Category: BookLust I

Study in Scarlet

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Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. “A Study in Scarlet”. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. New York: Doubleday, 1930.

Reason read: Doyle died July 7th 1930. Read in honor of his passing.

Confessional: in Book Lust Pearl lists The Complete Sherlock Holmes but what she doesn’t say is that it’s a canon of sixty stories – four novels and 56 short stories totaling 1122 pages. I knew it would be impossible to read 1122 pages in 31 days – even if it would be the only thing I read in July I still wouldn’t finish it. In addition I couldn’t stand the thought of attempting something so boring. I need to visit other characters from time to time. So, my plan is this, read each work separately. I began with the first novel of the collection, “A Study in Scarlet.”

Study in Scarlet is in two parts. Part one: “Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., Late of the Army Medical Department.” It’s here that Dr. Watson and Mr. Sherlock Holmes meet for the first time. Watson, arriving in London and  needing a place to stay, learns of Holmes looking to share his apartment. From the very beginning they are thrown together in a murder mystery. Watson is astounded by Holmes’s ability to deduce facts from the smallest pieces of evidence.

Part two: “Country of the Saints” steps back in time and tells the story of the Brigham Young and the Mormons settling in the plains of Utah. John Ferrier meets up with the four elders, Stangerson, Kemball, Jonston & Drebber and they take him and his young companion in. This story sets the backdrop for the murder mystery Holmes is trying to solve.

Quotes. First where the title of the story comes from: “There is a scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it” (p 36). Second, one of Sherlock’s most quoted utterances: “…where there is no imagination there is no horror” (p 37).

Author fact: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died of a heart attack.

Book trivia: A Study in Scarlet is less than 100 pages long.

BookLust Twist (not really): from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love A Mystery” (p 123).

At Home with the Glynns

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Kraft, Eric. At Home with the Glynns: the Personal History, Adventures, Experiences and Observations of Peter Leroy (continued). New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1995.

Peter Leroy is now a 13-almost-14 year old naive teenager. He has befriended the Glynn family; painting with Mr. Glynn, writing contest poetry with Mrs. Glynn and jumping into bed with their lovely twin daughters, Margot and Martha. Every member of the Glynn family has something to teach young Peter. Andy Glynn has Peter secretly improving the sketches of his art students. Rosetta Glynn instructs Peter on the art of writing with “the shock of the new, cushioned by the familiar” And the Glynn twins? Let’s just say they start him off with simultaneously manipulating two peas; rolling them under his fingertips. You get the picture.

At Home with the Glynns can only be described as fast, fun and funny. Eric Kraft has this way of mingling truth with imagination – so much so that you aren’t sure what’s really going on. Or, maybe it’s just that Peter’s memories are faulty. Memoirs are only as good as what you want to remember. For example, the twins, Martha and Margot, aren’t really twins at all.

Favorite part: the Troubled Titan Ad on page two. It’s indicative of the 1950s with its reference to “troubled times” (note the subtle bomb launched overhead). I have to wonder how many people wrote to PO Box 98 Legume, Ohio for their “Free Titan Booklet Offer.”

Reason read: to continue the series started in February in honor of Kraft’s birth month.

Author fact: No new fact this time around. Stay tuned.

Book trivia: This is the 6th book in the 8 book series, but as mentioned before, it is not necessary to read this as a series or in order. At Home with the Glynns is super short – close to 150 pages.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Eric Kraft: Too Good To Miss” (p 141).

Grifters

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Thompson, Jim. The Grifters. New York: Black Lizard/Vintage Crime, 1990.

Reason read: In July 1901 fingerprinting was first introduced as a crime prevention tool.

Everyone once in awhile I will read reviews of a book before I can get to the actual book. Most of the time I regret that decision because it taints what I think about the story. But other times, like now, I’m actually glad I did. The reviews for The Grifters I checked out didn’t reveal too much of the plot nor the ending. Instead the reviews did caution that every character “sucked”. No one was likeable or worth rooting for. Interesting.

Twenty five year old Roy Dillon’s apple doesn’t fall far from the family tree. His mother Lilly, barely 15 years older, is a con-artist and as a result Roy grew up having to hustle to make an existence for himself. By the time he turned eighteen Roy couldn’t wait to strike out on his own; to try grifting for himself. Only he’s not that good at it. Grifters opens with Roy badly beaten and bleeding internally, staggering back to his rented hotel room after a failed attempt to con someone. His girlfriend Moira, nurse Carol and mother all take turns nursing him back to health, each with their own con game in the works. It’s a disaster waiting to happen as no one in the group is truly honest. Everyone is blinded by greed and what they think is love.

A quote – “She’d never given him anything but a hard time, which was about the extent of her generosity to anyone” (p 11).

Author fact: Thompson sold his first fiction when he was only 14 years old.

Book trivia: The Grifters is short, only 189 pages long. I was able to read it in one day. Most everyone has seen the 1990 movie with John Cusack and Anjelica Huston. Except me. I haven’t so I won’t make any comparisons.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter Les Crimes Noir (p 67).

Berlin Stories

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Isherwood, Christopher. The Berlin Stories. New York: New Directions, 2008.

If we want to be technical about it, The Berlin Stories is actually two novels in one. The first, Mr. Norris Changes Trains (American title: The Last of Mr. Norris) is just under 200 pages while Goodbye to Berlin is just over (207). The Last of Mr. Norris contains the famous line, “I am a Camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking” (p 1). Even though both stories are connected, I will review each story on its own.

The Last of Mr. Norris – Mr. Norris is a mysterious man. Wealthy one minute, impoverished the next. A sexual deviant with prim and proper manners. Shady friends. He is the focal point and the most developed character of The Last of Mr. Norris. Indeed, Isherwood wanted his readers to focus solely on the character of Mr. Norris throughout the entire novel. The subtleties of this complex character needed to be teased out somehow. Isherwood found that vehicle through the first person narrative of Norris’s English friend, William Bradshaw. From Bradshaw you learn there is something sinister and cunning yet beguiling about Norris. The only other “character” is Berlin in the 1930s. Hitler is beginning to gain power. Communism. Spies. Alliances. Blackmail. How Norris moves through this world is what makes the story interesting.

Goodbye to Berlin – Isherwood explained that in order to have the reader truly focus on Norris every other character needed to be culled from The Last of Mr. Norris. In Goodbye to Berlin those orphaned characters have found a home. Characters like Sally Bowels, Frl. Schoeder, Otto Nowak, and Peter —-. As an aside, the composition of Goodbye to Berlin is a little different from The Last of Mr. Norris. This time the chapters are titled: A Berlin Diary (1930), Sally Bowles, On Ruegen Island (Summer 1931), The Nowaks, The Landauers, and A Berlin Diary (Winter 1932 -3). Favorite lins, “With a mere gesture of wealth he could alter the whole course of our lives” (p 48) and “The political moral is certainly depressing: these people could be made to believe in anybody or anything” (p 90).

Author fact: Isherwood confessed The Berlin Stories was based heavily on the diary he kept during his four years in Berlin.

Book trivia: Armistead Maupin wrote the introduction to Berlin Stories.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade: 1940s” (p 177). Also from Book Lust to Go in the chapter called simply, “Berlin” (p 36). I should note that I feel slightly tricked. Pearl mentioned The Berlin Stories was comprised of The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin but I thought she meant they were short stories. Oops! The good news is a result of this error I was actually able to cross three titles off my list because they were all listed in the index.

Drinking with the Cook

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Furman, Laura. Drinking with the Cook. Houston: Winedale Publishing, 2001.

Reason read: June is national short story month.

Drinking with the Cook – Peggy and Don have a weird relationship. While they have been dating and seem quite serious they never really discuss anything of importance. Right away you can tell they aren’t meant to be together, especially when Peggy gives up her city apartment to live with Don in the country. She doesn’t even know if he wants her there. She is a fish out of water but blind to how wrong the situation really is. Best line: “I wish there was a way to bank fear and draw on it only when necessary” (p 19).

Hagalund – is a story for which I needed a map to guide me. Miriam, while on vacation in Colorado with her husband and son, reminisces about her time as a single girl spending a winter in Sweden. It’s during the Vietnam War, a time when no one trusted anyone else – not completely. Favorite quote: “But now that was over, and I was waiting for the next thing to happen though it was happening already” (p 155).

Author fact: Furman has her own website here: Laura Furman.

Book trivia: There are eleven other stories in Drinking with the Cook.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Good Things Come in Small Packages” (p 103).

What a Piece of Work I Am

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Kraft, Eric. What a Piece of Work I Am (a Conflabulation). New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. 1994.

Confessional: I am growing tired of Kraft’s wittiness. Even though each Peter Leroy book is nothing like the others, there is a certain repetition of cunning that is wearying. Case in point: Ariane Lodkochnikov is the subject of What a Piece of Work I Am only Peter has admitted she is the sister of his imaginary friend. Tricky. Tricky because Ariane made an appearance in the previous Leroy story as a childhood crush. Now they are older and Ariane wants Peter to help tell her life story. In telling her story Peter reinvents her a second time (hence the title of the book). But! She’s supposed to be dead as well as imaginary. I have no imagination for this. Odd, I know. Probably the most interesting part to What a Piece of Work I Am is how Kraft incorporates Leroy’s grandparents back into the story. They have an imaginative story as well. Peter’s grandmother is dying of pancreatic cancer but has always wanted to sail to Rarontonga. With the help of Ariane, Peter’s grandfather gives his wife her wish in fantasy form.

Reason read: to continue the series started in February, honoring Kraft’s birth month.

Author fact: I am running out of things to say about Eric Kraft. According to the internet he was born in 1944.

Book trivia: Curious to note: Ariane creeps around the construction site of a resort much in the same way Peter explored his high school while it was being built.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Eric Kraft: Too Good To Miss” (p 141). Like all the others, I might add…

Battle Cry of Freedom

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McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom. Read by Jonathan Davis. New York: Recorded Books, 2007.

Reason read: I am cheating a little with the reading of this book. It’s in two volumes and over 900 pages long. There is no way I can finish a 900 book in 30 days so I’m stretching it a little: in May I’m reading it in honor of May 26th, 1865 being the day conditions of surrender were offered to E. Kirby Smith. In June I am reading it in honor of June 2nd, 1865, the day Smith officially accepted those conditions. Another reason for May: the first officer was killed on May 24th 1861. Another reason for the May-June reading: the battle of the Pines took place from May 31 to June 1st, 1862.

Every single time I start to write a review for Battle Cry for Freedom I come up with the same damned word – “comprehensive”. It seems as if everyone and their brother uses this same word when writing a review. I guess it’s an appropriate word because it definitely fits. Said another way: if the era, the climate of the times before, during and after the Civil War was an inanimate object it’s as if McPherson studied it from every possible angle; getting on his knees, using a ladder to stand over it, circling around and around it to describe every little thing he sees, careful to leave not a single observation out. The end result is a comprehensive (there’s that word again) view of what our fledgling country looked like. You’ll meet Fire Eaters, Know Nothings, Butternuts, Copperheads, Knights of the Golden Circle, Whigs and the Free Soil Party in addition to the usual suspects like Robert E. Lee, Harriet Tubman, Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis and John Brown, just to name a few. You’ll see the country from an early economic and sociological standpoint. Industry and religion find their way into patriotism and what it meant to be independent.

Best parts: learning that some military maneuvers were so successful they are still taught in military schools to this day. I also enjoyed reading about how women went from being wives who were just supposed to comfort their returned from battle husbands to respected nurses on the battlefield (thanks to Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton, to name two).

Book trivia: Battle Cry won a Pulitzer.

Lines I liked, “The United States has usually prepared for its wars after getting into them” (p 312). Yup. This quote gave me a chuckle since I just finished walking 60 miles for Just ‘Cause, “Few of these southern soldiers had made a one-day march of twenty miles…(p 406).

Author fact: McPherson is an professor emeritus of U.S. History at Princeton. As an aside, my grandfather graduated from Princeton and gave me a stuffed leopard he insist I name after his alma mater. I wonder if I still have “Princeton” somewhere?

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the super straightforward chapter called “Civil War Nonfiction” (p 58). Duh.

Flashman at the Charge

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Flashman at the Charge. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1973.

Are you paying attention? By now we are up to the fourth installment of papers owned by Mr Paget Morrison. As a reminder, Harry Flashman is the bully in Tom Brown’s Schooldays. To bring the reader up to speed, the first three packets of papers revealed Flashy’s early military career, his involvement in the 1st Afghan War, his run-in with Otto Bismark (& Lola Montez), and his escapades as a slaver in West Africa. At the end of the last packet of papers Flashman’s wife, Elspeth, was pregnant with their(?) son. Flashman admits he’s not sure it’s his, especially after he catches his wife with a lover.
In the fourth installment the year is now 1854 and this time Flashy has been appointed as special guardian to Prince William of Celle during the Crimean War. His son, Harry Albert Victor (aka “Havvy”) is five years old. I don’t think I am giving anything away when I say Flashman is taken prisoner and makes an interesting deal with his captor. The outcome of that deal is not revealed in Flashman at the Charge. Maybe in the next installment?
George MacDonald Fraser calls himself the “editor” of this packet of papers and admits he only corrected spelling and added necessary footnotes (and there are a lot of them, as always).I have to admit, I’m still not used to the downright silliness of Fraser’s writing. Case in point – in the heat of battle Flashman has gas, “I remember, my stomach was asserting itself again, and I rode yelling with panic and farting furiously at the same time” (p 105). What I liked the best about this set of papers is that there is someone who sees through Flashman’s cowardice (finally!).

Reason read: to continue the series started in April (Fraser’s birthday).

Author fact: Fraser has been called a “comic novelist”. His writing is funny, I have to admit.

Book trivia: Interesting tidbit: the back flap ends with this statement, “Read Flashman at the Charge and you’ll understand his international reputation as:” That’s it. They leave you hanging.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 93). I have to note that Nancy Pearl called this Flash at the Charge (both within the chapter and in the index) when it should be Flashman.

Lone Pilgrim

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Colwin, Laurie. The Lone Pilgrim. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1981. Reason read: June is National Short Story Month. There are thirteen stories within The Lone Pilgrim and they are as follows:

  1. The Lone Pilgrim – Children’s book illustrator Paula Price is the perfect house guest, a student of human conduct. Vicariously, she lives through her hosts. But really, all she is doing is looking for love. I found her constant questioning “that was love, wasn’t it?” endearing. Favorite line, “He had never so much as brushed my arm with his sleeve, and here we were locked in an embrace on an empty street” (p 14).
  2. The Boyish Lover – Jane and Cordy seem to be the perfect couple…until they get to know one another. Cordy comes from money but thinks Jane is too lavish. She lives paycheck to paycheck but knows how to live life to the fullest. It’s this difference of prosperity that drives them apart. Favorite line, “Love, in its initial stages, takes care of everything” (p 25). True.
  3. Sentimental Memory – Unidentified twice divorced woman runs away to Scotland to figure out her life. She’s only 31 so the idea of two fail marriages behind her is startling. In Scotland she meets a young Scottish student, home on holiday. He’s madly in love with an Italian girl. Without realizing it, he teaches her about the meaning of love. Best lines (for you who know me you’ll know why there are two): “The very least I could do was to catch up to myself” (p 43) and “I realized that there were times when the only appropriate response to Billy would have been to strangle him” (p 44).
  4. A Girl Skating – Bernadette Spaeth tells the creepy story of a famous poet/professor obsessed with her during her childhood and teen years. It’s an ominous story with slightly sinister statements like, “I was the child he loved best and there was no escaping him” (p 51) and “There was no way I could duck him” (p 54).
  5. An Old Fashioned Story – Everyone knows a priss like this, “Elizabeth’s friends came down with measles, chicken pox, and mumps, but Elizabeth considered Nelson her childhood disease” (p 60). Coming from a high-society culture Elizabeth Leopold was supposed to date only good boys (like Nelson; possibly only Nelson). She wanted anyone but Nelson.
  6. Intimacy – Martha Howard is a woman wrangling old emotions. William Sutherland had been a married man when he and Martha first had an affair. Now she’s the married woman. Is it cheating when William’s love came first? “For a moment they were simply lovers with a past between them” (p 89).
  7. Travel – Another story about relationships and marriage, “He knew if he wasn’t around I would step back and run my life as if he never walked into it” (p 96).
  8. Delia’s Father – Georgia Levy remembers her childhood friend’s seductive and exotic father and how she ends up kissing him. I had to wonder how much childhood innocence was really lost when Georgia skipped school that day. Best line, “Children are a tribe, and childhood is there tribal home” (p 116).
  9. A Mythological Subject – Interesting tale about a cousin who falls in love with a colleague. “Of all the terrible things in life, living with a divided heart is the most terrible for an honorable person” (p 127).
  10. St Anthony of the Desert – Another story about a relationship gone awry except this one has a very subtle twist. He’s separated and wants to give his wife another chance. She only mentions it once so if you aren’t paying attention you might miss it, “After all, no one knew I was married” (p 145). Best line from the story, “In ordinary times, devils are ordinary” (p 142).
  11. The Smile Beneath the Smile – Another story about a married individual having an affair with a single one. One pines away for the other. Favorite line, “If you live in a city, you cannot avoid inadvertently opening your life to strangers in public places” (p 154).
  12. The Achieve of, the Mastery of the Thing – a professor’s wife is having an affair with marijuana. Interesting tidbit: the title of the story comes from a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem. That’s cool.
  13. Family Happiness – Yet another story about a married individual (Polly) having an affair with a single one. This time there is the burden of a quirky family. Her love life consists of one man who makes her life normal while the other man makes her life natural. Polly’s boyfriend always gets her name right while her family is always nicknaming. Lines I liked, “The family doted on her, but no one paid much attention to her” (p 191) and “I like my mole-like life with you” (p 206).

There is a pattern to Colwin’s stories and a common theme. Family and relationships (and someone always running off to Paris).

Author fact: Colwin died of a heart attack at age 48.

Book trivia: “Lone Pilgrim” and “The Achieve of, the Mastery of the Thing” are Nancy Pearl’s favorite stories from Lone Pilgrim.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in two different chapters. First, “Food for Thought” (p 92) and again in simply, “Short Stories” (p 220). There are two points I have to make. Lone Pilgrim shouldn’t have been in “Food for Thought” and Pearl added an extra comma in the title of the short story “The Achieve of, the Mastery of the Thing.”

Flash for Freedom

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Flash for Freedom! New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972.

Reason read: to continue the series started in April (George MacDonald Fraser’s birth month).

If you are keeping track, this is the third installment of the Flashman papers “owned” by Mr. Paget Morrison. To recap the first two packets of papers (published in 1969 & 1970): Flashman has been expelled from Rugby School, served in the British army and survived a skirmish with Otto von Bismark. The third packet picks up in the year 1848 and seems to be initially edited by Flashman’s sister-in-law, Grizel de Rothchild as the swearwords are heavily edited and the sex is practically nonexistent (unheard of for our Harry, but don’t worry – it picks up!). This time Harry’s adventure focuses on a trip to America (Washington and New Orleans) where he meets Abraham Lincoln, gets caught up in the slave trade (with the underground railroad and as a salve runner), and par for the course, nearly loses his life several times over. Once again, it’s a woman who saves his bacon.

The more I read the Flashman series, the more I like Flashy’s humor. I can’t help it. When he called his mother-in-law a “Medusa-in-law” I giggled.

Author fact: I’m leaving off the author fact from here on out because I’ve already ready four Fraser books and there is only so much I can say about him. If something interesting pops up I’ll share on the next book.

Book trivia: The cover of Flash for Freedom is really odd.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 93).

From Beirut to Jerusalem

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Friedman, Thomas. From Beirut to Jerusalem New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1989.

Reason read: Iran is beautiful in May…or so I’ve heard.

This book follows a chronology of the Middle East that begins in 1882 and ends in 1988. It could be seen as a love story, a biography about a region Friedman knows intimately and loves dearly despite its many contradictions. In spite of the ever-roiling Arab-Israeli conflict Friedman is right in the thick of it and writes as if he is at home. While he has a reporters flair for the detail there is a cavalier nonchalance when it comes to the dangers. He has grown used to the gunfire, the bombings and the kidnappings. His ambivalence in the face of such violence could almost be comical if it was not so conflicted.

Quotes that grabbed me, “Death had no echo in Beirut” (p 29). That spoke volumes to me. Here’s another, “Levin’s kidnapping, and the dozens that would follow, taught me a valuable lesson about journalism that one could learn only in a place like Beirut – to pay attention to toe silence” (p 74).

Book trivia: From Beirut to Jerusalem in the winner of the National Book Award of 1989.

Author fact: According to the dust jacket of From Beirut to Jerusalem Friedman had won five different awards by the time this book was published.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter simply called “The Middle East” (p 154).

Two Gardeners

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Wilson, Emily Herring, ed. Two Gardeners: Katharine S. White and Elizabeth Lawrence: a Friendship in Letters. Boston: Beacon Press, 2002.

Reason read: to celebrate spring (and somewhere in the world April is National Gardening Month although we had snow showers today). However, three different coworkers mentioned they worked on their gardens over the weekend so it must be true. I’m jealous! I ran 13 miles instead.

Two Gardeners is a delightful book about a friendship that just clicked from the very beginning. Emily Herring Wilson has compiled & edited the letters of Katharine White and Elizabeth Lawrence’s nineteen year correspondence (1958 – 1977) which started with a simple fan letter to Katharine from Elizabeth. Katharine White (married to E.B. White) wrote reviews about gardening catalogs and Elizabeth just happened to respond to one such seed catalog review. Their correspondence grew from strictly talking about gardening to the more personal as time went on. They grew comfortable enough to share details of illnesses (their own and of family) and the trials of growing older. A real friendship starts to bloom despite only being pen pals and meeting once. Yes, I meant that pun! I have to admit it was sad to read about their growing illnesses, especially Katharine’s because hers were more debilitating.
My only “dislike” and a minor one at that: there was a lot of name-dropping between Katharine and Elizabeth and most names had a footnote explaining the significance of each person. I found it curious that “Donna” didn’t have her own footnote. Donna, as in Hurricane Donna, of 1960. Also, relating to the footnotes: Wilson felt it necessary to correct either Katharine or Elizabeth when they made an error in their letters.
I’m sure I would cherish Two Gardeners more if I were half as passionate about gardening as Katharine and Elizabeth. Not all was lost on me, though. I would say Katharine gardened most like me, “I just put things out and let them take their chances” (p 29).
I don’t know what to make of this, but Katharine, in the beginning of their friendship, was always asking Elizabeth not to answer her letters. “Do not answer this!” (p 70).

Quotes I loved, “I suppose she though she was bound to love a fellow gardener” (p 14), and “I am always in debt to Mr. Saier because he sends things at odd times, and I wake up in the night and remember that I have owed him a quarter for three years” (p 20).

Author Editor fact: Emily Herring Wilson just looks like a gardener from her dust jacket cover.

Book trivia: Two Gardeners includes some great photographs of Katharine and Elizabeth as well as their homes and loved ones. There is even one of Katherine with Andy.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Gear Up for Gardening” (p 95). Note: both Katharine and Elizabeth published books on the subject of gardening. Pearl preferred to only mention Katharine’s.

Royal Flash

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Royal Flash: From the Flashman Papers, 1842-3 and 1847. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1970.

Even though I didn’t remember the plot of Flashman, the first book in Fraser’s series, one detail came rushing back to me immediately when I started Royal Flash – Harry Flashman is definitely not short on ego. He’s the same despicable cad he was in the first book. Within the first few pages of Royal Flash he describes himself as handsome, beloved, admired, and respected. And, like the first few pages of Flashman he winds up in the bed of a beautiful woman almost immediately. But, having said all that, he’s still a coward, albeit a clever one at that. He says brazenly, “The world was my oyster, and if it wasn’t my sword that had opened it, no one was any the wiser” (p 4). This time Flashy has got himself in deep. As payback for an earlier embarrassment Harry is forced to pretend he is Prince Carl Gustaf while the real royalty gets over a bout of the clap. Only, here’s the twist: he takes over for Carl on the eve of his wedding and has to marry the Irma, the frosty Duchess of Strackenz. He is assured the marriage is not binding due to his different religious faith (and the fact he is already married). True to Fraser style, all is not as it seems and Flashman finds himself in one pickle after another.

Couldn’t help myself lines I like, “Royalty – I have Bersonin’s solemn word for it – never claw at their arses to assist thought” (p 113).

Reason read: George MacDonald Fraser was born in the month of April.

Book trivia: this is the second book in the Flashman series. I read Flashman a long time ago (Oct 20, 2009) and had to review my blog to remember what I read.

Author fact: I have heard it said that Harry Flashman is George MacDonald Fraser in disguise. A womanizing coward? Yikes.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 93).

Measure of All Things

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Alder, Ken. The Measure of All Things: the Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error that Transformed the World. Read by Byron Jennings. New York: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2002.

While the French Revolution raged around them, the Royal Academy of Sciences had a plan – to measure the circumference of the world and they knew just the two scientists (astronomers also known as savants) to do it. Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre was to head north from Paris while his partner, Pierre-Francois-Andre Mechain headed south. [As an aside, when Alder referred to them as the north and south going astronomers I instantly thought of Dr. Seuss & his Sneetches. Yup, I’m a seven year old at heart.] What was supposed to be a year-long adventure turned into seven but the end result was the definition of the meter and the birth of the metric system. Part biographical, part scientific, part historical and part adventure Alder adds intrigue when he delves into a secret error that only Delambre and Mechain knew about. He goes on to question exactly what is an error and he speculates on the lives of the men who changed the course of weights and measures.

Reason read: April is National Math, Science and Technology month

Author fact: Alder is the author of a couple of other books but this is the only one on my list.

Book trivia: The Measure of All Things includes illustrations and photographs. My favorite photo is of the Rodez Cathedral

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Techno-Thrillers” (p 232).

Binding Spell

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Arthur, Elizabeth. Binding Spell. New York: Doubleday, 1988.

Binding Spell is another one of those stories where you feel like you have been lifted out of your little life and plopped down in the middle of someone else’s. A lot of someone elses, really. Felicity, Indiana is a community full of interesting characters and Binding Spell has the occasional long rambling commentary on religion and the nuclear arms threat, especially when the Russians come to town. Let me back up. Meet the community of Felicity: Ryland Guthrie is a hypochondriac furniture salesman. His brother Peale has been the county sheriff for all of five months. Ryland was married to April (divorced five years) and they have a son, Clayton. Peale married Amanda but sometimes forgets she’s his wife. Bailey and Howell Bourne are brother and sister. They lost their parents in a car accident. Bailey is twenty years old and a witch in training and Howell is married to Charlene. Ada Esterhaczy is Hungarian and a self proclaimed witch. Maggie, a counselor at Powell College, is her granddaughter. She also dabbles in witchcraft. Billy Bob Watson is the maintenance man at Powell. He likes to try to run over students with his tractor. Mitch Ketchum is a down and out desperate farmer in danger of losing his farm. Murrary Anderson artificially inseminates horses and has just been dumped by his girlfriend, Rosie. Dr. Richard Minot is a professor at Howell and has the hots for Maggie. Ryland starts dating Maggie. Peale has a thing for Bailey. Ada just wants her dog to mate with Ryland’s so that she can breed puppies. Then there are is the weather. Did you get all of that? Now enter the two Russians, come to visit Powell College. Howell, Billy Bob and Mitch hatch a plan to kidnap the Russians in order to save their farms. Thinking Ada will hate the Russians due to her Hungarian heritage they bring the captives to her farm. Only Ada is too busy cooking up love potions to bind certain couples (human and animal)…and that’s when things go a little crazy.

Lines I liked, “She was less trouble than her pet cat” (p 39) and “Now, as the pain – which might, admittedly, have been caused by that ice water he had drunk down so rapidly, with some ice shards inadvertently included – poked him tenderly in the side, he could not decide whether it was pancreatic cancer or Maggie’s being late” (p 217).

Reason read: April is National Dog Month

Author fact: Arthur wrote a memoir, Island Sojourn that is not on my list.

Book trivia: Binding Spell is Arthur’s third novel but the only one I’m reading for the Challenge.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Great Dogs in Fiction” (p 105). Chance is my favorite of the dogs.