Synopsis: Meet Phryne Fisher, the 1920s’ most elegant and irrepressible sleuth, in her first three adventures bound together in one great value volume. This is the perfect way to introduce your friends to your favourite and most stylish sleuth—or to catch up on some of Miss Fisher’s earlier career. Our unflappable, unconventional and uninhibited heroine, The Honourable Phryne Fisher, leaves the tedium of English high society for Melbourne, Australia, and never looks back. In her first three adventures, she encounters communism, cocaine, kidnappers, and murderers. Phryne handles everything—danger, excitement and love—with her inimitable panache and flair, and still finds a little time for discreet dalliances and delicious diversions. This brilliant omnibus volume presents Cocaine Blues, Flying Too High and Murder on the Ballarat Train.
My review: I absolutely adore Kerry Greenwood's Corinna Chapman series. But her Phryne Fisher series is more prolific (6 in the Corinna Chapman; 19 in the Phryne Fisher). "Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher" is an omnibus of the first three titles in the series (Cocaine Blues, Flying Too High, and Murder on the Ballarat Train).
I wasn't sure if I was going to like this series or not. I'm not into murder mystery novels and police procedurals. I don't like blood and gore. Thankfully, reading these, I was able to let my mind gloss over the details and not work too hard at imagining it too closely. But I loved these books because, like the Corinna Chapman series, I really enjoyed the characters themselves. I enjoyed their depths and the environment created in each novel. In reading all three, my personal enjoyment of tea has been refreshed. In the second book, Dot (a grown woman) gets her own room for the first time in her life and it made me appreciate that I have my own apartment and can keep it just as I like.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the first book I've read set in the 1920s. Phryne Fisher is a woman born of poverty, granted wealth later in life (I believe she's in her 30s). She is fashionable, strongly independent, has no interest in having children, and has casual sexual relations with good-looking men. She's free-spirited, smart, widely skilled, and is able to solve mysteries. In short, I like her a lot. She makes me want to be a bit more glamorous than I am.
In fact, Phryne Fisher is so fashionable that the first novel went into a lot of detail of her clothing choices. Not being a fashion maven, I didn't understand a lot of it and didn't care to find out. That doesn't happen so much in the other two novels. But there was enough for you to understand that her clothes were stylish, expensive, and beautiful.
I read somewhere that someone complained about the abrupt change to another character's point-of-view without indication (like, in the same paragraph as another character's POV). Yes, it caught me off-guard the first time it happened but you get used to it as you continue reading her books. If you want to talk about writing style and form, fine, go ahead and complain. But for me, it blends well with the story. Instead of waiting until later in the story, Greenwood cuts to what the other character in the scene is thinking (usually about Phryne) or gives some background to the character that explains something about them in reference to the scene or what is happening to them within the plot. I didn't mind it and usually it was only a few sentences. A brief aside, as it were. Not so horribly distracting from the story.
Yes, so I did indeed enjoy this book (and therefore the first three novels in the series) and so now I will have to hunt down copies of the other 16 novels. I have five non-consecutive titles from later in the series on ebook; I'll just have to find the earlier ones.
On another note, I recently bought a copy of Kerry Greenwood's "Salmancis/Jetsam" from Amazon; it was published in March 2013 and is only available for Kindle. And we got a copy of her "Out of the Black Land" (published in February 2013) at one of my libraries but I haven't completely decided whether or not I will read it, simply because it is set in ancient Egypt. And in case I haven't already said it anywhere else, Kerry Greenwood is my all-time favourite author. If we count "Introducing the Honourable Phryne Fisher" as the three separate titles, I have read nine of her books and loved all of them. I happily look forward to reading more. And I sincerely hope she writes more in the Corinna Chapman series.
Read on,
Paula
If you haven't heard the horrible news, Google is discontinuing their Reader. I am heartbroken. I love Google Reader and may have difficulty finding anything good enough for me to replace it. In preparation for its demise in July, I've been going through old starred blog posts and printing the ones I want to keep. And that's where I found an entry with the quote "Date A Girl Who Reads" by Rosemarie Urquico. Here's the link to the full quote on Goodreads and here's the first paragraph:
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
I absolutely adore this whole essay. My dream is to fall in love with a guy who totally gets my book addiction. Since I have no intention of having children, I am already planning which books to give my nieces/nephews as they get older. I want to be the book aunt. Although I don't sniff the pages (damned allergies!) and my reading tastes are different from those prescribed in the quote, I would dearly love for my would-be-partner to hold me while I cry over a book simply because he understands how a book can affect you.
Frankly, everyone should read Urquico's quote, but most especially all of us girls who read.
Read on,
Paula
For some reason, I've never actually kept a list of what books I own. Not physically anyway, and not even online until I joined LibraryThing in April 2007. But yesterday, I began creating a spreadsheet. Knowing from LibraryThing that I currently own 278 books, I now know how imbalanced my personal library is when it comes to fiction vs nonfiction. I have 88 fiction books. That doesn't include the approximately 25 children's books that I haven't entered yet. I also haven't gotten to the non-fiction yet. And that certainly doesn't include the hundreds of ebooks I have on my computer.
I'm now in a mad rush to download as many ebooks as possible of the titles that are high on my TBR. One of which is "Up and Down" by Terry Fallis. He's coming to do an author talk at my library later in a few months. I want to read it before he comes. If I love it, I can get my own copy and get him to sign it for me.
Read on,
Paula
I was actually disappointed with "The Boy in the Dress" by David Walliams. It wasn't as funny as I was expecting. Even though it has an "accept others" philosophy, it only applies to religion and cross-dressing: Dennis' best friend is a Sikh and other male characters in the book wear dresses. But Dennis is not gay; he has a crush on Lisa, the girl who gets him to wear the dresses. There is also a hint of peer pressure because, although he loves looking at fashion magazines, Dennis is not actually interested in wearing dresses until Lisa convinces him to do it. She also gets him to put on makeup and high heels. She convinces him to go to school as a girl.
The thing I most disliked about this book was the anti-fat thread running through it. Dennis' dad is fat and so is one of the boys at school. In fact, every time the schoolboy, Mac, is mentioned, there is also a food reference. Not all fat people eat constantly and I took offense to this depiction. In this book, it's okay for boys to dress up in girl's clothing but god forbid they be fat.
This book is also very British. When I first read that the main character loves football and wearing dresses, I thought they meant American football. No, they mean British football, which is American soccer. There are also other British cultural terms and -isms that North American children might not know.
It only took me a few hours to read it and I'm sorry I bought it.
Read on,
Paula
You've heard of 'dinner and a movie'. Well, my girl friends and I went to 'dinner and Chapters' for my friend's birthday.
I probably would have spent more had I not forgotten my wallet at home (not realizing this until after dinner) and had to rely on a loan from one of my friends. Also, I bought two books I hadn't intended to buy just to compensate for the fact that Chapters was sold out of "Dust and shadow" by Lyndsay Faye. Silly me, I assumed Chapters would have copies considering it's a new-ish title. Apparently, I was wrong.
I bought:
*The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
*The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht
*To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
*Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
*The Boy in the Dress by David Walliams
When I got home, I ordered a hardcover copy of "Dust and shadow" because Chapters only had the trade paperback available. I wanted hardcover so I was happy to find that Better World Books had it.
Read on,
Paula
Synopsis: From the gritty streets of nineteenth century London, the loyal and courageous Dr. Watson offers a tale unearthed after generations of lore: the harrowing story of Sherlock Holmes's attempt to hunt down Jack the Ripper.
As England's greatest specialist in criminal detection, Sherlock Holmes is unwavering in his quest to capture the killer responsible for terrifying London's East End. He hires an "unfortunate" known as Mary Ann Monk, the friend of a fellow streetwalker who was one of the Ripper's earliest victims; and he relies heavily on the steadfast and devoted Dr. John H. Watson. When Holmes himself is wounded in Whitechapel during an attempt to catch the savage monster, the popular press launches an investigation of its own, questioning the great detective's role in the very crimes he is so fervently struggling to prevent. Stripped of his credibility, Holmes is left with no choice but to break every rule in the desperate race to find the madman known as "the Knife" before it is too late.
A masterly re-creation of history's most diabolical villain, Lyndsay Faye's debut brings unparalleled authenticity to the atmosphere of Whitechapel and London in the fledgling days of tabloid journalism and recalls the ideals evinced by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most beloved and world-renowned characters. Jack the Ripper's identity, still hotly debated around the world more than a century after his crimes were committed, remains a mystery ripe for speculation. Dust and Shadow explores the terrifying prospect of tracking a serial killer without the advantage of modern forensics, and the result is a lightning-paced novel brimming with historical detail that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
My review: When I heard about "Dust and shadow" and the idea of reading the account of the Jack the Ripper murders as investigated by Sherlock Holmes, I was intrigued and immediately added it to my TBR. I also recommended it for purchase for both my libraries since I figured it would interest enough people. Well, if people love it as much as I did, it will never stay on the shelf for long.
I've read only one Sherlock Holmes novel, "The Hound of the Baskervilles", while in high school and haven't retained much of it in my memory. At the same time, I am only vaguely aware of the Ripper case. In this manner, I felt at times to be in-the-know and on the outside at the same time. I frequently wondered just how much of what I was reading was fact.
This book is well-written and absorbing. The wit and sarcasm make this a fun read, which sounds contradictory considering the content. I loved the characters, especially Miss Monk, and the language of the time period. There were times where a description implied a reference to a previous Holmes novel. "Dust and shadow" is so brilliantly written that I, a decidedly non-murder mystery-reader, loved this book so much that I am buying myself a copy for rereading in the future AND buying the complete Sherlock Holmes works.
Unfortunately, this book has further solidified my conviction NOT to read the Mary Russell series by Laurie King, no matter how good people tell me it is. Although I'm normally fine with romances with an age gap, I just don't feel comfortable reading about a 38-year difference.
"Dust and shadow" is now my favourite read of 2013. That's how much I loved it! Oh, and I love that it was written by a female author.
Read on,
Paula
The Guardian wrote an article called '1000 novels everyone must read' and I checked to see how many I have read. I'm guessing that, being a UK publication, the focus was on UK titles because there are a large percentage of titles that I've never heard of before. There is a mix of classics and newer titles and I was very happy to see that two Douglas Coupland titles are on the list. I have 7 titles on my TBR and I have read 33 of them:
*Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
*Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
*The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
*The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
*Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
*The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
*The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
*The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
*To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
*Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
*Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
*Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
*Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
*Persuasion by Jane Austen
*Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
*Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
*Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
*Lord of the Flies by William Golding
*Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
*News From Nowhere by William Morris
*The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
*Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
*Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
*The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
*Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
*The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
*Dracula by Bram Stoker
*The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
*Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
*The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
*A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
*On the Road by Jack Kerouac
*Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut
I'm going to check out the titles I've never heard of and see if there are any to add to my TBR.
Read on,
Paula
Synopsis: The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. To Kill A Mockingbird became both an instant bestseller and a critical success when it was first published in 1960. It went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was later made into an Academy Award-winning film, also a classic.
Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill A Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior—to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story, by a young Alabama woman, claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.
My review: I knew there was a court case involved and that the overall theme was black-white relations in the South. And I knew it was controversial...otherwise it wouldn't have been on the banned books list. So whenever you hear people talk about it, that's what they talk about. Having never read the book, the one thing that deeply surprised me was how funny the first 150 pages were; my favourite is when Scout finds the gum.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I would definitely recommend this book and not solely based on the main theme but on the writing quality and how easily it evokes life in that era. It was so easy to vividly imagine it all, as if you were actually there.
I loved the main characters so much. I most love the feisty tomboy of Scout; the honest, fair, and upstanding Atticus; the exuberant and somewhat romantic Dill; and even the enigmatic character of Boo Radley. I sympathized with Jem and his struggles between boyhood and the beginnings of his loss of childhood innocence.
Prejudice and racism are things I haven't had to struggle with much myself (except on the receiving end). I firmly believe that all humans should be treated equally, that every human deserves the same rights regardless of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, body size, etc. My own personal discrimination, though, is people with mental disabilities: they make me uncomfortable and I don't know why, but they are still unique individuals due the same rights as everyone else. Just because someone is different doesn't mean they don't deserve respect and compassion.
Although the major theme in this book is prejudice, I find there is also the theme of being accused of and convicted for something you didn't do. And not just the major instance of Tom Robinson/Mayella Ewell but also in Scout/Francis at christmas. This is an issue that I have personal experience with. I am more familiar with the prejudice of boys vs girls and it is the more prevalent version I've seen in my reading life. Just as a white person's word was taken over a black person's regardless of lack of evidence, a boy's word was/is taken over a girl's. I am in no way downplaying the seriousness of prejudice in any way, I'm just making a comparison. Thankfully, in today's society, both prejudices are far weaker than they have historically been. I may be naive in some ways but I am not naive enough to say that those prejudices no longer exist.
I generally move from book to book. But this book was so rich and moving that I had to take a break for a while as I let the book soak in.
"If the remainder of the school year ere as fraught with drama as the first day, perhaps it would be mildly entertaining, but the prospect of spending nine months refraining from reading and writing made me think of running away."
"If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?"
Read on,
Paula
According to the ALA banned books list, I've read:
"Catcher in the rye" by J.D. Salinger
"1984" by George Orwell
"Of mice and men" by John Steinbeck (high school assigned reading)
"Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut (high school assigned reading)
"The lord of the rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien
From other banned books lists, I've read:
"Diary of a young girl" by Anne Frank
"Dracula" by Bram Stoker
"Lord of the flies" by William Golding (high school assigned reading)
"Bell jar" by Sylvia Plath
"Little house on the prairie" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
"Strangers in a strange land" by Robert Heinlein
"Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
"The lovely bones" by Alice Sebold
"A wrinkle in time" by Madeline L'Engle
"Hamlet" by William Shakespeare (high school assigned reading)
"Macbeth" by William Shakespeare (high school assigned reading)
I have "Lysistrata" by Aristophanes on my TBR and I'm currently reading "To kill a mockingbird" by Harper Lee. My library coworkers were shocked to learn I haven't read "To Kill a Mockingbird" before. This is because, somehow, my high school assigned readings were heavy on the Shakespeare and light on typical classics. As evidence of this, I have never read any Mark Twain. Not "Huckleberry Finn" or "Tom Sawyer" or any of his works. But I have "The Prince and the Pauper" waiting in the wings to read.
On a side note, the BOTNS podcast lead me to this article about overrated books...some of them being on the banned list.
Read on,
Paula
Today I got a delivery from Better World Books. There are a few reasons why I love this website:
- free shipping no matter how many books you buy or where you live
- for each book you purchase, they donate a book to charity
- low prices depending on popularity and publication date (this particular shipment of 2 trade paperbacks and 2 hardcovers cost less than $35 Cdn; each book cost less than $10 Cdn; they don't charge tax)
- availability of titles no longer sold by brand stores
However, just because the shipping is free does not mean that it is pronto/next-day service like Chapters or Amazon. But I don't mind that at all because the biggest reason why I love ordering from BWB is that, by the time my order arrives, I've forgotten what I ordered. It's like a christmas surprise every time I get a shipment from them!
The only thing I'm not so happy about is the adhesive used on their inventory stickers. I wish these stickers came off a whole lot easier than they do. They don't peel off very easily and I don't feel like sitting there picking at them. Because they are on the spine, they ruin the aesthetic of my bookcases. *pout* Maybe one of these days, BWB will start using a more peel-friendly adhesive...or I'll invest in some Goo Gone.
In case you're curious, the four books I got are:
*"Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto" by Anneli Rufus
*"Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books" by Paul Collins
*"Shelf Life: Romance, Mystery, Drama, and Other Page-Turning Adventures from a Year in a Book Store" by Suzanne Strempek Shea
*"Book on the Bookshelf" by Henry Petroski
Read on,
Paula
