readers, the questionable marriage and its effects on the lives of the children of that marriage.

As he lies dying, Mr Scarborough gives to his lawyer, the honest and upright Mr Grey, papers which show that he did not marry his wife until after his son, Mountjoy, was born. This means Mountjoy is not eligible to inherit the estate, which entailed on his eldest son, going instead to his second son, Augustus. This causes an uproar because Mountjoy has been a reckless gambler and moneylenders hold his notes for more than the entire value of the estate.

Augustus, who is a cold fish, does not complain that his father has intended all these years to do him out of his rightful inheritance. He merely tells the old man to hurry up and die. But he is nervous about the claims of the moneylenders and so he, Mountjoy, and old Mr Scarborough together pay off the original amount lent, no interest.

The major subplot in this novel is the love affair between Harry Annesley, an acquaintance of the Scarborough sons, and Florence Mountjoy, their cousin, whose mother is intent on marrying her to Mountjoy. Failing that she will encourage a marriage to almost anyone but Annesley, who has been slandered by Augustus and whose own inheritance is in jeopardy when his uncle believe Augustus' story.

There is an excellent introduction to the novel at The Victorian Web.

2011 No 170

Gently Does the Necessary Alto

Having been lazy this year about posting comments on books as I was reading them, I now find myself with four days left in 2011 and some 60 books that need attention. I fear it will be well into February 2012 before I get a chance to even mention them in blog posts, even if I group them three or four per post. It's sort of like having to cram the night before a final exam when you wish you had read the assignments and studied all semester. Fortunately, I started writing down the titles of the books I was reading back in July so I know most of what I've read.

Gently Does It by Alan Hunter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Gently is a fine name for the detective in this series by Alan Hunter in which there are 46 mysteries starring George Gently. He is a gentle man and goes about solving murders without a lot of thrills and violence. He eats hard candy and is always looking to see where his next bag of sweets are going to come from. Please note that the TV adaptation of this series, from what I've seen of it, in no way resembles the books.

The series began with this book, Gently Does It, written in 1955, and ends in 1999, six years before the author's death. The first nine books are available for the Kindle (at least in the US they are) but the rest are out of print and you will have to go to abe.com or one of the other used book dealers to get them as the library is likely to have a spotty collection.

2011 No 165

Necessary as Blood by Deborah Crombie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Necessary as Blood is the last of the Duncan Kinkaid/Jemma Jones mysteries published so far. We must wait (at least in the US) until February 7 for the next book in the series.

Here's what Publisher's Weekly says about Necessary as Blood:

Romance dominates Crombie's 13th contemporary procedural featuring Scotland Yarders Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid, who are on the verge of getting married. The how, where and when of their wedding proves a considerable source of stress to both, overshadowing the murder investigation of Naz Malik, a solicitor suspected in the disappearance of his wife, Sandra Gilles, an artist specializing in textile collage. Malik was found suffocated in Bethnal Green, with traces of an animal tranquilizer in his system. Meanwhile, James's mother is seriously ill, placing James in the impossible position of trying to fulfill both her familial and work responsibilities. In addition, James must fight to keep Malik's now parentless young daughter from falling into the custody of Sandra's unsavory relatives. Hopefully, Crombie will provide a better balance of police work and her characters' personal lives next time.

2011 No 166

The Alto Wore Tweed by Mark Schweizer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This first in a series of very funny mysteries that takes place in a North Carolina mountain town, is filled with puns, sly references to music and musicians, and satire aimed at the Episcopal Church, all done gently and with great charm. Other titles by Mark Schweizer include The Baritone Wore Chiffon, The Soprano Wore Falsettos, The Bass Wore Scales, and The Mezzo Wore Mink.

Hayden Konig is not just the police chief of St Germaine and an aspiring mystery writer, he is also the holder of a degree in music from Chapel Hill and choirmaster/organist at St Barnabas Episcopal Church where a new rector, female, has just arrived and is upsetting everyone from the sexton to the warden and vestry. The digs at liberal feminist clergy and at conservative cradle Episcopalians are wacky and wise, Hayden's attempts at a noir detective story are entertaining, and the characters are quirky. I was delighted with this unusual mystery. And the Kindle price of 99 cents is a bargain.

2011 No 167

A Talent to Deceive

A Talent to Deceive: An Appreciation of Agatha Christie by Robert Barnard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Robert Barnard is one of my favorite creators of detective fiction (if you haven't read Fete Fatale, do so immediately.) A graduate of Balliol, he is not your run-of-the-mill mystery writer. He has clearly thought about the genre and the best practitioners of the art.

In A Talent to Deceive he turns his attention to Agatha Christie, telling a bit about her life, analyzing her style, looking at the sorts of characters she creates, and describing her two most famous detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. He tries to get to the nugget of gold that makes her books better than most of the others of the classic period and the best of her books the very best of all detective stories.

This is not heavy literary criticism. It is lightly written for a book with so much information and insight. It will make you want to go back and re-read some of your favorite Christie mysteries so you can watch for the techniques she uses to bamboozle her reader.

2011 No 164

Agatha Christie Roundup

Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Plotting is Agatha Christie's forte of course but she outdoes herself with this 1934 Hercule Poirot mystery. It begins with the death of the beloved rector of the parish, a man without an enemy in the world. Who would want to kill him? Maybe it was natural causes - no poison was found in the martini he had just sipped when he collapsed at a party given by a recently retired actor, Sir Charles Cartwright. When another man dies in a similar manner (only this time it's a glass of port) a post-mortem shows nicotine poisoning. This is too much of a cooincidence and the people who were at both parties come under suspicion of murder.

A trio of Sir Charles, the young and beautiful Miss Lytton Gore, and the ascerbic old Mr Satterthwaite decides to investigate the crimes. Complicating things is that Miss Lytton Gore is in love with Sir Charles but he is unaware of it. He is in love with her but she can't see that either. Mr Satterthwaite sees it all and watches bemused. They consult with Hercule Poirot as the plot thickens. The key to solving these murders is the theater, as the name of the book implies and the fact that it is divided into three acts.

This book is of particular interest to me because one of the characters, a playwright named Muriel Wills, who writes under the pseudonym Anthony Astor, is believed to be based on Josephine Tey, whom Agatha Christie didn't particularly like. Tey's real name was Elizabeth Mackintosh and she wrote for the stage under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot. For her mysteries she used the pseudonym by which we know her today, Josephine Tey.

2011 No 157

The Big Four by Agatha Christie
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The Big Four is not Agatha Christie at her best. Too much is crammed into the book: murders, international intrigue, and a criminal mastermind.

Here's what Amazon has to say:

Framed in the doorway of Hercule Poirot’s bedroom stands an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man stares for a moment, then he sways and falls.

Who is he? Is he suffering from shock or just exhaustion? Above all, what is the significance of the figure 4, scribbled over and over again on a sheet of paper? Poirot finds himself plunged into a world of international intrigue, risking his life—and that of his “twin brother”—to uncover the truth.

2011 No 158

Peril at End House by Agatha Christie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Published in 1932, Peril at End House is one of the gems of the Agatha Christie series starring Hercule Poirot. It takes place on "the Cornish Riviera" and involves the fate of End House, a lovely old edifice on the cliff overlooking the sea.

The young owner who has recently inherited End House is accident prone. Or is she? Her several brushes with death make Poirot suspicious and when he notices a bullet hole in her hat he decides he needs to investigate. Who would want the young woman dead and why? A well-plotted mystery, as is usual with Agatha Christie.

2011  No 159

Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This classic Agatha Christie mystery is perhaps her best book. The plot is brilliant and yet it is possible to figure out the story if the reader pays extremely close attention to every detail. The setting of the Calais coach of the Orient Express in the early 1930s is particularly vivid and various of the characters have unusual and interesting histories.

I read this book many years ago and have seen the excellent movie made in 1974 with Albert Finney as a surprisingly good Poirot and also starring everybody. No, I mean it: Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman, Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Wendy Hiller, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York, and Richard Widmark.

It was particularly interesting to re-read the book and pick up all those tiny details you cannot transport from a book to a movie, but also to remember all those details in the movie that bring the book to life.

2011 No 160

Thirteen At Dinner by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thirteen at Dinner is another classic Agatha Christie and one of my favorites. The plot, as usual, is well crafted, and the characters are particularly interesting.

In this story Poirot meets some theater people at dinner in his hotel and they invite him to a party. One of the group asks him to help her by talking to her husband and convincing him to give her a divorce. When Poirot discovers the man has already told his wife she can have her divorce he becomes very supicious. When the man is murdered and witnesses say they saw his wife enter his study at about the time of his death it looks like an open and shut case.

But the very simplicity of the case makes Inspector Japp nervouse and when he visits Poirot to talk about the case and they discover a newspaper item describing a dinner party at which the wife was present things become complicated.

2011  No 161

The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Agatha Christie was in her prime in the 1930s and The ABC Murders is another of her Top Ten. The plot is clever, as most of her plots are: notes arrive at Poirot's apartment describing the coming murders and a railway guide is left at each crime scene to assure Poirot and Inspector Japp that they are all done by the same man. (Or woman.)

From Amazon: A is for Mrs. Ascher in Andover, B is for Betty Barnard in Bexhill, C is for Sir Carmichael Clarke in Churston. With each murder, the killer is getting more confident—but leaving a trail of deliberate clues to taunt the proud Hercule Poirot might just prove to be the first, and fatal, mistake.

There is a particularly good discussion of the novel on Wikipedia.

2011 No 162

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Death on the Nile, as the title suggests, is another Agatha Christie mystery that takes to the road (or the boat) to gather an interesting group of people with many hidden interconnections and some not so hidden. A young man who was engaged to a charming but penniless young woman has thrown her over for her wealthy best friend, and the jilted woman has followed the pair on their honeymoon to Egypt. They happen to find on the same excursion the wealthy bride's British and American lawyers and a handful of other people who might have reason to hate her. As it happens, Poirot is on the same excursion.

When the bride turns up dead the murderer shouldn't be hard to find as most of the likely suspects have iron-clad alabis (always a suspicious thing in Agatha Christie.) Poirot has figured out the connections between the characters and determined where each of them was when the murder occurred, the reader following along with the help of a map of the staterooms on the boat. A second murder, however, changes everything.

2011 No 163

Nonfiction Roundup

Class Warfare by Steven Brill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Steven Brill has written another book about what's wrong with public education in the US and what can be done about it. Money hasn't worked. Charter schools show promise but can they be scaled up to the entire education system? Brill doesn't have the answer, and I respect him for that because I doubt there is one answer. But there are some things that are obviously making things worse and those things are fixable, starting with abolishing tenure. If just the bottom 5% of the worst teachers were replaced with mediocre teachers there would be significant improvement. Brill wrote the article, "The Rubber Room," about the hundreds of New York City teachers who were so obviously unfit for the classroom that they could not be allowed in one but who can't be fired because of the extremely powerful teachers' union. So they sit for years in a holding tank of sorts getting full pay. This book starts with that story and goes looking for solutions to this and other education problems. I spent a lot of time with this book, in effect reading it twice, and I recommend it to anyone who is in a position to do anything at all about our public schools.

2011 No 153

Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate by Juan Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Muzzled is Juan Williams' report on his much-publicized firing from National Public Radio, apparently because he said it was hard not to see people getting on a plane "in Muslim garb" and not be concerned that they identified themselves so strongly with their religion. This, said Williams, is a natural reaction but we mustn't let it influence our view of moderate Muslims. This is a fairly frank statement and I think it reflects well on the reporter that he is aware of his own prejudices and consciously tries to avoid them. NPR didn't see it that way and fired him, abruptly, over the phone after many years on the air. His former boss then implied he was mentally unbalanced ("he should talk about that with his psychiatrist.") The resulting controversy was immense. That a medium that pays a man to talk about what he thinks should fire him for saying what he thinks (on another network and in another medium) seemed to many a symptom of "the assault on honest debate," as Williams puts it in his subtitle. An excellent, well-balanced, non-self-pitying book that deals with a great deal more than the author's own problem. Williams, by the way, landed on his feet with a long and lucrative contract with a TV channel.

2011 No 154

In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir by Dick Cheney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Dick Cheney's career in politics began when Donald Rumsfeld gave him a job despite Cheney's having flunked out of Yale which helps explain the reluctance of the Bush administration to ease out Rumsfeld when his performance as secretary of defense had become a political liability. But you have to go looking for that kind of enlightenment in this memoir of Cheney's years as vice president. He tells us a lot about his family and is clearly devoted to his daughters and their children. He is a westerner - a photo of his family on horseback at his ranch (with the Grand Tetons in the background), including 6-year-olds, demonstrates his attachment to the Wyoming way of life. But this is not a tell-all. No scores are settled although he does talk frankly about who he was comfortable working with and who he didn't get along with particularly well. And his description of the hours after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the pentagon is interesting. That unknown location that he was packed off to so that he and the president wouldn't be in the same place was . . . the vice president's house, Camp David, his ranch in Wyoming. He was not secreted in a vault under a mountain as some folks speculated. This is not the memoir to read if you want to know about the Bush years. (Neither is Bush's.)

2011 No 155

Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President by Ron Suskind
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We don't realize how important confidence is until it has been lost. Ron Suskind demonstrates that brilliantly in this book with its clever title, which can be interpreted two ways, both appropriate. Here's what Amazon.com has to say:

The hidden history of Wall Street and the White House comes down to a single, powerful, quintessentially American concept: confidence. Both centers of power, tapping brazen innovations over the past three decades, learned how to manufacture it.

Until August 2007, when that confidence finally began to crumble.

In this gripping and brilliantly reported book, Ron Suskind tells the story of what happened next, as Wall Street struggled to save itself while a man with little experience and soaring rhetoric emerged from obscurity to usher in “a new era of responsibility.” It is a story that follows the journey of Barack Obama, who rose as the country fell, and offers the first full portrait of his tumultuous presidency.

2011 No 156

Grafton's Alphabet

"B" is for Burglar by Sue Grafton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Continuing with my re-reading of Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone mysteries. B is for Burglar is the case of a woman who wants Kinsey to find her missing sister. Kinsey takes the case but something isn't right about it. Clues include a woman in a fur coat in Boca Raton, a missing Persian cat, and a vandalized apartment. Complicated but solveable by the attentive reader.

2011 No 146

C is for Corpse by Sue Grafton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sue Grafton's books get a little better with each letter. Here's what Amazon says about this one:

How do you go about solving an attempted murder when the victim has lost a good part of his memory? It's one of Kinsey's toughest cases yet, but she never backs down from a challenge. Twenty-three-year-old Bobby Callahan is lucky to be alive after a car forced his Porsche over a bridge and into a canyon. The crash left Bobby with a clouded memory. But he can't shake the feeling it was no random accident and that he's still in danger…

The only clues Kinsey has to go on are a little red address book and the name "Blackman." Bobby can't remember who he gave the address book to for safekeeping. And any chances of Bobby regaining his memory are dashed when he's killed in another automobile accident just three days after he hires Kinsey.

As Kinsey digs deeper into her investigation, she discovers Bobby had a secret worth killing for--and unearthing that secret could send Kinsey to her own early death…

2011 No 147

D is for Deadbeat by Sue Grafton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In D is for Deadbeat a guy named Alvin Limardo walks into Kinsey's office and hires her to deliver a check for $25,000 to a little boy. No other info, just give the kid the check. Despite her better judgment Kinsey takes the case.

She quickly discovers Limardo is an alias and the guy is a deadbeat with more than one wife. When he turns up dead Kinsey adds finding his murderer to her job of delivering the check, which unknown people do not want her to do. Clever plot.

2011  No 148

E is for Evidence by Sue Grafton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In E is for Evidence a mysterious deposit of $5,000 in Kinsey's bank account is just the beginning of the evidence that piles up implicating her in an industrial arson insurance scam. She is being framed, but by whom? On this case, Kinsey is working for herself. Then her ex-husband shows up looking for a place to stay for a while and it's pretty hard to resist his charm.

2011  No 149

F is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another complex Kinsey Millhone mystery. Here's Amazon's description:

When Kinsey Millhone first arrives in Floral Beach, California, it's hard for her to picture the idyllic coastal town as the setting of a brutal murder. Seventeen years ago, the body of Jean Timberlake--a troubled teen who had a reputation with the boys--was found on the beach. Her boyfriend Bailey Fowler was convicted of her murder and imprisoned, but he escaped.

After all this time, Bailey's finally been captured. Believing in his son's innocence, Bailey's father wants Kinsey to find Jean's real killer. But most of the residents in this tight-knit community are convinced Bailey strangled Jean. So why are they so reluctant to answer Kinsey's questions? If there's one thing Kinsey's got plenty of it's persistence. And that's exactly what it's going to take to crack the lid on this case.

As Kinsey gets closer to solving Jean's murder, the more dirty little secrets she uncovers in a town where everyone has something to hide--and a killer will kill again to keep the past buried...

2011 No 150

G is for Gumshoe by Sue Grafton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

G is for Gumshoe is the best Kinsey Millhone mystery yet. Her latest case is a simple, "find my mother" situation, and it isn't hard to find the old lady. But suspicious accidents begin happening and Kinsey realizes a convict she helped put away is now looking to have her murdered. She decides the only thing to do is to hire a bodyguard, PI Robert Dietz, who is watching her 24/7. Those of us who have read many of the Grafton books before are delighted to see Dietz arrive on the scene as he is apparently destined to become the next love of Kinsey's life. If she can stay alive long enough to give their relationship a chance to develop.

2011  No 151

H is for Homicide by Sue Grafton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

H is for Homicide finds Kinsey Millhone going undercover to find the murderer of her friend, Parnell Perkins, a new insurance investigator at the company she works with. She makes friends with the woman in one of his cases, Bibiana Diaz, and finds herself hanging out with a bunch of rough customers. They are running an insurance scam, intentionally creating auto accidents and inflating claims. A visit to jail and increasing friendship with Bibiana complicate the already complex case.

2011 No 152

Lament for the Makers

I happened on this verse of William Dunbar's 1509 poem, Lament for the Makers and it took my breath away with the memories it brought with it. Perhaps you have to have been an English major or at any rate to have the rich associations I have with the works of Chaucer, the flower of all makers, of Lydgate, the Monk of Bury, and of Gower to feel the impact of the poem. "He" is death: 

.

He hes done petuously devour,

The noble Chaucer, of makaris flour,

The Monk of Bery, and Gower, all thre;

Timor mortis conturbat me.

.

George Orwell

I have undertaken to read all of George Orwell, and I do mean all. A hard-working scholar named Peter Davison worked for 17 years collecting 20 volumes of Orwells letters and book reviews, essays and other publications, as well as reconstructing his novels and other books as he intended them. Fortunately, Orwell's publisher was Victor Gollancz and the company archives contain all of the correspondence between the author and his editor detailing every change and deletion the lawyers required before his books could be published. So far I've read five volumes.

 A Kind of Compulsion, 1903-1936 by George Orwell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This first volume of Orwell's letters and other writings begins with a note written to his mother from school when he was six years old and continues until he leaves for Spain to fight in the civil war. To read every scrap of writing Orwell put to paper for so many years impresses on the reader his immense skill with the English language and the strongly held opinions he formed very early in his school years.

2011  No 142

Burmese Days by George Orwell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 are very good novels; the same cannot be said of his other attempts at fiction. Burmese Days was based on his years in the Burmese police force. His hatred of colonialism came from those years within the disfunctional bureaucracy of a country he came to love but could not live in. The characters are not three-dimensional and the plot is not believeable.

2011  No 143

A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Orwell's novel about a young woman whose world is compressed into caring for her selfish father and doing good works in her village suffers from the same unrealistic scenes, plot, and characters as many of his other books. When the woman finds herself in London suffering from amnesia she goes into the country with some other people who are homeless. Her days and nights in the city are much like those of characters in his other down-and-out books.

2011  No 144

Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The peculiar title of this novel comes from the main character's observation that lower middle class boarding houses all have an aspidistra in the parlor. The ugly and virtually unkillable plant becomes a symbol of all that is wrong with the social system that keeps young men from accomplishing anything in their empty lives.

2011  No 145