Perplexing Plots: David Bordwell

 

The subtitle of this book is "Popular Storytelling and the Poetics of Murder." Bordwell was an influential film scholar; this book, the last one he published, focuses on crime fiction and films in the 1900s up to more recent times. He discusses the development of crime fiction plots and narratives and notes the same developments in plays and film of that time. In the book, he proposes that crime fiction exposed audiences to new forms of storytelling and increased their familiarity and acceptance of more complex plots. 

But I am not knowledgeable about films and film theory, so I will also include this description from Columbia University Press, the publisher of the book:

In Perplexing Plots, David Bordwell reveals how crime fiction, plays, and films made unconventional narrative mainstream. He shows that since the nineteenth century, detective stories and suspense thrillers have allowed ambitious storytellers to experiment with narrative. Tales of crime and mystery became a training ground where audiences learned to appreciate artifice. These genres demand a sophisticated awareness of storytelling conventions: they play games with narrative form and toy with audience expectations.

I was motivated to read this book for Bordwell's in-depth discussion of crime fiction authors. He was a big fan of Rex Stout (as am I). One chapter is devoted to Stout's Nero Wolfe series and Erle Stanley Gardner's mysteries. Two other chapters I particularly enjoyed were "Viewpoints, Narrow and Expansive: Patricia Highsmith and Ed McBain" and "Donald Westlake and the Richard Stark Machine." Raymond Chandler's books were also covered in depth.

This book was very dense, sometimes over my head, but I enjoyed it. The content was academic; not dry but challenging.

My husband read Bordwell's previous book, Reinventing Hollywood: How 1940s Filmmakers Changed Movie Storytelling. I will be reading that book, maybe next year.

There is an excellent review at George Kelley's blog; George lists all the chapter titles, which is very useful.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:   Columbia University Press, 2023 
Length:       412 pages
Format:      Trade paperback
Genre:        Nonfiction
Source:       I purchased this book in 2023.

Short Story Wednesday: Two Hercule Poirot Short Stories

Recently I read two short stories from Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie. The collection has 867 pages and was published in 1999; it consists of 51 short stories.

 

"The Adventures of the Clapham Cook"

First published in The Sketch in November 1923. Later published in the US collection The Under Dog and Other Stories in 1951, and then in a UK collection in 1974, Poirot’s Early Cases.

One thing I like in the Hercule Poirot short stories is that they are often told in first person by Captain Hastings; I also find the conversations between Hastings and Poirot very entertaining. This story fit that model, and I enjoyed it. 

These are the opening lines of the story:

At the time that I was sharing rooms with my friend Hercule Poirot, it was my custom to read aloud to him the headlines in the morning newspaper, the Daily Blare.

The Daily Blare was a paper that made the most of any opportunity for sensationalism. Robberies and murders did not lurk obscurely in its back pages. Instead they hit you in the eye in large type on the front page.

ABSCONDING BANK CLERK DISAPPEARS WITH FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS’ WORTH OF NECOTIABLE SECURITIES, I read.

HUSBAND PUTS HIS HEAD IN GAS OVEN. UNHAPPY HOME LIFE. MISSING TYPIST. PRETTY GIRL OF TWENTY-ONE. WHERE IS EDNA FIELD?

"There you are Poirot, plenty to choose from an absconding bank clerk, a mysterious suicide, a missing typist--which will you have?"

None of these headlines interest Poirot. He prefers to spend his day at home, taking care of personal issues, such as trimming his mustache.

But shortly after this discussion, they have a visitor, a woman who wants Poirot to find her cook. He does not take her seriously, and she accuses him of being a snob. Poirot gives in and investigates the case, uncovering a diabolical plot related to another crime at the same time.

"Murder in the Mews" 

This story is novella length. First published in the US in Redbook Magazine, September/October 1936. It was published in the short story collection, Murder in the Mews and Other Stories, in 1937.

In this story, Captain Hastings does not show up at all and the story is told in third person viewpoint. However, Poirot is working with another favorite character, Inspector Japp. 

One morning, Inspector Japp calls Hercule Poirot to tell him that a death had occurred in Bardsley Gardens Mews the night before. That night, Japp and Poirot had been walking through the Mews after leaving a bonfire on Guy Fawkes night, and they are discussed how all the fireworks could cover the sounds of gunfire. 

Poirot joins Inspector Japp at the woman's residence where the death occurred. At first the assumption is suicide; very soon after the police arrive, they determine that it was a murder set up to look like suicide. And thus begins an investigation into the friends of the dead woman. She was living with another woman, a friend, and was engaged to Charles Laverton-West, an "M.P. for some place in Hampshire.” The resolution is unusual and Poirot is clever as expected.

"Murder in the Mews" was the best mystery of these two stories. I think the novella length provides more time for development and depth in the story. The characters in "The Adventures of the Clapham Cook" were more interesting, but the story felt more rushed, and some parts of the ending were not resolved for me. Both stories had their high points, and the character of Hercule Poirot is always entertaining to read about.

Both of these stories were adapted for Agatha Christie's Poirot, starring David Suchet, and the adaptations were very well done.

Annual Book Sale 2025: My Husband's Books

 

Every year in September we attend the Planned Parenthood book sale, which lasts ten days. This time we visited five times, as usual. My husband's special interests at the sale are photography, architecture, and performing arts; books about history; and fiction, including mysteries and science fiction.

These are seven of the books my husband found at the book sale this year.

Dr. Johnson's Apple Orchard: The Story of America's First Pet Cemetery by Edward C. Martin, Jr.

Published in 1997, this 120-page, coffee-table size book features over 200 photographs of the historic Hartsdale Pet Cemetery, established in 1896 by a New York veterinarian.

Description from the dust jacket: 

What was once the summer retreat of a famous Manhattan veterinarian has been the home of America's first pet cemetery for over one hundred years. The Hartsdale Canine Cemetery is now the resting place for pets of every description, from parakeets to a lion cub, from the loyal dog of a blind newsman to the pampered pets of famous celebrities and a former vice president of the United States. Its carefully tended trees and crystal-clear stream have made it a community treasure in the small hamlet of Hartsdale, just north of New York City. Over the years it has grown like a stream around a boulder. In this 100-year Centennial tribute, Co-Director Ed Martin captures the dignity and compassion that has marked the cemetery's famous history. Through magnificent photography and personal reflection, he has created a feast for the eyes as well as the heart. Within its pages, you will discover stories of simple devotion, outrageous eccentricity and remarkable heroism. 

Ghost of a Smile: Stories by Deborah Boliver Boehm

From the description at Goodreads:

Ghost of a Smile is a funny, erotic, scary collection of stories set in modern-day Tokyo and incorporating elements from Japanese ghost stories. Author Deborah Boehm turns modern Tokyo into a shadow world where life and death are simply matters of perspective, and where love, longing and sexual desire last beyond the grave. In this supernaturally enhanced city, the ordinary boundaries of identity—country, gender, even whether one is human or a spirit—are blurred. Ghosts can seduce, trick and even love mortals, and so the familiar problems related to dating and falling in love may be compounded by the discovery that a partner isn't human at all.

The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to Hidden World of Everyday Design by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt

This book is based on the podcast titled 99% Invisible. Based on reviews I have read, a lot of the content is from the podcast, but for those who have never listened to it, this sounds like a very interesting book.

From the description at Goodreads:

A beautifully designed guidebook to the unnoticed yet essential elements of our cities, from the creators of the wildly popular 99% Invisible podcast

Have you ever wondered what those bright, squiggly graffiti marks on the sidewalk mean?

Or stopped to consider why you don't see metal fire escapes on new buildings?

Or pondered the story behind those dancing inflatable figures in car dealerships?

99% Invisible is a big-ideas podcast about small-seeming things, revealing stories baked into the buildings we inhabit, the streets we drive, and the sidewalks we traverse. The show celebrates design and architecture in all of its functional glory and accidental absurdity, with intriguing tales of both designers and the people impacted by their designs.

Now, in The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to Hidden World of Everyday Design, host Roman Mars and coauthor Kurt Kohlstedt zoom in on the various elements that make our cities work, exploring the origins and other fascinating stories behind everything from power grids and fire escapes to drinking fountains and street signs. With deeply researched entries and beautiful line drawings throughout,

The 99% Invisible City will captivate devoted fans of the show and anyone curious about design, urban environments, and the unsung marvels of the world around them.

The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World by Shelley Puhak

From the description at Goodreads:

The remarkable, little-known story of two trailblazing women in the Early Middle Ages who wielded immense power, only to be vilified for daring to rule.

Brunhild was a Spanish princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. And yet—in the 6th-century Merovingian Empire, where women were excluded from noble succession and royal politics was a blood sport—these two iron-willed strategists reigned over vast realms for decades, changing the face of Europe.

The two queens commanded armies and negotiated with kings and popes. They formed coalitions and broke them, mothered children and lost them. They fought a years-long civil war—against each other. With ingenuity and skill, they battled to stay alive in the game of statecraft, and in the process laid the foundations of what would one day be Charlemagne’s empire. Yet after Brunhild and Fredegund’s deaths—one gentle, the other horrific—their stories were rewritten, their names consigned to slander and legend.

In The Dark Queens, award-winning writer Shelley Puhak sets the record straight. She resurrects two very real women in all their complexity, painting a richly detailed portrait of an unfamiliar time and striking at the roots of some of our culture’s stubbornest myths about female power. The Dark Queens offers proof that the relationships between women can transform the world.

Prisoners of the Castle: An Epic Story of Survival and Escape from Colditz, the Nazis' Fortress Prison by Ben Macintyre

My husband read this book soon after he purchased it at the book sale in mid-September. As with all the books he has read by Macintyre, he enjoyed the book and gave it a high rating.

From the description at Goodreads:

In this gripping narrative, Ben Macintyre tackles one of the most famous prison stories in history and makes it utterly his own. During World War II, the German army used the towering Colditz Castle to hold the most defiant Allied prisoners. For four years, these prisoners of the castle tested its walls and its guards with ingenious escape attempts that would become legend.

But as Macintyre shows, the story of Colditz was about much more than escape. Its population represented a society in miniature, full of heroes and traitors, class conflicts and secret alliances, and the full range of human joy and despair. In Macintyre’s telling, Colditz’s most famous names—like the indomitable Pat Reid—share glory with lesser known but equally remarkable characters like Indian doctor Birendranath Mazumdar whose ill treatment, hunger strike, and eventual escape read like fiction; Florimond Duke, America’s oldest paratrooper and least successful secret agent; and Christopher Clayton Hutton, the brilliant inventor employed by British intelligence to manufacture covert escape aids for POWs.

 

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz

My husband is currently reading this book. He discovered that he previously had a copy and never read it, and then bought another copy at the book sale. The only other book he has read by Tony Horwitz is Confederates in the Attic.

From the description at Goodreads:

On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz realizes he's mislaid more than a century of American history, from Columbus’s sail in 1492 to Jamestown's founding in 16-oh-something. Did nothing happen in between? Determined to find out, he embarks on a journey of rediscovery, following in the footsteps of the many Europeans who preceded the Pilgrims to America.

An irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs — these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers.

Tracing this legacy with his own epic trek — from Florida's Fountain of Youth to Plymouth's sacred Rock, from desert pueblos to subarctic sweat lodges, Tony Horwitz explores the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget. Displaying his trademark talent for humor, narrative, and historical insight, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to rediscover the New World for ourselves.

You Can Never Die: A Graphic Memoir by Harry Bliss

This is another book that Glen has read since he got it at the book sale. It is actually a book that we co-own since we both like the author's writing and the drawings. He liked this one very much.

From the description at Goodreads:

A poignant and witty graphic memoir from New Yorker cover artist, internationally syndicated cartoonist, and New York Times bestselling author Harry Bliss capturing his reflections on life and his relationship with Penny, his beloved dog.

... As Harry grieves Penny’s loss, he reflects on his parents in their later years, his love for his wife and home, and the colorful artists, friends, and mentors who have shaped him.

With humor and gut-wrenching honesty, You Can Never Die is an intimate portrayal of a man making sense of the beautiful and painful world around him. This singular memoir integrates sharply crafted, witty stories with hundreds of gorgeous cartoons and never-seen-before sketches from Bliss’s career.

Spin #42 for the Classics Club, October 2025

 

The latest Classics Club Spin has been announced. To join in, I choose twenty books from my classics list. On Sunday, October 19th, the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The goal is to read whatever book falls under that number on my Spin List by December 21st, 2025.

I created a list for Spin #41, but I have not yet read the book that was picked (which was The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark). I debated whether to join in on this one, but I decided I would take the optimistic approach and hope that I have time to read both books before the end of the year.

So, here is my list of 20 books for the spin...

1. Patricia Highsmith – The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955)
2. Madeleine L'Engle – A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
3. Graham Greene – Our Man in Havana (1958)   
4. Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)
5. Ray Bradbury – The Martian Chronicles (1950)
6. Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451 (1953)
7. Charlotte Brontë – Jane Eyre (1847)
8. Kurt Vonnegut – Slaughterhouse-Five  (1955)
9. John Steinbeck – Cannery Row (1945)
10. Mary Shelley – Frankenstein (1818)
11. Oscar Wilde – The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
12. Virginia Woolf – Flush (1933)
13. J. D. Salinger – Catcher in the Rye (1951)
14. Anne Brontë – Agnes Grey (1847) 
15. Chinua Achebe – Things Fall Apart (1958) 
16. Dashiell Hammett – Red Harvest (1929)   
17. Christopher Isherwood – Goodbye to Berlin (1939)   
18. Albert Camus – The Stranger (1942)
19. Robert Louis Stevenson – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886)
20. Lewis Carroll – Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) 

The three books I would most like to read for this spin are A Wrinkle in Time by L'Engle, The Talented Mr. Ripley by Highsmith, or Our Man in Havana by Greene. However, any of the books on my list would be fine. 

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea: Rebecca Thorne

 

I first saw this book when my son purchased it at the book sale. The copy he got was especially nice, with sprayed edges (in a nice turquoise color), and a lovely map. I was interested in the book shop theme and the description: "a cozy fantasy steeped with love." And since I love tea, "tea" in the title of the book pulled me in too. I wanted to read it immediately and my son let me read it first.

The story is about a lesbian couple who want to leave their current lives behind and open a bookstore in a remote location where no one can find them. The problem is that Reyna is a private guard to a powerful and cruel queen, and Kianthe is a powerful mage. Somehow they both manage to leave their responsibilities behind and move to a small town far from their previous lives to set up a book shop. 

Reyna and Kianthe have never had any extended time together before, and they use this time to adjust to their differences and see if they can make a life together. 

My Thoughts on the Book:

What is a cozy fantasy? I had not been aware previously that there was a subgenre of fantasy that is described as cozy fantasy.  I don't often read cozy mysteries, but like any other genre or subgenre, there is a wide range of books within the mystery genre categorized as cozy. Online there are many different descriptions of cozy fantasies, emphasizing community or familial relationships, and focusing on comfort and a sense of belonging.

This book had griffons and dragons. Griffons are new to me. Dragons are not, but I did begin to notice how differently dragons are described and used in various fantasy series. In the last ten years, I think the only dragons I have encountered in fiction were in the Dragonriders of Pern series. In the Tomes & Tea series dragons are monsters, the enemy that can burn down towns (at least at this point). I am currently reading Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett, a Discworld book, and dragons are summoned by evil forces and are attacking the city of Ankh-Morpork. The approach to dragons in the Discworld series seems entirely different.

The story was good and held my interest; it is a light-hearted tale, not too demanding, focused on community, sharing, being open to ideas. It has enough conflict to make it interesting.

I enjoyed the depiction of all the characters in the story, even the evil ones. The evil queen doesn't really get much time in the book until close to the end, but even in that case, her character is very well defined.

This book is not perfect. It was the author's first novel and in some ways it shows. Some behaviors and scenarios are used over and over. That may be realistic but in fiction it can get annoying. But I liked the story and the characters a lot and I am willing to try more books in the series to see how it develops.

Short Story Wednesday: The Literary Ghost, ed. Larry Dark

 

Last week for Short Story Wednesday, I wrote about the first three stories in one of my husband's  ghost story anthologies, The Literary Ghost: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories, edited by Larry Dark. 

This is the description of this book at Goodreads:

"It takes a certain amount of daring for a literary writer to employ a device as powerful and obvious as a ghost, and a great deal of talent and self-assurance to pull it off. The fact that these stories are so different from one another and that no two ghosts in them are alike is a testament to the power of the individual imagination to appropriate established myths without assuming the associated clichés."

So writes Larry Dark in the introduction to this anthology of expertly crafted ghost stories by such luminaries as Donald Barthelme, Paul Bowles, A. S. Byatt, Robertson Davies, M. F. K. Fisher, John Gardner, Nadine Gordimer, Graham Greene, Patrick McGrath, R. K. Narayan, Tim O'Brien, V. S. Pritchett, Anne Sexton, Isaac Bashevis Singer, and Fay Weldon.

Today I read a few more stories in that book. Several of these were very short so I don't want to say too much about them.

"The Others" by Joyce Carol Oates

A man begins to see people on the street that he recognizes from his past. He knows that some of them are dead. His wife makes light of it. He begins to see more and more people like that. 

This story was five or six pages long, and I thought it was pretty good, although what was going on was not explicit and not very scary. It was atmospheric.

"A Story of Don Juan" by V.S. Pritchett

First sentence: "One night of his life Don Juan slept alone."

Don Juan must stay at the house of a man whose wife died one year earlier, on their wedding night. He is still mourning her. He allows Don Juan to sleep in the room that he shared with his wife when she was alive.

I am not sure how this story fits into the description "contemporary ghost stories" since it was first published in 1941. However I enjoyed it anyway. It definitely had a ghost, although maybe an unusual one.

"Up North" by Mavis Gallant

This one was also 6 pages and I really liked it. I now want to find out more about Gallant and her writing. 

The story is set on a train. A woman and her young son are traveling from Montreal to a more northern part of Canada. She is from England and has come to join her Canadian husband, whom she met during World War II. Ghosts are discussed and the boy thinks he sees ghosts outside of the train. 

"The Warden" by John Gardner

This was a longer story, about 30 pages long, with chapters. I found it very confusing and did not understand what was going on at all. 

A man is running a prison, but he has no real authority. The warden is useless and will give him no instructions so he is left to make his own decisions. At the point the story begins, he never sees the warden, he just hears him pacing in his office and never comes out at all. 

I tried to find more information about the story, but was not successful. If anyone reading this post knows more about this story, I would love to know more about it. 

Below is a list of all stories in the book. The book is about 360 pages long and has 28 short stories.

• "The Lost, Strayed, Stolen," M.F.K. Fisher
• "The Portobello Road," Muriel Spark
• "The Ghost Who Vanished by Degrees," Robertson Davies
• "The Others," Joyce Carol Oates
• "A Story of Don Juan," V.S. Pritchett
• "Up North," Mavis Gallant
• "The Warden," John Gardner
• "The Death of Edward Lear," Donald Barthelme
• "The Circular Valley," Paul Bowles
• "The Third Voice," William Ferguson
• "Marmilion," Patrick McGrath
• "Spirit Seizures," Melissa Pritchard
• "Revenant as Typewriter," Penelope Lively
• "Ghostly Populations," Jack Matthews
• "The Ghost Soldiers," Tim O'Brien
• "Family," Lance Olsen
• "Letter from a Dogfighter's Aunt, Deceased," Padgett Powell
• "The Ghost," Anne Sexton
• "Angel, All Innocence," Fay Weldon
• "Jack's Girl," Cynthia Kadohata
• "The Next Room," A.S. Byatt
• "Grass," Barry Yourgrau
• "Eisenheim the Illusionist," Steven Millhauser
• "Ghost and Flesh, Water and Dirt," William Goyen
• "Letter from His Father," Nadine Gordimer
• "Old Man of the Temple," R.K. Narayan
• "A Little Place Off the Edgware Road," Graham Greene
• "A Crown of Feathers," Isaac Bashevis Singer

Short Story Wednesday: "The Portobello Road" by Muriel Spark

 

Last week,  at her Short Story Wednesday post, Patricia Abbott featured a short story collection by Muriel Spark, The Stories of Muriel Spark. Later my husband found this ghost story by Muriel Spark in one of his ghost story anthologies, The Literary Ghost: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories, edited by Larry Dark. Last night I read the first three stories in The Literary Ghost, including "The Portobello Road" by Muriel Spark.

Of the three stories, "The Portobello Road" was easily  my favorite. In this story, the ghost is the narrator. For some reason, not described in detail, this ghost had more business to finish and had not left the earth. She often strolled down Portobello Road, checking out the marketers and their stalls on the pavement. On one of her strolls she sees two people she knows, Kathleen and George. She speaks to the man and he can see her, although the woman cannot. From this point the ghost tells the story of herself (nicknamed "Needle"), and three of her childhood friends, Kathleen, George and a boy named "Skinny." They are very close friends while in school, but after they graduate, they go off to other areas, even other continents. George goes to manage his uncle's farm in Africa, and Skinny and Needle end up visiting him there. Kathleen stays in London with her rich connections. George eventually ends up returning to Great Britain because he wants to marry Kathleen, which leads to Needle's eventual death. This is my kind of ghost story.

Per EBSCO Knowledge Advantage this story was first published in 1958.

The first story in the book, "The Lost, Strayed, Stolen," by M.F.K. Fisher did not appeal to me at all. I think that the ghost story may be a fine one, and it is spooky, but for my tastes there was not enough background to flesh it out.

The third story was "The Ghost Who Vanished by Degrees" by Robertson Davies. I thought it was pretty good. It was about a professor at a college who ends up trapped in a room with a ghost who wants to defend his Ph.D. thesis because he never got the chance to do that while alive. It was shorter than the others and on the humorous side. A light read but not silly.

I will be revisiting this anthology more this month, and in another post I will list all the stories and authors in the book. 

#HYH25: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

I read this book for Neeru's Hundred Years Hence challenge. The goal is to read one or more books that were published for the first time in 1925.  The challenge runs until the end of 2025.

Reading Mrs. Dalloway was a good experience for me. It was the first book I had read by Virginia Woolf, plus I had never read anything written in stream of consciousness style. It did take me a good while to adjust to that style of telling a story, and it got even more confusing when the story moves from Mrs. Dalloway's thoughts to various other people's ruminations.

The story is basically a day in the life of Charissa Dalloway. As she goes through her day she muses about her past and her future: her daughter; her daughter's friend, who she doesn't like; and her own relationships with men over the years. She is probably thinking about the men in her life because an old boyfriend will be visiting her soon. He has been out of the country (in India) and they haven't seen each other for a long time. 

The old boyfriend is Peter Walsh, and he still has feelings for Clarissa. Peter Walsh musings as he visits London and Clarissa are second focus of the book. There is another couple whose thoughts are shared in the book, although they have no real connection to Mrs. Dalloway other than proximity to her when she goes out on her morning walk, to pick up flowers for the party she will be giving in the evening. That couple, Septimus and Lucrezia Smith, have an interesting story and it is kind of a downer.

The edition I read had a Foreward by Jenny Offill and an Introduction by Elaine Showalter.

My Thoughts:

This book is just filled with lovely quotes, sad quotes, quotes to think about. But I had a difficult time reading it. So many characters are touched on that I got lost at times. Since it is told in stream of consciousness style, this makes perfect sense, but it still did not make for a pleasant read. There were many pages and sections that I had to reread to make any sense of. 

The story has a lot of depth to it. It is about a middle-aged woman, doubting herself as she gets older and her daughter nears adulthood. It takes place on one day in June in 1923, so the reader sees a picture of life 100 plus years ago, in London, written by someone living at that time. The story of Septimus and Lucrezia Smith involves the husband's mental illness due to his experiences in the Great War. 

One thing I noted while reading this novel and even more so afterward is how much difference it might make whether you read this novel for the first time when you are a teen, or thirty, or fifty, or like me, in your seventies. Jenny Offill expanded on this idea in her Foreword (although I recommend not reading the Foreword until after you have read the book for the first time).

Since I am not familiar with Virginia Woolf's novels and stories, I did not realize that the character of Mrs. Dalloway shows up in other writings by her. She appears in Woolf's first novel, The Voyage Out, and in at least one short story, "Mrs. Dalloway of Bond Street." That makes me want to read more by Virginia Woolf (recommendations are welcome). 

I do hope to reread this book sometime to see what more I can get out of it on a second reading, when I am not distracted by the unusual structure.

Annual Book Sale 2025: My Son's Books

As usual, we attended the Planned Parenthood Book Sale that runs for 10 days in September; the first few days and the last few days are the busiest; we went five times this year. 

My son's tastes usually are in the fantasy or science fiction genres. Below are a few of the books that my son purchased this year.

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea by Rebecca Thorne

Originally published in 2022; this trade paperback edition was published in 2024.

This is a cozy fantasy about a lesbian couple who want to leave their current lives behind and open a bookstore in a remote location where no one can find them. The problem is that one of them is a private guard to a powerful and cruel queen, and the other is an important and powerful mage. 

Note: I just finished reading this book and I enjoyed it a lot. It seemed to me to go just a bit beyond the bounds of cozy, but that was fine with me.

Dinotopia Lost by Alan Dean Foster

Dinotopia is a fictional utopia created originally by James Gurney in 1992. In the first book, Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, which had illustrations, Arthur Denison and his son, Will, are shipwrecked on island where humans and dinosaurs live together in harmony. James Gurney wrote three more books about Dinotopia, but other authors have also written spin-off books in the series. In Alan Dean Foster's Dinotopia Lost, published in 1996, a ship with a crew of pirates lands on the island.

Monday Starts on Saturday by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Andrew Bromfield (Translation)

This book was first published in 1965 and seems to be a combination of science fiction and fantasy. Humorous and satirical.

This description is from a summary at Goodreads: 

Sasha, a young computer programmer from Leningrad, is driving north to meet some friends for a nature vacation. He picks up a couple of hitchhikers, who persuade him to take a job at the National Institute for the Technology of Witchcraft and Thaumaturgy. The adventures Sasha has in the largely dysfunctional Institute involve all sorts of magical beings—a wish-granting fish, a tree mermaid, a cat who can remember only the beginnings of stories, a dream-interpreting sofa, a motorcycle that can zoom into the imagined future, a lazy dog-size mosquito—along with a variety of wizards (including Merlin), vampires, and officers. 

The Protectorate Series by Megan E. O'Keefe

This series is a space opera trilogy, that begins with Velocity Weapon (published in 2019, 544 pages) and continues the story with Chaos Vector (published in 2020, 546 pages) and Catalyst Gate (published in 2021, 608 pages). The 1st book sounds very good, and I have read good reviews of the 2nd and 3rd books. 

This excerpt from the review at Kirkus is the best description of the first book in the series that I could find.

The last thing Sanda Greeve remembers is her ship being attacked by rebel forces. She's resuscitated from her evacuation pod missing half a leg—and two centuries—as explained to her by the AI of the rebel ship that rescued her. As The Light of Berossus—aka Bero—tells her, she may be the only living human for light-years around, as the war wiped both sides out long ago. Sanda struggles to process her injuries and her grief but finds friendship with the lonely spaceship itself. Sanda's story is interspersed with flashbacks to the war's effects on her brother, Biran, as well as scenes from a heist gone terribly wrong for small-time criminal Jules. The three narratives, separated by a vast gulf of time, are more intertwined than is immediately apparent. When Sanda rescues Tomas, another unlikely survivor, from his own evacuation pod, she learns that even time doesn't end all wars. Should she trust Tomas, a fellow human but a rebel soldier who has his own secrets—or Bero, the ship that saved her?

                            Velocity Weapon

                  

                              Chaos Vector

                                Catalyst Gate

Pesticide: Kim Hays

This summary is from Kim Hays' website:

In Pesticide, a street party in Bern morphs into a brutal riot. Hours later, with the medieval downtown a shambles, a young man is found beaten to death with a policeman’s club. That same day, twenty miles away, an organic farmer turns up on his land, dead and drenched in pesticide. Swiss homicide detective Giuliana Linder and her younger colleague Renzo Donatelli start out on two separate cases, but it doesn’t take long before they find links between their victims. Working together on what has become a single, puzzling case, the two can no longer ignore their attraction to each other.

 

Pesticide is the first book in the Linder and Donatelli series. When reading mysteries, I have a preference for police procedurals because they are more believable. Detective Giuliana Linder is an experienced homicide detective; she has worked with Investigator Renzo Donatelli before but this time they start out on different cases in very different locations. It is assumed that the death of the young man in Bern is drug-related, but soon officials realize that the elderly man who owns and works on an organic farm outside of Bern had business dealings with the younger victim and decide to combine the cases.

My thoughts

I like to read police procedurals set in countries other than the US, because I like to learn about how the various legal and law enforcement departments work in each country. The author of this book does a great job of showing all the different types of people working on the case, and in this novel, we get to see two groups of investigators coming together to solve two related cases. Although a lot of the focus was on the procedure of solving a crime, the pacing was good and the story never dragged.

Getting a peak at organic farming in this story is fascinating. I learned a lot about the mechanics of farming and the rules of organic farming. The story divides its time between the police in Bern and the community in the outlying rural area, where one of the crimes occurred.

I liked the characters in this story, both the main characters and secondary characters. The ending was very good; the  mystery was tied up well and realistically. I will definitely be reading the next book in the series.

For more details on the plot, please see Kevin Tipple's excellent review at Kevin's Corner.

Kim Hays has dual Swiss/American citizenship, and has lived in Bern with her husband for 37 years. She has a very nice website with information about Bern and Switzerland, in addition to descriptions of her books.

Short Story Wednesday: Get in Trouble by Kelly Link

 

This post was written for Short Story Wednesday hosted at Patti Abbott's blog, and Short Story September, hosted by Lisa at ANZ LitLovers LitBlog.

I knew very little about Kelly Link or her writing before I read this book, but this is what I gleaned from my recent reading about this book and her short stories.

This short story collection, Get in Trouble, was published in 2015 and was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Per Wikipedia, this collection "contains nine short stories, five of which were previously published. The stories contain elements of fantasy, magical realism, and light horror." Usually I avoid horror, but light horror seemed doable. So I read the first story in the book, "The Summer People," and reviewed it in August of this year.

I liked that story a lot, so I decided to finish reading the stories in this book in September. In general, the stories are pretty long. I think the shortest one was 20 pages, the longest close to 50 pages. 

Here are my thoughts on the remaining stories.

"I Can See Right Through You"

This is the story of two celebrities who have had an off and on relationship for years, ever since they made their only movie together when they were very young, and they both became stars overnight. The story hints at some supernatural elements but mostly it is a straightforward story about Meggie and the "demon lover." He is referred to only by that name throughout the story. The story starts in the 1990s and brings the couple up to around 2012, when Meggie is hosting a ghost-hunting show. A very strange story and I enjoyed it. I would have liked a more concrete ending, but still it was very effective.

"Secret Identity"

A 15-year old girl goes to New York to meet an older man (34 years old) at a hotel. She met him online and represented herself as about his age. At the same time as she arrives at the hotel there are two conventions there, one for superheroes and sidekicks and one for dentists. I liked this story a lot. It is told from the young girl's point of view, in a letter she is writing to Paul Zell, the older man. She is way more mature than I was at 15, and a very interesting character.

"Valley of the Girls"

The characters in this story are teenagers who are very rich and can do just about anything they like. It is set in a universe where pyramids are built for teenagers and they can have alternate identities so that they experiment and play around without ruining their futures. A very creepy story, and fortunately one of the shorter stories.

I thought this was a very clever story but it was hard for me to follow. So I read it a second time. On that read I saw clues that pointed to the end of the story from the very beginning. So other readers may find this a more satisfying read than I did. I am not sure I like it when I need to read a story twice to get it.

"Origin Story"

This story is set in a world where superheroes and sidekicks are taken for granted. More than one reviewer noticed that it could be set in the same world as "Secret Identity," but with different characters and locations. The story is kind of sad but still a decent story.

"The Lesson"

This was my favorite story. It was the only one with no element of the supernatural or weird. It did surprise me and I kept waiting for the supernatural element to show up. 

A gay couple are expecting a baby, who will be delivered by a surrogate mother. The couple plan to go off to a wedding at a remote spot and worry about the baby being born early.  

"The New Boyfriend"

This is another story about a set of rich teenagers. The most popular girl in the group, Ainslie, has three "boyfriends" but they are toys, sort of like robots. They can be set to different modes and programmed in some ways. Ainslie's best friend Immy is jealous, and finds a way to spend some time with one of the boyfriends. This was not my favorite story; reading about rich, selfish teens is not especially interesting to me. However, there was a great conversation between Immy and her father about the nature of love, so I rate it highly anyway.

"Two Houses"

This is a blending of a ghost story and science fiction. The characters are astronauts on a long spaceflight to a faraway star. They sometimes sleep for years but now and then they are awakened for celebrations and this  time it is a birthday party, where they tell each other ghost stories. Another weird story where I would have appreciated a more concrete ending.

"Light"

This longer story is set in the Florida Keys after some strange events have caused significant "changes" in the world and opened up pocket universes where possibilities are endless. People can be born with no shadow or with two shadows. Those with two shadows may have a twin. Lindsey is one of the people with two shadows and she and her twin have a troubled relationship. She has a job where she oversees a warehouse of sleeping bodies which have appeared since the "changes" took place. 

There were several things I liked about this story. When my son was in preschool, we used to bring hibiscus flowers to the school to feed the iguana. In this story, iguanas were all over the place and were eating up all the hibiscus bushes. In addition to that small piece of nostalgia, I like that the story centered more on adults. The character development in this story was very good, especially that of the main character.  

I don't usually write so much all about the stories in a short story book, and I think that I did for this one is a reflection on how much I was impressed with Kelly Link's writing. Even when the stories had elements that I did not like, I still felt like they were good reads, well worth my time.

Short Story Wednesday: Collections from the Book Sale

 

Last Friday, September 12, was the first day of the Planned Parenthood Book Sale; it will continue through Sunday, September 21. We went to the book sale on both Friday and Saturday. (And we will go back again tomorrow, and Saturday and Sunday.) 

Every year I plan to limit my short story book purchases at the sale, since I have so many already, both in print editions and on the Kindle. Yet I was unable to resist the four books I am featuring here.

The Complete Stories, Volume 1

Isaac Asimov

This book consists of the stories previously collected in Earth Is Room Enough (1957), Nine Tomorrows (1959), and Nightfall and Other Stories (1969). There are a total of 48 stories by Asimov in this volume. Asimov wrote short stories in other genres, but my impression is that this volume is primarily science fiction and fantasy tales. 

I, Robot

Isaac Asimov

This is a book I have planned to read for years. It consists of nine short stories, which originally appeared in science-fiction magazines in the 1940's. Recently, Kelly at Kelly's Thoughts & Ramblings read and reviewed I, Robot. She enjoyed the book and that motivated me to read it sooner rather than later.

The Truth and Other Stories

Stanisław Lem; Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Translator); Kim Stanley Robinson (Foreword)

Stanisław Lem (1921-2006) was a Polish writer. I don't know much about his writing, except that he was best know for his science fiction novels and short stories. His most well-known novel was Solaris (1961). This book of 12 science fiction short stories was published in 2021 and includes 9 stories that previously had not been published in English.

Lake of Souls: the Collected Short Fiction

Ann Leckie

I took a chance on this book because I am interested in Ancillary Justice, the first book in her Imperial Radch series. This collection has seven stories from the Universe of The Raven Tower, a standalone novel, three stories from the Imperial Radch Universe, and eight unrelated stories. 

Spell the Month in Books — September 2025

 

Spell the Month in Books is a monthly meme hosted by Jana at Reviews from the Stacks. The link up post is posted on the first Saturday of each month. Each month one or two themes are suggested for the books that are chosen. The theme for September is "longer books."

I had a bit of difficulty with September, because of having to find three books with titles beginning with E that fit the theme.

S is for The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher   (580 pages)

I have only read one book by Pilcher, Winter Solstice. I liked that one and plan to read more. This one has been on my physical shelves for two years. I don't know much about the story except that it is set in Cornwall and London. If you have read The Shell Seekers, tell me what you think of it.

E is for The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter (657 pages)

I have read this book but it was way back in 2004. I remember liking it but that is about it. Fortunately I can link to a very good review at Bill Selnes's blog Mysteries and More from Saskatchewan.

P is for The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker   (603 pp)

Description at Goodreads:

This collection ranges over the verse, stories, essays, and journalism of one of the twentieth century's most quotable authors.

I have been wanting a copy of this book for years. My husband found this lovely edition at the book sale a few years ago. I have not read any of it yet and I will first check out the short stories.

T is for Time's Witness by Michael Malone (576 pp)

Michael Malone is the author of three mystery novels that feature two policemen working in a small town in North Carolina. The two policemen are very different. Justin Savile V is the scion of an old and important family in the state. Cuddy Mangum's origins are much lower, but he and Justin are very good friends. Time's Witness, the second in the series, is narrated by Cuddy. Cuddy is educated, but he is not refined, and to the powerful and rich inner circle of Hillston residents, he is a redneck. And at the point in time of this story, he is the Chief of Police. He has cleaned up the police in his town and he has hired women and blacks as police officers. The book was published in 1989 and set around the same time period. (My review)

E is for East of Eden by John Steinbeck  (602 pages)

Description at the Penguin Random House site:

Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

I do not think I ever read this book, although I have read other books by Steinbeck. It is not currently on my TBR, although I may consider reading it someday. 

M is for Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz  (580 pages)

Moonflower Murders is the sequel to an earlier book by Anthony Horowitz, Magpie Murders. In both books the main character is Susan Ryeland, and both feature the "book within a book" format. However, Horowitz labels them as standalone books on his website. I agree that this book can stand alone, but it does reveal some parts of Magpie Murders, if the reader wants to go back to read that one. (My review)

B is for Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George  (610 pp)

I read this book in 2012; it was the 17th book in the series and the last novel in this series that I read. I had read and enjoyed all the books preceding it. The main characters are Detective Inspector Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers; they work for Scotland Yard. Lynley is an aristocrat. Havers is from a working-class background. There are numerous secondary characters that are well-portrayed and also evolve throughout the series. I found a lot of praise in this novel, but I was not happy that the books were getting longer and longer.  My review of the book included a general overview of the series up to that time.

E is for Exodus by Leon Uris   (608 pages)

I read several books by Leon Uris when I was younger, and Exodus was one of them. 

Description on Wikipedia:

Exodus is a historical novel by American novelist Leon Uris about the founding of the State of Israel beginning with a compressed retelling of the voyages of the 1947 immigration ship Exodus and describing the histories of the various main characters and the ties of their personal lives to the birth of the new Jewish state.

R is for Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb   (648 pp)

This is the second book in the Farseer Trilogy, following Assassin's Apprentice. The main character in this trilogy is FitzChivalry, a royal bastard who becomes the king's assassin in the first book, a fact that he and only a few others know. The story is very dark, with little relief. Fitz is shunned by most people in the court and leads a difficult life. I cared about many of the characters, and loathed all the bad ones. And I look forward to reading the third book in the trilogy, which is an even longer book.

Short Story Wednesday: Jewel Box by E. Lily Yu

Today I read the first four stories in Jewel Box, a short story collection by E. Lily Yu. I bought the book on a whim at the Planned Parenthood book sale last year, and I was probably influenced by the lovely and unusual cover. 

Although I have only read four of the stories, the ones that I read have an unreal, fairy tale quality. 

The first story is "The Pilgrim and the Angel," which tells the story Mr. Fareed Halawani, the operator of a coffee shop in Cairo, who misses his son, who is living in Miami, and worries that he does not call home and talk to him and his mother. He is visited by an angel who plans to take him on hajj, but he persuades the angel to take him to Miami to see his son instead. It has a lovely ending, but also a sad one. 

The second story, "The Lamp at the Turning," is my favorite so far. A simple story of a street lamp who turns on only when a certain young man walks by twice a day (on the way to work?). The street lamp loves the young man and is resentful of the young woman who begins to accompany him on his walks.

"The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" is the most well-known of Yu's stories; in 2012 it was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards. I read that story in an anthology a few years ago, and I read it again twice in this collection. It is a wonderfully inventive story, but I confess to having problems understanding the story during all three reads. The ideas and symbolism were too much for me. 

“The Lion God and the Two Gates,” is an interesting story of a judge who prides himself on his neutrality and fairness; the Lion God of the title presents him with a decision to make about his fate after his death.

My highest praise is for Yu's wonderful writing style. I enjoyed reading the stories even when I was a bit confused. The collection has 22 stories and I will eventually read them all.

Introducing London: Our New Cat

 

After four months without a cat we now have a new one in our home. His name is London, and we got him at the local cat rescue society, ASAP, in early August. The people at ASAP said that he is two years old, and he weighs ten pounds. He seems huge to us after our previous cats.

He loves to be petted and will butt your hand to remind you to pet his head. He purrs a lot and loudly (like a motorboat). He doesn't meow (at least not since he has been with us), but he chirps and trills a lot, and he has adjusted to us for the most part, and vice versa. He is a big eater, and he wants to be fed often and eat off our plates. He wakes up my husband to be fed early in the morning. 

Click on the images for the best viewing quality.