Books Completed Since October 1

 The Rocketeer: Jet-Pack Adventures, Jeff Conner and Tom Waltz
Okay, this book is just fun: ten stories based on Dave Stevens' classic comic book "The Rocketeer," later made into a little more family-friendly film by Disney that was still one heck of an adventure.

All the pulpy tropes are here: square-jawed hero Cliff Secord who has a secret identity as a crime- and Nazi-fighting "rocketeer" using a jet pack developed by Howard Hughes, his lush and curvy girlfriend Betty (based on Bettie Page) who's usually to be found half-clad, his grumpy mentor and whiz mechanic Peevy, evil Nazis and mad scientists, and even some exotic locales, not to mention flying monkeys, sharkmen, Egyptian curses, doppelgangers, a snoopy tell-all reporter, supercilious flatfoots, goons, gun molls, and more. Plus there are some delightful cameos by real life people, and those were the three stories I enjoyed the most: "The Red, White & Grey" featuring Western author Zane Grey, "Codename: Ecstasy" with Hedy Lamarr, and "Rockets to Hell" guest-starring Johnny Weissmuller and featuring a creepy setting and enemy. I'm wondering if a sequel anthology is planned because at least three of the stories, including "Rockets to Hell," are definitely set up where another story is possible.

Unlike those classic pulps, Betty, even in her half-clad state, has brains, and doesn't turn into a fainting, clingy, actual pulp damsel in distress. One of the stories talks about discrimination against women specifically (perhaps a bit too didactically), and there are other female characters who are strong and no one's "dame." Do note if you have a child who's a fan of Disney's Rocketeer that this is a much more adult universe and not suitable: nothing is described, but Cliff and Betty are not chaste, and there are many instances of graphic violence, especially in "Atoll of Terror," which owes more than a tip of the hat to H.G. Wells. As Peevy might say, "This ain't no kiddie story, y'know."

 The Sisters Grimm: The Inside Story, Michael Buckley
In this next-to-the-last book of the series, Sabrina and Daphne have taken it upon themselves to rescue their long-lost baby brother, who was born while their mother was in an enchanted sleep, and kidnapped by the being inhabiting their Grandmother's Magic Mirror in a plot to bring himself to life. For Sabrina and Daphne are Grimms, part of a family of fairy-tale detectives, now living in the town of Ferryport, a refuge for fairy tale characters. In this tale they take a whirlwind tour through various fairy tales, not only hunting Mirror and their brother, but the treacherous Pinocchio, who sold them out, accompanied by Puck, the mischievous teenage fairy. Sabrina, whose grit and simple stubbornness has sustained the girls through previous adventures, is beginning to doubt herself—will she be able to stay the course?

Most of this volume, frankly, feels like filler. The girls visit Oz and Wonderland, there are some interesting scenes between Puck and Sabrina, there's a unique magical device that aids them, and most importantly, they meet the Editor, the acerbic man who keeps the fairy tale characters in line within their stories. These latter encounters are interesting, especially the creepy revisers who blank any story which has diverged from the original, but the chase after both Mirror and the little boy, and after Pinocchio, seems to go on and on. It's necessary as a set-up for the final volume, but maybe that volume could have been lengthened a bit rather than give us monotonous chase scenes.

 The Sisters Grimm: The Council of Mirrors, Michael Buckley
Well, damn, I had to see how it came out, didn't I? The final book in the series pulls no punches. Mirror, having taken over the body of Sabrina and Daphne's beloved grandmother, is determined to see the end of the Grimms and break down the barrier that separates Ferryport from the real world. At his side is Atticus Charming, the unknown brother of William, who has been redacted from the Snow White legend to protect her. The two will destroy the town—and possibly the world—to see their desires fulfilled. The Wicked Queen, Morgana, and Baba Yaga come together to form a coven. The Grimms train what is a pitifully small resistance. And then the stunning news comes: it must be Sabrina and Daphne who lead the fight against them.

The theme of this book is faith in yourself, and Sabrina is not the only one who needs to learn that lesson. Souls are lost and won, friends depart through betrayal and death, and the battles are not bloodless, nor are they always victorious. Each defeat ratchets up the tension. However, those of you following the storyline will be happy to know that all issues are resolved. ::wink::

 Young Americans Colonial Williamsburg: Will's Story, 1771, Joan Lowery Nixon
This is one in a series of six books set in colonial-era Williamsburg. By trade, Will Pelham's father is a music teacher as well as the organist of the Bruton Parish Church, but he has accepted a job as the gaoler (warden) of the Williamsburg prison to make ends meet; the family lives in the same building as the jail and Will must help his father with the prisoners, a chore that sometimes frightens him. One of the other prisoners tells Will that Blackbeard the Pirate's ghost speaks to him; Will disbelieves him, but the man is persuasive and persistent. "Blackbeard" also "tells" the man one of the prisoners is planning an escape: Emmanuel, a slave who fled from an abusive master. Will knows the law: slaves must be returned to their masters. But he sympathizes with Emmanuel, too. Can he obey the law, and his father, and still help the abused man?

Think of this as an "American Girl" book about a boy, and based on an actual child. While the author has no way of knowing just what Will did or thought at this time, she nicely extrapolates with historical evidence of colonial children's chores and pastimes. At times the exposition is laid on a bit thick for its youthful readers, but it's necessary for them to understand what is going on. There are notes at the end about the real-life protagonists, about Williamsburg, about childhood in colonial days, and, in this book, about "crime and punishment." Quite worthwhile if you're a history buff. I didn't know this series existed and would love to read the other stories now!

 Karen, Marie Killilea
Stories about children who overcame physical handicaps were very popular when I was growing up, and this book is a classic: the story of a Catholic family faced with an almost insurmountable problem who rose to the challenge.

Karen was born three months premature and didn't go home until she was nine months old. Her parents soon notice that she doesn't move like other babies. She is diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and at that time (the 1940s)  there was no support at all for children (or adults for that matter) with cerebral palsy. The first doctor her parents took Karen to basically told the Killileas to put her in an institution and forget her. The next said she was probably mentally deficient. They went through more than a dozen doctors before they found one to help Karen. Plus their elder daughter had sinus problems, a bout with rheumatic fever, and then a tuberculosis scare; and money was short and for a time the father worked two jobs.

This is an old-fashioned book with the appropriate mores of the 1940s-1950s. I was amused to see how so many modern reviews of this book on Amazon had shocked people exclaiming how often the characters smoked and how bad that was! Even in the Sixties everyone smoked! Doctors recommended cigarettes in advertising. I remember family parties and weddings blue with smoke. I was more appalled by the way so many doctors treated Karen as if she was some sort of vegetable. They couldn't seem to get past the fact she was "crippled" as if her motor problems affected her brain. And this was the state of medicine only 25 years before I was born! (I recall a neighborhood friend whose sister had severe Down syndrome—back then they were called "Mongoloid"—and her family was considered unusual because Louise lived at home and was not in an asylum.) The work Marie Killilea and her family did eventually resulted in the creation of the United Cerebral Palsy organization. Still, this is an inspiring story, even today.

 Lassie: Under the Big Top, Marian Bray
I've heard of this series of books for a few years now, but had never seen a copy until I walked into a used bookstore and found the first three books of this five-book series written in the 1990s for a Christian publisher. In this incarnation, Lassie belongs to the Harmon family and specifically to 12-year-old Jimmy, whose father is a minister, and in the first book of the series, Jimmy's faith is tested when Lassie is locked in a van and taken several hundred miles from home. His parents take him looking for her, but every lead seems to go nowhere. God, reasons Jimmy, knows how important to Lassie is to him, so why did God allow this to happen?

If you're a Lassie fan, the basic plot may sound a bit familiar: it's because Bray based the books on plots from the television series. This one is based on "Lassie's Odyssey" and we follow both Lassie's travels and the Harmons' efforts to find her. She eventually, as you might have suspected from the title, ends up in a circus. There are also touches of "The Dognappers." The elder Harmons are named Paul and Ruth, the next book features an "Uncle" Cully, and the third a "Mr. Krebs" and a mysterious "Mr. Nicholson." As for the story, I found some of the prose a bit stilted; Bray was trying to give it a Lassie Come-Home touch (she even repeats the story of how Sam Carraclough taught Lassie not to pick up meat off the ground) and her descriptions of Lassie's thoughts and the countryside are often beautiful but sometimes awkward. The Christian bits of the prose are not intrusive; it's basically still a matter of faith with Jimmy to believe that Lassie will still come home.

(Incidentally, Bray, taking another cue from Eric Knight, describes Lassie as a tricolor, but the television Lassie is a sable. A tricolor is mostly black.)

 A Little House Christmas Treasury
Click here.

 Lassie: Treasure at Eagle Mountain, Marian Bray
Jimmy is looking forward to a camping trip he'll be taking after school closes with his Dad and Uncle Cully, but when one of his Dad's parishoners is badly injured, Uncle Cully takes Jimmy and Lassie camping on his own. They are faring well, even after having their canoe set adrift by another visitor to the Lake Superior islands they are camping at. But when they see a beautiful eagle and find a lone cabin, once the home of a naturalist, Jimmy, his uncle, and Lassie are plunged into danger.

This is based on the Lassie two-parter "The Treasure," with certain parallels: camping, a character named Cully, an eagle (but not a golden eagle), a naturalist's cabin, and a mysterious message about treasure. In this outing the marauding poacher is more deadly than the television version, and part of the adventure serves to lead Uncle Cully, who's not a Christian any longer, to find his faith. There are some really lovely descriptions of the forest here and the beauty of nature. Jimmy's musing about his uncle's lack of faith may annoy some, but it's a nice solid adventure story, and even Jimmy's little sister, Sarah, after being a non-entity in the first book, does a good turn for him in this one.

 Lassie to the Rescue, Marian Bray
It's almost Christmas, not to mention Jimmy's long-awaited thirteenth birthday, when he and his friend Blake, son of the town vet, come up with a scheme to get all the animals in the overcrowded no-kill shelter adopted by Christmas. Jimmy's idea has been inspired by an elderly toymaker, Gabriel Nicholson, who's helping out with a toy drive. Plus he's coping with playing Joseph in the Christmas pageant and trying to understand his grumpy neighbor Mr. Krebs, who seems to hate animals as much as his granddaughter Megan loves them—and wondering why his parents seem to have forgotten his birthday.

Yes, you've guessed it, based on "Lassie's Gift of Love," although Mr. Nicholson now travels in a classic truck rather than a wagon, and has a horse named Bess instead of a donkey name Holly. (Bess is another borrowing from Lassie Come-Home, the name of Rowlie Palmer's horse.) Mr. Krebs in the book doesn't seem half as grouchy as Matt Krebs in the television version, and the animal adoption scheme could have come straight out of a plot from The New Lassie. It's a pleasant enough Christmas tale, however.

 Miss Potter, Richard Maltby Jr.
This is Maltby's novelization of his script for the sweet film based on the life and art of Beatrix Potter. It's a charming little romantic tale, and Maltby strengthens the text with more details into Potters life, and there is great delight in his description of her delicate drawings and the love of her characters. However, this is by no means a simplified biography of Beatrix Potter; many things were romanticized for the movie. If you loved the film, you will enjoy the book, but if you want a more accurate bio of Potter, read Linda Lear.

 Re-read: The Years With Ross, James Thurber
When first the television series My World and Welcome to It and slightly later the film The War Between Men and Women were released, James Thurber's books enjoyed a resurgence, and The Thurber Carnival, Thurber's Dogs, My World and Welcome to It, My Life and Hard Times, The Thurber Album, and this book were all republished. I devoured them all, and even though I had barely heard of "The New Yorker," quite enjoyed Thurber's memoir of the eccentric original editor of the magazine, a country boy who wanted to present the most sophisticated of city magazines, an earthy man who was nevertheless shy about sexual references and had difficulties talking to most women, a man who did not finish school but who provided expert editing of the articles that made "The New Yorker" a survivor. Ross' personal quirks were well known to anyone who worked on the magazine, and Thurber affectionately chronicles his foibles and his "Rossisms."

For a full story of Harold Ross and his magazine one should go to other sources, but for a memoir of Ross by someone who was there during his tenure, crossed horns with him, but still respected him, Thurber's account is amusing, if not often laugh-aloud funny.

 Coolidge, Amity Shlaes
One doesn't learn much about Calvin Coolidge in history class. He succeeded Harding after he died, he was president during "the Roaring 20s," he believed "the business of American is business," he was a Republican who supported some progressive causes. He was from Vermont, served as Massachusetts governor, and lost one of his teenage sons while in office. But his most famous quality was his reticince; he never used five words if one would do, and his nickname was "Silent Cal."

Shlaes fills in all the missing pieces about John Calvin Coolidge in this stout volume that goes from his ancestors to his death, his schooldays at an academy, his early days practicing law, etc. It's incredibly detailed; as with William Patterson's book about Robert Heinlein, it's like Shlaes was a fly on the wall. He even makes a note at one point that the Coolidge's collie was sick. Still, most of the narrative is enjoyable, although I felt like much of the time Shlaes was trying overly hard to make me like Coolidge, and that although he didn't talk much, he was a much warmer person than he appeared. Shlaes also emphasizes how hard Coolidge tried to cut down on Government spending—and how in many cases he did.

The biggest irony of reading this book was that I was doing so during the investigations into the Department of Veterans Affairs, because  in the 1920s Coolidge was furious about excesses and graft at the Veterans Bureau, as it was called then: tales of employees receiving equivalents of today's six-figure salaries for a month's work, or stealing supplies from the veterans to sell for profit. Things, sadly, never change.

 Hermione Granger Saves the World, Bell
This is a fair collection of nonfiction essays about Hermione and her role in the Harry Potter books as well as her feminism. I think the essays are a little too focused on feminism; while Hermione is symbolic of independent young women, I just wanted to read about the character, not focus solely on her role as a feminist.

I do wish this volume had been proofread a bit more. In one of the early essays, the author refers to The Tales of Beetle and the Bard, which was jarring and made me doubt its veracity.

 The Pierced Heart, Lynn Shepherd
Having sampled Shepherd's The Solitary House and found it a fairly interesting mystery despite not having read the Dickens' novel that was its inspiration (Bleak House) because her use of Dickensian language was so strong, I thought I would give this newest effort a try. I'm sorry to say I found it a less-than-stellar homage to Dracula. Victorian investigator Charles Maddox visits Baron Von Reisenberg in Austria to see if a donation promised to Oxford University by the Baron is legitimate. Instead he finds Von Reisenberg's name strikes terror in those whose homes surround his castle and the homestead itself is a place of horror. He escapes only by being confined to a hospital with a fever. But once back in London, he discovers the Baron has arrived there as well.

Shepherd's description, especially in the first third of the book where Maddox is in Austria, is haunting and atmospheric. You feel the penetrating cold, witness extraordinary and terrifying sights, shudder at the atmosphere of evil which permeates the surroundings. The problem is that the story itself doesn't live up to the descriptive language, and frankly Maddox isn't a very appealing protagonist. I was also bothered by the fact that this is the second novel of Shepherd's that I've read that features terrifyingly brutal things happening to women; some of the narrative is extremely hard to endure. Since I haven't sampled her first novel or the one that preceded The Pierced Heart, I'm not sure if this is a regular feature of her mysteries, but for myself twice is enough. I won't be ordering another one of her books again.

 The Care and Management of Lies, Jacqueline Winspear
Winspear takes a departure from her Maisie Dobbs' mysteries to write this stand-alone novel about the effects of the Great War on a trio of friends. Kezia Marchant has been friends with Thea Brissenden and her brother Tom since she was in school with Thea. The girls have divergent personalities: Kezia is quiet and unassuming while Thea is restless and eager to "do something" with her life. When Kezia settles for marriage with Tom instead and becomes a farm wife, Thea is scornful and continues to support the suffragette movement. When Tom goes off to war, Kezia must bear the burden of running the farm.

This is a low-key story of how World War I changed even the smallest things about life in England, and how quiet people found strengths they didn't know they had. While Thea's eventual war service paints her as bold and self-sacrificing, she has taken up the cause only because of fear, while Kezia's home front efforts not only keep the the Brissenden farm going, but her letters to Tom, detailing the delicious meals she is learning to cook, provide emotional sustenance not only to Tom, but to his battalion mates.

The story rambles somewhat, like a summer day in the country, and those looking for Winspear's precise mysteries may be disappointed. However, as a whole I found it very enjoyable.

 The Virago Book of Ghost Stories, edited by Richard Daley
I picked this up at the "Little Free Library" set up by the Sci-Fi Literature Track manager at DragonCon, figuring it would be perfect reading for Hallowe'en, and certainly it was. As in all short-story collections, there are some more interesting than others (and certainly that varies between people as well). Some classics are included here, like Edith Nesbit's (no, she didn't write only children's stories) "The Violet Car." Other favorites: a husband is haunted by the wife he ignored in "The Token," a ghostly child walks the halls of a sad home in "The Shadowy Third," the sweet "The Waiting Room," the story of a nurse who accepts a frightening assignment ("The Night Nurse"), the story of a man and a bath-chair ("Juggernaut"), and the creepy story of a river journey gone wrong ("Three Miles Up"). Probably my very favorite was about a man who rents a friend's apartment and is beset by "The Haunted Saucepan." And, happily, although there is some bloodshed, none of the stories are horribly gory; just good old-fashioned spooks and scares here.

Always Room for Three More

James had his club meeting today, so one of the things I did was go back to the book sale. We had a deluge while I was inside (at one point the rain was falling diagonally) but it was bright and sunny when I emerged. I ended up buying James three books, one an oversized illustrated book about the Battle of Britain, one about the Polish pilots who flew for the RAF during the Battle of Britain, and the last a collection of magazine articles written by P.J. O'Rourke. Mine were Shenkman's One-Night Stands With American History, a book about gays and lesbians in Hollywood from the silent era through the 1960s called Behind the Screen, and finally Marie Killilea's Karen, which, believe it or not, I had never read. Stories about children who overcame physical handicaps were very popular when I was growing up, and this book is a classic.

Karen, born in 1940, was three months premature and didn't go home until she was nine months old. Her parents soon notice that she doesn't move like other babies. She is diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and at that time there was no support at all for children (or adults for that matter) with cerebral palsy. The first doctor her parents took Karen to basically told the Killileas to put her in an institution and forget her. The next said she was probably mentally deficient. They went through over a dozen doctors before they found one to help Karen. The grueling schedule the family went through to do Karen's physical therapy made me tired just to read. Plus their elder daughter had sinus problems, a bout with rheumatic fever, and then a tuberculosis scare.

I was amused to see how so many modern reviews of this book on Amazon had shocked people exclaiming how often the characters smoked and how bad that was! Even in the Sixties everyone smoked! Doctors recommended cigarettes in advertising. I remember family parties and weddings blue with smoke. I was more appalled by the way so many doctors treated Karen as if she was some sort of vegetable. They couldn't seem to get past the fact she was "crippled" as if her motor problems affected her brain. And this was the state of medicine only 25 years before I was born! (I recall a neighborhood friend whose sister had severe Down syndrome—back then they were called "Mongoloid"—and her family was considered unusual because the girl lived at home and was not in an asylum.) The work Marie Killilea and her family did eventually resulted in the creation of the United Cerebral Palsy organization.

Hunting [Down Books] and Hoofbeats

Heigh-ho, it was off to the Friends of the Library Booksale I go. The rodeo is at Jim Miller Park this weekend, and some of the performers had already arrived and were parked; some horses and longhorn steers were corralled under the amphitheatre roof. I noticed a handsome, mostly white piebald and a very striking grey (a gunmetal color, not a dapple grey), peeking out at the cars parking nearby.

Glory be, they finally got tables to put the children's books on! If only people didn't show up with big carts. One person had a wagon so big they had two big mail sorting bins on it.

Anyway, the tally:
Young Americans Colonial Williamsburg: Will's Story: 1771, Joan Lowery Nixon
James Herriott's Treasury for Children (this is a collection of the gloriously-illustrated picture books that were put out based on the Herriott stories)
Life in an Old New England Country Village, Catherine Fennelly (photos taken at Old Sturbridge Village)
Death by Dickens (mystery story collection)
The World is My Home: A Memoir, James A. Michener
I Am Spock, Leonard Nimoy
Prime Times: Writers on Their Favorite TV Shows (essays on television shows)
A nice hardback copy of Thurber's The Years With Ross
Rotten Reviews & Rejections (a collection of excerpts from rejection letters and reviews of noted writers)

plus some Christmas books:
The Annotated Night Before Christmas, Martin Gardner (the original, parodies, take-offs, and imitations)
The Solstice Evergreen: The History, Folklore, and Origins of the Christmas Tree, Sheryl Ann Karas
The Christmas Book of Legends and Stories, Elva Sophronia Smith and Alice Isabel Hazeltine
The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year, Linda Raedisch (which was on my Amazon wish list--I'm quite chuffed!)

and a couple for James:
The Bomber Boys, Travis Ayres
Tin Cans and Other Ships, Joseph Donohue

As I walked back to the car, a tall, lithe woman in a tank top and leotards, barefoot, led the piebald and the grey out of their corral after bridling them, leaped effortlessly on the piebald, then jumped up, and stood up with one foot on one horse and one on the other! I watched her delightedly as she exercised the horses around the ring, just directing them with the reins.

Books Completed Since September 1

 Who's Who in Children's Books, Margery Fisher
I bought this in the mistaken belief it was a book I had seen in the 1960s, but this intriguing volume is from the 1970s and chiefly oriented toward British children's book protagonists, although numerous popular American characters are including, including the Moffats, the Melendys, Harriet M. Welsch, Meg Murry, the Bobbsey Twins, etc. After reading this book, I can tell you two things: Ms. Fisher despises series books (even British series books) almost as much as she despises Disney adaptations.

As with all of these "who's who" type books, you wonder why certain characters are included and some are not. Of course the Pevensies of the Narnia books are here, as well as the children from the Swallows and Amazons books, and I was very happy to notice the inclusion of Christina Parsons. But where's February Callendar? And so many of the modern books are out of print, but not available as e-books because they aren't old enough. That's the trouble with reading "who's who": it makes you want to read more and you can't.

Fisher's book is full of classic illustrations from the books she discusses, from Ardizzone to Baynes to Beatrix Potter and Ernest Shepard and Howard Pyle. If you love children's books, this will be a fine addition to your collection.

 War Dogs, Rebecca Frankel
Frankel offers an absorbing, if a bit scattershot, story of MWD, otherwise "military working dogs," and their relationship with their handlers, their heightened senses that pick up clues that would be otherwise missed, and their devotion to their duty. She tries to define what a war dog is: a tool? a weapon? a partner? What they are are certainly not pets, but the dogs' bonds with their handlers, and vice versa, are not impersonal and the death of either partner is usually devastating to the other. To get inside the dogs' training, Frankel goes on training missions with the K-9 troops: trailing, scent discrimination, practice war scenarios. She also briefly addresses the history of the war dog, from the Egyptian era through Vietnam. The majority of the narrative, however, follows the partnership of American handlers and their dogs who are stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

While I enjoyed the individual stories of the dogs and their handlers, and Frankel's observations during the training mission, it wasn't a page turner, either. I found I could put it down and not be eager to pick it back up. However, reading about the dogs' distress when they were separated from their human partners, I was angered all over again of the fate of the military dogs that were just left behind as "equipment" in Vietnam; they were most probably euthanized after faithfully serving our soldiers. Thankfully, the military has changed their thinking about this practice, but the memory still stings.

 Broadchurch, Erin Kelly
A guy named Harry Brown spoiled me forever for novelizations. And I don't even know if Harry Brown was his real name (or even if Harry was actually a "he").

Over the years I've read novelizations of many television show episodes/movies. They ranged from the totally workmanlike Target Doctor Who novelizations--if you'd missed the episode, you had a true recap of it, even if it was just the basic "just the facts, ma'am"--to Robert Weverka's work on The Waltons (where he managed to blend two episodes seamlessly) and The Magic of Lassie (actually improved by filling in missing scenes, like explaining how Lassie escapes from a home in Colorado Springs, falls off a cliff, and ends up in Zion National Park). Most are just what their name says they are: a plain vanilla novel version of the script, but Harry Brown, the author who novelized the already exceptional Edward Asner/Maureen Stapleton film The Gathering, went one better: he turned the story into a real novel by adding details to the story that perfectly fit the characters as presented on screen, gave supporting characters a complete fleshing out, describing both locations and inner thoughts with care. Harry Brown is a high hurdle to meet.

Unfortunately Broadchurch doesn't meet the Harry Brown test. I was totally absorbed by the miniseries and, having missed at least one part, was happy to have to have the novel to fill in the gap. Since the Broadchurch plot was so complex, I had hoped the text would add some additional insights, bring me back to the seaside town and its people, let me smell the salt air and feel the suspicions and insecurities of the characters involved. I'd say that a couple of times it came close (revealing Beth's internal turmoil, for example, or Hardy's love for his child), but for most of the book the characters didn't come alive as they did on the screen. The novel, in fact, seems to make both protagonists, Hardy and Miller, a little less likeable than they were in the episodes.

The absolute deal-breaker for me in this book was the use of present tense. I understood why the author used it--immediacy, as if you were also in the town of Broadchurch, a voyeur to all the happenings around town. I don't like the use of present tense, and I can't recall any book I've ever bought, let alone liked, that used this technique. To me it distanced the story, made me only the observer, which is never good in a story that is supposed to inspire strong emotions. But this is my own personal quirk; YMMV.

 City of Jasmine, Deanna Raybourn
If someone asked me for a one-word review only: Fluff. It's not only chick-lit, it's a beach book. When I originally read the synopsis, I thought it would be a more serious book; it's not...it's a romance novel dressed up as a historical, with the headstrong gorgeous female lead and the impossibly handsome male lead. (The Raybourn Julia Grey mysteries feature a similarly impossibly handsome male lead, but since it's a mystery story there are other elements that keep the character from overwhelming the story.)

Well, let's say you're in the mood for fluff. Okay. Take a bit of Raiders of the Lost Ark and a bit of High Road to China and a bit of The Thin Man. Stir in one madcap aunt ala Mame, one character reminiscent of another in Disney's film of The Moon-Spinners, several noble Bedouin characters, an archeological dig, a treasure, a Peter Pan subthread, and mix--here's this book. Our protagonists, Evie and Gabriel, argue endlessly. The gay man and the Bedouin chief dispense profound advice. In short, it's a book like a 1930s B-movie adventure flick, without the insensitive racial annoyances. Set mind to neutral and just coast.

Pluses (and there are a few): Aunt Dove and her parrot Arthur (although I'm curious to know how the poor bird stays on his perch when Evie does trick maneuvers in her trusty biplane "The Jolly Roger") and the descriptions of the food--when our heroes are not being kidnapped, trudging cross the desert, being shot at or arguing, they're eating what sounds like the most delicious food. It may make you hungry. Alas, it breaks no new ground, only rewalks the old. Still, for a lazy day on the beach, that may be enough.

 Night of a Thousand Stars, Deanna Raybourn
So no sooner do I give a lukewarm review to a Raybourn romance than another one is offered to me. This book takes place concurrently to City of Jasmine, and Gabriel Stark makes a short appearance in the story, but it begins in England where young Penelope "Poppy" Hammond is about to escape from her wedding. She was supposed to marry the wealthy and nice, but rather boring, scion of a noble family, but Poppy's never done what she's been expected to do, to the exasperation of her mother, and now she doesn't want to be trapped in a routine relationship. Surprisingly, a young minister named Sebastian Caltrip helps her escape, then vanishes. Worried about his fate (and somewhat attracted to him), Poppy follows him, having lucked out on a secretary's job going in the right direction. Next thing she knows, she's in Damascus and in deep trouble.

I enjoyed this outing better than the last since our heroine isn't everlastingly arguing, plus we discover something about Poppy's family that I found very enjoyable. The machinations around Poppy owe a lot to those wonderful old kids' adventure stories where clever teenagers ended up participating in adult adventures and outsmarting their more-experienced elders, but since I enjoy reading those (found like berries in late summer on munseys.com and Gutenberg), this was no hardship for me. I particularly loved finding out about Poppy's relations and meeting her father. I wouldn't mind seeing another story featuring Poppy and Sebastian.

 Autumn Across America, Edwin Way Teale
This is one of four books in which naturalist Teale and his wife Nellie travel across the United States during one of the seasons and observe wildlife and ecosystems. While most fall volumes concentrate on leaf coloration and homely pursuits that include pumpkins, winter vegetables, and animals preparing for hibernation, the Teales' track starts in New England and then takes a meandering way westward through Michigan, the upper Plains states, dip down to the Great Salt Lake, go north to Oregon and end up in Northern California, both at the shore and inland, all done in the days before the interstate. They discover unique bird species, find the places where the butterflies stop over on their migrations, tour the redwood forests, view the autumn sky from a homemade sky-watching station, investigate the roamer of the plains (the tumbleweed), see migrating salmon, discover pikas and fern farmers, and even tell the story of a man's arduous multi-month search for his beloved dog lost in the wilderness. These books are a must for anyone who enjoys reading about wildlife and natural habitats, and there are great views of road travel before the superhighways. Like a virtual nature hike. Enjoy!

 Silent Knife, Shelly Freydont
see review here

 The Secret Journal of Ichabod Crane, Alex Irvine
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a tie-in book with the television series Sleepy Hollow, but Irvine takes the idea and runs with it. Crane's journal basically charts the same course as the first season of the series, told from Ichabod's point of view, so it's a pell-mell collection of scraps from Sheriff Corbin's research, recounts of his initial adventures with Abbie, plus bits of things like codes, Ichabod's past, his love for Katrina, etc. Where it shines are the bits where Ichabod states his views, whether it's about the founding fathers (John Adams wrote dirty limericks, Jefferson liked puns, and we won't even repeat his opinions about Benjamin Franklin) or about his reaction to today's living, so there are many snide and humorous reactions to cell phones, television, modern clothing, etc. I doubt if there's any interest here for non-series fans unless they're trying to get into the show, but for series fans it's a hoot.

 Doctor Who: Silhouette, Justin Richards
The Doctor negates Clara's wish to see King Arthur and instead takes them to 19th century London where a unique power spike impossible in Victorian times has just occurred. Despite the Doctor not wanting to bother the Paternoster Gang, they meet Jenny Flint almost immediately; she is searching for a man who was about to seek Madame Vastra's help and then died by mysterious means. Strax is also on a search, for whomever killed his sparring partner, a pugilist named Bellamy. Very soon, the five of them realize the mystery revolves around the Carnival of Curiosities performing at the Frost Fair, and particularly with a shadow play performer named Silhouette.

I'll assume Richards was given copies of the early 12th Doctor scripts and perhaps an outline of where the character was going; he hasn't quite captured the eccentricities of Capaldi's Doctor, but it's getting there. The villain of the piece is pretty typical of what's been on the series before (going back to the classic series as well), but the suspense is well done and Clara's newfound spunk is in full bloom. The story has a "Weng-Chiang/Fang Rock" atmosphere about it that will please fans of the old series, and I found I enjoyed this more than I expected, and more than I have of books based on the previous incarnations in the new series. Strax in particular has some very funny lines. I'd like to see this as an episode of the series!

Books Completed Since August 1

 Here's Looking at Euclid, Alex Bellos
Yep, it's a book about math. Yep, me reading a book about math. Bizarre. Not only did I read it, I enjoyed most of it, although my old bete noire algebra struck again—even with Bellos' amusing and simple explanations, I still didn't understand the algebra, and the statistics chapter was just as bad. Yet I was enthralled by the chapter about plane and solid geometry and Pythagorean proofs. I was so delighted by one of the latter that I had to poke James in the midst of his own reading and show him the drawing. There are chapters, predictably, on pi, the Golden Ratio, magic squares and other math puzzles, gambling odds, and bell curves. Other chapters discuss different societies' ways of numeration, math tricks including Vedic mathematics, number sequences, data collection, and infinite numbers, and we learn about people who play with these numbers, some just for fun, others for a living.

I hate math, but I loved this book. I can hardly wait for to read the sequel. Now there's an improbability, even if not mathematical!

 Murder at the Breakers, Alyssa Maxwell
A mystery set in Newport, Rhode Island, was irresistible to me. Our heroine Emma Cross is a second cousin to the Vanderbilts, alas, with none of the money. She makes ends meet by writing dull society columns for the local newspaper; her editor thinks this type of reporting is the only kind fit for a woman to do, even though Emma would like more of a challenge. But while reporting about a party at the Vanderbilt "summer cottage" the Breakers, Emma is a witness to the murder of Cornelius Vanderbilt's financial secretary, and, even worse, her black sheep brother is blamed for the death. Emma knows feckless Brady can't be the murderer, but who is? Could it even be one of her cousins?

I'll probably end up buying the next book in the series just because of the setting, but I really didn't believe in Emma as a 19th century heroine. Certainly there were forward-thinking women in those days, but she sounds more like a 20th century woman playing Victorian heroine. I was also disappointed with a main subplot; why make our heroine a self-sufficient working girl and then immediately introduce a love interest? But it takes place in Newport and I...simply...can't...resist...

 The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla, Lauren Willig
Miss Gwen's (see Passion of the Purple Plumaria) bestselling new book, a Gothic thriller called The Convent of Orsino, has Society all a-twitter about vampire stories. Sally Fitzhugh, younger sister of "Turnip," is intrigued when she hears the rumor that the Duke of Belliston is a vampire and takes a dare to check out his garden, where she comes face-to-face with a less-than-vampiric duke who nevertheless has returned to England under a cloud of suspicion, as it has been long since believed he murdered his own parents. At a party, Sally is with him when he discovers a woman's body with marks on her neck as if she's been attacked by a vampire.

This is a lighter entry, and, alas, the next to the last entry, in Willig's Pink Carnation series. As Mischief of the Mistletoe was a Christmas entry, this is a Hallowe'en one, and has some funny bits between Sally and her "vampire beau" Lucien (not to mention the presence of Sally's pet, a stoat), but it's a lightweight effort before we get to the conclusion involving the Carnation herself, Miss Jane Wooliston, who has gone off on her own, and the black sheep of the Reid family, Jack. Meanwhile, on the Colin/Eloise front, some big surprises are in store. Enjoyable, but not the cream of the crop.

 The Twelve Clues of Christmas, Rhys Bowen
Lady Georgiana Rannoch, 35th in line to the British throne and pretty much impoverished, faces a bleak Christmas at the family castle with her affable brother "Binky," her martinet sister-in-law "Fig," and Fig's equally martinet mother, who just wish Georgie to be married off and out of their hair. So Georgie hires herself out to a wellborn woman who's throwing a Christmas house party, only to find out the guests are tourists looking for a "traditional English Christmas," and when she arrives there are police everywhere because the family's neighbor has been shot.

This was an enjoyable edition of the "royal spyness" series, even though the methodology of the criminal is obvious to anyone who's listened to years of Christmas music (except, apparently, everyone involved in the mystery—so much for "old English customs"!), and all the Americans are boorish. The combination of country house mystery and Christmas is irresistible, and Georgie is one of my favorite cozy characters. Georgie's self-absorbed mother reappears, working on a play with Noel Coward, and her down-to-earth Cockney grandfather also becomes involved in the mystery.

 Monk: Mr. Monk Gets Even, Lee Goldberg
In this last of the Monk television adaptations by Goldberg, Adrian Monk's life seems to be going fine. While his former assistant Natalie Teeger is still in New Jersey, trying to decide if life as a police officer is for her, her daughter Julie is helping Monk with his cases, and Monk's agoraphobic brother Ambrose is marrying his ladylove Yuki. Monk even has a girlfriend now, but that's the problem. When some of his theories don't pan out, he feels like his happiness may be losing him his edge in solving crimes. And to add tension to the already tense detective, his mortal enemy "Dale the Whale" is being transferred from prison to hospital for surgery. When Dale escapes, it's Monk's good friend Captain Stottlemeyer who gets the blame.

Goldberg neatly ties up all his own plot threads before leaving the books to be taken over by Hy Conrad, including the return (no spoiler—you knew it had to happen) of Natalie. I'd figured out some aspects of Dale's part of the crime about halfway through the book, but it was great to see Natalie now as a partner, and for Ambrose's happiness to be complete. No goofy jokes in this one, just a satisfying conclusion.

 The Visitors, Sally Beauman
Perhaps it's because I read so many mystery books or fantasy or nonfiction where events usually have a conclusion. In a mystery one finds out who committed the crime, in a fantasy the quest is resolved (whether for a ring or a magic land), and nonfiction usually comes to some conclusion, or at least summary, about a factual event.

The Visitors achieved one goal flawlessly: I did keep turning the pages to see "what happened." If there is a superlative to this book, it is that I could feel like I was there in Egypt in the 1920s, faint with the hot wind on my face and shivering in a cold drenching of a sudden storm and choking on the dust and arid air of a newly-opened tomb, seeing the arid valleys and the sweating workmen and the perpetual tourists looking for thrills, the souks and the marketplaces, and the opulent hotels where "the better half" lived. The author's conceptions of the historical figures like Howard Carter and Lord Carnavon made them, to use an overworked term, "real living breathing people," with weaknesses, egos, and sorrows rather than flat names in the pages of a history text. I also enjoyed her fictional characters, from young Lucy who is coming to terms with the death of her only emotional tie, her mother, and longing for attention from her distant father, to her friend Frances, the precocious daughter of an American archaelogist who is knowing beyond her years, but still childlike in her emotional responses. I did want to know what happened once Lucy's trip was over and she returned to a mercurial tutor who not only suffered from monthly hormonal mood swings, but had other secrets in her life, and a father who has seemingly turned his back on her.

But in the end I was left asking: is that all there is? Lucy has adventures in Egypt, she learns some secrets about the historical figures portrayed in the story, she grows up, has the usual adult relationships, endures some tragedy like all of us do, and then has her Egyptian memories all brought back to her by a documentary filmmaker doing a miniseries on the discovery of King Tutankhamun. It just seemed a letdown after the beautiful descriptive passages of foreign life in the 1920s. Still, I'm glad to have read a book that made post WWI-Egypt so vivid.

 Boston and the Dawn of American Independence, Brian Deming
Yeah, a book about colonial Boston and its role in the Revolutionary War. How could I resist? The narrative opens in 1760, with an account of the Great Fire, and ends with the reading of the Declaration of Independence. In between there are Stamp Acts, acts of rebellion, and "the shot heard 'round the world."

My favorite part of this book are the descriptions of everyday Boston—the sights and sounds and smells of the streets, tar, ocean breeze, livestock, the hammers and squeaks of pulleys and shouting from the waterfront—and the people who lived there, from the poor apprentices at the wharfs to the solid working people to the opulent rich like John Hancock. Populated by the characters of the Revolution you know (Samuel Adams, John Adams, Paul Revere, Israel Putnam, Joseph Warren) and ones you probably don't (Samuel Prescott, William Dawes, Josiah Quincy, Robert Newman, Mercy Otis), it's a vivid narrative of the passions of the opening salvo of the Revolutionary War. A super epilogue follows up on the fates of all the people, and some of the places, mentioned, including the Tories forced out of the city after the British evacuation.

 The Dark Enquiry, Deanna Raybourn
Lady Julia Grey and her husband, investigator Nicholas Brisbane, are once again home in London, with Julia trying to persuade him to make her a more active partner in his cases. She is stunned to find him working for her impeccable eldest brother Bellmont, the stolid "white sheep" of the erratic March clan. When she discovers a connection to the celebrated spiritualist Madame Seraphine, Julia's foray in investigating on her own only leaves her trapped in Madame's home—only to find her husband hiding there as well.

The story starts out a bit predictably with Julia's experiments and the expected bantering with Brisbane, whose reluctance for her to participate in investigations still persists despite promises made to her in the previous novel. This is growing a bit tiresome, but at the end of the novel it appears it may have been resolved. My favorite part was the sequence with the gypsy camp, and the mystery was excellent. Several old favorites appear, including Julia's headstrong father, her sister Portia still doting over her former lover's child, and her younger brother Plum, whose growing attraction to a young woman brings out another aspect of the mystery. Sometimes Julia, and Brisbane, the  stalwart moody Victorian hero, are both over the top, but they're fun to read. Remember this is a cozy mystery with romantic interruptions and it should work fine for you.

Books Completed Since July 1

 A Year in the Maine Woods, Bernd Heinrich
Accompanied by a young raven named Jack, naturalist Bernnd Heinrich heads for an isolated cabin in the Maine mountains, intending to stay there for a year studying not only the raven he's brought with him, but wild ravens and the other songbirds of the forest, as well as the wildlife and botanical life surrounding him. Every day is a new challenge as he roughs it with no electricity and no running water. Occasionally he takes a break by running into town and has visits from his son, but chiefly he studies the world around him.

This is a moderately interesting book about Heinrich's year in the woods; of the most interest are his notes about the habits of birds and animals, and the trees and plants around him. Many of his sketches are included in the book. Since the book begins with the transport of the raven, you might think the majority of the story would revolve around his study of it, but Jack achieves his freedom early in the book and is not seen again, although Heinrich does look for him now and again. The realities of living through all seasons in pioneer conditions are brought home in every chapter: endless insect annoyances through most of the year, including clouds of small flies in the cabin, the deep cold and the work it takes for Heinrich to keep warm, breaking ice, keeping food away from raiders. Heinrich, who has lived off the land before, seemingly endures it effortlessly.

I should have enjoyed this book better, but I confess I didn't enjoy it as much as, say, We Took to the Woods or The Hardscrabble Chronicles.

 Broadway Tails, Bill Berloni
Bill Berloni wasn't a professional animal handler; in fact he knew nothing about training dogs. But when the musical Annie came to the stage it was Berloni who was tasked with finding a dog to play Annie's mutt Sandy, as well as to train him. And so he did. This is Berloni's tale of finding the original dog, plus a substitute if the star was unwell, and learning how to train animals for the stage. He not only trained Sandy's successors, but trained a long list of other stage dogs, cats, and other animals, using his wits, love and kindness.

This is an enjoyable tale of a man and the love for his animals, and the mark that he left on rescue organizations (the dogs and cats he trained were chiefly rescue animals, and showed that even a "mutt from the pound" could succeed in show business).

The only thing that bothered me about this book was a two-paragraph story about how Benji and his (actually her, because the second Benji was female) trainer Frank Inn visited the set of Annie. Berloni comments that the dog seemed robotic and only alive when she was doing routines. I thought that was kind of odd because Frank Inn had a great reputation in Hollywood and he was known to favor the dogs who played Benji (the original "Higgins" and then his daughter). Maybe "Benjean" just adored her trainer and kept her eyes on him at all times. Some dogs are like that.

 Essays of E.B. White, E.B. White
While I love Charlotte's Web, I had never read any other White, but remained constantly reminded of him reading anything by James Thurber, whose pieces about the "New Yorker" always included an admiring note of how effortlessly his co-worker, known to his friends as "Andy' because he had gone to Cornell University, where every undergraduate surnamed "White" shared  his nickname with Cornell's first president. When this book presented itself on a shelf of essays, it was after paging through only a few of the contained works that I decided to buy it.

I ended up reading this one slowly, in order to savor each essay and not let the volume end too quickly. Whether writing about livestock on his farm, camping in the woods, life in the big city, or the political situation (the essays cover the 40s through the 60s), like a well-bred horse, White never "put a foot wrong." Thurber was right; his prose is effortless and always so right. I was rueful only once, and it was while White was summing up the fears of the era he was writing about, because things had not changed much in the intervening years, and you had only to substitute a name or a date or an explosive national event to make the essay feel current, a sad commentary on a future supposed to be improved.

When I finished it was with a sigh...and then immediately went out and bought a second book of White's essays, which I expect to enjoy as much as the first.

 Queen Victoria's Book of Spells, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
I quite enjoyed this anthology of "gaslamp fantasy" comprised of eighteen Victorian-era stories involving magic, fantasy, horror, and a smidgen of steampunk (but this is not a steampunk collection per se). The titular short story has a researcher discovering that Queen Victoria was tutored in magic and used a spell in an unspeakable manner. I was particularly fond of the two stories about governesses, the first, entitled simply "The Governess," about a young woman who goes to work in a household where the staff, and the lady of the house, are terrorized by the autocratic master, and another, "The Memory Book," where a governess' sinister use of magic gets her an "in" at a wealthly household.

Another striking tale is about the household of artist Edward Burne-Jones and a work called "the Briar Rose." New technology rears its head in several other tales: while the actual story wasn't my cup of tea, I found the author's use of description in "Charged," the story of a young man with a fascination for electricity, imaginative and dark; I enjoyed more another story about electricity vs. gas, "Smithfield," which featured Arthur Conan Doyle, and a creepy tale of the terrible fate of the workers who got "phossy jaw" as chronicled in "Phosporous." Other stories feature "Old Nick," fairies, yet another incarnation of Queen Victoria, and even "old Scrooge" and the characters from Great Expectations. All in all a great collection of fantasy.

 1941, William K. Klingaman
I found this one by accident, in a book cart at Barnes & Noble stuffed with fluffy novels and genre fiction. It is written on the lines of Craig Shirley's December 1941, but with much better accuracy, and more attention to the buildup of hostilities, especially in Japan. As in December 1941, Klingaman mixes a bit of pop culture in with his history, but it's not nearly as intrusive and out-of-place. He travels to the Pacific to trace the military expansion of the Japanese and the worried stirrings in the Philippines and in Australia while China still reels from the atrocities in Nanking, and to the Atlantic and Europe to trace submarine warfare, the relentless advance of the German troops and the growing menace to those of Jewish heritage. We meet Hitler's cortege, Winston Churchill's war group, the embattled French, the courageous resistance already operating against the enemy. 1941 fashion and football, bathing beauties and baseball, and Hollywood stars also find their place as the months fall away and fateful December approaches. Now I want to read Klingaman's 1919!

 The Book of Life, Deborah Harkness
The saga of Diana Bishop, once reluctant witch, and Matthew Clermont, a vampire whose "life" spans centuries, begun in A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night comes to a conclusion as Diana, Matthew, their family and their friends face a new enemy just as they are growing closer to securing the enchanted book that Diana once summoned from the Bodelian library at Oxford University. An old friend is lost, other old friends return, and the family makes new allies, but it is obvious that Diana is being stalked even as she comes into her full powers. Revenge is the motive and it is Matthew that will have to pay for it if Diana is not turned over to the stalker. The chase takes them back to the Bishop family homestead, England, and France, and to a secret meeting place in Venice.

I buried my nose in this book when it arrived and didn't come up for air until it was finished, but yet have to admit that I did not find it the strongest entry in the trilogy. The violence and the description of it that happens in the last half of the book is very strong and that may have contributed to this feeling; yet the violence that occurs is not gratuitous to the plot. Several other surprises are revealed, and, as always, Harkness goes into the minute detail of the previous books (furnishings, food, architecture), which I enjoyed, but which I know some readers did not. Still, a satisfactory conclusion to the story.

 Fall of a Philanderer, Carola Dunn
Daisy Dalrymple, her stepdaughter, and her best friend are at the seashore, with Daisy awaiting the arrival of her police detective husband so the entire family can have a well-deserved vacation. Alas, this is a Daisy Dalrymple-Fletcher murder mystery and it's that proverbial calm before the storm. On the beach Daisy and the girls meet a mentally-challenged man named Sid who takes a shine to them, as well as bad-tempered George Enderby, who, Daisy discovers, has had an affair with a local woman whose husband was away in the Navy. Enderby's not well-liked in the little seaside town, so when he turns up dead on the beach, there is no shortage of suspects.

Daisy seems to spend a lot of time debating in this book whether she should or should not do something due to her pregnancy, and after a while it gets a bit wearying; otherwise the mystery is good, with a lot of red herrings thrown in the mix, including a man who arrived in town right before the murder and a certain vehicle that was seen the day of the murder. Daisy, of course, picks up on clues no one else does, and you wonder how the local constabulary manages their day-to-day efforts if they're as offhand as they appear in the book. The presence of Belinda's friend Deva prompts some predictable commentary on bigotry as well. Not my favorite Daisy, but worth the read.

 Footprints in the Dust, edited by Colin Burgess
This volume of "A People's History of Spaceflight" covers, predictably based on the title, of the Apollo space missions. Editor Burgess says that they took a page out of Tom Hanks' breathtaking HBO project, From the Earth to the Moon, and organized the volume in individual essays rather than a direct narrative. This gives you differing views of the program, but also makes the book lack a certain cohesiveness. There are chapters for each mission after Apollo 11, presumably because the first moon landing has been covered in so much literature, and the previous missions did not go to the moon, but the lack of Apollo 8 coverage was puzzling. However, it may be because a book has also been devoted to that flight? As in the previous volumes, Soviet spaceflight chapters are included; I found these intensely interesting because I had not read all that much about Soviet missions. In addition, the Skylab and Apollo/Soyuz missions are covered, and the book concludes with a "what happened to" the astronauts who walked on the moon. This is a great series of books and all are heartily recommended to fans of the space program.

 Death in the Floating City, Tasha Alexander
Lady Emily and her husband, agent for the crown Colin Hargreaves, are in Venice at the desperate request of Emily's old schoolmate, a woman she admits to never having liked much, to find the woman's missing Italian husband, after finding his father dead in the family villa. Emma Callum's disposition hasn't improved much, but Emily agrees to help her nevertheless; however, solving the mystery will take more than tracking down the man.

Alexander's writing makes Venice sound so yummy that you want to go visit (despite the modern truths of pollution and sinking foundations). However, a good deal of the story is involved with a forbidden "Romeo and Juliet" type love story that happened many centuries earlier, and there the novel bogs down. The machinations against the two lovers grow to a depressing degree (especially the young woman involved in an arranged marriage to an abusive friend of her family), until you're ready just for Emily to solve the mystery so you can get away from this miserable twosome, and the older tale itself it told in a stilted style, evidently to distinguish it from the main narrative and give it a historical feel, but it also makes it more difficult to slog through. Plus Emma's such a pill that you also wonder why Emily puts up with her. I hope Emily and Colin give up their travels and go home!

 Catholicism, Robert Barron
I had this for Lenten reading, but got to it a bit late. This is a well-written, basic narrative of the beliefs of Catholicism, apparently taken from the research Father Barron did for the television series Catholicism, illustrated with black and white and a few color plates of Biblical locations, churches, and classic artwork. He begins with the birth and life of Jesus, follows the paths of the Apostles, then discusses the Liturgy of the Mass, profiles several saints, and ends with the destinations of the afterlife. Anyone who is interested in the faith, or wishes correction of misconceptions of Catholicism, would be well served by reading this volume.

 Chicks Unravel Time, edited by Deborah Stanish and LM Myles
The folks at Mad Norwegian have done it again in this sequel to Chicks Dig Time Lords. In this entry, thirty-five women each tackle a season of Doctor Who, writing about diverse topics such as objection to the character of Peri, David Tennant's charisma, defense of Colin Baker's Doctor, appreciations of Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker, contrasts of the Doctor and the Master, and a chat about the unappreciated Liz Shaw. Diana Gabeldon talks about how companion Jamie MacCrimmon inspired her own Jamie in the "Outlander" series. Joan Turner examines how Barbara Wright tried to "right" history and save civilizations. Aliette de Bodard discusses racism in Season 14, especially in "Talons of Weng-Chiang." Laura McCullough reacts with pleasure to the science that crept into Season 18. Kelly Hale defends the television movie for giving us Paul McGann, who carried on in his own audio season.

Whether you're a new series fan or an old series fan, you will find something here to please you: discussions of feminism, character, companions. If you've only seen the new series, the essays about the classic episodes may lead you to new experiences as you look up those videos as well.

[Did get a chuckle out of the reference to the cut of David Tennant's "gib." I think they meant "jib." Evidently either the author or the proofreader isn't familiar with sailing.]

 Gunpowder Plot, Carola Dunn
Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, now late in her pregnancy, is visiting Edge Manor, the home of an old schoolmate, to do a story for her magazine. Sir Harold Tyndall, a martinet and bully (even with his children), nevertheless throws a traditional Guy Fawkes Day fete that is famous in the area, and Daisy is certain coverage of the event will please readers. But while the revelers are watching the fete's celebrated fireworks, Sir Harold apparently shoots a visiting Australian woman and then himself. Once again a reluctant guest at a murder site, Daisy tries to help her husband, DI Alec Fletcher, as much as possible while coping with a baby bump, the bratty behavior of the two Tyndall nephews, the family quarrels between the Tyndall children, and the continuing mystery of the Australian couple.

Once again Dunn finds a plausible way for Daisy to be involved in a murder mystery, and this one is reasonably complicated, takes place at a traditional country house during a very British holiday, and lets us know that spoiled children aren't a modern phenomenon. One of the better books of the series, with a large cast of interesting characters along with favorites Tom Tring and Ernie Piper helping Alec track down the killer.

Books Completed Since June 1

 The American Seasons: Wandering Through Winter, Edwin Way Teale
This is the fourth and final book in Teale's seasonal odyssey across the United States with his wife Nellie; the four books were written between 1947 and 1966, and this final book won a Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. Teale, a naturalist, originally wrote for Popular Science, but then became a free-lancer, and authored over a dozen books about the subject.

You would think that this book would address the snowy and cold areas of the country, but the Teales begin their trip in San Diego and work their way east, only encountering true winter weather when they get to the edge of the midwest. They see whales, observe the plants of the desert surviving brutal drought, observe birds over the entire trip, their favorite being the cheeky chickadee, have adventures along the Mexican border, then head into snow and ice storms as they drive toward the northeast, where they hunt for diamonds, discover a colony of white squirrels, explore Big Bone Lick and its cache of prehistoric bones, visit a sugarbush and a deer yard, and join a man who collects witch hazel. Along the way, they visit fellow naturalists, avid birdwatchers, and the home of "Snowflake" Bentley, who took the first microscopic photos of snowflakes.

This is a wonderful book for anyone who loves exploring the natural world, whether in person or vicariously through books. I'm hoping to turn up his other three books to visit the seasonal US in an era before superhighways.

 Just My Typo, Drummond Moir
I confess. I also collect books on typographical errors. I love bloopers. I can't even read the "Damn You, Autocorrect!" web page because by the time I've gotten through five of them I'm reduced to helpless laughter.

However, this is why this book doesn't really stand out for me. While there are typos here from older books and other publications I have not read before, about half of them I've already read elsewhere in other books like Richard Lederer's volumes on English, and even online. If you haven't read other books about typographical errors, this will have you on the floor, but for folks who have read them continually over the years, you may figure it's just more of the same.

 The Victorian City, Judith Flanders
Aside from the fact that the title is a bit of a misnomer, as the book does not cover the entire Victorian era, but just the Dickensian portion, ending with Dickens' death in 1870, this is a book you fall into and don't come up for air again until you've reached the index at the other end. Flanders' prose brings you right there, into the dirty streets swept by street crossing boys earning pennies a day, food vendors who supply London workers with their food, street vendors who must busk for a living. With Flanders we visit havens for prostitutes and thieves, pubs and eateries, churches and slums; learn about the Victorian way of commuting, traveling (including on the iconic Dickensian stagecoach), surviving, spending increasing leisure hours, and even dying. Quotations and excerpts from Dickens' novels liberally pepper the text. If you are a Victorian-era junkie like me, or a Dickens fan, this is the book for you!

Oh, don't forget to read the footnotes; there are more things there!

 Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue With His Century, Volume 2: The Man Who Learned Better, William H. Patterson Jr
Alas, Patterson passed away just weeks before this second part of his biography of Heinlein was published.

Like the first volume, Patterson has filled the book with so many miniscule details of Robert Heinlein's later life (after his marriage to Virginia Gerstenfeld) that you wonder if he was a fly in the corner during the entire period of time. We follow the development of the Future History stories, go to Hollywood for the filming of Destination Moon (whose fate was tied up with another movie about a squirrel), build a home in Colorado and cope with fallout from Heinlein's ex-wife Leslyn, travel along with the Heinleins to Russia, Australia, and even Antarctica, observe the long development of Stranger in a Strange Land, understand Heinlein's support for blood drives after a transfusion saves his life, and finally follow his long slow slide into ill health as he aged. Patterson's approach seemed warmer in this volume and I didn't feel as if I was being held at arm's length as I was in the first half. Heinlein fans will definitely enjoy this concluding volume. God bless, Mr. Patterson.

(As with The Victorian City, above, don't forget to read the footnotes in this book. There is a lot more information included!)

 Cold Days, Jim Butcher
He's dead. No, he's alive, because Queen Mab isn't going to let her Winter Knight get away. So Harry Dresden has accepted a devil's bargain, because he knows he has to protect his Chicago home town from the evil that is emerging.

Butcher starts out with a bang. Harry awakes, alive, only to have Mab try more and more inventive ways to kill him—seventy seven different scenarios, all told. And that's just in chapter one! He acquires a malk (kind of a supernatural cat) that he names Cat Sith to help him, as well as a young woman who seems to be being put through the same paces as Harry. Then Mab's insane daughter Maeve (think Bellatrix Lestrange, only more insane) makes an appearance just about the time Harry makes an enemy of a bloodthirsty Redcap.

After that, it gets crazy.

This newest (in paperback, anyway) Dresden adventure brings back all the old favorites: Karrin Murphy, Waldo Butters, Harry's half-brother Thomas, Harry's temple dog Mouse, his apprentice Molly, Mac the bartender, and even little Toot-Toot, Harry's fairy ally, and his troops (whom Harry keeps happy with pizza). Occasionally Harry gets to take a breather, and you do, too, only to have another situation crop up to leave you breathless. Once you start turning pages, it's hard to stop. Plus there's some great Karrin action, and a heartbreaker of an ending. Yeah, I'm still hooked.

 Foul Play at the Fair, Shelley Freydont
Liv Montgomery, fresh from a nightmarish career as an event arranger in New York City, has moved to the smaller upstate New York town of Celebration Bay to continue her career in a calmer venue. At least she thought it would be calmer, until during last-minute preparation for the town's annual fall festival, a man is found dead in an apple press.

Some cozies are artificially set and cast, while in others the characters and settings come to life. I could believe in the little community of Celebration Bay, which has created a new persona for itself by living up to its name and hosting festivals that draw people from all over the country. Liv and her neighbors, even the annoying former event arranger Janine, who has a grudge against Liv, are suitably "real" enough, although minor characters are quite sketchy. The mystery is suitably complicated, although close to the end I figured out most of the puzzle. Yes, there are cozy mystery conventions: our heroine gets herself into a perilous situation while investigating the crime, and, as seems to be common with mysteries with a female lead these days, there's an exasperating male romantic interest. And I did get tired of the descriptions of Liv's dog Whiskey as a "Westie terrier." C'mon, after three or four times we know he's a terrier; just call him a Westie. Or vary it with "West Highland White terrier." However, I liked the story and the regular characters enough to buy the sequels.

 The Victorians, A.N. Wilson
It's taken me two years to read this book; I started it, then went on to other things after getting one-third of the way through and didn't get back to it until this spring, when I had to quickly re-read the first third to re-acquaint myself with what had gone before. Is this procrastination due to this being a bad book? No, but like The War That Ended Peace, it's a dense book with a great deal packed within each chapter, which chronicles the Victorian era from Princess Victoria's ascendancy through the death of the Queen.

However, instead of being a simple linear history of the Victorian era, each chapter focuses on a different subject that is pertinent to the timeline, so that while the history starts routinely enough with chapters about Britain before Victoria and the background of her family, subsequent chapters address not just historical events (the Crimea, the Irish troubles and the famine, the Boer War) and personages (Lord Palmerston, Gladstone, "Chinese" Gordon, Disraeli), but artists, authors, playwrights, health conditions in the slums, science, medicine, and other topics. Truth to tell, the politics is, as always, chiefly boring, but I enjoyed the chapters about pre-Raphaelite painters, expatriate British living in England, the Raj, the impact of Darwin, people of color in Victorian society, public schooling abuses, country parsons, Gilbert and Sullivan, Oscar Wilde, and dozens of other personalities and social dilemmas. If you've a serious interest in the Victoria era, you will probably enjoy this book, but it's not for those just looking for a summary of the time.

 Murder on Fifth Avenue, Victoria Thompson
Police detective Frank Malloy knows he'll never live up to Sarah Brandt's social inheritance, even though she abandoned her place in society to marry a doctor and now, after his death, works as a midwife in the poorer sections of town. So when Sarah's father, millionaire Felix Decker, asks to see Frank privately, the detective is mystified until the problem is explained: a well-known businessman died in Decker's exclusive club, and he wishes Frank to find out the culprit so the club can take care of the problem by themselves and not create a scandal. But once Frank starts talking to the family, something more ugly than a quarrel between friends emerges.

This is probably the first Brandt/Malloy book in which after things are revealed, that you wish the killer won't be caught because the victim was such a right bastard. This means, of course, that there are multiple suspects, and multiple false leads for both Frank and Sarah to track down, and there's suspense down to the penultimate chapter. Once again, Sarah's bored society mother helps in their investigation (I'm coming to quite like the woman!), and the sordid realities of some parts of Victorian society are revealed. This is a nice solid entry in the series, even if only the tiniest progress is made on the attraction between Frank and Sarah.

 Rocket Ship Galileo, Robert A. Heinlein
Not sure how I missed this Heinlein juvenile for so long; it was his first, written back in the late 1940s, but taking place in some indeterminate future where man has already gone to space and rockets are used as freighters. Three teenage boys, Art, Morrie, and Ross, model rocketry enthusiasts with their own workship, find an unconscious man outside their launch area and are afraid it was caused by their rocket which exploded. The man turns out to be Art's uncle Don, an atomic scientist—who soon is impressed by their talent and wonders if they'd like to accompany him on a flight to the moon! But it turns out there are people who wish to stop Don Cargraves and young proteges...permanently.

While Heinlein uses solid science in his rocketry, the plot is pure Boy's Own Adventure story, what with intelligent high schoolers recruited by an adult to go on an adventure; Samuel Scoville would be proud of this space-age successor to his Boy Scout stories. If you can buy the smart-kids-recruited-by-scientist trope, the rest of it is a great adventure tale. Swelp me, I was boggled by their discovery on the moon!

 Shadow of Night, Deborah Harkness
This is the second book in the "All Souls" trilogy about Diana Bishop, a witch who has been suppressing her powers for reasons only discovered at the end of the first volume, A Discovery of Witches, and her lover, Matthew Clairmont, who is a vampire over six hundred years old, their developing relationship, and the world they inhabit, where humans rub shoulders with witches, vampires, and the unpredictable daemons.

Let's get this straight: I'm not turned on by vampires, and I'm only marginally interested in Elizabethan-era Europe, where this entire book takes place. And, like the previous volume, there are veritable cascades of words, many which might have been cut. Certainly it takes a long time to achieve the purpose of the book: to find a witch or witches capable of teaching Diana, whose wild powers are unique.

And you know what? None of that made any difference. To me, Harkness knows how to tell one hell of a story and I was absorbed from first to last. Do I want to slap Christopher Marlowe after this? Well, yes. "Kit" (a daemon, of course) is a fat pain in the ass. You long for Matthew to toss him in a midden. But I loved the description of Elizabethan society and streets, and Diana's experiments in alchemy with Lady Pembroke, and even had to laugh at the squabbling of the members of the School of Night. This is my second time reading it—in preparation for the third book, out in two weeks—and it was just as enjoyable as the first.

 Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: The Diary of Bess Brennan, The Perkins School for the Blind, Barry Denenberg
This book has to be about rock bottom for a "Dear America" book. Bess Brennan is a typical girl living in Boston in the early years of the Depression. When she is blinded in a coasting accident, despite help from her twin sister Elin (who's writing in her diary for her), her mother and her Uncle Ted (her father has died) decide to send her to the Perkins School for the Blind, the famous school that Helen Keller attended. Bess is homesick and hates her teachers. Then she makes friends and loves it.

Really, that's about all there is to it. Bess is homesick. Bess doesn't like one of her teachers. Bess doesn't think she'll ever learn Braille. Her friend Amanda, who is partially sighted, helps her, and they both help another girl named Eva. I've seldom seen any children's book so flat, and it is a shame, since the Perkins School is so historically important.

 Listening for Madeleine, Leonard S. Marcus
I had no idea this book existed until I was reading a Hamilton Book catalog and found it listed. It's a collection of interviews, long and short, from people who knew L'Engle, from members of her own family to those who worked with her.

The 2004 "New Yorker" article that revealed that some of Madeleine's nonfiction had more than its share of fictional elements upset and angered many fans. Marcus interviews a diverse number of people—friends from her cathedral days, others whom she befriended on her writing tours, neighbors of the Franklins in New York and Connecticut—to try to illustrate the complicated personality that was Madeleine L'Engle. I was actually more intrigued about her from the magazine article, and I enjoyed reading all the different viewpoints of her personality. In talking about her, you also get to know about Edward Nason West, L'Engle's spiritual advisor and the inspiration for the character of Canon Tallis in her books. He certainly was quite an eccentric from the descriptions and sounds fascinating. I also didn't know that author T.A. Barron, who did a series of young Merlin books, was a protege of L'Engle's. In addition, there are several more insights into her books; for instance, the crush Flip has in And Both Were Young was supposed to be with another girl, not with Paul. "Crushes" on other girls were quite common in girls' books at the turn of the 20th century, but by the time Young was written, it would have taken on an entirely new connotation which would not have been accepted.

I have to admit that a couple of the entries are in there on the feeblest of associations, especially the one-page offering from Mary Pope Osborne, which seems like it's there just for someone to say that she contributed to the book. Still, I found much to enjoy about this series of reminisces about one of my favorite writers!

 Survival in the Storm: The Dust Bowl Diary of Grace Edwards, Katelan Janke
Did I read the end of this "Dear America" entry correctly? The author is only fifteen? Wow! That is really amazing, and as a storyteller she quite outdoes Mr. Denenberg, whose DA books I've come to dread. Grace Edwards and her family are holding on to their land and their self-respect in the Dust Bowl ravaged town of Dalhart, Texas (a real town which was hard hit). Grace must hold on to her hope, especially as dust storms increase and her best friend moves away after her family can't make ends meet.

A couple of times the characters use vocabulary that sounds out of place for the ages they are and there are some instances of stilted narrative, but otherwise this diary sounds very natural, as if a real teen wrote it—oh, wait, one did! Janke interviewed two women who survived the Dust Bowl and transfers their memories of the hardships, especially the endless wind and dust, very successfully. I also found the love/hate relationship between older sister Grace and little sister Ruth very true to life.

All Mine for the Summer

Some people have neighborhood library stories—there are even some fictional ones, like Francie's experience in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. But we lived between city libraries, a distance over a mile to both, so I visited them infrequently. The Auburn Library was near the high school, a mile and half distant, at that time in an old storefront on Rolfe Street, next to a shoe store. They generally had more up-to-date books (this being the late 1960s and early 1970s, those from the 1940s forward), but still not the ones I was looking for: I was wild about animals as a kid and wanted to read Marguerite Henry and Walter Farley and Jim Kjelgaard and Grosset and Dunlap's line of true dog stories. Alas, not there.

The Arlington Library, in the other direction up Cranston Street, past Taco and the old wooden Hamilton Building (which went up in spectacular flames in my teen years; the original building, once a school, was where I had received my polio boosters), was a more venerable place. The present library is concrete and glass and metal; the old building had more charm, in rectangular brick with the heavy wooden doors and dark wooden shelves. The adult section, upstairs, seemed always gloomy and the volumes looked as dry as they seemed to me. Downstairs was the children's library, a truly antiquarian area with heavy dark tables and chairs, filled with none of the bright colors and shiny objects one now associates with children's sections in libraries. Today I would very much like to take a trip back in time and pore over the books on the shelves, since many of them dated back to the turn of the twentieth century. But back then, looking for modern children's books, all those dark volumes just made me grumpy. I once complained bitterly to my mother that the newest book they had there featured a young woman driving a car with a running board (yes, I knew what that was). My only favorite books there were the Thorton W. Burgess books about forest animals—The Adventures of Danny Meadow Mouse, The Adventures of Jimmy the Skunk, The Adventures of Lightfoot the Deer, etc.—and a book translated from the German about a police dog, Flax.

The school library gave me much more satisfaction. It was in Stadium School that I fell in love with some of my earliest literary favorites: Kate Seredy's The Good Master and The Singing Tree, the Miss Pickerel (a spinster teacher) and Danny Dunn (a precocious boy inventor) series, the books about Henry Reed and his friend Midge Glass, Anne H. White's delightfully offbeat animal tales of The Story of Serapina (a cat with a prehensile tail), Junket the Dog Who Liked Everything Just So (an Airedale), and A Dog Called Scholar (a rambunctious Golden Retriever), Johnny Tremain, Clarence the TV Dog, and the book that drove my mother crazy trying to find it since it was out of print (she never did, but I did, years later), Charlotte Baker's The Green Poodles, about a Texas family that open their hearts to an orphaned English cousin and her pet poodle. (I didn't realize until I purchased the book as an adult that this was the book that sparked my interest in obedience competitions; Juliet, the poodle, had a CDX and was working on her UD.)

But it was at Hugh B. Bain Junior High School (now Middle School), that I met the "famous ten." Bain had a policy that, if you were a responsible child who brought back your library books on time, and if you had your parents' consent, you could take ten books out of the library and keep them for the entire summer! This was richness to me. I had a good collection of books, but only paperbacks and cheap cellophane-covered Whitman books, which were all that we could afford. To have real hardback books in the house was a fabulous treat. Both summers, that of 1969 and 1970, I took the same ten books out, and for ten weeks they were mine, to read in my room at night, or at dinner (Mom never did enforce the "no books at dinner" rule most of the time; she was happy that I wanted to read and was never forced to do so), or in the parlor while watching television (since sometimes it would be on something I couldn't care a fig about, like Huntley and Brinkley (unless they were talking about the moon missions) or the local news.

Here are the ten. Have you read or heard of any of them?

• The Story of Walt Disney by Diane Disney Miller
• The Family Nobody Wanted by Helen Doss
• What Katy Did and What Katy Did at School by Susan Coolidge (one volume)
• Have Spacesuit, Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
• The Chestry Oak by Kate Seredy
• Wyoming Summer by Mary O'Hara
• The Edge of Day by Laurie Lee
• Especially Dogs, Especially at Stillmeadow by Gladys Taber
• The Morning of Mankind by Robert Silverberg

The Miller book was the only one out about Disney in those days; as a dedicated watcher of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on Sunday evenings on NBC, this was a natural for me. Now I have many more biographies of Disney, but this still brings back pleasant memories. The Family Nobody Wanted was Doss' story of her and her husband's adoption of multicultural children in the 1940s, when it Just Wasn't Done for blonde white people to adopt children of Hispanic, Native American, and Polynesian extraction. A sad commentary on the times was that the Dosses tried to adopt a half-German, half-African American war orphan in the late 1940s, and even a member of their own family responded with racial epithets.

The Katy books reminded me of Little Women and Alcott's other stories; headstrong Katy Carr wants to do great things, but is sidelined by an injury. The second book was especially entertaining because who could forget the mischievous "Rose Red," Katy and her sister Clover's classmate, and her pranks? I was amazed at the games the girls played during their club meetings, involving writing poetry "on demand"! And of course there was my very first Heinlein novel, one that of course involved another type of cleverness, including a precocious twelve-year-old girl. I must admit I had a crush on Spacesuit's hero, brainy and resourceful Kip Russell.

Till the day I die I will thank Judy Martini for recommending Wrinkle to me, opening a wonderful world of Madeleine L'Engle books in my future, including her adult novels and her religious nonfiction. What would I have done without the Crosswicks books to sustain me through my mom's cancer surgery? And here forty-five years later I still cry at the end of Wrinkle. Chestry, too, is a heartbreaker: the story of a privileged Hungarian boy growing up under the thumb of invading Nazis, keeping his father's most precious secrets, and in the end too loyal to give up the horse he loves.

Edge was a revelation of a book; I had never before read prose which had the rhythm and imagery of poetry. It was as if I were there at the Lee cottage, surrounded by Laurie's constantly working mother and sisters, participating in country fetes and reveling in the fragrantly blooming countryside. I loved the title, too: such expectation! What could that new day bring? It was only as an adult that I discovered the original title was Cider With Rosie, which seems much less imaginative and lyrical. O'Hara, too, made poetry with her words. She took a collection of her diaries, kept when she and her husband raised horses, ran a dairy, and had a summer camp for boys on a ranch in Wyoming; she later used those experiences to write My Friend Flicka and its sequels, but there is such beauty in her original writings, images burned on my brain to this day.

Especially Dogs was my first introduction to Gladys Taber, but as a young adult I resisted her other Stillmeadow books; I had nothing in common with that woman who kept house and cooked meals in Connecticut. It was only many years later, spotting two reprints in the Mystic Seaport Museum store, that I was to fall in love with all of Taber, a joyful affair.

The last book was my concession to one of my favorite sciences: biology left me cold and chemistry foiled me with too many formulas. But all those aspects of Earth Science (as it was called in eighth grade) I reveled in: astronomy, fossils, continental drift, uplift, brachiopods, the aurora, the tilt of the earth and the seasons, and my favorite of all, anthropology. There were other books I collected as I grew older, including the "Lucy" books, and the mention of Olduvai Gorge and/or the Leakeys or Lascaux on any program could make my ears prick up in interest, but this was my first anthropology book and it has a special meaning to me. Clovis points, middens, mammoth bones turned into tools—I was hooked. (Didn't realize until much later that this was the Robert Silverberg, the science fiction writer.)

Did anyone else have a school library that did this? If so, what were your books, all yours for the summer?