Books Completed Since April 1

  Did I Ever Tell You This?, Sam Neill
Imagine you're in a pub, and suddenly actor Sam Neill strolls in and decides you're a genial companion for the evening. He sits down and begins telling you stories. Some are about his past, some are about his films, others are about people he encountered or his vineyards or things he likes and doesn't like, and others are about the dreadful news he received just after filming Jurassic World Dominion, where he found out he had a malignant cancer.

Reading this memoir is like sitting at the pub with Neill, having him tell you stories. You can hear his voice in the words, cheeky or sorrowful, opinionated or reflective. Granted, I'm not up on a lot of New Zealand or Australian slang and celebrities, so I had to do a bit of research on a few people, but those were minor problems. I've loved Neill since Hunt for Red October and this memoir is just Sam wrapped up all in a nice package and delivered with a pretty bow.

Comes with two photo inserts as well as photographs within the text. Sam Neill fans, this is a gift for you.

 The Hating Game, Sally Thorne
Lucy Hutton is the daughter of strawberry farmers; she came to the Big City to fulfill her dream of working at a publishing house, and found her dream job working at Gamin Publishing. And it was perfect until Gamin, a failing concern, merged with Baxley Books, and she had to work every day with Joshua Templeman, Mr. Perfect humorless Josh, who wears his shirts in strict rotation and makes other employees afraid. Together, he and Lucy play what she calls "the Hating Game," trying to outdo one another in being spiteful to one another. And when their respective bosses tell them there will be a competition between them for the role of chief operating officer, the Hating Game only escalates.

If only Lucy wasn't becoming interested in Josh, and vice versa.

Yes, it's a rom-com and yeah, I did enjoy this one. (It was made into a film, which I'll probably avoid; apparently it doesn't live up to the book.) Nothing really memorably special about it, except for the interesting revelation about Josh's room; some nice steamy scenes, including one in an elevator. Oh, and that wonderful dinner in the end when Lucy makes a speech to remember to Josh's clueless father, who should be slapped (and hard). But worth reading for a kick-back-and-relax reading day.

 The Bluebird Effect, Julie Zickefoose
I had been drawn to this book for years, even before I read Zickefoose's Saving Jemima, about her experience raising a blue jay. Zickefoose is a wonderful watercolor artist of nature and birds, and just her illustrations were worth the price of the book.

My husband bought this off my Amazon list and after I finished it, I went up to him, hugged him and thanked him. What a lovely experience! It's basically Zickefoose's stories from being a bird rehabilitator, and not just bluebirds: swallows, starlings, chickadees, wrens, hummingbirds, ospreys, titmice, swifts, grosbeaks, tanagers, phoebes, plovers, and more fill this wonderful volume along with pencil sketches, pen and paint, and watercolor pieces (a couple of fall and winter pics are breathtaking). She even talks about her beloved macaw, Charlie, who turned out at the end to be female.

If you love birds, this is a must have.

  It's That Time Again 3: Even More New Stories of Old-Time Radio, edited by Jim Harmon
This is my third of this set of four books with short stories based on old-time radio series, and I think it's my favorite so far. The stories are all crossovers, too, as illustrated by the cover illustration which shows Jack Armstrong teamed up with Tom Mix. (I really enjoyed this story, too; my complaint was that it was billed as a "novelette" and it was too damn short!)

Other goodies: the spooky Whistler/Traveler tale, Sherlock Holmes coming up against A.J. Raffles, a swell story where Sky King gets mixed up with Captain Midnight and his team, an interesting team-up (if it's the word) between Paladin and Marshal Dillon, the mystery "Death in the Corner Office" wherein Casey, Crime Photographer meets the Man in Black from Suspense, and a funny story where Gildersleeve just wants a quiet place to read his newspaper. Most of the other stories are good, too, even though I still don't "get" Lum & Abner (although they mesh pretty well with Mary Noble!).

  Revolutionary Roads, Bob Thompson
Thompson is not a historian. But when I looked through this book I decided it was just what I was looking for.

Schoolday history rarely goes into any depth about any historic event simply because there are only 180 hours a school year to address 400+ years (at least, only if you don't address the Native people here before the "discovery" by Columbus) of American history. What you learn are top names, dates, and quick descriptions, and you don't learn anything about the "average" American in history.

Thompson thus visits Revolutionary War sites, from the well-known—the inevitable "midnight ride of Paul Revere" and Bunker Hill—to the decisive battle no one remembers—Cowpens in South Carolina. He follows the career of Benedict Arnold to try to explain why this expert colonial leader turned traitor, we learn the truth (as my husband and I did) about Valley Forge (it wasn't the cold; it was mud and disease—and, oh, yeah, there were families there), you discover the real type of boat Washington crossed the Delaware River in (note it wasn't the kind in the famous painting), what was the Marquis de Lafayette's real contributions (also a nice write-up on Baron von Steuben), and actual narrative about Black and other minority fighters (including women). We meet the well-known like Arnold, Henry Knox, the British biggies like Burgoyne and Howe, Lafayette, and Francis Marion (cue "The Swamp Fox" theme on Walt Disney's TV show!) and the lesser known, like John Stark, Daniel Morgan, Henry Laurens, and Nathanael Green (well, unless you're a Rhode Islander). All in all, an entertaining, enlightening book that encourages you to go out and research history on your own.

  Marmee, Sarah Miller
As Caroline was Little House on the Prairie (the book, not the television series) told from Caroline Ingalls' point of view, Marmee is the diary of Margaret March taking place during the narrative of Little Women. I was skeptical about this book initially because I'd read Geraldine Brooks' March, which was supposed to be a history of a young Bronson Alcott, and I never felt it jibed with Little Women. But this reads like it really is Marmee's diary, and, of course, all the things Alcott might not have wanted to mention in a children's book (for instance that Hannah stayed with the Marches because she was an unmarried pregnant woman when she came to them, or Marmee helping the Hummels and bonding with Mrs. Hummel) which seem plausible. As in most of these books based on Little Women, Miller works real-life Alcott events (the Alcotts taking in a runaway slave* which goes on to explain an event Alcott glosses over in Little Women, Mr. March being named "Amos" instead of "Robert" as he is in the book, etc.) into the story, but they're not intrusive and work seamlessly into the story. I can really imagine "Marmee" writing this journal and feel her personality as shown in this book matches the woman we saw in Little Women.

Recommended for fans of Alcott/Little Women!

* Interestingly enough, the Japanese anime version Tales of Little Women from 1987 also uses this plotline.

  Life on the Mississippi, Rinker Buck
If you're like me, your biggest connection with traffic on the Mississippi comes from Huckleberry Finn, the riverboats that pop up in literature and media, and Davy Crockett and the River Pirates, in which we learn about Mike Fink and the flatboat trade. (For me, also a book called A' Going to the Westward by Lois Lenski.) But before 18-wheelers, before the railroad, the main commerce lines in the United States were canals that led to the rivers, and the rivers which led the young U.S. to the big one: the Mississippi. Indeed, commercial boats still make up the majority of Mississippi river traffic. So Rinker Buck, who in 2011 rode The Oregon Trail in a covered wagon, now chronicles his months on a custom-built flatboat which he launches on the Monongahela, travels to the Ohio, and eventually merges with the Mississippi for the ride down to New Orleans. On the way, we learn the fascinating history of America's first westward movement and the role of the flatboat/keelboat (there were different kinds) in establishing commerce. (The flatboat/keelboat also goes further back than this first westward movement; the boats were used on New England rivers.)

This book is part travelogue, part history—and Buck doesn't stint on the cruel history of the Indian Removal Act or the spread of slavery to the horrible plantations of the western south—part adventure and part self-discovery, like traveling with incompatible co-pilots (the worst being a re-inactor more concerned with "how things look" than the journey) and broken ribs.

Plus, for me, there was joy in finding out what happened to his mother Pat, who I read about long ago in his dad's humorous memoir But Daddy! about raising ten kids.

I enjoyed this book so much—in fact, this was a grand month for reading. Everything was wonderful.

  CSI: Binding Ties, Max Allan Collins
This is the first of the CSI books I haven't really, really enjoyed. I liked it, but the plot was simpler than usual, so it wasn't quite as an "aha" moment when everything came together. Usually the plot involves part of the team working on one mystery and the other group work on a different case, and they end up being related; this is just a straight mystery involving the whole team: ten years earlier, Jim Brass' first case in Las Vegas came a cropper and a serial killer called CASt got away. Now crimes matching the CASt killings begin to surface. Brass and the CSI team headed by Gil Grissom enlist the reporters who covered the case and Brass' old partner on the case to finally catch the perp--but they soon realize the new CASt is a copycat.

That's it. Oh, it's convoluted enough, but I twigged on one of the bad guys as soon as he was introduced. The perp was a bit of a surprise, or, rather the reason the perp became the perp, and how the last murder was committed. So, good, but not as complicated as previous books.

Books Completed Since June 1

 The Great Detective, Zach Dundas
This book sounded so intriguing that I ordered it despite the fact it was a hardback, and I was not disappointed. Dundas intertwines the adventures of Sherlock Holmes into the life story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and at the same time discovers the continuing fandom surrounding the character from its beginnings in journals written by men all the way through "The Baker Street Babes," a podcast group comprised mostly of women who came to Holmes fandom through the BBC series Sherlock. He takes us through the stories and the novels, while visiting sites including (of course) Baker Street and Dartmoor, links Holmes' life with the real-life Victorian era, investigates the pastiches and the films, from William Gillette equipping Holmes with a calabash and a deerstalker to Basil Rathbone fighting Nazis in 1940s Britain to Benedict Cumberbatch texting in 21st century London.

It's a great jolly mixed bag of fact and fiction and I loved it all. Dundas has a nice relaxed writing style that easily takes us from modern Baker Street to Holmes and Watson's digs to Conan Doyle retreating into Spiritualism after his son's death to modern literary spinoffs like Laurie King's Mary Russell mysteries. It's a perfect grab bag for any Sherlock Holmes fan.

 Chasing Secrets, Gennifer Choldenko
This is a suspenseful adventure set before the San Francisco earthquake and fire by the author of the "Al Capone" books. Like Jacqueline Kelly's Calpurnia Tate, protagonist Lizzie Kennedy is chafing against the social strictures for young women in 1905. She's stuck in a snooty girls' school and has no friends, and would prefer to go on house calls with her physician father. Lizzie's one true friend is Jinn, the family's Chinese cook, but he disappears and no one will tell her where he is. Then rumors of the plague begin, and Lizzie finds Jinn's son, Noah, hiding out in Jinn's room.

Choldenko has created a real page-turner here, what with Lizzie trying to keep Noah hidden, the puzzle about Jinn's disappearance, and trying to keep her activities hidden from her imperious Aunt Hortense, who oversees the family with a will of steel. It also makes the subtle point that as much as Lizzie loves Jinn, he has an entire Chinese life that she has never considered; she sees him only as he is involved in her life.

If I have one quibble with the book, it's that Lizzie seems to have a lot of unmonitored time, considering that Aunt Hortense is supposed to have eyes like an eagle, and she manages to "borrow" horses easily. But the characters are engaging, especially the friendship that grows between Lizzie and Noah, and the setting compelling.

 Betsy's River Adventure: The Journey Westward (Sisters in Time), Veda Boyd Jones
This is one of a series of books for pre-teen girls about girls throughout history. This one roughly parallels Lois Lenski's A'Going to the Westward about the first westward expansion into the Ohio Country (wherein the heroine is also named Betsy). Betsy Miller is shocked and dismayed when she finds out her family is going to pull up stakes and move westward, and also irritated that her aunt and uncle and their son George (Betsy's nemesis) are also going with them. George is always tormenting Betsy about her height, and he owns a mischievous dog that Betsy hates. She vows that somewhere on the way to Ohio she will "get back at him."

It's not a bad account of the early westward movement, and Betsy learns not only about the country and the people traveling on the road, but about how if you plot bad things for others, those plots usually boomerang. By the end, she's even developed a respect for George and he for her. One of the better entries in this series.

 Let Me Tell You, Shirley Jackson
Who can forget "The Lottery," which has been read by every junior high or high school student for years? It was my first introduction to Shirley Jackson, but I confess I haven't read much more of her other writings, not because of aversion but because there's just so many good things out there tempting me to read. I did read another of her stories in school, the family memoir "Charles," which I absolutely adore.

Like most short story collections, this one has its ups and downs. It opens with a creepy story called "Paranoia," as seen through the eyes of a man who's being followed--or at least thinks so. His fate, left in Ms. Jackson's skillful hands, was never in question. Another great story is "Mrs. Spencer and the Oberons," about a snobby housewife and social leader (think of a serious Hyacinth Bucket) who has her nose put out of joint when a new family moves in town. Jackson manages a satisfactory ending for Mrs. Spencer--and even makes you feel a little sorry for her. "The Lie" is also an excellent character study of a woman who thinks a simple apology will make all the difference in her world. Others, like "The Arabian Nights," were rather "eh."

I found the section on pre-World War II stories interesting but minor; their main theme was women awaiting the return of their men coming home from war, but entirely enjoyed her humorous family stories and essays about writing and being an author in the last quarter of the book. Here you'll also find out the mundane origins behind "The Lottery" and how Jackson's imagination spun it into a tale--like it or not--that, once read, you'll never forget.

I think Shirley Jackson's fans will appreciate this book the most, but anyone with a taste for the offbeat may enjoy.

 Silence for the Dead, Simone St. James
The Great War is over and young Kitty Weekes is on the run. On false pretenses, she takes a job as a nurse at a convalescent home for shell-shocked soldiers, as much to escape her past as to earn money to make a living. As the new girl, she is given all the dirty jobs, yet she perseveres, slowly gaining the trust of her fellow nurses and the patients, from the patient man confined to a wheelchair to the angry man whose family are embarrassed that he is in a mental institution. But mysteries still abound: like the shadowy Patient Sixteen, and the growing uneasiness that something else, something evil, is creeping into the walls of Portis House, manifesting as an ugly black mold growing uncontrolled in a lavatory.

As in all of St. James' mysteries, there is a supernatural element to the story, and the story is a mixture of thriller, mystery, romance, and an examination of the treatment of what is now called post-traumatic stress syndrome. The way the soldiers are treated is almost as frightening as the sinister feelings creeping through the house, and Kitty's encounter with a family member is as chilling as it is sad.

The story is at its best when dealing with Kitty's learning process and her survival and the regard she comes to have for her patients (and the patients and the staff for her), and for the portrayal of the soldiers she nurses. The supernatural element is a bit derivative, and the final solution to the problem a bit overwrought, but the characters and the hospital and era setting overwhelm any misgivings I had about it. An edge-of-your-seat enjoyment.

 The Oxford Book of English Detective Stories, edited by Patricia Craig
This is a terrific collection of English mystery stories, only two of which I had previously read (a Sherlock Holmes story and "Death on the Air"), presented chronologically from the beginning of the 20th century through the 1980s. (There is a Dorothy Sayers story, but it is a Montague Egg, and I have only read Lord Peter Wimsey.) There are stories about amateur detectives and others that are police procedurals, and even stories where the people involved don't know there's been a mystery until the story is nearly completed. Some of the stories feature series detectives, like Inspector Thorndyke, Adam Dalgliesh, Father Brown, and Mrs. Bradley. In keeping with English tradition there is a sleeping-car murder, a crime ala Crippen, and murder at an Oxbridge-type institution, plus a murder at Oxford. I was quite taken by "Superintendant Wilson's Holiday," in which that man does indeed have a busman's holiday in an entertaining police procedural. But the story that really blew me out of the water was Agatha Christie's classic "The Witness for the Prosecution." I'd never read it before and really, really loved the twist!

Anyway, for mystery story fans, a worthwhile find to hunt down.

 Eighty Odd Years in Hollywood, John Meredyth Lucas
If you have checked the credits of 1960s and 1970s drama series, I'm certain the name "John Meredyth Lucas" will be familiar to you. He worked as a director or writer on series like Ben Casey, Mannix, and Star Trek, and also many of the episodes of the long-running spiritual series Insight. But his television career was just part of Lucas' unorthodox life. The son of a silent movie actor and a scenario writer/actress who later divorced, his stepfather became the acclaimed Golden Age film director Michael Curtiz, who did, among others, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood, and Casablanca.

This is an eye-opening book in more ways than one. While Lucas' later television and movie directing tales are interesting, his young life in Hollywood's chaotic movie colony are amazing and often horrifying, like the time he was seduced, at the tender age of twelve, by a drunken actress at one of his mother's parties. Today there would be lawsuits and arrests; in those days it was just something that happened. Lucas also has no bones about showing all aspects of his life: how he skipped school and sometimes drank too much. However, it's a fascinating tale of high- (and sometimes low-) living, the behind-the-scenes lives of movie people, and filmmaking in the silents versus in sound movies. Mother Bess Meredyth comes off as a woman before her time, Michael Curtiz a larger-then-life character from a movie.

The text is liberally peppered with family photographs and behind-the-scenes publicity photos. Very enjoyable!

 Thoreau at Devil's Perch, B.B. Oak
Dr. Adam Walker practices medicine in Plumford, a small Massachusetts town on the banks of the Assabat River. One day while walking along the river, another man flags him down: he has just found the body of a young black man at the foot of a cliff. The man happens to be from the neighboring town of Concord, a rather odd fellow known as Henry David Thoreau. Soon Adam and his artistic cousin, Julia Bell, back in Plumford to care for her ailing grandfather, are drawn into trying to figure out how and why the young man was killed, as the town fathers are not interested in the strange death of the young "Negro."

Thoreau makes an interesting addition to the cast of the mystery; however, the majority of the story is Adam and Julia's, told from the point of view of both their journals. The author, or actually authors, a husband and wife team, do their very best to make Adam and Julia sound like 19th century characters (albeit very liberally-minded ones) and have Thoreau's part in keeping with his character, making him into a central character without deifying or maligning him. The mystery was suitably convoluted, but be aware that this is not what you might call a "cozy" mystery if you're thinking of neat murders deduced by sweet elderly ladies in drawing rooms. There are breathless and frightening violence, virulent illness, and other rough crimes. If you understand that, you may enjoy this well-written period mystery.

 Monitor (Take 2), Dennis Hart
In 1955, old-time radio, as it's now called, was dying. Television was making vast inroads into radio program ratings, and NBC's Sylvester "Pat" Weaver knew a different type of show was called for, one the audience would enjoy but would not demand their complete attention like television, made for car rides, days on the beach, and lazy weekend pastimes.

The show he came up with was Monitor, a quirky combination of news, human-interest stories, comedy, music, on-location reports, sports, and anything else that kept the show on the go and "doing things." The result was a unique bit of radio that lasted for twenty years, albeit, especially in its last two years, with many changes.

I remember Monitor mainly from Sunday afternoon "rides in the car" with my mom and dad, either to the seashore or the back roads, listening to James Daly or Henry Morgan, but mainly for the unforgettable sound of the "Monitor Beacon," which could never be mistaken for any other sound in the universe (it's now my cell phone ringtone). I don't remember any specific bits of programs, but Mom recalled music on Sunday afternoon, five minute bits of OTR favorites Fibber McGee and Molly (Jim and Marian Jordan) in the early 1960s, and a mixed bag of stories and news.

Author Hart loves Monitor and it shows. He takes every fact and facet he's collected and investigated and makes the volume a joyous look back for Monitor fans and all those curious about how radio met the challenge of television without resorting to endless records and disk jockeys (and, yes, there were Monitor imitators), from how the show was conceived, the cast chosen, and regular features of the broadcasts. After his first book about the series, ex-Monitor employees and fans of the show contacted him, so this new edition contains even more stories and some memories from Monitor folks. Recommended for radio fans.

To hear some of the sounds of Monitor: "The Sounds of Monitor"

 Anthem for Doomed Youth, Carola Dunn
As Daisy Dalrymple prepares to head to her stepdaughter Belinda's school with her good friends Sakari and Melanie to see the girls participate in sports day, her husband, Scotland Yard inspector Alec Fletcher, and his team are called to Epping Forest to investigate a case of three bodies found buries in a secluded hollow. One corpse is still fresh and has a target pinned to him which says "Revenge!" The police officer on the job has already badly botched the investigation and takes an instant dislike to Alec, but Alec's superior is just relieved that this time it isn't Daisy who's discovered the body.

At least not until a mystery involving a body draws Daisy into its orbit.

The 1920s set Daisy Dalrymple mysteries usually have a light touch, although various circumstances arising from the Great War often come into play, but this one has a darker tone, a good half of it concerning Alec and his team (Sgt. Tring, Ernie Piper, and DC MacKinnon) investigating their crime while Daisy, her friends, and their daughters observe the drama at the school with three war veterans, two teachers disabled due to injuries, and a bullying, jingoistic games master. But Daisy's suggestion that the dead men might have a military connection brings out a story that is stylistically more Maisie Dobbs than Daisy's usual forte. A nice combination of plain sleuthing and moral repercussions make this story a cut above some of the entries. A solid entry in the series.