The Left-Handed Booksellers of London

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London
by Garth Nix
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9781760631246
Publication Date: September 1, 2020
Pages: 374
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Eighteen-year-old art student Susan Arkshaw arrives in London in search of her father. But before she can question crime boss Frank Thringley he's turned to dust by the prick of a silver hatpin in the hands of the outrageously attractive Merlin.

Merlin is one of the youngest members of a secret society of booksellers with magical powers who police the mythic Old World wherever it impinges on the New World - in addition to running several bookshops, of course! Merlin also has a quest of his own: to find the Old World entity who arranged the murder of his mother.

Their investigations attract attention from enemies of the Old and New Worlds. Soon they become involved in an even more urgent task to recover the grail that is the source of the left-handed booksellers' power, before it is used to destroy the booksellers and rouse the hordes of the mythic past. As the search for the grail becomes strangely intertwined with both their quests, they start to wonder… Is Susan's long-lost father a bookseller, or something altogether more mysterious?

I think I’m being unduly harsh on this book. I bought it on the strength of the title and the blurb, but when it arrived I discovered Nix is an Australian author. I have a very sketchy relationship with Australian fiction; sketchy as in ‘I rarely like it’. But still, it sounded so good…

… and I almost DNF’d it on the second page of the prologue. The writing was too too. Too flowery, or verbose, or trying too hard. Maybe all of the above. Still, it seemed a little harsh and judgy and I paid for the damn book. The start of chapter 1 was not encouraging either. I have an aversion to numbered lists and the one on page 8 (the only one, thankfully) screamed of pretentious, or overly precocious, writing.

Still, aware of my bias, I persevered, and by the end of chapter 1, the writing had evened way out, and the story had found its footing. I found myself drawn in by the characters, cheeky though Merlin is (I don’t think we’re meant to believe he’s the Merlin, just of, perhaps, his lineage). I still think the author tried to hard to be relevant and current, while writing a book placed in an alternate early 1980’s, but that also fades away as the story progresses. By about 1/3 of the way in, I was left with what the story should have been all along – a rather entertaining fantasy adventure written for the late teen readers – or at least the characters are all late teens. The book won an Aussie book award for “older children”, which to me is NOT late teens, but early teens. I’d easily give this to my 12 year old niece to read, though some of the innuendo might fly past her unnoticed. Or not.

I was disappointed by the lack of time spent in actual bookstores. Considering 2 or the 3 main characters are book-sellers and 8 out of 10 of the rest are as well, there was only 1 scene that took place inside bookshops. The rest is a series of attacks, kidnapping attempts, and general mayhem that starts and ends in London, taking in the Lake District in the process. It was fun, but entirely lacking in bookstores.

I suppose the ending was predictable, but not so much as to dim the journey getting there. I have no idea of this book was meant to be a standalone, or the start of a new series, but it’s obviously left open to be one, even though no dangling threads remain. If a second book is published, I’d likely read it. I found the characters endearing, and maybe in the next book, they might spend time in the actual bookshops.

The trouble with anthologies … and Charles Dickens

Great Stories of Crime and Detection
by H.R.F. Keating, Various Authors
Rating: ★★★★½
Publication Date: January 1, 2002
Pages: 1784
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Folio Society

I’ve accumulated a solid collection of thick crime anthologies over the years and I’ve really enjoyed all of them – I get the chance to find new authors, experience a wide variety of writing styles and have access to mysteries and authors I might not otherwise be able to find.

But the one problem I’ve had again and again is that I pick up one of the large anthologies and often can’t remember which stories I’ve read and which I haven’t. While I appreciate the anthologies as a chance to expand my mystery horizons, I know I also tend to gravitate to the same types of stories – so when I see one that looks good I find myself double guessing myself: did I think that the last time and have I already read this?. I know I could look up reviews, but that takes way too much time no matter how organised my online ‘bookkeeping’ is.

A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that the simplest solution was the best: I had MT pick up a pack of index cards, and I started slipping on in the front of each anthology. Now when I read a story, I jot in down on the index card, along with the date read and a quick rating.

This has been very handy, and I figure, if someday my books travel beyond my library, maybe someone will get a kick out of finding my ‘ephemera’ and comparing notes with me.

All of which brings me to my mini-review of the first story I’ve read in Great Stories of Crime and Detection, V. I. Volume I covers “The Beginning” up until 1920, and starts with the obvious, Murders in the Rue Morgue, which I’ve already read, so I chose the second story To Be Taken With a Grain of Salt by Charles Dickens. Don’t ask me why, because, with the exception of A Christmas Carol I can’t tolerate Dickens’ paid-by-the-word writing style. Maybe I felt the need to torture myself with mind-numbing prose?

If I did, I failed, because this story was delightful! Written with an economy of style I can hardly credit to Dickens, but fully fleshed out and wonderfully creepy. At 10 pages long it’s a compact ghost story about a man who sits on the jury of a murder trial, and how the victim sees to it that justice is done. It’s an unconventional follow-up to the conventional starter, and it makes me eager to find out what’s to follow. I doubt I’ll follow them in strict order, but I have high hopes that they’ll all be wroth reading, and I look forward to filling up my index card.

It has left me feeling completely flummoxed by Charles Dickens though.

Murder on Brittany Shores (Inspector Dupin, #2)

Murder on Brittany Shores
by Jean-Luc Bannalec
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250112439
Series: Brittany Mystery #2
Publication Date: November 28, 2017
Pages: 380
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Minotaur Books

Ten miles off the coast of Brittany lie the fabled Glénan Islands. Boasting sparkling white sands and crystal-clear waters, they seem perfectly idyllic, until one day in May, three bodies wash up on shore. At first glance the deaths appear accidental, but as the identities of the victims come to light, Commissaire Dupin is pulled back into action for a case of what seems to be cold-blooded murder.

Ever viewed as an outsider in a region full of myths and traditions, Dupin finds himself drawn deep into the history of the land. To get to the bottom of the case, he must tangle with treasure hunters, militant marine biologists, and dangerous divers. The investigation leads him further into the perilous, beautiful world of Glénan, as he discovers that there's more to the picturesque islands than meets the eye.

Another solidly told story and an excellently plotted mystery. I’m especially loving the plots, and where the first book’s mystery shined in clever suspense, this one shines in sheer complexity and tragedy.

Murder on Brittany Shores takes place on an archipelago off the coast, on the Glénan Islands. Very remote, and at one point, very And Then There Were None vibes. Bannalec either has his tongue firmly in cheek, or he is a born-again convert to all things Breton, as he uses every opportunity to gush about the superiority of all things Breton, repeatedly using phrases like the best in the world, and comparing the Glénan Islands to the Caribbean, having them come out at least as equals in some respects and, of course, Glénan superior in the most important bits. This is sometimes too obvious and over-bearing, but it’s probably only wasting about 5% of the story overall, so can be forgiven, mostly. There was one spot I rolled my eyes and skimmed.

I like Dupin – he’s the opposite of his namesake; abrupt, concise and not prone to long speeches, or even medium sized sentences. Terse. Sometimes crabby, and I particularly enjoy the way he’s constantly avoiding phone calls with his superiors, like a sneaky kid trying to avoid hearing the call to come inside and bathe.

I thoroughly enjoyed both the books I’ve read so far, but I don’t feel like I need to rush out to read the next one – it will likely be on the a future library list sooner rather than later, when I feel the need to be reminded about how great Brittany is. 😉

Charles Darwin and the Beagle Adventure

Charles Darwin and the Beagle Adventure: being an account of the voyage of the Beagle, 1831-1836
by A.J. Wood, Charles Darwin, Clint Twist
Rating: ★★★★★
isbn: 9781742114446
Publication Date: March 1, 2009
Pages: 32
Genre: Middle Grade, Natural Science, Non-fiction
Publisher: The Five Mile Press

The Beagle Adventures of Charles Darwin tells the story of his momentous voyage aboard the Beagle to his own children. This purports to be Darwin's own notebook, packed with his discoveries.

Featuring a route map, a cutaway of the Beagle, notes about life on board and navigation aids, an introduction to the Galapagos Islands and details of the species Darwin discovered, this is all you need to understand his theory of evolution.

Released to celebrate the anniversary of Charles Darwin 's birth in February 2009. Includes paper novelties and detailed artwork to bring Darwin's discoveries to life. Packaged in a beautifully designed hardback with leather closing ties, Darwin's Notebook is the perfect gift for the enquiring young mind.

I spotted this book yesterday in a little used book shop on our way home, and I couldn’t resist its magnetic cover or the quick glimpse I got of the inside before MT whisked it off to the counter for me. I’m a sucker for books with little bits and pieces glued to the inside: envelopes with letters, or fold out flaps of additional information. They bring me the same delight as a well-done pop-up book.

Being rather exhausted on our return home, this felt like the perfect fit for me last night, and it was. It’s beautifully put together and the writing was clear, concise, and well balanced for a middle schooler with language aimed at their reading level without being at all childish. While certainly not detailed, I thought it covered the high points of the Beagle trip for Darwin; certainly enough for a middle schooler’s introduction to Darwin. I’d have liked it to have a few more bits and bobs in it, but that’s just my inner child talking.

For what it is and what it’s trying to be, I think it excels. It’s a gorgeous and charming book.

The Revolutionary Genius of Plants

The Revolutionary Genius of Plants: A New Understanding of Plant Intelligence and Behavior
by Stefano Mancuso
Rating: ★★★
Publication Date: August 28, 2018
Pages: 225
Genre: Science

Do plants have intelligence? Do they have memory? Are they better problem solvers than people? The Revolutionary Genius of Plants—a fascinating, paradigm-shifting work that upends everything you thought you knew about plants—makes a compelling scientific case that these and other astonishing ideas are all true.

Plants make up eighty percent of the weight of all living things on earth, and yet it is easy to forget that these innocuous, beautiful organisms are responsible for not only the air that lets us survive, but for many of our modern comforts: our medicine, food supply, even our fossil fuels.

On the forefront of uncovering the essential truths about plants, world-renowned scientist Stefano Mancuso reveals the surprisingly sophisticated ability of plants to innovate, to remember, and to learn, offering us creative solutions to the most vexing technological and ecological problems that face us today. Despite not having brains or central nervous systems, plants perceive their surroundings with an even greater sensitivity than animals. They efficiently explore and react promptly to potentially damaging external events thanks to their cooperative, shared systems; without any central command centers, they are able to remember prior catastrophic events and to actively adapt to new ones.

I had high hopes for this one, and it started out really strong. But it lost its momentum after the first few chapters.

This is a translation from the original Italian, so I can’t be sure there’s not some explanation there, but the writing felt oddly defensive, as if it should have been titled In Defence of the Revolutionary Genius of Plants. It also fell in this weird middle ground of explaining what felt like super obvious basics in a very academic voice.

I admit there were some chapters I skimmed, but then things got interesting in chapters 4 and 5, although I got irritated by the failure of reasoning exhibited by the author – which is, to be fair, a very common one. The chapter concerned the symbiotic and sometimes manipulative relationship between some plants and animals and in the writing he mused on the motivation of the plant to develop such strategies. I hear/read this type of thing a lot and it drives me nuts; I always picture of room full of whatever – in this case acacias – sitting around pondering, with a whiteboard covered in figures in the background, plans for their future evolutionary development. I’m not schooled in science, but I do know that’s putting the cart before the horse.

I was back to skimming towards the end as there was a lot of general lecturing on how applications from the plant world can be applied to solve the industrial world’s problems. There’s a little tooting of his own horn too, but to be fair the Jellyfish Barge sounds incredibly cool. The last chapter on plants in space I skipped completely as I lacked the interest and the attention span to tackle it (it was short and I’m not sorry).

A beautifully made book, with some really good information but overall it was just not written (or perhaps translated) in an engaging enough way to keep me glued to the page.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Haunted Houseful

Alfred Hitchcock's Haunted Houseful
by Alfred Hitchcock (editor)
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 0394812247
Publication Date: January 1, 1961
Pages: 208
Genre: Children's Fiction
Publisher: Random House

Nine short stories featuring haunted houses, by such notable authors as Elizabeth Coatsworth, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Mark Twain.

Yesterday was a bad day for my convalescence; It was a 38 degree day outside, and inside my discomfort was such that I couldn’t settle, leaving me hot, cranky, frustrated and staring at my ceiling and my TBR shelves (they’re next to my bed). My eyes landed on this book late afternoon; we had it on our shelves growing up, and I’d bought a copy sometime back after finding out my mom had given away our original copy. It felt like just the ticket for what ailed me.

It pretty much was. Short stories for middle schoolers that were well written but untaxing. The book’s description and foreward claim that each of the stories are about haunted houses and ghosts – they’re not. One is Conan-Doyle’s The Adventure of the Red-headed League and that has nothing spooky in it except a sentence or two near the end. There were only two stories that had actual ghosts; the rest were mysteries that involved spooky houses. Still it was an effective method of distraction and entertained me as well as anything written for pre-teens possibly could.

Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop – 3 stories

Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop
by Otto Penzler
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781593156770
Publication Date: January 1, 2010
Pages: 257
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Vanguard Press

Each year, for the past seventeen years, Mysterious Bookshop proprietor Otto Penzler has commissioned an original Christmas story by a leading suspense writer. These stories were then produced as pamphlets, just 1,000 copies, and given to customers of the bookstore as a Christmas present. Now, all seventeen tales have been collected in one volume, showcasing the talents of:

Charles Ardai
Lisa Atkinson
George Baxt
Lawrence Block
Mary Higgins Clark
Thomas H. Cook
Ron Goulart
Jeremiah Healy
Edward D. Hoch
Rupert Holmes
Andrew Klavan
Michael Malone
Ed McBain
Anne Perry
S. J. Rozan
Jonathan Santlofer
Donald E. Westlake

Some of these stories are humorous, others suspenseful, and still others are tales of pure detection, but all of them together make up a charming collection and a perfect Christmas gift for all ages.

I’m done reading this one – my stack of Christmas TBR still looks a bit daunting, but I’ve read the first three stories, which I think are re-reads I’ve long forgotten about.

Each of the stories in this anthology was written as a Christmas present to customers at Mysterious Books.

Snowberries by Megan Abbott: Good writing, with a noir vibe, but a weird story; more of a snippet, really.

Give Till it Hurts by Donald E. Westlake: Silly; not in a good way.

Schemes and Variations by George Baxt: Best of the three, in terms of story (it actually had a plot). The writing tried too hard to be witty, but sometimes succeeded.

The Folio Book of Christmas Ghost Stories

The Folio Book of Christmas Ghost Stories
by Various Authors
Rating: ★★★★★
Publication Date: January 1, 2005
Pages: 288
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Folio Society

The 20 tales gathered together here range from the familiar - Charles Dickens, Walter de la Mare and MR James - to stories even the most ardent fan probably won't have come across before.

Howling winds and winter snows, rambling old houses and isolated inns, characters whose apparently ordinary lives hide guilty secrets and murky pasts, even a sinister Punch and Judy show - all the classic ingredients are here. Wonderful, spooky, full-colour illustrations by Peter Stuart add the finishing touch.

I started reading a few stories from a new (to me) anthology, Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, and became frustrated by the lack of ghosts in the stories I chose, which prompted me to pull this down off my shelves, to re-read a few stories. All I can say is that should you ever run across this in a used bookstore – and you enjoy a good ghost story – you cannot go wrong splashing out on it. The ghost stories are good and the book is just gorgeous, with full color illustrations throughout.

I re-read three stories for this Christmas season:

Afterward by Edith Wharton: I’m not actually sure why this story is included; it must take place during Christmas, but the holiday is not even a bit player in drama. But it is a great ghost story; the subtle kind that creeps up on both the characters and the reader, so that it isn’t until Afterward that you know you’ve been haunted at all.

When Satan Goes Home for Christmas by Robertson Davies: Not quite a ghost story but come on, it’s Satan. And it’s a funny and oddly touching story in the most unexpected ways.

The Shop of Ghosts by G.K. Chesterton: This is a short one that starts off rather heartbreakingly, but ends not only with hope, but left me chuckling as well. A masterful reminder that there truly is nothing new under the sun.

There are so many others I’d like to re-read this season, and I might, but with my to-do list being as long as anyone else’s this time of year, I’m calling it read and again recommend this for anyone who would enjoy an excellent collection of ghostly holiday cheer.

Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories, Vol 1: The Captain of the “Pole-star”

The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories: Volume One
by Tara Moore (Editor)
Rating: ★★½
isbn: 9781943910564
Publication Date: January 1, 2016
Pages: 291
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Historical
Publisher: Valancourt Books

The first-ever collection of Victorian Christmas ghost stories, culled from rare 19th-century periodicals

During the Victorian era, it became traditional for publishers of newspapers and magazines to print ghost stories during the Christmas season for chilling winter reading by the fireside or candlelight. Now for the first time thirteen of these tales are collected here, including a wide range of stories from a diverse group of authors, some well-known, others anonymous or forgotten. Readers whose only previous experience with Victorian Christmas ghost stories has been Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” will be surprised and delighted at the astonishing variety of ghostly tales in this volume.

I love me some Conan Doyle, but not this one. I’m not a fan of Arctic settings, nor of stories that take place at sea, so this was a double whammy against me liking it. Add to that, it isn’t really a spooky ghost story, so much as a second hand account of ghost sightings and their results.

In my opinion, Conan Doyle’s The Haunted Grange of Grosthorpe is a far superior ghost story.

Death in Brittany (Brittany Mystery, #1)

Death in Brittany
by Jean-Luc Bannalec
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250088437
Series: Brittany Mystery #1
Publication Date: May 31, 2016
Pages: 318
Genre: Fiction, Mystery
Publisher: Minotaur Books

Commissaire Georges Dupin, a cantankerous, Parisian-born caffeine junkie recently relocated from the glamour of Paris to the remote (if picturesque) Breton coast, is dragged from his morning croissant and coffee to the scene of a curious murder. The local village of Pont-Aven—a sleepy community by the sea where everyone knows one other and nothing much seems to happen—is in shock. The legendary ninety-one-year-old hotelier Pierre-Louis Pennec, owner of the Central Hotel, has been found dead.

A picture-perfect seaside village that played host to Gaugin in the nineteenth century, Pont-Aven is at the height of its tourist season and is immediately thrown into uproar. As Dupin delves into the lives of the victim and the suspects, he uncovers a web of secrecy and silence that belies the village's quaint image.

I’m pretty sure I have one of the books in this series floating around a TBR pile somewhere, but I couldn’t remember which one, and I was pretty sure it wasn’t the first one, so I checked it out from the library. If I do have one of the series (and I didn’t give it away) it’s one that I’ve picked up and put right back down again for ages, but the titles always appeal to me, so I made myself read this one.

It was pretty good! Not great, but entertaining, and a pretty solid mystery. The writing style (3rd person) reminds me a little of the Provence mystery series written by M.L. Longworth, although I suspect that’s more just the power of suggestion (one series set in Provence, the other in Brittany) than any actual resemblance. But I’d class these as traditional mysteries, not cozy; they’re all about the mystery plots and very little about the characters, although the descriptions of the countryside were a little eye glazing.

The main character of the book is an obvious tip of the hat to Poe, as his name is Dupin. To my everlasting relief, however, he is as unlike his classic namesake as can be. There’s no expounding, or soapbox monologues; the mystery plot spans 4 days and every one of them is non-stop showing and almost no telling. A Gaugin masterpiece is at the centre of the murder plot, and mysteries about art are catnip for me, so when it felt slow going, the art kept me reading. I say slow going, but that’s not really accurate; the book isn’t divided into chapters, but the 4 days of the investigation, and if you’re a stop-at-the-end-of-a-chapter reader like I am, discovering the first ‘chapter’ is 97 pages long makes it feel like it’s taking forever. Once I figured that out, I adjusted my habits and the book and I got along much better.

I’m definitely interested in the rest of the series. I need to figure out if I do, indeed, have a book and which one it is, and whether or not my library has the entire series or is going to torture me with random entries. No matter though, I definitely have a new series to look forward to.