Books Finished Since August 1

 My Best Friend is a Wookie, Tony Pacitti
When young Tony is bullied yet again, his mother shows him his first Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back. Voila! A fan is born!

This is Pacitti's sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and occasionally self-indulgent story of his love affair with the Star Wars films, from being succor in his childhood as the small, shoved-around "new kid" (who inadvertently gets himself a damning nickname not long into the new school year) though his teen and college years. His growing dismay with the prequel films provides a parallel to the blues of growing up and the pain of failed romances.

It's pretty much a book that any fan of any film or television series can empathize with. His fandom, like many fandoms to many people, provides a refuge from taunting classmates and later forms a bond between him and the fellow fans who become his friends.You'll especially enjoy this if you're a Star Wars fan, but the situations can apply to any fandom.

 Jane, Robin Maxwell
Jane Porter, uncensored! When a struggling pulps writer meets an outspoken woman at an archaelogical presentation, he doesn't realize this will lead him to a tale so fantastic he can't even tell it in its original form. But even his own version is so mesmerizing it becomes immortal.

This is the story of Tarzan from Jane's point of view, and the struggling writer she tells the tale to is, of course, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Burroughs presumably retrofit the true story for his audience, as Maxwell's Jane is a far cry from Burroughs' prim lass who accompanies her father on a treasure-hunting expedition. Maxwell's Jane is an independent woman who studies medicine with the approval of her indulgent father, rides astride, and defies her strict mother as often as she dares, until the tall tales of a brash American explorer send them to "deepest darkest Africa." And there the self-assured, charming American begins to change...or was he like that all along?

I enjoyed the heck out of this, but then I'm not a Tarzan devotee except for having seen some of the Weissmuller films and the 1960s series. Those who are Burroughs series purists may not appreciate Maxwell's minor changes to Tarzan's life story, or her placement of Jane in the forefront, but it was enjoyable for me to see the Edwardian-idealized Jane as a strong character. The portrayal of early 20th-century Africa under the thumb of colonialism and the jungle scenes are quite vivid, and her Tarzan seemed much more approachable, especially as Jane learns his fantastic story.

 The Geography of Bliss, Eric Weiner
The bad thing about listening to podcasts is that they lead you into book purchases. "The Splendid Table" and "A Way With Words" are major offenders; this one came from "Travels With Rick Steves." Weiner, an NPR commentator, travels to different countries in search of elusive happiness and finds the definition of the word is different for each society—well, except in Moldova, where it's so miserable it's difficult to find anyone who's happy (seriously—when I finished the chapter on Moldova I was depressed). In Switzerland happiness seems to be about conformity, in the Netherlands about doing your own thing. He visits Shangri-La (Bhutan), where they actually have a process of Gross National Happiness, and Qatar, where it seems money can buy happiness. In Great Britain there's an experiment on the "telly" to make a town happy; in India meditation is the fashionable path.

Sending Weiner out to discover happiness is rather like watching Lou Grant tour for the same reason. I'm not familiar with his NPR broadcasts, but he wanders like an amiable bear through country after country, affording us tantalizing glimpses of other cultures. I particularly enjoyed the chapter about Iceland, where people are happy despite the long dark winters, but all of it produces a particular kind of happiness born of reading about people and places (even in gloomy Moldova). I'd recommend—happily!

 Star Trek FAQ, Mark Clark
I saw this at Books-a-Million and wondered...after dozens of books and nonfiction magazine articles and even documentaries, what else can be said about the original Star Trek? Especially to me, who had the seminal Stephen Whitfield book back when it first came out in paperback in 1968.

I was pleasantly surprised upon buying it, however, that it still had much to offer. Clark doesn't concentrate solely on the series, although there is a chapter summing up the 79 original episodes and information about creating the series and the setting. Instead Clark talks about Gene Roddenberry's earlier series, what led him to create Star Trek, and what classic science fiction inspired it. He also talks about the three main actors' careers previous to Trek (as well as shorter pieces about the supporting cast), and there are chapters addressing the noted science fiction authors who wrote series' episodes, connections between Trek and other SF series, creatures and gadgets and concepts and social commentary introduced by the series, the animated series and the novels, the efforts to revive Trek as a series before Next Generation came to the screen, even tributes to DeForest Kelley and the luckless "redshirts."

Clark proves there is still something more to be said about Star Trek, and what results is a great fannish read!

 The Story of Charlotte's Web, Michael Sims
I used this as a bedtime book for several weeks and it is just perfect for that purpose. Don't expect a meticulous biography of E.B. White; this charming, sweetly-narrated book is about his animal-loving 19th-century upbringing and the beloved farm he later purchased with his wife Katherine, whom he met at the "New Yorker," the latter which formed the inspiration of his children's classic about Wilbur the pig and the spider who befriends him. Sims shows us the genesis of the gentle book and its characters--at one time Fern was not part of the narrative; it is difficult to now imagine the book without her--and even White's drawings of his conception of the Zuckerman barn and his edits to the story, including the changing of Charlotte's name as he did further research into spiders. White's work at the "New Yorker" and the colorful characters he worked with are also touched on. If you've grown up loving Charlotte's Web, you should enjoy this one: perfect for bedside or fireside, or, as White might have enjoyed a good book, in a hammock under a shady tree.

 The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures, edited by Mike Ashley
All right, I have to confess, I read this book in such a long period of time, one story at the time, that I'm not sure I remember half of them. I can tell you what my least favorite story in the book was, something called "The Adventure of Vittoria the Circus Belle," which I found tedious and not at all Holmesian. The other stories range from fair to good; many are attempts to recreate stories that Dr. Watson "skipped," so that there are two stories featuring "the red leech" Watson hinted so tantalizingly about, one of them featuring Holmes and Watson's contemporary, H.G. Wells. The stories are placed in chronological order with "editor's notes" for each fitting them into the Holmes canon, so that we begin with Holmes' involvement in a mystery at Oxford University during his tenure as a student to the final story where Holmes recruits Watson from medical service on a World War I medical station. Peter Tremayne, Michael Moorcock, H.R.F. Keating and twenty-three others provide the tales.

 Summer at Forsaken Lake, Michael D. Beil
If you run your eyes over children's book covers these days, filled with supernatural characters, and wonder "Whatever happened to the old-fashioned kids' adventure book?," ponder no more. This is the closest you'll get to the old "kids on their own" tale as you can find today. The Mettleson kids, 12-year-old Ncholas and his younger twin sisters Hayley and Hetty, don't know what to expect when they're sent to their Uncle Nick's lake home for the summer. But in a few weeks the children are learning to sail on Goblin, patronizing the local library, and, in Nicholas' case, making friends with a girl named Charlie who pitches a wicked curveball.

There's also a hidden compartment in Nicholas' bedroom (which used to be his Dad's), an unfinished movie about a local legend called "the Seaweed Strangler," and many more secrets about a shattering event in his father's past.

Delightfully in the company of an adult who eschews "helicopter parenting" and organized activities, the Mettleson kids and Charlie have a summer to remember in this book to remember. We are reminded how intelligent, resourceful, and responsible tween-age children can be, and there are so many neat sailing, building, and amateur film adventures the kids can have that I doubt if anyone misses marathon television sessions and video games. I particularly liked the way Charlie is a girl who is good at baseball and who's shown as competent at working on a boat, but she isn't thrown up as a "See! Girls can do anything boys can do!" lesson. You'll feel like you spent a super summer at Forsaken Lake yourself and wondering why they just don't make them like this anymore.

 The Great Silence, Juliet Nicolson
This is Nicolson's "bookend" to her previous The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm, which I so enjoyed, and it is equally enjoyable, just the sort of history book I love, one which follows the repercussions of the war on the men who fought, the women who waited (whilst fighting for their rights), and a society which was thrown into upheaval. An opening chapter about the war segues into the Armistice, and then into the real meat of the volume. Chapters 3 and 4 I found of particular interest, as it dealt with the rehabilitation of wounded men. This was a war in which men not only lost limbs, but endured frightening facial wounds. Many retreated from the world, but strides in plastic surgery made the return almost bearable for some.

Other people inhabit this absorbing book: the enigmatic T.E. Lawrence, Dame Nellie Melba, Nancy Astor, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII), a young Barbara Cartland, Vera Brittain, a wakening lower class that realizes that the future need not be "in service," the suffragettes, and even a real-life Tommy Atkins. The book ends with the dedication of the Cenotaph and the internment of an unknown British soldier in Westminster Abbey. My thanks to Nicolson for yet another great read.

 Alone in the World, Catherine Reef
This is a simple, but unflinching, children's picture and text book about orphans and orphanages in American history. While avoiding intense explicit discussion of violence, racism, abuse, and want, Reef still manages to realistically outline the bleak, often frightening world of abandoned children. (She also points out that most "orphan" children weren't completely parentless; most just had a parent who couldn't afford to keep them or were encumbered by their own personal and physical demons like alcohol and drug abuse.) Drawings and then photographs chronicle the changing face of the orphan from colonial America well through the 1950s, and the photographs are as fascinating for adults as well as for children. A nice solid introduction to the concept of the orphan/orphanage that forms the basis of so many classic children's books.

 The Last Dickens, Matthew Pearl
Publisher's clerk Daniel Sand dies while on an errand for his employer, James Osgood; his death is dismissed as a return to the debilitating drug use Sand suffered from some years earlier. But Osgood as well as Sand's sister Rebecca believe Daniel would not have betrayed them in that manner. Was Daniel killed, and perhaps for what he carried—all that existed of Charles Dickens' final, unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood?

Pearl's novel is a labrynth mix of the search for any hidden chapters or notes having to do with Drood, as well as insight into the cutthroat world of 19th century publishing, where it was fair game for books to be pirated and published by unauthorized means, and where corporate takeover attempts weren't much different from today's. In a flashback sequence, we relive Dickens' last tour of the United States as publisher Osgood and accountant Sand (an outcast in feminine society because she has dared to divorce her abusive husband) race to England to see if any other part of the final work can be found. The sinister world of the opium trade, which prominently figures in Drood and, as even exists today, the demands of fanatics and publicists desperate for the celebrity figure's attention, are also explored as Osgood suspects that a neurotic woman fan may have access to the manuscript.

I didn't quite like this as much as Dante Club or The Technologists, but in this centenary year of Dickens, I enjoyed finding a novel that explored his superstar popularity as well as his ceaseless problems with his books being pirated, all worked up into a mystery of Drood-ish proportions.

A New Work by Laura Ingalls Wilder to Be Published

This is super news!

Anyone who has read more than one biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder knows that the genesis of the "Little House" book came from Laura's handwritten memoir, Pioneer Girl. Intended more for mixed-aged audiences rather than children, Pioneer Girl tells the real story of Laura's life, the one that wasn't toned down and simplified for children. The death of her baby brother, the discovery of a home in which a murder happened while on their journeys, the Ingalls' sad stay in Iowa, the story of how a woman offered to adopt Laura...all these untold stories are in the manuscript.

For years, if you wanted to read Pioneer Girl, you had to pay for its photocopying. Now the book will be available to all. More here: Publication of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Pioneer Girl.

New American Girl Book Set

A new American Girl series arrives in September! The girl is Caroline Abbott, and she lives in Sacketts Harbor, New York, on the shores of Lake Ontario, during the War of 1812. Kathleen Ernst, the author, talks about the book on her web site.

Pretty cool that the series commemorates the War of 1812 on its 200th anniversary.

I find it amusing that I'm excited about the books when most of the other sites that I have looked at talking about the new character, whether by girls or by women, are focusing on the doll that goes with the books, not the books themselves. I guess I just will never be into dolls. :-)

Well...maybe if they have a red-headed one in an interesting decade. I'd love to see an Italian girl growing up in some Italian neighborhood in the 1950s...saddle shoes, poodle skirts, the works! Or something taking place in the 1920s. Perhaps a girl crossing the prairie in the 1870s or in a growing Western town of the 1880s? A colonial girl (late 1600s-early 1700s) not in the usual settings (Salem, Plymouth, or Virginia), but somewhere in the Middle Colonies. No one ever treats that period in that setting.

Books Finished Since July 1

 That's Not in My American History Book, Thomas Ayres
This is a collection of essays about the myths that still surround events in American history despite efforts to quell them, the most obvious being "facts" like the people of Columbus' time not knowing that the world was round, that Charles Lindbergh was the first person to fly the Atlantic, that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, Paul Revere finished his famous ride, etc. If you're already up-to-date on these "mythconceptions," you'll learn about the original fourteenth state (it wasn't Vermont), an "aeronaut" before the Wright Brothers, an interesting theory about Pocahontas, all about Benedict Arnold and why he might have been driven to becoming a traitor, and more.

Unfortunately reviews have pointed out that several of Ayres' "facts" are untrue, including the story of "Taps," but, as with all historical trivia books, this one should just be a springboard to delve more deeply into a subject rather than taking the statements automatically at face value. This book has merit just for pointing out that there is more to American history than white men making it all happen: many cowboys (and some cavalry troops) were African-American and Native American, there were women who worked behind the scenes in all wars (and they weren't just doing laundry and rolling bandages, etc.).

 The Helene Hanff Omnibus: Underfoot in Show Business, 84 Charing Cross Road, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, Apple of My Eye, Q's Legacy, Helene Hanff
More years ago than I would care to remember, a little book became a big best seller, Helene Hanff's 84, Charing Cross road, the epistolary tale of Hanff's friendship with the employees of a London bookshop. She later wrote a sequel in which she finally got to visit England, but, in the way of things, I never got around to buying it. When a friend read Charing Cross for the first time, it reminded me I had never found the sequel. Via Amazon Marketplace, however, I came upon a bargain: both of the books, plus three other of Hanff's books in an omnibus edition. So after refreshing myself in the original, I then finally read the sequel with a grin of delight on my face as Helene meets some of the people she wrote to all those years and got to complete most of her dreams of seeing what was her magical world: literary England. The other books are just as much fun: Underfoot is the tale of how she tried to become a playwright and ended up writing for television; Apple is the story of her odyssey around her home town of New York City with a friend while writing a tour book; and Q's Legacy brings Helene's story full circle. "Q" was Sir Arthur Quiller Couch, whose books on writing and literature Hanff devoured as her own education when she was unable to finish college. It was in looking for the books recommended by "Q" that eventually drove Hanff to correspond with Marks & Co of 84, Charing Cross Road. If you enjoyed her original book, with all of her opinionated commentary, you'll probably love them all. A bonus for Hanff lovers!

Incidentally, the bookseller I bought this omnibus volume from was, you guessed it, English, which I found very fitting!

 Happier at Home, Gretchen Rubin
This is Rubin's sequel to The Happiness Project, which I enjoyed last year despite the annoyed reviews asking "she's rich, why should she be unhappy?" which was the point of the book: Rubin knew she had a good life, but she was still unhappy. Knowing the only person she could change was herself, she was determined to improve her attitude.

This newest book is not as dense as the previous book, but serves as a follow-on to what has already been accomplished. Knowing her home is the most important thing to her, Rubin works on improving her happiness in and with her home starting in September as her children's school year begins and ending in May. Again, Rubin uses what works for her: putting more emphasis on improving communications with her family and her children, making special places in her home (even if they are only small corners), to not procrastinate and even do things that make her unhappy to ensure happiness in the future. Again, Rubin's way is not your own, and by using her rules as suggestions, you can tailor for yourself.

I liked the previous book better, but this has some useful tips as well. The most important one: Be Yourself.

 The Ultimate Dog Lover, edited by Marty Becker
A "Chicken Soup for the Soul"-type volume (even the design is similar) of heartwarming true tales about dogs along with photographs and some training and upbringing tips. I bought mine as a remainder book and for that price it was worthwhile. A nice before-bed book for dog lovers.

 Still Life With Chickens, Catherine Goldhammer
When Goldhammer went through a traumatic divorce, she found she could no longer stay in a family home full of memories. So she bought a small house by the seashore which was definitely a "fixer-upper" (some portions, like the kitchen, required gutting), along with her flamboyant teenage daughter who declared that she wouldn't move unless they could buy some chickens. To appease her daughter and her own guilt about making the child move away from her friends, Goldhammer buys an incubator and raises six chickens from birth, discovering that she gets more solace from caring for the flock than anything else in her life.

Part bucolic memoir and part coping strategy, this is a short, introspective book in the Eat, Pray, Love vein. I enjoyed it while I was reading it, but must admit it's not my usual genre, and I was glad I bought it from a remainder table. YMMV.

 America's Hidden History, Kenneth C. Davis
After penning his bestsellers Don't Know Much about History and Don't Know Much about Geography, Davis completed this more-focused book about events beginning with the colonization of what became the United States through the Constitutional Convention. Subjects include King Philip's War and other conflicts between the Puritans and the Native Americans, George Washington's early career, the story of the first colony in America (not St. Augustine!), the story of Dr. Joseph Warren (whose pivotal role in the Revolutionary War is little remembered today), and more.

Some reviewers seemed disappointed by the fact that this book was not labeled more heavily as being about only the colonial period. The cover is indeed not clear about this, but by reading a description of the book this became understood, so I don't understand what the problem was. I don't read many books about this era and found this quite enjoyable since it doesn't dwell on the usual facts, although I was amused by this unfortunate typo about our first President: "...young George Washington gained entree [sic] into...most powerful families..." Well, I'm glad he was fed!

 Holmes of the Movies, David Stuart Davies
This is an out-of-date, but informative British book about the portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in films, peppered liberally with photographs. It begins with the silent films and spends some time on the three portrayals of Holmes that the author finds the most notable: Arthur Wontner, Basil Rathbone (even if Nigel Bruce had to portray Watson as an ass), and Peter Cushing (despite the fact he was too short to be Holmes). The final film mentioned is the not-yet-premiered The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, which, after my vaguely remembering viewing of the Rathbone movies at a young age, was my true first introduction to the Great Detective. Isn't coincidence fun?

 Rattle His Bones, Carola Dunn
For Daisy Dalrymple, it's just another day at work: she's doing a story on the new exhibition of dinosaur bones at the Museum of Natural History, although this particular outing has a holiday air as she is taking her nephew Derek and her future stepdaughter Belinda Fletcher to see the exhibit. Daisy is in the middle of an interview when a shout of pain interrupts her: one of the more unpleasant members of the staff has been killed, impaled on dinosaur bones.

It's the usual pattern in this eighth Daisy mystery, as she's embroiled directly in the case, to Inspector Alec Fletcher's dismay. The prologue lets us in on another crime in progress at the museum, so the stakes are higher than most. It's also fun to have an opportunity to wander around (even in literary form) inside an old-fashioned museum, not the bright glass-and-metal of the present, but one with polished dark wood display cases with brass trimmings, and envision the day when dinosaur theory was still very new. There's a large cast of characters, so lots of opportunity for red herrings. A nice solid entry in the series.

 All My Patients Have Tales, Jeff Wells, DVM
I've been addicted to veterinarian books since James Herriot appeared upon the scene, so it was a natural that I was going to snap up this one at an opportune financial moment. It's the pleasant story of Wells' training in South Dakota and practice in Colorado, and his work with both large and small animals—and after reading Nick Trout's memoir I was happy to see there wasn't a sign of snark!

I'm not sure what else I can say about this book. It's a nice read that lovers of veterinarian stories and animals will probably enjoy. It offers a good look into the routine, emergencies, and sacrifices of a vet's life. There's some funny sequences with some of the animals—how about a pig named "Bacon" and a cow chase? I guess my "problem" with other vet books besides Herriot's is that he wasn't only telling stories about his practice, but was telling us about a now-vanished way of life and vet practice among the Yorkshire Dales, using now outmoded medicines and creaky transport, and dealing with farmers working in a traditional lifestyle. Somehow our protagonist watching television and driving a pickup truck doesn't have the same poetry. :-)

 The Winter of the Red Snow, Kristiana Gregory
The Stewart family lives near Valley Forge and witnesses the terrible wintering of General George Washington's troops during the Revolutionary War. They help as best they can, offering supplies and assistance, and Abigail and her older sister help their mother do the laundry for Washington and his officers, as well as sewing shirts and knitting scarves and mittens for the soldiers who are perishing with cold and disease.

As always in the "Dear America" series, some of the books work for me and some don't. Winter is not a bad book, and there are some terrible truths that Abigail learns (the executions for deserters, for example, and the fact that not all Tories are demons as the propaganda of the time would have had them believe) that take the story beyond a children's history look at the winter of 1777, but I found the story strangely lifeless. The family and their friends never came truly alive for me.

 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement, Jane Ziegelman
This is a combination of ethnic history that can't be beat: the story of a Lower East Side New York City tenement house through the five ethnic groups that resided in the building between 1863 and 1935, how they worked and occasionally played, and the foods they ate, and how these foods entered the American way of life, from bagels to spaghetti. 97 Orchard was originally built for a German family in what was then a German neighborhood. It then by turns provided a home to Irish, German Jewish, Russian Jewish, and finally Italian families. Recipes from the era are liberally scattered through the text as Ziegelman examines the changes wrought by time and assimilation. A great read!

Incidentally, 97 Orchard Street is now the New York Tenement Museum.

 The Storm Makers, Jennifer E. Smith
It all starts when Ruby McDuff sees the strange man in the family barn. The McDuffs have living in the country for a year now, so that Ruby's dad can pursue his dream to be an inventor and her Mom an artist. Next her recently moody twin brother Simon shorts out the toaster by just touching it. And then when Ruby confronts the stranger she saw in the barn, he tells her that Simon is a Storm Maker, one of an elite group of people who can manipulate the weather. But a rogue Storm Maker is planning to get his hands on Simon, to take charge of the world's weather his own way.

It's the old story: children help defeat evil, but it's not a bad spin on the genre. Ruby must keep her brother from being used by the twisted Rupert London, helped by her stranger from the barn, Otis Gray, a man with a secret, and Daisy, the town mechanic. There are a lot of Wizard of Oz riffs in the story that work well with the weather theme, and Ruby and Simon have a nice sibling relationship, not nasty enough to be off-putting, but not perfect, cloyingly supportive siblings, either. The Storm Makers are almost plausible enough to be real, and the adults as a whole are not plaster saints, but not totally profane: even the main villain has a tender spot. This would be great for read-aloud.

 The Poisoner's Handbook, Deborah Blum
This is another book that I picked up from a remainder table because it looked interesting, but didn't know if I was going to enjoy, but bought because it was cheap. This book would have been worth full price—it's absolutely fabulous. It's the story of the birth of forensic medicine in New York City starting in 1915 when the city hired its first trained medical examiner, Charles Norris (previously the medical examiner was a political appointee and a drunken sot), through his death in the 1930s when his associates have formed a solid forensic team. Norris worked long into the night to learn to detect poisons even in their minutest quantity and often spent his own money on supplies and equipment. The chapters chronicle different poisons from chloroform to heavy metals, the crimes committed with these poisons, and how Norris and his team learned to detect them.

Possibly the most horrifying passages of this book involve how the Federal Government poisoned any number of people during Prohibition by adding additives like gasoline to liquor to keep people from drinking. As someone whose grandparents still made wine during Prohibition and has heard jokes about "bathtub gin," it's mind-blowing how many people died from drinking tainted alcohol and how the government was culpable. Prohibition did nothing to stop drinking and alcoholism and actually created organized crime as we know it today.

Blum writes easily and informatively about all these subjects. It's all enthralling if occasionally uncomfortable. Don't read this during dinner or if you're sensitive to descriptions of dead or diseased bodies. Super nonfiction for historical or medical fans.

 13 Little Blue Envelopes, Maureen Johnson
I found the premise of this book intriguing: a teenage girl who has lived a mostly sheltered life receives a set of blue envelopes from her recently deceased, free-spirited aunt. The first envelope instructs her to pack a backpack and go to the airport, the first step on a trip to Europe. In the process, Ginny will learn more about life, love and living large.

Well, that was the theory, anyway. As much of a devotee as I am of Auntie Mame and although weekly on his radio show Rick Steves and his guests assure me that Europe isn't dangerous, the idea of sending a rather naive seventeen-year-old girl off to Europe to discover life with nothing but a backpack and an ATM card rather horrifies me. If Ginny had been a more adventurous type maybe I would have felt differently, but she's really rather a dull heroine who basically develops a crush on the first guy she meets in Europe while she's learning about her aunt's interesting life. (Frankly, I would have preferred reading a book about the aunt.) I got the sequel to this book as a free e-book and that relieves me, since I'd like to find out what happened to a certain item that has vanished by book's end, but not enough to pay for another "adventure" of this kind. If this is female adolescent "chick lit," I know why I never read any of it at that age. I much preferred books about the space program!

 The Broken Lands, Kate Milford
This is Milford's exciting prequel to The Boneshaker, taking place chiefly on Coney Island during the era in which the Brooklyn Bridge is being completed. When two evil entities, Walker and Bones, arrive in New York City, it is the crossroads of power situated there that they are setting greedy eyes on. If they can overcome the five guardians of the city, they can turn it over to Jack Hellcoal, the man who once beat the Devil at his own game. Into the mix of Tom Guyot, the African-American man who once defeated Jack, various Coney Island denizens, and real-life journalist/writer Ambrose Bierce come Sam, a young card sharp whose father died working in the cassions of the bridge, and Jin, a Chinese girl apprenticed to a fireworks master. It will take them all, and more, to defeat Walker and Bones

This is an exciting, suspenseful, and sometimes truly scary young adult novel that can be read by all ages with pleasure. Milford paints a vivid portrait of young Coney Island before the arrival of the amusement parks in an era still reeling from Reconstruction and recession, and of the great bridge that will bring changes to both Manhattan and Brooklyn. You come to care about Sam, Jin, and their companions as they protect the city they love in a story that's a little bit Bradbury and a little bit Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. A definite keeper!

Books Finished Since June 1

 Night Mares in the Hamptons, Celia Jerome
Graphic novelist and otherworldly visualizer Willow Tate is spending the summer at her mother's home in the Hamptons, having second thoughts about her engagement to her British fiance. Her hometown of Paumanok Harbor is already a quirky place, with its occupants who all have some otherworldly talent, and now everyone seems to be on edge without reason. Then Willow dreams about a kidnapped colt in their midst, miserable and alone, and realizes the turbulent feelings are being aroused by a phantom herd of horses searching for the lost foal. Can Willow find the lost one before the herd destroys her home?

No sooner is Willow out of sight of Thaddeus Grant than a sexy new man, a Texas horseman, comes into her life. So her search for the colt is well mixed with a romantic plot even more intense than in the last book. The big fun in this book is wandering about town with Willow and getting a glimpse of everyone else's talents. Sometimes it's downright funny. All the familiar elements are here: Willow clashing with her new love interest, cousin Susan, her daffy parents via long distance, Little Red the homicidal Pomeranian. But behind all the fun is the sense of mounting danger from the angry herd and the sinister reasoning behind it all. If you like your fantasy well-mixed with a little romance, this is the series for you.

 Walt Disney's Worlds of Nature
 Walt Disney's America
 Walt Disney's Stories from Other Lands
This is a series of four (I didn't get the other, which is Fantasyland and chiefly concerned with cartoon characters) hardback books published by Disney in the mid-1960s. I was delighted to discover that many of the tales herein were based on shorts from the old Wonderful World of Color, like the story of Flash the otter from the end of Nature. The Nature book mainly consists of narratives from the old "True Life Adventure" series like "The African Lion," etc., but does have a couple of fictional efforts like the "Flash" story. The other two books contain stories that apply to its theme: Swiss Family Robinson, for instance, told in the Other Lands book and Dumbo told in the America volume. Sadly, Lady and the Tramp is still the same awful version as in the Walt Disney Storybook, where Darling stays home with Aunt Sarah and blindly ignores the cruelties being dealt Lady by the woman. Some of the retellings are disappointing: the texts of Big Red and The Absent-Minded Professor are narratives from Little Golden Books rather than being the full story like 101 Dalmatians or Peter Pan. The real highlight of both of these books are narratives from the lost Disney featurette series "People and Places." Scotland is visited as well as Sicily, the Navahos are profiled as well as the Swiss—pretty cool stuff! Wish they'd had a dogs and horses volume so we could have gotten some things like "Greta the Misfit Greyhound" and "The Horse With the Flying Tail"!

 Johnson's Life of London: The People Who Made the City That Made the World, Boris Johnson
This is just a delightful book!

Johnson, the Mayor of London, known for his bicycle commutes and untidy hair, has written an affectionate and informative book that is an unabashed paean to his home, chronicling the personalities he believes stand out in the history of the city, from the warrior queen Boudica, the Romans, and King Alfred through literary greats like Dr. Johnson and Shakespeare, all the way to Winston Churchill, ending, in his own quirky manner, with Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. Johnson does a great job of illustrating the eccentricities of some of his subjects, like the scientist Robert Hooke and the acerbic Johnson and painter J.M.W. Turner, and each of the portraits sparkles with lively prose and features some fact I'd never known (such as Chaucer's military service). His chapter on Florence Nightingale also talks about a woman I had never heard of, Mary Seacole, who also nursed in the Crimea and during the time was as well known to the fighting men as "the lady with the lamp," whose contribution to the nursing effort was eventually eclipsed by Nightingale's temperance views. (Seacote was also a woman of color, which may partially explain her disappearance from the history books.) His chapter on Winston Churchill, in 26 short pages, beautifully manages to capture the bleakness of Great Britain during World War II and Churchill's key role in keeping the country afloat, despite his mistakes and short sightedness on several matters.

There's even the truth behind that most mythical of historical figures, Dick Whittington, the penniless boy who went to London to seek his fortune, and, an apprentice boy with nothing but a cat to his name, became Lord Mayor of London...well, not really. He wasn't poor and didn't have a cat, but the true story is just as interesting. There are also inserts about particularly British innovations, including the flush toilet, the King James Bible, and those distinctive double-decker buses.

This is a book for Anglophiles and history buffs, or indeed, anyone who's ever wondered "Who's that British chap with the flyaway hair?"

 A Burial at Sea, Charles Finch
After what I thought was a disappointing effort in A Stranger in Mayfair, Charles Lenox returns a little bit more to form. It is three years since his marriage to Lady Jane and he is now a fixture in Parliament, but secretly longing for his old life as a detective. When his brother sends him to the Suez Canal on a clandestine political errand just as his wife is ready to give birth to their first child, he becomes embroiled in a murder that takes place aboard ship—a ship on which his young nephew Teddy has just reported for duty.

Finch nicely captures life at sea in the days between the use of sail and the takeover of engines, and creates a claustrophobic world of suspicion in which Lenox must ferret out a murderer. The creak of the wood, the swells and storms of the sea, the close quarters of the men and the fresh new lives of the young sailors all come alive in his tale. The killer and his reasoning—since this takes place on a British vessel in the Victorian era, there will be no surprise that the murderer is male—was not obvious, and even when Lenox is done ferreting out the "whodunit," his mission in Egypt has yet to come to the fore. The latter portion is less satisfying in its cloak-and-dagger, but still suspenseful.

 Murder on Sisters Row, Victoria Thompson
Midwife Sarah Brandt is a bit taken aback to find out the baby she's delivering is in a brothel (and Sarah's been delivering children in less favorable neighborhoods for so long it seems a bit odd for her to be so surprised), but is determined to help the mother and her baby when the former begs to be taken away from her "irregular" life. She suggests Sarah contact a certain woman in a society that helps rescue "Magdalens" from their life of sin.

Of course since this is a Sarah Brandt mystery, you know there will soon be a death, and Sarah will be embroiled in it, to the chagrin of her tentative love interest, police detective Frank Malloy. Trouble is, Malloy needs Sarah's help, and there are no end of suspects: the quailing young mother whose attitude makes a sharp turnaround once her child is born, the dowdy secretary of the woman who was supposed to help the young woman, strangely unsympathetic rescuers and an even more oddly sympathetic madam. You'll probably spot some of the clues as you go along, but it remains a page turner of a mystery. However, if you're looking for some progression in the romance of Malloy and Brandt, be aware you're just in this one for the mystery.

 A Choice of Days, H.L. Mencken
This amusing and nostalgic book is a collection of essays from three of journalist/"American Mercury" editor Mencken's autobiographical volumes, Happy Days, Newspaper Days, and Heathen Days. The first is a wry and often funny chronicle of his childhood, while the middle volume covers the obvious, and the final volume covers his adventures in the political world, music, and an incredible visit to Cuba during a revolution. Even in his childhood narrative the knife-edge Mencken wit manages to draw blood as he skewers schoolmasters and sentimental fiction (before discovering his favorite novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn). Frankly, I enjoyed the heck out of it, and now want to find the omnibus edition that contains all three books in their entirety. For Mencken fans or those who want a non-sympathetic portrait of the sometimes not-so-"good-old-days."

(Warning: Mencken came from a different era. You may be uncomfortable at some of his offhand racism, but it's better to see how it existed than try to pretend it wasn't rampant in his society.)

 My Face to the Wind: The Diary of Sarah Jane Price, a Prairie Teacher, Jim Murphy
When Sarah Jane's father, a prairie schoolteacher, dies in an epidemic, his fourteen-year-old daughter is left in the care of a harried, seemingly unfeeling boarding house keeper in the windswept, bare town of Broken Bow, Nebraska. To keep from being shipped off to a girls' orphanage, Sarah Jane presents herself as a candidate for the town's new schoolteacher. Can she succeed in the face of hostile students and school board members?

This is a workmanlike entry in the "Dear America" book series, but it is still a good representation of the primitive conditions that pioneer schoolteachers faced: minimal equipment, rickety schoolhouses, weather that could turn on you at the flick of a snowflake, not to mention the underpayment of women teachers and the lack of respect that accompanied it. It has some similar elements to Laura Ingalls Wilder's These Happy Golden Years in that Sarah Jane must learn to make her students respect her and that the students face danger from bad weather. Your auto commute will seem like a breeze after the blizzard segment!

Books Finished Since May 1

 Word Origins and How We Know Them, Anatoly Liberman
IMHO, you have to be a real word geek like me to appreciate this book of linguistic and etymological origins, which begins with the author trying to make sense of the origin of the word "heifer." There are a lot of false stories of word origins out there and Liberman addresses most of them as he chronicles onomatopoeia, Latin roots, reduplication, eponyms, unlikely compounds, foreign imports, vowel and consonant shifts, and all the lovely contradictions that come together to make the English language. I loved it all dearly; YMMV!

 An Unmarked Grave, Charles Todd
In this fourth mystery involving World War I nursing sister Bess Crawford, Bess is already exhausted from nursing victims of the Spanish influenza when an orderly shows her a mysterious extra body in a shed being used as a morgue. From her medical experience Bess can tell the man has not died from the influenza or of battle wounds, and she is horrified to discover that the man is a friend of the family. Before she can report her finding, she is felled by the influenza herself, is finally shipped home for nursing by her family, and only after she recovers can she take up the thread of the mystery.

I found this new story a page-turner, although Bess' cool reception of her rising string of male admirers is starting to become a puzzle. This time there's an American soldier who aids her in her investigation. One wonders, in fact, since her father's associate seems always available when she is in trouble, and he is just about her age, is there some feeling they are both repressing about each other? I also felt that the actual perpetrator of the crime came a bit out of left field. However, her trips to and from the front feel much more logical in this volume, we see more of her family and learn of the power her father commands, and I also enjoyed the subplot about the young soldier who helps her while all the time intending to use her as an escape from the horrors of the battlefield.

 Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero, Larry Tye
I debated over ordering this book because I have not really read or viewed a "Superman" product for some years: didn't watch Smallville nor the new film. However, I was brought up on The Adventures of Superman, saw the first two Christopher Reeve films, bought the comic during the WGBS years, and was a Lois and Clark fan for a while, and also have a couple of well-read books on Superman: the excellent From Serial to Cereal and an encyclopedia. So I wasn't sure what to expect when the book arrived.

I found it a complete delight to read. Over the years I had read articles about Shuster and Siegel, but never a full chronicle of their early lives, the creation of the Superman character, the sale of the rights to what later became DC, and the less than ideal circumstances of their later lives, so this information was all fresh to me, as it might not be to a Superman aficionado. I also enjoyed the examination of how Superman was reinvented for each generation; it put me in mind of the book The Life and Times of Ebenezer Scrooge, which chronicles how A Christmas Carol has been interpreted--and re-interpreted--by each succeeding generation. I very much enjoyed the summation of the circumstances surrounding George Reeves' death, the discussions of the "imaginary stories" era and the Superman dilemma during World War II, and the differing viewpoints of "who is the alter ego, Superman or Clark"? The author writes simply but effectively, with no academic pretension, making it easy reading without resorting to simplistic vocabulary. The one mistake I did notice, and hope will be corrected before publication, is the statement that Mighty Mouse was a Disney creation. Mighty Mouse was created for "Terrytoons," not for Disney.

I recommend this book for anyone who is a Superman fan, a comics fan, or even someone interested in the cultural effects of media creations.

 A Stranger in Mayfair, Charles Finch
I've never been so frustrated by a mystery novel in my life. The Charles Lenox books waver from good (I loved September Society, especially the descriptions of Oxford) to merely okay, and this one was less credible than usual. This is frustrating because there is a good story in here: the murder and its motive, Lenox trying to balance his need to solve crimes with his new duties in Parliament, red herrings and cover-ups...

Our story so far: Lenox and his new bride Lady Jane, have returned from their honeymoon on the continent so that Lenox may take his post in Parliament. Their two adjoining homes have been joined together, and in order that no one be put out of work, Lenox proposes that his faithful butler Graham became his secretary in Parliament. Their friends "Toto" and Thomas McConnell are about to become parents. Everything seems at "happy endings" when Lenox is asked by an old friend to help investigate the murder of his footman. Lenox is happy to oblige, and then is astonished when the old friend makes an about-face and calls the police instead. Still, Lenox and his young assistant Jack Dallington persist as Lenox juggles crime-fighting with politics.

Where do I begin? These aristocratic characters are still too familiar with the servants. At one point, Lenox, delighted about something, says "That's terrific!" The use of "terrific" for "great" or "wonderful" didn't happen until years later. Lady Jane, who has always been interested in Lenox's work, suddenly changes her mind about it. (Incidentally, Jane is as much a cipher as ever. I can't even recall what color her hair is or the color of her eyes, if she's tall or short, or what. Lenox might as well be married to a woman of paper.) Something in the footman's past is revealed very early in the story, early enough ahead than when it finally dawns on Lenox, I shouted aloud, "It's about time you figured it out, you idiot!" The footman's employers are referred to as acting "strangely" so often it was tiring.

There are Victorian novels like those by Perry, Pearl, and others that make you feel as if you are right there in the twisting streets with horse-drawn vehicles, sidewalk vendors, slums and aristocratic homes separated by mere miles, fetid jails, paneled halls. Then there is this book, which takes every opportunity to toss you out of the setting with misplaced words, flat characters, awkward sentences, and incongruous situations. I am really hoping some improvement happens in the next novel.

 Home for a Spell, Madelyn Alt
Seriously hobbled by the broken leg incurred in Alt's previous installment of the adventures of Maggie O'Neill, Midwestern witch, our heroine thinks it's time she started planning for her future without her lifelong friend Stephanie, who's planning to be married soon. Maggie also feels uncomfortable depending so much on her generous and handsome boyfriend Marcus, whom she thinks is putting off going back to school for her. So she looks into getting a new apartment—and, you guessed it, stumbles right into a murder scene.

I've been a little ticked by this series because I felt Maggie's romance with solid, dependable Tom, the police detective, was broken up with detriment to Tom in favor of romance-novel wannabe Marcus. Maybe Alt received some complaints about that because she's now dropping hints into the story that Tom wasn't exactly blameless in the breakup. Okay, I guess. Thankfully, there's more mystery in this one, although I guessed right off the bat why the murder victim was killed; it was just a matter of when the clues would lead everyone else to the same conclusion. Do wish the author would get back to the esoteric aspects of Maggie's life a bit more, rather than little spells wrought by Liss. I miss the other members of the N.I.G.H.T.S., too., although regulars Tara and Evie do help Maggie look into the motive for the murder.

 Shelf Discovery, Lizzie Skurnick
A fun book of essays about those childhood classes we never forgot and still read, even if it's sometimes surreptitiously away from acquaintances and co-workers who would be goggled-eyed at your reading "a kids' book!" From the Little House books to Madeleine L'Engle and Beverly Cleary to those forbidden books written by V.C. Andrews, Skurnick (and guest essayists Meg Cabot, Laura Lippman, Cecily von Ziegesar, and Jennifer Weiner) leads us on a journey through memory lane. And as far as I'm concerned, anyone who still loves Meg Murry, Vicky Austin, the incomparable Mary Lennox and Elizabeth Ann, the Gilbreths, and Hangin' Out With Cici is my kinda gal!

 Mr. Monk on the Couch, Lee Goldberg
Nope, it's not a story about Adrian Monk's psychiatric treatments. Monk and Natalie are involved in several murders that appear to be tied to possession of an old sofa when he becomes obsessed with the cleaning crew assigned to bring the crime scene back to normal after all the evidence has been gathered, while Natalie is determined to find out the identity of one of the murder victims, a man Monk considers not worth his time. And then Adrian finds out his agoraphobic brother Ambrose is sharing his home with a "tattooed biker chick." [Yuki, from the previous novel, On the Road].

My suspicions that Goldberg has been allowing the characters to grow past their original series' characterizations for a reason was given credence recently with the discovery that the novel he is working on now will be his final Monk novel. So while Monk plays cleaning crew and solves the sofa crimes, he must also come to terms with the fact that his brother has fallen in love with someone he considers unsuitable and that Natalie is trying her wings rather successfully with help from Ambrose. There's also nice character development in Stottelmeyer's new assistant, Amy Devlin, who's definitely not a Randy Disher clone. Recommended for those who enjoyed the series and have become invested in the books.

 American Children's Literature and the Construction of Childhood, Gail Murray
I enjoy books examining children's lit and from some excerpts I saw this one looked fascinating. And I am not saying that the author's conclusions and examinations of the different eras in children's book publishing (from treating them as inherently sinful to treating them as the paragon of innocence, for instance) are without worth. She discusses tracts, instructional books, the much-hated series novels and dime novels, children's magazines, texts for those children who were not white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (and how publications for the white majority so misrepresented minority groups and foreigners), sexual roles, and more with a minimum of pedagogical technospeak. However, when I read a book based on facts I expect those facts to be correct, especially in a scholarly publication that could conceivably be used as a textbook, as this appeared to be. Instead, this is riddled with mistakes—and these are just the mistakes I noticed because I hadn't read every children's book noted by Murray—were there more? I could have written off "Jo Marsh" (March) as a typo if it hadn't happened twice. But "Jason" being the rich boy who befriended the five little Peppers? His father hiring Mrs. Pepper as a "housekeeper"? Nan in Little Men doesn't become a doctor, but "capitulates to practicality"? She certainly doesn't, but becomes a doctor and doesn't marry. The Grace Harlowe series is mentioned, with Grace's last name misspelled, and the later "Overland Riders" series of Grace Harlowe books is stated as being a completely separate series "written by Grace Harlowe (a pseudonym)"! Elizabeth Ann does not narrate Understood Betsy, and her transformation is not because she moves to a "warmer, more nurturing home"--it's because her original guardian cousin is TOO nurturing, smothering the child in the name of care, projecting her own fears onto her, never allowing her to become independent, while her Vermont cousins care for her, but give her room to grow and develop independence and self-worth.

Again, there are good discussions of all aspects of American children's literature in this book. But be aware there are also myriad errors.

 How the States Got Their Shapes Too: The People Behind the Boundary Lines, Mark Stein
In Stein's first book, he discusses the often interesting quirks in each of the United States' boundary lines: a tip of land in Georgia sticking up into Tennessee, the reason the Western states are so large, why Idaho and Montana share that particular border, etc. In this newer entry, he talks about the people behind the making of the boundary lines, from Roger Williams, who dared to think the word of the Narragansett Indians was as important of those of the colonists, to Eleanor Holmes Norton's efforts to get representation for the District of Columbia. Along the way we meet those known—Mason and Dixon, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, Sequoyah, James Gadsden (remember the Gadsden purchase, anyone?), Stephen Douglas, William Seward and more—and those little known, like what the conflict that began with Robert Jenkins' ear did to the boundaries of Georgia, how the Erie Canal influenced the edges of the first "West": Ohio, Indiana, etc., why Iowa and Utah aren't larger, why California isn't in two parts, and more. American history lovers should enjoy this book, with many small tales combining to make the quilt of states that is now the USA. And you just might be surprised who Ellis Island belongs to!

 Styx and Stones, Carola Dunn
Daisy Dalrymple, now engaged to her Scotland Yard inspector and busier than ever writing articles for "Town and Country" magazine, travels to Kent at the request of her brother-in-law to see if she can ferret out who's been sending poison pen letters to him. She's glad to escape the heat of London for the cool of the country in Rotherden, but the village is just as warm with secrets aplenty, a reluctant vicar and his atheist brother, and, eventually, a dead body in the churchyard.

Repercussions from the First World War drive this seventh of the Dalrymple mysteries, and it is a bit darker than the usual story. Dunn's village characters are perhaps not so well done as Sayers' or Christie's in the beginning, but as the secrets multiply, the personalities become a little more solid and realistic. We also see a bit more of Daisy's family and her emotional ties with Alec Fletcher's daughter Belinda grow closer. A nice solid entry in the Daisy Dalrymple series.

 Chicks Dig Time Lords, edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O'Shea
This book won a Hugo award and deservedly so; I enjoyed every moment of my read. While there are tons of great essays about the show itself: about Nyssa, Rose, the role of the female companions, an interview with Sophie Aldred and India Fisher [Charley from the "Big Finish" audios], cosplay, sexuality in Who, etc., I was most entranced by the stories of female fans discovering the series, including a delightful piece written by John Barrowman's sister and several ladies who, basically, like me, discovered the series before everyone else and suffered the pangs of having no one to share this super discovery with—even my best friend couldn't figure out what I saw in this weird British show with a guy traveling around in a telephone booth. :-) If you're a Doctor Who fan, a must!

 The Traitors' Gate, Avi
Young John Huffam's life is turned upside down the day he, his parents, and his older sister are turned out of their home because of Mr. Huffam's gambling debts. He is headed for debtor's prison unless John can talk a wealthy relative into giving the family the money. In short order the boy is amazed to find himself followed by Scotland Yard detectives as well as a bright young slum girl named Sary, and to hear whisperings about "traitor" attached to his father. But who can John believe?

This is a topping young people's Dickensian mystery, which is suitable because it's based on incidents in the life of Charles John Huffam Dickens. Avi paints a vivid, but not too scary for the younger crowd portrait of the slums and streets of London as John contends with a confusing adult world to try to save his family's future and name. The story takes place at the time David Copperfield was being serialized, and it is mentioned often, especially in connection with someone using the name "Inspector Copperfield." John is a resourceful and likeable boy, and Sary a charming gamin.

 Literary Landscapes of the British Isles, David Daiches and John Flower
This is a neat book I found at the library booksale which contains essays about the landscape of England as seen through the pens of some of her most noted writers, starting with the London of Chaucer: what the city looked like at that time, her boundaries, social ills and highlights, historical events, and real-life personages. Subsequent chapters deal with the same subjects in the London of Shakespeare, Samule Johnson, Charles Dickens, and finally Virginia Woolf, before moving on to the Bath of Jane Austen, the Lake District as seen by its most famous poets, before leaving England briefly to touch on her romantic poets on the continent, and then returning to the Yorkshire of the Brontes and the fictional Wessex of Hardy. A final English chapter about the industrial revolution's changes to the country then leads into a look at Scotland in literature and the Dublin of Joyce. I liked the earliest chapters of this book the best; it seems as both the Virginia Woolf and James Joyce chapters had nothing but long narratives about the streets their characters walked, directly from the book, rather than interesting sidebars about history.

 The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton, Elizabeth Speller
I didn't realize when I was offered this book that it was a sequel to The Return of Captain John Emmett, but luckily I had that book in my to-be-read file and was able to preface my reading of Easton with the introduction of the character of Laurence Bartram in Emmett.

This is a completely different book from Emmett, which chiefly deals with repercussions from the first World War and the problems of shell-shocked soldiers. Easton is more of a country house mystery in which the couple Bartram befriended during his previous investigations, the Bolithos, are involved with the restoration of a manor church and construction of a labyrinth at the request of the estate's mistress, a troubled woman whose five-year-old child disappeared almost fifteen years earlier. Restoration of the church reveals long-buried family secrets, and then a young servant disappears in an eerie echo of vanished Kitty. I found this an enjoyable, nicely-written period piece which captures the atmosphere of a country village of the early 1920s, but if you like your mysteries fast-moving, this probably isn't the read for you. Also note a rather startling sexual scene near the end of the story; I understand why it's there, but it may seem rather out-of-place after the methodical classic mystery preceding it. Missing in this outing and missed is Lawrence's friend Charles, who keeps pushing mystery books at him and previously helped him with the mystery of John Emmett.

Books Finished Since April 1

 Dead in the Water, Carola Dunn
In this sixth Daisy Dalrymple mystery, Daisy is staying with her aunt and cousin at their home near Henley-on-Thames, having been assigned to do an article on the Henley Royal Regatta. She's looking forward to the weekend when she will mix business with pleasure; fiance Inspector Alec Fletcher will be joining her for a relaxing weekend. Daisy enjoys among her relatives and the rowers staying at their home, except for the rude comments of snooty Basil DeLancey against the team's coxswain, a blunt tradesman's son. Things come to a head when young DeLancey dies after coming home looking as if he was drunk. However, the doctor who examines him says he suffered a head injury that probably killed him. Could Bott, the coxswain, be the culprit?

This is a pleasant entry in the Daisy mysteries, if a bit plodding. Many characters are tossed at you pell-mell in the first couple of chapters, and some of the supporting actors are so briefly sketched that they blend into one another. Even some of the more prominent characters seem two-dimensional. In addition, most of the sinister situations in the book are recounted later instead of shown. However, there are some nice bits with Daisy and Alec, and the pleasures of a country-house weekend are shown. And thankfully, there are some of Daisy's relatives who actually like Alec!

 Walt Disney's Story Land
All right, it was slightly Goofy of me to have bought this, but I remember how I wanted it as a child, when it was always out of reach financially for my folks. It's a collection of short stories taken from Disney short subjects (Silly Symphonies, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck cartoons etc.), animated features, and even a few live action entries, like Davy Crockett and Darby O'Gill. This wouldn't be the version around when I was a kid, as there are modern stories like Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast adapted (probably having ousted earlier post-Disney cartoons, as I didn't see hide nor hair of Jungle Book or Aristocats inspired tales).

Still, it was fun to read after all these years. I was very amused to discover that all the Donald Duck stories, which usually end with el Donald squawking in impotent fury, were turned into life lessons about driving well and not losing your temper and being nice. The longest story is that about Dumbo, which was lengthy enough to be an independent storybook. I was a bit perturbed at their adaptation of Lady and the Tramp, though, which has only Jim Dear going away, presumably leaving Darling so besotted over the new baby that she doesn't notice how Aunt Sarah is abusing Lady! It makes Darling look really stupid, too. Sill, glad to have had the chance to read it after all these years.

 The Hidden Gold, Sarah Masters Buckey
In the first of three new "American Girl mysteries" for 2012, Marie-Grace and her father are traveling north by steamboat to visit family when a little girl comes onboard, returning to her home after her father died. Young Wilhemina's father had discovered gold in the gold rush, but died before he could tell her the location. If it isn't found by the time she gets home, her family will have to separate. When she shares Marie-Grace's room, the two girls try to solve the mystery.

It's a pity the limited page format of these mysteries don't allow for further elaboration of setting and perhaps a subplot, as this is an exotic nearly-forgotten mode of transportation and many tales beside the basic mystery could have been told. This may be the first AG mystery where the setting is just as important as the mystery. A subplot concerning one of the steamboat workers or one of the deck passengers would have been cool had space been available.

 Town in a Blueberry Jam, B.B. Haywood
Once Candy Holliday was a high-dollar executive with an executive husband and city dweller. But due to debt and divorce, she's now back home with her dad "Doc" Holliday, raising blueberries for local consumption and a small flock of chickens. As our story opens, the whole town is preparing for the local blueberry festival and whispering over the recent death of town playboy Jock Larson. But that isn't a patch on the gossip that occurs when local newspaper columnist Sapphire Vine wins the Blueberry Queen title—and then is found dead in her home!

Your enjoyment of this series will reflect your tolerance for cozy settings and detectives. For my part, I liked the characters and the setting, a small Maine town filled with the usual town characters, although save for the blueberries and the lobster, the setting seems pretty generic "small town" rather than specifically "Maine." The one thing that irritated me is that in the course of investigating the crimes Candy and her pal break so many laws you're wondering if the next book is going to take place with Candy investigating a crime in the hoosegow! Of course she is forgiven in the end, but the lawbreaking is pretty blatant. The mystery itself was pretty puzzling as cozy mysteries go, but it's the personalities who take first place here. Would love to see a mystery revolving around Candy's dad. Perhaps in a future story!

 Dorchester Terrace, Anne Perry
While Thomas Pitt eases into his new position at special Branch, a report comes in of suspicious activities on the railway. Could anarchists be after an obscure Habsburg royal visiting England soon?

In the meantime, Lady Vespasia visits an old friend who is descending into senility. Once a freedom fighter, the woman is afraid that something she has said or will say about secrets she had hidden will bring about her death. When she is indeed found dead, a stunned Vespasia, along with Victor Narraway, tried to discover who was behind it. Gradually both cases mesh.

This book gives a better chance for Charlotte to help her husband with his cases, and both plots are absorbing enough, but I still miss the days when Pitt solved society crimes. I also miss the characters who once surrounded the Pitts like Tellman and Gracie. One would not expect Minnie Maude to be like Gracie, but her staunch support of her employers is missed. And Perry seems to have done for Charlotte's sister Emily what she did with Margaret in her Monk mysteries: turned her into someone who turns against someone close to her. Emily's protectiveness of her husband seems misplaced when it causes her to distrust and quarrel with her sister Charlotte. For those reasons I did not totally enjoy the book, but it was still a good read.

 The Cameo Necklace, Evelyn Coleman
Cecile has borrowed her aunt's necklace to wear to a circus show being held at a showboat. But as she exits the boat with her friends, the cameo necklace is lost. Is it lost forever or did someone possibly pick it up—or indeed perhaps steal it? Could it be one of her own friends? the mysterious fortuneteller with all the rings? two children that she noted in the crowd?

This is a lively mystery showcasing not only the excitement of a showboat stopping in New Orleans, but examining the story of the maroons, former slaves who live deep in the bayou where slave hunters cannot find them. Along the way she encounters people at all levels of society and learns the price some people must pay for their freedom, and we learn a little painless history in the process.

 The Crystal Ball, Jacqueline Dembar Greene
Yet another mystery involving a fortuneteller, and whether the future—and bad luck—are in our stars or in ourselves. Rebecca and her family, gathering for a public appearance of Harry Houdini, where they also watch a performance by a fortuneteller. When the Rubins' neighbor Mr. Rossi suffers a run of bad luck, he consults the same fortuneteller. But is she really seeing into his past and his future? Even worse, some objects have gone missing from the Rubins' tenement building. Could Cousin Josef be the thief?

The "bad guy" of the piece is fairly obvious here, but otherwise this is an interesting portrait of an era when there was a great deal of interest in magic and spiritualism. There is a cameo by Harry Houdini doing a trick which was actually done free to the public as portrayed in the story, as well as the description of the fortuneteller and her routine. In addition, there is some friendly rivalry between Rebecca and her older sister Sadie which, in the end, proves to be useful in solving the mystery.

 The New England Year, Haydn S. Pearson
This is a lovely book of remembrances of farm life in northern New England, told in a seasonal narrative, by Pearson, who grew up on a family farm at the turn of the 20th century. If you have read any Gladys Taber, Barbara Webster, or Eric Sloane, the story of the plain joys of hard work, the turn of the seasons, the everyday cycles of farm crops and animals, and home cooking will be familiar. Pearson isn't quite as poetic as Taber, but he still brings the old-fashioned slow farm life to vivid life, whether it be the cold of a winter night, the scent of fields and animals, the lure of the mail-order catalog, country harvests, family gatherings or animal life both wild and domesticated. A sure bet if you are a Stillmeadow fan!

 Maphead, Ken Jennings
When I was younger, one of my future daydreams was of cartography; I loved to draw maps and pore over atlases. Despite GPS, I still keep road maps in my car and would not give them up. Perhaps I wasn't as assiduous as memorizing country and state and province capitals as Ken Jennings was, but it was still a sweet dream.

Which is why I was totally delighted by this book, subtitled Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks. Jennings first tells us of his own youthful fascination with geography and maps, then goes on to examine the history of maps, the truth or perhaps myth of the lack of geographical knowledge taught in schools (me, I blame it on the switch from lively geography to dull-as-ditchwater social studies), people who collect ancient maps and others who delight in vintage road maps, map errors, geography bees, highpointers, geocaching, GPS mapping, and more.

If you've ever created islands and towns just so you could draw the map of the place and name all the physical features, cities and places of interest, this book is for you. It's funny and informative and just a plain joy to read. Geography wonks unite!

 Inside Narnia, Devin Brown
A super book I found at a used book shop while away for the weekend: Brown covers each chapter of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, while examining how story events in the novel relate to the other six books in the Narnia series.He also examines how elements from Lewis' past and beliefs found their way into the story, elements of mythology and other fantasies as well as Biblical references in the stories, and how Aslan stands for, but does not totally represent Jesus. There is also a nice examination of Edmund's role in the story and how the voyage to Narnia changes him. Even with the distraction of the e-book I had with me, Brown's narrative totally captured my attention. Any fan of the Narnia books should enjoy this one.