I love Isabel Dalhousie – one of my favorite characters, and certainly one of Alexander McCall Smith's best creations. In fact, I'd like to be Isabel Dalhousie. She's able to work as the owner and editor of a journal that deals with ethical issues, since she is comfortably well-off while not living ostentatiously (though she has a lovely home with a back garden that is occasionally visited by a wayward fox), has a charming younger husband who is not only handsome, but also a classical musician and a fine cook, an adorable young child and a devoted housekeeper. Quite the good life.
This latest adventure of the philosopher has her drawn into solving an art theft – a valuable painting slated for the Scottish National Gallery has gone missing from an estate, and the owner asks for her help, since he's heard about her unique ability to solve all sorts of mysteries and problems...
Meanwhile, we the readers enjoy the beauty of Edinburgh, savor a cappuccino at Isabel's niece Kat's "delicatessen", which is what we would consider a cross between a gourmet shop and a café, and learn a bit about Scottish art.
It's a pleasant time all around, and as always, McCall Smith uses his incredible knowledge of human nature and his gently ironic prose to entertain and inform us.
Monday, December 24, 2012
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Manhattan Mayhem, circa 1909 – The Interpretation of Murder (Freud, #1) by Jed Rubenfeld
Love these historical/psychological crime novels, especially when they are set in New York. Hadn't really thought of them before as a favorite genre...but it's become clear that there's a pattern here!
Rubenfeld brings the great Freud and the younger Carl Jung to New York during a period of great change and growth. It's 1909 and in the last ten years, there are subways, cars, electric lighting and telephone service proliferating in Manhattan. There are also all the ills of a city rapidly expanding in population, including crime, political corruption and a lively economy with women and children now working in great numbers in the clothing factories and other businesses. The immigrant neighborhoods are overcrowded and disease-ridden.
Against this backdrop, there is, of course, a sensational murder. A young woman of the "better" classes is found dead, and another survives, but can remember nothing. A young psychologist, a disciple of Freud, is engaged in trying to reach the memories of the second victim.
There is a great deal of weaving fiction with actual circumstances and characters, but it works in the most compelling way. It will keep the reader engaged with fascinating historic detail as well as the plot. The book is well-researched and fast-paced.
Rubenfeld brings the great Freud and the younger Carl Jung to New York during a period of great change and growth. It's 1909 and in the last ten years, there are subways, cars, electric lighting and telephone service proliferating in Manhattan. There are also all the ills of a city rapidly expanding in population, including crime, political corruption and a lively economy with women and children now working in great numbers in the clothing factories and other businesses. The immigrant neighborhoods are overcrowded and disease-ridden.
Against this backdrop, there is, of course, a sensational murder. A young woman of the "better" classes is found dead, and another survives, but can remember nothing. A young psychologist, a disciple of Freud, is engaged in trying to reach the memories of the second victim.
There is a great deal of weaving fiction with actual circumstances and characters, but it works in the most compelling way. It will keep the reader engaged with fascinating historic detail as well as the plot. The book is well-researched and fast-paced.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Early Adventures in Adult Reading – Reader's Digest Condensed Books
I first remember discovering a Reader's Digest Condensed Book (RDCB) in my grandmother's house, when I was about ten. It was one of the first truly "adult" books I read, and then I started dipping into the others that were hanging around her house. I was a precocious reader with a very large vocabulary for a fifth-grader, but certainly some of the adult situations and plots were way beyond my grasp. Of course, like some of the other childhood bookworms I speak with now, that didn't stop me. My reading was not as supervised as some, however, since I was an only child who was often left to my own devices.
This first RDCB was the Winter, 1959 edition, so Grandmom must have had it for a while. I don't remember reading all the books that were condensed in this edition, which contained The Admen by Shepherd Mead, The Rainbow and the Rose by Australian writer Nevil Shute, Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico, The Ugly American by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The White Room by Elizabeth Burdick and Woman of Straw by Catherine Arley.
I'm sure The Ugly American was way beyond my comprehension at the time, though I know I tried to work my way through it. I have no recollection of The White Room or Woman of Straw. But I was utterly entranced by 'Mrs. Arris, since it spoke to my girlhood ambition of becoming a fashion designer and having what I presumed would be an appropriately glamorous life in New York, and eventually living abroad (similarly fed by watching such movies as Breakfast at Tiffany's, Funny Face, Cover Girl and Roberta on TV with Grandmom) That didn't quite happen, but I became a lifelong fan of Paul Gallico, and have a number of his books in my collection. It also introduced me to Nevil Shute, the English/Australian writer, author of On the Beach and A Town Like Alice. His work, like many other mid-century 20th century writers, has now faded from view.
I just took a quick look at The Admen – a sort of precursor to what became Mad Men. The author worked in advertising but his greatest success was How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying which was adapted into the blockbuster Broadway musical and movie, both starring Robert Morse.
Some quick research reveals that The White Room was a fantasy novel about a somewhat unusual Maine family, and Woman of Straw was an espionage novel, translated from the French, and later made into a movie with Sean Connery.
This first RDCB was the Winter, 1959 edition, so Grandmom must have had it for a while. I don't remember reading all the books that were condensed in this edition, which contained The Admen by Shepherd Mead, The Rainbow and the Rose by Australian writer Nevil Shute, Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris by Paul Gallico, The Ugly American by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick, The White Room by Elizabeth Burdick and Woman of Straw by Catherine Arley.
I'm sure The Ugly American was way beyond my comprehension at the time, though I know I tried to work my way through it. I have no recollection of The White Room or Woman of Straw. But I was utterly entranced by 'Mrs. Arris, since it spoke to my girlhood ambition of becoming a fashion designer and having what I presumed would be an appropriately glamorous life in New York, and eventually living abroad (similarly fed by watching such movies as Breakfast at Tiffany's, Funny Face, Cover Girl and Roberta on TV with Grandmom) That didn't quite happen, but I became a lifelong fan of Paul Gallico, and have a number of his books in my collection. It also introduced me to Nevil Shute, the English/Australian writer, author of On the Beach and A Town Like Alice. His work, like many other mid-century 20th century writers, has now faded from view.
I just took a quick look at The Admen – a sort of precursor to what became Mad Men. The author worked in advertising but his greatest success was How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying which was adapted into the blockbuster Broadway musical and movie, both starring Robert Morse.
Some quick research reveals that The White Room was a fantasy novel about a somewhat unusual Maine family, and Woman of Straw was an espionage novel, translated from the French, and later made into a movie with Sean Connery.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Why I Won't Be Seeing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Steig Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was certainly one of the most distressing and disturbing books I have read in a long time. I like a good detective story, and am a major fan of former sex crimes prosecutor Linda Fairstein's Alex Cooper books, Faye Kellerman's Peter Decker/Rina Lazarus series, and Lisa Scottoline's legal-eagle heroines, just to name a few. There is plenty of gore and perversion in all of those works, but they all have a unifying thread: their underlying optimism and premise that the world is mostly a good one, with some exceptions. The exceptions are those anti-social, sociopathic elements that need to be brought to justice so the rest of us can carry on.
I suppose I subscribe to the notion that Anne Frank expressed so much more eloquently, in the midst of the horror of hiding from the Nazis during WWII, that most people are basically good at heart.
But The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is not at all optimistic, and although there is resolution and a kind of justice at the end, it paints a horrific picture that focuses on serial murder, sexual perversion that results in violence, and a general sense of mayhem. It is terribly bleak, and overwhelmingly negative.
The popularity of the Larsson's series and now the subsequent movie (and the Swedish movie before the Hollywood production) seem to celebrate violence, especially violence against women. Certainly there have always been books, films and TV programs about the seamier side, but lately they seem to have reached such a point that we, as the public, have become inured to all of it. I believe that watching all of that material, in general, has desensitized us, and I worry especially about its effect on children. In my opinion, it results in making such extreme anti-social behavior seem commonplace, almost acceptable. Rather than working to do something about it, we are glorifying it.
Therefore, I will not be seeing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I will not help further the glorification of violence against women by contributing my movie dollar to its box office proceeds.
I suppose I subscribe to the notion that Anne Frank expressed so much more eloquently, in the midst of the horror of hiding from the Nazis during WWII, that most people are basically good at heart.
But The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is not at all optimistic, and although there is resolution and a kind of justice at the end, it paints a horrific picture that focuses on serial murder, sexual perversion that results in violence, and a general sense of mayhem. It is terribly bleak, and overwhelmingly negative.
The popularity of the Larsson's series and now the subsequent movie (and the Swedish movie before the Hollywood production) seem to celebrate violence, especially violence against women. Certainly there have always been books, films and TV programs about the seamier side, but lately they seem to have reached such a point that we, as the public, have become inured to all of it. I believe that watching all of that material, in general, has desensitized us, and I worry especially about its effect on children. In my opinion, it results in making such extreme anti-social behavior seem commonplace, almost acceptable. Rather than working to do something about it, we are glorifying it.
Therefore, I will not be seeing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I will not help further the glorification of violence against women by contributing my movie dollar to its box office proceeds.
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