MarysLibrary

A Defense of Book Reviewers

As a blogger I of course see the value of short reviews of books. Sometimes just a couple of stars on a scale of 1 to 5 are useful if I know who put them there.

But as Thomas Mallon points out in a New York Times piece, "Highbrow, Middlebrow, Lowbrow --," there is still a valuable place for the old-fashioned book review.

"Criticism is the realm in which I’d prefer to see hierarchy abide. In the end, we’re all better off with a republic of letters, not a democracy. No amount of mindless “liking” or one-star customer-comment scorn can replace the lengthier, more considered critical judgments we used to have time to write and read. With everyone clamoring for recognition in the same ether — with everyone now, in effect, his own publisher — our judgments are ever less nuanced, ever more nasty or stupidly appreciative. Speed is imperative, and rumination is out. The brow that’s really in danger of disappearing is the furrowed one."

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Grey Mask by Patricia Wentworth

Grey Mask is the first of Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver mysteries, published in 1929. I read it in 2002 and rated it 4.5 on a scale of 1 to 5. This time it made it to 5.

The book is dated. That is part of the appeal of golden-age English mysteries. The air-head flapper, the Bertie Wooster-like man-about-town, the clothes, the nightclubs, the nefarious international organizations, the rain and the London fog.

Miss Silver reminds me of that lady in the Dorothy Sayers mysteries who works for Lord Peter, purportedly running a typing bureau but in reality sending unassuming little old ladies out to spy for him. She has contacts everywhere and pops up in unlikely places, often hiding behind her umbrella.

This is a story about one of those syndicates popular in mysteries of the 1920s and 30s. They have been stealing jewels from country houses and getting into other sorts of trouble. When the hero discovers his still-beloved ex-finacee is somehow involved with the gang run by Grey Mask he decides not to go to the police but to try to figure out what's being planned on his own. The disappearance of a flighty young heiress (or IS she an heiress?) and some overheard threats sends him to Miss Silver.

I had already decided to read my way through the Miss Silver books when I discovered they are available on Kindle unlimited. So I signed up for a free month of Amazon's "Netflix for books." I have read two books there since I joined four days ago and have a couple more in the pipeline, including, of course, the next Miss Silver book.

Top Ten Tuesday

Today's top 10 are authors whose books I own the most of.

1. Anthony Trollope. I own the Trollope Society edition, the little blue Oxford edition (those titles they published), a dozen or so paperbacks (kept for the notes in back and the introductions), a recent edition of the Palliser novels (bought because I loved the covers and I wanted some copies to send to my nieces.) And lots of books about Trollope. I do not exaggerate when I say I am always reading a Trollope novel.

 

2. Marcel Proust. I love Proust. I do admit he isn't for everyone and I suspect that one needs to begin reading him in one's youth. But he IS for me and I began reading him in my mid-20s when I was living in Paris. I have the Pleides edition, inexpensive paper copies I bought in France with the red and black print on the covers, the C K Scott Montcrieff translation, updates to the CKSM, the Viking translation by multiple translators, the same edition in another form published I think in Australia, the William C Carter annotated translation of Swann's Way, the comic book version of the first couple of volumes, and the audio version of the entire work by Neville Jason. I've read or am reading all of these. I also have a couple of DVDs of movie adaptations, my favorite being Time Regained with Catherine Deneuve as the aging Odette. 

3. This one is a bit embarrassing. Grace Livingston Hill, known in our house as Grace Livingston Seagull, and for good reason. She was a very popular Christian author back in the early 20th century. Her books feature a Christian heroine who overcomes tremendous odds, resists the temptations of the world - things like wearing lipstick and going to the movies or (heaven forfend) dancing - and finds love and marriage with a suitable heroic, wealthy husband. Hill's husband died young and she wrote to support her family. Her struggles are reflected in her books where poor girls marry rich or rich girls find religion. I love the books for the clothes and the houses and the simple (not to say simplistic) plots.

 

4. Henry James. I have all of his novels and short stories and non-fiction in the Library of America edition. I also have odds and ends of his works in other editions, one or two dating from college days. His are among the only short stories I read (the others being Hawthorne and Updike.)

 

5. Edith Wharton. Again I have the Library of America editions to thank for my collection of Wharton novels and stories. I also have The Buckaneers, finished by somebody else (and it shows.) And a couple of biographies.

 

6. Georgette Heyer. I don't have all her Regency Romances, though I do have all her mysteries. And I have read only a few of her novels. But I have them and they are there on the shelf marked: For Emergencies. Because I know I can rely on her for wonderful stories and happy endings.

 

7. Things get a little hazy here and I'm not sure whose books outnumber whose. But I have all of Toni Morrison and have read them all.

8. Michael Chabon. I have all his books and I've read them all, some of them more than once.

 

9. Iris Murdoch. I have most of her books, though I haven't read them yet.

 

10. And finally, a tie between Anita Brookner and Angela Thirkell.

Delicious! by Ruth Reichl

Ruth Reichl, last editor of the now-defunct Gourmet magazine, has written a novel, Delicious! And it's a good novel. The main character appears to be based on the author and I have to think some of the other characters and experiences are closely based on her life experience.

The food magazine in the book, called Delicious, suddenly and unexpectedly ceases publication after nearly 80 years leaving the narrator almost jobless. She agrees to stay on and answer the phones of the no longer published magazine. With the help of the publication's travel writer she goes on a treasure hunt in the magazine's library and finds a set of letters written by a young girl in the midwest to James Beard, who worked briefly for Delicious before World War II.

The story is contrived, but I who read so many murder mysteries have little grounds to complain of that. The characters are not as real as I would have liked, and the plot is predictable. Reichl, whose writing about food is without peer, does not shine quite so much when she switches to fiction.

But for me this book was in the right place at the right time. I needed something that was not difficult to read and that I KNEW would end on an up note. And I always enjoy reading about food. The book is full of food - bread and salami, cheese and pasta, salads and roasts.

So this is a 3 1/2 star book that will be a treat for foodies. But it doesn't have what it would take to interest anybody who eats to live rather than the opposite.

"Unlocked, 2047"

 

“I imagine it will be early evening,

light prisming through a tall window. 

 

“A young woman prowls

the shelves of a library, hunting 

 

“and gathering books the old way.

Thousands of us old literary soldiers 

 

“are lined up, stiff at attention

in our true final resting spots. 

 

“She traces our spines with the delicate

tips of her fingers. She’s not in a hurry. 

 

“She’s humming some popular tune,

some hard to dislodge music… 

 

“Williams, Worley, Wrigley. Wait a minute.

Worley. Funny name. What kind of stuff 

 

“did he write? She slides me out and into

her warm palm. I’m hers now. 

 

“She creaks the book open, settles onto

A pillowed window seat, and we begin 

 

“the long-awaited conversation.”

 

                    --Jeff Worley, "Unlocked, 2047"

 

Hat tip to Anecdotal Evidence blog

Our Little Secret by Kevin Flynn and Rebecca Lavoie

Our Little Secret by Kevin Flynn and Rebecca Lavoie is the story of the murder in 1985 of Danny Paquette. By all accounts he was a hard worker and a skilled welder, and he had a work ethic that wouldn't quit. But he was also a child molester and tortured a young girl: he burned animals to death with his welding torch and told her she was next if she told anyone "our little secret." He routinely beat up his girlfriends.

So when his 15-year-old step-daughter told the captain of her high school soccer team what he had done to her and her fear of the man, Eric Windhurst took his rifle and shot the man dead. Eric was only 17 and this deed haunted him until the day 20 years later when he was caught by the dogged work of the local police chief and the New Hampshire State Police.

Although he had told a number of people what he had done and the rumors of this murder were widespread in town almost no-one felt the need to bring the crime and the rumors to the attention of the police. Two people sent anonymous letters telling the story but what can the police do without any evidence or eyewitness testimony?

The town where the murder took place is Hooksett and the town where the murderer lived is Hopkinton. Both are on the corridor between Concord and Manchester.

Reading and Listening with Elaine

Flight School (2014) by Lita Judge. This is one of my favorites of the books Elaine and I read this morning. It's about a Penguin who comes all the way from the South Pole to a flight school in what appears to be Florida. He was hatched to fly! He has the soul of an eagle! So, despite misgivings the flight instructor and his aide, Flamingo, admit Penguin to the class. But when the other birds take off on their first flight, Penguin ends up swimming instead of flying. He is leaving in despair when Flamingo has an idea how to help him. Will Penguin get to fly like an eagle?

I liked this book so much I sent a copy to my sister, who runs a real, actual flight school, Don's Flying Service, at her airport. I don't think she has ever had any penguins enrolled.

Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (2006) by Anna Harwell Celenza is in a tie for my favorite this morning. It's a picture book telling the story of how band leader Paul Whiteman put an ad in the paper saying he was giving a concert in five weeks that would feature a concerto by George Gershwin. George phoned Paul in a tizzy. Only five weeks to compose a classical concerto - he had never composed classical music before. "You can do it," said his friend, Paul, and indeed, he did. It was comprised of foxtrot and ragtime rhythms, blues and Klezmer tunes, and an undeniable feel of the city of Manhattan. Ira, who wrote the lyrics for George's famous tunes, came up with the title, Rhapsody in Blue.

We listened to the music as we read the book.The illustrations are by Joann E Kitchel.

We both loved Gloria Whelan's Queen Victoria’s Bathing Machine (2014) with illustrations by Nancy Carpenter. One hot summer day Queen Victoria looks out the window and says, "I wish I could jump in the ocean and swim." Her lady-in-waiting faints dead away at the very thought of any of her subjects seeing more of the queen's person than her hands and her face.

But Prince Albert, who in real life was a brilliant engineer along with his many other talents, comes up with an idea. A bathing machine which Victoria can enter fully clothed and from which, after she changes into a bathing costume (see cover), she can emerge between curtains and submerge herself into the sea. It works perfectly until some sailors in Her Majesty's Royal Navy spy what they think is perhaps a flatboat floating off the coast . . .

The remaining three books were very good but not quite as special as these first three.

The Short Giraffe (2013) by Neil Flory is about the difficulties Boba the baboon is having taking a group portrait of giraffes. Geri is so short his head hardly appears at the bottom of the photo. The other giraffes think of various ways to raise Geri so that she appears the same height as they, but stilts and springs and filling Geri with helium don't work very well.

And then Boba has another idea. Cute illustrations by Mark Cleary, and a sweet but not overdone lesson in helping others.

Here Comes the Easter Cat (2014) by Deborah Underwood, illustrations by Claudia Rueda. This book is about a cat with Easter Bunny envy. Why, he asks, can't he, a cat, deliver Easter Eggs and be beloved by millions of children and have plush toys made to look like him? So he gathers eggs to give to children, but then he needs a nap. (He has had only 7 naps that morning and it's clearly time for another.) Then he meets up with the Easter Bunny, who is exhausted from his work delivering eggs and Bunny has an idea. A brilliant idea . . .

Oliver’s Tree (2014) by Kit Chase. Oliver is an elephant and as the story opens he is playing hide and seek with his friends the bunny and the owl. They both hide up or in a tree, but when Oliver tries it he finds the trees either too tall to climb, or too short to hide him. After a disastrous attempt to climb and hide in a low-branched tree, he falls asleep on a tree stump, exhausted. And that's when his friends get an idea how they can help their friend get the full I'm-in-a-tree experience.

Two by Emma Straub

Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures should have been a five-star book for me. It's about a woman who is discovered and made a star. I love that kind of metamorphosis/rags to riches story. But it didn't gel. I kept thinking, "Just a few more pages and it will click in." It never did.

Now I've read The Vacationers by the author of the disappointing Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures. I was skeptical about the book because of my experience with Emma Straub's earlier novel. And rightly so.

I borrowed this because 1. hope springs eternal, and 2. (blushes) there were more people on the library waiting list for this book than any of the other books I had been investigating, 32. When will I ever learn?

The characters are unlikeable - I think (they are poorly portrayed), the plot is almost non-existent, there is no local color although the story is set in Majorca, and the prose is pedestrian.

However . . . I have learned that when I read a book can have a great deal of influence on how much I like it. I read The Vacationers after three very readable novels. One of them is 640 pages long, the previous library borrower was a smoker, and still I couldn't put it down. So almost anything short of Pride and Prejudice was going to disappoint when I picked this up.

For another view of the book, see the link below.

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Reading with the Fair Elaine

This week Elaine and I are back to our usual routine wherein I read to her and we talk about the books, the endpapers, the illustrations (we both like watercolors and collage), and whatever else catches out eye. Todays books were:

Lyle and the Birthday Party by Bernard Waber (1966) Elaine and I are both fond of the eponymous Lyle who first appeared in Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. It's time for a birthday party for one of Lyle's human siblings and Lyle grows jealous. In fact, he turns positively green with envy and Mrs Primm decides he needs to see a doctor. She is given the name of an MD who is an expert in crocodiles but she can't remember whether his name is James Lewis or Lewis James and she calls the wrong one. Learning that Lyle, whom he does not suspect is other than a human, the doctor rushes Lyle to the hospital. Like the rest of us Lyle becomes extremely bored in bed and finds some activities that make him forget his jealousy. He soon returns home to a wonderful surprise.

Frederick by Leo Lionni (1967) Frederick is a mouse, one of five who live in a stone wall near a deserted barn and empty granary. Realizing that they must prepare for the winter, the other four mice gather straw and nuts and seeds. But Frederick just sits soaking up the sun and looking at the beautiful flowers and thinking of words. When winter comes and eventually most of the provisions are gone the other mice turn to Frederick who with his words makes them remember the warmth of the sun and the brightness of the colors of summer. A wonderful little story about the worth of poets and a nice counter to the ants and the grasshopper. (I've always been a bit of a grasshopper myself so naturally I love Frederick.)

The Boy Who Looked Like Lincoln by Mike Reiss (2003) This is a strange little book which Elaine liked more than I did. Our eight-year-old protagonist does indeed look like Abraham Lincoln, and he has done so since birth. The little beard is what does it, I think. The other kids at school make fun of him and he gets a little down. So his parents send him to summer camp, a camp for kids who look funny. There are kids who look like the Sphinx and a pyramid, the Washington monument and an automobile, a bowling ball and a toaster. Our little Lincoln look-alike fits right in and when he goes back to school he has achieved enough ego to counter the teasing from his classmates, no Venus and Apollo themselves.

It was while reading that book that we spotted a beautiful butterfly outside the windows. We have very large windows in our living room so we were able to watch it flitter back and forth until it landed on the bushes in the side yard. Neither of us knew what kind it is but we could both agree it was a beauty.

And so we went on to Mama Provi and the Pot of Rice by Sylvia Rosa-Casanova (1997) I had never heard of this book or the author before. It's a delightful story about a grandmother who makes an enormous pot of arrozo con pollo for her granddaughter who lives upstairs on the 8th floor. As she climbs the stairs Mama Provi stops on each landing and one of the tenants on that floor trades her for a bowl of chicken and rice. By the time she arrives at her granddaughter's apartment she has not just chicken and rice but bread, black beans, green salad, collard greens, tea, and apple pie as well.

The story made us hungry so we ate some of the Rainier cherries that arrived from Follow the Harvest yesterday.

Harry and the Lady Next Door by Gene Zion (1960) We actually read this book first as we are both very fond of Harry whom we know from Harry, the Dirty Dog. The lady next door to Harry's house sings. A lot. And she sings very high and very loudly. Harry, being a dog, likes lower sounds so he brings along cows and a tuba to encourage her but she drowns them out. When he brings a couple of bull frogs to a singing contest however the lady benefits greatly from their presence and wins a prize that takes her abroad for a year. Harry's tail is wagging.

We decided the lady must have sounded something like this: