What Are You Reading the Week of 10 August 2013?

Mary Roberts Rinehart (12 August 1876-22 September 1958) was an American writer, often called the "American Agatha Christie," although her first mystery novel was published 14 years before Christie's. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it," although she did not actually use the phrase. She is considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing. She also created a costumed supercriminal called "the Bat," who was cited by Bob Kane as one of the inspirations for his "Batman."

She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, now a part of Pittsburgh. Her father was a frustrated inventor, and throughout her childhood, the family often had financial problems. Left-handed at a time when that was considered inappropriate, she was trained to use her right hand instead.

She attended public schools and graduated at age 16, then enrolled at the Pittsburgh Training School for Nurses at Homeopathic Hospital, where she graduated in 1896. She described the experience as "all the tragedy of the world under one roof." After graduation, she married Stanley Marshall Rinehart (1867–1932), a physician she had met there. They had three sons and one daughter: Stanley Jr., Frederick, Alan, and Elizabeth Glory.

During the stock market crash of 1903 the couple lost their savings, and this spurred Rinehart's efforts at writing as a way to earn income. She was 27 that year, and produced 45 short stories. In 1907, she wrote The Circular Staircase, the novel that propelled her to national fame. According to her obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, that book sold a million and a quarter copies. Her regular contributions to the Saturday Evening Post were immensely popular and helped the magazine mold American middle-class taste and manners. Rinehart’s commercial success sometimes conflicted with her domestic roles of wife and mother, yet she often pursued adventure, including a job as the first woman war correspondent at the Belgian front during World War I. During her time in Belgium she interviewed Albert I of Belgium, Winston Churchill and Mary of Teck, writing of the latter: "This afternoon I am to be presented to the queen of England. I am to curtsey and to say 'Your majesty,' the first time!" Rinehart was working in Europe in 1918 to report on developments to the War Department and was in Paris when the armistice was signed.

In 1911, after the publication of five successful books and two plays, the Rineharts moved to Glen Osborne, Pennsylvania, where they purchased a large home at the corner of Orchard and Linden Streets called "Cassella." Before they moved into the house, however, Mrs. Rinehart had to completely rebuild the house as it had fallen into disrepair. "The venture was mine, and I had put every dollar I possessed into the purchase. All week long I wrote wildly to meet the payroll and contractor costs." she wrote in her autobiography. Today a Mary Roberts Rinehart Nature Park sits in the borough of Glen Osborne at 1414 Beaver Street, Sewickley, Pennsylvania.

In the early 1920s, the family moved to Washington, DC when Dr. Rinehart was appointed to a post in the Veterans Administration. He died in 1932, but she continued to live there until 1935, when she moved to New York City. There she helped her sons found the publishing house Farrar & Rinehart, serving as its director.

She also maintained a vacation home in Bar Harbor, Maine, where she was involved in a real-life drama in 1947. Her Filipino chef, who had worked for her for 25 years, fired a gun at her and then attempted to slash her with knives, until other servants rescued her. The chef committed suicide in his cell the next day.

Rinehart suffered from breast cancer, which led to a radical mastectomy. She eventually went public with her story, at a time when such matters were not openly discussed. The interview "I Had Cancer" was published in a 1947 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal and in it Rinehart encouraged women to have breast examinations.

"The Rinehart career was crowned with a Mystery Writers of America Special Award a year after she published her last novel ... and by the award, as early as 1923, of an honorary Doctorate in Literature from George Washington University."

She died at age 82 in her Park Avenue home in New York City.

Novels and plays
The Man in Lower Ten (1906)
The Circular Staircase (1908)
Seven Days (Broadway comedy, with Avery Hopwood,1909)
The Window at the White Cat (1910)
When A Man Marries, or Seven Days (1910)
Where There's a Will (1912)
The Cave on Thundercloud (1912)
Mind Over Motor (1912)
The Case of Jennie Brice (1913)
Street of Seven Stars (1914)
The After House : a story of love, mystery and a private yacht (1914)
K. (1915)
Bab, a Sub-Deb (1916)
Long live the King! (1917)
The Amazing Interlude (1918)
23½ Hours Leave (1918)
Dangerous Days (1919)
Salvage (1919)
A Poor Wise Man (1920)
The Bat (Play with Avery Hopwood, 1920)
Spanish Love (Play with Avery Hopwood, 1920)
The Breaking Point (1922)
The Red Lamp (1925)
The Mystery Lamp (1925)
Lost Ecstasy (1927)
This Strange Adventure (1928)
Two Flights Up (1928)
The Truce of God (1930)
The Door (1930)
The Double Alibi (1932)
The Album (1933)
The State vs Elinor Norton (1933)
The Doctor (1936)
The Wall (1938)
The Great Mistake (1940)
The Yellow Room (1945)
A Light in the Window (1948)
The Episode of the Wandering Knife (1950)
The Swimming Pool (1952)
The Frightened Wife (1953) (Special Edgar Award, 1954)

Series
Miss Cornelia Van Gorder
The Bat (1920)

Letitia (Tish) Carberry
The Amazing Adventures of Letitia Carberry (1911)
Tish (1916)
More Tish (1921)
The Book of Tish (1926)
Tish Plays the Game (1926)
Tish Marches On (1937)

Hilda Adams
The Buckled Bag (1914)
Locked Doors (1914)
Miss Pinkerton (1932)
Haunted Lady (1942)
The Secret (1950)

Collections
Love Stories (1919)
Affinities : and other stories (1920)
Sight Unseen / The Confession (omnibus) (1921)
Temperamental People (1924)
Nomad's Land (1926)
The Romantics (1929)
Mary Roberts Rinehart 's Crime Book (1933)
Married People (1937)
Familiar faces; stories of people you know (1941)
Alibi for Isabel (1944)

Richard -thank you for the wonderful and always interesting way you start the thread each week. I've learned quite a bit of authors that are new to me-thanks!!!!

Quite welcome! I grew up with MRR books all over the house, as Mama was a fan from her girlhood. It seems to me a shame we don't read her too terribly much anymore.

Thank you, Richard! What a great start to the week! And I'd never even heard o Mary Roberts Rinehart! The American Agatha Christie?! You bet your sweet bippy I'll be searching out her books!

I'm more than half-way through Mrs Pollifax on Safari by Dorothy Gilman, which is, indeed, a very light, breezy read.

I'm reading The Girl You Left Behind and I will start The Son this weekend.

Read The Case of Jennie Brice earlier this year and have Circular Staircase for later this year and I enjoy MRR very much. Right now I'm reading W. D. Howells' Indian summer and Thatcher Freund's Objects of desire

Learned about MRR after finding some of her books on the shelves at our 100 year old cottage.....thanks, Richard

Thank you, Richard, for that intro. She is one of my very favourites, I have a lot of her mysteries and have read them several times. I once called a library to ask them to find their copy and read the last page to tell me who did it because my last page was missing.

I have just finished Caleb's Crossing: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks. This book really captured me, I love the way the author combined the few facts she had, and research about the area with her own imagination. The way her protagonist was always there in the background being able to provide narration was sometimes too obvious, but didn't deter me. I managed to resist checking the notes at the end as to what was fact until I finished the book, and I'm glad I did.

Back to The Sewing Circles of Herat now.

Thank you Sir Richard.

I lost my dear soulmate and companion of 15.2 years, my pup Sunny, on Wednesday (her body was shutting down) and I am having diffifult time reading. But I got my newest Early Reviewer book in the mail yesterday, and it is just what I needed and am able to read, Reduced to Joy by Mark Nepo. They are little passages (poems? essays? fictional pieces?) about the beauty (and sadness too) of life, and they have been an elixer for my broken heart. It helps that Mr. Nepo is clearly a dog lover and some of them do have some loving reflections on being with dogs :)

Carolyn, I am so so saddened to hear of your loss. I wish Sunny a safe journey home. It is a horrible wrench to lose someone you love. Your reading mojo will return.

# 10 -so sorry for your loss Carolyn

So sorry, Carolyn.

I just finished reading Westsiders. It is a book of short stores set in Newfoundland, most in the late 1940's. They have a strong unique voice which takes a bit to get comfortable with but I find, with time, the stories and the characters stay with me and my sense of the book gets more and more favorable.

My sympathies, Carolyn. Books are such an anodyne, aren't they? I'm glad that the right book fell into your hands at the right time. I do hope it helps ease the pain of your loss.

As for me, I'm just cracking open A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books by Nicholas A. Basbanes, a book that I can happily sink into. It's nice, and thick, and the subtitle says it all: a book lover's nirvana.

Thank you for treating us to another interesting author bio!

I'm still reading Light of the Moon by Luanne Rice. It's not the most complicated story but I love the descriptions of horseback riding and barn life. Although it's taken me awhile to finish off this easy read I'm in no hurry because I'm enjoying it so much.

I'm going through some of my "between books" right now, and soon I'll start Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll.

Huh, funny thing. I had started Leo Litwak's Home for Sale, thinking it was a collection of short stories. I don't read short story collections straight through, but generally read a story at a time between the full-length novels and non-fiction books I read. But upon reading Litwak's first "story," I realized that Home for Sale is really a novel. It even says so on the back of the book. So, I'm going to keep going with this book and put Private Empire (see preceding post) in the on-deck circle.

I finished Alice Munro's Dear Life today -- the latest collection of her amazing stories. I'm now reading Elaine Dundy's The Dud Avocado.

#10 - My condolences, Karen.

I've set aside the Caulaincourt account of Napoleon's invasion of Russia for the time being, because Philippe-Paul de Segur's Napoleon's Russian Campaign just arrived from my library holds queue, so I'm reading it first--I own the Caulaincourt, so it will wait.

It's a nonfiction history weekend for me, since I also just started The Sexual History of London by Catharine Arnold.

My thoughts are with you, Carolyn. Sure is a difficult time.

Just started Orphan Train.

Mollygrace, curious to hear your report on Dud Avocado.

Sorry to hear of your loss, Carolyn. Our pets love us no matter what.

I am reading Wonder which is indeed a wonder. I had avoided it because I thought it might be a depressing read, but it isn't, and is told by several narrators, which is good for my restlessness.

I haven't been in much of a mood to read the past couple of weeks, so I haven't made a lot of progress. I finished up The Trial of the Haymarket Anarchists last night. It's a fascinating book that is sure to induce significant cognitive dissonance in anyone who has studied American labor history.

Next up is War Propaganda and the United States which I'm using as preparatory background reading for Lynne Olson's new book Those Angry Days.

I've finally posted my review of my April ER! I've read and enjoyed Alaska-set thriller THE RAVEN'S GIFT over here and on the book's page. One heckuva debut for Don Rearden! I was very excited reading about the Alaskan tundra as a chase venue.

Carolyn, I'm so sorry for mistyping your name in my post #19. :-( My condolences, again.

#22> Hey, Fred! I just read War Propaganda and the United States. The one review for the book on LT is by me. It is well written and very interesting, offering a fascinating perspective, given when it was written and published (before Pearl Harbor). Hope you enjoy it.

>1 richardderus: Richard, thank you for your always informational and entertaining start to the thread.

>10 CarolynSchroeder: Carolyn, as hard as it is to lose a loved one, furry or not, thank you for providing a loving home for Sunny, and know that my thoughts are with you. Our animals are to be treasured while we are privileged to share their lives.

I'm currently reading Pilgrim's Wilderness, quite interesting and maddening.

At Shelf Inflicted (a group blog I contribute to), I continue my Jay Lake Pre-Mortem Readathon with the lucky number seven review: GREEN, first in a series of three told by the title character, Green.

Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to my thunderings on the subject knows how I feel about fantasy, majgickq, and teenagers. This is a book all about all three.

And I gave it a three-plus star review. See what I mean about lucky number seven?

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss of your beloved Sunny, Carolyn. We love our pets so much so I hope reading helps to assuage the loss.

I am continuing on with my ER win, Night Film by Marisha Pessl. It's gotten a lot of buzz for a book that won't be released until August 20 but at almost 600 pages it will take some time. I'm enjoying what is a quirky book told in a narrative form that is unusual to say the least.

25> rocketjk Yes, it was your review which made me go out in search of it. I read about 100 pages of it this afternoon, and it's very enjoyable. You should read Paul Linebarger's Psychological Warfare. It was written just after the war.

Just finished and enjoyed Jane Gardam's Last Friends, the last of the Old Filth trilogy.

I'm so sorry for your loss Carolyn. Our furry friends can be some of the best we have and their loss can cut deeply. I hope you find some good reads to take your mind off of your sadness.

30# Sad that the trilogy has finished. It will be interesting to see what Jane comes up with next!!!

Thank you everyone, so much. Today is the first day I am starting to cry a little less and smile a little more (at the long and really, quite remarkable and long, life my best friend and I were blessed to have). I mean, everyone keeps telling me that 15.2 years with a big dog (my girl was 60 lbs. soaking wet, which, in her advernturous life, often was) is virtually unheard of. So we were super lucky :)

I finished the beautiful, healing and just ... there for me when I needed it ... Reduced to Joy by Mark Nepo and since it was an ER book, I put up my review. It is technically marketed as poems, but it felt more like miniature essays or even what people are calling "flash fiction" ... loved it. I know he's kinda Oprah-famous, but I had never even heard of him when I requested the book.

I am now reading the rather trite/simple, or I don't know, just top-ten bestsellery, movie of the week-ish Mudbound by Hillary Jordan. That said, I am able to, so I'm going to let it carry me along. It is a very easy read. Despite already being very predictable, she does have some small craftings of beautiful language. But it makes me realize how great story, great characters and great writing is a rare combination of novel events.

10-hugs

I'm currently reading A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy

Finished Orphan Train in a day - easy to get caught up in those lives! Now reading Deadly Spin.

Today I started Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll. I don't generally like to soak in this sort of depressing information, but once in a while I feel like I need a wakeup call.

I am reading my early readers edition of Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink.
It is an amazing account of life and death at one of the major hospitals in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit. Quite an amazing read.

#32 hazeljune: At 84, Gardam says this is her last book but we shall see.... Apparently her next project is compiling her favorite short stories into one volume although I don't envy her the task of choosing!

I am on my way back from vacation and have had a good reading week and a half. I finished reading The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson. Read Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka. That one is a short and beautiful read and easily made my personal best books of the year list. I started listening to Hard Truth by Nevada Barr. I have started reading Guns of August for a group read and am listening to another Nevada Barr book Winter Study.

#38 as you say "we shall see".

I enjoyed Falling Angels by Tracey Chevalier, the graveyard setting reminded of Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger, a different era, for me fascinating.

I'm now reading A Year in the World by Frances Mayes. The writing is surprisingly gorgeous. I'm loving it! Now I'll have to read her Tuscany books!

So happy to be reading Jim Henson The Biography thanks to Early Reviewers. As a lifelong fan of the anarchic Muppets, it's fascinating to be reading about Jim Henson's development as a filmmaker apart from his famous creatures.

I have started A Storm of Swords - still a couple books behind, but catching up! =:)

Starting Abide with Me by Elizabeth Strout

I finally got around to writing a review of THE LAST KASHMIRI ROSE on my blog, Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud, and on the book's page, but I just wasn't all that interested. Too bad, too. I wanted to be blown away!

I started Queen of Mimosa Branch by Haywood Smith today

I'm halfway through The Cuckoo's Calling and it's well-written and good. I like it...but don't love it.

Rowling can really write descriptive passages very well and the pacing of the story is good too.

I will post a full review after I'm finished.

Marion

#47: I finished it yesterday and felt the same. I'm glad I read it, but it wasn't a page-turner for me.

I've already mentioned that I am reading The Son by Philipp Meyer but I'm half way through it and I am enjoying it so much I just have to give it a shout out. This is a very good book. Well written, very interesting and engaging. A few brutal scenes but don't let that stop you from taking a good look at this book. It will be one of my favourites this year for sure.

I am reading the depressing but important Deadly Spin.

I said I'd read it and review it, so I will, but I am NOT liking Meaty. It's so completely self-absorbed that it makes me hate the kid whose blog it was.

Trying to work my way through The Shining Girls, which is very intriguing, creepy, and well-written, yet I can't seem to keep reading. I suspect that this has something more to do with me than with the actual book, because I'm enjoying it very much...I just seem to find myself reading other things besides that one.

Also, I'm finally close to the end of The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz, which is absolutely fascinating.

I'm about one-third of the way into my ER win Sweet Thunder. I loved Ivan Doig's The Whistling Season, which I read after I leaned I won this one. Since then, I discovered that this is the third book in the trilogy, and I should go back and read Work Song before I finish this one, but I'm not going to. I'm already too interested in this one.

I've posted my review of The Wisdom of Ashes in my thread...post #149.

It's a short novel set in New Orleans, by a poet. But it's still good, I promise!

Great review of a book I think I would love. Thank you.

Just started The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer, a time-travel novel whose publication I've been waiting for. I am a sucker for time-travel tales and am a fan of Greer's, so anticipate good things for this one.

>55 TooBusyReading: If you mean my review, I hope you'll enjoy the book!

Just received my May Early Review copy of Countdown City by Ben Winters, second in the pre-apocalyptic detective mystery series, so that is what I will be reading for the next few days.

I'm listening to I, Claudius, read by someone other than Derek Jacobi who is, unfortunately, for me in this case, the definitive voice of Claw-claw-claudius.

I was charmed by The Dud Avocado -- Paris in the '50s in the company of a 21-year-old American girl. Part screwball comedy, part coming-of-age novel, part something much more serious. I enjoyed it. It was a departure from my usual fare, but it was fun -- my summer vacation book.

Next up: Revelations: Visions, Prophecy, and Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels

New Review! I'm continuing my Jay Lake Pre-Mortem Readathon at Shelf Inflicted with the second Green Universe book, ENDURANCE--and it's even better than GREEN was! This man is clearly a sorcerer to make me, misogynstic anti-fantasy me, like these books.

There can be no other explanation. Dark arts and malign spirits must be involved.

I finished and REVIEWED Marisha Pessl's new book Night Film which was an ER win for me.

Now, for a complete change of pace, on to Trollope and The Small House at Allington

I finished Getting over it, a chick lit with some substance to it which I really enjoyed and Wreaththu, a dark fantasy tale that I didn't much cared for and have now begun Bared to you which boasts on the cover "If you liked Fifty shades of grey, you'll love this". I did, so I'm curious if I will.

Finished Abide by Me by Elizabeth Strout and working on Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout

#63
If you are enjoying Elizabeth Strout (I think she's amazing) try her newest novel The Burgess Boys. You won't be disappointed.

64-I have it ordered from my local library. I'm looking forward to it

I am starting to get a tiny bit of my reading mojo back and am about halfway through a book I can find no reviews on nor any real information. But so far, I really like it ... and it takes place (in part) on Dingle Peninsula, one of my favorite places on earth (that I've been to so far, anyway!): Sometime Soon by John Levesque

I'm now reading Casino Royale by Ian Fleming. I've never read Fleming before, and am not a big Bond fan, but this is still a fun read, in a way.

#66> I visited Dingle Peninsula, traveling on my own, in the early 90s. A friend in San Francisco tipped me off to what a great place it was. Stayed in a wonderful farmhouse/B&B and had a great time poking around. A beautiful place. Next time in Ireland I went to County Sligo. I will have to look out for Sometime Soon.

>66 CarolynSchroeder: Very very happy to hear that some reading mojo is coming back, Carolyn. Healing takes time.

>57 richardderus: Sorry to post in the old thread, but yes, I did mean your review, and forgot to "Reply" or put a post number. It's on my TBR now. Happy reading, everyone.

I completely missed out (again) on posting this week. Sorry for posting in the old thread, but I finished reading these books in the last week. So, do they still count, Richard? :)

Anyway, I finished reading The Red Scream: A Novel of Suspense by Mary Willis Walker on Monday, August 12th. Honestly, I wasn't expecting this book to be as good as it was. The characters were extremely likable, the book well-written and the mystery engaging enough to keep me guessing until the end! :)

Up next for me was Deviltry Afoot by Carol Pritt. My daughter had received this book for review, and passed it on to me to read when she was finished. She had warned me that the writing had numerous spelling and punctuation errors in it - a fact that she mentioned in her review, and something that caused her some slight irritation while she was reading the book. I finished reading this book on Wednesday, August 14th.

On Friday, August 16th, I started reading A Patchwork Planet: A Novel by Anne Tyler. I finished reading this book yesterday Saturday, August 17th. There wasn't much going on in the story, but the book was still well-written and very charming in my opinion.

On Saturday night, I started reading I See You Everywhere by Julia Glass. I'm not that far into the story yet, but it seems to have started off well! :)