Whodunit?

audrey's organizational comments, alan bennet the uncommon reader

 

greetings, reader.

  

this week i read a how-to article on blogs. i learned that i should be using sub-headings. easy to do. here i go. if i do it consistently, the use of these sub-heads should make the whodunit blog easier to read and easier to navigate. please let me know.

 

BOOKS:

the uncommon reader by alan bennett is a winner. it is charming. it is intelligent. it is sensitive. it is satirical. it is funny. and bennett knows when to stop. the novel is only 120 pages with wide margins and a large font! please take it with you on your next airplane trip. you won't mind the pushing, small seats, lack of food or any kind of service--as much.

 

the premise is simple. chasing after her corgis, the queen (the titular uncommon reader) stumbles across a bookmobile in the palace's backyard, so to speak. she begins to read, something she has never done before. at the beginning, another reader, a kitchen helper named seakins (seeking, get it?) is her guide, but she soon outgrows him. the complications of her obsession with reading are hilarious. the palace staff is horrified.the changes in her own personal understanding and her world view are beautifully handled.

 

we are privy to her written and spoken comments. one afternoon as she was reading henry james, she says out loud, 'oh, do go on.' at one time or another, hasn't everyone said this?

 

she is at another time 'in the (occasionally exasperating) company of tristam shandy.'

 

at the end, of the novella, she turns from reading to writing with even more severe consequences.

 

the book is published by picador, a division of ferrar, strauss, and giroux.

 

 

SUBMISSIONS, CONTESTS, AND SIGNINGS:

February 10, 2012 | 7-9pm Discussion + Book Signing:  at visible voice in cleveland

Regina Brett: Be the Miracle 

+ Sip to Support The Gathering Place touchedbycancer.org

Guests can opt to partake in a $15 wine tasting to benefit The Gathering Place.

Regina Brett has been a newspaper columnist for 16 years, 11 of them for Cleveland's Plain Dealer, where she was a finalist in 2008 and 2009 for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary.  Her last book, God Never Blinks, was a New York Times bestseller and has been published in 18 different countries.  Regina hosts a call-in radio show, The Regina Brett Show, on WCPN, the Cleveland NPR affiliate.  She speaks regularly to companies and not-for-profit organizations.  

 

from g.l.rocky@cox.net 

Interested in story topics for ScripType magazines, we are looking for suggestions for articles dealing with our local communities. ScripType communities are Broadview Heights, Brecksville, Independence, Hinckley, Richfield, Bath, and Sagamore Hills.

Topics of interest might be:

People with an interesting career, achievement
Someone who has done/or is doing something (hobby/work/travel) that is unique

Someone hosting a foreign exchange student
Someone who is coordinating a charitable activity
An area or property that has an interesting history

 

 the 2012 Ohioana Book Festival is coming up. For now you can find the list of some of the authors that will be attending the festival at http://www.ohioanabookfestival.org/authors/ .

 

MENTIONS/SHOUT OUTS:

 

happy birthday to grandson seth lavin and congratulations on all he has accomplished since his last birthday.

 

congratulations to grandson carter lavin on his non-militant stance and excellent understanding as shown in the san francisco chronicle in regard to its article on occupy oakland, 'Not all of the demonstrators were as militant. In keeping with the Occupy movement's brief history, the people gathered at Frank Ogawa Plaza for the rally represented a wide variety of views. But they shared a concern about rising income inequality and economic struggle. And several said they were pleased that the Occupy movement had focused public attention and debate on those issues.

 

"The fact that everyone now talks about the 99 percent, the 1 percent - that shows Occupy's won," said Carter Lavin, 23, of San Francisco. "The debate was about debt, not jobs. Now it's about jobs."

i like the sub-heads. they help me organize my often scattered thoughts.

 

audreylavin.com              http://bit.ly/OhAudrey  

whodunits by ann b. ross and james patterson

my error. yes, even i have been known to make them. i read ann b. ross's miss julia rocks the cradle thinking it was a murder mystery. it came to me as a gift in a box full of other murder mysteries. why wouldn't i think so? guilt by association.

 

even though i kept waiting for the murder that never happened (one man does die from a heart attack), i couldn't help but be charmed by miss julia and her household: her husband sam, her ex-husband's mistress hazel marie, and hazel marie's husband, the son, little lloyd, who hazel marie had with miss julia's husband, all knowledgeable and all around helper lillian, her daughter, and the new twins (those who miss julia rocks). i think there was another woman in there someplace. anyway, it is one delightful house full. 

 

there are two slight mysteries. the first one, referred to above, is who is the dead man found in the tool shed? the second one is who has been stealing miss julia's checks and money from her bank account? these are secondary plots when compared with all of the excitement going on in the household of miss julia, this proper, middle aged, southern lady.

 

as best i can count, this is the thirteenth novel in this north carolina series. it is published by viking and is 210 pages.

 

writing hints from ms. ross are: she does all of her writing in the morning. she writes five days a week, and says, as all authors do, if you want to be a writer, you have to write. and good news for many, she does not use outlines.

 

on the other hand, there is no question but that james patterson's cross fire is a murder mystery. i've lost count, but there are six to twelve murders, definitely not heart attacks, as one murderer carves math formulas into his victim's bodies. another works with the precision of the navy seals we've been reading about and admiring lately. 

 

again, it is part of a well developed series. cross fire is the seventeenth book in the series, and is not the newest. it says on the cover that 'alex cross gets married-and kyle craig is back.' no never mind. you do not have to be familiar with the series or read this in order with the other alex cross novels. it stands alone. and stand well. it was bill clinton who said that james patterson is his favorite author. maybe he said his favorite novel writer, as i'm sure clinton did and does more serious reading.

 

the novels starts with kyle craig, alex cross's one time friend turned arch enemy, getting so much plastic surgery in cuba that he has no trouble taking over the job of a well known f.b.i. stalwart max segal. somehow he is assigned to the same case, alex cross is working on, the murders by snipers of so-called respectable bad guys all over d.c.

 

little, brown, and co. are the publishers. the novel is 356 pages.

 

we'll have to re-define genres. there is no way that miss julia rocks the cradle and cross fire can be fit under the same rubric, though both are enjoyable and written by authors with a sure hand.

whodunit comments and novel #13 in swanson's murder mystery series

thanks to all of the readers of this blog who replied to my last e-mail regarding change of url. most of you acknowledged the change with remarks such as, 'Thanks for the update.' from r.s. in zoar who is particularly good about answering his e-mail & ''Thanks for link' from s.t. in canton, also a diligent e-mailer, as is m.l. in chicago, who says 'Congrats on the new url--I like the OhAudrey.'

 

the e-mail reminded some readers of other projects, k.s. i think in north canton, referring to a local university group suggests that 'maybe we can restart writing group?'

 

the range of answers closes with this message from a.s. in deerfield, who starts with a reference to the wiliam monk novel acceptable lost, 'Oh dear you lost me in detailing the sanduskyization* of little Thames boys.'..and ends with, 'You is certainly perspicacious..'

*spellcheck stopped at that one!

 

i do appreciate hearing from readers of the blog and would like some opinions about books you all are reading now.

 

i just finished denise swanson's murder of a bookstore babe. this is part of the scumble river mystery series. my daughter, otherwise intelligent, even brilliant; lovely; discriminating; sent me a box full of these novels starring skye denison, school psychologist, and tumbler over what seems to be more dead bodies than there are live ones in scumble river, which the author points out 'is not a real town.' no kidding.

 

a new book store and cafe opens in town. kayla,a young woman who works there and who is a former student of skye's, is killed by, among other things, a book case falling on her. shades of e.m. forster and howards end where leonard bast, a young clerk with aspirations is killed the same way.

 

skye and her boyfriend, wally boyd, the scumble river police chief find the murderer, who certainly has a flimsy motivation. but that's my opinion. a very minor sub plot has coroner and funeral director, simon reid  not giving up skye  without a fight.

 

swanson has done her fans a favor and figured out the time line for each one of her novels. the bookstore story takes place in september of 2005.

 

this is the 13th novel is the series. so many people must like it as much as my daughter does.  it is 243 pages and published by obsidian.

anne perry's victorian murder mystery and your comments

 

please add my new url to your favorite places:  http://bit.ly/OhAudrey  .

blogmeister carl has made life in the blogosphere easier for all of us.

 

here is a contest for poets reading today's blog:  radio station WCLV is holding a Valentine’s Day Love Poem contest.  Ten winning poems will receive prizes, will
be read on the air, and will be posted on the radio’s web site. if interested, write to this e-dress for more information--  love@wclv.com

 

i received a comment and question from o.k. of akron, who i have known for years and yet did not realize until today that her initials were o.k.!! speaking of this blog, she says, 'I did enjoy the candor of your comments in discussing other authors. The other thing I noticed is the casualness of caps and punctuation, etc. That's not the way I know your writing. Is this peculiar to blog writing? '

 

thanks for the compliment re: blog content. as to my style: when i was  a child, my first typewriter was single case, upper case only. i learned to write that way. it is quicker and i hope reads with more spontaneity, although i do spend a great deal of time composing my blog. it is not off-the-cuff. i did not realize that i was being casual about punctuation. any so-called casualness in grammar or punctuation is, in truth, an error, and i should be chastised. gently.

 

i am now reading another novel from another series. what is this? there must be some independent writers out there publishing novels that stand alone.

 

the novel i'm reading is anne perry's acceptable loss.

this is part of the william monk victorian detective/policeman series. perry is also the author of the charlotte and thomas pitt, victorian policeman novels. yes, i do get them confused, though i think charlotte is a little gentler than monk's wife hester. and william monk has memory problems for a distinguishing feature. as you can guess, this does interfere with his policeman duties at times. the series was really more interesting when memory was a bigger problem. at present monk seems to be living more in the here and now.

 

and an ugly here and now it is with pornography and paid sex with young boys on a thames river boat taking the lead. the book is a continuation of a previous one that treats the same subject. there are many, many references to this previous book, which i have not read. also we readers are given many, many references to hester's work in the crimean war. even if we hadn't read any previous books in the series, one or two mentions would suffice.

 

characters we have met in other books in the series return, now pitched against each other instead of the steadfast friends they once were. some people might not like this. i doubt if it will make any difference to perry's loyal fans or any of those entranced by the interesting sub-genre of victorian detective fiction.

 

the novel is published by the random house publishing group and is 305 pages.

audreylavin.com          http://bit.ly/OhAudrey  

many comments today + lee child

i thought The Appearance of Print in Eighteenth-Century Fiction (cambridge university press) sounded as if it would be quite interesting to all of us who are interested in writing, publishing, and reading. i lifted the following paragraph, more or less in total, from a mailing from case western reserve u.: in The Appearance of Print Fiction , the author christopher Flint examines how the era’s printing resources shaped the organization of the written word—from typography to page format to book construction. He notes that “the novel” began exclusively as a printed object. Unlike drama, epic poetry or even the Renaissance romance, it was written explicitly to be published. It oriented readers toward the visual particularities of uniform alphabetic letterpress.' 

 sounds to me as if it is worth looking into. any comments?

speaking of comments, i want to thank g. p. in california for her suggestion about finding the remnants of booktour on godaddy. good idea. and i talked with nice godaddy employees, but nothing came of it. i guess my booktour info. is lost. lost. lost.

another nice comment on this blog was rec'd from Deron Paul. unfortunately, he has the two audrey lavins who are writers confused. the california audrey lavin, or the OTHER audrey lavin as she is known around here, is the one who wrote the children's book about divorce. my last book is an anthology of prose and poetry Turning Leaves: an anthology of prose and poetry and my newest book is a murder mystery eloquent tattoo. thanks anyway, deron.

  

dr. f. w. writes from florida to tell me that he finds my blog interesting. i guess that can mean anything!!

 

more comments about the subject of series from c.l. in the san francisco area. he writes: 'i like your (and l.l's ) point about Evanovich, that a loyal fan base props up her duds. I have a guilty pleasure book series I love. It is fantasy Xanth series by Piers Anthony. Each book is about 200 pages, lots of corny jokes and is at a middle school reading level. The first two books are excellent. The next 7 are pretty good. The trilogy after that was interesting. The next 23 books in the series are mediocre, some better than others, but it is very formulaic (the author has even explained his formula in depth in a book). 

We keep reading because each book still brings us back to the world, characters and story that first excited us. We read the duds in hope to find remnants of a glorious past. As the author keeps disappointing us, we lose faith in the series. But as long as enough die-hards remain, new books will keep coming out.'      absolutely right on the nail.

 

a final note is my suggestion to take a look at the light poetry in the  new book 'swing' by akron poets and sisters ruth hale and maryann fear. 

 

now to the mystery of the day, lee child's The Affair: A Reacher Novel (Jack Reacher). this is sub-titled 'a reacher novel.' i am embarrassed to say that the sub-title meant nothing to me. i must be the only person in the u.s. who doesn't know who jack reacher is since the affair is child's sixteenth (yes, 16th) novel about him.

 

i think there must be a special audience for the sub-genre of tough army guy who solves crimes. and this guy is tough. at one point (i can't help smiling as i write this. where do these people come from? child looks attractively normal in his cover shot.) anyway, at one point reacher is faced with and easily defeats six big, burly tough macho guys, who come to hunt him down. the reader gets a good description of each blow reacher lands. this kind of detail by the author works much better in his sex scenes or scene. pretty good.

 

the story take place in carter crossing, mississippi, in 1997. elite military cop jack reacher's orders are: go undercover, keep your distance, monitor the investigation. of course, there is a beautiful sheriff to help.

the cover-up of murders by famous people for famous people (famous in the context of the story, perhaps powerful would be a better descriptive) is no more a problem for reacher than those six steroidal guys are. he solves the problems and, in doing so, gives  good reason why he is not still in the army.

 

i don't know how much suspense this novel holds for the average reader. i would guess not much, but the pace picks up as the reader continues  along. if you like tough guys, you're going to love jack reacher. you probably already do.

 

delacorte press is the publisher of this 405 page novel.

whodunits? by michael connelly and john grisham + a taste of philosopher david hume

 

does anyone know how to access a defunct web site? i've listed a number of my book chats, library talks, book signings, etc. on  www.BookTour.com , always figuring that some day i'd copy them for my own records. that 'some day' came along and booktour was no longer waiting for me. i would really like to get my hands on dates and places of these missing materials. any suggestions? please?

 

i've been reading books by two of the u.s's most famous and most prolific murder mystery/thriller/police procedural&legal puzzler writers. it's been interesting to read them in themselves and also in conjunction with each other.

 

the books are michael connelly's The Drop (Harry Bosch) and john grisham's The Litigators. 

in The Drop (Harry Bosch), our old friend detective harry bosch has been given three years before he must retire from the LAPD, and he wants cases more fiercely than ever. in one morning, he gets two. one is a new opening (dna) to a case from 1989. the other is a present-day case with political connotations. i'm not sure how it can happen, but with murder, rape, possible suicide, child molestation, and other sordid crimes on almost every page, the book is never exciting. even the sexual attraction is dull. of course, the object of his passion has serious problems of her own. i've read other michael connelly novels, even other ones starring harry bosch. i find it hard to believe with all turns and twists of plot being telegraphed ahead to the reader, that this author is the lincoln lawyer guy.  f.y.i., this is the 17th of the bosch chronicles. again, it might be a series that has run its course. 

published by little, brown and co., the novel is 388 pages.

i am happy to report however, that john grisham's The Litigators is a heck of a lot of fun. our 'outsider,' the fictive device necessary to tell the story, is david zinc, a harvard trained lawyer, who has been working miserably for five years for a 600-lawyer chicago law firm. on a drunken bender, he stumbles into the so-called firm of finley and figg, all two of them, and the story takes off. the woman he picks up in a bar on that bender is a 90 year old. ya gotta love them all.

my highest compliment is that the story and the characters in it remind me of donald westlake's work. but grisham is different. we have in our observer, david, a true legal innocent, who continues to stay decent after learning the hard way about courtroom strategies and the ways of the world. the cases are interesting, even when finley and figg are the loosing attorneys, which is often in their practice.

the book is published by doubleday and is 385 pages.

i'm also reading An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by david hume, 1711-1776. ideas were a little different then. speaking of women and fidelity, hume says: 'the smallest failure is here sufficient to blast her character. a female has so many opportunities of secretly indulging these appetites, that nothing can give us security but her absolute modesty and reserve; and where a breach is once made, it can scarcely ever be fully repaired."

 

 

audreylavin.com       http://bit.ly/flTthc

 

just thought i'd mention it!!

 

remarks re: jail, series, victoria thompson and laura childs

 

happy new year to all. to start 2012, here are three announcements of interest to readers of the whodunit? blog who are also writers

1.The 6^th Annual Women Writers’ Winter Retreat  

February 24 - February 26, 2012

Write, Read & Relax in Historic Downtown Willough

Phone: (440) 946–1902.  please email registration form to Deanna at DeeNCR@aol.com

 

2. Submission Call - The Columbus Creative Cooperative has announced the theme for a new anthology.  The theme is "While You Were Out: Stories of Life and Death and Life". 

  

3. i have a notice on my facebook page  (or am i supposed to say 'wall'?) asking if i would be interested in teaching writing or editing students' works in a prison. if any of you are interested, please go to facebook and check out 'audrey lavin.' an interesting coincidence is that i did teach in a prison once. it was the maximum security prison, outside of madrid, spain.

  

the university of alcala de henares, where i was a fulbright professor teaching american literature and culture, was asked for volunteers to teach at the jail. no one volunteered. it was not perceived as a career-enhancing move, and that's what other professors were interested in. i figured it was an opportunity for me to see a part of spanish life that  i would never see as a tourist, so volunteered. my special student  was named sammy wafula. he was in prison for murdering his wife. my husband accompanied me on my first few trips to the prison for possible protection. how did i know that sammy wouldn't think i was the spittin' image of that wife??

  

i will close with notes on two more novels that are good examples of something i've discussed before--not extending a series. i say this with a straight face, knowing that within a month anaphora press should have the third novel in my eloquent murder mystery series, eloquent tattoo, in bookstores and available on line. but i plan eloquent tattoo to be my third and last murder mystery starring professor mary beth goldberg.

 

the two mysteries are laura childs' The Teaberry Strangler (A Tea Shop Mystery) and victoria thompson's Murder on Sisters' Row (Gaslight Mystery).

  

on the positive side, i point out that i truly like tea. i am very serious about ordering my teas and brewing cups using tea leaves. i like the ceremony of doing this. not to be confusing, i am not talking here about the japanese tea ceremony, but rather something much simpler, my own breakfast, my own lunch. and charleston, where the novels take place, is indeed a lovely city. but and beware the 'buts' in life, theodosia browning this star of the cozy series, is stuck in the middle of a series that seemingly repeats itself. the three tea house characters are o.k., but (there we go again) the story that surrounds them seems to be the same story i've read a number of previous times. this might be due to the fact that this is the eleventh novel in the series. it's a strain (get it?) for tea to be involved in that many murders.

 

published by berkely prime crime, The Teaberry Strangler (A Tea Shop Mystery) is 318 pages plus recipes.

 

as the thirteenth novel in the gaslight series, Murder on Sisters' Row (Gaslight Mystery) suffers from the same problem. though not a cozy it is the kind of soft historical novel that is similar. again brave mid-wife sarah brandt faces the dangers of the tenements in nineteenth century new york. i have been consistently amazed with victoria thompson's ability to find new ways and places for our heroine to deliver those babies. this time it is in a house of prostitution. the woman who helps rescue the new mother from the house of prostitution is murdered. sarah and her boyfriend sgt. frank malloy, whose role is getting smaller and weaker, solve the murder. you will too. there is not much of a mystery about it. to me the biggest mystery is why the berkely publishing group didn't put an editor on board to help with point of view and dull dialogue in the 289 page novel.

 

 last week's comment from lauren concurs:

Lauren said:

What is wrong with Janet Evanovich? I struggled through Explosive Eighteen: A Stephanie Plum Novel (Stephanie Plum Novels). It was hard to stay interested in the diluted plot that started blah and ended without the promised bang. The loyalty stock Evanovich had created has kept us all reading her last half dozen duds but that party is over. Many reviewers suggest that she publish less and write better. In her earlier books Stephanie Plum was quirky and fun and bewildered about how to handle career and her love life. Stephanie hasn't changed, developed or evolved over the years. In 18- SPOILER ALERT, she destroys her 4th car and has sex with both guys. So I guess in 19 she will be pregnant and have her car insurance canceled.

 

only three months until spring!

audrey

 

king, hannah, swanson &, of course lavin's whodunit opinions

i'm on facebook now and, seemingly overnight, i have 88 friends. i realize this is a small group as the facebook world goes, but still, it's nice to be friended by 88 people. thank you guys and happy new year.

 

i have three books to talk about today. if i had the time or the energy, i could use these three books to show some of the directions mystery novels can travel. in roughly alphabetical order, the three are 11/22/63: A Novel, Little Face: A Novel, and Murder of a Pink Elephant (Scumble River Mysteries, Book 6)

 

11/22/63: A Novel is by stephen king and has had good reviews. the cover is very clever. the front shows a news headline, 'jfk slain in dallas.' the back cover another, what if, headline, 'jfk escapes assassination.' there you have it.

 

first a confession. i read only 100 pages of this 842 page (+ afterwards) novel. much of the first 100 pages was contemporary history, which i suppose mr. king had to present to his audience so 2011 readers would understand what his time travel hero changed. he also starts with an explanation of why the changes won't be permanent or to go back in time, weren't permanent. if you go through the 'magic' (my word, not king's) door twice you undo the changes you've made, so if our hero falls in love (of course he's going to. what else can he do while changing past history?) and has to go back through the port to help his girlfriend (today's medicine for example?) he will undo all of the good he has done. even if i'm wrong about plot, it seems to me that this is another novel that needs a good editor, not to make corrections, but rather to pare it down. a time travel book should be exciting. this isn't. and yes, i can tell from the first 100 pages.

 

it is published by scribner.

 

Little Face: A Novel is by sophie hannah. if you are any where near my age, the author's name will conjure up memories of rebecca and gaslight. or perhaps you have read other novels by ms. hannah. all of the ones i've read have been psychological thrillers, which also feature detective sergeant charlie zailer and d.c. simon waterhouse.

 

in this novel, the chief protagonist alice fancourt swears the baby in the crib is not hers. david, her husband, swears it is. they take to calling this baby little face instead of florence the original little girl's name. vivienne, is david's controlling mother, who owns the house they all live in, and who does control. we also have david's murdered first wife. all add up to a number of good ingredients to stir into the mysterious broth. the evidence  too overwhelming pushes the reader in one direction, so we, as readers, are forced into guessing the only possible alternative ending. but so what? the book is a good read, though i did not like the strong unnecessary cruelty, tortures, on the part of david. these actions have nothing to do with the story. not a nice guy? we could have guessed!!

 

Little Face: A Novel is 310 pages and is published by penguin books.

 

Murder of a Pink Elephant (Scumble River Mysteries, Book 6) is one of denise swanson's cozies. i have been sent a crate of them by m.l. in chicago and perhaps will grow to love them as she does. they take place in scumble river (great name), a small illinois town. skye dennison, amateur sleuth and school psychologist, comes to the rescue when a member of her older brother vince's band is murdered. the band is, you guessed it, called the pink elephant. someone is selling the school kids drugs. someone want to build an amusement park on beautiful farmland. someone is a murderer. ms. skye finds the answers.

 

the novel is 252 pages and is published by signet books.

 

happy new year to all and to all, happy reading

 

audreylavin.com http://bit.ly/flTthc

blog comments, plus ephron, gaskell, and bradley/ whodunits and more

I i'm starting wilike that about Eugene Debs and the Occupy movement!  love                        I like that about Eugene Debs and the Occupy movement!

A new comment from “Lauren” was received on the post “david rosoenfelt and jim harrison and other whodunit notes” of the blog “Whodunit?”. Comment: What is wrong with Janet Evanovich? I struggled through Explosive Eighteen. It was hard to stay interested in the diluted plot that started blah and ended without the promised bang. The loyalty stock Evanovich had created has kept us all reading her last half dozen duds but that party is over. Many reviewers suggest that she publish less and write better. In her earlier books Stephanie Plum was quirky and fun and bewildered about how to handle career and her love life. Stephanie hasn't changed, developed or evolved over the years. In 18- SPOILER ALERT, she destroys her 4th car and has sex with both guys. So I guess in 19 she will be pregnant and have her car insurance cancelled. Commenter name: Lauren i am starting today's blog with a comment from lauren of m.n.j. and along the side (i have no idea why) another comment from m.l. of chicago.                 in rhys bowen's holiday greetings letter she says that I'm still writing two books a year grr! that's a grr of jealousy. it takes me forever to complete one!! rhys also says that she plans to be in cleveland. let us know the date ahead, rhys, and i'll try to bring a canton contingent to swell the crowds.

 

 

                   with all of the panicky, holiday atmosphere surrounding us, i hope that someone is taking this afternoon off, happily surfing the internet, and enjoying this blog. greetings. and a joyous celebratory season to you.

 

one way to celebrate would be to sit down with nora ephron's i remember nothing and other reflections. this was given to me by b.v. of n.y. who admires an author's ability to bring laughter as much as i do. it's a slight book of 135 pages (and that's with wide margins!) that will give you a lovely break during a busy day. i can't guarantee you a laugh of recognition on every page, but you'll come pretty darn close. her observations ring true. we've thought the same thoughts, but never given voice. this is much better than i feel bad about my neck, which was nothing to feel bad about.

the publisher is alfred a. knopf.

 

another very enjoyable short novel is elizabeth gaskell's cranford. it is an 19th century writer's affectionately satirical look at a small community of women who live in an english village. the story is told by an outside narrator, a younger woman from a nearby town who becomes attached to what gaskell calls 'the amazons' and visits often. written for dickens' magazine, the novel is almost a series of short stories, somehow related to the picaresque novels we enjoy so much. some of you might have seen the t.v. series based on it. it is published by broadview editions, and is about 180 enjoyable pages.

 

i want now to speak about a third novel because 1. my opinion is related to lauren's comment above and 2. i just finished it and that is what i do!

the novel is i am half-sick of shadows. it is a christmas story written by alan bradley. i adored his heroine, flavia de luce, in a red herring without mustard and the sweetness at the bottom of the pie. he does have delicious titles. i have raved about both novels in this blog. but something has happened to the third one. we still have the precocious flavia, her distant father, the two mean sisters, all inhabiting the decrepit family mansion of buckshaw, plus the dead mother, the role of chemistry. maybe that's the problem: the same old. the same old. i hope bradley gets his groove back.

 

i am half-sick of shadows is published by delacorte press and is 293 pages.

 

happy holidays to all. i understand we're not supposed to say that now. c'mon.

david rosoenfelt and jim harrison and other whodunit notes

i hope some readers/writers/thinkers/translators/publicists will take time out from baking christmas cookies and wrapping gifts to read the whodunit blog. i'm going to push my way through the snowflakes and tinsel to try to reach you -- first with news of two articles to read, then some books!

 

The winter 2012 issue  of the e-zine, The Exclamation Point!, the newsletter of National Punctuation Day® and Punctuation Playtime®, is  available at: http://www.punctuationplaytime.com/exclamationpoint/index.html.

it's always fun to read what jeff rubin, the punctuation guy, has to say about a subject i--and many of you--love.

 

thanks to friends (ex., r.m. of canton), family (ex., c.l. also of canton), and miscellaneous readers (ex., d.z. of fl.) of this blog who have encouraged me to read the 9 december wall street journal article: WSJ.com - How I Became a Best-Selling Author by alexandra alter. alter has put together a great deal of information that perhaps all would-be authors already know. but whether you are familiar with her points or not, you are bound to find a nugget that applies to you. for example, i have always thought it a literary sin to pay for a review, kirkus or not. whaddayaknow? everyone does it. kirkus does not promise a good or even passing review, but as is pointed out in alter's article, if it's bad you don't have to publicize it. no one will know your secret. count me in next time around. 

 

since i last wrote my blog (the season has gotten to me, too), i have finished or almost finished five books. that's too many to really think and write about, but i will give a brief note about each one.* the books all fall under the category 'gifts for myself.' and why not?

 

read and enjoyed are david rosenfelt's on borrowed time and play dead. i recently reviewed rosenfelt's one dog night starring the world's laziest lawyer/detective andy carpenter. not quite as good, but still a fun read and still staring carpenter and his golden retriever tara, is his 2007 play dead.

four years is a long time as mysteries go; this one written four years ago still stands. his page of acknowledgements alone is worth the read of this 308 page novel published by warner books.

 

minotaur books is the publisher of the 291 page on borrowed time, more of a science fiction novel than a detective story. it's a good read for all of us living in this world of computer chips. it's one of those someone disappears and no one admits to ever knowing or having seen her stories. what is richard kilmer to do? she was his fiancee.

 

jim harrison hits a completely different note in his the great leader. the hero (one can't help but assume that's harrison even though i've spent a great deal of my academic life trying to teach students that the author and the character are not one and the same.)is named sunderson. he is wry, egotistical, and lusty.  an ex-law enforcement officer from the u.p. of michigan, he has ranted away during the first half of the novel. i fully expect him to continue. the most redeeming feature of this old geezer is his love for nature. harrison is the author of 31 books. i think that college students would like his work. i am half way through this 329 page book and have yet to met the great leader sunderson is searching for. the search gives narrative structure. we'll see. grove press is the publisher.

 

*i've written about three of the five books and will save the two women writers for next time: gaskell and her cranford and ephron and i remember nothing and other reflections. 

 

happy holidays to all