Books Completed Since February 1

  Etymologicon: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language, Mark Forsyth
Ever watch James Burke? Burke was a British science reporter—he covered the Apollo missions in the U.K.—who created three nonfiction television series called Connections where he'd start with something like the invention of zero by the Arabs and string it through various historical "connections" to link with a modern invention or concept. Every show was a wild ride where one thing you'd never believe was connected to something else would not only be connected, but lead on to something else. Well, this is what Forsyth does in this book, in one- to three-page sections: he starts with "This is a book..." and then keeps going until the volume ends 259 pages later with exactly the same paragraph beginning with "This is a book..."

In the meantime we find out how a gambling game with a pot and a chicken turn into "the typing pool," how "black" led to "white" and then eventually to "blank," how double-word plurals led to "psychoanalysis," how robot sharecroppers led to "terminators" (who in movies are robots), how "tired" morphed into something that was explosive, and more than 200 more words that started as one thing evolved into yet another thing.

It's books like these that make linguistics enthusiasts happy. This one made me very happy.

  Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery, Carolyn Keene
I didn't read Nancy Drew growing up. When I was younger, mom bought me a few of The Bobbsey Twins books, but at a $1.25 each, they cost too much for me to collect the set. Anyway, the Bobbsey books, Nancy Drew, and even the Hardy Boys that were available when I was a kid were rewritten to modernize them, since the Hardys and Drew were from the late 20s on through the 30s and 40s (also to remove some really egregious racial and ethnic stereotypes).

They were also rewritten with simplified vocabularies, so you really didn't get the great dialog and adult-style narrative as in the original books. This is the third of Applewood Books' reprints of those original books. Nancy and her "good chum" Helen Corning (her cousins Bess and George came in later books) are boating when a storm comes up. They are rescued by a girl named Laura Pendleton, who is now an orphan facing the arrival of her new guardian. Nancy takes an interest in the nervous girl, and it seems her interest was justified; when she and Helen visit Laura again her guardian is a rude, cruel man. Laura is afraid of him and Nancy is determined to help the girl who saved her life.

The first half of the book setting up the mystery is a little slow, but the second half is full of action, with Nancy discovering that Laura's guardian is indeed up to no good and hiding something in an old shack in the woods. There's fast driving, a terrible accident, and all sorts of exciting events. Typical of a 1930s series adventure, with Nancy as the new sort of independent girl who drives and thinks for herself.

  Mutha: Stuff + Things, Vincent D'Onofrio
I don't know how to describe this book because you don't as much read it as feel it. Some of it is goofy, a few things quite profound (the last two pieces in the volume), some just downright funny (the Girl Scout cookie piece was my favorite in this category). Don't come into this book thinking it's a biography or even a memoir. As the cover states, "this book was not written, it was spewed." However, wandering about the entries, you do get personal insights, as in his memory of a totally awful-sounding attraction in Florida in the 1960s called the Monkey Jungle, his insights on the word "daunted," an introspective piece called "Holy Sh*t, I'm F*cking Useless," another interesting bit of verse called "I Am the Wind," and several entertaining journal entries like "My Left Hand." (Question: doesn't everyone like to eat peanut butter straight off the spoon?)

Not quite of what to make of his intense interest in pigs and poop, but...everyone has their quirky little interests. 😏

Illustrated with black-and-white photographs presented with some unique visual effects. (I particularly like the photo on page 41).

  The Love Hypothesis, Ali Hazelwood
I have a love-hate relationship with chick-lit. Most of it I hate.

This one, I had to admit, was fun, if dotted with the usual clichés. The draw is that the protagonist is not some gorgeous model or store owner, but is a graduate student who is promoting a new test protocol for cancer. Olive Smith has a personal stake in the research since her mother died from cancer, and she is very eager to get her research approved by Stanford or some other university. As a scientist she's talented, but her personal life is a mess: her best friend has a crush on her former boyfriend, but won't ask him for a date because she thinks Olive is still "into" him. So Olive, accidentally at first, inveigles Adam Carlsen, a no-nonsense professor at Stanford, into being her "pretend boyfriend" so her BFF Anh will relax and be happy with Jeremy. Trouble is, Adam's not well-liked at Stanford for being a tough nut. But as the charade goes on, Olive starts to see Adam more as a good friend than a pretend boyfriend, even as she wonders why he goes along with the charade in the first place. Could it be Adam isn't the hardass he seems? And could Olive be changing how she feels about him?

(Well, of course, since this is a rom-com...)

Hazelwood freely admits at the end of the story that her pairing is based on Kylo Ren/Rey in the final Star Wars trilogy, but if you've never watched the films the story still works if you're ready to buy the premise of a romance set in college laboratories among science nerds. I freely confess I bought this mainly because of the hot sex scenes that start at page 256 and ends at 284. YMMV. :-)

  Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, Ibram X. Kendi
I got lucky and picked this up on the remainder shelf at Books-a-Million, as I'd been interested in it for awhile. It was a great historical read, and, while I knew many of the things Kendi spoke about (favoritism in the Black community for lighter skin, the racist ideas carried by even the most virulent of abolitionists, etc.), I learned many more.

The volume is divided into five parts about the society surrounding five American historical figures: Cotton Mather, the fiery conservative Christian of the colonial era; Thomas Jefferson, the Revolutionary-era's "enlightened" essayist (and third US president) who nevertheless kept slaves; William Lloyd Garrison, the thundering abolitionist who spoke through his newspaper the "Liberator"; W.E.B. DuBois, whose pacifistic ways finally changed to more antiracist ideas; and Angela Davis, the young woman who became a face for Black Power (read: Black violence) in the 1960s/1970s without her ever having committed a violent crime. He traces the idea of "inferior races" back to the Greeks, who considered even the white Slavs (where we get the word "slave" from) inferior, and how growing belief in "purity" (a.k.a. "whiteness") gave myth to the inferior status of those with dark skins (it helped that this "truth" was backed up by scientific discoveries—which, of course, were misinterpreted). Stories of Africans who were "descended" from apes, rumors of Black "looseness" of morals raising the specter of interracial sex and "mongrelization," the belief that people of color were not as intellectually developed (and could not become more intellectually developed), and other racist ideas firmly cementing ideas of racism even in the minds of Black people themselves.

A big book with a lot to swallow, but very readable and often infuriating (as it should be!).

  Love, Lies & Hocus Pocus: Beginnings, Lydia Sherrer
Twenty-something Lillian Singer is one of the few people who know about the secret library of magic at Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, GA; she's the archives manager there. She's also a wizard. Alas, she's just escaped from another unsatisfying computer date when she's asked for help by Sebastian Blackwell, a young heedless friend who's also a witch. He's asked her to help him free an old mansion from a ghost combined with a curse so the property can be sold; in return she'll get a collection of old magic books. But Sebastian has led her astray before—will Lily go along? And if she does, what trouble will trouble-magnet Sebastian get her into?

James bought me the first two books in this series as a birthday gift when I expressed interest at Conjuration. I like to support local writers and this looked like a fun series. It actually is quite inventive: I like Sherrer's delineation between wizards (they're basically "born" with the talent and learn to use it rather like "the Force") and witches (who manipulate the fey world to get the things they want), and Lily herself is a very appealing character. The second half of the book, which involves a time loop, is very inventive. These books are also written at a young-adult level, so there's nothing in the story which might make parents wary.

My big problem is Sebastian irritates me. He's not a bad guy and I guess he's supposed to be cute, and he comes off as a nice guy especially in the interlude with the girl who works at the bar. But he gives me the fidgets. Your mileage may vary. Oh, and Lily had a pet cat, if that helps. :-)

Books Completed Since April 1

 Closer to the Heart, Mercedes Lackey
This is the second book in Lackey's "Herald Spy" series, featuring Mags, the Chosen mine-slave now grown up and on the eve of his marriage to Amily, once the crippled daughter of the King's Own Herald and now King's Own herself. Mags continues to develop his spy network in this book and assist the street kids who help him in his intelligence surveillance.

Several interesting new characters are introduced in this story, including Lady Dia's husband Lord Jorthun and what sounds like an autistic craftsman, Tuck, who can make marvelous tools and inventions. Thankfully, the Romeo-and-Juliet plot from the preceding book is almost forgotten, but the story moves slowly in the middle as Lackey illustrates the setup of the spy network. However, a new danger is introduced almost immediately: Valdemaran weapons are being used to help overthrow a king in the neighboring country of Menmillith, which is determined to fight back, even if it means war.

So the threat builds and a lead is then followed—but the actual "villain" of the piece is identified very late in the story, there's another interminable Kirball game, Mags is kidnapped yet again (not to mention Amily), and it's as if Lackey realized she was coming to the end of an established page count and suddenly wraps it up in the last twenty pages with a speech! At least Mags and Amily do get married, because after the mess they certainly deserve some happiness. To sum up: it's rather uneven, but it does progress the storyline. And a thread right at the beginning was never wrapped up, so I'm wondering if it's going to show up in a future book. Same time next year, I expect...

 Poems and Sketches of E.B. White, E.B. White
Having lulled myself with Charlotte's Web and two volumes of meticulous and lovely essays followed by a surfeit of letters, what do I come upon but this book, which has not only the very beautiful—I love White's poetry; he favors sonnets, but uses all forms—but the very strange, like one piece called "The Door," and the inevitable essay about strange servants in which James Thurber also indulged, even a piece about pigeons addressed to what White considers a very unobservant essayist in another magazine.

I particularly love the poems written to his wife Katharine Angell, especially this one called "Wedding Day in the Rockies":

"The charm of riding eastward through Wyoming
Is not so much the grandeur and the view
As that it is an exercise in homing
And that my fellow passenger is you.
In fourteen years of this our strange excursion
The scenic points of love have not grown stale
For that my mind in yours has found diversion
And in your heart my heart could never fail.

It's fourteen years today since we began it—
This sonnet crowds a year in every line—
Love were an idle drudge if time outran it
And time were stopped indeed were you not mine.
The rails go on together toward the sky
Even (the saying goes) as you and I."

Isn't that lovely? There's another great one called "Winter Trees," too, that isn't love poetry but which is just as beautiful. Read this if just for the poetry.

  The Grapes of Math, Alex Bellos
I confess I didn't enjoy this one as much as Bellos' predecessor, I'm Looking at Euclid. Most of the mathematics made sense, and I enjoyed learning about how certain numbers are more "right" than others and the Benford progression, the stories behind trigonometry and calculus, and tau as a more compelling number than pi.

On the other hand, imaginary numbers just completely lost me (I couldn't figure out what they were good for) and the cell "Game of Life" had me completely baffled until he finally revealed that it could help predicting growth of cities and traffic flow (and the pattern made by the cells was pretty cool). And the fractals were kinda neat. I just guess I am not made for higher math. :-)

 Journey to Munich, Jacqueline Winspear
Maisie Dobbs, now widowed and fresh from a year helping the victims of the Spanish Civil War, is back in England, living with her friends the Partridges but knowing she will need to be taking some direction in her life now that she has returned. One day she is waylaid by her old compatriot from the secret service, Robert McFarlane. He has a mission he wishes her to take: play the part of an imprisoned Englishman's daughter so her father (who is of some use to the government) can be freed in her custody. With misgivings Maisie takes the role.

Of course this being a Maisie Dobbs book you know it can't all be that simple. Maisie is also asked to locate Elaine Otterburn, the woman she secretly holds responsible for her husband's death—and once Elaine is located, Maisie's mission becomes doubly hard. As the Germans continue to delay the release of the imprisoned man, it becomes more and more dangerous for Maisie to keep up her cover as his daughter.

I liked this much more than the proceeding book; and enjoyed the Hitchcockian sense of suspense that follows Maisie's trail. But I like best the final pages of the book, which establishes a new direction for her. I look forward to the next one!

 Dial H for Hitchcock, Susan Kandel
This is the fifth and final (so far that I know) book in the Cece Caruso mystery series. I didn't realize this book was out for a long time after it was published and it has since sat languishing in my to-be-read pile. Cece is an author of mystery writer/filmmaker biographies who also has a taste for vintage clothing. She has an earthy daughter named Annie who has given her one grandchild, plus another from Annie's marriage to Vincent, and when we last met her in Christietown, she was planning her wedding to police officer Peter Gambino.

Except when this book begins she has walked out of her wedding, telling Gambino she isn't good enough for him, and has just come back from what should have been her honeymoon cruise. She returns home to find she has new neighbors, some type of odd people who are Hollywood types. Her troubles being when she goes to a revival showing of Hitchcock's Vertigo and after the show finds a cell phone which is not hers in her bag. In attempting to return it, she sees a woman pushed from a hiking trail by a man, who then threatens her. But, bizarrely, she discovers that she has apparently threatened this young woman.

I've read some bizarre mysteries in my time, but this one takes the cake. The previous Cece mysteries were always a little dippy, as is Cece herself, but this was just oddly off the wall, with Cece trying to figure out how she threatened someone she didn't even know. And when she goes on the run because she knows someone is trying to frame her, she just keeps getting in more and more absurd situations, and it turns out to be the dumbest thing at the end. Frankly, if this hadn't been the last book in the series, I would have quit reading here anyway.

 The Twilight Zone FAQ, Dave Thompson
First, do not buy this as a complete Twilight Zone reference book. That honor is reserved for Marc Scott Zicree's classic Twilight Zone Companion. Second, a warning: Dave Thompson hates modern television. Be prepared for many insults at reality television.

Is this book worth buying? Actually, I liked it if you don't count on it too highly for facts. I think it was badly edited on a computer and bits of text just dropped out, and of course no one proofreads books anymore. In one place the end of a sentence is clearly cut off. In another, the writer seems to be referencing something a character said, but that reference is gone. And there are facts that are wrong; in a section where Thompson is talking about UFO abductions, he mentions Betty and Barney Hills, not Hill.

On the other hand, I sort of liked the goofy way it is arranged: starting the narration with Rod Serling itself and his career in TV, then gives a season by season overview, and within that arranges the episodes under themes (World War II, cold war tensions, aliens, just desserts, etc.). He also talks about some of the noted writers who were regulars on the series (George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, even Earl Hamner). I liked the theme sections because he talks about some of the history and stories that lay behind the episodes. But many of his "discussions" of episodes themselves are just a rehash of the plot, with nothing new learned from reading the synopsis. Now I did like that he addressed the revival series in the 1980s (with classics like "Paladin of the Lost Hour") and the one season 2002 show. So there are pluses and minuses to the volume. I'd say if you are a TZ fan, buy it, but find a used copy on Amazon or Bookfinder.

 The Beginner's Photography Guide, DK Publishers
This is a nice basic photography guide, which will work best for cameras with adjustable features (aperture, shutter speed, etc) and DSLRs.

 Great War Britain: The First World War at Home, Lucinda Gosling
"The Tatler" and "The Sketch," and also "The Bystander" and "The Queen," were the "People" and "Us" of their day in Great Britain, but instead of concentrating on media celebrities, they focused on royalty and society. The wealthy read them to keep up with all the gossip in their society; the middle class to imagine themselves living that opulent and privileged lifestyle. Then Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated.

This delightful history book tells the story of "the Great War" as seen in the four greatest society magazines of that age: how even Princess Mary volunteered for nursing and society matrons raised money, eschewed frivolity, and knitted and packed parcels for "the boys over there." Women became "land girls" and worked on farms, made do with inferior foods and no meat, and eventually became conductors, munitions workers, and other positions formerly reserved for men. It was debated if racing and football should be continued in the face of horrible war losses. The fictional "Eve" in "The Tatler" and "Phrynette" in "The Sketch" commented on the war, most times humorously or facetiously, but sometimes in contemplative form as the body count increased.

Liberally strewn throughout this book are photographs of the society denizens that found their cultured world turned upside down, original art, the whimsical cartoon "Eve," and vintage advertisements urging people to stretch budgets, menus, and charity to "make do." It's a vivid portrait of a segment of British society from 1914 through 1919.

(I was amazed to find this wonderful book in a Hamilton Books catalog for $8. It's still selling for $40 on Amazon!)

 Dear America: A City Tossed and Broken--The Diary of Minnie Bonner, Judy Blundell
One moment Minnie Bonner is helping her extravagant French father and practical mother run their tavern in 1906 Philadelphia. Next thing she knows, her mother has hired her out as a maid to a stuck-up, social-climbing newly rich couple and their vacuous teen daughter because her father has lost the tavern, and all their money, gambling. Her mother promises she will work hard for the next two years and then send for Minnie, who will be moving out to San Francisco with the nouveau riche Sump [yes, Sump as in the pump] family.

Lonely, unhappy, and angry, Minnie's first morning in San Francisco is more terrifying than she can imagine: because the family has arrived just in time for the great San Francisco earthquake and fire.

When Scholastic brought the "Dear America" series back in 2013 for a few books, they decided the books also needed a mystery element, I guess since "girls like mysteries!" So instead of getting to know Minnie and her family, and get a little insight into her character, we are plunged pell-mell into Minnie being shipped off with the Sumps and then the moment she arrives the earthquake takes place, just after she finds out there is something shady about Mr. Sump. The best part about the book is Minnie's description of the earthquake, its fire aftermath, and how some of the citizens of San Francisco rally to save their neighborhood. It's well described and at times very suspenseful. The rest of the story is filled with a bunch of cliches: the two-dimensional Sumps (who live up to their name), a crooked lawyer (is there any other kind in stories like this?), and another evil character who might as well tweak his mustache and cackle like Snidely Whiplash. When another character is introduced, you know immediately he's the person Minnie will later marry. It would have been nice if we actually saw Minnie with her dad at the beginning instead of having flashbacks, and then Minnie getting used to San Francisco before the fire, but we're just popped into the plot. I suspect the author could have written that story, too, judging by the fire scenes, but she was ordered by her Scholastic editors to "cut to the chase." A pity, as this could have been a much better book.

 Treachery at Lancaster Gate, Anne Perry
Finally! A Thomas Pitt mystery that doesn't involve diplomatic misadventures.

There are two breeds of mystery series. One sets up a popular partnership and all books are kept within that story setup, ad infinitum, and the characters never grow or change. The other, as in this series, allows the characters to progress naturally in their careers and lives: employed people do well. They get promoted and sometimes in their promotion, a popular partnership is broken apart. Perry must be lauded for not allowing Pitt's career to stay static and not writing endless by-the-numbers stories where he and his partner investigates society crimes and wife Charlotte and her sister Emily help him.

On the other hand, I have found Pitt's Special Branch investigations, with their political overtones, to be increasingly tedious, so I really enjoyed this latest book, in which Pitt is called in after five police officers are injured (two die almost instantly) in a bombing that, of course, is immediately tied to anarchists. Instead, Pitt's investigation reveals that a prominent politician's son, a young man addicted to opium, may have some connection with the case, and that police corruption is an ugly possibility in spurring the crime. He is assisted in his investigation by his old partner Samuel Tellman, so we get to see both Tellman and his wife Gracie [nee Phipps and formerly the Pitts' much-loved maid) once more, as well as Emily Radley making certain inquires for Pitt at parties she attends.

Unfortunately, once again Charlotte gets short shrift and basically remains home as moral support and a sounding board for her husband. Emily's husband Jack does get some action, and Aunt Vespasia, now married to Victor Narraway (the previous head of Special Branch), appear at the end once the story comes to a head. There are so many characters in the story now that it is hard to give them all equal time. Plus her newer books still lack that special spark that made the originals so compelling. But this is the closest Perry has come to a "classic" Thomas and Charlotte book in several years, and I really enjoyed that.

Books Completed Since January 1

 Christmas in the American Southwest

 The Carols of Christmas, The Oxford Book of Christmas Poems, The House Without a Christmas Tree, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

 Reminisce Christmas

 The Humbug Murders

 The Family Way, Rhys Bowen
In this twelfth of the Molly Murphy mysteries, she and her husband Daniel Sullivan, a New York City police officer, are expecting their first child in less than three months. Independent Molly, who once ran her own detective agency, is bored silly making little clothes for the expected child and wilting during a hot NYC summer, but is reluctant to stay at Daniel's mother's country house since she feels the woman disapproves of her. When she goes out to mail a letter, she receives one addressed to her old detective agency about an Irish girl who came to the States and disappeared. A little while later, while talking with an old friend, shouts are heard in the street. A baby has been kidnapped from its carriage. If this wasn't enough, she runs into her brother Liam, now on the run from government agents.

Daniel doesn't want Molly following her old pursuits anymore, but the independent woman does so anyway, looking into the disappearance of the Irish girl and inadvertently becoming involved in the kidnapping case, all the while worrying about her brother, who supports the Irish Republican cause. There are some really odd coincidences in the story—which Daniel comments about in disbelief at the end, which helps!—and Molly, as always, overestimates her power to extricate herself from a situation and once again almost comes to grief over it.

This was a good read with the various plotlines woven together very neatly (except for those coincidences, of course) and I love when Molly's "Bohemian" friends Sid and Gus are involved with the story; in this one they actually help her sleuth. Several conventions of the era which are notable appear in the plot: the sending of unmarried pregnant girls to live in a convent (and an American version of "baby farming") until they gave birth and the common habit of sending unattractive daughters into the religious life since no one would want to marry them. I thoroughly enjoyed this installment of the series.

 Better Than Before, Gretchen Rubin
Rubin, who has written previously about improving your personal happiness and the happiness of your household, now talks about developing positive habits to improve your life. As always, Rubin states that what habits work for her will not work for other people, since we are all individuals. Based on that, she asks you to define your own personality as one of four types: Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, and Rebel. Once you have classified yourself, you can begin addressing how to form new habits based on personality type. Some people, for example, may choose to give up sweets altogether, since they cannot trust themselves around sweets, while others can restrict themselves to only a few a week without falling back into bad habits. Obligers, who often sacrifice their happiness for that of others, form habits differently than Rebels, who instinctively fight against any rules at all.

There is a quiz at the back of the book so you may classify yourself and Rubin even sells a workbook. I thought it was a unique approach to habit-changing as opposed to other books which tell you you definitely must abstain, or follow rigid procedure to change a bad habit into a better one. Happiness Project is still my favorite of her books, but I thought her habits process showed some alternative thinking.

 Crucible: All-New Tales of Valdemar, edited by Mercedes Lackey
This is a pretty enjoyable collection of short stories in Lackey's Valdemar universe. I found fewer of what I think of as "unfinished stories," ones that are more vignettes than actual short stories. Right off I was charmed by the story of the partnership between one of the little lizard hertasi of the Vales and a blind gryphon who help a change-child, although I wish it had been much longer, followed by a tense story about an innkeeper using a Gift in an evil way. There are also further stories featuring Lady Cerantha, Herald Will and his daughter Ivy, Healer Kade and Nwah the kyree, and the Haven Guards. Other stories feature not only Heralds, but Bards and Healers, and of course the fabulous Companions, one who chooses an elderly woman who resented her daughter being chosen, another who will die if her Chosen does not escape a fantasy world. The final story, written by Mercedes Lackey, involves a canny Healer kidnapped by a band of renegades. All in all, a satisfactory read.

 The Fairy Tale Girl, Susan Branch
This is the first volume in Branch's two-volume autobiography, crammed with vintage family photographs, diary excerpts, journal scribblings, quotations, maps, Susan's hand-lettered text, and of course her exquisite watercolors. It's simply a gorgeous volume just to look at. The book opens with her best friend putting her on a plane for Boston where she heads to the place she lives today, Martha's Vineyard, after her divorce, and then takes us on a flashback through time. She tells of her happy childhood as one of eight children in 1950s California, then moving out on her own with her best friend Diana in the 1960s, learning to cook from Julia Child's cookbook and discovering how much she loved cooking and baking, and then meeting her first love, Cliff Branch, owner of a music store. It is Cliff who encourages her early artistic efforts, but it's also Cliff who eventually breaks her heart by taking up with other women.

The book is like a wonderful scrapbook of Branch's life. If you are a Susan Branch fan, you will enjoy her memories, both happy and sad. The photographs of the past, the story of her 1960s lifestyle in California, the heartbreak of her split with Cliff were all quite absorbing. (Frankly, I wanted to slap Cliff silly several times, although I understand he and Branch are still friends.) I have to say, as much as I enjoyed this one, I'm looking forward more to the Martha's Vineyard volume, though, since it takes place close to my home town.

 Gone West, Carola Dunn
Investigating a crime is the furthest thing from Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher's mind when she gets together with her old schoolmate Sybil Sutherby. Sybil has been acting as a typist and editor for the novelist Humphrey Birtwhistle, who has kept the old family estate going by writing romances of the Old West, having lived there as a young man and brought his American wife back home with him. Sybil confides to Daisy that she thinks someone is drugging her employer to keep him under the weather, since when Sybil took over writing the books from Humphrey's outlines they have been making a great deal more money. So under the guise of visiting Sybil, Daisy once again gets herself involved in a mystery—as Birtwhistle dies not soon after she meets the rest of his not-always-lovely family.

Once again Daisy must try to sort out who might want to kill the victim: perhaps it's the man's younger brother or sister, who worked the estate hard most of their lives only to have him come home and claim it; or the flibbertigibbet niece with no money of her own or her two suitors, a straitlaced type or an Irish poet; it might even be his American wife. Even Sybil and her beau, the estate's physician, are not free of suspicion—and of course Daisy must cooperate when her husband DI Fletcher and his associates Tom Tring and Ernie Piper are called onto the case. A nice atmospheric country house mystery with a couple of twists.

 The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects, Richard Kurin
In an American response to the seminal BBC production The History of the World in 100 Objects, this is a lush volume that covers the pre-Columbian (Burgess shale points) all the way to the present (the man-made Giant Magellan Telescope) and just a bit of everything in between: Pocahontas' authentic portrait (all of them), Thomas Jefferson's Bible (which he disassembled and rearranged), Abraham Lincoln's beaver hat, gold from Sutter's fort and furniture from Appamattox, the Wright flyer and an authentic Eisenhower jacket, the Salk vaccine and the AIDS quilt. It's a giant candy box of historical choices, illustrated in color, and a nice overview of American history which tries to be inclusive of other points of view besides the usual historical narrative. The only minus of this volume is its price, but if you're a history buff, a nice used or remainder copy will do. Plus, if you dislike it, it can be used as a burglar basher. At 760 pages of heavyweight paper, it would make a nice leaf press, too. ☺

 The Laws of Murder, Charles Finch
Charles Lenox and his four colleagues, including his protege Jack Dallington, have now formed their investigative agency and are hoping for consultation work from the police. Except, to Lenox's astonishment, his good friend at Scotland Yard, Inspector Thomas Jenkins, badmouths him and his agency to the press. Yet when Inspector Jenkins is murdered, he clearly leaves clues that Lenox recognizes, but cannot quite put together because they have been compromised. Lenox is also certain that one of his old nemises, the Marquess of Wakefield, is involved in the mystery—only to discover the peer also dead. But as distrust of Lenox spreads after the newspaper reports, he finds his new agency may no longer want him as one of the partners.

A ship of smuggled items, a convent on an otherwise busy street, the scandalous Wakefield who meets his doom in a most mysterious way, and a charming young Frenchman figure in this latest Lenox mystery in paperback. I'm so glad Lenox has dropped the Parliamentary seat; his part-time sleuthing wasn't really interesting, even if it allowed Jack Dallington to blossom as a detective and his old butler Graham to fill his place and use his unique skills. Needless to say, with a lascivious lord, murder, and smuggling, there are further revelations of the seamy underside of London. Sadly, Lady Jane doesn't have a lot to do in the story.

 Never Turn Your Back on an Angus Cow, Dr. Jan Pol/David Fisher
This is the story of Jan Pol, the Michigan veterinarian whose cases are shown on the National Geographic Wild channel's The Incredible Dr. Pol. Pol was born in the Netherlands and was helping with animals at an early age. His family endured Nazi rule during World War II and later he studies in Michigan where he meets his wife Diane, charmed by the fact that she plays tag with a pet duck, and you learn about his early mentors.

The remainder of the book is about memorable animal patients or why/how he uses a certain treatment, very like the television series. I only watch the series occasionally, so most of the stories weren't familiar to me. Plus he talks about how the television series came about.

Pol's co-writer tries to write as his subject talks, so the narrative is rather cut-and-dried. Those looking for the poetic feel of James Herriott about the landscape and the people will be disappointed. But there are a wide variety of cases covered, from horses to cows to dogs and cats, and it's enjoyable enough. Plus there's a center section of photographs, where you can see what Pol looked like as a younger man.

 A Pattern of Lies, Charles Todd
In England after escorting a group of wounded soldiers from the front, Great War battlefield nurse Bess Crawford is looking forward to a few days' leave with her family. Unfortunately she cannot get a train and there are no places to stay, until she meets an old patient of hers, Major Mark Ashton, who is home on leave until his hearing problem from concussion resolves. He invites her to his home for the night, where Bess discovers the family is being systematically harassed about a devastating accident that happened at the family munitions plant two years earlier. Although the explosion was determined to be an accident, out of nowhere accusations are resurfacing that the family was behind the deaths. Bess likes the family immediately and soon is determined to get to the bottom of the accusations, especially after Mark's father is arrested.

I found this an interesting and absorbing novel in the Bess Crawford series. Probably I should have guessed the identity of the culprit earlier, but I was too busy enjoying Bess' relationship with the Ashtons and her efforts to solve the mystery of the sabotaged factory. I found that Bess' transport back and forth to the front and Britain made sense in her duties as a nursing sister. It does seem a bit unusual that her Australian soldier friend can keep popping up when she needs him, but I guess that's no less unlikely than a nursing sister getting involved with murder mysteries in the first place. I like Bess; she's capable and doesn't need a man to help her make the conclusions she comes to, for all that Simon Brandon does pop up once again just in time.

 Melody Ellison: No Ordinary Sound, Denise Lewis Patrick
After reading the less-than-inspiring Maryellen books, I was worried about this newest series of American Girl novel, which features an African-American family in Detroit in 1963.

This is more like it! Melody and her family seem very real; the family dynamics are wonderful (there's a warm atmosphere that I love, especially between Melody and her sisters), and every family member has a role, unlike Maryellen's very superficial father. There are occasional "info dumps" for the modern child about the early 1960s attitude toward people of color, but they aren't too intrusive. This is what I was expecting from the Maryellen story, something that would make a 1950s Florida girl come alive, not a dumb kid painting the front door red.

The story: Melody and her family live in Detroit. Her father works on an auto assembly line, her grandfather is a florist whom she helps occasionally (Melody loves to garden), and her grandmother teaches music. Melody has been asked to sing a solo at her church in the fall and must make the important decision of which song to sing over the summer. In the meantime, her older brother is trying to break into the Motown scene, and her cousin from Alabama is moving to Detroit with her family because of racial conditions in Alabama.

I loved that the book addressed not only overt bigotry (when her cousins try to buy a house, they are told the house isn't available—although it is available to whites; when her sister tries to get a summer job at a bank, she are told there are no more jobs, although the bank manager tells a white girl positions are still open), but more subtle things: Melody and brother Dwayne go looking for new clothes in a department store and are promptly accused of shoplifting for just looking at things; Melody's cousin Val is surprised that black people can walk into the front door of the library in Detroit.

I can't wait until the second volume is out, but now I really resent that Mattel has gone cheap on the books. I would have loved to have illustrated volumes of Melody's story. I would have loved three illustrated "Inside Melody's World" features in three books instead of a measly two pages: info about the faces of bigotry, the events in Birmingham, behind the scenes at Motown, the story of "Lift Every Voice and Sing." The new "Beforever" line is a cheat.

 Dear America: Land of the Buffalo Bones, Marion Dane Bauer
This is labeled "special edition" and I don't know why unless it is the first "Dear America" book I've read that is based on an actual family. The young lady who is the protagonist was the great-grandaunt of the author and she derived the story in this novel from the memories of older relatives who remembered "Polly."

Mary Ann Elizabeth Rodgers accompanies her siblings, half-siblings, father and stepmother to the United States, where her minister father has arranged for them to found an English colony in 1873 Minnesota. He has come home with tales of green and verdant fields and the members of his Baptist congregation, unwelcome by the Church of England, are eager to come. Tragedy strikes early: the small brother of Polly's best friend Jane dies on the ship during the Atlantic voyage. When they arrive at their new home, there is no infant town as they were promised and it is snowing heavily on Easter Sunday. This is only the beginning of their trials.

This is a excellent primer to the pioneer experience, but be aware that very sensitive children may find this one chilling. It is not a happy experience for the Rodgers family. The story begins with the death of little Timmy and other deaths occur, and something else upsetting happens near the end. Keep in mind that the events that happen are nothing different than what you might read in the "Little House" books, but they are different than the experiences of most children today. Some parents may be dismayed that the godly Reverend Rodgers is not the steadfast leader he needs to be (he reminds me somewhat of Bronson Alcott) to survive in the Minnesota wilderness, but he is typical of many of the people who went west with misconceptions and believed promoters' tales of the area. I was particularly impressed by how Polly's stepmother learned to cope with the situation and how Polly's perception of her changed from the beginning of the book when she was a despised stepmother.

 The Annotated Little Women, Louisa May Alcott with annotations by John Matteson
Yes, I have yet another annotated version of this classic. I read so much about this volume on a blog that I wanted it, and James obliged for Christmas (thanks to a wonderful Barnes & Noble before-Christmas sale). Matteson, an Alcott scholar, received permission to use photos of items from Alcott's "Orchard House, including personal items like Anna Alcott Pratt's (the original of "Meg") wedding dress, the newly-discovered New Testament belonging to Lizzie (the original of "Beth"), books published by May Alcott Nieriker, and never-before-seen family photographs.

In this volume Matteson uses Alcott's original text for Little Women, only briefly mentioning the revision that her publishers requested when the two parts of the text were put together to make the one book we know today, to correct the slang that the girls and Laurie use (it was considered detrimental to the readers of the 19th century!). Instead he talks more about the different "sections" of the first part. Initially Alcott wrote only the first twelve chapters, which are episodic scenes in the lives of the girls, unsure that anyone would want to read "dull" stuff; her publisher agreed, but his niece loved the story so much that Alcott continued, with the next chapters providing a more cohesive whole to the story. Also, the story was originally supposed to end when Mr. March came home at Christmas, the story running one year from one Christmas to the next. It was Alcott's publisher who asked that she write "Aunt March Settles the Question," which suggests a future (i.e. a sequel) might be in order for these characters. I knew Alcott didn't think much of the book until her publisher's niece said she loved it—she basically wrote her children's books and stories to make money—but I had no idea of the actual "construction" of the book until now.

I'm hard pressed to tell you which volume is "better." I liked this one for its biography of Alcott and the importance of Lizzie Alcott and May Alcott Nieriker to what happened to Louisa in later life; also the new photographs (since when you visit Orchard House they don't allow you to take photos). But the other book by Daniel Shealy was good, too. If you're an Alcott fan, you'll want both, so check the used book stores!

 The Lost Art of Reading Nature's Signs, Tristan Gooley
I don't hike (I'd like to, but not in the tropics, thankyouverymuch), I don't camp, and I sure don't want to eat some of the things author Gooley did during a hike in Borneo. On the other hand, this is a fascinating book about the nature signs that our ancestors used to survive, whether as hunters or farmers before the advent of the Weather Bureau or explorer. Gooley covers all types of signs, from in which direction plants grow and which plants grow near settled areas and which prefer wild spaces, which animals you may see on your hikes (not just the native creatures of an area, but which animals will come out in the daytime and which at night, which prefer wet places, which prefer dry), weather signs, determining your direction by charting the stars (he goes way beyond finding Polaris by using the two stars on the cup of the Big Dipper), seeing things differently when you hike at night and finding your way in the dark via temperature, animal sounds, etc.

It makes you a bit wistful for all the ancient knowledge we have lost. If I lived out in the country I would definitely try learning one of more of these techniques.