Category: BookLust I

Dust and Ashes

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Rybakov, Anatoli. Dust and Ashes. Translated by Antonia W. Bouis. Little Brown and Co., 1996.

Reason read: to continue the series started in May.

Like Rybakov’s last novel, Fear, in Dust and Ashes the author takes the time to catch his readers up to the saga thus far. Yuri is a member of the secret police, Vika is married and living in Paris, her brother Vadim is also an NKVD informant. Maxim is in the Red Army as a commander. Nina is a Communist while her sister, Varya, rejects Communism and remains true to her friends. Sasha has been freed from exile but he is not allowed back in Moscow or any other major Russian city. Dust and Ashes begins in 1937. When we left Sasha and Varya, their romance had cooled after Sasha learned of Varya’s previous marriage to a gambler. Sasha struggles to make ends meet in various small towns, first as a truck driver and then as a ballroom dance instructor. World War II is almost a central character alongside Sasha Pankratov and Joseph Stalin. This is the era of endless interrogations (when you would rather have chat). Promotions could mean a reshuffling of the personnel deck or a literal death sentence. It is stunning the way Rybakov can seamlessly interject facts into a fictional account of the Great Purge. Details like the assassination of Trotsky. Two battles rage in Dust and Ashes – the delicate dance of Tyrants (Hitler and Stalin) and the Battle for Romance (Sasha and Varya). Who will win? Sometimes, when the target is not persuaded, the only motivation can come from fear. Confessional: the final pages of Dust and Ashes had me holding my breath. I did not want to believe it was the end. Surely there would be another sequel, a fourth or even fifth installment to the saga. But in actuality, really what more about be said?

Something I wanted to say in the last review but forgot – Rybakov had a character drink pickle juice to combat a hangover. I have to wonder if that really works.

Quotes to quote, “…I want to remain a decent person in these vile times” (p 79). The same could be said for these terrible times. Here is another: “Gone was the joyful amazement at life, the anticipation of happiness in a world which has seemed so inviting and lovely” (p 214).

Author fact: Anatoli Rybakov’s life mirrored Sasha Pankratov’s. Rybakov lived at 51 Arbat Street and he also joined the army.

Book trivia: Antonia W. Bouis also translated Fear.

Music: Confessional: these are songs from Fear: “Rio Rita” and “Splashes of Champagne”.
Dust and Ashes music: Isabella Yurieva, Leshchenko, Ivan Kozlovsky, Maria Maksakova, Stas Mikhallov, “Droplets if Champagne”, “Weary Sun”, and Leonid Utesov’s “From the Odessa Jail”,
Banned songs: “Jail,” “the Hop,” and “Murka.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “Russian Heavies” (p 210). Pearl wasn’t kidding. Dust and Ashes was almost too heavy for my heart to lift.

Which Witch?

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Ibbotson, Eva. Which Witch. Apple Paperback, 1979.

Reason read: I am not really sure what I meant by this. I put Which Witch in the category of “Tequila Month” (???).

Imagine being new parents and realizing your darling baby boy is not normal. He was actually born a wizard. George became Arriman Canker and he grew up a solitary dark magic maker. When it came time for Arriman to finally find a wife he decided to hold a contest the week of Halloween. Which witch would make the perfect mate? Only a competition could tell him the true dark witch for him. He wanted a witch who could create the most vile, the darkest, the most powerful and evil magic imaginable. Meet the witches vying for Arriman’s hand in marriage:
Mabel Wrack, the sea witch. Her familiar is an octopus. Her magic for the competition was to raise the Kraken and my favorite magic of the whole lot.
Ethel Feedbag, the country witch with the pig as her familiar.
Nancy and Nora Shouter, twin witches with chickens. Their magic
Mother Bloodwort who occasionally turns herself into inanimate objects and then cannot remember how to change herself back.
Madame Olympia, with an aardvark as a familiar. Her magic for the competition was the most impressive. She created a Symphony of Death Performed by a Cast of Thousands.
Belladonna, a young witch with no familiar.
Needless to say, the competition does not go as planned but Arriman finds a wife and they all live happily ever after…sort of.

Here is something new I learned about magic: milk is the antidote to a spell.

Monalot (her real name was Gwendolyn Swamp). Her familiar is a sheep. She couldn’t compete because she got sick.

Author fact: Ibottson has written a ton of stuff for children. This is the only book I am reading for the Challenge.

Book trivia: My copy of Which Witch was illustrated by Annabel Large.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Not Only for Kids: Fantasies for Grown-Ups” (p 175). It should be of note that Which Witch is the last book in this chapter.

Not Quite Dead Enough

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Stout, Rex. Not Quite Dead Enough. Pyramid Books, 1944.

Reason read: to continue the series started in November.

Rex Stout likes to throw his readers a curve ball now and again. When we rejoin Archie and Nero in Not Quite Dead Enough, Archie has been in military service in Washington D.C. for two months. There is a war going on and he is trying to do his part. Meanwhile back in Manhattan, Nero Wolfe wants to do his part for the war effort as well. Comically, he and Fritz have been training to be soldiers by exercising and eating better (ha!). When Archive returns he is horrified by the change.
A welcome surprise for readers is the fact that Lily Rowan is back. We first met Archie’s crush back in Some Buried Caesar. This time Archie has set his sights on a new girl, Ann Armory, who works for the National Bird League. Only…she ends up dead. Of course she does. Since Wolfe is not interested in solving crime anymore Archie has to make matters into his own hands by becoming suspect number one. He is last seen with the pretty girl at a dance. His hair is found in her dead fist. Will Archie convince Nero to take the case and clear his name?

Book trivia: this is another one of those “double mysteries” where two novellas are combined.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Vows

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Spencer, LaVyrle. Vows. Jove, 1988.

Reason read: Spencer’s birthday is in July. Read in her honor.

We begin Vows just outside the territory of Wyoming in the year 1888. Vows is a sweet story peppered with the perfect amount of old west/new territory drama. Victorian decorum mixes with modern day sensibilities about love and intimacy. Emily Walcott, a feisty tomboy and fiercely loyal to her family is engaged to a family friend she has known since childhood. Charles Bliss followed her family from back east to Wyoming so not only is he a family friend, he is the epitome of home. However, the sparks don’t fly when she is kissing Charles Bliss on the wild western plain (thanks, Natalie, for that phrase). Still she knows he is a good man and her family has loved him forever. Enter Thomas Jeffcoat, a stranger in town. Newly arrived, he is the antithesis of Charles. Rough around the edges, a threat to her family’s business, and not afraid to speak his mind. Tom Jeffcoat knows how to make sparks catch fire when it comes to Emily Walcott. And there are sparks from the very beginning of their acquaintance. Who will Emily chose for her beau? Safe and familiar Charles or wild and unpredictable Tom?
As an aside, even though Spencer bucked the stereotypical bodice ripper cover, she kept the cliché of one character vehemently hating another while the attraction silently simmered. Love/hate relationships are the perfect vehicle for smoldering passions.

Line I liked, “How difficult it was to unravel a lifetime’s snarls” (p 284).

Author fact: Spencer thanked her local librarians for helping research details in Vows. I just love that.

Book trivia: Vows is simile central. Be prepared for “like a mole,” “like a white flotilla,” “like a giant,” “like a railroad tunnel,” “like an unspring wagons”, and on and on.

Music: Strauss Blue Danube, “While Strolling Through the Park One Day”, “All Praise, All Glory, Now We Sing”, “The Blue-tailed Fly”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the obvious chapter called “Romance Novels: Our Love is Here to Stay” (p 203).

Fear

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Rybakov, Anatoli. Fear. Translated by Antonina W. Bouis. Little, Brown & Company, 1992.

Reason read: to continue the series started in May.

This is the continuation of the story of the first generation to grow up under the Soviet regime. One of the things I appreciated about Fear was that Rybakov took the time to recap The Children of Arbat before launching into the story of Fear. It was nice to have a refresher on all the different characters and where we last left them: Lead character Sasha Pankratov has been exiled to Siberia for making a flippant joke in 1934 in the school newspaper. Lesser characters like Yuri went to work for the secret police and had blackmailed Vika into becoming an informant. Maxim Kostin was in the army and in love with a teacher, Nina. Lena Budyagina, daughter of a Soviet diplomat and Yuri’s on again, off again lover, had an illegal abortion and almost died. Nina and Varya are on opposite sides of the Soviet loyalty.
Fear takes place between 1935 – 1937. Again, Stalin is a prominent character in the book. Rybakov does a good job humanizing the dictator (Stalin liked flowers), and express his growing paranoia and erratic behavior: on good days Stalin would remind subordinates of orders he never gave in the first place. On bad days, he would find trivial ways to execute long-loyal subordinates. It was troublesome when to talk of Stalin’s wife’s suicide was considered counterrevolutionary slander. Stalin was out for revenge against even people who did not betray him. Good citizens scrambled to distance themselves from lifelong friends; individuals “confessed” to be criminals. The political landscape is as such that a tenth grader could be expelled for saying the wrong name on an oral report.
Embedded in the story is the spiderweb-thin thread of hope is Sasha and Varya’s love. Is it strong enough to endure insecurity, assumptions, self-doubt, and Stalin?

Confessional: I gave myself nightmares thinking too hard about how Soviet rule investigated “terrorism” cases: investigation time was shortened to ten days; there was less time to defend oneself (only 24 hours); no lawyers could be present at a trial; appeals were not allowed; sentencing began immediately. So…if you were wrongly accused of being a terrorist…I ask myself what is the point of the formality of a trial? People are just going to be found guilty of something and when you are guilty you are as good as dead.

As an aside, I very much appreciated that Rybakov took the time to recap, Children of the Arbat, the first installment of his trilogy. Now I would like a dictionary of Russian names. They are all very confusing to my untrained ear.

Author fact: Rybakov also wrote Dust and Ashes, the final book in the series.

Book trivia: Fear is the second book in the Arbat series.

Music: Bach, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, “I Remember When I Was Still Young Then”, Vadim Kozin, Alexander Vertinsky, Nadezhda Plevitskaya.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Russian Heavies” (p 210)

Galatea 2.2

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Powers, Richard. Galatea 2.2 Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995.

If you know the story of Pygmalion than you will recognize Galatea 2.2 as its clever reinterpretation.
Interestingly enough, Galatea 2.2‘s fictional protagonist is named Richard Powers and is a writer, using the names of books he has written like Gold Bug and Prisoner’s Dilemma. Richard is also a Humanist-in-Residence at an unnamed research facility. His failed relationship with a former student is woven in with his present day life and colors his thinking on the daily. During a year-long residency, he and a colleague embark on building a thinking machine. With his long term relationship in shambles and writer’s block stalking him daily, training a neural network seems like the perfect diversion. As an aside, why anyone would want to create a computer that can pass a comprehensive exam in English literature is beyond me. The whole story reminded me of the movie Short Circuit when #5 learned to think for himself. There is always a vector involved somewhere.

Quote I liked, “And chaos chose that moment to hit home” (p 3). I love the imagery. Can you just see chaos as a cat, perched on high, waiting for the perfect moment to attack?
As an aside, could Powers be talking about someone else when he wrote the line, “He looked as though he took tanning cream orally” (p 16)? <Insert thinking emoji here.>
Here’s another quote I loved, “No one knows how full my hands were, or care” (p 171).

Author fact: I am reading a total of nine books by Powers. Two of them he mentions in Galatea 2.2: Prisoner’s Dilemma and Gold Bug Variations.

Playlist: “You’re the Top”, Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, “Three Blind Mice”, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir Sings John Philip Sousa, Traverner’s Western Wynde Mass, “Amazing Grace”, Diana Ross, Purcel’s “Evening Hymn”, Alfonso Ferrabosco, and “Old Black Joe”.

Writing in book on pages 4, 11, 30, 31, 63, 79, 171, 188, 270, 279.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Mechanical Men, Robots, Automatons, and Deep Blue” (p 150) and again in the chapter called “Richard Powers: Too Good To Miss” (p 191).

Goodbye to a River

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Graves, John. Goodbye to a River: a Narrative. Alfred A. Knopf, 1960.

Reason read: June is National River Cleanup month. What better way to honor the event than by reading a book about a little known river called the Brazos?

The premise behind Goodbye to a River sounds like something I would do. When John Graves found out the state of Texas was going to dam parts of the Brazos River he decided to take a three week journey on the river of his childhood to say goodbye. Portions of the Brazos clearly reflected Graves’s childhood memories. Other times he reflects on the history, myths and legends of the region. At times he becomes philosophical, thinking of “Saint” Henry David Thoreau and “Prince” Ernest Hemingway, but more often he recounts tales of violence and racism: scalpings, hangings, raps, and murders indicative of the Comanche history of the region. He mentions Charles Goodnight from time to time. Occasionally, he interacts with locals he meets along the way, but most of the time he is alone with a dog he calls the passenger. My favorite parts was when Graves remembered the exact same trees he used to climb and the same beaches he used to build campfires on.
Did you know that October is the best month for traveling the Brazos for the weather is at its most pleasant?

As an aside, I would like to hear a canyon wren singing in harmony with her desert landscape.

Lines I loved, “You are not in a hurry there; you learned long since not to be” (p 3), “The silent air of ruin is fragile” (p 44), “Heights have that kind of humor” (p 126), and “One can get pretty literary on islands” (p 168).

Confessional: when I said Goodbye to a River reminded me of myself, here is what I meant. I was supposed to be paid off from the job I had had for over twenty years. Knowing the end was near, I spent four weeks saying goodbye to every corner that meant something to me.
As another aside, I am watching Only Murders in the Building (yes, I know it has been out for a while). Brazos makes me think of Steve Martin’s character.
As yet another aside, the mention of Alma-Tadema paintings reminded of Natalie’s interpretation of his daughter’s poem, “If No One Ever Married Me.”

Author fact: Graves taught “off and on” at Columbia and spent time wandering and writing (according to his biography).

Book trivia: the children’s version of Goodbye to a River was illustrated by Russell Waterhouse.

Playlist: “Annie Laurie”, Frank Sinatra, Ricky Nelson, “The Good Old Rebel”, “Beulah Land”, “Drink to Me Only”, “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton”, and “Rambling Wreck”.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “A River of Words” (p 201).

Civil to Strangers

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Pym, Barbara. Civil to Strangers: and Other Writings. Edited by Hazel Holt. E.P. Dutton, 1987.

Reason read: Pym was born in the month of June. Read in her honor.

We owe the publication of Civil to Strangers to the loving family and friends of Barbara Pym. As literary executor Pym’s sister made sure Pym’s words lived on. It is a good thing because Pym was a master at showcasing the true sense of small community. The silent dislikes and quiet jealousies; a society full of disappointed and disappointing people. No one wants to be taken for granted and yet they are, repeatedly. These are the stories of a microcosm of flawed people. In the main story, Civil to Strangers, Cassandra March-Gibbon wants her husband of five years to pay more attention to her. As a writer, Adam is terribly preoccupied. Cassandra thinks by pretending to have feelings a new stranger from Budapest she will force Adam to be more demonstrative of his love for her. The plan backfires when Adam encourages the relationship with Stefan Tilos. The situation goes from bad to worse when Tilos develops feelings for Cassandra (as one is apt to do when someone is lavishing unprovoked attention on them). Tilos in turn needs to make Cassandra jealous when she does not show any sign of wanting to commit to a relationship. Cassandra is not making Adam jealous. Tilos is not winning over the girl. Nobody is getting exactly what they want. By taking separate holidays, Adam and Cassandra allow themselves to take stock of their marital situation.

Other writings in Civil to Strangers include:

Gervase and Flora
“Home Front Novel”
So Very Sweet
“So, Some Tempestuous Morn”
“The Christmas Visit”
“Goodbye Balkan Captain”
Across a Crowded Room
“Finding a Voice” – a radio transcript.

Quotes to quote, “…but now, since her marriage, she had felt less tempted to break out” (p 17).

Author fact: Pym was twenty-three when she wrote Civil to Strangers. It was her second novel.

Book trivia: Civil to Strangers was unpublished at the time of Pym’s death. It and several other writings were publishing posthumously. The working title was Adam and Cassandra. Seems simple enough.

Music: Haydn’s Creation. That’s it.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Pym’s Cup Runneth Over” (p 195).

After Life

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Ellis, Rhian. After Life. Amazon Encore, 2000.

Reason read: After Life takes place in New York, a city rich in culture. The Puerto Rican Day Parade also takes place in New York in the month of June.

I am the type of person who tries to look at a situation from every angle before making a judgment about it, good or bad. I want to walk around it, peer under it, climb over it and look down from above; I want to make sure I haven’t missed a single detail. So when Naomi Ash says “First I had to get his body into the boat” in the very first line of After Life I did not immediately assume she intentionally murdered her boyfriend, Peter Morton. Nowhere does she say as much on page one. Maybe Peter Morton had an accident, like falling off the roof or a fatal health episode, like a heart attack. And maybe, just maybe, since Naomi Ash lives in such a remote area she needed to illegally dispose of his body. Thinking a little darker – maybe Peter and Naomi fought and things went horribly sideways. Or maybe his death was a suicide, but he made it look like murder because he wanted to frame her. In the first two hundred pages of After Life the reader cannot be sure of anything at all. For two hundred pages Naomi slowly navigates the story of her childhood, her teenage years, how she became a medium, and her current life in the community of Train Line. She carefully parses out the details of everything but Peter Morton’s death. The mystery of what happened to her boyfriend stays tightly under wraps for a good portion of the book.
But the story is worth the wait. In the meantime Ellis writes with an other-worldly aura that keeps the reader entertained. She moves through language with languid grace, like slow moving water. Take for example, the way Ellis describes a voice falling flat in a deep snow-covered landscape. She is correct. If you have ever stood in a winter white landscape you know if the snow is deep enough it has a way of making sound plummet into an eerie depth of alien silence.
The plot of Ellis’s short book is simple. Naomi Ash, following in her mother’s footsteps, is a medium. She lives and practices her craft in a community called Train Line in the fictional town of Wallamee, in upstate New York. She has let readers know that she continues to carry the secret of disposing of the body of her boyfriend, Peter Morton. The secret has laid buried, just like Peter, for a decade. Like all skeletons, in the closet or otherwise, they eventually resurface and when Peter’s bones are discovered, the whole town buzzes with the mystery. Meanwhile, coincidentally, Naomi’s mother’s trade is growing stale and people are tiring of her. Her radio show is about to be canceled. What better way to jump start a failing career than to solve the mystery of the bones?

Confessional: as the hostilities towards Naomi grow I found myself becoming more and more anxious for her. First the child she babysits in the afternoons starts to turn on her, then Officer Peterson takes a curious dislike to her.

As an aside, when I first saw the title I immediately thought of Ricky Gervais and his show of the same name. They are not the same.
As another aside, the harvesting of grapes made me think of my wedding. All of the wine came from the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York.

Lines I immediately identified with, “My mother’s good moods could be more bewildering than her bad ones” (p 64), and “You could life up one of her lies and find a truth beneath it, and then find beneath that truth another lie, and spend your whole life pulling away layers and never get to the bottom of it” (p 122), and one more, “Mothers and daughters are put on Earth to tear each others hearts out” (p 249). Enough about mothers. Here is another good quote completely unrelated to mothers, “…but opening my mouth on that subject would gain me no friends” (p 96).

Author fact: After Life is Rhian Ellis’s first and only novel.

Book trivia: the version of After Life that I picked up was a Nancy Pearl Presents a Book Lust Rediscovery. She wrote the introduction to this edition. Confession: I had never heard of Book Lust Rediscovery and wonder how many other books are republished as such.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “First Lines to Remember” (p 86).

Children of the Arbat

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Rybakov, Anatoli. Children of the Arbat. Little, Brown and Company, 1988.

Reason read: Victory Day in Russia is celebrated on May 9th.

This is 1930s Moscow. The Arbat is the intellectual and artistic community of Moscow and Sasha Pankratov, a member of the Young Communist League, has been arrested for alleged subversion. He has been exiled in Siberia for his political activities and the counterrevolutionary conversations he didn’t even know he was having. Even his uncle who wields considerable political power as could not alter or commute his sentence of three years. (As an aside, Sasha’s mother, Sofya Alexandrovna, broke my heart while she was preparing for Sasha’s exile.)
Intertwined with Sasha’s story are the other residents of the Arbat. These characters are also affected by the current political climate. For example, the chance of Yuris getting job placements could be hindered by the fact he has an older brother in prison. Boys are entering the Red Army to prove themselves to Stalin. The Arbat neighborhood struggles to survive the political games. Children of the Arbat also delves into the psychology of Joseph Stalin’s true-life growing paranoia. As history tells us, his was a sickness that went unchecked and as a result, mushroom into a full-blown psychotic break from reality. You could be severely punished for any criticism of Stalin, however small. Just ask his dentist.

As an aside, I wonder how much truth is embedded in The Children of Arbat. Did Stalin actually say, “To lead is to see ahead”? It was interesting to learn that he wrote poetry under an assumed name.

Phrase I liked, “…memories…too human for prison…” (p 136).

Author fact: Rybakov lived on Arbat Street when he was a child. He was also exiled like Sasha. You could say Children of the Arbat is autobiographical.

Book trivia: Children of the Arbat was suppressed by the Soviet Union for over twenty years. Today, it is considered a classic. It was also made into a sixteen-part television series.

Confessional: Lena reminds me of myself in my early days, say 20s. I’m the one to leave a lover in the early morning hours, just before dawn.

Music: “Mr. Brown”, “Black Eyes”, “Oh Little Lemons”, “Forgotten and Abandoned”, Melkhov, Vertinsky, “Ramona”, Leshchenko, Stravinsky, Diaghilov, Pavlova, Tchaikovsky & Jacob Polonsky

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Russian Heavies” (p 210). Interestingly enough, in Book Lust Rybakov’s first name was spelled Anatolii, with a double i at the end. Nowhere in the pages of my copy of Children of the Arbat is it spelled that way.

Black Orchids

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Stout, Rex. Black Orchids. Books on Tape, 2007.

Reason read: to continue the series started in November. We’ll be here awhile.

We all know Nero Wolfe is loath to leave his New York City brownstone. The few exceptions readers have seen so far are when Wolfe thought Archie’s life was in danger or when orchids were involved. This time, it is the allure of three rare hybrid black orchids at a flower show. Wolfe cannot resist their siren song. Lewis Hewitt is the wealthy business man who has three variations of a black orchid showcased at the exhibition, and Wolfe wants them all for himself. During this exhibition, additional entertainment includes a strange exhibit of a couple miming a picnic. Day in and day out, the couple pretends to enjoy a garden lunch. When the male companion, Harry Gould, is murdered, Wolfe sees an opportunity to gamble with Hewitt for the orchids. Hewitt is facing murder charges when it is discovered his walking stick was used in the commission of the murder. All evidence points to Hewitt as the guilty party.

Author fact: Rex Stout enlisted in the Navy.

Book trivia: Black Orchids was published as a novella along with a second story, Cordially Invited to Meet Death.

Book Audio trivia: Michael Pritchard narrates the audio book I listened to in the car. Someone digitized the cassette tapes so every once in awhile Michael will say, “this book is continued on cassette number three, side A” or “this audio is continued on side B. Please turn the tape over.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226). Here is the weird thing about this addition – Black Orchids is a novella and since Cordially Invited to Meet Death is not on my Challenge list, I am not reading it.

Where There’s a Will

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Stout, Rex. Where There’s a Will. Bantam Books, 1940.

Reason read: to continue the series started in November.

Unlike Nero Wolfe’s other mysteries to solve which usually involve death, Where There’s a Will starts with a potentially phony last will and testament. The family of Noel Hawthorne have hired Nero Wolfe to contest Hawthorne’s final wishes as they seem absurd and out of character. Who gives his mistress his entire estate while leaving his sisters each a peach, a pear, and an apple? True to form, Nero interviews a large cast of characters and uncovers corruption, illicit affairs, and even a few murders. Of course, Wolfe solves the case. Interestingly enough, it all came down to a flower.
The Crime Line Nero Wolfe series always includes an introduction by another author. Where There’s a Will was introduced by none other that Dean Koontz, an accomplished mystery author in his own right. Written in 1992, Koontz is funny and, dare I say, charming? As an aside, I have to wonder what he would say about our current administrative situation (he mentions #47 in his introduction).
The other fact about the Crime Line series is it boasts that not one word has been omitted from the original text.
Insult that had me scratching my head: “Go chase a snail” (p 21). Is that a roundabout way of saying someone is slow?

As an aside, Fred Durkin is a man after my own heart. He puts vinegar on things. So do I.

Author fact: Stout briefly attended the University of Kansas.

Book trivia: at the end of Where There’s a Will there are two recipes from Stout’s private collection: basic omelet and scrambled eggs. I will definitely try the omelet because I like the technique described.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe: Too Good To Miss” (p 226).

Phoenix and the Carpet

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Nesbit, E. The Phoenix and the Carpet. Read by Anna Bentinick. Naxos Audio Books, 2005.

Reason read: May is Nesbit’s birth month. Read in her honor.

The Phoenix and the Carpet is the second book in the Psammead Trilogy. (Five Children and It and Story of the Amulet round out the series). The same five children as in the first book are back: Cyril (Squirrel), Anthea (Panther), Robert (Bobs), Jane (Pussy), and Lamb (Hilary). This time they discover an egg hidden in a carpet. It holds a beautiful talking phoenix. Like a genie from a bottle, once the phoenix is freed from the egg it explains that the carpet can grant three wishes a day. So the children’s adventures begin. The phoenix needs to often consult the Psammead to get the children out of various predicaments, but unlike Five Children and It, this time the Psammead is not the central character of the story.

Author fact: Edith Nesbit was a political activist in addition to being an author.

Book trivia: The Phoenix and the Carpet was first published in 1904. It became a British miniseries in 1997.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Fantasy for Young and Old” (p 83).

1805

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Woodman, Richard. 1805. Sphere Books Limited. 1985.

Reason read: to finish the series started in February in honor of history month. 1805 is the last book in the Nathaniel Drinkwater series that I am reading for the Challenge. There are many, many more books and I regret I will not be reading them. I have grown to like Nathaniel Drinkwater a great deal.

The Nathaniel Drinkwater series continues! Historically, in 1804, we are now on the verge of war. Napoleon Bonaparte is gearing up to invade England. His armies are growing bigger and stronger by the day. When we catch up to Nathaniel Drinkwater in Woodman’s 1805, he is now the captain of the HMH Antigone. His chief duty this time around is to protect the ports of the Channel coastline with the British navy.
Woodman does not waste any time bringing the excitement. 1805 opens with a dramatic scene of a fierce storm at sea. Nathaniel Drinkwater, as captain of the HMS Antigone must save the vessel while dealing with the wretched nuisance of most of his men being seasick. No wonder Drinkwater has started to talk to himself! During this time Drinkwater is charged with brining Captain Philip D’Auvergne back to his post at St. Helier as a small favor to the Channel Fleet. Meanwhile, archrival Santhonax is the in the employ of Bonaparte which makes him a stronger enemy.
As the series progresses we learn more about Nathaniel Drinkwater. This time it is revealed that Drinkwater has a brother who committed murder. Nathaniel is in debt to Lord Dungarth for hiding his brother in Russia. Readers also learn how Nathaniel deals with adversity when he is taken prisoner by the French.
Fans of the Drinkwater series will cheer to read that the character of Quilhampton, along with a few others including Roger, is back. As always, this installment of the Drinkwater series does not disappoint.

Author fact: if you ever Google Richard Woodman’s picture, he is the epitome of a seafaring captain.

Book trivia: 1805 is book number six in the Drinkwater saga. Another piece of trivia – I couldn’t find a copy of 1805 is any local library or in the ComCat system. I didn’t want to place an ILL for such a short book so I decided to read it on Internet Archive. By not reading The Corvette I missed out on Waller’s escape from hanging, thanks to Drinkwater’s clemency.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Sea Stories” (p 217).

Gone with the Wind

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Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. Pocket, 1966.

Reason read: the Civil War started in April. The war is probably the best character in the book.

Who does not know the story of Scarlett O’Hara and her life at Tara plantation? Every person over the age of forty-five must have seen the movie at some point. My husband says it was a favorite of his grandmother’s. Mine preferred the Wizard of Oz and the Sound of Music.

Gone with the Wind stands as one of the greatest American Civil War sagas from the point of view of the Confederates. Southern belle Scarlett O’Hara is the protagonist readers just love to hate (or at least be annoyed by). We first meet Scarlett as a scrappy sixteen year old teenager, manipulative and naïve. She enjoys causing other people pain and thrives on their jealousies. Even at this tender age, she is beyond selfish and spoiled. Scarlett is not beneath marrying the first boy she could, just to make the true love of her young life jealous. Of course it backfires when her beloved Ashley marries Melanie Hamilton instead.
Even after losing her teenage husband to illness during the American Civil War, Scarlett continues to live a lie. At seventeen and a new mother, she is not in mourning for poor lost Charles. He did not even die a heroic death that she could brag about! Scarlett does not swell with patriotic pride for the Confederate cause, nor is she grateful for Melanie and her family’s generosity and friendship. Instead, she hold a steadfast and unrequited love for Ashley. Enter Rhett Butler, the dashing and controversial blockade runner. Scarlett’s life gets a whole lot more complicated and emotionally confusing when he shows up. They are bound together in unconventional ways. He knows her secret. Together, they share the same sarcastic opinion of the war; one they cannot voice. They both use people (even family) for the betterment of themselves. They both do not give a damn what others say.
While I (obviously) did not care for Scarlett, Mitchell’s writing is spectacular. She was the master of stylized descriptions. Take Melanie’s brown eyes, for a simple example. Mitchell describes them as “a forest pool of water in winter when brown leaves shine up through quiet water” (p 102). A word of warning. While Mitchell has a way with words, she is also an author true to the times. Some language may not be suitable for the easily offended.

Confessional: I have never been to the deep south. I’m talking about the real south. Not Baltimore touristy Harbor or a music festival in the middle of Atlanta, Georgia. I’m talking about Spanish moss dangling from every tree, accents so thick you need subtitles, and bowls of steaming greens, ham hocks, and grits. Are the manners still so painstakingly polite and proper? Does a woman still mourn in black with a veil down to her knees?

As an aside, we were watching a show about abandoned places and Butler Island in Georgia was featured. Rhett Island is just next door. Was it any wonder that Margaret Mitchell visited the area and wrote Gone with the Wind there?

Is it any wonder Gone with the Wind has been banned or challenged a couple of times? Derogatory language, incest, downplaying the atrocities of slavery, romanticizing deep southern culture.

Playlist: “Go Down, Moses”, “Peg in a Low-backed Car”, “The Wearin’ of the Green”, “If You Want a Good Time, Jine the Calvary”, “Jacket of Gray”, “Bonny Blue Flag”, “Lorena”, “My Old Kentucky Home”, “Dixie”, “When This Cruel War is Over”, “Lament for Robert Emmet”, “When the Dew is On the Blossom”,

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Civil War Fiction” (p 57).