Books

Or can we just say five crime fiction titles and leave it at that?  Well, anyway, lest we get bogged down in these nice distinctions, let’s forge ahead with specifics:     I’ve been a fan of John Harvey’s novels since the days when he was writing about Charlie Resnick, an extremely appealing detective who lived and worked in Nottingham. The last entry in this series, Cold in Hand, came out in 2008.  There was a gap of ten years between that title and Last Rites, the one that preceded it. Meanwhile, Harvey had created a new character, retired policeman Frank Elder. Recently, yet more protagonists have been created. Good Bait is a standalone – or it is considered thus, I suppose, until or unless Karen Shields and/or Trevor Cordon appear in subsequent books. DCI Shields is based in London; DI Cordon, in Cornwall. They’re both involved in separate investigations, which, as the novel progresses, tend more and more to converge. With this kind of narrative, I often find that one thread is more vivid than the other. So it is in this case. Trevor Cordon is pursuing an inquiry on his own time – one that, for him, has a distinctly personal element. Generally speaking, I liked Good Bait, though I found myself becoming somewhat impatient with  it from time to time. John Harvey is a reliably skilled and intelligent writer. So: recommended, but not with wild enthusiasm. ***************************************************************************   I’m a big fan of the novels of Karin Fossum. In recent years, she’s been the author of some of my favorite mysteries. The Caller is about a series of practical jokes being played on strangers by a feckless youth. As the story proceeds, the jokes become increasingly sinister, causing more and more pain for innocent individuals. As is characteristic of much Scandinavian crime fiction, the sense of dread mounts steadily and inexorably as events unfold. As with Fossum’s other books, the writing is spare and beautiful. She’s master of the plot-driven novel whose characters are fully fleshed out and intriguing, if not always likeable. One who most definitely is likable is her series protagonist, Inspector Konrad Sejer. Among his other winning character traits, Sejer loves dogs. His beloved (and outsized!) Leonberger having passed from the scene, he’s now the proud owner of a Shar Pei named Frank. Leonberger Shar Pei I want so much to recommend this book, but I feel that I must give fair warning: Late in the narrative, a terrible thing happens to a child, and for this reader at least, the event is described in more detail than was strictly necessary. ***********************************************************************    Jessica Mann reviews crime fiction for The Literary Review. She also writes  novels in the genre. Some years ago, I read A Kind of Healthy Grave, which features series character Tamara Hoyland.  I’ve  been enjoying Mann’s reviews in the aforementioned magazine for several years now, so I decided to read another of her novels. As I was looking for something set in Cornwall, I chose A Private Inquiry.  Barbara Pomeroy is an arbitration judge. Her profession consists of rendering a decision as to whether a given development project can go forward in the location for which it is intended. It’s a job that demands intellectual rigor, scrupulous fairness, and a great deal of traveling. She loves it. With her husband Colin and son Toby, Barbara lives in St. Ives, a town on the coast of Cornwall famed for its rich concentration of artists. Colin himself is a painter who is slowly but surely gaining recognition. Barbara must perforce spend much time away from her  family, and it is while she’s away that a mysterious newcomer to St. Ives begins to insinuate herself into their small family circle. The other major character in this novel is Dr. Fidelis Berlin, a child psychologist and specialist in parent

I never have trouble remembering Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday, for it coincides with the anniversary of my founding The Rap Sheet (a subject about which I shall have more to say anon). Had that physician turned author not died in July 1930, he’d be celebrating his 154th birthday today, having been born in 1859. On this occasion, let me direct you to a fairly good biography of Conan Doyle here, a video of the author talking about his life and career (which I’ve posted before on this page, but which many readers probably have not seen), and David Abrams’ review of the 2007 book Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters, by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower, and Charles Foley. Oh, and if you didn’t see it before, here is James McCreet’s Rap Sheet piece looking back at some of the more preposterous deductions made in the Sherlock Holmes stories. (Hat tip to MysteryFanfare.)

I Want My MTV, Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum (M, 30s, slicked-back brown hair, suede jacket, navy sweater, L train) http://bit.ly/11I8RdR

...Natalie Haynes: Confessions of a Booker judge

Waiting on Wednesday is hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. It is a weekly meme that allows you to share a book you can’t wait to read! Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols July 16, 2013 from MTV Books Bailey wasn’t always a wild child and the black sheep of her family. She used to play fiddle and tour the music circuit with her sister, Julie, who sang and played guitar. That ended when country music execs swooped in and signed Julie to a solo deal. Never mind that Julie and Bailey were a duet, or that Bailey was their songwriter. The music scouts wanted only Julie, and their parents were content to sit by and let her fulfill her dreams while Bailey’s were hushed away. Bailey has tried to numb the pain and disappointment over what could have been. And as Julie’s debut album is set to hit the charts, her parents get fed up with Bailey’s antics and ship her off to granddad’s house in Nashville. Playing fiddle in washed-up tribute groups at the mall, Bailey meets Sam, a handsome and oh-so-persuasive guitarist with his own band. He knows Bailey’s fiddle playing is just the thing his band needs to break into the industry. But this life has broken Bailey’s heart once before. She isn’t sure she’s ready to let Sam take her there again… Goodreads | Amazon | IndieBound Related Posts: Review: Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols Review: Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols Review: The One That I Want by Jennifer Echols Interview: Jennifer Echols Review: Love Story by Jennifer Echols Write a quick commentThe post Waiting on Wednesday: Dirty Little Secret by Jennifer Echols appeared first on Chick Loves Lit.

Presented Without Comment: the newly unveiled logo for the newly enacted College Football Playoff and the new poster for Lars von Trier’s latest film, Nymphomaniac. Related posts: “Jawline of an aircraft carrier” “It’s like a crackpot combination of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!, Ingmar... College Football, Academics, and Great Journalism College football season is upon us, and I’d be remiss... The Irish Console The Irish Over at Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Nick Curley prescribes “five passages...

This might be the best attempt yet to film Fitzgerald's masterpiece. Which is not to say this is a good filmWriting about Baz Luhrmann's Gatsby in relation to F Scott Fitzgerald's prose, is like trying to describe a gorilla playing with a Fabergé egg. There it is, this great hairy, wild-eyed beast, stomping, roaring, thumping its chest. It neither knows nor cares about the delicate beauty it holds in its mattock hands, and has no idea why so many people think it so precious. …That's not to say, however, that the film bears no relation to the book. In a charitable review, the reliably eloquent Mark Kermode said that it's as if Luhrmann has decided that he's simply going to shout the text at you. So, for instance, if you take the famous scene where Nick first sees Gatsby looking out across the sound to that single green light on the end of Daisy's dock.Luhrmann's "single green light" spins around, burns right into your eyes in one of many annoying 3D flourishes – oh and it isn't "single" at all. The director appears to have taken "unquiet darkness" to mean "noisy place scene where there are lots of other lights." Restraint for Luhrmann is clearly only the metal bar that holds you in on a rollercoaster ride.Another good instance of Luhrmann's frenetic style comes in an example I mentioned last week in relation to earlier film versions of Gatsby and the following beautiful passage:"We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling—and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea."The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon."When discussing those earlier filmmakers, I complained that although they tried to recreate the scene to the letter, they failed to bring in any of the magic. No flags, no floating, no control over the breeze even. Did I say breeze? Luhrmann, of course, makes it a gale, blasting curtains in every direction conceivable. He is at least true to the book in that there are no stationary objects – least of all the camera, which, as usual, careens and trips around the room. It becomes engulfed in a great sea of white curtains, hurries towards the ceiling, dodges under Daisy and Jordan, who do indeed appear to be floating – or flying something – as they certainly aren't relaxed as Fitzgerald describes them. Nothing is relaxed. Even this quietest of moments is projected as a giant, throbbing headache.It would be possible to dissect almost every scene in this way, and for a lover of Fitzgerald's delicate prose, much of this film is painful. Especially when, with extraordinary tackiness, the director has the writer's actual words banged out on a typewriter, or shown floating across the air in cloud writing, or written out with notably noisy pens …… And yet, even though the reading group demands that we reference the book, to do so isn't entirely fair to Luhrmann. The thing about watching a gorilla play with a Fabergé egg is that it's rather good fun. Admittedly, even if you could forget Fitzgerald, this would still be a flawed piece of filmmaking. The 3D gimmicks, the flying panning shots, the constantly twirling camera are infuriating. The way everyone drives as if they are in The Fast And Furious 1922 edition is absurd. The music choices are also unfortunate. It's not that the music is especially bad, or that Luhrmann has committed some kind of sacrilege by opting for modern music rather than jazz. The trouble is that instead of opting for the kind of ultra-modern music that jazz still was in 1922, the director has gone for

Today is all about waiting. I'm waiting to see if Anna will be used as a photo double for a local film, though it's probably unlikely. I'm waiting to find out if Erin will be cast and/or called back for a local theatre production, which is probably likely. I'm waiting to learn the extensiveness and cost of repairs on my car, which has a continuum of suck factor I don't want to contemplate. Around me, people are waiting. Friends in their last weeks of pregnancy are fighting with meditation or tearing apart rooms in the struggle with biding their time. Teacher friends are eyeing the last weeks of school. Writers always waiting for a letter, email, or call. In this mode, I'm realizing that far from its passive nature, waiting has a palpaple energy. With determination and maybe luck, you can lose yourself in distraction. But in stillness, you can feel the force like waves beating a quiet rhythm in your brain. I talked about my own blogging blahs as a sense of something coming, but maybe it is more an accumulation of waiting that is tiring. Fighting ocean waves is useless. Better to coast on the current or ride in on the tide. It makes sense then that I was reading Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea and came on this passage:An eternity exists between the click of each second. I remind myself that time does not stand still. The seconds will stack up like poker chips. Seconds into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days. Time will pass. In months I will look back on this hell from a comfortable seat in the future... perhaps, if I'm lucky. Sometimes all we can do is wait and understand that looking back the period of time will seem insignificant. That knowledge may be an easy comfort for small things like a theatre role or car repair, but maybe a lifeline for those struggling with grief or depression. Especially for young people who are not used to waiting for so much as a weather report, it has to be the hardest simple lesson there is: that time will pass. And at the end of that time is something worth waiting for. Links to material on Amazon.com contained within this post may be affiliate links for the Amazon Associates program, for which this site may receive a referral fee.

From Goodreads: Jack Audley has been a highwayman. A soldier. And he has always been a rogue. What he is not, and never wanted to be, is a peer of the realm, responsible for an ancient heritage and the livelihood of hundreds. But when he is recognized as the long-lost son of the House of Wyndham, his carefree life is over. And if his birth proves to be legitimate, then he will find himself with the one title he never wanted: Duke of Wyndham.Grace Eversleigh has spent the last five years toiling as the companion to the dowager Duchess of Wyndham. It is a thankless job, with very little break from the routine... until Jack Audley lands in her life, all rakish smiles and debonair charm. He is not a man who takes no for an answer, and when she is in his arms, she's not a woman who wants to say no. But if he is the true duke, then he is the one man she can never have... My Thoughts: Romance book so don't expect a thesis paper here. I picked this off the shelf because I needed something light and quick to read. The Lost Duke fit the bill perfectly. The first few pages were a bit rough. It felt like any other romance, and I was thinking, "Really? I already know who the lost duke is..come on Julia " But then the story took a slight turn and during that the characters grew on me. Grace is not a simpering perfect heroine, although she does have quite the sad back story and she works for a she devil, the Dowager Countess of Wyndham. Grace is a very nice, intelligent, sharp witted young lady who deserves love. Jack, the eventual object of said love, also has a sad back story and is a bit roguish but not overly so. He is smart, snarky, and hot of course. These two don't fall into bed right away, and there's some flirting and kissing before the big dance. there was some dialogue on Grace's part that I thought was a bit much, but now I realize it had to be a big concern for her, so it's acceptable. Others characters worth mentioning: Thomas the current Duke of Wyndham - meh. Sometimes I liked sometimes I didn't, but he turned out okay by the end. Quinn's next book in the series features Thomas, but I'm not overly impressed with him to want to read more of him. As for the evil dowager, she was a sad case, and I don't know why she was so unhappy. Would love to know what the bee is her bonnet. She did start to work a nerve also, because no one wants to constantly read mean thins form a character but that was her lot in this book. Overall, The Lost Duke was an enjoyable, quick, and page turning read. I wanted to know what was happening next, and when Grace and Jack were going to get together. Perfect fun book, for when you want something light. Publisher: Avon Paperback 371 pages Book Source: my shelves via Paperbackswap Read as part of Naida's Romance Reading Challenge 2013. © Jenny Girl - 2013 "All Rights Reserved"

Wole Soyinka does not approve of the push for Chinua Achebe to be awarded a posthumous Nobel Prize for Literature, and he doesn’t appreciate fan letters asking for his support to that end. “How did creative valuation descend to such banality?” Soyinka remarks in an interview with SaharaReporters. “Do these people know what they’re doing – they are inscribing Chinua’s epitaph in the negative mode of thwarted expectations. I find that disgusting.” Related posts: The Nobel goes to Harold Pinter It’s been a busy week on the awards circuit. What... Facebook’s Hype The Facebook IPO was this week’s biggest story. The social... Doris Lessing Nabs the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature So, it wasn’t Philip Roth, Amos Oz, Joyce Carol Oates,...