Bookshelf Traveling for Insane Times No. 15

I am participating in the Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times meme, hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness. This week I am focusing on a few paperbacks I bought at the last Planned Parenthood Book Sale, which are still in boxes waiting to be cataloged.

Mary Stewart

First, four books by Mary Stewart. I don't particularly care for these covers. While researching books by Mary Stewart, I found I preferred the older covers on the hardcover editions or the covers on newer editions. But I felt lucky to find four books I was interested in and in good condition for $4.00 total, so I am not complaining.

From a brief article at The Guardian, after Mary Stewart's death at 97:

Known for much-loved novels including Touch Not the Cat, This Rough Magic and Nine Coaches Waiting, Stewart was among the first novelists to integrate mystery and romance. She made the archetype of the determined, intelligent heroine her own, thrusting her into daring adventures from which she would emerge intact and happily romantically involved. ....

 

Stewart wrote a trilogy of hugely popular novels about the life of Merlin – The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills and The Last Enchantment – a departure from her previous books, along with acclaimed children's books, including Ludo and the Star Horse and A Walk in Wolf Wood.

This post at The Emerald City Book Review discusses three of the books I have. 

This Rough Magic centers around an old house inhabited by a Shakespearean actor obsessed with The Tempest; Nine Coaches Waiting takes its title and organization from a quotation from The Revengers’ Tragedy; The Ivy Tree is named after an old song and has a strain of ancient folklore running through it. 

 

For My Brother Michael, set in Greece, here is a review at Fleur in Her World.

Katrina at Pining for the West has reviewed all four of these books: This Rough Magic, Nine Coaches Waiting, The Ivy Tree and My Brother Michael.

I had great fun researching for this post. Mary Stewart is of course very well known and probably I read some of her books when I was young, but I wanted to reacquaint myself with what she has written. That took me to articles about Gothic novels and other interesting topics.

Nicholas Blake

I also picked up some paperback editions of books in the Nigel Strangeways series by Nicholas Blake. I read several books by Blake years ago, and recently have read a few more of them.

One of the books is The Beast Must Die, published in 1938, which is often noted as Blake's best mystery.  

That book was reviewed in 1001 Midnights (published in 1986) by Bill Pronzini:

   British Poet Laureate (1968-72) and novelist Cecil Day Lewis, writing as Nicholas Blake, published a score of popular detective and suspense novels from 1935 to 1968, all but four of which feature an urbane amateur sleuth named Nigel Strangeways. For the most part, the Blake novels are fair-play deductive mysteries in the classic mold and are chock-full of literary references and involved digressions, which makes for rather slow pacing. But they are also full of well-drawn characters and unusual incidents, and offer a wide variety of settings and information on such diverse topics as sailing, academia, the British publishing industry, and the cold war.

   The Beast Must Die is considered by some to be Blake’s finest work and a crime-fiction classic. When the young son of mystery novelist Felix Cairnes (a.k.a. Felix Lane) is killed by a hit-and-run driver, Lane, who doted on the boy, vows to track down and kill the man responsible.

 

Pronzini concluded that The Beast Must Die is a good novel but not a mystery classic. 

I had not realized that this is the 4th book in the Nigel Strangeways series (of 16 books). I have read books 1 and 2 in the series, so I am hoping to read The Beast Must Die soon.

Another book by Blake that I picked up at the same time is Head of a Traveler. It is a later book in the series, published in 1949, but it follows another book I have read, Minute for Murder, so I think I could read it soonish too.

An Air That Kills: Christine Poulson

This novel continues the series of medical thrillers starring Katie Flanagan. And this latest book in the series is very topical.

From the book cover:

It is only a matter of time before there is a flu pandemic with the potential to kill billions. Or so wealthy entrepreneur Lyle Linstrum believes. That is why he is funding research into transgenics – the mechanism by which viruses can jump the species barrier – at a high security lab on a tidal island off the North Devon coast. 

A suspiciously rapid turnover of staff has him worried. He sends in scientist Katie Flanagan as an undercover lab technician. Something is clearly very wrong, but before Katie can get to the bottom of what is going on, a colleague is struck down by a mysterious illness.

Katie has just recently returned from a job at a research station in Antarctica. She has no job and no prospects for one at the moment, so when Lyle mentions the problems at the research lab, she volunteers for the undercover job. There are objections, but they work them out, and she gets a quick course in taking on a new identity. 

Poulson excels in all areas, setting, plotting and characterization. The plot moves along briskly. The story is intense and there is a sense of unease from the first day Katie arrives at the lab. The setting on an isolated island is beautiful but sometimes creepy. Each new person we meet on the island is under suspicion. Each is interesting in their own way, some more likable than others.

I like that a consistent set of secondary characters has been maintained over the three books in the series so far. Katie is close friends with Daniel and Rachel Marchmont and their young daughter, Chloe and has previously worked with Lyle Linstrum, scientist, venture capitalist, and Texas rancher. This group of supportive friends makes the series seemed more based in reality than some.

I also liked the brief training period that Katie undergoes to get tips on undercover work. The trainer is very concerned about letting an inexperienced person go into that situation. Thus the undercover work is handled very realistically.

This series just gets better and better. So I am glad to hear that a fourth book centered around Katie Flanagan is in the works. There is a new challenge for Katie in each book, but she still seems like a real person with a real life, real issues, not a superwoman.

Although there is continuity between the books in the series, each can be read as a standalone. I highly recommend this book and this series.

See my reviews of the first two books in the series, Deep Water and Cold, Cold Heart.

Also see other reviews of An Air That Kills...
Moira's review at Clothes in Books and Kate's review at crossexamingcrime.


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Publisher:  Lion Hudson, 2019
Length:      267 pages
Format:     Trade paperback
Series:      Katie Flanagan, #3
Setting:     UK
Genre:      Medical thriller
Source:     I purchased my copy

Bookshelf Traveling for Insane Times No. 14

I am participating in the Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times meme, hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness. Judith's latest Bookshelf Traveling post is here. Later than I had planned, but that is OK.

Today I am returning to the bookshelf from last week's post. Last week I focused on the Women Crime Writers boxed set and a couple of other titles. This week I am focusing on the American Science Fiction boxed set.

If you click on the image of the shelf, you will be able to read more of the titles.

So, today, more about American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, Gary K. Wolfe, editor.

The first volume contains four novel published from 1953-1956:

Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth / The Space Merchants
Theodore Sturgeon / More Than Human
Leigh Brackett / The Long Tomorrow
Richard Matheson / The Shrinking Man

The second volume contains four novel published from 1956-1958:

Robert Heinlein / Double Star
Alfred Bester / The Stars My Destination
James Blish / A Case of Conscience
Algis Budrys / Who?
Fritz Leiber / The Big Time

For my bookshelf traveling post this week I had planned to give an overview of the nine books that are included in these volumes, just brief synopses, giving some idea of each book. Although I have read some of the authors back in my youth, I really did not know what to expect with these books, so I wanted to do this as much to educate myself as anything else.

I had varying amounts of luck in finding what I wanted so this is a mix of very short notes on the books and a few longer descriptions. There is a very nice companion web site for the boxed set, with appreciations of each book by well-known authors and a cover gallery.

Leigh Brackett's The Long Tomorrow sounds like the perfect book for me: a post-apocalyptic tale about the world after a global war. However, it is also a coming of age novel and unlike most of Leigh Brackett's other novels, from what I have read.

Here are Jo Walton's thoughts on the book at Tor.com, including spoilers at the end.

Who? by Algis Budrys also is the epitome of a novel I should enjoy, a Cold War sci-fi/espionage novel. See this review at Speculiction or see Tim Powers' Appreciation of the novel at the Library of America site.

This is part of the description for Robert A. Heinlein's Double Star at Goodreads...

One minute, down and out actor Lorenzo Smythe was — as usual — in a bar, drinking away his troubles as he watched his career go down the tubes. Then a space pilot bought him a drink, and the next thing Smythe knew, he was shanghaied to Mars.

Suddenly he found himself agreeing to the most difficult role of his career: impersonating an important politician who had been kidnapped. 

In The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson...

Scott Carey is condemned to shrink smaller and smaller by his exposure to a cloud of radioactive spray (after ingesting some insecticide). This book was adapted to film as The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957.

For More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon, I am using a description from Wikipedia:

The novel concerns the coming together of six extraordinary people with strange powers who are able to "blesh" (a portmanteau of "blend" and "mesh") their abilities together. In this way, they are able to act as one organism. They progress toward a mature gestalt consciousness, called the homo gestalt, the next step in the human evolution.

I remember enjoying short stories by Theodore Sturgeon when I was younger, and possibly I read some of his novels. I look forward to trying this book.

The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth

Description at the Library of America site:

Mitch, a professional ad man in a world governed by feuding mega-corporations, is handed a big account promoting a new colony on uninhabitable Venus. But as he takes a step up the career ladder, the world as he knows it falls out from under him: why is everyone suddenly out to get him? And who is he really working for?

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

I found every review that I read on this book very confusing, but I am still eager to read it. This is the description at the Library of America site:

A celebrated tale of betrayal and revenge set in a nightmarish future, in which telepathic "jaunting" has become the preferred mode of transportation. "The perfect cyberpunk novel," says Neil Gaiman.

The Big Time by Fritz Leiber

This was another book where every review that I read was confusing, so again I will go with the description at the Library of America site:

Set in "The Place," a bar and bordello in the backwater of the stream of spacetime, Leiber's 1958 novel explores the implications of a vast "Change War," an endless cosmic struggle in which two shadowy antagonists dart in and out of history in a contest to control the course of destiny.

A Case of Conscience by James Blish

This is part of the description at Goodreads...

Father Ruiz-Sanchez is a dedicated man—a priest who is also a scientist, and a scientist who is also a human being. He has found no insoluble conflicts in his beliefs or his ethics . . . until he is sent to Lithia. There he comes upon a race of aliens who are admirable in every way except for their total reliance on cold reason; they are incapable of faith or belief.

Visits to the Plant Nursery

In the last few weeks we have felt safe enough to go out to our favorite plant nursery. The shop had been open as an essential business from the beginning but we were not ready to go out beyond the grocery store before.

Colorful tomato cages

We have been to the nursery three times to get plants and potting soil for our small, neglected back yard, and each time it has been a good experience. Everyone is wearing masks and social distancing. The parking lot is tiny but people come and go and we had no problem getting a parking space.

I am sharing a few of the photos my husband took at those visits.

On the first trip we left the nursery with geraniums, dusty miller, and succulents and large bags of potting soil. We have since added verbena bonariensis, agastache, yarrow, cuphea, and begonias. And many more succulents.

Bookshelf Traveling for Insane Times, June 13, 2020

I am participating in the Bookshelf Traveling For Insane Times meme, hosted by Judith at Reader in the Wilderness. Judith's latest Bookshelf Traveling post is here.

Today I take a look at another partial bookshelf of my unread books. If you click on the image of the shelf, you will be able to read more of the titles.

The book on the far right is a Library of America boxed set of two omnibuses containing a total of nine science fiction novels. Titled: American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, edited by Gary K. Wolfe. It is a beautiful boxed set and I just could not resist it.

I will return to that set of novels next week.

Next to that is another Library of America boxed set, this time consisting of 8 books: Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s, edited by Sarah Weinman.

The books included are:

• Laura by Vera Caspary (1943)
• The Horizontal Man by Helen Eustis (1946)
• In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes (1947)
• The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (1947)
• Mischief by Charlotte Armstrong (1950)
• The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith (1954)
• Beast In View by Margaret Millar (1955)
• Fools’ Gold by Dolores Hitchens (1958)

Of those books I have only read Laura by Vera Caspary. I have read other books by Margaret Millar, Patricia Highsmith, Charlotte Armstrong, and Dorothy B. Hughes, but the other three authors are new to me.

Placed atop those two omnibus collections is ...
ASTOUNDING: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction,  by Alec Nevala-Lee.

The subtitle pretty much describes the book. I think it could be interesting.

See Rick Robinson's thoughts on the book at Tip the Wink.

Michael Dirda reviewed the book at the Washington Post.


This shelf is too full of interesting books to cover in just one post, but I will include some information on two more books here.

The Half-Child by Angela Savage

Savage is an Australian author. This novel is the second in a series of three books about Jayne Keeney, a private investigator living in Bangkok. I read the first book in this series, Behind the Night Bazaar. I enjoyed it very much, and learned a lot from it. Angela Savage's writing about this area feels authentic because she lived in Southeast Asia for six years in the 1990's. Published in 2012.

The Maidens' Trip by Emma Smith

I think of this as a nonfiction book, but I believe it is actually a fictionalized memoir of experiences the author had, with some added characters. Originally published in 1948.

I learned about this book at Clothes in Books.

From the description at Amazon:

In 1943 Emma Smith joined the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company under their wartime scheme of employing women to replace the boaters. She set out with two friends on a big adventure: three eighteen-year-olds, freed from a middle-class background, precipitated into the boating fraternity. They learn how to handle a pair of seventy-two foot-long canal boats, how to carry a cargo of steel north from London to Birmingham and coal from Coventry; how to splice ropes, bail out bilge water, keep the engine ticking over and steer through tunnels.

The Accident: Chris Pavone

Having loved Chris Pavone's first novel, The Expats, I was eager to try another of his books. I soon purchased the second book he wrote, The Accident, and read it at the end of March.

The Expats was a spy thriller, but it was more than that. It was about a marriage where each spouse is hiding big secrets from the other. The Accident is not spy fiction at all but the story reads like it is. And since my favorite genre is spy fiction, that worked for me.

This story is about the attempt to publish a tell-all memoir that will release information about a very powerful and rich media mogul and ruin his life. This same information will also ruin a CIA operative, who has the ability to start a manhunt for author and manuscript, in order to prevent its release.

The manuscript is first given to an agent, who passes it onto a friend and editor, who passes portions of it onto the publisher. The action takes place in one day. As in The Expats, important information related to all the people involved is revealed gradually, bit by bit.

I enjoyed the book because of its insights into the publishing industry. I worked in publishing for years but not in that area of the business and not in fiction publishing. Still, that made it personally more interesting.

And since this is about a manuscript it is a book within a book, in a sense, which I like. In this case the excerpts from the manuscript were brief and sprinkled throughout the book. I found it a very effective storytelling technique.

Although this is not a sequel to The Expats, two characters from that book do show up. Kate, the protagonist of The Expats, has a minor role as an assistant to Hayden Gray, the CIA operative who is chasing after the author and his manuscript. Hayden had a minor role in Pavone's first book, but his role is much more prominent here. However, knowledge of the previous book is not necessary at all. This is a standalone.

I would mostly categorize this as a fun thriller read, but there was plenty of loss of life in the effort to cover up the facts in the manuscript, and most of this happened to innocent people. There was a point at which that got depressing.

A minor negative factor is that the story is written in the present tense, which I usually don't like. In this case, for the most part, that did not bother me.


 -----------------------------

Publisher:  Broadway Books, 2015 (orig. pub. 2014)
Length:      416 pages
Format:     Paperback
Setting:      USA, mostly; also Zurich and Copenhagen
Genre:       Thriller
Source:      Purchased this year.