lyzard's list: going forward to the past - Part 1

  

The red-and-green kangaroo paw was adopted as the floral emblem of Western Australia in 1960. The flower is endemic to the state and appears on its coat-of-arms along with that other unique symbol of WA, the black swan. The plant stands well over a metre tall, and flowers between November and April.

(A word on my thread-toppers: I should of course have a fresh subject for the New Year, but due to my mid-slump in 2014 I only got through seven threads rather than the predicted eight. It seemed rather mean to leave Western Australia out, so here we are! There will be a different theme along for Thread #2...)

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Currently reading:



The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope (1873)

WELCOME TO 2015!!

Hello, all, and welcome to my 2015 thread. I'm Liz, and this will be my fifth full year in the 75-ers group, after joining towards the end of 2010.

My taste in reading runs to the old and the obscure---a taste I'm planning on indulging even more than usual this year. I'm also more than a little OCD, so you will find much of my reading controlled by lists and an insistence upon "in order".

One thing I want to try and change this year is my review writing: I want to make a real effort to restrain myself to a succinct paragraph, rather than writing the epics that tend to come to me naturally (and which often take me less time to write than I spend fretting over being succinct!). I really want to work on just putting a few thoughts down and leaving it at that. In particular I'd like to be able to finish a book, write a paragraph, and move on.

The main reason for this (aside from my recognition of how much I must test people's patience!) is that this year I really want to spend less time reviewing and more time blogging; too often my poor blog has been left neglected while I caught up my general reviewing.

The main theme of my blog, A Course Of Steady Reading, my an examination of the development of the early English novel, from about 1660 onwards. In addition to what I call my "Chronobibliography", my other categories are "Reading Roulette", in which I choose novels to read and review by subjecting my wishlist to a random number generator; "Authors In Depth", which looks at the complete works of certain nominated writers; an examination of the evolution of detective fiction during the 19th century; and an attempt to trace the development of the Gothic novel. This year - heaven help us all! - I will be adding another category, looking at the development of novel-writing in Australia during the 19th century.

Meanwhile, this thread will reflect my other main areas of reading interest---classics, Golden Age mysteries, Virago and Persephone releases, random books from a particular year (I'm "up to" 1932), and non-fiction dealing chiefly with the literature and history of 19th century England, along with a smattering of true crime. I'm also reading through my "back shelves" of horror and science fiction, a phase I went through some twenty years ago, with a view to culling some of those books (to make room for more, of course!). A few of us are also doing a in-order-by-publication-date stroll through the mysteries of Agatha Christie, and the historical romances of Georgette Heyer.

I will also be involved in various group and tutored reads, usually of 18th and 19th century works, in which everyone is welcome to join. (You'll find more details below...)

So while you probably won't find discussion of the latest best-sellers and prize-winners here, hopefully you'll find something of interest! I love getting visitors to this thread, so please stop in for a chat! - or just to tell me you've never heard of a single book I'm reading... :)

...but before we get carried away with 2015:

December 2014 stats:

Works read: 17
TIOLI: 17, in 10 different challenges

Mystery / thriller: 10
Classics: 3
Contemporary drama: 2
Horror: 1
Non-fiction: 1

Series works: 3
Blog reads: 8
1932: 2
Potential decommission: 1

Owned: 7
Library: 1
Ebook: 9

Male : female : anonymous author: 11 : 6 : 1 (including one woman under a male pseudonym, and two men under a single male pseudonym)

Oldest work: The Rival Princesses: or, The Colchian Court by Anonymous (1689) / The Lucky Mistake by Aphra Behn (1689)
Newest work: Relative Creatures: Victorian Women In Society And The Novel 1837-67 by Françoise Basch (1974)

Overall stats for 2014:

Works read: 138
TIOLI: 135

Mystery / thriller: 59 (42.7%)
Classics: 14 (10.1%)
Non-fiction: 11 (8.0%)
Historical romance: 10 (7.2%)
Contemporary drama: 10 (7.2%)
Horror: 7 (5.1%)
Short stories: 4 (1 book, 3 works) (2.9%)
Humour: 2 (1.4%)
Young adult: 2 (1.4%)
Memoir: 2 (1.4%)
Fantasy: 1 (0.7%)
Unclassifiable:1 (0.7%)

Blog reads: 16
Series works: 49
Potential decommission: 8
1932: 19
1931 (aka The Year That Won't Go Away): 12
Virago: 4

Series started: 24
Series finished: 4

Owned: 47
Library: 27
Ebook: 25

Male : female : anonymous authors: 73 : 46 : 2 (60.3% : 38.0% : 1.7%)

Oldest work: The History Of The Nun; or, The Fair Vow-Breaker by Aphra Behn (1689) / The Amours Of The Sultana Of Barbary by Anonymous (1689) / The Rival Princesses: or, The Colchian Court by Anomymous (1689) / The Lucky Mistake by Aphra Behn (1689)
Newest work: The Ultimate Werewolf by Byron Preiss (ed.) (1992)

Phew!

And right now, this is exactly how I feel, too (but not that cute!):

Books in transit:

On interlibrary loan / storage request:

Purchased and shipped:
They Wouldn't Be Chessmen by A. E. W. Mason
The Imperfect Crime by Bruce Graeme

On loan:
Diary Of A Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield (16/02/2015)
Boomerang by Helen Simpson (16/02/2015)
An Introduction To The Australian Novel, 1830-1930 by Barry Argyle (16/02/2015)
Virtue In Distress by R. F. Brissenden (16/02/2015)
Death At Breakfast by John Rhode (17/02/2015)
La Tête d'un Homme by Georges Simenon (19/02/2015)
The Fortnight In September by R. C. Sherriff (27/02/2015)
The Australian Novel, 1830-1980 by John Scheckter (27/02/2015)
The Language Of Meditation by John Halperin (27/02/2015)
*Beside The Bonnie Brier Bush by Ian Maclaren (14/04/2015) (NB: card renewal)
The Benson Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine (14/04/2015) (NB: card renewal)

Track down:
Handfasted by Catherine Helen Spence {interlibrary loan}
The Final War by Louis Tracy {Internet Archive}
Guilty Bonds by William Le Queux {Project Gutenberg}
An Australian Heroine by Rosa Praed {Internet Archive}
The Last Lemurian by G. Firth Scott {Project Gutenberg Australia}
An Australian Girl by Catherine Martin {interlibrary loan}
The Medicine Lady by L. T. Meade {Book Depository}

Ongoing series and sequels:

(1866 - 1876) **Emile Gaboriau - Monsieur Lecoq - The Widow Lerouge (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1867 - 1905) **Martha Finley - Elsie Dinsmore - Elsie's Girlhood (3/28) {ManyBooks}
(1867 - 1872) **George MacDonald - The Seaboard Parish - Annals Of A Quiet Neighbourhood (1/3) {ManyBooks}
(1878 - 1917) **Anna Katharine Green - Ebenezer Gryce - A Matter Of Millions (6/12) {owned}
(1896 - 1909) **Melville Davisson Post - Randolph Mason - The Corrector Of Destinies (3/3) {Internet Archive}
(1894 - 1898) **Anthony Hope - Ruritania - Rupert Of Hentzau (3/3) {Project Gutenberg}
(1895 - 1901) **Guy Newell Boothby - Dr Nikola - Dr Nikola (2/5) {ManyBooks}
(1897 - 1900) **Anna Katharine Green - Amelia Butterworth - That Affair Next Door (1/3) {Fisher Library}
(1899 - 1909) **E. W. Hornung - Raffles - Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman (1/4) {ManyBooks}
(1900 - 1974) *Ernest Bramah - Kai Lung - Kai Lung's Golden Hours (2/6) {ManyBooks}
(1901 - 1919) **Carolyn Wells - Patty Fairfield - Patty In Paris (5/17) {ManyBooks}
(1903 - 1904) **Louis Tracy - Reginald Brett - A Fatal Legacy (aka The Stowmarket Mystery) (1/2) {ManyBooks}
(1904 - ????) *Louis Tracy - Winter and Furneaux - A Mysterious Disappearance (1/?) {ManyBooks}
(1905 - 1925) **Baroness Orczy - The Old Man In The Corner - Unravelled Knots (3/3) {Project Gutenberg Australia}}
(1905 - 1928) **Edgar Wallace - The Just Men - The Law Of The Four Just Men (4/6) {Project Gutenberg Australia}
(1906 - 1930) **John Galsworthy - The Forsyte Saga - Indian Summer Of A Forsyte (short story) (2/11) {Project Gutenberg}
(1907 - 1912) **Carolyn Wells - Marjorie - Marjorie's Vacation (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1907 - 1942) *R. Austin Freeman - Dr John Thorndyke - The Magic Casket (14/26) {mobilereads}
(1907 - 1941) *Maurice Leblanc - Arsene Lupin - Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmès (2/21) {ManyBooks}
(1908 - 1924) **Margaret Penrose - Dorothy Dale - Dorothy Dale: A Girl Of Today (1/13) {ManyBooks}
(1909 - 1942) *Carolyn Wells - Fleming Stone - The Mystery Of The Sycamore (12/49) {ManyBooks}
(1910 - 1936) *Arthur B. Reeve - Craig Kennedy - The Treasure-Train (6/11) {ManyBooks}
(1910 - 1946) A. E. W. Mason - Inspector Hanaud - They Wouldn't Be Chessmen (4/5) {AbeBooks}
(1910 - ????) *Edgar Wallace - Inspector Smith - Kate Plus Ten (3/?) {Project Gutenberg Australia}
(1910 - 1930) **Edgar Wallace - Inspector Elk - The Fellowship Of The Frog (2/6?) {ebook}
(1910 - ????) *Thomas Hanshew - Cleek - Cleek's Government Cases (3/?) {Internet Archive / Mobilereads}
(1910 - 1918) *John McIntyre - Ashton-Kirk - Ashton-Kirk: Investigator (1/4) {ManyBooks / Project Gutenberg}
(1910 - 1931) *Grace S. Richmond - Red Pepper Burns - Red Pepper Burns (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1910 - ????) *Jeffery Farnol - The Vibarts - The Way Beyond (3/?) {Project Gutenberg Canada}

(1911 - 1935) *G. K. Chesterton - Father Brown - The Scandal Of Father Brown (5/5) {branch transfer}
(1911 - 1937) *Mary Roberts Rinehart - Letitia Carberry - Tish Plays The Game (4/5) {GooglePlay}
(1911 - 1919) **Alfred Bishop Mason - Tom Strong - Tom Strong, Washington's Scout (1/5) {Internet Archive}
(1913 - 1934) *Alice B. Emerson - Ruth Fielding - Ruth Fielding At Sunrise Farm (7/30) {Project Gutenberg}
(1913 - 1973) Sax Rohmer - Fu-Manchu - The Mask Of Fu-Manchu (5/14) {interlibrary loan}
(1913 - 1952) *Jeffery Farnol - Jasper Shrig - The Amateur Gentleman (1/9) {Fisher Library storage}
(1914 - 1950) Mary Roberts Rinehart - Hilda Adams - Episode Of The Wandering Knife (5/5) Better World Books}
(1914 - 1934) *Ernest Bramah - Max Carrados - The Eyes Of Max Carrados (2/4) {interlibrary loan}
(1916 - 1941) John Buchan - Edward Leithen - Sick Heart River (5/5) {Fisher Library}
(1915 - 1936) *John Buchan - Richard Hannay - The Thirty-Nine Steps (1/5) {Fisher Library / Project Gutenberg}
(1916 - 1917) **Carolyn Wells - Alan Ford - Faulkner's Folly (2/2) {Book Depository}
(1916 - 1927) **Natalie Sumner Lincoln - Inspector Mitchell - I Spy (1/10) {Project Gutenberg}
(1917 - 1929) **Henry Handel Richardson - Dr Richard Mahony - Australia Felix (1/3) {interlibrary loan}
(1918 - 1923) **Carolyn Wells - Pennington Wise - The Room With The Tassels (1/8) {Internet Archive / Book Depository}
(1918 - ????) *Valentine Williams - Okewood / Clubfoot - The Man With The Clubfoot (1/?) {ManyBooks}
(1919 - 1966) *Lee Thayer - Peter Clancy - The Sinister Mark (5/60) {owned}
(1920 - 1939) E. F. Benson - Mapp And Lucia - Lucia's Progress (5/6) {Fisher Library}
(1920 - 1948) *H. C. Bailey - Reggie Fortune - Mr Fortune, Please (4/23) {academic loan}
(1920 - 1949) William McFee - Spenlove - The Beachcomber - (3/6) {AbeBooks / Better World Books}
(1920 - 1932) *Alice B. Emerson - Betty Gordon - Betty Gordon At Bramble Farm (1/15) {ManyBooks}
(1920 - 1975) Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot - Lord Edgware Dies (8/39) {owned}
(1920 - 1921) **Natalie Sumner Lincoln - Ferguson - The Red Seal (1/2) {Project Gutenberg}

(1921 - 1929) **Charles J. Dutton - John Bartley - The Second Bullet (5/9) {expensive}
(1921 - 1925) **Herman Landon - The Gray Phantom - The Gray Phantom's Return (aka "The Gray Phantom's Defense") (2/5) {Project Gutenberg}
(1922 - 1973) *Agatha Christie - Tommy and Tuppence - N. Or M.? (3/5) {owned}
(1922 - 1927) *Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry - Jerry Boyne - The Mystery Woman (2/5) {Amazon, eBay?}
(1923 - 1937) Dorothy L. Sayers - Lord Peter Wimsey - Hangman's Holiday (9/15) {Fisher Library}
(1923 - 1924) **Carolyn Wells - Lorimer Lane - The Fourteenth Key (2/2) {eBay}
(1923 - 1931) *Agnes Miller - The Linger-Nots - The Linger-Nots And The Mystery House (1/5) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1924 - 1959) * / ***Philip MacDonald - Colonel Anthony Gethryn - Persons Unknown (aka "The Maze") (5/24) {academic loan}
(1924 - 1957) *Freeman Wills Crofts - Inspector French - The Cheyne Mystery (2/30) {Fisher Library}
(1924 - 1935) *Francis D. Grierson - Inspector Sims and Professor Wells - The Double Thumb (2/13) {rare, expensive}
(1924 - 1940) *Lynn Brock - Colonel Gore - Colonel Gore's Second Case (2/12) {AbeBooks}
(1924 - 1933) *Herbert Adams - Jimmie Haswell - The Crooked Lip (2/9) {rare, expensive}
(1924 - 1944) *A. Fielding - Inspector Pointer - The Charteris Mystery (2/23) {AbeBooks}
(1925 - 1961) ***John Rhode - Dr Priestley - The Robthorne Mystery (17/72) {expensive}
(1925 - 1953) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Superintendent Wilson - The Blatchington Tangle (3/?) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1925 - 1937) *Hulbert Footner - Madame Storey - Madame Storey (2/10) {mobilereads / Project Gutenberg Canada}
(1925 - 1932) *Earl Derr Biggers - Charlie Chan - The Chinese Parrot (2/6) {feedbooks}
(1925 - 1944) *Agatha Christie - Superintendent Battle - Cards On The Table (3/5) {owned}
(1925 - 1934) *Anthony Berkeley - Roger Sheringham - The Wychford Poisoning (2/10) {rare, expensive}
(1925 - 1950) *Anthony Wynne (Robert McNair Wilson) - Dr Eustace Hailey - The Double-Thirteen Mystery (2/27) {AbeBooks}

(1926 - 1968) * / ***Christopher Bush - Ludovic Travers - Dead Man Twice (3/63) {AbeBooks}
(1926 - 1939) *S. S. Van Dine - Philo Vance - The Benson Murder Case (1/12) {Fisher Library}
(1926 - 1952) *J. Jefferson Farjeon - Ben the Tramp - No. 17 (1/8) {academic loan}
(1926 - ????) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Everard Blatchington - The Blatchington Tangle (1/?) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1927 - 1933) *Herman Landon - The Picaroon - The Green Shadow (1/7) {AbeBooks / eBay}
(1927 - 1932) *Anthony Armstrong - Jimmie Rezaire - Jimmie Rezaire aka The Trail Of Fear (1/5) {AbeBooks}
(1927 - 1937) *Ronald Knox - Miles Bredon - The Three Taps (1/5) {AbeBooks}
(1927 - 1958) *Brian Flynn - Anthony Bathurst - The Billiard-Room Mystery (1/54) {AbeBooks}
(1927 - 1947) *J. J. Connington - Sir Clinton Driffield - Murder In The Maze (1/17) {academic loan}
(1927 - 1935) *Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Malleson) - Scott Egerton - Tragedy At Freyne (1/10) {expensive}
(1928 - 1961) Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver - The Case Is Closed (2/33) {branch transfer}
(1928 - 1936) ***Gavin Holt - Luther Bastion - The Garden Of Silent Beasts (5/17) {academic loan}
(1928 - ????) Trygve Lund - Weston of the Royal North-West Mounted Police - In The Snow: A Romance Of The Canadian Backwoods (4/?) {AbeBooks}
(1928 - 1936) *Kay Cleaver Strahan - Lynn MacDonald - Death Traps (3/7) {AbeBooks}
(1928 - 1937) *John Alexander Ferguson - Francis McNab - Murder On The Marsh (2/5) {Internet Archive}
(1928 - 1960) *Cecil Freeman Gregg - Inspector Higgins - The Murdered Manservant (1/35) {unavailable}
(1928 - 1959) *John Gordon Brandon - Inspector Patrick Aloysius McCarthy - Red Altars (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1928 - 1935) *Roland Daniel - Inspector Saville - The Society Of The Spiders (1/?) {Unavailable}
(1928 - 1946) *Francis Beeding - Alistair Granby - The Six Proud Walkers (1/18) {academic loan}
(1929 - 1947) Margery Allingham - Albert Campion - Sweet Danger (5/35) {Fisher Library}
(1929 - 1984) Gladys Mitchell - Mrs Bradley - The Saltmarsh Murders (4/67) {interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1937) ***Patricia Wentworth - Benbow Smith - Walk With Care (3/4) {expensive}
(1929 - ????) Mignon Eberhart - Nurse Sarah Keate - Murder By An Aristocrat (5/8) {Better World Books}
(1929 - ????) Moray Dalton - Inspector Collier - ???? (3/?) - Death In The Cup {AbeBooks}, The Wife Of Baal {unavailable}
(1929 - ????) * / ***Charles Reed Jones - Leighton Swift - The King Murder (1/?) {Unavailable}
(1929 - 1931) Carolyn Wells - Kenneth Carlisle - Sleeping Dogs (1/3) {Amazon / eBay}
(1929 - 1967) *George Goodchild - Inspector McLean - McLean Of Scotland Yard (1/65) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1979) *Leonard Gribble - Anthony Slade - The Case Of The Marsden Rubies (1/33) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1932) *E. R. Punshon - Carter and Bell - The Unexpected Legacy (1/5) {expensive}
(1929 - 1971) *Ellery Queen - Ellery Queen - The Roman Hat Mystery (1/40) {interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1966) *Arthur Upfield - Bony - The Barrakee Mystery (1/29) {Fisher Library}
(1929 - 1931) *Ernest Raymond - Once In England - A Family That Was (1/3) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1937) *Anthony Berkeley - Ambrose Chitterwick - The Poisoned Chocolates Case (1/3) {City of Sydney / Fisher Library}
(1929 - 1940) *Jean Lilly - DA Bruce Perkins - The Seven Sisters (1/3) {AbeBooks / expensive shipping}
(1929 - 1935) *N. A. Temple-Ellis (Nevile Holdaway) - Montrose Arbuthnot - The Inconsistent Villains (1/4) {AbeBooks / expensive shipping}
(1929 - 1943) *Gret Lane - Kate Clare Marsh and Inspector Barrin - The Cancelled Score Mystery (1/9) {unavailable?}
(1929 - 1961) *Henry Holt - Inspector Silver - The Mayfair Mystery (aka "The Mayfair Murder") (1/16) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1930) *J. J. Connington - Superintendent Ross - The Eye In The Museum (1/2) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1941) *H. Maynard Smith - Inspector Frost - Inspector Frost's Jigsaw (1/7) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - ????) *Armstrong Livingston - Jimmy Traynor - The Doublecross (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1932) *Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson - Sir John Saumarez - Enter Sir John (1/3) {interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1940) *Rufus King - Lieutenant Valcour - Murder By The Clock (1/11) {AbeBooks / omnibus}
(1929 - 1933) *Will Levinrew (Will Levine) - Professor Brierly - The Poison Plague (1/5) {rare, expensive}
(1930 - ????) Moray Dalton - Hermann Glide - ???? (3/?) {see above}
(1930 - 1932) Hugh Walpole - The Herries Chronicles - The Fortress (3/4) {Fisher Library}
(1930 - 1932) Faith Baldwin - The Girls Of Divine Corners - Myra: A Story Of Divine Corners (4/4) {owned}
(1930 - 1960) ***Miles Burton - Desmond Merrion - The Milk-Churn Murder (10/61) {Munsey's}
(1930 - 1933) Roger Scarlett - Inspector Kane - Murder Among The Angells (4/5) {online shopping}
(1930 - 1941) *Harriette Ashbrook - Philip "Spike" Tracy - The Murder Of Sigurd Sharon (3/7) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - 1943) Anthony Abbot - Thatcher Colt - About The Murder Of The Night Club Lady (3/8) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - ????) * / ***David Sharp - Professor Henry Arthur Fielding - My Particular Murder (2/?) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - 1950) *H. C. Bailey - Josiah Clunk - Garstons aka The Garston Murder Case (1/11) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - 1968) *Francis Van Wyck Mason - Captain North - Seeds Of Murder (1/41) {rare, expensive}
(1930 - 1976) *Agatha Christie - Miss Jane Marple - The Thirteen Problems (2/12) {owned}
(1930 - ????) *Anne Austin - James "Bonnie" Dundee - The Avenging Parrot (1/?) - {AbeBooks, expensive shipping}
(1930 - 1950) *Leslie Ford (as David Frome) - Mr Pinkerton and Inspector Bull - The Hammersmith Murders (1/11) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - 1935) *"Diplomat" (John Franklin Carter) - Dennis Tyler - Murder In The State Department (1/7) {expensive}
(1930 - 1962) *Helen Reilly - Inspector Christopher McKee - The Diamond Feather (1/31) {AbeBooks / expensive shipping}
(1930 - 1933) *Mary Plum - John Smith - The Killing Of Judge MacFarlane (1/4) {AbeBooks}
(1930 - 1945) *Hulbert Footner - Amos Lee Mappin - The Mystery Of The Folded Paper (aka The Folded Paper Mystery (1/10) {mobilereads / omnibus}
(1930 - 1940) *E. M. Delafield - The Provincial Lady - Diary Of A Provincial Lady (1/4) {Fisher Library}

(1931 - 1940) Bruce Graeme - Superintendent Stevens and Pierre Allain - The Imperfect Crime (2/8) {ordered}
(1931 - 1951) Phoebe Atwood Taylor - Asey Mayo - Death Lights A Candle (2/24) {interlibrary loan}
(1931 - 1933) Philip MacDonald (as Martin Porlock) - Charles Fox-Browne - Mystery In Kensington Gore (aka Escape) (2/3) {Better World Books}
(1931 - 1955) Stuart Palmer - Hildegarde Withers - Murder On Wheels (2/18) {AbeBooks}
(1931 - 1951) Olive Higgins Prouty - The Vale Novels - Lisa Vale (2/5) {academic loan}
(1931 - 1933) Sydney Fowler - Inspector Cleveland - Crime &. Co. (2/4) {owned}
(1931 - 1934) J. H. Wallis - Inspector Wilton Jacks - Murder By Formula (1/6) {Amazon}
(1931 - ????) Paul McGuire - Inspector Cummings - Daylight Murder (3/5) {academic loan}
(1931 - 1937) Carlton Dawe - Leathermouth - The Sign Of The Glove (2/13) {academic loan}
(1931 - 1947) R. L. Goldman - Asaph Clume and Rufus Reed - The Murder Of Harvey Blake (1/6) {AbeBooks}
(1931 - 1959) E. C. R. Lorac (Edith Caroline Rivett) - Inspector Robert Macdonald - The Murder On The Burrows (1/46) {rare, expensive}
(1931 - ????) Clifton Robbins - Clay Harrison - Dusty Death (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1931 - 1972) Georges Simenon - Inspector Maigret - La Tête d'un Homme (5/75) {interlibrary loan}
(1931 - 1934) T. S. Stribling - The Vaiden Trilogy - The Store (2/3) {academic loan}
(1931 - 1935) Pearl S. Buck - The House Of Earth - Sons (2/3) {Fisher Library}
(1932 - 1954) Sydney Fowler - Inspector Cambridge and Mr Jellipot - The Bell Street Murders (1/11) {AbeBooks}
(1932 - 1935) Murray Thomas - Inspector Wilkins - Buzzards Pick The Bones (1/3) {AbeBooks / expensive}
(1932 - ????) R. A. J. Walling - Philip Tolefree - The Fatal Five Minutes (1/?) {academic loan}
(1932 - 1962) T. Arthur Plummer - Detective-Inspector Andrew Frampton - Shadowed By The C. I. D. (1/50) {unavailable?}
(1932 - 1936) John Victor Turner - Amos Petrie - Death Must Have Laughed (1/7) {unavailable?}
(1932 - 1944) Nicholas Brady (John Victor Turner) - Ebenezer Buckle - The House Of Strange Guests (1/4) {unavailable?}
(1932 - 1932) Lizette M. Edholm - The Merriweather Girls - The Merriweather Girls On Campers' Trail (2/4) {AbeBooks}
(1932 - 1933) Barnaby Ross (aka Ellery Queen) - Drury Lane - The Tragedy Of Y (2/4) {Internet Archive}
(1932 - 1952) D. E. Stevenson - Mrs Tim - Mrs Tim Of The Regiment (1/5) {interlibrary loan}

(1933 - 1959) John Gordon Brandon - Arthur Stukeley Pennington - West End! (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1933 - 1940) Lilian Garis - Carol Duncan - The Ghost Of Melody Lane (1/9) {AbeBooks}
(1933 - 1934) Peter Hunt (George Worthing Yates and Charles Hunt Marshall) - Allan Miller - Murders At Scandal House (1/3) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1933 - 1968) John Dickson Carr - Gideon Fell - Hag's Nook (1/23) {Better World Books}
(1933 - 1939) Gregory Dean - Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Simon - The Case Of Marie Corwin (1/3) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1933 - 1956) E. R. Punshon - Detective-Sergeant Bobby Owen - Information Received (1/35) {academic loan}
(1933 - 1970) Dennis Wheatley - Duke de Richlieu - The Forbidden Territory (1/11) {Fisher Library}
(1933 - 1934) Jackson Gregory - Paul Savoy - A Case For Mr Paul Savoy (1/3) {AbeBooks}
(1934 - 1936) Storm Jameson - The Mirror In Darkness - Company Parade (1/3) {Fisher Library}
(1934 - 1953) Leslie Ford (Zenith Jones Brown) - Colonel John Primrose and Grace Latham - The Clock Strikes Twelve (aka "The Supreme Court Murder") (NB: novella) {owned}
(1934 - 1949) Richard Goyne - Paul Templeton - Strange Motives (1/13) {unavailable?}
(1934 - 1941) N. A. Temple-Ellis (Nevile Holdaway) - Inspector Wren - Three Went In (1/3)
(1934 - 1953) Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr) - Sir Henry Merivale - The Plague Court Murders (1/22) {Fisher Library}
(1934 - 1968) Dennis Wheatley - Gregory Sallust - Black August (1/11)
(1935 - 1939) Francis Beeding - Inspector George Martin - The Norwich Victims (1/3) {AbeBooks / Book Depository}
(1935 - 1976) Nigel Morland - Palmyra Pym - The Moon Murders (1/28) {unavailable?}
(1935 - 1941) Clyde Clason - Professor Theocritus Lucius Westborough - The Fifth Tumbler (1/10) {unavailable?}
(1935 - ????) G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Dr Tancred - Dr Tancred Begins (1/?) (AbeBooks, expensive}
(1947 - 1974) Dennis Wheatley - Roger Brook - The Launching Of Roger Brook (1/12) {Fisher Library storage}
(1953 - 1960) Dennis Wheatley - Molly Fountain and Colonel Verney - To The Devil A Daughter (1/2) {Fisher Library storage}

*** Incompletely available series
** Series complete pre-1931
* Present status pre-1931

Timeline of detective fiction:

Pre-history:
Things As They Are; or, The Adventures Of Caleb Williams by William Godwin (1794)
Mademoiselle de Scudéri by E.T.A. Hoffmann (1819)
Richmond: Scenes In The Life Of A Bow Street Officer by Anonymous (1827)
Memoirs Of Vidocq by Eugene Francois Vidocq (1828)
Le Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac (1835)
Passages In The Secret History Of An Irish Countess by J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1838); The Purcell Papers (1880)
The Murders In The Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales by Edgar Allan Poe (1841, 1842, 1845)

Serials:
The Mysteries Of Paris by Eugene Sue (1842 - 1843)
The Mysteries Of London - Paul Feval (1844) (no translation?)
The Mysteries Of London - George Reynolds (1844 - 1848)
The Mysteries Of The Court Of London - George Reynolds (1848 - 1856)
John Devil by Paul Feval (1861)

Early detective novels:
Recollections Of A Detective Police-Officer by "Waters" (William Russell) (1856)
The Widow Lerouge by Emile Gaboriau (1866)
Under Lock And Key by T. W. Speight (1869)
Checkmate by J. Sheridan LeFanu (1871)
Is He The Man? by William Clark Russell (1876)
Devlin The Barber by B. J. Farjeon (1888)
Mr Meeson's Will by H. Rider Haggard (1888)
The Mystery Of A Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume (1889)
The Queen Anne's Gate Mystery by Richard Arkwright (1889)
The Ivory Queen by Norman Hurst (1889) (Check Julius H. Hurst 1899)
The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill (1892)

Female detectives:
The Diary Of Anne Rodway by Wilkie Collins (1856)
The Female Detective by Andrew Forrester (1864)
Revelations Of A Lady Detective by William Stephens Hayward (1864)
The Law And The Lady by Wilkie Collins (1875)
Madeline Payne; or, The Detective's Daughter by Lawrence L. Lynch (Emma Murdoch Van Deventer) (1884)
Mr Bazalgette's Agent by Leonard Merrick (1888)
Moina; or, Against The Mighty by Lawrence L. Lynch (Emma Murdoch Van Deventer) (sequel to Madeline Payne?) (1891)
The Experiences Of Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective by Catherine Louisa Pirkis (1893)
Dorcas Dene, Detective by George Sims (1897)
- Amelia Butterworth series by Anna Katharine Grant (1897 - 1900)
Miss Cayley's Adventures by Grant Allan (1899)
Hilda Wade by Grant Allan (1900)
Dora Myrl, The Lady Detective by M. McDonnel Bodkin (1900)
The Investigators by J. S. Fletcher (1902)
Lady Molly Of Scotland Yard by Baroness Orczy (1910)

Related mainstream works:
Adventures Of Susan Hopley by Catherine Crowe (1841)
Men And Women; or, Manorial Rights by Catherine Crowe (1843)
Hargrave by Frances Trollope (1843)
Clement Lorimer by Angus Reach (1849)

True crime:
Clues: or, Leaves from a Chief Constable's Note Book by Sir William Henderson (1889)
Dreadful Deeds And Awful Murders by Joan Lock

2015 group activities:

Tutored reads:
January: Italian Mysteries by Francis Lathom
March: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
????: The Midnight Bell by Francis Lathom

Group reads:
February: The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope

Virago chronological reads:
April: Millenium Hall by Sarah Scott

Georgette Heyer:
Arabella

Agatha Christie:
The Hound Of Death

What's on the shortlist TBR?


        

        

January - March:

1. Raspberry Jam by Carolyn Wells (1920)
2. Legion by William Peter Blatty (1983)
3. Quintus Servinton: A Tale Founded Upon Incidents Of Real Occurrence by Henry Savery (1831)
4. The Victorian House: Domestic Life From Childbirth To Deathbed by Judith Flanders (2003)
5. The Mystery Of The Evil Eye by Anthony Wynne (Robert McNair Wilson) (1925)
6. The Social Gangster by Arthur B. Reeve (1916)
7. The Perfect Murder Case by Christopher Bush (1929)
8. Stupid Texas: Idiots In The Lone Star State by Leland Gregory (2010)
9. A Forger's Tale: The Extraordinary Story Of Henry Savery, Australia's First Novelist by Rod Howard (2011)
10. A Duchess And Her Daughter by Alfred Bishop Mason (1929)
11. The Hound Of Death And Other Stories by Agatha Christie (1933)
12. Beside The Bonnie Brier Bush by Ian Maclaren (John Watson) (1895)
13. Arabella by Georgette Heyer (1949)

Random thought:

It feels very odd to be starting a new thread without saying, "Now all I need to do is get some reviews written..."

...and I was going to say, "And we're open for business!", but it seems the doors have been forced already! :)

So here's a gold star to welcome my visitors!

I'm adding my star, Liz. I'll be curious to see where your plans take you.

Dropping my star, Liz.

Hi Liz! I have you starred! >6 lyzard: Adrian would love him!

Dropping my star. I want to see your succinct reviews! I'm very much looking forward to our tutored read in January of Italian Mysteries. Happy New Year, Liz!

Dropping a star! I wish I was as disciplined as you in my reading but as I'm not I love to follow your threads.

Hi, Colleen, Mamie, Carrie, Madeline and Lisa---thank you all so much for stopping by!

>15 NanaCC: Yes, so will I! :)

>16 Crazymamie: Thanks, Mamie!

>17 cbl_tn: Welcome, Carrie - hugs to Adrian!

>18 SqueakyChu: Ha! Yes, me too! I'm also looking forward to Italian Mysteries - I finished reading it this morning and I'm totally confused! :D

>19 kiwiflowa: Nice of you to suggest "disciplined" but trust me, the word is "obsessive"! Lovely to have you here, Lisa. :)

And now to do some star-dropping of my own!

>20 lyzard:

I finished reading it this morning and I'm totally confused!

OMG! If you're confused, what's going to happen to me?!

Let's just say I'm looking forward to having a chance to go through it again!

There's one plot point that I'm completely lost on and need to see if I missed something (or if it is in fact an authorial mistake), and another where I didn't absorb the right detail but I know it's in there somewhere. Between them I finished the book going, "Wait! What?"

But regardless, how can you not love a book that opens with an ejaculation??---

"Hark! the clock strikes two!" ejaculated the half-weeping Valeria...

Hi lyzard! I love those pictures...and you've got an impressive list of potential books. Good luck with that!

>23 lyzard: Lol

I'm looking forward to your eclectic reading in 2015, Liz.

I'm looking forward to those tutored reads, they're great for me - someone else does all the work and I just do the reading and get the benefit!

Popping in and dropping a trail of breadcrumbs...

Dropping off a star, Liz! I will believe one paragraph reviews when I see them. :-)

Also, looking forward to following your blog more closely this year.

Hi Liz! I'll be following along again in 2015. I'm especially looking forward to the February Trollope read.

Welcome back!

>23 lyzard:

But regardless, how can you not love a book that opens with an ejaculation??-

Haha! I love it already!

Hi Liz! Stopping by to star your thread as well as to ooh and aah at the expected wonderful sloth picture!

>2 lyzard: - I am intrigued by that title and cover. Looking forward to discovering what the story is about, and what you think about it.

>10 lyzard: - May I lurk along with the Mansfield Park tutored read? There is a year long Jane Austen group read occuring over on the category challenge group and Mansfield Park is the book slotted for Mar-Apr.

More lovely visitors!!

Hello, Rachel, Gail, Kerry, Helen, Kerri, Heidi, Jim, Madeline and Lori---goodness me, I am overwhelmed! :)

>24 The_Hibernator: Hi, Rachel - thank you so much for visiting!

>25 Matke: Thanks, Gail - it's lovely to have you here. :)

>26 CDVicarage: Thrilled that you'll be joining us again, Kerry! If you're interested in Italian Mysteries, I'll be setting up the thread on Thursday.

>27 Helenliz: Hi, Helen - I saw that you've been visiting my blog - thank you!

>28 DorsVenabili: Aw, now, Kerri, that's not nice...though truthfully, I'm rather sceptical too. :)

I hope there's more that you can follow at my blog this year! I know you're trying to get yours up and running again - I'll look forward to seeing where you take it.

>29 Cobscook: Thank you, Heidi! I'm very glad you'll be joining us for The Eustace Diamonds.

>30 drneutron: Glad to be back, Jim - thank you so much for all your hard work around here!

>31 SqueakyChu: By the way, I sorted out one of my points of confusion - I was getting mixed up over where something happened. Damn Italians and their isolated, crumbling castles! :)

>32 lkernagh: Hi, Lori - please visit my thread regularly for all of your sloth needs! :)

I'm about a third of the way through Raspberry Jam and I have no idea yet what the title means!?

Yes, please do join us for Mansfield Park! I didn't know about the group read---please let anyone else who might be interested know that they would be more than welcome if they wanted to sit in.

Thanks, and you have completely peaked my interest in Raspberry Jam.... most mysterious!

The Jane Austen group read will be starting with Pride and Prejudice. The group thread can be found here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/182664 and I believe that, like with other groups reads, the more the merrier!

I will probably join you with the E.M. Delafield books when you get to them, Liz.

I always look forward to learning more about "out of the way" books and those often unfairly overlooked by the instant readership of today. Your enriching reviews and subtlely devilish humour adds plenty to my enjoyment of our little group and long may it continue. Have a wonderful 2015.

Found you Liz! Like Kerri, I will believe one paragraph reviews when I see them!

>20 lyzard: 'I'm also looking forward to Italian Mysteries - I finished reading it this morning and I'm totally confused! :D'

Sounds like it could be an interesting tutored read! Is it mean that I'm a little relieved I'm not the one being tutee? :-P

>36 souloftherose:

I love being the tutee! What happens if I ask Liz a question, and she can't answer it?! ;)

Stay tuned...

P.S. The truth is that I often find the older novels we've been reading together confusing. So far, she has been right on track in clearing up the confusion I had.

>33 lyzard:

Damn Italians and their isolated, crumbling castles!

One thing I have learned in general from our tutored reads is to have an appreciation for what it means to be a gothic novel. In modern books that are described as "gothic", I often see some elements of "our" gothic novels, yet other elements are missing.

Italian Mysteries is on my living room table quivering to be read! ;)

>34 lkernagh: I do, too, Lori - thanks!

>35 PaulCranswick: Thank you so much, Paul! It's always nice to chat with a fellow devotee of obscurity. :)

>36 souloftherose: I am not getting a lot of encouragement here!! Let me at least hope that you and Kerri are trying reverse psychology??

>36 souloftherose: & >37 SqueakyChu: & 38

I think that being the tutee is the much harder part, and I am grateful to both of you for doing such a wonderful job. Heather, after your efforts with Love-Letters, I think you've earned a rest!

What happens if I ask Liz a question, and she can't answer it?!

I shall run away and hide my shame in an isolated crumbling castle, where occasionally glimpses of me will convince the local peasants that the castle is haunted (hint, hint).

Gothic novels are meant to be mysterious - it's not surprising they often tip over into just plain confusing! (If you can't understand what's going on after the tortuous last-volume explanation, then it's time to worry!)

Yes, there are certain "Gothic" elements that have carried forward right until today, although contemporary Gothics are usually more about their atmosphere than they are about isolated crumbling castles. :)

If the two of you are ready to start I could set the thread up today? It's no problem for me either way, so just let me know what you'd prefer.

Madeline, as Heather and I discussed on my other thread, Italian Mysteries was originally published in three volumes so it fits that TIOLI challenge - shared read! :)

>40 lyzard:

I think that being the tutee is the much harder part

In what way? I really don't think so. You have to know so much (or at least put the extra time into research) and be able to explain things so that your tutee can understand what you're saying.

the tortuous last-volume explanation

Oh, no!!!!!!!!

If the two of you are ready to start I could set the thread up today? It's no problem for me either way, so just let me know what you'd prefer.

Any time you want to do this is fine with me.

Italian Mysteries was originally published in three volumes so it fits that TIOLI challenge - shared read! :)

Okay. So I added it to the proper TIOLI challenge, but when have you known me to finish a tutored read in less than a month?! :/

Answering the questions is easy - I think it's asking the right questions in the first place that's difficult! I guess it's lucky that we have complimentary skills. :)

In that case I will set up the thread shortly - cool!

I found Italian Mysteries pretty straightforward for its first volume so we might make more rapid progress than usual. The mysterious (read: confusing!) aspects of the story take a while to kick in. (But once they do---phew!!)

...and the thread for the tutored read of Italian Mysteries is now up - here.

Anyone who would like to participate or just lurk is very welcome to do so!

>42 lyzard:

I guess it's lucky that we have complimentary skills

LOL! It sure is!!

In that case I will set up the thread shortly

I'll be looking for it!

But once they do---phew!!)

Can't wait... ;)

#6 I can relate to that … that … let's go with comfortable, sweet creature in the hammock! Happy New Year, Liz, and happy reading!

Happy New Year, Liz!

Hello Liz - I wanted to pop in and say thank you for the tutored read thread that you did for Phineas Finn, which I am currently rereading in order to join the GR for The Eustace Diamonds (I can't read a series out of order!) I reread Can You Forgive Her? last year in the hope of being able to join in with Phineas Finn but it didn't work out, so I bookmarked the thread and it's helping me to get more out of the book than I did the first time. There is so much politicking!

>45 lit_chick: Thank you, Nancy - you too!

>46 NanaCC: Hi, Colleen - thanks!

>47 susanj67:

I can't read a series out of order!

Sister!! :)

Hi, Susan. It's great to hear that you've been accessing those threads, and that they are of use to you. Phineas Finn is probably the most political of the Palliser books, though there will still be some politics going forward (particularly in The Prime Minister, not surprisingly). We're collecting a good group for The Eustace Diamonds - I look forward to seeing you there.

Wishing everyone the very best for a safe and happy 2015---

May all your wishes come true.

Hah, I'm feeling like a sloth too, and as cute! Perhaps I'll sleep through the new year! Actually, the highlight of this New Year's celebration for me will be meeting friends bright and early at Jax Cafe for a fabulous brunch, complete with mimosas and everything else from hash browns and bacon to salmon to cheesecake. I haven't eaten all year to save up calories for this one day. ;)

Hi Liz, I always find something of interest here even if it's a sloth doing what it does best! I hope you will notice that Trollope made my Top Ten List for 2014. I enjoyed my time in Barsetshire with you and the group. Sorry I had to bail on the Palliser books, although I enjoyed the first one very much. Just too much else going on in my life right now. I'll be back with AT at a later time. Best wishes for a wonderful new year!

Liz,



Happy New Year from your friend in Kuala Lumpur

Thank you, Barbara, Katie, Donna, Paul and Roni - very best wishes for the New Year to all of you, too!

>52 cammykitty: Nothing wrong with feeling like a sloth, Katie! On the contrary, I highly recommend it. :)

>53 Donna828: Hi, Donna! I'm so glad you're enjoying the Trollope novels. Of course we'd love to have you in the group reads if possible, but we understand how that pesky Real Life can get in the way. :)

Finished Raspberry Jam for TIOLI #3.

Now reading Quintus Servinton: A Tale Founded Upon Incidents Of Real Occurrence by Henry Savery.

Happy New Year, Liz!

Happy New Year, Liz! May it be filled with fabulous!

>58 scaifea: & >59 Crazymamie:

Hi, Amber! Hi, Mamie! Thank you both so much. :)

Happy New Year, Liz! I look forward to whatever your thread-topper theme will be beginning with #2 but I'll miss the lovely plant life of Australia. As long as there are sloths, I think I'll be OK emotionally, though.

As for those one-paragraph reviews ... I think you can do it, but I don't think you have to do it if you don't want to or you think a particular book deserves more examination. Just do what feels good, and the rest of us will follow happily along, I promise!

Hi, Julia - thank you! There will always be sloths, and for the toppers I will be reverting back from vegetable to animal; that's all I'll say for now. :)

As for the reviews, the idea of jotting down a few thoughts and then walking away is very attractive but whether I'm psychologically capable of actually doing it remains to be seen!

I see you're joining us for TIOLI this year - that's great!

Deep breath...

Raspberry Jam - This eleventh entry in Carolyn Wells' Fleming Stone series features murder amongst the wealthy and privileged of New York. As usual, Wells' "nice" people are actually monsters of selfishness and entitlement (and, as it turns out, dishonesty); although she scores points for capturing the frustration and humiliation of a wife forced always to ask her husband for money. But is that motive enough for murder? The morning after the couple have a furious row, Sanford Embury is found dead of no cause his doctor can identify. Murder is deduced not from the evidence, but the lack of it. It is eventually determined that Embury died of poison in the ear, à la Hamlet's father - a subject on which Mrs Embury happens to be an expert - while the arrangement of the apartment seems to narrow the suspects down to Mrs Embury and her elderly aunt, Miss Abby Ames. The police look no further than Eunice Embury, but Mason Elliott, her life-long friend and admirer, is certain enough of her innocence to call in Fleming Stone. Assuming that Mrs Embury is not guilty - and Stone is not so certain - the question becomes how anyone else could have gotten into the high-rise apartment, and what was the true explanation of Aunt Abby's "vision" of the dying Sanford Embury... The locked-room aspect of Raspberry Jam, and the fact that the honours of the investigation are carried off by Stone's teenage sidekick, the streetwise "Fibsy" McGuire, hold the interest, but its conclusion is weak (lacking a confession, they never could have proved it); while the role played in the story by the title substance strains credulity way too far.

"Well, to my way of thinkin', the little joker in the case is that there raspberry jam. I'm a strong believer in raspberry jam on general principles, but in pertikler, I should say in this present case, raspberry jam will win the war!... The old lady says she tasted jam---and she did taste jam. That's all there is about that. And that sweet, pleasant, innercent raspberry jam will yet send the moiderer of Sanford Embury to the chair!"

>64 lyzard: Gasp!! I just fainted...Now I'm ok. Liz! That is one paragraph of review!!!

Also, Happy New Year!

Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead!! :D

Thanks, Kerri - you too!

You did it!! Congrats, Liz, although I am happy to read any review that you write regardless of length. And I love that quote! Too funny!

>64 lyzard: - Wasn't expecting to get hit with a series review, but I will take it! Sounds like Wells knew how to get at the underbelly of society with her writing. That is a goodie!

>67 Crazymamie: Hi, Mamie - thanks! Wow, my New Year's resolution has lasted an entire book so far - the sky's the limit!! :)

>68 lkernagh: The problem with Wells is that she didn't always seen aware that her rich people were awful! (Eunice Embury throws so many petulant temper tantrums, you want the police to railroad her!)

If you're thinking about the Fleming Stone series, The Mark Of Cain (which introduces Fibsy) or Vicky Van might be better places to start...unless of course you feel obliged to read in order...

In keeping with LT tradition your opening review has me doing a web search to find out a bit more about the author. Never was too fond of raspberry jam.

Have a great weekend, Liz

Hi, Paul! There's plenty to know about Carolyn Wells - she was one busy lady! She was a contemporary of Mary Roberts Rinehart and likewise had a mystery writing career that went on for decades, but she did a lot of other things, too. I'm also reading one of her young adult series (the Patty Fairfield stories).

Hi, Liz--I also am reading your tutored read of Phineas Finn. I read it last year, and now I'm listening to Simon Vance read it, to re-visit the story before The Eustace Diamonds. And my husband brought home for me today Revelations of a Lady Detective, which brought me to your thread. It's getting a big star, for sure!

>64 lyzard: excellent job with the short review! And the quote about the raspberry jam was excellent as well.

>66 lyzard:

Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead!!

Don't quit! I actually read that review and will read others if they continue to be the same length. I'm one of those people that always skips long reviews on LT. For those, I only read the concluding sentence.

*Grumble grumble*

I posted a comment last night, and from the iPad too, which I don't like typing on, but seems the site went down when I did so, which would explain why it's not actually here.

What I said, more or less:

Happy New Year Liz!

Wow, a one-paragraph review! Had to be seen to be believed! And you managed it very well too! How long did it take you to put together? I know what you mean though, it always takes me much longer to try to write shorter reviews as well. All that editing!

Today am adding that I really like that the red-and-green kangaroo paw you put up top, so it was worth continuing that theme into this New Year for it. And also glad we still get to see sloths here. Also, I wouldn't mind reading The Diary of a Provincial Lady along with you, when do you plan on fitting it in?

So late, so late! HAPPY NEW YEAR, LIZ!!!
I just ordered a copy of The Victorian House, so you can feel that you've fired off one accurate BB today.
I won't be able to keep up, but I'll love trying!

>72 kac522: Hello, Kathy - thank you! I'm glad that the tutored and group read threads are useful for you. It's great that you'll be joining us for The Eustice Diamonds, too!

>73 Cobscook: Thanks, Heidi! That's Fibsy talking, of course (he pretty much takes this one over).

>74 SqueakyChu: And my concluding sentences are usually not that informative! My second read will be a blog post so the question of whether I can keep it up will be deferred for a while. I'll try, but no promises!

>75 Smiler69: Hi, Ilana! Oh, that's so infuriating, isn't it? Yes, it's actually quite an effort to write less rather than more. That one didn't take too long but I think series works are a little easier than some others in that respect.

It didn't seem fair to leave Western Australia out just because I was slack!

I'm not sure about Diary Of A Provincial Lady - possibly late this month or early next, although The Eustice Diamonds might have something to say about that. I will let you know if a more definite plan takes shape.

Speaking of plans, did I see that you've bailed on War And Peace, or is that still on the cards?

>76 LizzieD: Thank you, Peggy - you too! A book bullet without even reading, let alone writing a - brief - review? Excellent! :)

>66 lyzard: Oh, please don't quit! I'm a fan. But truthfully, I also like your slightly more wordy reviews as well. You can do no wrong, Liz! :-)

That is adorable. What book was s/he reading before naptime? :-)

>69 lyzard: - Not obligated to read in order so making a note of the books you have recommended as possible starting points!

I will have to look for Lady Molly of Scotland Yard. I don't know how I never knew about it! Thanks!

>78 DorsVenabili: Aww, thanks, Kerri!

>80 lkernagh: In that case, Lori, you might also add The Curved Blades, which has a totally bizarre plot and offers the welcome sight of Fleming Stone unsure of himself for once.

>79 NatalieSW: & >81 NatalieSW:

Thanks for visiting, Natalie!

I imagine it was this:

Belated happy new year Liz! Even more belated than I think as it's probably tomorrow in Oz.

>64 lyzard: You did it! I shouldn't have doubted you. Have an excited sloth as a reward.

>77 lyzard: Definitely bailed, yes, you saw right Liz. In fact, everyone did, as Mark posted a poll on his thread and everyone voted to delay the War and Peace GR till 2016. Needless to say, I was quite relieved and joined the crowd. I'd be happy if you decided to read Provincial Lady next month...

>83 souloftherose: Squweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! That's so incredibly cute! Thanks for posting this little guy, Heather! ♥︎

>83 souloftherose: It's ALWAYS tomorrow in Oz! :)

Awww...thank you!

>84 Smiler69: I did think that people may have been overcommitting just slightly. :)

I'm stuck in a bit of a slog at the moment, and haven't thought much further than the end of the current read, but if I end up with a plan I'll let you know. Next month is probably realistic.

Hullo Liz, looking forward to many things, especially the sloths. :-)

Hi, Steph - welcome! If I keep my reviews up-to-date, there will be more sloths more often! :)

(Of course I said if...)

Do you know about Meet the Sloths? I imagine so, right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRJlj8bkx4c

Oh, yes - played National Geographic Channel here last year. :)

Finished Quintus Servinton: A Tale Founded Upon Incidents Of Real Occurrence for TIOLI #13.

Now reading Legion by William Peter Blatty.

This is The Grand Sophy month, right? Such a great character!

Alas, some of us are still trying to get to Arabella!

But technically, yes. :)

>91 ronincats: The Grand Sophy is a good one. :)

Hi, Colleen - yes, indeed!

Well, technically I didn't do the reread of Arabella last month either, as I had intended. So I'm good with doing that first.

I'm going through Heyer completely out of order, based on what the library has on audiobook, so I expect I'll be ostracised pretty soon. Currently have An infamous army on in the car.
Mum bought me The convenient Marriage for Christmas, as narrated by Richard Armitage. *swoon*

Anyway, to redeem myself, I post with gift of cute sloth video here

>95 ronincats: I'm behind with both Georgette and Agatha at the moment {*blush*}.

>96 Helenliz: It's okay - it's not compulsory to be as obsessive as me. :)

Aww, thanks, Helen!

Finished Legion by William Peter Blatty...

(...and I am completely exasperated because I was certain this would be my "psychological" book for TIOLI #1, but no, it has every other variant of "psych---" but not that one! - so still looking...)

...for TIOLI #22, I guess.

Now reading The Victorian House: Domestic Life From Childbirth To Deathbed by Judith Flanders.

I have written a two-part blog post about Quintus Servinton: A Tale Founded Upon Incidents Of Real Occurrence by Henry Savery, a work usually considered the first Australian novel. Savery was convicted of forgery and transported to Tasmania in 1825; he began work on his novel in 1830, while he was in prison for debt, and published it in Hobart in 1831. Rather than the account of convict life we might be expecting, however, Quintus Servinton is essentially autobiographical, following its protagonist from his birth through his time as a convict.

Part 1
Part 2

...and my hunt for a TIOLI #1 book continues. Judith Flanders' The Victorian House offers, "...remoteness, both physical and psychological", but no psychological something.

ETA: And again! - "psychological rather than physical causes". Good God, woman, put a noun after it!

{*grumble*}

>99 lyzard: I had never heard of Quintus Servinton. What an interesting muddle of self-justification and wish fulfillment. Thanks for reading it for us, Liz!

Thank you for reading! Yes, it's a very strange book, not at all what I expected.

Finished The Victorian House: Domestic Life From Childbirth To Deathbed for TIOLI #14.

Now reading The Mystery Of The Evil Eye by "Anthony Wynne" (Robert McNair Wilson), the first in the series featuring Dr Eustace Hailey*.

(*Dr Hailey is supposed to be a "psychological detective": how much do you want to bet they never use the word "psychological"??

Curse you, Madeline!!)

Almost the same thing happened to me, Liz: I picked Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test from the TBR list thinking that a book about psychopathy would almost certainly have a "psychological X" phrase somewhere, right?

Finally, on page 185: "psychological operations." Whew.

Legion - William Peter Blatty's 1983 follow-up to The Exorcist focuses upon the homicide detective, William Kinderman, a peripheral character in the earlier work. Washington D.C. suffers a series of mutilation murders that show all the hallmarks of the notorious "Gemini Killer", right down to certain details kept from the public - only the Gemini has been dead for twelve years. The killings seem random, but Lt Kinderman discovers that each of them is linked to the exorcism of Regan MacNeil and the death of Father Damien Karras. Even as the case takes on for him an increasingly personal dimension, Kinderman's investigation leads him to the Disturbed Ward of Georgetown Hospital, where he makes a shocking discovery... A shorter, though more diffusive, work than The Exorcist, Legion is part-police procedural, part-rumination upon the existence of God and the nature of evil. Actually, "rumination" is putting it mildly. Blatty cites G. K. Chesterton here, which is more apt than perhaps he realised: Kinderman's "theory" takes up too much of this novel, and eventually acquires a slightly hectoring, My beliefs are right and yours are wrong tone very close to Chesterton's own. However, when Blatty sticks to his main plot Legion is effective and very creepy, with a real sting in its tail for fans of The Exorcist. In 1990, Blatty adapted his novel for the screen as The Exorcist III. It's a pretty good horror film, but be warned that the studio insisted on a tacked-on (and tacky) exorcism scene that has nothing to do with the real story.

Kinderman's eyebrows rose involuntarily and the blood started draining from his face. Sunlight looked up at him. His eyes read Kinderman's expression. "Yes, I killed her," said Sunlight. "After all, it was inevitable, wasn't it? Of course. A divinity shapes our ends and all that. I picked her up in Sausalito and then later dropped her off at the city dump. At least some of her... I still hear from her occasionally. Screaming. I think the dead should shut up unless there's something to say."

>104 swynn: I'm so jealous!! I know, I know - "leave it". But I hate not being able to fit a book into Madeline's challenge each month, which I sort of think of as the "toll" we pay for playing TIOLI! :)

Finished The Mystery Of The Evil Eye for TIOLI #4.

Now reading The Social Gangster by Arthur B. Reeve.

Decisions, decisions...

Our dollar has taken a sharp dive lately which has me tightening my rules for book buying (though truthfully, it's usually the shipping not the book that's the deciding factor). I always do try the library first, although that can bring its own pain in the form of academic loans---loans of books held by university libraries which use them as a bit of a cash cow. When I first started getting those loans they were $13.50 a pop; then they jumped to $16.50; now they're at $20.00. It's often cheaper to buy a copy of a book from the UK than borrow it locally (though not from the US).

At the moment I'm vacillating over a copy of Dorothy Whipple's Greenbanks, which I can buy for $32.00, or borrow for $20.00. The fact that it's a Persephone is a big mark in its favour, of course; but still...

Any opinions on this book? Is it a likely re-reader? Help!

I'd like to help you with that one Liz, but all I can say is I've considered buying it too. But then I have all the Persephone Dorothy Whipple books on my wishlist. So far I've only purchased Someone at a Distance, but definitely curious about the others. One can't have too many Persephones, I don't think... ;-)

>99 lyzard: I'll check these out on one of my book blog reading days!

>105 lyzard: Interesting! I had no idea there was a follow-up novel.

>108 lyzard: Oh, I'm no help either, but those Persephone books sure are pretty!

>108 lyzard: For me Dorothy Whipple's books are rereadable - they're not very literary and the characters can be a bit black and white but they're very engaging and involve me emotionally. Haven't read Greenbanks though. Also, Persephones are pretty. (And the retail value is quite high secondhand so if you buy it and don't think it's one to reread you could sell it and recoup the cost?)

Otherwise I've dodged the book bullets for Legion and Quintus Servinton: A Tale Founded Upon Incidents Of Real Occurrence.

Apropos of nothing, I saw an announcement that Valancourt are going to republish Volume 2 of The Mysteries of London.

One can't have too many Persephones, I don't think... Those Persephone books sure are pretty... Persephones are pretty...

Well, we seem to have diagnosed the problem, at least. :)

I haven't read Dorothy Whipple for some reason so I have no yardstick of my own likely reaction here.

>109 Smiler69: Yes, I'm sure I have all the Whipples on the list; she just happened to publish Greenbanks in 1932!

>110 DorsVenabili: I would appreciate the visit, Kerri!

After the film of The Exorcist was released, Blatty and William Friedkin discussed some ideas for a sequel but couldn't agree on a storyline so it was shelved. Then John Boorman made the ridiculous The Heretic and after that Blatty wrote Legion, as a way of reclaiming his baby, I think.

>111 souloftherose:

Valancourt are going to republish Volume 2 of The Mysteries of London

You're supposed to be HELPING, not WARBLING!! :D

>112 lyzard: 'You're supposed to be HELPING, not WARBLING!! :D'

Ha! Now where did I promise that?

:)

Fortunately I'm not quite up to The Mysteries Of London; for one thing, first I have to figure out how on earth to approach blogging about The Mysteries Of Paris. (I'm contemplating a cowardly "It's far too complicated so here are a few general remarks---" post.)

Well! I'm tearing through John Rhode's Dr Priestley series!...at least inasmuch as the next half-dozen in the series are either exorbitantly expensive or not available at any price.

Sigh.

Skipping, perforce---

The Robthorne Mystery (#17)
Poison For One (#18)
Shot At Dawn (#19)
The Corpse In The Car (#20)
Hendon's First Case (#21)
Mystery At Olympia (#22) (this is the only one where I have a glimmer of hope)

---and jumping to:

Death At Breakfast (#23), which is at least available as an academic loan if I can't find an acceptable alternative.

So, once again---

Sigh.

THANK YOU, ARTHUR B. REEVE!!!!

Page 107 of The Social Gangster:

"Odours with me, as, I suppose, other people, have a psychological effect, calling up scenes associated with them..."

Phew! :)

Oh, dear.

I've thought of another "project"...

In 1895, the publishers Dodd, Mead and Company established the literary journal The Bookman. In the very first issue, released in February 1895, something new in the world of publishing appeared: a list of the year's best-selling books. The journal continued to publish a Top Ten list annually until 1918, and was the only publication to do so until 1912, when Publishers Weekly began printing a competing list.

While today we tend to take such lists for granted, it is a fact that the UK produced nothing comparable until the 1970s---and then in a reluctant and oddly uninformative way. From the beginning there had been resistance in Britain to the very idea of the "best seller" (a term coined in America in 1889), and such lists were looked upon - or looked down upon - as privileging quantity over quality.

But the publishing industry today is vastly different from what it was when these lists first started appearing, when they offered a largely unbiased insight into the reading habits of Americans. It is this that we lack in the British context: simple retrospective data about what people were reading.

And so - because what I really need in my life right now is JUST ONE MORE READING PROJECT - I've decided to take a look at those lists year by year, from 1895 onwards, and to read the #1 book for each year.

Best selling books in the United States for 1895:

1. Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush by Ian Maclaren
2. Trilby by George du Maurier
3. The Adventures of Captain Horn by Frank R. Stockton
4. The Manxman by Hall Caine
5. The Princess Aline by Richard Harding Davis
6. The Days of Auld Lang Syne by Ian Maclaren
7. The Master by Israel Zangwill
8. The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope
9. Degeneration by Max Nordau
10. My Lady Nobody by Maarten Maartens

Interesting things we can note include:
- the mixing of fiction and non-fiction
- that the top-selling author has two books on the list
- that only two of the authors listed are American
- that one of the works is a translation (Degeneration) and one is by a Dutch author writing in English (My Lady Nobody)

I have to confess that the year's best-selling author is someone I hadn't previously heard of, nor am I familiar with Frank Stockton or Maarten Maartens (pseudonym for Jozua Marius Willem Schwartz); while I know Israel Zangwill not for his novels about "the Jewish experience" but because he wrote an important early mystery novel, The Big Bow Mystery.

Of that list, The Prisoner Of Zenda and Trilby are the works that have lasted best, while The Manxman has a different kind of persistence from being turned into an early Alfred Hitchcock film. Degeneration falls into a completely different category from all the other works, none of which can be regarded as "classics" but are simply popular entertainments.

I recognize that project! I stumbled across those bestseller lists ... somewhere, and started reading (for some reason) with the 1900 list. I got through Mary Johnston's To Have and To Hold (which I remember as fun) and Mary Cholmondeley's Red Pottage (which I barely remember at all), then skipped to 1901 and read The Crisis by Winston Churchill (no, not him, his American cousin). That was when I lost interest for shinier things.

Sometimes a short attention span is a blessing.

Oh, yes, I'm very sure that I'm far from the first person to try something like this! The remarkable thing about this new project of mine - please allow me to draw your attention to it! - is that I'm only planning on reading #1, not all ten. Not like me at all! :)

(Although I am adding all ten to The Black Hole...)

>121 lyzard: Admirable restraint, Liz!

:D

>118 lyzard: That sounds like a fun project. (And maybe a fun TIOLI challenge?)

>119 lyzard: The only one I've read from that year's list is The Prisoner of Zenda.

Hi, Carrie! I don't think I'd be very popular if I tried to make everyone read a best-seller from the 1890s! But perhaps something like, "Read a best-seller from any year as listed by Publishers Weekly"? That's a thought.

I've only read The Prisoner Of Zenda and Trilby from that list, and only because (coincidentally!) of my own TIOLI challenge last year.

>125 lyzard: Anyone trying for a sweep of the BingoDOG card in the Category Challenge group will need to read a book published in 1915. You could end up with plenty of takers for a "bestsellers of 1915" challenge!

That's a good idea, too. Between you and me, I was already contemplating putting a restriction on the years you could choose from, to force people out of their comfort zone a little, at least! :)

Finished The Social Gangster for - whoo! - TIOLI #1.

Now reading The Perfect Murder Case by Christopher Bush.

>118 lyzard: Oh holy hell. I *love* this idea and it's taking all of my mental resistance to keep from joining you...

I'd be thrilled to have company, Amber! :D

...and speaking of Project #123,456, remarkably enough it turns out that my academic library has a copy of the 1895 edition of Beside The Bonnie Brier Bush available for general loan.

I have no idea how they decide what goes into rare book and what doesn't (except that they have a lot of material in rare book that has no business being there, grr!), but while this seems like a complete misplacement to me I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

>131 lyzard: Also available through Project Gutenberg and from Amazon.com as a free download for Kindle.

And at only 149 pages I couldn't resist. I won't promise participation on future entries but I'll join you for this one, Liz!

As for rare books: I can't speak for other libraries, but I know that our "Rare Books" collection is a product of multiple policies over the last 150 years or so. It has included things like:

Books signed by the author
Books in fragile condition
Expensive books
Books with color pictures
Oversized books that won't fit the general stacks

And occasionally: books for which few remaining copies exist. You know, *rare* books.

>131 lyzard: At the library where I work, the designation for "Rare Books" is reserved for books that are actually rare in some way, mostly books with few extant copies or books signed by the author. However, all books older than 1975 do not circulate or go up for inter-library loan. I'm not entirely sure why that is the cutoff date, as we have many common, non-fragile things that are older than 1975, but that's our policy. Also, genealogy books do not circulate at all, because they have a habit of not coming back.

>132 swynn:

Ooh, cool!!

(Hey, Amber...short book!...c'mon!)

Yes, I saw that Beside The Bonnie Brier Bush was available online but I always prefer to read a hard copy if I can find one. Obviously I have no issue with rare book collections per se but this particular library does exasperating things like holding six copies of a particular book, different editions / years, and putting all six in rare book, or declaring a perfectly common reprint edition "rare". Then on the other hand they leave books you would fully expect to be in rare book in the general collection. {*puzzled*}

>133 casvelyn:

Hi - we cross-posted! :)

Wow, 1975 seems a bit extreme for a cut-off date; I guess I should stop complaining about my library access. (Apropos, I'm currently trying to wheedle access to something from a library with a 1960 cut-off, though my chances are slim-to-non-existent.)

>132 swynn: I love that oversized books immediately count as rare ones. Now I want to produce one, just so I can belong under that heading ;)

Hi, Jenny - thanks for visiting! :)

I guess it's easier than having to organise new shelving!

>134 lyzard: We're a public/research library hybrid, so part of the whole date thing is to discourage ILLs, because we need our stuff to be in the building for our patrons here. The regular public libraries around here are far more generous, with the cutoff usually being a guideline of 1950 + discretion of the library. And if you are someone with academic borrowing privileges, you can usually get your hands on things like that book from 1895, just for being a student or faculty member.

That makes sense. We have an excellent ILL system here but most of our public libraries hold only fairly new material so of course with my obscure tastes I'm driven to our academic libraries, which hold older material and various specific collections. (For example, the Queensland University of Technology holds an extensive collection of hard-cover Penguin mysteries from the 1930s and 1940s.)

The University of Sydney, the main library I deal with, will allow on-site access to a lot of their rare material. Oh, to be financially independent, so that I could spend my days in Rare Book! :)

Fine, just fine.

Yet another ancient and (fairly) obscure kindle book.

I always look at the recs and "others bought these" choices; Grace Livingston Hill featured prominently with "Bonnie Bush." This does not bode well.

Grace Livingston Hill... This does not bode well...

HA!! :D

No, I can't say anything I've come across so far has given me any idea why this would have been the top-selling book of the year, but I suppose I should wait and not pre-judge it. By its cover or otherwise.

>138 lyzard: Professional curiosity here: Do you put in your ILL requests through your local public library or through the library that holds the item you want?

If I place an ILL through my local public library, they send out a request on a "string" through the consortium. A "string" is the list of libraries in the consortium that have the book. The request will go to the first library in the string; they can either fill or deny the request. If they fill it, they send the book to my library. If they deny it, the request goes to the next library on the list. I believe they can also request from out-of-state libraries, although I generally avoid going out-of-state because of the fees. In-state is nearly always free. In fact, I always list my "maximum amount willing to pay" as $0.00, because if they can't get it for free, they will quote me the cheapest price so I can choose whether to pay or cancel the order.

If I place an ILL through the library where I work, I can go into the catalog and request exactly the edition I want from exactly the library I want (within my workplace's consortium, which also has a union catalog). Or I can request "first available" and get just that.

In our system, a group of libraries will fall under a particular local council; they are regarded as one library, with your card working at all of them and any book transferred for collection to the branch of your choice free of charge. Usually there will be 6-12 libraries in a group.

Beyond that we have a nation-wide interlibrary loan system, in which any book available for borrowing in the public library system can be requested for a $5.00 fee. You place the request with your local library either in person or online, and they organise the transaction. The request form has options for you to request a particular edition or you can leave that blank. (I often specifically request the Virago edition, for example.) As I understand it, there is a central ILL point within the library "group" responsible for locating the book wherever it is held across the country and having it sent to the local requesting branch.

And beyond that we have academic loan system, in which it is possible to borrow books from university and other specialty libraries nation-wide in the same way, but at a rate of $20.00 per transaction. (I gather the university gets $15.00 and the requesting library $5.00.)

>115 lyzard: I wonder why those particular books are so hard to find? I could understand if they were all at the beginning or end of the series when it was relatively unknown or people had lost interest but it seems odd that it's a chunk of books in the middle of a series.

>117 lyzard: 'I've thought of another "project"...'

:-D

>118 lyzard: 'I've decided to take a look at those lists year by year, from 1895 onwards, and to read the #1 book for each year.'

Just the #1 book? Very restrained.

I gather that there's some issue with John Rhode's estate that has prevented his books being reprinted, so that's a big part of it. Perhaps the fact that he was so very popular in his day means that people have tended to hang onto his books rather than let them escape into the second-hand market. This rarity applies to his novels written as "Miles Burton", too: you can get the first one, and then you're forced to skip about ten in a row. :(

Very restrained

Hmmph! You and Steve can just go------read a book!

>144 lyzard: 'You and Steve can just go------read a book!'

Yes Ma'am!

The Victorian House: Domestic Life From Childbirth To Deathbed (US title: Inside The Victorian Home: A Portrait Of Domestic Life In Victorian England) - Judith Flanders' study of Victorian domestic life is - as she frankly admits - a case of biting off more than you can chew: the subject is simply too enormous for any single work. In order even to come close to meeting her professed goals, Flanders has examined only life in the middle-classes, and has attempted to deal only with those aspects of that life taking place within the home. This means, by definition, that this is chiefly a book about women's lives. The Victorian House is - at least theoretically - broken up into chapters dealing with individual rooms of the house, in which the furnishing and functions of each are examined. But even here Flanders frequently wanders outside her declared remit. For example, the chapter on "the parlour" is largely given over to a consideration of how middle-class Victorians married; while "the morning-room" turns into an examination of the exigencies of the Victorian woman's wardrobe. The result is a book that simultaneously offers too much and too little: it tries to cover too much ground and so only touches upon many subjects of greater interest. Flanders is quite aware of this too, and provides an extensive bibliography. Her text, meanwhile, quotes a myriad of contemporary publications including advice books, letters and, where appropriate, novels, in order to highlight the range of views extant on any given issue.

Most of what is offered by The Victorian House is fascinating---and often horrifying. The book concentrates on the years 1850 - 1890, and shows how at that time the Victorians were gripped by an idealised vision of "the home"---and the incredible pressure put upon women to create a domestic environment that lived up to this vision. It should be stressed again that this book considers only the lives of the middle-classes, including those in comparatively modest circumstances. One of the points made repeatedly is the amount of backbreaking labour required to keep even a smallish house in the expected condition. (For example, it could take up to a week to get the laundry done---and then the process started all over again.) Along the way The Victorian House shows the reader the shifts in fashion that occurred over the years in areas such as clothing, interior decoration and food; describes new technologies such as gaslight and indoor plumbing (Judith Flanders and I share a perverse fascination with the history of sanitation); sheds light upon various mysterious Victorian rituals including leaving cards and precedence at dinner; and highlights the emergence of social trends that today we might take for granted: the move from the adult-focused to the child-focused family, for instance, and indeed the development at this time of the very concept of "childhood". Though perhaps we never get quite enough of anything in The Victorian House, it serves as an excellent introduction to many things, and would be of value equally to those with an interest in the history of private lives, and anyone who ever puzzled over the arcane details of a Victorian novel.

What the house contained, how it was laid out, what the occupations of its inhabitants were, what the wife did all day: these were the details from which society built up its picture of the family and the home, and it is precisely these details that I am concerned with in this book. I have shaped the book not along a floor-plan, but along a life-span. I begin in the bedroom, with childbirth, moving on to the nursery, and children's lives. Gradually I progress to the public rooms of the house and with those rooms the adult public world, marriage and social life, before moving on, via the sickroom, to illness and death. Thus a single house contains a multiplicity of lives.

>146 lyzard: Though perhaps we never get quite enough of anything in The Victorian House, it serves as an excellent introduction to many things

This sentence jumped out at me, because my unschooled impression of Victorian interiors is always "Oh my god so much stuff!" Not that I am a postmodern minimalist or anything, but all those knickknacks and geegaws and furniture stuffed into every available inch of shelf and floor space just makes me twitchy.

Your unschooled impression is perfectly correct: cramming the house with THINGS was one of the ways they showed off their social position; to *not* do it would suggest hidden poverty and therefore failure.

I'm in a real de-cluttering phase at the moment so my reaction is very like yours. :)

>148 lyzard: Ah, the elusive decluttering goal! Well, elusive for me; I wish you better luck. I am trying again, so perhaps 2015 will be the year it finally gets done.

No, no, it's elusive here too, sigh. Let's both hope for the best this year!

>146 lyzard: The Victorian House sounds really interesting Liz, despite the flaws. In fact, I have reserved it from the library as I type!

>149 rosalita:, >150 lyzard: Our spare bedroom is still overrun with boxes and things we need to sort out. I think the sorting has some way to go before it can be called cluttered...

Oh Liz

The Victorian House is one I really enjoyed. I have vivid memories of black beetles featuring I it somewhere ...

>151 souloftherose: Hi, Heather - yay, a BB!!

My main issue at the moment is figuring out where to shift the piles of books so that I can get at the clutter behind them. :)

>152 AuntieClio: Awww... Thanks, Steph!

>153 SandDune: Oh, yes! The maid sitting on top of the kitchen table because of the bugs - cockroaches? - swarming all over the floor... {*shudder*}

Finished The Perfect Murder Case for TIOLI #12.

And with apologies to my friends and acquaintances from the Lone Star State---

Now reading Stupid Texas by Leland Gregory.

>155 lyzard: I'm almost tempted to find that & read it!
I spent a year of my degree in Texas, at UT in Austin. It's certainly a very "different" place!

Ah, but did you know that Austin was originally called "Waterloo"? The book contains various random factoids like that as well as plenty of, well, stupid stuff. :)

Well...I lasted until the 19th of January before buying a book...

>158 lyzard: You outlasted me, Liz. I caved yesterday at an LT Meet-up and ended up buying SIX books. Bad Julia.

How SHOCKING!! *I* only bought *TWO*... {*smug*}

(But then again, I can readily appreciate that there is no peer pressure like LT Meet-Up peer pressure!)

The Mystery Of The Evil Eye (US title: The Sign Of Evil) - After forcing his daughter to break her engagement to barrister and rising politician, Jack Derwent, Sir William Armand disappears. Certain physical evidence prompts Inspector Biles to consult with Dr Eustace Hailey, who concludes that Sir William has been murdered. The body is discovered buried in a fresh grave, on top of the coffin; Sir William was stabbed through both eyes after being drugged. Circumstantial evidence leads to the arrest and eventual conviction of Derwent, but Dr Hailey isn't so sure - particularly after he finds both at the murder scene and near the grave marker a freshly-made symbol for the evil eye... The first entry in the series by "Anthony Wynne" (Robert McNair Wilson) featuring Dr Eustace Hailey replaces Francis Beeding's Death Walks In Eastrepps as the earliest mystery novel I know of to feature a serial killer - though The Mystery Of The Evil Eye is not "about" its murderer in the way that the later novel is, with the true nature of the crime only emerging late in the narrative. The text indicates that although the phenomenon of serial killing had been recognised by 1925, there was no suitable vocabulary to describe it, nor was the psychopathology well understood. Eustace Hailey, who specialises in mental diseases, is often described as the first "psychological" detective; however, he is not (or not yet) particularly credible as a character, due to Wynne's habit of telling rather than showing. And while the psychology of the killer is important in solving the murder of Sir William Armand, sheer dogged persistence is even more so, as Dr Hailey races against time to save Jack Derwent's life: a task enormously complicated by the gradual revelation that Sir William's death was actually the result of two completely unrelated crimes...

    Dr Hailey lifted the spade out and moved around to the top of the grave.
    "For God's sake, Hailey," protested the chief in anxious tones, "don't do such a thing. It's horrible." He turned, as though he thought of leaving the churchyard at once. Biles saw that his expression had become very grave, as though he considered that all the bounds of decency, and even of law, had been overstepped.
    "You will not regard it as less horrible when you know the truth," the doctor's calm voice assured him. "Let me remind you that, as the chief criminal expert of this country, it is your duty to face even the darkest realities of human nature. I can assure you that the revelation you are about to experience will fully deserve that title."

Finished Stupid Texas: Idiots In The Lone Star State for TIOLI #22.

Now reading A Forger's Tale: The Extraordinary Story Of Henry Savery, Australia's First Novelist by Rod Howard.

The Victorian House sounds interesting, but I can see how it could both offer too little and too much. Surprised to see they have it in our library system here, which is nice to know. I'm currently reading a historical crime fiction novel called Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell, in which a serial murderer uses Thomas De Quincey's (who famously wrote Confessions of an English Opium Eater) essay On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts as his template for the murders. In the novel, De Quincey becomes the prime suspect for the murders and is thus one of the main characters. Morrell, via De Quincey makes the argument that a great number of Victorians were addicted to opium/laudanum and that the interior decor which was fashionable at the time, with drawn drapes on windows at all times creating dark and private interiors which were cluttered with objects and furniture covered in complex patterns were all indicators of a style opium addicts favoured. I don't know how much truth there is to this, but I thought it was an interesting argument.

Hi, Ilana! That does sound interesting, but I think it's reaching a bit. Certainly there were plenty of opium users / addicts at the time but I don't think the trends in interior decoration were related to that. One of the things that The Victorian House does do is dwell on just how dirty London was at the time, with the air full of dust and soot. The obsession with the curtains was related to fighting a losing battle to keep the dirt out - plus Victorians were just learning about disease transmission and were still wary about the dangers of fresh air (when there was any around!). The furniture patterns seem to be a result of bright colours being made available for the first time, albeit through the use of poisonous heavy metals; but that's another story! :)

The Social Gangster - The fifth entry in Arthur B. Reeve's series about "scientific detective" Professor Craig Kennedy (and his sidekick, journalist Walter Jameson, who narrates) is as usual a collection of short stories, most of which centre around an advance in science or medicine - a electronic gadget or a medical / chemical test that helps Kennedy to expose the guilty party. Individually the stories are interesting, but collected like this they do get a bit "same-ish". Reeve's odd writing style means that while each story contains a fairly lengthy and detailed explanation of its scientific focus, the detective framework is often terse to the point of being confusing, with most of the stories stopping abruptly after the naming of the criminal. Meanwhile, more of Reeve's peculiar obsessions get an airing (in this case, he has a bee in his bonnet about women attending public afternoon dances, which seem to have been giving bridge a run for its money as way for the wealthy and leisured to fill their time), and a new quirk emerges, wherein nearly all of the supporting characters have double-initial names (Bernice Bentley, Renee Rawaruska, Daley Delaney, Ashby Ames, Fraser Ferris, and so on...there's even a racehorse called Lady Lee!). Along the way we learn such fascinating factoids as that it's perfectly all right for a man to violently abduct a woman, as long as he's "the right man". As always, much of the interest of The Social Gangster lies in its depiction of contemporary technology and medicine; although at this point in the series, published shortly before America's entry into WWI, we are also offered, unwittingly, some intriguing social history. In the previous entry, The War Terror, the war was treated as something at a great distance, "over there"; here, various factions make New York the base of operation for their conspiracies, while American neutrality becomes increasingly tenuous. One story, The Voodoo Mystery, deals with refugees from Haiti. However, the medically-themed stories tend to be the stronger ones. A few of them deal with quite disturbing topics, including murder by mutated anthrax (The Super-Toxin), and the rapid deaths from cancer of five members of the same family (The Cancer House.)

    "Dead men tell no tales," remarked Kennedy sententiously, as he faced us... "But," he added, "science opens their mute mouths. Science has become the greatest detective in the world. Once upon a time, it is true, many a murderer was acquitted and perhaps many an innocent man hanged because of appearances. But today the assassin has to reckon with the chemist, the physicist, the X-ray expert, and a host of others. They start on his track and force him to face damning, dispassionate scientific facts.
    "And," he went on, raising his voice a trifle, "science, with equal zeal, brings facts to clear an innocent man protesting his innocence, but condemned by circumstantial evidence..."

Finished A Forger's Tale: The Extraordinary Story Of Henry Savery, Australia's First Novelist for TIOLI #14.

Now reading A Duchess And Her Daughter by Alfred Bishop Mason. (And that horrid fakey cover up top will have to do until I can scan my copy...)

Black Dog Books (http://www.blackdogbooks.net/), a small publisher here in the U.S., has just issued a volume of Craig Kennedy novellas and short stories: The Treason Trust: The Lost Craig Kennedy Stories. I'm not sure what it contains, or when the individual contents were published, as I haven't picked it up yet. I did read an earlier volume of Craig Kennedy stories from the same publisher, Dead Men Tell Tales, which was in fact my introduction to the quirky Kennedy and led to my acquiring reprints of the main series, as well as an old copy of Craig Kennedy on the Farm.

Hi, Harry - I hadn't seen that, thank you very much for bringing it to my attention!

>158 lyzard: And I thought I was doing well! What were the books?

>165 lyzard: 'Along the way we learn such fascinating factoids as that it's perfectly all right for a man to violently abduct a woman, as long as he's "the right man".'

*shudders*

Hi, Heather!

They Wouldn't Be Chessmen, the fourth in A. E. W. Mason's Inspector Hanaud series, and The Imperfect Crime, the second in Bruce Graeme's Stevens / Allain series. Damn series!! :)

(Though I found it amusing to be hitting The Perfect Murder case and The Imperfect Crime at almost the same moment.)

*shudders*

Oh, but you see, he's saving her from herself! {*rolls eyes*}

The Perfect Murder Case - The first book in Christopher Bush's long-running (1929 - 1968) series featuring Ludovic Travers, The Plumley Inheritance, can't be had for love or money, so I was forced to start with the second. As a consequence, I am uncertain of the role usually played in these novels by Travers, a shy, "bespectacled intellectual", an expert in economics with a general knowledge of just about everything. In The Perfect Murder Case he is peripheral to the main action, a fairly minor supporting character - albeit that his contributions are vital - while the weight of the investigation is carried jointly by Superintendent Wharton of Scotland Yard and private investigator, John Franklin. In fact, this is one of those rare mystery novels - Paul McGuire's Three Dead Men is the only other one to come immediately to mind - that gives equal prominence (and credit) to the police, the private investigator and the amateur detective. And all three are needed, when a letter signed only "Marius" is sent to Scotland Yard and the leading London newspapers announcing that its author intends to commit what he declares to be a justified murder---and to get away with it. In short, it will be the perfect murder. Although most people believe that the letter is only a hoax, the police agree they can't afford to take chances. Marius keeps his word and sends two more letters: assuming he is telling the truth, the police know when the murder will be committed and, generally, where; but although they take all possible precautions, Thomas Richleigh is found stabbed to death in the dining-room of his suburban house; the room is locked on the inside. Investigations prove that the only people who will benefit from Richleigh's death are his four nephews - each of whom proves to have a perfect alibi...

"Damn the impossibilities," said Travers. "Look at it fair and square. Here's a case of a unique kind. A man of keen intelligence actually announces that he can't be caught. He flaunts before everybody the assertion that the police have no chance. And why? Because he's found out a way to do something which no-one believes possible. He may have found the way to murder a man and not be there, or he may have discovered how to be in two places at once. And yet you people will persist in looking for the possible."

Finished A Duchess And Her Daughter for TIOLI #21.

Now reading The Hound Of Death And Other Stories by Agatha Christie.

Um...

I don't know exactly what the "Great Classic Series" publisher's series is - or perhaps more to the point, what it was intended to be, since these reprints seem not so much eclectic as completely random - but their covers are...something to behold.

Some of them are bland and inoffensive (even to the point of being simple-minded); more are evidently a case of Did Not Read The Book; while a few are Just Plain Wrong.

For example, take their edition of Theodore Roosevelt's The Rough Riders; though I suspect Teddy would be rather flattered:



In fact, the more I look into this, the more I am convinced it's just a perverse joke. Perhaps the books don't even exist; perhaps it's just an internet gag?

I hope so - because if it isn't, we may finally be on the verge of The End Of Civilisation As We Know It...

Stupid Texas: Idiots In The Lone Star State - A stocking-stuffer from a few years back. The title is slightly misleading since this short book offers a number of random facts about Texas in addition to its bread-and-butter: anecdotes about strange laws, dumb criminals and dumber politicians (Rick Perry features a LOT; he just finished his final term, yes?). Mildly amusing, but it could have done without Leland Gregory's editorialisation. Also, very few of the events highlighted are really Texas-specific, but could have happened anywhere you find idiots - that is, anywhere.

Dallas's Sixth Floor Museum, housed in the former Texas school book depository where accused Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald purportedly shot the President, installed a camera in its southeast window in 1999. The camera allowed users of the museum's internet site to check out the scene from the assassin's point of view...

Finished The Hound Of Death And Other Stories for TIOLI #4.

Now reading Beside The Bonnie Brier Bush by Ian Maclaren - America's best-seller of 1895!

"Ian Maclaren", the author of Beside The Bonnie Brier Bush, was actually the Reverend John Watson, a theologian and a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. Watson was born in Essex but educated in Scotland; he held ministries in Perthshire and Glasgow before settling in Liverpool. He began writing in the 1890s, publishing sermons and non-fiction works on religious subjects as well as fiction. In 1896 he held the Lyman Beecher Lectureship at Yale Divinity School, which involves "lectur(ing) on a branch of pastoral theology or in any other topic appropriate to the work of the Christian ministry." He died in 1906, at the age of fifty-seven, in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, from blood poisoning following tonsillitis.

Watson's most popular fictions works (including, obviously, Beside The Bonnie Brier Bush) are tales of rural Scottish life. The title of this first collection was taken from a ballad by Robert Burns, There Grows A Bonnie Brier Bush*. Watson is sometimes called one of the originators of the 'Kailyard' writing style, "Scottish fiction characterised by a sentimental idealisation of humble village life. Its name derives from the Scottish 'kail-yard', a small cabbage patch usually adjacent to a cottage." The movement did not last long, as "the natural and unsophisticated style and parochial viewpoint quickly degenerated into mawkish sentimentality".

Watson is also the source of the quotation, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." (Although it is likely the original quote was "Be pitiful---", i.e. full of pity.)

(*Which qualifies it for TIOLI #12 - yay!)

>176 lyzard: I'm about halfway through this now; the thick gaelic dialect is slowing things a bit.

Thanks for finding the TIOLI link!

the natural and unsophisticated style and parochial viewpoint quickly degenerated into mawkish sentimentality

Though I'm mostly enjoying the stories so far, I'd suggest that the descent of the Kailyard style may have happened so quickly because it didn't have far to fall.

Yes, that was my immediate thought, too! :D

(Shared read? Yay again!)

>173 lyzard: W. T. H.???

It's STUNNING, isn't it??

And apparently there's a lot more where that came from. Stay turned...

I have a peeve which is not directed at anyone on LT, but rather at a female reviewer of a BBC America show I'm watching set in late 19th century Whitechapel called "Ripper Street."

As far as I can tell, the attitudes towards women is pretty spot on with regards to the times. The story does start, after all, six months after the last Jack the Ripper victim was found. So yes, women are going to get the worst of it from men less enlightened than our protagonists, a duo of coppers and an American surgeon who lives in a brothel his wife runs.

It's a violent show, no doubt about it. The reviewer I am referring to went on at length about violence against women in the show, and how she was tired of it being excessively shown (or shown at all) and that Ripper Street, of all shows, should cease immediately.

I think she's missing the point. This is a period show, set in the ghetto (so to speak), where violence abounds against everyone. Attitudes towards women were horrible then. Ripper Street would be something completely different if that was given a miss.

She completely glossed over the woman who owned and ran the flour mill in one episode, and the brilliant woman who designed an engine screw for ocean liner engines in another.

Violence against women is an issue. Violence against anyone is. But it is unfair to compare attitudes in 21st century society against 19th century society.

Okay, I'm done.

Ripper Street is on here, but I haven't been watching, so I can't comment on the specifics; I'm not aware of any criticism or backlash, though. I think that everything comes down to, It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it. As long as the show is historically accurate and exists for a reason beyond its scenes of violence it shouldn't be a problem.

>173 lyzard: Seriously? I read this sometimes delightful and sometimes terribly redundant little book a few years ago--honestly, I think Teddy would have been appalled at the cover. He was well-read in history and the then-current gushing was pronounced enough even for him. I'm with Stephanie on this one: WTH?

>181 AuntieClio: , >182 lyzard: This seems like the complaints we often encounter about literature from earlier days: it doesn't reflect our mores.
Why no, it doesn't; it reflects the mores of its own time. Fancy!

Hi, Gail! I don't know, I could see Teddy enjoying the reinvention of himself as a medieval war-lord! :)

Though I'm certainly not arguing with a baseline reaction of "WTH!?" And I have more "Great Classic Series" goodness (sic.) to follow...

Ah, yes---the Huckleberry Finn argument, sigh. I know, the short-sightedness (and perhaps more to the point, narrow-mindedness) is extremely disheartening.

The "Great Classic Series" books referred to above were the work of Tutis Digital Publishing, a Mumbai-based publishing apparently outfit specialising in reprints of public domain works. It seems that Tutis is no longer in business - possibly as a result of the company's habit of lifting copyrighted images for use on their book covers, including (uh-oh!) from Disney.

Not to worry, though: Tutis may be gone but definitely not forgotten. In fact, there are a handful of blogs out there specialising in bad cover art to which the "Great Classic Series" is as manna from heaven.

I'm inclined to agree; so I think I'll reproduce some more examples of their cover, uh, "art" over the next little while.

To start us off, here's a present for anyone who ever struggled with Thomas Hardy:

Oh dear. Just...no.

Trust me, we've barely scratched the surface...

>185 lyzard: that doesn't match my experience of Hardy... just saying.

Mine neither! :D

I googled Tutis Digital Publishing. They are amazing! My favourite is the one with some sort of muscle bound sci-fi type hero for Call of the Wild. Oh and bicycles for Treasure Island - just the sort of thing you have on a pirate ship!

Hi, Rhian! Yes, everyone loves bicycles on Treasure Island! My personal fave at the moment is the Sci-fi-ish, steampunky cover for Cranford; although Moll Flanders hunting in skins is pretty good too.

ETA: Yeah, this one:

As a follow-up to my blog posts on Quintus Servinton, Australia's first novel, I have taken a look at A Forger's Tale, Rod Howard's biography of Henry Savery. Much to my surprise, it turns out that Quintus Servinton is more accurate and less self-serving than it appeared at first glance.

My post on A Forger's Tale is here.

Those covers are just painful to look at. And I'm sure it's not just because I'm sick already.

>185 lyzard:, >191 lyzard: Wow! I want to read the science fiction version of Cranford though! :-)

>193 Smiler69: Hi, Ilana - sorry to hear you're under the weather. Personally I find these covers to be little rays of sunshine! :)

>194 souloftherose: You mean the one where Miss Matty turns out to be a cyborg from the future? Me, too!

Those covers are hilarious! I wish they were printed versions as I'd definitely fill my shelves with those classics. Artwork if ever I saw it.

Hi, Jenny! Some of the Tutis editions are still available through Amazon and the Book Depository.

I think they deserve framing, not just shelving!

>185 lyzard: Well, I've never struggled with Thomas Hardy (he's a favorite), but that Slash cover is fantastic!

>161 lyzard: Interesting stuff about serial killer vocabulary, etc. I'm not sure I'd pick up this particular book, but your comments are always fascinating!

Hi, Kerri! I can't say Hardy is a favourite - I'm one of those who find him Too Damn Depressing. I'm informed that the image of Slash was lifted straight off Guitar Hero. (Like I said, no wonder Tutis is no longer in business!)

I seem to say this a lot, but The Mystery Of The Evil Eye is interesting rather than good. It's like a lot of second-tier British mysteries from the 20s, a bit stuffy and dull; but then the serial killer stuff comes out of the blue and adds a whole new dimension. Death Walks In Eastrepps is a much better book, though.

Finished Beside The Bonnie Brier Bush for TIOLI #12 - phew!

And after 300 pages of Scots dialect, now very gratefully reading Arabella by Georgette Heyer.

I read that earlier this month. This time around, the thought came to me that Arabella is like a younger Frederica. Of the young heroines, I still like Hero Wantage and Kitty and Horatia better, but Arabella is very responsible.

What strikes me out of all that is the shading of the characters according to individual circumstances. For instance, Arabella and Kitty both have the isolated Yorkshire upbringing, but one has a strict father and the other has a selfish old guardian; Horatia and Hero are nearly the same age, but one is of the aristocracy and other a poor relation of a county family--- The outcomes are quite different in each case.

>200 lyzard: 300 pages!? The Project Gutenberg file I read claimed to be only half of that. Either it left something out or was transcribed from an edition with very small type.

Reading took much longer than 150 pages ought to do, but I thought it was just because of the dialect.

327 pages in the New York edition of 1895 - quite wide margins and a fair size font, though not large.

Did your copy have seven sections? Because if it turns out you read an abridged copy, I'm going to INSIST you find a full-length edition and start again! :D

>204 lyzard: Thank goodness. The PG file has all seven parts. Dodged that one.

I'm disappointed. :)

Oh, dear.

I've thought of another "project"...

No, really. :)

(It's okay, though, this is nothing anyone else needs to tag along with!!)

#2 bestsellers? Don't worry, I'm out.

Although Trilby has been in the Someday Swamp for ages...

:D

No, this time it's a more personal venture, designed to shake up my reading a bit more.

Uh-oh ...

You're all VERY encouraging! :)

>207 lyzard: *snort*

Inquiring minds would like more details please :-)

Yes, please, more details!

>118 lyzard: A new project! I am very much enjoying following along with your discussion of these #1s from long ago.

>146 lyzard: Oh this one goes straight to the WL. Sounds excellent and reminds me of the Bill Bryson book that had a similar premise, At Home.

>173 lyzard: The "Great Classics" covers are delightfully awful! Keep 'em coming!

>207 lyzard: Please do tell us about the new project!

Hi, Heather, Amber and Heidi - thanks for visiting!

Ah, no - nothing very interesting this time (assuming the "forgotten best-seller" project can be described as "interesting"): I already use a random number generator to pick blog reads from books on my wishlist published between 1741 - 1930; I was thinking of using the same approach here for books from 1940 - 1969, to mix my reading up a bit more while I'm plodding along with 1932 (and occasionally backsliding into 1931).

And hey, at least I might occasionally hit something someone else has heard of, right?? :D

>214 Cobscook: Yay, a BB! Hmm, your request for more awful covers puts me in mind of something else I was looking at along those lines...but there will be more Tutis masterpieces, I promise!

Speaking of bad covers, Georgette Heyer's Arabella seems to bring out the worst in people; although looking on the bright side, at least the retina-burn from the first one prevents you taking in the details of the other two:

        

...while this retitling is hardly fair!



As for these two---I think we've got some flagging to do!

    

I'll be back to reply once my sight has been restored and everything is proper colours rather than just pink ;)

>216 lyzard: Oh, that second one! 1970s "Charlie's Angels" hair and a 1950s dress on the cover of a Regency romance. And maybe it's just the retina burn from the PINK cover, but is the dude's jacket in No. 2 green and black checks??

Wait ... on that German version, is it just some weird byproduct of digitization or has the male interest had his scalp reupholstered with the same plaid fabric as his suitcoat?

That first one should be registered as a deadly weapon.

Yes, yes, and yes! :D

I thought at first glance his hair was a digital artefact too but it's only on his hair so I guess it was a deliberate choice; I hesitate to say artistic choice.

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to work out why the guy in the third one insists on pinning a disinterested woman to his hip while he reads.

>220 lyzard: I thought he was reading to her, but on second glance, I think he's trying to keep her from running away.

I think it's both: he's determined to read something to her that she doesn't want to listen to.

Maybe they're arguing over Moon Tiger... :)

>216 lyzard: Those are pretty special!

>222 lyzard: 'Maybe they're arguing over Moon Tiger... :)'

:-D

You know, I was very happy with the Lively book I read for the BAC (How It All Began), but I am feeling regretful that I didn't tackle Moon Tiger, just so I could pick a side and argue about discuss it.

I do like the checked hair - who knew Regency hairstyles were quite so extravagant and skillful in the hair dye department.

Bright pink must be a pre-requisite for a Heyer cover. I do like how she decided to coordinate her house and surroundings with her dress:

>225 lunacat: Camouflage, perhaps?

>224 rosalita: I haven't come anywhere near reading it, yet I've had to bite my tongue to stop butting in on those arguments! :)

>225 lunacat: Ouch!

I suppose VIOLENT PINK was intended as a warning flare to the male of the species? Because as we all know, even touching a romance can give you cooties...

Finished Arabella for TIOLI #4.

And that is me done for January! - 13 books, not a bad start. (However--- Three outstanding reviews, three outstanding blog posts - eep!)

Now reading The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope.

Oh, dear.

Never send to know for whom the bell tolls...

We all know about the lure of Folio Society books. For the most part - not entirely - I've been able to withstand it; often because the books themselves usually come accompanied by shipping charges I that put them beyond the pale. Most of the Folios I do own were bought second-hand.

But what do I do about this?

(Full page: http://www.foliosociety.com/media/blog/the-dukes-children/)

Anthony Trollope wrote The Duke’s Children as a four-volume work but then reduced it to three, necessitating the loss of almost a quarter of his original text. The precise reason is lost to posterity but is likely to have been a demand from his publishers on the grounds of economy; it would not have come from Trollope himself, who had earlier written in his Autobiography: ‘I am at a loss to know how such a task could be performed. I could burn the MS., no doubt, and write another book on the same story; but how two words out of every six are to be withdrawn from a written novel, I cannot conceive.’ Yet this is precisely what he was obliged to do, and 65,000 words ended up on the cutting-room floor...

Over the last decade several researchers, led by Professor Steven Amarnick, have been patiently working to restore the work to its original, fully extended version... Although Trollope was able to edit The Duke’s Children so that the narrative did not go ‘wrong’—and that he was able to do so is a remarkable achievement—it is hard to imagine many readers, faced with the massive accumulation of details now included for the first time, who won’t agree that the restored novel is richer, more complex, more Trollopian: a clearly superior book to the one that has always been published...

Our limited edition of The Duke’s Children will be available from March 2015.

...in related news, please explain to me why the first book that comes up with the touchstone for The Duke's Children is Pride And Prejudice!?

(My God! - it is everywhere!)

>229 lyzard: Limited edition too? Sounds expensive.... But how can we read it knowing we're missing out on 65,000 words?

I know! - lets have a group read in which you're only allowed to participate *if* you have the Folio edition!

("One is the loneliest number...")

The existing copy of Barchester Towers is nearly AU$60.00...how much do you imagine they'll be charging for a restored edition of twice as many pages...? :(

Well, look at it this way, you've got until March to start saving up your pennies!

How have I missed your thread up until now, Liz?! Perhaps I got it confused with your blog? :)

How have I missed your thread up until now, Liz?! Perhaps I got it confused with your blog? :)

Oh, my, those Heyers! Temporarily flash-blinded, I almost missed the mention of the F.S. Trollope edition...would that I had. I can't justify, even to myself, paying so much for a book, given how I use books. Still, as an objet d'arte, perhaps it would qualify? I could properly place and light it, but gee whiz! Lots of money!

The incidental mention of Horatia led me to some good memories of reading about her. Heyer was indeed quite an author.

Oh dear, I was wondering how come I'd missed 37 new messages and then... those covers! That explains it. And Folio Limited Editions no less; I feel right in my element here today! :-D

First of all, I hate to break up the fun, but my professional experience tells me the man's jacket and hair only has that amusing plaid pattern because of bad scanning or poor printing, though probably the former (which could have led to the latter, mind you, if this is a really cheap imprint). Someone probably didn't use a descreening feature to compensate for the print pattern, because I can discern it emerging a bit all over the cover.

But everyone's comments are just great and made me smile wide, and yes, I think my retinas are burned for the rest of the day. I was hoping to start drawing in the next half hour and may need to wait a while longer because I don't think I'll be able to see well enough to do so!

For the Trollope LE, you definitely want to start saving up your entire paychecks Liz. The good news is the Folio Society is used to dealing with non-super-wealthy folks like us, and so have worked out helpful payment plans which allow you to pay for their limited edition books in up to ten equal monthly payments, which can make an acquisition like this almost feasible. A book like this certainly won't be a bargain, but it might go for just over $200 or up to $340 maybe, depending on the size of the book? (You'll just have to wait and see). I guess you'll just have to decide how badly you want it at that point. Needless to tell you you'll get the best deal on that LE from Folio directly because once it's OOP the second hand market won't trouble to give anyone deals on a book that is likely to be sought after by those in the know...

(I should here note that I am not in any way associated with the Folio Society other than as a member and do not receive any form of compensation or bonuses when recommending their products).

>233 lunacat: If I start now I might have enough pennies by March 2115. :)

>234 alcottacre: & >235 alcottacre: Hi, Stasia! Hey, blog visiting or thread visiting, it's all good - I'm grateful for both!

>236 Matke: I agree with you on all counts, Gail! - unfortunately, when it comes to the Trollope.

>237 Smiler69: Hey, I was pretty sure the mention of a Folio book would flush you out, Ilana!

But if you're going to be sensible about my awful covers, well, you can just turn around again and walk back out - hmmph!

I'm familiar with the many evil ways of the Folio Society... They haven't put a price up yet so I don't know exactly how loud to shriek in pain and horror. Between the price, the exchange rate and the shipping I honestly don't know if this is something I can justify, though on the other hand, knowing that it's out there will probably drive me crazy.

We'll see...

:-b

The Natural History Museum here at the University of Iowa is having some sort of program on Sunday afternoon called "A Sloth Named Velcro." I have no idea what it's about but this is the picture they are using to promote it:



I might have to check it out if the forecasted snowstorm does not materialize.

*Might* have to check it out!? Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night...!

I've heard of Velcro - I think it's a documentary about an orphaned sloth who got adopted by a journalist. You'll have to check back in AFTER YOU'VE DEFINITELY GONE and update me.

I have blogged (at unnecessary length; be warned!) about Alfred Bishop Mason's historical novel, A Duchess And Her Daughter, the story of an aristocratic mother and daughter in 18th century Venezuela. The work gains some points for its unusual setting, but loses even more for being fairly relentlessly unpleasant.

The post is here.

>241 lyzard: Aw, orphaned sloth! That makes the picture even cuter. I will do my best to go and report back, but they just upped the projected snowfall total to 9 inches, which is no bueno. I hope that this is one more time the forecasters are wrong!

No snow here.

None here either, Roni - I don't know what's wrong with these people! :)

I have set up the thread for the group read of The Eustace Diamonds - it is here.

Hope to see you there!

A new thread, I think...

This is SO cute! (Just happened upon your sloth by accident.)

Hi, Natalie - almost missed your post! Yes, you may not find anything else of interest on my threads, but there *will* always be sloths! :D