Books Finished Since January 1

Sherlock Holmes For Dummies, Steven Doyle and David A. Crowder
One hundred years have passed since Doyle wrote the stories and novels that comprise the canon of Sherlock Holmes. Today Holmes is still popular, with films, novels, and television series being written around the character and his loyal friend Dr. John Watson. So this is a primer to Doyle, Holmes and Watson, and the canon, in addition to mentioning the pastiches that followed, in a lively style that only wants you to remember that neither Holmes nor Watson were doddering middle-aged or old fellows during the majority of the stories, but were young chaps (as portrayed in the modernized British series Sherlock). Everything is covered through the Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes film. Plus note that Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson," or wore a deerstalker hat through the streets of London (a deerstalker is exactly what its name states; it's a hunting hat, for wear in the country).

The only problem I can see with this book is that Doyle and Crowder repeat the same error that many have made: they refer to Dashiell Hammett's "series" of "Thin Man" books. For once and for all, Hammett only wrote one book with Nick and Nora Charles, The Thin Man. MGM was the one who spawned a series of "Thin Man" movies.

The Best American Mystery Stories 2010, edited by Lee Child
Otto Penzler points out in his forward that very few mysteries are detecting stories anymore; more's the pity. There are about three straight "detecting" stories here—many of the rest are what I would call suspense stories, or even thrillers. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the majority of them, although the ones with more gruesome narratives were my least favorites.

Notable among the stories are an excellent Sherlock Holmes pastiche, "The Case of Colonel Warburton's Madness," in which Holmes turns his sleuthing eye upon a story told by Dr. Watson about his experience in San Francisco with a patient exhibiting signs of insanity. Author Lyndsay Faye has Doyle's narrative spot-on. Doug Allyn's police procedural "An Early Christmas" had appealing characters on both sides of the law and a nice solid mystery. "A Jury of His Peers" by Jay Brandon, set in San Antonio, Texas, at the time of the Mexican War, was also a favorite, mixing an actual historical incident with a fictional mystery. Both "Designer Justice" and "Custom Sets" are tales of revenge rather than what I would term as mystery, with nicely built suspense and satisfying endings.

The one story everyone seems to have enjoyed and praised is the Kurt Vonnegut piece; I really did not enjoy it all that much. "Dredge," involving a traumatized young man and a drowning victim, was unsettling and creepy. As always, peoples tastes vary. If you are a mystery/thriller/suspense fan, there is a good chance all or some of these stories will appeal to you.

The Tale of Applebeck Orchard, Susan Wittig Albert
There is a very slight mystery here—who set Farmer Harmsworth's haystack on fire, leading him to bar the footpath through his land, one which has been used for generations—but there is more interest in what the human denizens of the Lakes villages of Near Sawrey and Far Sawrey have been up to. Will Captain Woodcock ever realize how Miss Nash, the plain but endearing schoolteacher, feels about him? Will young Gilly Harmsworth escape the clutches of her abusive aunt and uncle? Will Lady Longford allow her granddaughter Caroline to attend college to study music? And, most importantly, will Beatrix Potter and attorney William Heelis finally acknowledge the admiration they feel for each other?

There's also a subplot with the badgers at the Brockery, and of course the village animals, including Max the Manx cat who is looking for permanent abode, have their noses stuck firmly in the footpath controversy, but they are mere distractions this time to the human emotions boiling about them.

Christietown, Susan Kandel
In the fourth Cece Caruso mystery, Cece has her hands full with her own wedding preparations to police lieutenant Gambino and the impending birth of her first grandchild, not to mention the visit of her ex-husband, his fiance, and her mother. At the same time she has been asked to revise a chapter in her biography of Agatha Christie, and is involved with the opening of a retirement community called "Christietown," where the homes look like little English cottages planned around a British "high street." Part of the publicity includes a Christie play—but suddenly the leading lady turns up dead.

Cece's family and friends provide much of the highlights in this book, especially one person who Cece unexpectedly finds herself friends with. The idea of a little English village town in a desert area seems a bit absurd, though.

A Celebration of The Good Life, Richard Webber with John Esmonde and Bob Larbey
This is a marvelous trade paper volume all about the classic British comedy series starring Richard Briers, Felicity Kendal, Paul Eddington, and Penelope Keith, chock full of publicity photos and text about the creation of the series, creators Esmond and Larbey, the four principal actors, the locations used, and even a few pages at the end about real people who "chucked the rat race" and practiced self-sufficiency (but none of them in Surbiton, of course!). If you are a fan of the series, you are certain to enjoy this book.

Inventing George Washington, Edward G. Lengel
Famous persons are almost always surrounded by legendary stories, and none so much as George Washington. Well into the 1920s and 1930s, children were still taught the "cherry tree' legend made popular by Parson Weems, and George Washington quotations and events attributed to him (such as the probably apocryphal situation where he was caught praying at Valley Forge) are still being mentioned by politicians of all persuasions.

You will be disappointed if you are expecting a biography of Washington; it is not that at all. Rather, it is about how successive generations have perceived him: as godlike hero, as rakish man-about-town, as distant aristocrat, as evil slave-owner. Lengel points out that, due to the cavalier regard which with Washington's papers were treated—not only did Martha burn all their correspondence, but one descendant cut pieces wholesale from his journals and rearranged them to suit himself, and often gave away or sold letters, so that much of what is left has either disappeared or is in the hands of collectors who are keeping their mouths shut—most of the stories cannot be substantiated. Many of the inspirational stories that were told about Washington come from secondhand sources, or from the memories of aged soldiers and comrades who revered him.

While the Revolutionary War time period is not my forte, I found this book absorbing and well-narrated, and even sometimes surprising, as I had no idea there was a group that believes George Washington encountered...wait for it...space aliens!

The Clockwork Universe: Isaac Newton, the Royal Society & the Birth of the Modern World, Edward Dolnick
We are surrounded by science. Every day some new technical or medical discovery is made. We live knowing the arrangement of the solar system, geometry, of gravity, orbits, and trajectory, and even if we don't understand the mathematics very well, by physics and calculus. (Well, unless you're "Snooki," of course.)

Dolnick takes us back to the time of Newton and his contemporaries: one of disease, death, and imminent apocalypse. It isn't just a world without industrialization or technology, it's a completely different world of thought, one where everything occurs because God wills it so. To deny it you risk censure, brutal physical punishment, and even death. People still believe in witchcraft, astrology, "the humors," possession by demons. And yet in this time Galileo, Newton, and others made their discoveries, in many cases to confirm God's creation of a perfect universe, and come to "wildly improbable" answers: planets do not circle in the perfect form of a circle, but in ellipses; the Earth is not the center of the universe nor the the worst place in it, mathematics alone can tell you unmoveable truths.

He also shows us Newton and others of the Royal Society, who guard their discoveries the way a prospector guards his gold strike, and who can be quarrelsome, selfish, rude, capable of dreadful experimentation on animals and men, including themselves. To a Liberal Arts major like myself, he makes the scientific discoveries clear and presents these "paragons" we have read about in science and math class as ordinary human beings who presented extraordinary ideas.

A Lesson in Secrets, Jacqueline Winspear
In the previous novel, changes in Maisie Dobbs' personal life have set her on a new course in her investigations. In the newest book, a bridge is beginning to form between the repercussions of the Great War and the yet unknown second World War, while Maisie is asked by the British secret service to take a position as philosophy teacher at a new university in Cambridge which preaches a philosophy of peace, to investigate whether any activies taking place there are subversive to the Crown. The head of the university is a man who wrote a children's book about the war so filled with pacifist leanings that it was banned by the government and was rumored to have caused a mutiny at the front lines. Maisie is not there long before the man is murdered. While Scotland Yard investigates, Maisie continues her own inquiries, and, a bit too priescently, I thought, warns the Secret Service about certain of her students with Nazi leanings and the party itself (which, of course, the Government types ignore). There is much more for Maisie to learn about the man's life and the secretary who disappears following the death, about the German professor that steps into his place and the wealthy man who funds the school.

In the meantime, Billy Beale works on the case brought to them by Sandra, a young woman whose husband died due to an accident at work. As the story progresses, both Maisie and Billy suspect the accident wasn't one at all. Maisie's old friend Priscilla and her family are drawn into this portion of the story.

Maisie's relationship with her new love progresses slowly in this outing, but those who read the Dobbs books know it's in Maisie's nature to take things methodically. Her dad is also making some change in his life. Readers who like the earlier stories of Maisie dealing with repercussions of the First World War may dislike signs of the next appearing, but Winspear is not allowing Maisie to remain static in a postwar world. Several of the cards are played early in the mystery, but all-in-all I found the story and characters appealing.

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, Edmund Morris
The first book in Morris' trilogy about Roosevelt, followed by Theodore Rex (his presidency), and Colonel Roosevelt (later life, including opposition of Woodrow Wilson), this is a rich biography of a complicated man. While it is evident that Morris is a Roosevelt fan, he also shows us Roosevelt "warts and all": his neglect of his eldest daughter after her beloved mother dies, his hunting excesses even as he champions against developing wild spaces, his temper, the way he cannot understand his ill and alcoholic brother's weaknesses despite his love for him. As in every portrayal of him, Roosevelt seems larger than life: Western explorer and cattleman, New York dandy, a rising politician fighting a wave of competitors used to the spoils system after elections, a man who reads prodigiously, wrote an acclaimed book on the Navy before he was twenty-five, and who seemed to survive on little or no sleep.

Morris' narrative is bursting with detail, especially in an evocative prologue that places you in line waiting to shake hands with President Roosevelt on the White House's annual New Year's open house (a practice that would, sadly, be forbidden today). The frozen Dakota prairies, the stinking New York slums, the heat- and insect-riddled morass that confronted the Rough Riders, the summer days at Sagamore Hill all come alive under Morris' pen, not to mention the constantly moving contradiction that was Roosevelt himself. Okay, I must admit I found the political bits occasionally dull, but as a whole found this readable without being simplified. Recommended especially if you are a "TR" fan.

Dark Road to Darjeeling, Deanna Raybourn
Sated (literally) after an eight-month honeymoon, Lady Julia and her brooding, brilliant "private inquiry agent" husband Nicholas Brisbane accompany Julia's older sister Portia and her restless brother Plum to India. Some time earlier Portia's former lover, Jane, yearning to have her own child, married Freddie Cavendish and returned with him to The Peacocks, the tea plantation he had inherited. But now Freddie has died under mysterious circumstances and Jane is afraid she or her child may be the next target.

Going hand-in-hand with the mystery element, which ecompasses the Marches' impoverished cousins Emma and Lucy, a free-spirited American women with two intriguing children who is married to a staid minister, a drunken doctor, and an older Englishman known as the White Rajah, is the often rocky relationship between Julia and Brisbane. She is determined to show him she can be an equal partner in his crime inquiries, to the point of being rude and demanding. In his turn, Brisbane will not allow himself to be led by the nose. They are two independent spirits who will need to find as much balance in their professional life as in their marriage bed, and it's as much fun watching them clash as it is to make your way through the convoluted conundrum posed by Freddie's death. The newlyweds pound the pillows a bit much, though. :-)

Meet the Malones, Lenora Mattingly Weber
While the remainder of Weber's celebrated "Beany Malone" series focuses pretty much on practical, stubborn and occasionally dreamy Catherine Cecilia Malone, the first book revolves around Beany's older sister Mary Fred. The book opens with Mary Fred bringing home Mr. Chips, an injured horse she bought with money she saved for her first formal dress—but she needs funds to complete the purchase. On the way home, she encounters younger brother Johnny, who has caused a fender-bender on the snowy road with a woman delivering eggs. Johnny, an aspiring writer, promises to make good for the eggs and repair the fender, meaning he can't keep the new typewriter he was hoping for. And, at home, thirteen year old Beany desperately wants money to redecorate her room and rid herself of the nursery pattern she hated even as a child.

Their father Martie Malone, a famous newspaper columnist, has a chance to take a plum assignment in Hawaii covering the war news (Pearl Harbor was attacked only a few weeks earlier). When their housekeeper leaves, he allows the children to take over her chores to earn the money they need. But crises keep popping up: older sister Elizabeth returns home now that her soldier husband has shipped out, with a new baby; Johnny is trying to write a book about the history of their home state of Colorado with the help of a tottery old journalist, and right when Mary Fred is managing everything perfectly, the school's star football player makes the moves on her. With stars in her eyes, Mary Fred forgets family, friends and horse in order to make herself over for him. Then the real trouble arrives: Nonna, their kind but used-to-being in charge step-grandmother. Will the Malone children acquise to Nonna's every wish, or will they keep their independence and self-respect?

This is a lively, mostly happy look at life in wartime America, but it has an underlying theme about the price you must pay to get the things you want, and if it is worth sacrificing your principles for them. Weber's books are fondly remembered by her fans, and if you're a fan of 1940s era teen fiction, or just want to experience what life was like back then, you will enjoy the adventures of the Malones.

Walking English, David Crystal
It's a bit of a cheat this being here, as I haven't quite finished it yet, but I'm over halfway through and having so much fun with it I must put it in.

For someone like me, who loves language and history and who is, if not a born one, at least a long-time Anglophile, this book is the literary equivalent of an angel presenting me with a box of dark chocolates filled with all my favorite fillings—mint, orange, coffee, caramel, and that heavenly lime from Sanborn's Candies—and telling me I can eat all I feel comfortable doing so, since they have no calories and no fat! Basically Crystal starts off in Wales and relates travels through England as well as in Poland, San Francisco, and South Africa in a narrative of place names, word origins, history, changes in word meaning, Shakespearan plays and names, that Welsh town with the long name that the locals just refer to as "Llanfair,' placing people by accents, sheep with accents, and more, all in a delightful candy-box jumble. I suspect I shall be sorry when the book finishes, but right now I'm just enjoying it all with a big silly grin.

A big plus: learning about the humanitarian poet John Bradburne and the book town of Hay-on-Wye. I think I'd like to spend a week in the latter, thank you. :-)

Books Finished Since December 1

None?

No, plenty, but they've all been reviewed in Holiday Harbour under the "Christmas Book Review" banner.

I did finish one book, however, which was not Christmas-themed:

 The Camp Fire Girls' Larks and Pranks, Hildegard G. Frey
I discovered e-books back in the day of my PDA, reading in Microsoft Lit format and getting the books from BlackMask.com, now Munseys.com. This site contains books that are in the public domain, including those wonderful kids' series books originally published by Saalfield, Altemus, and other extinct publishers. These are even older than Nancy Drew vintage; some, like the Rover Boys, go back to the 19th century.

This particular series was written between 1914 and 1920 and centers on a group of Camp Fire girls and their "Guardian." Today Camp Fire is for both sexes; I don't think they even wear the cute little uniforms and beanies the Camp Fire Girls wore in the 1960s. Frey's prose is livelier than many of the didactic series of those day, and all her girls are memorable: Migwan (Elsie Gardiner) the writer of the group, Sahwah (Sarah Brewster) the champion swimmmer and prankster, Hinpoha (Dorothy Bradford) the plump redhead, and more. Incidentally, these are not what you think of as "girls": the youngest of them is fifteen, and by the end of the ten-book series even college-age Migwan, Hinpoha, and Sahwah still go to camp. Parents in those days hoped their daughters would remain innocent until they were ready to be married and go out in the world.

So although in this volume, about midway through the series, the girls make the acquaintance of a group of boys who call themselves "The Sandwich Club," there is no snogging, clandestine meetings, and raging hormones: we know the Captain (real name Cicero St. John) likes Hinpoha, but it's all very innocent. This is a pivotal book in the series as we meet at least one character who will figure in the rest of the series, Katherine Adams, a tall, awkward young woman of careless dress and Southern origins but friendly and talented, who is visiting the Girls' home town in order to attend high school. We are also introduced to the Sandwich Club; Veronica Lehar, an Austrian girl who has lost her family in the Great War and who is snobbish to the girls until she finds out what good friends they are; and also to a trick donkey the kids name Sandhelo ("Sandwich" and "Wohelo," the countersign of the Camp Fire Girls—WOrk, HEalth, LOve—melded together).

As always in these old books, subtle racism and ethnicism raise their heads. In this outing the girls try to help the poor folks in an area of town known for its Polish and Slavic citizens, but are thwarted in their efforts to help by the "superstitious" townsfolk. The young folk in these novels are so nice it's hard to see them today marred by this silly bigotry. Otherwise it's a fun narrative of how kids used to make their own fun rather than depending on electronic toys.

Favorite Books of 2010

Trying to keep it down to a baker's dozen this year was hard:

 Appetite for America: Fred Harvey Civilizing the West—One City at a Time, Stephen Fried (History of the civilizing influence in the American West from the POV of the Fred Harvey Houses—Amazon Vine offering)
 The Mapping of Love and Death, Jacqueline Winspear (The newest Maisie Dobbs mystery, with major changes to Maisie's life—Borders purchase)
 The Boneshaker, Kate Milford (Super "steampunk" young adult novel—Amazon Vine selection)
 Hello, Everybody!: The Dawn of American Radio, Anthony Rudel (Before the Golden Age; a technology remarkably like the Internet—Amazon Marketplace purchase)
 Victorian London: The Tale of a City 1840-1870, Liza Picard (Overview of the Victorian era from poor to wealthy, cellar to attic—Borders purchase)
 American History Revised: 200 Startling Facts That Never made It Into the Textbooks, Seymour Morris Jr. (Book that is hard not to read aloud to others—Borders purchase)
 Nick of Time, Ted Bell (Topping adventure novel about a Channel Islands boy and Nazi invaders, not to mention pirates—Borders purchase)
 The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name, Toby Lester (A history of European exploration as told through maps—Borders bargain book purchase)
 The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly (A Victorian child learns about the natural world—Borders purchase)
 An Expert in Murder, Nicola Upson (A 1930s set mystery written in spot-on 1930s English murder mystery fashion—Borders purchase)
 Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, Alison Arngrim (The girl who made Nellie Oleson famous tells her story—library book)
 At Home, Bill Bryson (The history of the home as told through its rooms—Amazon Vine offering)
 The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter, Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook (The making of the new series of Dr. Who—Amazon purchase)

Honorable mentions:
 Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch, the Most Famous Horse in America, Charles Leerhsen (Lyrical language and the famous trotting horse—Borders purchase)
 In Spite of Myself, Christopher Plummer (Plummer's wordy but fascinating memoir—Borders bargain table)
 Postcards from Europe, Rick Steves (Memorable trips and Rick's story of his first travels—used bookstore purchase)

Five fiction novels, the rest nonfiction; three of the five are young adult books, the other two are mysteries, seven of the nonfiction are historical (one is actually a social history) and there are two biographies, a travel book, and a media book.

Plus I want to give a shout-out to Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May mystery series, starting with Full Dark House...humor and mystery well mixed!

A Curiosity

I have found a...curiosity.

Classic live-action Disney fans will certainly remember 1948's So Dear to My Heart, the story of a country lad and his mischievous pet lamb, starring Bobby Driscoll and veterans Beulah Bondi as Granny and Burl Ives as Hiram. (This is the film where Ives sings one of his big hits, the Oscar nominated "Lavender Blue.") The source material for this has always been noted as the Sterling North book Midnight and Jeremiah.

Somewhere in my early teens (and I can date that by the price on the paperback book, which was 95 cents), I found a copy of the book version of So Dear to My Heart, with a copyright date of 1947. I figured when the book was reprinted, the name of the book was changed to that of the movie, and the name of the lamb from Midnight to Danny, just as the publishers of Rose Wilder Lane's Let the Hurricane Roar! changed its name to Young Pioneers after the television movie it was based on, and changed the names of the protagonists from "Charles and Caroline" to "David and Molly" to avoid conflicts with the Little House on the Prairie television series.

Well, I have come upon a copy of the original Midnight and Jeremiah in a used bookstore, copyright 1943. To my surprise, it is more of a children's book than what I though the "original" was, with pictures on every page by famed illustrator Kurt Wiese. The characters and the basic story are all familiar, but at the same time markedly different, and although I haven't read it yet, it looks like the story ends at Christmas.

It almost looks like North either rewrote the book for adults previous to the film's release, or based the rewritten book on the screenplay for the Disney film. It would be interesting to know the story behind the two volumes.

(Later: The book From Walt To Woodstock: How Walt Disney Created The Counterculture states that the Dan Patch sequence was added to the film by Walt, who, like Jerry, got to meet the famous trotting horse Dan Patch when the horse's train was stopped in Marceline, MO, where Walt spent the happiest days of his childhood. So the renaming of the lamb and the sequence was Disney's, not North's, lending further credence to the book being a novelization of the film.)

Cover picture link)

Books Finished Since November 1

 Good Old Dog: Expert Advice for Keeping Your Aging Dog Happy, Healthy, and Comfortable, ed. by Nicholas H. Dodman BVMS
Since our dog has passed her twelfth birthday, I thought this book would provide some good information on what we can expect in her old age, and I was not disappointed. As the title suggests, each aspect of your dog's aging process and how to cope with is covered: tooth care, feeding (did you know that some "senior" foods for your increasingly sedentary dog are actually more fattening, causing him/her to gain weight?), joint problems, exercise, illnesses due to aging (heart failure, incontinence, loss of appetite, etc.), cancer and other surgical problems, hearing and sight, and more. Also discussed is how to make more difficult decisions, like amputation and the possible inevitable euthanasia, as well as options if your budget does not cover an expensive procedure. The text is written in a simple, but not simplistic style, and the reader is encouraged to do his/her own research, with other books—and second opinions—recommended. An satisfactory overview.

 Turn Coat, Jim Butcher
Warden Donald Morgan, who has never had much respect for "Chicago's only practicing wizard," Harry Dresden, now a Warden himself, abruptly shows up at Harry's doorstep, injured and needing protection from his fellow Wardens, who are hunting him down for murder. Harry's astonished as anyone, but formulates a plan to save him. He knows Morgan wouldn't murder someone...but who would? It must be an inside job.

In the meantime Harry senses something evil and utterly powerful shadowing him. Is it related to Morgan's crime?

I have to confess I've been reading Dresden since they began and after so many books I'm starting to forget who did what in which book and sometimes find following Butcher's now huge cast a bit daunting (so thanks to whomever did all those synopses on Wikipedia!). But this outing offers a taut murder mystery with fantasy and horror trappings, as always a page-turner. Once again Harry's world turns upside down at the end. If you are an urban fantasy fan, I would give Harry's adventures a try, but do start at the beginning (Storm Front)!

 The Big Book of New England Curiosities, Susan Campbell & Bruce Gellerman
The one thing that puzzles me about this book (and there may be other state instances that I don't know about) is that the authors mention the Big Blue Bug ("Nibbles Woodaway"), but don't put it in the book because they say everyone knows about it. What was it gonna take, a page? I mean, how can you do a book of New England "curiosities" without Nibbles?

Anyway, this is just as the title says, a state-by-state collection of unusual, odd, or just plain strange places and things, from haunted properties to odd landmarks to peculiar attractions: a life-size chocolate moose in Maine, a statue of Samantha Stephens (where else, in Salem, MA), dinosaurs in Connecticut, Rudyard Kipling's American home (Vermont), and more. It's a liberally illustrated, brief, humorous, and a fun read.

 The Sherlockian, Graham Moore
In 1893 Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes, determined never to write another Holmes story again. But in 1900, he brought him back in a "flashback novel," The Hound of the Baskervilles, and then resurrected him. Why bring Holmes back? Doyle was a consummate diarist and his journal from that year might tell the tale—but is missing.

In January of 2010, a guest at the annual meeting of the Baker Street Irregulars states he has found the missing diary and will reveal its contents. He's also extremely nervous and fears he's being followed. The newest member of the Irregulars, Harold White, a shy, slightly chubby, nearsighted man in his early twenties, can't believe his luck being admitted to the society just as this revelation will be made. Then the man is found murdered in his room, with Harold as one of the witnesses to the body's discovery, along with Sarah Lindsay, a journalist reporting on the Sherlockians. As Harold is drawn into investigating the crime, a parallel story is told in alternating chapters: of Arthur Conan Doyle's investigation into a true crime, with the help of his friend Abraham "Bram" Stoker. The two investigations keep pace with each other, leading both Harold and Arthur into territory they begin to wish they never had penetrated.

Even as you wonder how the two crimes 110 years apart may relate, Moore keeps both narratives going at a good clip. I found the Doyle mystery a bit more compelling than the White (Moore's Victorian London is quite vivid and often disturbing), although Harold, as much as he resembles a Sherlockian "Trekkie," comes across very well and gains confidence as the story progresses. I would recommend this story to any Sherlock Holmes fan, but admit it might not be of interest of anyone who is not a fan of the Great Detective.

 All Clear, Connie Willis
This book and its first half, Blackout, are a veritable fountain of words, very Dickensian, and probably at least a quarter of them could have been cut. But this didn't keep me from turning page after page after page to follow the adventures of Polly Churchill, Merope Ward, Michael Davies, Mary Kent and her partner Paige Fairchild, Ernest and his partner Cess, the boarders at Mrs. Rickett's, Sir Geoffrey and his amateur thespians, Mr. Dunworthy, and Colin, not to mention the mischievous urchins Alf and Binnie, plus the others populating Willis' massive epic about 21st-century time travelers stranded in Blitz-era London.

As their hopes fade that their own "drops" will open to return them to 2060 Oxford, Polly, Merope, and Mike attempt to find fellow time-traveler Gerald Phipps, who has been assigned to Bletchley Park, without interfering with history, fearing, as more time passes, that not only is their time travel itself is the cause of the slippages that keep the drops from opening, but that they have changed history somehow, even perhaps causing the Nazis to claim victory. As Mike searches for Phipps, Polly's appearance in plays put on in the subway to raise morale leads her to a job as a chorus girl where she becomes wartime sweetheart "All Clear Adelaide" and Merope becomes more emotionally involved with the scamp Hodbin children. In the meantime, other time travelers in "future" World War II (1944 and 1945) are trying to avoid Hitler's V2 rockets and participating in the elaborate cover-up that diverted the Axis eyes from the Normandy landings.

Willis' vision of wartime England is so vivid that she may be slightly forgiven for the barrage (pun intended) of description, characters, and incidents that comprise All Clear. I thoroughly enjoyed it all, but be warned there are more than half-a-dozen time travel streams to contend with, and you won't understand a word of what's going on without having read the first half of the story, Blackout, first.

 The Leopard's Prey, Suzanne Arruda
Photographer/travel writer Jade del Cameron, back with her friends Madeleine and Nevelle Thompson in British East Africa, comes much too close to a leopard as she helps men collect animals for zoos. Nor can she relax once she is done, because when she returns with the Thompsons to their coffee plantation, the dead body of a storekeeper with a bad reputation is found in their just-delivered coffee dryer. Inspector Finch appears to want to pin the crime on one of Jade's friends, especially her off-again, on-again love interest Sam Featherstone, since he had a violent argument with the man days earlier.

Jade, of course, can't help being involved in the mystery, especially when Sam is accused. Trouble is, there is no lack of suspects: the victim had an unsavory past, and not many people liked him. Were his business partners involved? Or one of his customers? And did a baby the Thompsons almost adopt figure into the crime? Jade faces danger from every angle in this outing, including in the air, a challenge she meets, as always, with bravery and aplomb. Note: pay attention to Sam's aerial report; it contains a vital clue.

 The Water Room, Christopher Fowler
The Peculiar Crimes Unit is just about to re-open (after the explosion that occurred in Fowler's first PCU novel, Full Dark House) when Benjamin Singh, an old friend of senior detective Arthur Bryant's, asks if he will look into his sister's death. He found her sitting in a chair in her basement, dressed, dry, but with her mouth full of river water. Bryant, his longtime partner John May, and the rest of the team start asking questions in her tiny neighborhood, where more odd deaths occur.

In the meantime, a young woman has moved into Ruth Singh's old home as London suffers through endless deluges of rain following an unusually hot summer. Why does she keep hearing water when she goes down in her basement, and why do wet spots keep appearing on the walls even though they are dry to the touch? Who is the street person who keeps peering into her window?

You will likely learn more than you might have wanted to know about the watercourses of London's rivers and of its sewage system in the course of this book; however, the mixture of mystery, neighborhood characters, and the eccentric Peculiar Crimes Unit (and its most peculiar member, Arthur Bryant) make the information not only painless, but downright absorbing. Bryant is in fine form in this second PCU outing, and the combination of puzzle and humor is delightful.

 Especially Spaniels, Gladys Taber
This is a short book Taber wrote in the 1940s about raising cocker spaniels. It's interesting reading, even today, due to the things that have changed, like advising giving aspirin to dogs, and the use of products that don't exist anymore. What hasn't changed is her practical outlook on raising dogs, the dangers of strangers spreading illness to dogs, the stories of her own animals, and the lovely pictures of her spaniels taken by her longtime friend Jill.

 Seventy-Seven Clocks, Christopher Fowler
In this third installment of the Bryant and May mysteries, Arthur Bryant's interview for his memoirs take the reader on an expedition back to 1973, as the Peculiar Crimes Unit is moving into new digs and England is moving into the Common Market. Then the scion of an influential businessman walks into a museum and ruins a priceless painting; later he dies under mysterious and bizarre circumstances. An attorney staying at the Savoy hotel dies from the bite of a snake not native to England. As more improbably crimes pile up, Bryant and May attempt to unravel the mysteries as the newspapers jeer the police, and a young woman who discovered one of the bodies and who suffers from frightening nightmares is drawn into the case by her own design.

The mystery in this one is quite complex, to the point where it ends up being a bit improbable. Still, I love Fowler's descriptive language and the partnership and characters of Bryant and May.

 The Attenbury Emeralds, Jill Paton Walsh
In this new mystery featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and his novelist wife Harriet Vane, Jill Paton Walsh is on her own; she has neither an unfinished manuscript as in Thrones, Dominations nor the framework of letters written by Dorothy Sayers as in A Presumption of Death. Instead she harks back to what was briefly referenced as Lord Peter's first case of detection, the matter of the Attenbury emeralds: after Peter tells Harriet the story of the mystery surrounding the jewels, the newest Lord Attenbury shows up on their doorstep, where they discover the emeralds are still causing conundrums—and deaths.

I think I enjoyed this story more than the previous two, although as always it is evident Walsh is not Sayers. Her Sayers "voice" is better in this outing, but perhaps she feels incapable of writing in the sort of detail that Sayers did, precise descriptions of people and settings, and sharp commentary on the situations surrounding her characters (or, perhaps, her publishers think that modern audiences are not interested in reading such details any longer, a sad commentary if that is true). Every once in a while, what I feel is a too-modern sounding word or phrase intrudes, and the first half of the book, where Peter and Bunter are telling the tale of the emeralds instead of Walsh showing what happened, was awkward to me. Perhaps Walsh didn't feel comfortable writing this prequel in flashback form knowing she could not write it with Sayers' style; more likely she wanted Harriet included in that part of the narrative.

This did not keep me from reading on to discover what the purpose of all the intrigue around the emeralds served, or to find out how Peter and Harriet meet a second challenge later in the book. I would recommend with the reservation that you keep in mind that this is Walsh and not Sayers, and do not expect the level of detail of the latter.

 Death at Wentwater Court, Carola Dunn
The Honorable Daisy Dalrymple's family has fallen upon hard times. Her father has died, leaving the family title in other hands, and leaving her in thin financial straits. Her fiancee, along with her brother, perished in the Great War. But Daisy is a resourceful, emancipated girl of the newly minted "Roaring '20s." She gets a position writing for the noted magazine "Town and Country" and her first big story will be written about Lord Wentworth's ancestral home. But all is not well at Wentworth Court: elder son James is resentful and suspicious of his new, young stepmother; his sister Marjorie is shamelessly chasing a handsome guest of the family; and the aformentioned stepmother is wan and secretive.

The morning after Daisy's arrival, the handsome guest, Lord Stephen Astwick, is found floating in the skating pond. At first everyone thinks it is an accident, until one of Daisy's photographs for her article reveals otherwise.

This is a bright, light English cozy mystery. The characters, including Daisy and the Scotland Yard inspector, Alec Fletcher, are lightly sketched, with not much depth to them. However, the story has a nice 1920s flavor to it, with the contrast between aristocracy and commoners, traditional characters and the "flappers" and "fast gentlemen" of the time, with a nice ear for 1920s dialog and slang. Daisy is an engaging heroine, neither precocious nor dense. In short, don't expect an introspective, complicated whodunit, but it's all enjoyable nonetheless.

Also check out my blog Holiday Harbour for November 2010, for my reviews of the Christmas and other holiday books I have read.

Books Finished Since October 1

 Fannie's Last Supper, Christopher Kimball
I hate to cook, but there's nothing better that I like than to read Christopher Kimball's column in each issue of Cooks Illustrated. His articles about Vermont put me in mind of Gladys Taber.

In this book, Kimball has brought his desire to cook a 12-course dinner from the original Fannie Farmer cookbook alive. We follow Kimball and his assistants as they plan the meal and attempt—as closely as possible—to cook it in period style. Of course (if you're familiar with Cooks you know they always change recipes to improve flavor) Kimball and the Cooks folks play with the recipes and actually reject some of them for not being all that tasty. This has apparently disturbed some of the folks who read this book, and it is a bit ironic that Kimball wrote a book about cooking alà Farmer and then did not go precisely by her recipes, but instead used better-tasting ones from other chefs. But since I have no interest in the actual cooking part and just read this for the historical perspective on cooking, I quite enjoyed the entire narrative. The revelations about cooking over the wood stove were especially "eye-opening." I knew they made the kitchen hot, but I never imagined things melted!

Warning: the chapter about the calves' brains may be a bit much for the modern person who gets everything packaged in plastic.

 The Sisters Grimm; Once Upon a Crime, Michael Buckley
Sabrina, Daphne, Grandma Relda, Mr. Canis, and police chief Hampton are on a mission: to return an injured Puck to a colony of Everafters in New York City where his family—the imposing Oberon and Titania of "Midsummer's Night's Dream" fame—can hopefully cure him. Instead the porcine police chief finds love and danger when he falls for a "fairy godfather's" girl (yes, it's exactly what you think it is), and Sabrina finds herself face-to-face with Puck's jealous girlfriend.

Once again Buckley has well-mixed classic fairy tales for a rollicking, but sometimes creepy, adventure in a really-out-of-this-world place, NYC at Christmastime. One thing bothered me: Granny really came down hard on Sabrina for using magic in the previous book. This time Daphne wields the wand and Granny doesn't seem to mind. Bothered me, as Sabrina, even if she is pushy, does seem a bit put-upon.

 Nellie Oleson Meets Laura Ingalls, Heather Williams
Since the "pre-Little House" adventures of Laura's grandmother Charlotte and great-grandmother Martha have come to an end, apparently since Harper-Collins wanted to dumb them down and the writers refused, these are two newer books about characters related to Laura. This one tells Nellie's side of the story of when the Ingalls family arrived in Walnut Grove and the events of "Town Party, Country Party" and the grasshopper invasion.

The story actually introduces Nellie, Willie and her family some time earlier; Laura doesn't enter the picture until halfway through the book, although Charles Ingalls is shown in the first chapter. I guess we are supposed to feel sympathy for Nellie when we hear about her distant father and social-climbing mother, and moments do exist when Nellie's bratty shell melts and she feels bad for people. But frankly, she's obnoxious from the start, corralling Willie into playing a mean prank on the schoolteacher, and you're glad when the plan backfires. So I'm a bit puzzled to what purpose the book was written. Williams does a good job keeping the narrative "Little House"-like, but it's still hard to warm up to Nellie.

 The Power of Babel, John McWhorter
Okay, I'm at a loss what to say about this one, although I enjoyed it. But then I devour good linguistics books like one eats potato chips. One of McWhorter's main points is about dialects versus the "standard" in a particular language: the standard isn't really the "most correct" version of the language, as one might think; it's just the version of the language that was chosen to become the standard, so that, really, "Cockney" is no less credible than "BBC English," "Parisian" isn't the be-all, end-all of French as opposed to what they speak in other areas of France, and a southern accent in the United States is no less "educated" than the flat midwestern tones once preferred of newscasters—they're all just versions of the same language which evolved in different areas. He uses pop culture and familiar media figures to explain these differences, which makes the text lively and less dry than some academic tomes about language.

 Re-read: Mr. Revere and I, Robert Lawson
Since we were going to Boston on vacation and I had long dreamed of visiting Revere's home, I just had to re-read this fun and lively view of Revolutionary Boston as seen through the eyes of Revere's horse. Sherry, or Scheherazade, as she is properly known, is originally a British cavalry horse, brought to Boston with the soldiers to help quell the rebellion. By a series of misfortunes, she comes into the possession of Paul Revere and sees the opening volleys of the American Revolution.

This is painless, occasionally humorous—some of the Founding Fathers, like Sam Adams and John Hancock, are shown in a not always flattering light—history for kids, which shows them that the folks behind the Revolution were not demigods, but ordinary folks with an extraordinary idea: a new republic not based on a monarchy. And, through Sherry, they understand what it is like to be free. Great story, if not always precisely in line with real historical events (the horse Revere rode on his famous "ride," for instance, was someone else's, and it was taken from him).

 Full Dark House, Christopher Fowler
This is all I need, another series. But what a fun series! In present-day London, 80-year-old Arthur Bryant is killed while working late at the Metropolitan Police's Peculiar Crimes office. His grieving partner, 76-year-old John May, attempts to solve the crime, which appears to have something to do with Arthur's opening of an old case, the first one which Bryant and May solved together, during the height of the Blitz, when a killer stalked the backstage area of the Palace Theatre.

Bryant and May are an odd couple; I thought of a 1940s version of Holmes and Watson, with Bryant as the eccentric and May as the more conventional (and more attractive to women). Fowler brings the WWII atmosphere of the Blitz to life—not just hardy Londoners stiffening their upper lips, but the fear and the uncertainty and the spooky feeling of streets under blackout, not to mention the claustrophobic feeling of the theatre. Yet the narration is also offbeat and frequently humorous, especially when presenting Bryant's oddball friends. I really enjoyed the entire milieu.

 Re-read: Ocean-Born Mary, Lois Lenski
Most people are more familiar with Lenski's regional series, like Strawberry Girl, but I have always also loved her historical stories, like A-Going to the Westward, and this book, which I first read in junior high school. When we went on vacation this year, we stopped at the setting of the novel, Strawbery Banke (the original name of Portsmouth, NH), where I was delighted to see the real places mentioned, like Puddle Dock.

This is not the true story of Ocean-Born Mary, a child whose presence on a ship caused a pirate captain to spare the lives of all if she was named after his little sister, but a fictional tale that Lenski has spun about the child. She arrives in Strawbery Banke to help an ailing cousin and experiences all sorts of adventures with the merchants and seafaring inhabitants of the port town, befriending an ailing child, a shipmaster's daughter, a woodcarver, a restless boy assigned to herd cows, and a merchant's daughter. And she also meets the man who spared her parents' lives, the pirate Philip Babb, who will once again cause problems in her life.

Today's children might find this book dull, but I loved every bit of historical detail in this book as a kid and still love re-reading it.

 The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter, Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook
In February 2007, Benjamin Cook shot Doctor Who's Russell T. Davies an e-mail: would he be interested in providing some input to Cook about how a Who episode is written? As Russell answered, "You had me at hello."

The "article" evolved into The Writer's Tale, and then The Final Chapter, a 700-page collection of the e-mails (and occasional texts) shot back and forth between Cook and Davies between the fateful day in 2007 through David Tennant's final appearance as the Doctor. In between, in a great cascade of words, one actually does find out how more than one episode is conceived, filmed, and finished, and a whole lot more. Before Catherine Tate signed up for her season, for example, Davies was working through the creation of a new companion for the Doctor, a young woman named Penny, whose father was a stargazer. How Penny changed and then morphed into Donna Noble, and how the stargazer became her grandfather, played by the delightful Bernard Cribbins, is completely told here.

In the meantime, there are behind-the-scenes glimpses, Davies' growing pressures as a writer for both Who and Torchwood, premieres, filming successes and problems (that damaged bus in "Planet of the Dead," for instance, was supposed to be whole; it was damaged in transport), script flaps, actor changes, the conception of the final story, and perhaps even a partridge in a pear tree. All in great fun—I found it totally absorbing, down to the terrible puns.

 Death on the Lizard, Robin Paige
Sir Charles Sheridan and his American wife Kathryn Ardleigh (also known as Beryl Bardwell, well-known author of thrillers) are back for one last case, set in the Cornish countryside where brilliant but mercurial Guglielmo Marconi has done the impossible: sent messages across the Atlantic by wireless. But the natives of "the Lizard" hate the noise and hurry the radio towers bring to their quiet corner of England, and when two men die on the site, foul play is suspected.

In the meantime Kate befriends Lady Loveday, a widow whose young daughter recently drowned, and who wishes to try to contact her through spiritualism. But when Kate makes a query or two, it looks as if little Harriet's drowning may have something to do with the conflict over the wireless station—and with spies of that selfsame station. And can Marconi's new inamorata be involved as well?

An excellent portrait of the times, where locals feel traditions are slipping away too fast to "newfangled" technology (times, it seems, never change), with multiple mystery threads. The "bad guys" are pretty easy to spot, though; if you are fond of impossible conundrums, read for the Edwardian atmosphere instead.

 Chasing Zebras: The Unofficial Guide to House, M.D., Barbara Barnett
Two books on House, MD were released this fall, the "authorized" guide and this, based on Barnett's popular blog "The End of the Thought Process." Like her blog, it's a great read, especially her analysis of each character (the emphasis on our "hero," of course, but also on Wilson and Cuddy and the original group of "ducklings." The latter part of the book is an episode guide, with such notations as the diagnosis—it's never lupus, except once it was—and the epiphany that led to it, "House is a Jerk" moments (of course too numerous to name), bromance minutes, continuity notes, nods at pop culture, and more, with inserts directed at a closer look at certain key episodes, like the award-winning "Three Stories." Sure to please a House fan—well, at least it pleased this House fan. :-)

 Turkish Delight & Treasure Hunts, Jane Brocket
Not being able to find Brocket's original foray into this area, Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer, for less than $40, I purchased this follow-up, a delightful little volume that brings together recipes and instructions for making foods mentioned in classic children's books, like "sugar on snow" from the little house books and raspberry cordial from Anne of Green Gables, as well as instructions for making or buying a skipping rope like Mary Lennox's or kitemaking. If you are fond of classic children's novels, you will read this with a big grin on your face, as it's just as cozy and welcoming as it sounds.

 Colonial New England on 5 Shillings A Day, Bill Scheller
From the time I saw Shakespearean London on 5 Groats a Day, I thought the idea of exploring history via a "tourist's guidebook" to be fun and clever. Although I bought the Shakespeare book first, because of our recent vacation, I read this one first and was not disappointed. The author offers an accurate portrayal of colonial times (travel, food, customs, etc.) at about 1760 (often with notes of what happened in the future). The most fun are the sly little asides to events that have not yet happened, as in noting that Sam Adams looked as if they had no future except as a brewer, or that "base ball" was much too ruffianly a sport for New Englanders and it should be consigned further west to "other Yankees." If all the other "Five" travel books (Ancient Greece and Europe, the Wild West, et al.) are as humorous and informative as this volume, I will have much fun "traveling" through history.