lyzard's list: Travelling a route obscure and lonely in 2020 - Part 3

Personally, I really like insects and arachnids of all sorts. I know not everyone shares my predilection, however; so I will refrain from posting here a close-up shot of an ant-mimicking crab-spider, which was an award-winner in the 'Animal Portraits' division...even though I was sorely tempted. :)

Instead, I will offer one of the winners in the '10 years and under' category of the Young Awards: a shot of a hummingbird hawkmoth (so-called for obvious reasons) taken in the south of France by an aspiring young English photographer:

My thread title this year is taken from Edgar Allan Poe's poem, Dream-Land: it seemed appropriate considering the nature of my reading plans!

    By a route obscure and lonely,
    Haunted by ill angels only,
    Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
    On a black throne reigns upright,
    I have reached these lands but newly
    From an ultimate dim Thule---
    From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
        Out of SPACE---Out of TIME.

(The complete poem can be found here.)

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Currently reading:



Inspector Bedison Risks It by Thomas Cobb (1931)

2020 reading:

January:

1. The Daughter Of The House by Carolyn Wells (1925)
2. Leandro: or, The Lucky Rescue by J. Smythies (1690)
3. Wilhelm Meister's Travels by Johann Goethe (1821 / 1829)
4. The Bertrams by Anthony Trollope (1859)
5. Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk (1955)
6. Ralph The Bailiff, And Other Tales by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1862)
7. Death Walks In Eastrepps by Francis Beeding (1931)
8. Nemesis by Agatha Christie (1971)
9. Ambrose Holt And Family by Susan Glaspell (1931)
10. The Eye In The Museum by J. J. Connington (1929)
11. The Clock Ticks On by Valentine Williams (1933)
12. Death In The Cup by Moray Dalton (1932)
13. A Jury Of Her Peers (short story) by Susan Glaspell (1917)

February:

14. Disordered Minds by Minette Walters (2003)
15. The Bronze Hand by Carolyn Wells (1926)
16. The Creaking Tree Mystery by Leonard A. Knight (1931)
17. The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper (1826)
18. Reginald du Bray: An Historic Tale by 'A late nobleman' (1779)
19. The Spectacles Of Mr Cagliostro by Harry Stephen Keeler (1926)
20. Don't Go Near The Water by William Brinkley (1956)
21. Patty's Social Season by Carolyn Wells (1913)
22. Murder From Beyond by R. Francis Foster (1930)
23. The Man Who Loved Lions by Ethel Lina White (1943)
24. The Seven Sleepers by Francis Beeding (1925)
25. Anna, Where Are You? by Patricia Wentworth (1951)
26. Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie (1972)
27. The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1908)
28. I've Got My Eyes On You by Mary Higgins Clark (2018)

March:

29. Pique by Frances Notley (1850)
30. The Collegians by Gerald Griffin (1829)
31. The Wild Irish Girl by Sydney Owenson (1806)
32. Oil! by Upton Sinclair (1927)
33. By Love Possessed by James Gould Cozzens (1957)
34. Postern Of Fate by Agatha Christie (1973)
35. Murder In The Cellar by Louise Eppley and Rebecca Gayton (1931)
36. The Back-Seat Murder by Herman Landon (1931)
37. Nevertheless, She Persisted by Various (2020)
38. The Two Tickets Puzzle by J. J. Connington (1930)

April:

39. Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1862)
40. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (1957)
41. Poirot's Early Cases by Agatha Christie (1974)
42. The Watersplash by Patricia Wentworth (1951)
43. The Tolliver Case by R. A. J. Walling (1933)
44. Inspector Bedison And The Sunderland Case by Thomas Cobb (1931)
45. The Mystery Of The Creeping Man by Frances Shelley Wees (1931)
46. No Walls Of Jasper by Joanna Cannan (1930)
47. The Five Red Fingers by Brian Flynn (1929)
48. I Can Has Cheezburger? A LOLCat Colleckshun by Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami (2008)
49. The Mill Of Happiness by Jean Barre (1931)
50. The Ipcress File by Len Deighton (1962)

May:

51. The Mysteries Of London: Volume III by George W. M. Reynolds (1847)
52. The Refugee In America by Frances Trollope (1832)
53. The Mayfair Mystery by Henry Holt (1929)
54. The Perfect Murder Case by Christopher Bush (1929)
55. Murder On The Marsh by John Ferguson (1930)

Books in transit:

Purchased and shipped:

On interlibrary loan / branch transfer / storage / Rare Book request:

Library books to collect:
The Life Of Mansie Wauch by David Moir
Women, Marriage And Politics, 1860-1914 by Patricia Jalland
A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman

Upcoming requests:
The Marquise Of O., And Other Stories by Heinrich von Kleist {Fisher storage}
Our Mr Wrenn by Sinclair Lewis {Fisher storage}
From Man To Man by Olive Schreiner {Fisher Storage - 2 volumes}
Close Quarters by Michael Gilbert {JFR}
Poison In The Garden Suburb by George and Margaret Cole {JFR}
The High Adventure by Jeffery Farnoll {JFR / Rare Books}
The Rum Row Murders by Charles Reed Jones {Rare Books}

On loan:
**The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimoore Cooper (13/03/2019)
**Oil! by Upton Sinclair (13/03/2019)
The Recess by Sophia Lee (14/04/2020)
**The Collegians by Gerald Griffin (14/04/2020)
**The Wild Irish Girl by Sydney Morgan (14/04/2020)
**A Gothic Bibliography by Montague Summers (14/04/2020)
*By Love Possessed by James Gould Cozzens (19/04/2020)
*The Mill Of Happiness by Jean Barre (19/04/2020)

^^Baby Cart At The River Styx (14/04/2020)

Ongoing reading projects:

Blog reads:
Chronobibliography: The Fugitive Reviv'd by Peter Belon
Authors In Depth:
- Forest Of Montalbano by Catherine Cuthbertson
- Shannondale (aka "The Three Beauties; or, Shannondale: A Novel") by E.D.E.N. Southworth
- Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
- Ellesmere by Mrs Meeke
- The Cottage by Margaret Minifie
- The Old Engagement by Julia Day
- The Refugee In America / The Abbess by Frances Trollope
Reading Roulette: Pique by Frances Notley / Our Mr Wrenn by Sinclair Lewis
Australian fiction: Louisa Egerton by Mary Leman Grimstone
Gothic novel timeline: Anecdotes Of A Convent by Anonymous
Early crime fiction: The Mysteries Of London by G. W. M. Reynolds
Silver-fork novels: Sayings And Doings; or, Sketches From Life (First Series) by Theodore Hook
Related reading: Gains And Losses by Robert Lee Wollf / The Man Of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie / Le Loup Blanc by Paul Féval / Theresa Marchmont; or, The Maid Of Honour by Catherine Gore

Group / tutored reads:

Completed: The Bertrams by Anthony Trollope (thread here)
Completed: Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (thread here)

Upcoming: Castle Richmond by Anthony Trollope (July)
Upcoming: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (August)

General reading challenges:

America's best-selling novels (1895 - ????):
Next up: Exodus by Leon Uris

Virago chronological reading project:
Next up: The Rector by Margaret Oliphant

Agatha Christie mysteries in chronological order:
Next up: Curtain: Poirot's Last Case

The C.K. Shorter List of Best 100 Novels:
Next up: The Life Of Mansie Wauch by David Moir

Mystery League publications:
Next up: The Secret Of High Eldersham by Miles Burton

Banned In Boston!: (here)
Next up: From Man To Man by Olive Schreiner

The evolution of detective fiction:
Next up: The Mysteries Of London (Volume III) by G. W. M. Reynolds

Random reading 1940 - 1969:
Next up: Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh / Close Quarters by Michael Francis Gilbert

Potential decommission:
Next up: Songs Of A Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti

Potential decommission (non-fiction):
Next up: Faces In The Smoke by Douchan Gersi

Completed challenges:
Georgette Heyer historical romances in chronological order

Possible future reading projects:
- Agatha Christie uncollected short stories
- Georgette Heyer's historical fiction
- Nobel Prize winners who won for fiction
- Daily Telegraph's 100 Best Novels, 1899
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize
- Berkeley "Books Of The Century"
- Collins White Circle Crime Club / Green Penguins
- Dell paperbacks
- "El Mundo" 100 best novels of the twentieth century
- 100 Best Books by American Women During the Past 100 Years, 1833-1933
- 50 Classics of Crime Fiction 1900–1950 (Jacques Barzun and Wendell Hertig Taylor)
- The Guardian's 100 Best Novels
- Life Magazine "The 100 Outstanding Books of 1924 - 1944" (Henry Seidel Canby)
- "40 Trashy Novels You Must Read Before You Die" (Flavorwire)
- best-novel lists in Wikipedia article on The Grapes Of Wrath
- Pandora 'Mothers Of The Novel'
- Newark Library list (here)
- "The Story Of Classic Crime In 100 Books" (here)
- Dean's Classics series

TBR notes:

Currently 'missing' series works:

Mystery At Greycombe Farm by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #12) {Rare Books}
Dead Men At The Folly by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #13) {Rare Books}
The Robthorne Mystery by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #17) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, held / Internet Archive / Kindle}
Poison For One by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #18) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, held}
Shot At Dawn by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #19) {Rare Books}
The Corpse In The Car by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #20) {CARM}
Hendon's First Case by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #21) {Rare Books}
Mystery At Olympia (aka "Murder At The Motor Show") (Dr Priestley #22) {Kindle / State Library NSW, held / Internet Archive}
In Face Of The Verdict by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #24) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, held / Internet Archive}

Six Minutes Past Twelve by Gavin Holt (Luther Bastion #1) {State Library NSW, held}
The White-Faced Man by Gavin Holt (Luther Bastion #2) {State Library NSW, held}

Secret Judges by Francis D. Grierson (Sims and Wells #2) {Rare Books}

The Platinum Cat by Miles Burton (Desmond Merrion #17 / Inspector Arnold #18) {Rare Books}

The Double-Thirteen Mystery by Anthony Wynne (Dr Eustace Hailey #2) {Rare Books}

The Black Death by Moray Dalton {CARM}

1931:

October House by Kay Cleaver Strahan {owned}
The Mayfair Mystery by Henry Holt {owned}
Murderer's Trail by J. Jefferson Farjeon {Kindle}
Easy To Kill by Hulbert Footner {Roy Glashan's Library}

One-Man Girl by Maisie Greig {Mitchell Library}
Cameos by Octavus Roy Cohen {State Library NSW}
"Seen Unknown..." by Naomi Jacob {State Library NSW}

The Rum Row Murders by Charles Reed Jones {Rare Books}
Unsolved by Bruce Graeme {Rare Books}

The Picaroon Does Justice by Herman Landon {CARM}
The Crooked Lip by Herbert Adams {Rare Books / CARM}
The Wraith by Philip MacDonald {Rare Books / CARM / JFR}

The Matilda Hunter Murder by Harry Stephen Keeler {Kindle}

Death By Appointment by "Francis Bonnamy" (Audrey Walz) (Peter Utley Shane #1) {Rare Books}
The Click Of The Gate by Alice Campbell (Tommy Rostetter #1) {CARM}
The Bell Street Murders by Sydney Fowler (S. Fowler Wright) (Inspector Cambridge and Mr Jellipot #1) {Rare Books}
The Murderer Returns by Edwin Dial Torgerson (Pierre Montigny #1) {Rare Books}

NB: Rest of 1931 listed on the Wiki

Series back-reading:

The Red-Haired Girl by Carolyn Wells {Rare Books}
The Perfect Murder Case by Christopher Bush {owned? / Kindle}
Tragedy At Ravensthorpe by J. J. Connington {Kindle}
Invisible Death by Brian Flynn {Kindle}

Completist reading:

Sing Sing Nights by Harry Stephen Keeler (#4) {CARM / Kindle}
Castle Richmond by Anthony Trollope (#10) {Fisher Library}
XYZ by Anna Katharine Green (#5) {Project Gutenberg}
When A Man Marries by Mary Roberts Rinehart (#3) {Project Gutenberg}
The White Cockatoo by Mignon Eberhart {Rare Books}

Expensive:

The Amber Junk (aka The Riddle Of The Amber Ship) by Hazel Phillips Hanshew (Cleek #9)
The Hawkmoor Mystery by W. H. Lane Crauford
The Double Thumb by Francis Grierson (Sims and Wells #3)
The Mystery Of The Open Window by Anthony Gilbert (Scott Egerton #4)
The Shadow Of Evil by Charles J. Dutton (Harley Manners #2)
The Seventh Passenger by Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry (Jerry Boyne #4)
The Pelham Murder Case by Monte Barrett (Peter Cardigan #1)
The Hanging Woman by John Rhode (Dr Priestley #11)

A Century (And A Bit) Of Reading:

A book a year from 1800 - 1900!

1800: Juliania; or, The Affectionate Sisters by Elizabeth Sandham
1801: Belinda by Maria Edgeworth
1802: The Infidel Father by Jane West
1803: Thaddeus Of Warsaw by Jane Porter
1804: The Lake Of Killarney by Anna Maria Porter
1805: The Impenetrable Secret, Find It Out! by Francis Lathom
1806: The Wild Irish Girl by Sydney Owenson
1807: Corinne; ou, l'Italie by Madame de Staël
1809: The Scottish Chiefs by Jane Porter
1812: The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth
1814: The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties by Frances Burney
1815: Headlong Hall by Thomas Love Peacock
1820: The Sketch Book Of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. by Washington Irving
1821: The Ayrshire Legatees; or, The Pringle Family by John Galt / Valerius: A Roman Story by J. G. Lockhart / Kenilworth by Walter Scott
1822: Bracebridge Hall; or, The Humorists by Washington Irving
1824: The Adventures Of Hajji Baba Of Ispahan by James Justinian Morier
1826: Lichtenstein by Wilhelm Hauff / The Last Of The Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
1827: The Epicurean by Thomas Moore / The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni
1829: Wilhelm Meister's Travels by Johann Goethe / The Collegians by Gerald Griffin
1832: The Refugee In America by Frances Trollope
1836: The Tree And Its Fruits; or, Narratives From Real Life by Phoebe Hinsdale Brown
1845: Zoe: The History Of Two Lives by Geraldine Jewsbury / The Mysteries Of London (Volume I) by G. W. M. Reynolds
1846: The Mysteries Of London (Volume II) by G. W. M. Reynolds
1847: Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë / The Macdermots Of Ballycloran by Anthony Trollope / The Mysteries Of London: Volume III by G. W. M. Reynolds
1848: The Kellys And The O'Kellys by Anthony Trollope
1850: Pique by Sarah Stickney Ellis
1851: The Mother-In-Law; or, The Isle Of Rays by E.D.E.N. Southworth
1857: The Three Clerks by Anthony Trollope
1859: The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden / The Bertrams by Anthony Trollope
1860: The Semi-Attached Couple by Emily Eden
1869: He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope
1873: Had You Been In His Place by Lizzie Bates
1874: Chaste As Ice, Pure As Snow by Charlotte Despard
1877: Elsie's Children by Martha Finley
1880: The Duke's Children: First Complete Edition by Anthony Trollope / Elsie's Widowhood by Martha Finley
1881: Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen / The Beautiful Wretch by William Black
1882: Grandmother Elsie by Martha Finley
1883: Elsie's New Relations by Martha Finley
1884: Elsie At Nantucket by Martha Finley
1885: The Two Elsies by Martha Finley
1886: Elsie's Kith And Kin by Martha Finley
1894: Martin Hewitt, Investigator by Arthur Morrison / The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen
1896: The Island Of Dr Moreau by H. G. Wells
1897: Penelope's Progress by Kate Douglas Wiggin
1898: A Man From The North by Arnold Bennett / The Lust Of Hate by Guy Newell Boothby
1899: Agatha Webb by Anna Katharine Green / Dr Nikola's Experiment by Guy Newell Boothby
1900: The Circular Study by Anna Katharine Green

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); Tales Of Hoffmann (1982)
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)
The Mysteries Of London - George Reynolds (1844 - 1848)
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume I
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume II
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume III
- The Mysteries Of London: Volume IV
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)
Ruth The Betrayer; or, The Female Spy by Edward Ellis (!862-1863)
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)
When The Sea Gives Up Its Dead by Elizaberth Burgoyne Corbett (Mrs George Corbett)
Dorcas Dene, Detective by George Sims (1897)
- Amelia Butterworth series by Anna Katharine Grant (1897 - 1900)
Hagar Of The Pawn-Shop by Fergus Hume (1898)
The Adventures Of A Lady Pearl-Broker by Beatrice Heron-Maxwell (1899)
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)
Constance Dunlap, Woman Detective by Arthur B. Reeve (1913)
Miss Madelyn Mack, Detective by Hugh C. Weir (1914)

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

Series and sequels, 1866 - 1919:

(1866 - 1876) **Emile Gaboriau - Monsieur Lecoq - The Widow Lerouge (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1867 - 1905) **Martha Finley - Elsie Dinsmore - Elsie's Friends At Woodburn (13/28) {Project Gutenberg}
(1867 - 1872) **George MacDonald - The Seaboard Parish - Annals Of A Quiet Neighbourhood (1/3) {ManyBooks}
(1878 - 1917) **Anna Katharine Green - Ebenezer Gryce - The Mystery Of The Hasty Arrow (13/13)
(1896 - 1909) **Melville Davisson Post - Randolph Mason - The Corrector Of Destinies (3/3)
(1893 - 1915) **Kate Douglas Wiggins - Penelope - Penelope's Postscripts (4/4)
(1894 - 1898) **Anthony Hope - Ruritania - Rupert Of Hentzau (3/3)
(1894 - 1903) **Arthur Morrison - Martin Hewitt - Chronicles Of Martin Hewitt (2/4) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1895 - 1901) **Guy Newell Boothby - Dr Nikola - Farewell, Nikola (5/5)
(1897 - 1900) **Anna Katharine Green - Amelia Butterworth - The Circular Study (3/3)
(1898 - 1918) **Arnold Bennett - Five Towns - Anna Of The Five Towns (2/11) {Sutherland Library}
(1899 - 1917) **Anna Katharine Green - Caleb Sweetwater - The Mystery Of The Hasty Arrow (7/7)
(1899 - 1909) **E. W. Hornung - Raffles - Mr Justice Raffles (4/4)
(1900 - 1974) Ernest Bramah - Kai Lung - Kai Lung: Six / Kai Lung Raises His Voice (7/7)

(1901 - 1919) **Carolyn Wells - Patty Fairfield - Patty's Suitors (12/17) {Project Gutenberg}
(1901 - 1927) **George Barr McCutcheon - Graustark - Beverly Of Graustark (2/6) {Project Gutenberg}
(1903 - 1904) **Louis Tracy - Reginald Brett - The Albert Gate Mystery (2/2)
(1905 - 1925) **Baroness Orczy - The Old Man In The Corner - Unravelled Knots (3/3)}
(1905 - 1928) **Edgar Wallace - The Just Men - Again The Three Just Men (6/6)
(1906 - 1930) **John Galsworthy - The Forsyte Saga - The White Monkey (6/11) {Fisher storage / Sutherland stack}
(1907 - 1912) **Carolyn Wells - Marjorie - Marjorie's Vacation (1/6) {ManyBooks}
(1907 - 1942) R. Austin Freeman - Dr John Thorndyke - The Jacob Street Mystery (26/26)
(1907 - 1941) *Maurice Leblanc - Arsene Lupin - The Hollow Needle (3/21) {ManyBooks}
(1908 - 1924) **Margaret Penrose - Dorothy Dale - Dorothy Dale: A Girl Of Today (1/13) {ManyBooks}
(1909 - 1942) *Carolyn Wells - Fleming Stone - The Red-Haired Girl (21/49) {Rare Books}
(1909 - 1929) *J. S. Fletcher - Inspector Skarratt - Marchester Royal (1/3) {Kindle}
(1909 - 1912) **Emerson Hough - Western Trilogy - 54-40 Or Fight (1/3) {Project Gutenberg}
(1910 - 1936) *Arthur B. Reeve - Craig Kennedy - The Adventuress (10/24) {Kindle}
(1910 - 1946) A. E. W. Mason - Inspector Hanaud - The House In Lordship Lane (7/7)
(1910 - 1917) Edgar Wallace - Inspector Smith - Kate Plus Ten (3/3)
(1910 - 1930) **Edgar Wallace - Inspector Elk - The Joker (3/6?) {ManyBooks}
(1910 - 1932) *Thomas, Mary and Hazel Hanshew - Cleek - The Amber Junk (9/12) {AbeBooks}
(1910 - 1918) **John McIntyre - Ashton-Kirk - Ashton-Kirk: Criminologist (4/4)
(1910 - 1931) Grace S. Richmond - Red Pepper Burns - Red Pepper Returns (6/6)
(1910 - 1933) Jeffery Farnol - The Vibarts - The Way Beyond (3/3) {Fisher Library storage / fadedpage.com}
(1910 - 1928) **Louis Tracy - Winter and Furneaux - The Postmaster's Daughter (5/9) {Project Gutenberg}

(1911 - 1935) G. K. Chesterton - Father Brown - The Scandal Of Father Brown (5/5)
(1911 - 1937) Mary Roberts Rinehart - Letitia Carberry - Tish Marches On (5/5)
(1911 - 1919) **Alfred Bishop Mason - Tom Strong - Tom Strong, Lincoln's Scout (5/5)
(1911 - 1940) *Bertram Atkey - Smiler Bunn - The Smiler Bunn Brigade (2/10) {rare, expensive}
(1912 - 1919) **Gordon Holmes (Louis Tracy) - Steingall and Clancy - The Bartlett Mystery (3/3)
(1913 - 1934) *Alice B. Emerson - Ruth Fielding - Ruth Fielding In The Far North (20/30) {expensive}
(1913 - 1973) Sax Rohmer - Fu-Manchu - The Bride Of Fu-Manchu (6/14) {interlibrary loan / Kindle / fadedpage.com}
(1913 - 1952) *Jeffery Farnol - Jasper Shrig - The High Adventure (4/9) {State Library NSW, JFR / Rare Books}
(1914 - 1950) Mary Roberts Rinehart - Hilda Adams - Episode Of The Wandering Knife (5/5)
(1914 - 1934) Ernest Bramah - Max Carrados - The Bravo Of London (5/5)
(1916 - 1941) John Buchan - Edward Leithen - Sick Heart River (5/5)
(1915 - 1936) *John Buchan - Richard Hannay - The Thirty-Nine Steps (1/5) {Fisher Library / Project Gutenberg / branch transfer / Kindle}
(1915 - 1923) **Booth Tarkington - Growth - The Magnificent Ambersons (2/3) {Project Gutenberg / Fisher Library / Kindle}
(1916 - 1917) **Carolyn Wells - Alan Ford - Faulkner's Folly (2/2) {owned}
(1916 - 1927) **Natalie Sumner Lincoln - Inspector Mitchell - The Nameless Man (2/10) {AbeBooks}
(1916 - 1917) **Nevil Monroe Hopkins - Mason Brant - The Strange Cases Of Mason Brant (1/2) {Coachwhip Books}
(1917 - 1929) **Henry Handel Richardson - Dr Richard Mahony - Australia Felix (1/3) {Fisher Library / Kindle}
(1918 - 1923) **Carolyn Wells - Pennington Wise - The Luminous Face (5/8) {Project Gutenberg}
(1918 - 1939) Valentine Williams - The Okewood Brothers - The Spider's Touch (6/?) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1918 - 1944) Valentine Williams - Clubfoot - The Spider's Touch (7/8) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1918 - 1950) *Wyndham Martyn - Anthony Trent - The Mysterious Mr Garland (3/26) {CARM}
(1919 - 1966) *Lee Thayer - Peter Clancy - The Key (6/60) {expensive / Rare Books}
(1919 - 1921) **Octavus Roy Cohen - David Carroll - The Crimson Alibi (1/3) {Rare Books / HathiTrust}

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

Series and sequels, 1920 - 1927:

(1920 - 1939) E. F. Benson - Mapp And Lucia - Trouble For Lucia (6/6)
(1920 - 1948) *H. C. Bailey - Reggie Fortune - Case For Mr Fortune (7/23) {State Library NSW, JFR}
(1920 - 1952) William McFee - Spenlove - The Adopted - (7/7)
(1920 - 1932) *Alice B. Emerson - Betty Gordon - Betty Gordon At Bramble Farm (1/15) {ManyBooks}
(1920 - 1975) Agatha Christie - Hercule Poirot - Curtain (38/38) {owned}
(1920 - 1921) **Natalie Sumner Lincoln - Ferguson - The Unseen Ear (2/2)
(1920 - 1937) *H. C. McNeile - Bulldog Drummond - The Black Gang (2/10 - series continued) {Roy Glashan's Library}

(1921 - 1929) **Charles J. Dutton - John Bartley - Streaked With Crimson (9/9)
(1921 - 1925) **Herman Landon - The Gray Phantom - Gray Magic (5/5)

(1922 - 1973) Agatha Christie - Tommy and Tuppence - Postern Of Fate (5/5)
(1922 - 1927) *Alice MacGowan and Perry Newberry - Jerry Boyne - The Seventh Passenger (4/5) {Amazon}
(1922 - 1931) Valentine Williams - Inspector Manderton - Death Answers The Bell (4/4)

(1923 - 1937) Dorothy L. Sayers - Lord Peter Wimsey - In The Teeth Of The Evidence (14/14)
(1923 - 1924) **Carolyn Wells - Lorimer Lane - The Fourteenth Key (2/2)
(1923 - 1931) *Agnes Miller - The Linger-Nots - The Linger-Nots And The Secret Maze (5/5) {unavailable}
(1923 - 1927) Annie Haynes - Inspector Furnival - The Crow's Inn Tragedy (3/3)

(1924 - 1959) Philip MacDonald - Colonel Anthony Gethryn - The Wraith (6/24) {ILL / JFR}
(1924 - 1957) *Freeman Wills Crofts - Inspector French - The Sea Mystery (4/30) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, JFR / ILL / Kindle}
(1924 - 1935) * / ***Francis D. Grierson - Inspector Sims and Professor Wells - The Smiling Death (6/13) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1924 - 1940) *Lynn Brock - Colonel Gore - The Dagwort Coombe Murder (5/12) {Kindle}
(1924 - 1933) *Herbert Adams - Jimmie Haswell - The Crooked Lip (2/9) {Rare Books}
(1924 - 1944) *A. Fielding - Inspector Pointer - The Charteris Mystery (2/23) {AbeBooks / Rare Books / Kindle, Resurrected Press / Project Gutenberg Australia}
(1924 - 1928) **Ford Madox Ford - Parade's End - No More Parades (2/4) {ebook}
(1924 - 1936) *Hulbert Footner - Madame Storey - Easy To Kill (7/14) {Roy Glashan's Library}

(1925 - 1961) ***John Rhode - Dr Priestley - Death In The Hopfields (25/72) {HathiTrust / State Library NSW, held}
(1925 - 1953) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Superintendent Wilson - Poison In A Garden Suburb (6/?) {State Library NSW, JFR}
(1925 - 1932) Earl Derr Biggers - Charlie Chan - Keeper Of The Keys (6/6)
(1925 - 1944) Agatha Christie - Superintendent Battle - Towards Zero (5/5)
(1925 - 1934) *Anthony Berkeley - Roger Sheringham - The Second Shot (6/10) {academic loan / Rare Books}
(1925 - 1950) *Anthony Wynne (Robert McNair Wilson) - Dr Eustace Hailey - The Double-Thirteen Mystery (2/27) (aka "The Double Thirteen") {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1925 - 1939) *Charles Barry (Charles Bryson) - Inspector Lawrence Gilmartin - The Smaller Penny (1/15) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1925 - 1929) **Will Scott - Will Disher - Disher--Detective (aka "The Black Stamp") (1/3) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1925 - 1927) **Francis Beeding - Professor Kreutzemark - The Hidden Kingdom (2/2) {Roy Glashan's Library}

(1926 - 1968) *Christopher Bush - Ludovic Travers - Murder At Fenwold (aka "The Murder Of Cosmo Revere") (3/63) {Kindle / Rare Books}
(1926 - 1939) *S. S. Van Dine - Philo Vance - The Kennel Murder Case (6/12) {fadedpage.com}
(1926 - 1952) *J. Jefferson Farjeon - Ben the Tramp - Murderer's Trail (3/8) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1926 - ????) *G. D. H. Cole / M. Cole - Everard Blatchington - Burglars In Bucks (aka "The Berkshire Mystery") (2/6) {Fisher Library}
(1926 - 1936) *Margery Lawrence - The Round Table - Nights Of The Round Table (1/2) {Kindle}
(1926 - ????) *Arthur Gask - Gilbert Larose - The Dark Highway (2/27) {University of Adelaide / Project Gutenberg Australia / mobilereads}
(1926 - 1931) *Aidan de Brune - Dr Night - Dr Night (1/3) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1926 - 1931) * / ***R. Francis Foster - Anthony Ravenhill - Anthony Ravenhill, Crime Merchant (1/?) {expensive}

(1927 - 1933) *Herman Landon - The Picaroon - The Picaroon Does Justice (2/7) {Book Searchers / CARM}
(1927 - 1932) *Anthony Armstrong - Jimmie Rezaire - The Trail Of The Lotto (3/5) {CARM / AbeBooks}
(1927 - 1937) *Ronald Knox - Miles Bredon - The Body In The Silo (3/5) {Kindle / Rare Books}
(1927 - 1958) *Brian Flynn - Anthony Bathurst - Invisible Death (6/54) {Kindle}
(1927 - 1947) *J. J. Connington - Sir Clinton Driffield - Tragedy At Ravensthorpe (2/17) {Murder Room ebook / Kindle}
(1927 - 1935) *Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Malleson) - Scott Egerton - Mystery Of The Open Window (4/10) {expensive}
(1927 - 1932) *William Morton (aka William Blair Morton Ferguson) - Kirker Cameron and Daniel "Biff" Corrigan - Masquerade (1/4) {expensive}
(1927 - 1929) **George Dilnot - Inspector Strickland - The Crooks' Game (1/2) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1927 - 1960) **Mazo de la Roche - Jalna - Jalna (1/16) {State Library NSW, JFR / fadedpage.com}
(1927 - 1949) **Dornford Yates - Richard Chandos - Perishable Goods (2/8) {State Library, JFR / Kindle}

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

Series and sequels, 1928 - 1930:

(1928 - 1961) Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver - Ladies' Bane (22/33) {fadedpage.com}
(1928 - 1936) *Gavin Holt - Luther Bastion - The Garden Of Silent Beasts (5/17) {academic loan / State Library NSW, held}
(1928 - ????) Trygve Lund - Weston of the Royal North-West Mounted Police - The Vanished Prospector (6/9) {AbeBooks}
(1928 - 1936) *Kay Cleaver Strahan - Lynn MacDonald - October House (4/7) {owned}
(1928 - 1937) *John Alexander Ferguson - Francis McNab - The Grouse Moor Murder (3/5) {HathiTrust}
(1928 - 1960) *Cecil Freeman Gregg - Inspector Higgins - The Murdered Manservant (aka "The Body In The Safe") (1/35) {rare, expensive}
(1928 - 1959) *John Gordon Brandon - Inspector Patrick Aloysius McCarthy - The Black Joss (2/53) {State Library NSW, held}
(1928 - 1935) *Roland Daniel - Wu Fang / Inspector Saville - Wu Fang (2/6) {expensive}
(1928 - 1946) *Francis Beeding - Alistair Granby - Pretty Sinister (2/18) {academic loan}
(1928 - 1930) **Annie Haynes - Inspector Stoddart - The Crystal Beads Murder (4/4)
(1928 - 1930) **Elsa Barker - Dexter Drake and Paul Howard - The Cobra Candlestick (aka "The Cobra Shaped Candlestick") (1/3) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1928 - ????) Adam Broome - Denzil Grigson - Crowner's Quest (2/?) {AbeBooks / eBay}

(1929 - 1947) Margery Allingham - Albert Campion - The Case Of The Late Pig (8/35) {interlibrary loan / Kindle / fadedpage.com}
(1929 - 1984) Gladys Mitchell - Mrs Bradley - The Devil At Saxon Wall (6/67) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1929 - 1937) Patricia Wentworth - Benbow Smith - Down Under (4/4)
(1929 - ????) Mignon Eberhart - Nurse Sarah Keate - Dead Yesterday And Other Stories (6/8) (NB: multiple Eberhart characters) {expensive / limited edition} / Wolf In Man's Clothing (7/8) {Rare Books / Kindle}
(1929 - ????) ***Moray Dalton - Inspector Collier - The Belfry Murder (4/?) - {Kindle}
(1929 - ????) * / ***Charles Reed Jones - Leighton Swift - The King Murder (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1931) Carolyn Wells - Kenneth Carlisle - The Skeleton At The Feast (3/3) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1967) *George Goodchild - Inspector McLean - McLean Of Scotland Yard (1/65) {State Library NSW, held}
(1929 - 1979) *Leonard Gribble - Anthony Slade - The Case Of The Marsden Rubies (1/33) {AbeBooks / Rare Books / re-check Kindle}
(1929 - 1932) *E. R. Punshon - Carter and Bell - The Unexpected Legacy (1/5) {expensive, omnibus / Rare Books}
(1929 - 1971) *Ellery Queen - Ellery Queen - The Roman Hat Mystery (1/40) {interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1966) *Arthur Upfield - Bony - Wings Above The Diamantina (3/29) {Fisher Library}
(1929 - 1931) *Ernest Raymond - Once In England - A Family That Was (1/3) {State Library NSW, interlibrary loan}
(1929 - 1937) *Anthony Berkeley - Ambrose Chitterwick - The Piccadilly Murder (2/3) {interlibrary loan}
(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) {Rare Books}
(1929 - 1943) *Gret Lane - Kate Clare Marsh and Inspector Barrin - The Cancelled Score Mystery (1/9) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1961) *Henry Holt - Inspector Silver - The Midnight Mail (2/16) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1930) *J. J. Connington - Superintendent Ross - The Two Tickets Puzzle (2/2)
(1929 - 1941) *H. Maynard Smith - Inspector Frost - Inspector Frost's Jigsaw (1/7) {Kindle}
(1929 - ????) *Armstrong Livingston - Jimmy Traynor - The Doublecross (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1932) Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson - Sir John Saumarez - Re-Enter Sir John (3/3)
(1929 - 1940) *Rufus King - Lieutenant Valcour - Murder By The Clock (1/11) {AbeBooks, omnibus / Kindle}
(1929 - 1933) *Will Levinrew (Will Levine) - Professor Brierly - For Sale - Murder (4/5) {AbeBooks}
(1929 - 1932) *Nancy Barr Mavity - Peter Piper - The Body On The Floor (1/5) {AbeBooks / Rare Books / State Library NSW, held}
(1929 - 1934) *Charles J. Dutton - Professor Harley Manners - The Shadow Of Evil (2/6) {expensive}
(1929 - 1932) *Thomas Cobb - Inspector Bedison - Inspector Bedison Risks It (3/4) {Kindle / owned}
(1929 - ????) * J. C. Lenehan - Inspector Kilby - The Tunnel Mystery (1/?) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1936) *Robin Forsythe - Anthony Algernon Vereker - Missing Or Murdered (1/5) {Kindle}
(1929 - 1931) */***David Frome (Zenith Jones Brown) - Major Gregory Lewis - The Murder Of An Old Man (1/3) {rare, expensive}

(1930 - ????) ***Moray Dalton - Hermann Glide - The Strange Case Of Harriet Hall (4/?) {Kindle}
(1930 - 1932) Hugh Walpole - The Herries Chronicles - Vanessa (4/4)
(1930 - 1932) Faith Baldwin - The Girls Of Divine Corners - Myra: A Story Of Divine Corners (4/4)
(1930 - 1960) ***Miles Burton - Desmond Merrion - The Platinum Cat (17/57) {Rare Books}
(1930 - 1960) ***Miles Burton - Inspector Henry Arnold - The Platinum Cat (18/57) {Rare Books}
(1930 - 1933) ***Roger Scarlett - Inspector Kane - In The First Degree (5/5) {expensive}
(1930 - 1941) *Harriette Ashbrook - Philip "Spike" Tracy - The Murder Of Sigurd Sharon (3/7) {Kindle / Rare Books}
(1930 - 1943) Anthony Abbot - Thatcher Colt - About The Murder Of The Night Club Lady (3/8) {AbeBooks / serialised}
(1930 - ????) ***David Sharp - Professor Fielding - I, The Criminal (4/?) {unavailable?}
(1930 - 1950) *H. C. Bailey - Josiah Clunk - Garstons (aka The Garston Murder Case) (1/11) {HathiTrust}
(1930 - 1968) *Francis Van Wyck Mason - Hugh North - The Vesper Service Murders (2/41) {Kindle}
(1930 - 1976) *Agatha Christie - Miss Jane Marple - Sleeping Murder (14/14) {owned}
(1930 - 1939) Anne Austin - James "Bonnie" Dundee - Murdered But Not Dead (5/5)
(1930 - 1950) *Leslie Ford (as David Frome) - Mr Pinkerton and Inspector Bull - The Hammersmith Murders (1/11) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1930 - 1935) *"Diplomat" (John Franklin Carter) - Dennis Tyler - Murder In The State Department (1/7) {Amazon / Abebooks}
(1930 - 1962) *Helen Reilly - Inspector Christopher McKee - The Diamond Feather (1/31) {Rare Books}
(1930 - 1933) *Mary Plum - John Smith - The Killing Of Judge MacFarlane (1/4) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1930 - 1945) *Hulbert Footner - Amos Lee Mappin - The Death Of A Celebrity (2/10) {mobilereads / omnibus}
(1930 - 1940) *E. M. Delafield - The Provincial Lady - The Provincial Lady In Wartime (4/4)
(1930 - 1933) *Monte Barrett - Peter Cardigan - The Pelham Murder Case (1/3) {Amazon}
(1930 - 1931) Vernon Loder - Inspector Brews - Death Of An Editor (2/2)
(1930 - 1931) *Roland Daniel - John Hopkins - The Rosario Murder Case (1/2) {unavailable?}
(1930 - 1961) Mark Cross ("Valentine", aka Archibald Thomas Pechey) - Daphne Wrayne and her Four Adjusters - The Adjusters (1/53) {rare, expensive}
(1930 - ????) Elaine Hamilton - Inspector Reynolds - The Westminster Mystery (1/?) {Kindle}

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

Series and sequels, 1931 - 1955:

(1931 - 1940) Bruce Graeme - Superintendent Stevens and Pierre Allain - Satan's Mistress (4/8) {expensive}
(1931 - 1951) Phoebe Atwood Taylor - Asey Mayo - Sandbar Sinister (5/24) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1931 - 1955) Stuart Palmer - Hildegarde Withers - Murder On The Blackboard (3/18) {Kindle}
(1931 - 1951) Olive Higgins Prouty - The Vale Novels - Fabia (5/5)
(1931 - 1933) Sydney Fowler - Inspector Cleveland - Arresting Delia (4/4)
(1931 - 1934) J. H. Wallis - Inspector Wilton Jacks - The Capital City Mystery (2/6) {Rare Books}
(1931 - ????) Paul McGuire - Inspector Cummings - Daylight Murder (aka "Murder At High Noon") (3/5) {academic loan / State Library NSW, held}
(1931 - 1937) Carlton Dawe - Leathermouth - The Sign Of The Glove (2/13) {academic loan / State Library NSW, held}
(1931 - 1947) R. L. Goldman - Asaph Clume and Rufus Reed - Murder Without Motive (2/6) {Wildside Press}
(1931 - 1959) E. C. R. Lorac (Edith Caroline Rivett) - Inspector Robert Macdonald - The Murder On The Burrows (1/46) {rare, expensive}
(1931 - 1935) Clifton Robbins - Clay Harrison - Methylated Murder (5/5)
(1931 - 1972) Georges Simenon - Inspector Maigret - L'Ombre chinoise (12/75) {ILL}
(1931 - 1934) T. S. Stribling - The Vaiden Trilogy - The Store (2/3) {Internet Archive / academic loan / State Library, held}
(1931 - 1935) Pearl S. Buck - The House Of Earth - A House Divided (3/3)
(1931 - 1942) R. A. J. Walling - Garstang - The Stroke Of One (1/3) {Amazon}
(1931 - ????) Francis Bonnamy (Audrey Boyers Walz) - Peter Utley Shane - Death By Appointment (1/8) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1931 - 1937) J. S. Fletcher - Ronald Camberwell - Murder In The Squire's Pew (3/11) {Kindle / State Library NSW, held}
(1931 - 1933) Edwin Dial Torgerson - Sergeant Pierre Montigny - The Murderer Returns (1/2) {Rare Books)
(1931 - 1933) Molly Thynne - Dr Constantine and Inspector Arkwright - Death In The Dentist's Chair (2/3) {Kindle}
(1931 - 1935) Valentine Williams - Sergeant Trevor Dene - Masks Off At Midnight (3/4) {Roy Glashan's Library}
(1931 - 1942) Patricia Wentworth - Frank Garrett - Pursuit Of A Parcel (5/5)
(1931 - 1931) Frances Shelley Wees - Michael Forrester and Tuck Torrie - The Mystery Of The Creeping Man (2/2)

(1932 - 1954) Sydney Fowler - Inspector Cambridge and Mr Jellipot - The Bell Street Murders (1/11) {AbeBooks / Rare Books}
(1932 - 1935) Murray Thomas - Inspector Wilkins - Buzzards Pick The Bones (1/3) {AbeBooks, expensive}
(1932 - ????) R. A. J. Walling - Philip Tolefree - VIII To IX (aka "Eight To Nine" aka "The Bachelor Flat Mystery") (4/22) {Kindle}
(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) {Kindle / Rare Books}
(1932 - 1944) Nicholas Brady (John Victor Turner) - Ebenezer Buckle - The House Of Strange Guests (1/4) {Kindle}
(1932 - 1932) Lizette M. Edholm - The Merriweather Girls - The Merriweather Girls At Good Old Rockhill (4/4) {HathiTrust}
(1932 - 1933) Barnaby Ross (aka Ellery Queen) - Drury Lane - Drury Lane's Last Case (4/4) {AbeBooks}
(1932 - 1952) D. E. Stevenson - Mrs Tim - Mrs Tim Flies Home (5/5) {interlibrary loan}
(1932 - ????) Richard Essex (Richard Harry Starr) - Jack Slade - Slade Of The Yard (1/?) {AbeBooks}
(1932 - 1933) Gerard Fairlie - Mr Malcolm - Shot In The Dark (1/3) (State Library NSW, held}
(1932 - 1934) Paul McGuire - Inspector Fillinger - The Tower Mystery (aka Death Tolls The Bell) (1/5) {Rare Books / State Library, held}
(1932 - 1946) Roland Daniel - Inspector Pearson - The Crackswoman (1/6) {unavailable?}
(1932 - 1951) Sydney Horler - Tiger Standish - Tiger Standish (1/11) {Rare Books}

(1933 - 1959) John Gordon Brandon - Arthur Stukeley Pennington - West End! (1/?) {AbeBooks / State Library, held}
(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 / State Library NSW, interlibrary loan}
(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 / State Library NSW, held / Rare Books}
(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 / Rare Books}
(1933 - 1957) John Creasey - Department Z - The Death Miser (1/28) {State Library NSW, held}
(1933 - 1940) Bruce Graeme - Superintendent Stevens - Body Unknown (2/2) {expensive}
(1933 - 1952) Wyndham Martyn - Christopher Bond - Christopher Bond, Adventurer (1/8) {rare}
(1934 - 1936) Storm Jameson - The Mirror In Darkness - Company Parade (1/3) {Fisher Library}
(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) {unavailable?}
(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) {interlibrary loan / omnibus}
(1934 - 1953) Leslie Ford (Zenith Jones Brown) - Colonel Primrose - The Strangled Witness (1/17) {Rare Books}
(1934 - 1975) Rex Stout - Nero Wolfe - Fer-de-Lance (1/?) {Rare Books / State Library NSW, JFR / Kindle}
(1934 - 1935) Vernon Loder - Inspector Chace - Murder From Three Angles (1/2) {Kindle /
(1935 - 1939) Francis Beeding - Inspector George Martin - The Norwich Victims (1/3) {AbeBooks / Book Depository / State Library NSW, held}
(1935 - 1976) Nigel Morland - Palmyra Pym - The Moon Murders (1/28) {State Library NSW, held}
(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 / State Library NSW, held / Rare Books}
(1935 - ????) George Harmon Coxe - Kent Murdock - Murder With Pictures (1/22) {AbeBooks}
(1935 - 1959) Kathleen Moore Knight - Elisha Macomber - Death Blew Out The Match (1/16) {AbeBooks / Amazon}
(1936 - 1974) Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Malleson) - Arthur Crook - Murder By Experts (1/51) {interlibrary loan}
(1936 - 1952) Helen Dore Boylston - Sue Barton - Sue Barton, Student Nurse (1/7) {interlibrary loan}
(1936 - 1940) George Bell Dyer - The Catalyst Club - The Catalyst Club (1/3) {AbeBooks}
(1936 - 1956) Theodora Du Bois - Anne and Jeffrey McNeil - Armed With A New Terror (1/19) {unavailable?}
(1936 - 1945) Charles Kingston - Chief Inspector Wake - Murder In Piccadilly (1/7) {Kindle}
(1937 - 1953) Leslie Ford (Zenith Jones Brown) - Grace Latham - Ill Met By Moonlight (1/16){Kindle}
(1938 - 1944) Zelda Popkin - Mary Carner - Death Wears A White Gardenia (1/6) {Kindle}
(1939 - 1942) Patricia Wentworth - Inspector Lamb - The Ivory Dagger (11/?) {fadedpage.com}
(1939 - 1940) Clifton Robbins - George Staveley - Six Sign-Post Murder (1/2) {Biblio / rare}
(1940 - 1943) Bruce Graeme - Pierre Allain - The Corporal Died In Bed (1/3) {unavailable?}
(1941 - 1951) Bruce Graeme - Theodore I. Terhune - Seven Clues In Search Of A Crime (1/7) {unavailable?}
(1947 - 1974) Dennis Wheatley - Roger Brook - The Launching Of Roger Brook (1/12) {Fisher Library storage}
(1948 - 1971) E. V. Timms - The Gubbys - Forever To Remain (1/12) {Fisher Library / interlibrary loan}
(1953 - 1960) Dennis Wheatley - Molly Fountain and Colonel Verney - To The Devil A Daughter (1/2) {Fisher Library storage}
(1955 - 1956) D. E. Stevenson - The Ayrton Family - Summerhills (2/2) {interlibrary loan}
(1955 - 1991) Patricia Highsmith - Tom Ripley - Ripley Under Ground (2/5) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}
(1957 - 1993) Chester B. Himes - The Harlem Cycle - For Love Of Imabelle (aka "A Rage In Harlem") (1/9) {interlibrary loan / Kindle}

*** Incompletely available series

Unavailable series works:

John Rhode - Dr Priestley
The Hanging Woman (#11) {rare, expensive}

Miles Burton - Desmond Merrion / Inspector Arnold
>everything from #2 - #11 inclusive

David Sharp - Professor Fielding
When No Man Pursueth (#1)

Francis D. Grierson - Inspector Sims and Professor Wells
The Double Thumb (#3) {expensive}

Roger Scarlett - Inspector Kane {NB: Now available in paperback, but expensive}
>#4 onwards (to end of series)

Alfred Bishop Mason - Tom Strong
Tom Strong, Boy-Captain (#2)
Tom Strong, Junior (#3)
Tom Strong, Third (#4)

Roland Daniel - Wu Fang
The Society Of The Spiders (#1)

Agnes Miller - The Linger-Nots
The Linger-Nots And The Secret Maze (#5)

Books currently on loan:

  


        

Reading projects:

Blog:

        

        

Other projects:

        

        

Group read news:

A reminder that there will be a group read of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret in April. This will be conducted through the Virago group, but everyone is welcome!

Meanwhile, we have Anthony Trollope's Castle Richmond pencilled in for July. More definite news as we get closer.

Ruminations:

Well! - I am totally staggered to find myself setting up a new thread because I am effectively UP TO DATE with my reviewing!

Of course it helps that March is turning out to be completely dominated by chunksters, so that I have only completed three books so far this month (one of them a blog-read).

This is shaping as my least productive reading month since I started keeping notes---that is, numerically. But I'm less fussed about that than I am that the resurrected 'March Murder & Mayhem' themed month is going to be a complete bust, which given my usual reading patterns is both absurd and frustrating. I shall have to make up for it with a disproportionate number of mysteries next month!

Enough! - come on in.

If you haven't already... :)

I'm thinking you've reserved all you need, Liz, so Happy New Thread! They are closing our library starting Monday for three weeks. I stopped by today to pick up the two holds that were in.

>19 ronincats:

Thanks, Roni!

Yeah, I keep having thoughts like, "Library visits are essential, right??" I've been mentally planning my trips and need to remind myself to check first that everything is actually open!

This arachnophobe thanks you for refraining from a close-up picture of one of those critters, Liz! I acknowledge and appreciate their contributions to the circle of life; I'd just prefer it if they contributed outside of my direct line of sight. :-)

I'm glad you found. TIOLI slot for your chunkster. And sorry that you haven't been able to fit more murder & mayhem into your reading this month. But at least you are caught up on your reviews!

Happy new one!

Great topper.

Happy new thread, Liz!

Happy new thread!

Happy new thread, Liz!

>1 lyzard: Sharing your like of insects and arachnids of all sorts, so would not mind a picture. Searched the web and found it ;-)

>21 rosalita:, >22 figsfromthistle:, >23 harrygbutler:, >24 thornton37814:, >25 FAMeulstee:

Thank you, Julia, Anita, Harry, Lori and Anita! :)

>21 rosalita:

Fair warning: many spiders are rather beautiful and I will be attempting to win over a few arachnophobes on an aesthetic basis in future. :D

This is turning out to be a very strange reading month. I see no definite mysteries beyond Postern Of Fate (which thankfully did fit TIOLI!); the other I'd really like to get to requires travel and in-library reading, which is obviously problematic. I should probably just let it go...but as you would know, that's not exactly my forte.

>25 FAMeulstee:

Good for you, Anita! We should band together against this terrible prejudice. :D

Publication date: 1829
Genre: Classic
Read for: C. K. Shorter 'Best 100 Novels' challenge

The Collegians - Gerald Griffin's 1829 novel shows the beginning of a broader concept of the Irish regional novel, which previously had been almost exclusively conceived in terms of the English / Irish relationship and the consequences of the Act of Union, such as absentee landlordism. Set some fifty years prior to its date of publication, The Collegians is, rather, a study of conditions, and of class differences and conflicts within Irish society itself; its central situation, the cross-class marriage of a young man of the gentry and a working-class girl, was based upon a famous real-life case which occurred about a decade before the novel's publication. The focus of The Collegians is Hardress Cregan, a spoiled, rather wilful young man whose impulsiveness brings disaster upon himself and those closest to him. The only child of a proud and rather domineering mother, Hardress's own pride manifests in an unfounded reliance on his own judgement and a tendency to go to extremes. Convinced that what he thinks and feels at one moment he will think and feel forever, Hardress's temporary disgust with society leads him to pursue and persuade into a secret marriage Eily O'Connor, a beautiful but uneducated working-class girl. Not immediately daring to confess his marriage, Hardress conceals Eily in a remote cottage, promising her that he will soon reconcile his parents to the situation. However, when he arrives home, Hardress discovers that his mother has invited Anne Chute, his step-cousin, to stay---clearly hoping for a marriage between the two of them. Making one of his snap judgements, Hardress had earlier dismissed Anne as cold and artificial; and when he now finds her instead approachable, cultured and intelligent, he begins making comparisons not at all to the advantage of his wife... Though we can admire what Gerald Griffin was aspiring to in The Collegians, the novel is seriously flawed in its structure, as well as unnecessarily long due to a surfeit of "Irishisms" in the form of interpolated folk-songs and lengthy anecdotes told in dialect. Nevertheless, Griffin displays a certain courage in his willingness to concede the failures of the Irish landed class, rather than blaming all of the sufferings of the farming and working-classes upon the English, as earlier Irish and Anglo-Irish writers tended to do: those scenes depicting the drunkenness, violence and casual cruelty of the gentry are repellent but painfully effective. However, this is finally a very unbalanced book, with the second "collegian", Kyrle Daly, playing a supporting role rather than featuring equally with Hardress Cregan as the novel's title would suggest. (The title, indeed, gives no real indication of the content.) While it is likely that Griffin initially intended this, Kyrle's very steadiness and reliability left his creator with nowhere to go in terms of character development. Furthermore, I suspect that Griffin became more caught up than he anticipated in his dissection of Hardress's state of mind as he finds himself falling in love with Anne. The second half of The Collegians, though wildly melodramatic, occasionally succeeds in creating some genuine tragedy---particularly when, having learned to be disgusted by the very qualities that first attracted him to her, Hardress brutally repudiates the unfortunate Eily. The fact remains, however, that he is married to her---and that only dark and drastic action can alter the situation. In his crisis, Hardress finds himself tempted by the very loyalty of his servant and foster-brother, Daniel Mann, who makes clear his willingness to serve his young master in any way asked of him...

    "Danny," Hardress said, at length, "do you remember a conversation which I had with you some weeks since on the Purple Mountain?"
    "O den, master," said Danny, putting his hands together, with a beseeching look, "don’t talk o’ dat any more. I ax heaven’s pardon, an' I ax your pardon, for what I said; and I hope and pray your honour 'ill tink of it no more. Many is de time I was sorry for it since, and moreover now being on my sick bed, an' tinking of every ting."
    "Pooh, pooh! you do not understand me. Do you remember your saying something about hiring a passage for Eily in a North American vessel---"
    "I do, an' I ax pardon. Let me out o’ de bed, an' I’ll go down on my two knees---"
    "Pish! bah! be silent! When you spoke of that I was not wise enough to judge correctly. Do you mark? If that conversation were to pass again I would not speak, nor think, nor feel as I did then."
    Danny gaped and stared on him, as if at a loss.
    "Look here! you asked me for a token of my approbation. Do you remember it? You bade me draw my glove from off my hand, and give it for a warrant. Danny," he continued, plucking off the glove slowly, finger after finger; "my mind has altered. I married too young. I didn’t know my own mind. Your words were wiser than I thought. I am hampered in my will. I am burning with this thraldom. Here is my glove."
    Danny received it, while they exchanged a look of cold and fatal intelligence...

Happy new thread, Liz.

>28 PaulCranswick:

Thank you, Paul!

Gerald Griffin's The Collegians was read for my C. K. Shorter challenge.

Next up is another regional novel - Scottish instead of Irish this time - and a book which I must confess I can't remember ever hearing of before; anyone?---


#37: The Life Of Mansie Wauch, Tailor In Dalkeith by David Moir (1828)




One of the things I'm enjoying most about the Shorter challenge is that it (ahem) challenges one of the most stubborn pieces of dogma concerning the development of the novel, namely, that nothing worth reading was published during the 1820s. Most formal studies, indeed, tend to jump from Jane Austen and Walter Scott to William Makepeace Thackeray and Charles Dickens without even a glance at what was going on in between.

But in this, as in all else, Clement Shorter's 'Best 100 Novels' list is iconoclastic; in fact, I've been stuck in the 1820s for months with this challenge, mostly with regard to regional novels (like The Collegians) and historical fiction: not the works of Walter Scott as such, though Kenilworth is on the list, but of those inspired by Scott, who began writing historical fiction of their own all around the world.

Furthermore--- Presumably they weren't high-brow enough for your average critic, but those missing years also gave rise to the progenitor works of the entire English mystery and crime genre.

Don't try to tell me those aren't important...

(Much to my delight, Shorter strays in that direction too, though not until the 1830s.)

One other random thought regarding The Collegians: the resemblance between its central plot and the plot of Lost And Found, one of the shorter works contained in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Ralph The Bailiff, And Other Tales, which I blogged about earlier in the year (here). I am now wondering whether Braddon read The Collegians and adapted it to her own purposes, or whether like Gerald Griffin she was familiar with the real-life scandal that inspired the earlier work.

>30 lyzard: Shorter seems to have set up his rules to favor lesser known authors: only one by each author, author must be dead. Compared to the Daily Telegraph list from 1899, he includes more women, too.

>31 NinieB:

These are the reasons I like this challenge. Shorter kept himself to one book per author (the Telegraph one almost does complete works for some), he has a good mix of men and women, and his list is international not Anglo-centric.

The general idiosyncrasy is just the icing on the cake. :)

>26 lyzard: I would not be opposed to a discreetly sized picture of an arachnid as long as it isn't glaring at me from the top of a thread ...

Re your lack of mysteries this month... you've got Maudie in the wings if you get desperate. :-)

Happy new thread Liz.
*pause while I pick myself up off the floor*
Struggling with the concept of you actually being up-to-date with reviewing!

I agree, I like the idea of the spread of authors in Shorter's list. It's my main bugbear with the 1001 list, lots of books by an author you don't enjoy is not worth reading.

>33 rosalita:

Not sure I can promise that... :D

BTW I saw in passing that your boxing mice photo was the winner in the 'People's Choice' category, though I imagine it was submitted for 'Urban Wildlife'. (I usually find those depressing, and don't use them.)

Maudie will have to wait her turn like everyone else: I'm sure she's too well-bred to cut in line, in any case. :)

>34 Helenliz:

Thanks, Helen!

You and me both, sister!

Naturally I haven't looked at anything so recent as the 1001 Books (at least not properly), but yes, the Telegraph list strikes me as lazy and unimaginative in comparison with Shorter's. The attraction there is the opposite---discovering if there's actually anything on it I haven't read, let alone haven't heard of. :)

Finished Oil! for TIOLI #1 (and shifted The Wild Irish Girl to TIOLI #15).

Now reading By Love Possessed by James Gould Cozzens.

Publication date: 1806
Genre: Classic
Read for: C. K. Shorter challenge / A Century Of Reading

The Wild Irish Girl, A National Tale - The modern regional novel was effectively established via Maria Edgeworth's Castle Rackrent and The Absentee, with the latter offering a thoughtful and sympathetic take on Irish conditions around the time of the Act of Union. However, Edgeworth's willingness to see both sides of the situation gave way to passionate nationalism in the next Irish novel of significance, The Wild Irish Girl by Sydney Owenson (later Lady Morgan). Far from embracing Edgeworth's mediatory approach, Owenson set to work attacking the prevailing stereotypes of Ireland and its people. The result is a work that, at the time of its publication, was both highly controversial and extremely popular, but which may now be seen as important rather than good. The Wild Irish Girl is a faux-epistolary novel, that is, a first-person narrative broken up into a series of (unanswered) letters. Its protagonist is a young Englishman of aristocratic birth, who we know only by his initials, 'H. M.', but who adopts the name 'Henry Mortimer'. His letters are addressed to a friend at home who, significantly, is an English Member of Parliament. Having fallen out with his father, the Earl of M---, Mortimer is banished to the family estate in Ireland (the fact that the Earl is an absentee landlord does not impact the narrative as Edgeworth's earlier works lead us to expect), where he arrives chock-full of English prejudice. Mortimer learns that the estate came into his family's possession during the Cromwellian wars, when one of his ancestors slew (perhaps murdered) the then-Prince of Inesmore. Curiosity leads Mortimer north, to the desolate, crumbling castle of the current prince who, with only a daughter, is the last of his line. An accident leads to Mortimer being taken in by the prince. Knowing of the implacable hatred his host bears for his family, the young man adopts a false name, posing as an artist on a walking-tour of Ireland: a false position that will lead him into great difficulties, as he finds himself falling in love with the beautiful, unsophisticated yet brilliant Princess of Inesmore, Glorvina... The Wild Irish Girl can hardly be called a novel. It is, rather, a series of lengthy lectures about Irish history, art and culture, delivered in a non-stop torrent from the moment Mortimer sets foot in the country, and duly transmitted word for word in his extremely unconvincing "letters". The central argument is that Ireland has a far lengthier and richer history than anywhere else in Europe, but has been the victim of deliberate campaigns by the English to destroy what they could and to suppress the rest---all by way of justifying the theft of Irish land and the brutalising of the Irish people. The argument itself is cogent enough, but Owenson takes it to some fairly absurd extremes, positing Ireland as the progenitor land of all European culture, and supporting her assertions with a riot of increasingly lengthy footnotes that almost take over the entire work. Eventually, however, and rather belatedly, Owenson remembers that The Wild Irish Girl is supposed to be a novel: the lecturing finally gives way to a perfunctory love- (or at least, marriage-) triangle, with Mortimer discovering that Glorvina is promised to, if not in love with, another man; typical late-18th century emotional agonies result. Also typical is the resolution of this last-minute outbreak of plot, which turns the narrative's central relationship into a symbolic enactment of the Act of Union---indicating that whatever Owenson felt about English rule, she understood that it wasn't going anywhere.

    The more I know of this singular girl, the more the happy discordia consors of her character awakens my curiosity and surprise. I never beheld such a union of intelligence and simplicity, infantine playfulness and profound reflection as her character exhibits. Sometimes when I think I am trifling with a child, I find I am conversing with a philosopher; and sometimes in the midst of the most serious and interesting conversation, some impulse of the moment seizes on her imagination, and a vein of frolic humour and playful sarcasm is indulged at the expense of my most sagacious arguments or philosophic gravity. Her reserve (unknown to herself) is gradually giving way to the most bewitching familiarity.
    When the priest is engaged, I am suffered to tread with her the “pathless grass,” climb the mountain’s steep, or ramble along the sea-beat coast, sometimes followed by her nurse, and sometimes by a favourite little dog only.
    Of nothing which concerns her country is she ignorant; and when a more interesting, a more soul-felt conversation, cannot be obtained, I love to draw her into a little national chit-chat.
    Yesterday, as we were walking along the base of that mountain from which I first beheld her dear residence...several groups of peasants (mostly females,) passed us, with their usual courteous salutations, and apparently dressed in their holiday garbs.
    “Poor souls!” said Glorvina---“this is a day of jubilee to them, for a great annual fair is held in the neighbourhood.”
    “But from whence,” said I “do they draw the brightness of those tints which adorn their coarse garments; those gowns and ribbons, that rival the gay colouring of that heath hedge; those bright blue and scarlet mantles? Are they, too, vestiges of ancient modes and ancient taste?”
    “Certainly they are,” she replied, “and the colours which the Irish were celebrated for wearing and dyeing a thousand years back, are now most prevalent. In short, the ancient Irish, like the Israelites, were so attached to this many coloured costume, that it became the mark by which the different classes of the people were distinguished. Kings were limited to seven colours in their royal robes; and six were allowed the bards. What an idea does this give of the reverence paid to superior talent in other times by our forefathers!"

Anyone venturing to read The Wild Irish Girl should be aware that there are variant editions: some open with an exchange of letters between the protagonist and his father, which makes clear the former's various transgressions; others remove these letters and begin with the first letter from 'H. M.' to his friend, 'J. D.', leaving the reasons for his banishment to Ireland to be inferred.

It isn't clear which is the "preferred" version, though Owenson may have felt that in spelling out her hero's sins, she was in danger of making him unworthy of the perfect Glorvina.

Oddly, it is only in the edition that includes the extra letters that we ever learn the narrator's real first name, Horatio.

G'day, Liz! I have a spider story that perhaps only you will appreciate. This morning when I was leaving for work, I opened my apartment door and saw a huge (OK, medium-sized) spider just inside the doorsill. Normally, I would have stepped right on it but remembering your inexplicable affection for the little monsters up thread I decided to try a little compassion — although prepared to lower the boom if at any point it tried to make a break for it inside my apartment.

As I watched, it seemed to sense my presence and it made an attempt to climb over the sill and out of the apartment, but it was struggling to get over. I tapped my walking cane just behind it for encouragement and eventually it got out into the hallway, where it paused presumably to get its bearings.

As I carefully stepped around it I said aloud, "I'm letting you live this time. Don't make me regret that decision." At that exact moment, my neighbor opened her apartment door to leave. She gave me the strangest look, clearly thinking I was either threatening her or talking to an imaginary foe. I didn't have the energy to explain so I just kept going.

I fully expect to see her moving out this weekend.

>39 rosalita: Good job, Julia!

>39 rosalita:, >40 FAMeulstee:

Ahem. You should let them live ALL the time... :)

But I know that went against your instincts, so well done!

Perhaps you could try getting hold of a clear plastic container with a lid, big enough for you to keep what you consider a comfortable distance, and using it as a bug-catcher?

I'm spending an inordinate amount of time doing just that at the moment, trapping and relocating the current crop of huntsmen---not because I mind them, but because one of my cats shares your instincts.

As for your neighbour--- Nah, people. I got nuthin'... :D

Finished By Love Possessed for TIOLI #10.

Now reading Postern Of Fate by Agatha Christie.

...and having finished YET ANOTHER overlong chunkster for the best-seller challenge, I turned with undiminished optimism to the Top Ten list for 1959.

Maybe this time, I thought to myself, it will be something short-ish, something bright and breezy that---

Ehhhhhh, crap...

Anyway.

The State Library has closed down, however at the moment there's no indication that either my local library or my academic library has.

As for the latter, I had requested a couple of storage items and meant to combine picking them up with an in-library Rare Book read. The last won't be happening, but I'm hoping I still have today to run in, offload my pile of returns, and pick up a new batch of books before the seemingly inevitable happens.

I will give it a few hours and see whether there is a status change before setting out for what will no doubt be my last library visit for quite some time... :(

ETA: Dagnabbit, too late! - academic library now on restricted access.

>44 lyzard: Darn, it is always in the timing!

Stay safe Liz.

>46 lyzard:

I appreciate that worrying about whether I can get hold of next month's challenge book or not comes under the heading of First World Book Problems, but it's still annoying. :D

Thanks, Paul, you too!

Finished Postern Of Fate for TIOLI #2.

Which means I have also finished this month's designated challenge reading, something that seemed highly unlikely not so long ago; so, phew!

However, I've reached this point much later in the month than is usually the case. I'm also dealing with the fact that the present situation is going to keep me from most of the other reads I had mentally pencilled in for TIOLI. (Never mind a sweeplette: alas, I'm not even going to get a Lizlette!)

So I'm sitting here without a plan, but with a growing case of the OCD quivers---how do you people who read spontaneously even do that!?---trying to decide whether the next week will be about trying to fill in a few more TIOLI spots, or resting my brain with a little belated Murder & Mayhem.

To which the answer, in the short term at least, is "both":

Now reading Murder In The Cellar by Loise Eppley and Rebecca Gayton.

Meanwhile---finishing Postern Of Fate means that I have FINISHED A SERIES!!

To mark the occasion, here is Emilia's marmoset...no, really: it was named for the German-born Brazilian ornithologist, Emilia Snethlage (and accordingly is sometimes known as Snethlage's marmoset), by its discoverer, the British zoologist, Oldfield Thomas, in thanks for all the specimens sent to him by the lady in question:

>47 lyzard:, >48 lyzard: Woo hoo on the finished series and finishing Postern of Fate. I thought Passenger to Frankfurt would be my least favourite Agatha Christie but PoF knocked it out of the park in that respect.

I feel your pain on the libraries closing - I think that's what I'm going to miss the most over the next few weeks. My next biggest fear is that online ordering and deliver of books will have to stop..... Thank goodness for ebooks.

I normally use the TIOLI challenges to plan my reading but at the moment I'm struggling to find books I feel like reading - so trying to read by mood but still not sure what my mood is....?

>49 souloftherose: Hello, Emilia's marmoset! And now I want a book about Ms Snethlage and her incessant specimen collecting-and-sending.

I feel ya on the library thing (no, not this LibraryThing) — somehow having access to books cut off makes the whole thing seem so much more dire.

Can you use LT's Folly feature to surface random books for you to slot in for reading? I realize the thought may give you the heebie-jeebies, but maybe you'll learn to like winging it!

>48 lyzard: those an an impressive set of ears. One could make references to handles on jugs, but that would be cruel.
Nice series finishing.

>49 souloftherose: I know what you mean. I've been watching art documentaries, as they're pretty and soothing. Not sure what I want to read - certainly I have one on the go that I think might never be finished.

...aaaand I had a nice long post almost written responding to Heather, Julia and Helen, and one of my cats stepped on the keyboard and I lost the lot.

We may not all survive isolation.

What was I saying?

>49 souloftherose:

Thanks so much for joining me---more than ever! Sadly they're both terrible in their different ways, although I do give Postern Of Fate a half-smidgen of grace purely for the boxes of books business at the beginning.

My local library closed yesterday, the last of the three to do so. They also sent out a universal 'don't worry about your books' email. I am a little worried about my interlibrary loans, though I would think there would be a blanket amnesty.

I found this month's TIOLI quite difficult across the board, and was just relieved to fit all my designated challenge reading in. Usually after that I try to fill in the remaining slots but this time it requires books I just don't have to hand. I suspect I'll fill out the next week by slotting pre-held ebooks into the 'pre-2020' challenge, though I would like to join in for Nevertheless, She Persisted if the right mood strikes me.

It does worry me a bit that even in these circumstances I'm turning to murder mysteries, but then, there's no accounting for comfort-reading taste... :)

BTW---are you still okay to start Lady Audley's Secret next weekend? Thank goodness it's available as an ebook. We were building a really good group: I wonder if now we'll get more or less participants?

>50 rosalita:

I did some hunting around for more information on Emilia. Most of it is in Portuguese or German, but I did find this article:

Emilia

I love that teaching children provoked her to run off to the Amazon! :D

In most circumstances the thought of winging it is enough to bring on a panic attack, although I do use the random number generator to pick books for a subset of reading both on LT and for my blog. I'm stalled here at the moment, however, because of course this requires, sigh, an interlibrary loan.

>51 Helenliz:

Thanks, Helen!

Yes, you can actually figure out what subspecies a marmoset belongs to by its ears---whether they are small and pointy, big and fluffy, or oversized and naked. :D

I've spent this whole month on books like that so I sympathise!

The closure of the libraries has forced me to stop and consider what - if anything - I am going to do about next month's best-seller challenge book---which happens to be Boris Pasternak's Dr Zhivago.

Apparently the Reading Gods misinterpreted my howls about overlong American best-sellers, and so supplied me with an overlong Russian best-seller instead.

As always in these situations, you have to stop and think about which translation to access (or, in the current situation, try to access).

In my searches I came across an article by Pasternak's niece, Ann Pasternak Slater, in which she criticises the most recent translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky as "too literal", comparing it to the first English-language translation by Max Hayward and Manya Harari, who apparently used much English phraseology where they found the original Russian too obscure or situation-specific.

Personally I hate it when translators resort to English-language colloquialisms: I find it jolting and uncomfortable; so I don't have a problem with that aspect of the Pevear / Volokhonsky version. A more serious criticism is that on a number of occasions, it seems that P/V may have picked the wrong word amongst several possible choices; another, that their very literalism undermines Pasternak's intended lyricism.

Other reviewers have tackled this problem, including in this helpful article, which lacks the sense of personal grievance that marks the other one.

Mind you, when I say "helpful"--- 71 comments in, there's no consensus; though the problem is neatly summarised by these remarks:

"I eventually went for the P/V translation and found it had some clunky bits and some beautifully phrased bits, but it never stopped feeling like a translation to me. The H/H, from the bits I read and your sample, flows more naturally, but I did feel it was quite often too anglicised – I could not only forget it was a translation but sometimes it stopped even feeling like Russia!"

None of which really gets me any closer to a decision; though the repeated description of /HH as "too anglicised' might decide the matter

Happy newish thread, Liz.

I am not the arachnophobe in my family - that would be my husband. I remember playing with tarantulas as a kid. They never bothered me :)

>55 lyzard:

Thanks, Stasia!

Aw, I always wanted a pet tarantula! :D

Finished Murder In The Cellar for TIOLI #5.

Now reading The Back-Seat Murder by Herman Landon.

BTW has there been a book lists bug going around?

I suddenly lost a chunk of books from my lists this morning, though I could still search for and find individual books with my details.

After some fiddling around I got them back but it was very unnerving for a while!

>57 lyzard: Losing my lists makes me just as scared as most viruses!

Stay safe Liz and take care of those lists! x

Just catching up on your March thread. I love your book banter and I am not afraid of spiders, so post away!

>57 lyzard: Gosh, I'm glad you didn't lose any data, Liz! So nerve-wracking when things seem to just disappear! I've not really used the lists feature because I'm not sure I have any good use cases. How do you use them?

>58 PaulCranswick:

Me, too - not exactly what I needed just now!

>59 Berly:

Hi, Kim - thanks for visiting!

I'm delighted that the arachnophiles are outnumbering the -phobes. :D

Speaking of whom...

>60 rosalita:

Oh, no, not the LT lists: I meant my own data, including my unwieldy (to put it mildly) wishlist. I was poking around yet again in my list of 1931 publications* and noticed that what I know to be the first book on that list was missing. I eventually figured out that all my books tagged 'read 2013' had disappeared. I could find them if I did a general LT search, but not by searching in 'Your Books'. Then after some increasingly panicky sorting and resorting they suddenly reappeared---I don't know why either way, but phew!

(*Though I have a good excuse this time: I was working out what I can access immediately as an ebook, and what will have to be set aside.)

Finished The Back-Seat Murder for TIOLI #5.

Now reading Nevertheless, She Persisted by Tor Books.

>61 lyzard: Oh, I see! In your catalog. That would be anxiety-inducing, for sure!

Publication date: 1927
Genre: Contemporary drama
Read for: 'Banned In Boston' challenge

Oil! - As a child, James Arnold Ross Jr - known as 'Bunny' - accompanies his father, a self-made millionaire, as he builds his independent oil company in the teeth of the major conglomerates. Bunny understands that he is meant to be learning the business from the ground up but, blessed or cursed with both imagination and empathy, he becomes increasingly distressed by the dishonest tactics that his father employs. Bunny's life is changed forever by his odd friendship with Paul Watkins, a poor but painfully honest son of the family whose land - unbeknownst to them - sits atop some of the richest oil-fields in Southern California. It is Bunny who makes this discovery---and who must live with the guilt as his father, through manipulation and bribery, gains possession of this treasure. Paralysed by the conflict between his father's expectations of him and his increasing sympathy with the cause of the workers, Bunny can only look on in horror as the conflict between capital and labour becomes a war which finds Paul Watkins, radicalised by his brutal personal experiences, at the very forefront... Like all of Upton Sinclair's fiction, Oil! is overlong, undisciplined, and about as subtle as knee to the groin; yet written in the wake of the Harding administration's "Teapot Dome Scandal", in which the-then Secretary of the Interior leased naval petroleum reserves to private oil companies without competitive bidding, in exchange for some hefty bribes, the novel offers a scathing contemporary portrait of political corruption, the dishonest and often brutal practices of big business, and the lengths to which America was willing to go to secure foreigh oil interests---far too much of which remains dismally familiar to this day. Not this, but the the novel's opposing political standpoint may be the stumbling-block for modern readers: Oil! deals with the Russian Revolution and its consequences in terms that are not merely approving, but glowing. However, in its handling of burgeoning workers' movement in America, the novel does take care to distinguish between the non-violent tactics of the Socialists, and the increasing calls for revolt from the Communists. In spite of its grim subject matter, Oil! frequently resorts to satire to make its points; and while the facetious tone of the narrative not infrequently becomes tiresome, this does at least mean that the novel doesn't pummel the reader into submission quite so unmercifully as Sinclair's more seriously-toned works tend to do. Bunny is of course (quite intentionally) a thoroughly exasperating protagonist, always meaning well but achieving little; unable either to embrace his father's ruthless philosophy or to break from him: his weakness of character finally winning for him an embarrassing public reputation as a "millionaire Red". Vacillating between his life of privilege and his association with various radical factions, Bunny inevitably remains a mere onlooker as the violence escalates between the bosses and the workers...

    All this summer and fall, Dad and Mr Roscoe had been carrying a heavy burden---they were helping to make over the thinking of the American people. A presidential campaign was under way; and the oil men, having made so bold as to select the candidate, now had to finish the job by persuading the voters that he was a great and noble-minded statesman. Also they had to pay a part of the expense, which would come to fifty million dollars, so Bunny learned...
    It was necessary to persuade the American people that the Democratic administration for the past eight years had been wasteful and corrupt, ignorant and fatuous---and that was easy enough. But also it was necessary to persuade them that an administration by Senator Harding was likely to be better---and that was not so easy...
    The Senator from Ohio was a large and stately and solemn-faced person, and conducted what was called by the newspapers a "front-porch campaign." That is to say, he did not put himself out to travel on trains and meet people, but received deputations of the Hay and Feed Dealers of Duluth, or the Morticians of Ossawotomie. They would sit in camp-chairs upon his lawn, and the statesman would appear and read an imposing discourse, which had been written for him by a secretary of Vernon Roscoe's selection, and given out to all the press associations the day before, so that it could be distributed over the wires and published simultaneously on fifty million front pages. This is a colossal propaganda machine, and the men who run it have to lose a lot of sleep. But the majestic candidate lost no sleep, he was always fresh and serene and impassive; he had been that way throughout his career, for the able business men who groomed him and paid his way had never failed to tell him what to do.
    Bunny now dwelt upon an Olympian height, looking down as a god upon the affairs of pitiful mortals. Dad and Mr Roscoe let him hear everything---being sure that common sense would win in the end, and he would accept their point of view. They had a philosophy which protected them like a suit of chain-mail against all hesitations and doubts. The affairs of the country had to be run by the men who had the money and brains and experience; and since the mass of the people had not sense enough to grant the power freely, the mass of the people had to be bamboozled...

Banned in Boston!---

Oil! is one of those books that would have been objectionable from start to finish---not least for making fun of The Big Three, religion, politics and sex.

Meanwhile, its own political agenda would have been anathema in many quarters; as indeed would the fairly casual treatment of abortion (along with the suggestion that such things were easy enough for rich people to arrange), and an equally casual suggestion that the use of contraception negated the need for marriage.

However, at the time a couple of fairly explicit sex-scenes were the overt reason for its banning:





Next up: From Man To Man by Olive Schreiner (a Virago!).

With library access now cut off, reading in April will of course be restricted to what I have at hand, and what I can get as an ebook.

Hopefully my locked-in challenge reading will still be do-able; though these circumstances may well dictate the rest. I'm also tempted to just lock myself in with a pile of mysteries.

We'll see.

April reading:

Definites:

Dr Zhivago by Boris Pasternak {best-seller challenge} - to be bought on Kindle, but which translation?
Poirot's Early Cases by Agatha Christie {chronological challenge} - owned
Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon {group read} - owned
The Watersplash by Patricia Wentworth {shared read} - ebook

Possibles:

Louisa Egerton; or, Castle Herbert by Mary Leman Grimstone {blog-reading / Australian fiction} AND/OR Our Mr Wrenn by Sinclair Lewis {blog-reading / Reading Roulette} AND/OR The Reviv'd Fugitive by Peter Belon {blog-reading / Chronobibliography} AND/OR Ellesmere by Mary Meeke {blog-reading / Authors In Depth} - all available online or as ebooks

The Secret Of High Eldersham by Miles Burton {Mystery League challenge} - ebook
The Life Of Mansie Wauch by David Moir {C. K. Shorter challenge} - ebook

The Mystery Of The Creeping Man by Frances Shelley Wees {series reading} - possibly available serialised by newspaper archive, but needs to be investigated

Songs Of A Dead Dreamer by Thomas Ligotti {potential decommission / fiction} - owned
Faces In The Smoke by Douchan Gersi {potential decommission / non-fiction} - owned

Alas:

From Man To Man by Olive Schreiner {Banned In Boston challenge} - not available as an ebook
The Marquise Of O., And Other Stories by Heinrich von Kleist {A Century Of Reading} - the title story is available online, but the rest of the collection is not; maybe?
Close Quarters by Michael Gilbert {random reading} - requires an ILL

Finished Nevertheless, She Persisted for TIOLI #12.

Currently pondering whether to try and squeeze another mystery in before the end of the month, or to make a start on Lady Audley's Secret...

I once threatened to declare war on America over their changing of the title of George and Margaret Cole's Poison In The Garden Suburb to Poison In A Garden Suburb.

I can only suppose that the current state of world lockdown has them feeling safe from my wrath; safe enough to change the title of J. J. Connington's The Two Tickets Puzzle to---

---The Two Ticket Puzzle.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!!??

So, yeah. Anyway.

Now reading The Two TicketS Puzzle by J. J. Connington.

...though I will grant you this: the American dust jacket is MUCH cooler:


  


I also love the way the book is praised on the back cover of the American edition:





And just to prove that not all book-related missteps are transatlantic---I was frankly appalled by this listing of the book on our local Amazon.

We discussed with respect to Death Walks In Eastrepps the potential detriment to individual books of this recent insistence upon listing everything as "A So-And-So Mystery". What we have here is something even worse: an incorrect listing; The Two Tickets Puzzle features Superintendent Ross, not Colonel Driffield:

Finished The Two Tickets Puzzle for TIOLI #6.

That's the end of March, which finally did see me crack double figures for my reading, thanks to a late rush of mysteries.

And while I'm not sure you can actually call just two books "a series"---well, I'm going to anyway: I HAVE FINISHED A SERIES!!

But in the spirit of keeping things in perspective, here is a baby marmoset:

Now reading Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.

This is in preparation for the planned group read, which - fingers crossed - will still go ahead as planned. We had a good group building before viruses and lockdowns had the gall to intervene; and I can only hope that people still have the desire - and the book access - to make it happen.

Awwww, baby marmosets are cute! Where are the big ears, though? I guess it's from one of the species with more reasonable earholes. :-)

>72 lyzard: I'm still in for Lady Audley's Secret! I have it on my kindle already. Hope others are still interested as well.

>73 rosalita:

It's a baby pygmy marmoset, which is the smallest example I could find, to go along with my pathetic excuse for a "series". :D

Even the adults barely have ears:

>74 japaul22:

That's great, Jennifer! Yes, fingers crossed.

Hey, it's not your pathetic excuse for a series — it's JJ Connington's pathetic excuse for a series. You can only read what they wrote!

>52 lyzard: Grr re losing your post. And yes still okay for Lady Audley's Secret in April.

>66 lyzard: Tentatively joining in with Poirot's Early Cases too (quite relieved these are earlier short stories rather than more 1970s AC).

>71 lyzard: Woot!

>72 lyzard: I probably won't be in for the group read. The copy I requested is languishing in the library, locked in transit and unable to be retrieved.

>77 rosalita:

Except I'm pretty sure Connington called it "a book and its sequel". :D

>78 souloftherose:

Excellent! I'll probably set the thread up on Friday.

Yes, I had that thought too. :(

Just a tiny woot...

>79 Helenliz:

I'd hate to lose you, Helen, though of course I'd understand. FYI Lady Audley's Secret is quite readily available as an ebook; and while I appreciate that's not everyone's thing, at least it's an option?

>75 lyzard: Awwwww....

Hiya, Liz. Now that I've managed to get furloughed (never would I have expected to be so excited to be out of a job, even temporarily) I'll be around a bit more.

I don't expect to join you in Lady Audley's Secret - my reading interests are leaning to the very undemanding right now - but I'm good for The Watersplash. Miss Silver is wonderfully soothing....

>81 Dejah_Thoris:

:D

I should do another round-up of series I'm close to finishing; more marmosets!!

Very glad to have you here, Dejah, even if the reason is less than desirable.

I would call Lady Audley's Secret fun rather than demanding, lots of mystery and plots and detective work; so---?? But of course I'll understand if you just decide to stick with The Watersplash. :)

I have set up the thread for the group read of Lady Audley's Secret:

Here

It is through the Virago group, but everyone is welcome!

>71 lyzard: Congratulations on finishing a series, Liz! How many more do you have to go?

Stay healthy and safe!

>84 alcottacre:

No need for sarcasm! :D

Thanks, Stasia, you too!

>85 lyzard: Me? Sarcastic? lol

Thanks, Liz!

Finished Lady Audley's Secret for TIOLI #5.

And having sent up a fervent prayer to the Reading Gods, that they deliver me from any more overlong American 50s best-sellers---well, I guess they heard me:

Now reading Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.

Meanwhile---I find myself facing something of a dilemma in my quest for Mary Elizabeth Braddon's next (chronological) book.

Some sources list Braddon's next work as A Woman's Revenge; or, The Captain Of The Guard, a work of historical fiction set during the Restoration and published anonymously in 1862. This attribution seems traceable to Robert Lee Wolff, Braddon's first biographer. However, other scholars reject it, finding no grounds for Wolff's claim.

Unfortunately this book appears impossible to get hold of, so I'll have to put aside any idea of reading and judging for myself.

The next possibility is almost as impossible: it seems to be The White Phantom , a penny-dreadful published anonymously in the working-class magazine, The Halfpenny Journal (as had been Braddon's first such work, The Black Band; or, The Mysteries Of Midnight). There are copies readily available---but only of the severely cut American edition.

As they had done with The Black Band, The White Phantom was released unabridged by the Sensation Press some years back, but copies are rare and expensive.

I'm going to have to make some decisions here...

I think it's fascinating, Liz, that you're trying to hunt down so many books that may or may not be Braddon's. I suppose as you become more and more familiar with her body of work, you'll be able to make your own judgement as to whether they're her work or not. Very cool project!

As for Pasternak, you're on your own there. I am definitely not in a masochistic mood this month. :)

>90 Dejah_Thoris:

Fortunately there's been a lot of recent work sorting out these attributions, so that there are only a handful of unidentified works, or conversely works that have been incorrectly attributed to her. I do like to think that by now I could recognise Braddon's voice in a piece of writing, though. :)

Me neither, quite frankly!

I do struggle very much with the Russians, I'm afraid---for a large part because of the constant necessity for stopping and remembering or figuring out who each variant of name applies to. I find it impossible to read with any flow.

>91 lyzard: I struggle with the Germans more than the Russians. I find German literature very hard going generally speaking.

>92 PaulCranswick:

Hi, Paul! German literature can be tough, I agree, but I find it easier to engage with purely for its lack of the same sorts of mental interruptions.

>92 PaulCranswick: I am with you on that one, Paul.

Hey, Liz!

>94 alcottacre:

Hi, Stasia!

Hi, Liz! I've started The Watersplash and right there on the first page I had to put it down while I searched the interwebz to figure out just what a watersplash is. I'm glad I did, since all this time I've had the vague feeling it was a sort of waterfall/cataract, and that's not it at all!

I think this will be a fun one to discuss. Mind you, Maudie hasn't entered the picture yet but all the characters so far are intriguing. I've already pegged the "happily ever after" couple, so that's out of the way. :-D

>96 rosalita: I read the first two lines of your post and went off to look up watersplash - I hadn't given any thought at all to what it was, lol, although I'll forgive myself since I haven't started the book yet.

I'm looking forward to The Watersplash - Maudie will get the bad guy(s)s and some nice young couple will get their HEA.

>97 Dejah_Thoris: I was just the same — never gave it a second thought until I started reading and realized it might be kind of important to have a clear picture of what we were talking about. I'm sure you would have done the same once you started reading.

Maudie will get the bad guy(s)s and some nice young couple will get their HEA

I see you've read the series before! I don't even mind went Wentworth so clearly telegraphs who the lucky couple is going to be. It's just part of the fun at this point:-)

>98 rosalita: Oh, yes - Ten or fifteen years back (er, or maybe even more years ago) I read all the Patricia Wentworth mysteries I could get my hands on. It's fun to revisit them. Some I remember, others I don't , but it doesn't really matter - during stressful times I am reassured to be reading something for which I know All Will Be Well.

Please tell me the touchstones are working...

ETA: Phew! :)

>96 rosalita:, >97 Dejah_Thoris:

You two are way ahead of me: I'm grinding through Dr Zhivago and fear I have another 5-7 days of it to go.

It is some comfort to know I have Agatha and Patricia (and Hercule and Maudie) waiting for me at the end, if I ever get to the end...

I know of two different usages of watersplash so I'll be interested to see which it is. I'm frankly surprised this isn't one of the infinite number of books that got its title changed in the US! :D

>101 lyzard: I was going to say when we discussed that I am shocked they did not change the title in the U.S. as I'm not sure watersplash is used at all here, in any sense. Though it might be regional, just not where I've lived in the Midwest or Northeast.

>102 rosalita: I'm from the Southeast and have lived in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, and (briefly) in Montana and have never heard it used. However, I'm wondering if it's simply that it's an outdated term, because how many of us actually cross shallow fords in streams very often, unless we're hardcore hikers?

Well, I'm pretty sure that The Watersplash is not a Miss Silver novel that I'd read before - back when I first discovered her, there were quite a few for which I couldn't locate copies. Being cautious to avoid spoilers, I'll just say I was surprised by the victim, but nailed the culprit right off.

Liz - Susan is described as having "straight fair hair" - shall we add The Watersplash to your TIOLI Challenge? It doesn't matter to me where it ends up.

I hope you're having a marvelous day! Er...or night!

>103 Dejah_Thoris: You're probably right about it being an outdated term. I can't remember the last time I had to ford a shallow river on foot! I'm definitely not a hiker.

>103 Dejah_Thoris:, >104 rosalita:

Ah, okay, so it's *that* use of watersplash, is it?

I haven't really thought about TIOLI yet (I'm 60% through Dr Zhivago, whoo!), but since I have a book for my blonde challenge it's probably heading for the comfort read one, or maybe 'author we've read before'?

Unless we want to water down our cocktails! :D

No watering of cocktails!

I honestly don't care which Challenge it goes in - I lean toward yours, since your has fewer than some of the other options.

However, if you're trying for a sweeplette - or Lizlette - that's different! Your pick.

>106 Dejah_Thoris:

Then perhaps we can add a splash of something? :D

I try to go one book per challenge as long as I can, but I'm not fussed about doubling up if it comes to that.

Finished Doctor Zhivago for TIOLI #10.





My goodness.

That...

...was...

...a lot...

...of words.

I don't know what I'm reading now.

My brain hurts...

Anyway!

Having made it through that, I'll just take a peek and see what I'm in for next month. At any rate, it can't possibly be----

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>109 lyzard:. Oh dear, what is it? War and Peace??

Oh glory - what are you up to now? Advise and Consent? Hawaii? The Agony and the Ecstasy?

Regardless, please accept my sincere congratulations on plowing through finishing Dr. Zhivago!

You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

>108 lyzard: and >109 lyzard: - Delurking to say that "Hi" and now I really, really want to know what your next read is!

>110 Helenliz:

The good news is, no more Russians!

>111 Dejah_Thoris:

Those are all great guesses! - and now you have me completely terrified for the future. :D

Thank you, though I think a sad shake of the head would be a more appropriate response...

>112 lkernagh:

Hi, Lori! Thank you so much for visiting, and sorry that your visit coincided with one of my periodic meltdowns. :)

And the loser winner is---

Exodus, which their respective Wikipedia entries informs me is longer than Doctor Zhivago...

...though possibly not quite so filled with Russian names. So there's that. :D

>114 lyzard: Oh pshaw! I've read Exodus voluntarily, more than once! It's not that bad. If I can turn up my copy, I may actually join you for that one.

I'll admit it's a bit tortured in places and not exactly cheery reading, but interesting.

>114 lyzard: And, good glory, it just occurred to me that that Paul Newman is in this film, too (obviously not referring to Dr. Zhivago, but rather The Silver Chalice!

>115 Dejah_Thoris:

Well after that unsympathetic outburst you'd jolly well better! :D

But I am feeling very tome-phobic at the moment. I mean, couldn't you Americans have sent Dr Seuss to the top of the charts??

>116 Dejah_Thoris:

True! Though I don't think he shows his knees quite as often in this one.

I have seen the film although not for a long time. Steve and I may have another shared watch in our futures...

Exodus is a quick read.

Um. Maybe. If you’re quite familiar with the history involved.

>118 Matke:

Oh, good! - here's another smarty-pants who can join us for a shared read. You know, if it's such a breeze... :D

I'd say somewhat rather than quite. From that point of view I'm okay with this, but not with the prospect of yet another monster taking over my month's reading!

>108 lyzard: Yikes. But at least it's not American. Or religious. Or about a doctor. Oh, wait.

Crap.

I may join the Exodus reading, although probably slower than everyone else since I have a hard time holding big books.

>120 swynn: Snort. Yes, you actually made me laugh out loud.

ETA: And she's a nurse. But blonde and gorgeous.

>120 swynn:

American readers of the 1950s were evidently a strange, strange breed.

I've said this before in other contexts but I think I'm going to have to say it again---

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!!?? :D

I realise that these are all very "important" books but I'd SO much rather be re-reading Peyton Place...

>121 alcottacre:

You'd be very welcome, Stasia, if you feel up for it. :)

>122 Dejah_Thoris:

STOP IT!! STOP IT!!

Groan. Lara is SUCH a woman-written-by-a-man...

(Mind you, Yuri isn't much more credible.)

Looks up description for Exodus.

Reads ...."the towering novel of the twentieth century's most dramatic geopolitical event."

Blinks.

Decides "Nope", and quietly exits the thread.

I wanted my message this year to be fairly universal in a time we all should be pulling together, whatever our beliefs. Happy Celebration, Happy Sunday, Liz.

At this point I'm sooooo sorry that the library is closed and so I'm unable to join you for the monster read.
*snigger*

>119 lyzard:
To be fair I first read this when I was 13 and had a lot to learn, very pre-google. And in those days I devoured books.

Wait. A group read????
Nooooo...

Lol! We could do it! Just what the world needs - a cheery group read of Exodus!

And you know, now that I think about it, I do believe that Paul Newman's knees do make an appearance in the film version. Of course, that might just be wishful remembering....

>124 lkernagh:

I'm imaging Steve's next post here:

"But at least it's not about a dramatic geopolitical event. Oh, wait..."

Run while you can, Lori, there appears to be a group read in the works!?

>125 PaulCranswick:

Ahem. "Happy Autumn." :D

Sentiment taken as intended, Paul - thanks very much!

>126 Helenliz:

And that's the other thing: I really resent being forced to buy these books on Kindle instead of picking up a copy at the library.

Talk about insult to injury...

>127 Matke:

If you want to lead it, my dear?? :D

>128 Dejah_Thoris:

Just the thing to lift our quarantine spirits, amiright??

I think a shared TIOLI read is perfectly sufficient!

I do believe that Paul Newman's knees do make an appearance in the film version.

Oh, well, that settles it: group watch, everyone!

Anyway! - it almost got lost in the kerfuffle, but---

Now reading Poirot's Early Cases by Agatha Christie.

>125 PaulCranswick: >129 lyzard: I confess I was surprised that Paul left out the Southern Hemisphere, but I didn't want to be the one to mention it, lol.

Keep in mind I'm only going to indulge in an Exodus reread if I find I have a copy. I used to have a paperback with teeny, tiny print - I'm just not sure that I STILL have it. I'm not at all inclined to buy a Kindle copy....

Oh, nay, nay I say! Definitely not reading that one yet again. Now I’d probably choose a nonfiction work dealing with the same subject, although I certainly found Uris’s work riveting enough in my younger days.

Poirot’s Early Cases is, however something else again. I’m almost always comforted by rereading Christie and Sayers. And it’s been a wonderful treat to find some more authors that are nearly as delightful: George Bellairs, Gladys Mitchell (thank you, Liz), Francis Vivian, Cyril Hare, Peter Lovesey...they are all light amusing reads when the world really is too much with us.

I’d never noticed how religion-centric popular fiction was in the US during that time. I mean I read most of the books, usually a few years after they came out, but never made the connection.

Well!---

After all my moaning, it may actually be impossible for me to tackle Exodus next month. I went grumblingly to investigate my Kindle options, and discovered that (i) there is only one, and (ii) that:

"This book is currently unavailable because there are significant quality issues with the source file supplied by the publisher.

The publisher has been notified and we will make the book available as soon as we receive a corrected file."

I suppose there's an outside chance that I'll be able to pick up a library copy in time, but more likely, unless Amazon - or rather the publishers - get their act together quickly, I may be having an enforced month off.

Now there’s a pai in the neck.

>131 Dejah_Thoris:, >132 Matke:

See above!

>131 Dejah_Thoris:

It's okay, I'm used to northern-hemisphere-to-equator prejudice! :D

Looks like you've got longer to find your copy of Exodus...

>132 Matke:, >134 Matke:

Nah, you're off the hook, luvvie!

I have found the recent religion-focus of this project pretty crushing---not thematically, just because there's SO MUCH of it.

On the other hand it occurs to me that during the 50s, we must have had large numbers of Americans taking a genuine interest in international affairs, and trying to understand other peoples and cultures and religions, which is entirely praiseworthy.

I just wish they'd pursued their interests differently. :)

And of course it's my own fault that I'm reading these once a month, not once a year.

Yes, definitely retreating into comfort reading for the rest of the month...

A perfect time to dip your toes into the watersplash ...

>133 lyzard: Wha?? I had already gone to look it up on the US Amazon site, where it is available and neither the blurbs nor the reviews mention any quality problems.

ETA it is lendable. Is it possible to buy it and lend it out of the country?

>129 lyzard: At the risk of not knowing what I'm asking for, I'll gladly take a dramatic geopolitical event over another doctor dump.

My brother is a fan of Exodus so I'm sort of looking forward to it, if only for the opportunity of being able to say, "Hey, I finally got around to that."

But first, Marjorie Morningstar.

>136 rosalita:

Yeah, yeah; hold your horses. :)

>137 ronincats:

Different region, different Amazon, probably different publisher. I'll just have to keep my eye on it. Things may change in time.

I'm sure Amazon have ways of preventing *that*...

>138 swynn:

Oh, me too! It wasn't the dramatic geopolitical event I was objecting to. :D

I'm certainly getting the impression it's a far easier read than Doctor Zhivago (it would pretty much have to be!); and really, it was purely the (over)length that prompted that reaction.

Good luck!

Finshed Poirot's Early Cases for TIOLI #12.

Now reading The Watersplash by Patricia Wentworth (which I'm currently intending for #4).

>139 lyzard: Hmmm...I'm not so sure that Kindle lending wouldn't work in this situation. I can't find anything that restricts to whom you lend by country of residence - although, it looks as lending is enabled for U.S. customers only.

I'd be willing to spend the $5.99 to buy Exodus and lend it to you. You'd have seven days to accept the loan and the 14 days to read it. We can't read it simultaneously, apparently, but it's not as if either of us is a slow reader, lol.

Interested?

San Diego Zoo video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HjhlNX9T90

>123 lyzard: I cannot get hold of the book right now. My local library does not have a copy, although there is one in the neighboring city. However, the shuttle between the two libraries is not running right now and the libraries are closed, so I cannot get it.

>141 Dejah_Thoris:

No, we don't have lending here.

Thank you for the offer: I will think about it, and reassess the situation when we get into May. Probably nothing will have changed by then, but we can always hope.

>142 ronincats:

Aww, thank you, Roni! :D

>143 alcottacre:

No, that's what's driving me crazy: my local library is very new-books focused and therefore usually not all that much direct use to me; but it does hold copies of both Doctor Zhivago and Exodus---so this one time I could have just gone to the library, I can't access it!

Finished The Watersplash---and thinking of slipping into TIOLI #9, unless my shared-readers think that's too much of a stretch??

Still rearranging my thinking about what's next, now that (more than halfway through the month, eep!) I have finally drawn a line under my four challenge-books.

>145 lyzard: Challenge #9 had occurred to me as a possibility. It works for me.

And I hope you find something wonderful to read next.

>146 Dejah_Thoris:

Ah, good! I didn't have anything lined up for #9 and I'm pleased this occurred to me. :)

Hmm... It's looking more list-ticky than wonderful, but that's good too!

ETA: Now reading The Tolliver Case by R. A. J. Walling.

I note that Exodus is included in the Internet Archive's "National Emergency Library":

https://archive.org/details/exodusuris00uris

I suspect that's not available in Australia but it can't hurt to check.

>147 lyzard: I added my The Watersplash to yours. Woohoo for shared reads - they're getting harder for my to come by these days.

Dropping in to say I’m joining you on TIOLI for the first time in years with Lady Audley’s Secret. I’m confining myself to shared reads over there.

>148 swynn:

You're all determined I'm not going to get a month off, aren't you!? :D

Since Exodus is still in print that hadn't occurred to me as a potential source. I often can get books from the IA so I will check that out. Thanks!

>149 Dejah_Thoris:

I've actually had more than usual lately: you joining in for Maudie is a big help!

ETA: Wow, I didn't realise you were burning up the top of the TIOLI charts like that, well done!

>150 Matke:

Whoo!! Brilliant, Gail, thank you! :)

>144 lyzard: Of course you can't! Why? Because life. I want to read Exodus but of course, it is not at my local library. It is at the library that I cannot get books from currently. Why? Because life. LOL

>151 lyzard: Well, I'm the *last* person who should be shaming else about missing a month, being behind myself by 3. (Marjorie Morningstar is on her way, I promise.)

I'm just giving your own conscience a nudge. Let's say.

>152 alcottacre:

All of my loans are overdue and one of my library cards needs to be renewed and it's kind of freaking me out even though I know it's really okay. :D

Steve is quite right, Exodus is available for general borrowing at the Internet Archive. I'm not thrilled at the prospect at reading something that long online (and of course I'll have to have back-up books for reading in the bath), but it's do-able.

Soooo...?

>153 swynn:

You're punishing me for making you read Not As A Stranger, aren't you? Aren't you!!??

>154 lyzard: Absolutely not. When I was in college, I had to read textbooks on my computer. Never again.

>155 alcottacre:

Don't blame you!

Still...though I usually like to tackle my challenge books at the beginning of the month, I might push Exodus to the back-end of May in hopes that some restrictions will be lifted by then.

(I mean, they have to lift them sooner or later, right? It's been, what? ten years...?)

>151 lyzard: I'm only at the top because I'm furloughed, stuck at home, and a stress reader. Plus I am, for the most part, reading easy stuff because it suits me at the moment.

>156 lyzard: I'll probably end up buying the dratted book for my Kindle (unless I turn up a copy hiding somewhere). After I read it we can try the Kindle loan option - there's only so much reading I can stand to do on my computer, too.

>124 lkernagh: :-D Exactly my reaction!

(Also because I am too lazy to look it up, I still don't know what a watersplash is).

Anyway, hi Liz!

>130 lyzard: I think I am unlikely to be able to join you in reading Poirot's Early Cases as my copy is still somewhere enroute to me. It might still turn up though.

Oh my. Just started Lady Audley’s Secret and am galloping through it.

We’ve just encountered her portrait. Hmm...

It’s a surprisingly easy book to read: I had a bit more trouble with The Trail of the Serpent! I think because it seemed more over the top to me.

Obviously this one has had a very long arm of influence in the romantic suspense area.

>157 Dejah_Thoris:

At least you've found the silver lining.

I computer-read when I have to of course, but apart from the eye-issues I do hate being pinned down like that.

Thanks for that thought, we'll keep touching base about it.

>158 souloftherose:

Hi, Heather. :)

Yeah, I'm not really in the mood for dramatic geopolitical events either but anyhoo...

It's a road or path that dips below water level; if the latter, there may be stepping-stones so that people don't have to wade across. The water is usually fairly shallow so you wouldn't expect people to keep drowning in it but apparently these things do happen in some English villages... :D

Please do if you can, but certainly don't worry about it.

>159 Matke:

That's lovely to hear, Gail!

The Trail Of The Serpent was a first book---plus to this point Braddon did tend to be a bit more melodramatic, but also a bit more blackly funny. There's a more serious tone to Lady Audley's Secret---probably because she knew she was going to be in trouble with the critics anyway, and didn't want to invite more by being facetious!

And yes, as you note it was extremely influential.

Finished The Tolliver Case for TIOLI #4.

Now reading Inspector Bedison And The Sunderland Case by Thomas Cobb.

(I hate it when I have to use a cheap Kindle edition image as my cover...but that's how obscure this one is!)

Finished Inspector Bedison And The Sunderland Case for TIOLI #14.

And having moaned about possibly having to read Exodus on my computer, I've just realised that my next two likely reads are also going to have to be computer-reads, if read at all; worse, one of them in the form of newspaper scans.

My poor eyes!

After originally being published in 1931, for some reason Frances Shelley Wees' The Mystery Of The Creeping Man was serialised all over America during October of 1939:



And I not only have to read it like this, I have to get it written up within the next week, because that's how long my free trial lasts. :D

(Not that I should be complaining about anything that forces me to get some writing done...)

Argh, I hope the print isn't as fuzzy for you as it is the the screenshot, Liz.

Yikes! How awful.....

>164 ronincats:, >165 Dejah_Thoris:

Eh, it's manageable. There are at least plenty of papers with print of varying clarity to choose from. The book itself is fairly rare and expensive, so I'm glad to have any option at all. :)

Finished The Mystery Of The Creeping Man---I hope for TIOLI #2, but I don't have a slot yet.

I have also been digging into the erratic writing career of Frances Shelley Wees (who worked at various other things too), and have determined as far as I can that Wees' first and second novels, both written in 1931, were the only two to feature the amateur detective pairing of Michael Forrester and Theresa 'Tuck' Torrie. The other was The Maestro Murders, re-read a while back for the 'Mystery League' challenge.

But there were two, so I guess it's time to trot out a baby pygmy marmoset:





With lots of gaps along the way, Wees seems to have veered into writing (suspense?) romances and children's books (and some poetry) after this, before veering back into crime fiction in the 1940s and 50s. She is best known now for a series of psychological thrillers featuring Dr Jonathan Merrill and his sister, Jane, in particular 1956's The Keys Of My Prison, which I find very highly spoken of by a number of reviewers. The series appears to have started with 1954's M'Lord, I Am Not Guilty.

>167 lyzard: Forget the books (sorry) - that baby pygmy marmoset is adorable!

>168 Dejah_Thoris:

Finger included for scale. :D

Speaking of which, did you see that after you denied me 'water' and 'splash' for a TIOLI cocktail, Lynda is letting me have a 'finger' of liquor!?

>169 lyzard: I didn't say no! I would have gone along with anything, lol. And the ok of 'finger' cracked me up!

>170 Dejah_Thoris:

It was such a throwaway question! I guess now I'm obliged to read the book in question. :)

But first---

Now reading No Walls Of Jasper by Joanna Cannan.

>167 lyzard: Oh my stars and garters, that baby pygmy marmoset is totes adorbs!! You should finish more two-book series, Liz.

>173 rosalita:

:D

Come to think of it, I do have a few other possibilities...

Finished No Walls Of Jasper for TIOLI #3.

Now reading The Five Red Fingers by Brian Flynn.

OK, team, I need to attend a Zoom meeting tonight with a set of 10 questions. So, go on, hit me with some literary questions!

>176 Helenliz: I know you're asking Liz, but I'm fascinated - what kind of literary questions?

>177 Dejah_Thoris: asking anyone who can come up with some!
Quiz type questions for a general audience, and I decided that bookish questions would be good (and unlikely to be a category anyone else would pick!). So sort of general knowledge, or vaguely guessable, quesitons about books, authors, contents of books, bookish topics, would be good. I'm always really bad at knowing what actually is general knowledge.

This might be too old/obscure: In John Steinbeck's Travels With Charley, who is Charley?

(His dog, a standard poodle)

>179 rosalita:

Weird, I always had it in my head that Charley was a cat. Just the way my mind works, I guess.

(So who did go off travelling with his cat??)

>178 Helenliz:

Name (or if you need to phrase it as a question, Who are---) three famous detectives of the Golden Age of mysteries?

Obviously. :D

Publication date: 1931
Genre: Mystery / thriller
Series: Michael Forrester and Tuck Torrie #2
Read for: Series reading / TIOLI

The Mystery Of The Creeping Man - When university professor Edgar Murchison goes missing, his wife, her cousin and Murchison's colleague, Dr Jared Devoe, and Murchison's younger brother, Duncan, go to the police---eventually. Devoe explains that they are worried about potential damage to the university's reputation, particularly given some earlier trouble over Murchison's animal experimentation in his research. Unconvinced, Davies carries the matter to District Attorney John Forrester, pointing out what seems to him the curious features of the case, including the dilatory report of Murchison's disappearance, his family's reluctance to have the newspapers alerted, and above all Mrs Murchison's insistence that her husband went of his own accord and will come back the same way. However, Davies explains, six weeks of investigation have now found no trace of the missing man. Forrester then suggests a very different approach: that his son, Michael, now a practising lawyer, who helped the police during an earlier mysterious case, be recruited as an amateur detective. Consequently, Michael and his new wife, Theresa, along with their friend, Bunny Temple, move into the university accommodation previously occupied by the Murchisons---and it is not long before they realise their presence has stirred up a hornet's nest... The Mystery Of The Creeping Man is the second and, as far as I have been able to determine, last novel to feature the investigating duo of Michael Forrester and Theresa "Tuck" Torrie---who after the events of The Maestro Murders are now a husband-and-wife duo. Like the earlier novel, this is as much a thriller as a mystery, with Michael and Tuck in escalating danger from an enemy with a secret identity. It is a weaker novel overall, however, chiefly because it is so absurdly over-plotted---eventually throwing into the mix a disappearance, missing diamonds, bigamy, code messages, secret passages, an untraceable poison, mad science, a hidden laboratory, a nosy boy on a quest for revenge, and a villain who murders about half the cast and has a solid try at the other half...and (trigger warning) accidentally kills a dog and a cat along the way; the latter in addition to a nasty subplot about the animal experiments apparently conducted in secret by the missing Professor Murchison. The narrative also relies too heavily upon deliberately misleading events that are eventually explained away or reinterpreted (not always convincingly); while a few too many things are never really explained at all. Most damaging of all, however, is that Michael keeps trying to keep Tuck out of things - after The Maestro Murders, he should know better - with the narrative result that he does not share all he knows with her---or with the reader. While Michael pursues a formal investigation, Tuck uses her own methods to extract information from the friends and colleagues of the missing Edgar Murchison, via social events such as bridge-parties and afternoon teas. That they are treading upon dangerous ground becomes only two evident when, separately and together, there are various attempts upon their lives---although the strangest danger of all is posed by the mysterious individual seen by several parties in the woods and on the clifftop behind the cluster of university housing, appearing as if out the ground; someone the Forresters come to think of as "the creeping man"...

    Tuck went up to Gordon and put her hand on his forehead. He flung it off angrily, and looked at her with unseeing eyes.
    "Gordon," she said clearly, "what is it you know about the Creeping Man? Have you seen him? Do you know who he is? You must tell me, Gordon."
    "No, no," he muttered. "Only Mr Forrester. Only him. I said I wouldn't tell nobody but him. The Creeping Man looked at me..." Gordon shuddered.
    "Gordon, listen. Michael is away, trying to find the Creeping Man himself. You must tell me, do you hear? We must catch him. Michael would want you to tell me. Where did you see him? Out by the cliffs?"
    He turned his head toward her. "That's it...the cliffs. He came in a boat...my boat. He came across the river. I can't find where he put the boat...I looked for it...but I ran to the cliff and hid in the trees, and he came up...right out of the ground. The Creeping Man. And he walked right up to me, and...he looked at me, and...then he hit me...oh, oh..."
    The doctor lifted his wrist. "You'll have to go," he said to Tuck imperatively. "I must give him a sedative. This can't go on."
    Tuck turned and left the room. What had she learned? Nothing except the Creeping Man really existed... She stood on the path behind the Deane house and thought. Her brain raced. To find him! But she would never dare go out there alone. It was foolhardy...and she wouldn't dare. The Creeping Man! He might come up behind her, and do what he had done to Gordon...or to old Mrs Devoe...or to Edgar Murchison...

How are you coping with changes to lifestyle there, Liz?

When will the libraries and book stores re-open?

Have a lovely weekend.

>182 PaulCranswick:

Hi, Paul!

Well, I'm enough of an anti-social introvert to be less affected by this than most. :)

We don't have any definite opening dates yet, we're just at the point where they're considering re-opening the schools one day a week---presumably as a lead-in to freeing parents for the re-opening of businesses. I'm crossing fingers for one-day-a-week libraries!

Finished The Five Red Fingers for TIOLI #6.

Ahem. Also finished I Can Has Cheezburger? A LOLCat Colleckshun for TIOLI #1.

Now reading The Mill Of Happiness by Jean Barre.

>184 lyzard: Snort. Really? Wherever did you find that fascinating book for #1?

>185 Dejah_Thoris:

Tidying up my shelves, of course! It was either that or Cat Zodiac, which turned out to take its subject matter SERIOUSLY, so... :D

(I get a lot of gifts of this sort. Come to think of it, I have a copy of Downton Tabby around somewhere too.)

>186 lyzard: May need to try to find a copy of Downton Tabby for my mother. Great title.

>187 NinieB:

It's fun but extremely flimsy so don't spend too much on it! :)

Finished The Mill Of Happiness for TIOLI #3.

Now reading The Ipcress File by Len Deighton.

>189 lyzard:
The Ipcress File! Now that brings back memories. I hope you enjoy it.

>190 Matke:

I am aware of both the books and the films but have not tackled either up until now.

Finished The Ipcress File for TIOLI #8.

And that is the very strange month of April done; time to ponder May...

>192 lyzard: Well, when you've finished pondering, let me know what you want to do about Exodus. I'm game, but not desperate, to read it, lol. Make that reread it.

>193 Dejah_Thoris:

Under the circumstances, that's my first big decision.

Okay---

After wavering back and forth for an absurd amount of time, I have decided that I am putting the Best-Seller Challenge on hiatus until things settle down.

There is still no word of an updated Kindle version of Exodus at our Amazon; no definite library access; and no paperback copies available locally for quick(ish) ordering.

And while I very much appreciate Dejah's offer of a Kindle loan, I have finally decided that trying to do it that way would introduce some unwanted time pressure.

So no Exodus in May.

I'm sure that, like me, you're all heart-broken. :)

So what am I going to do with May?

Well--- My willingness to let myself off the hook only goes so far, so I've decided that I'll probably replace one chunkster with another (though this one seems much shorter than I was anticipating), and try to tackle the third volume of George Reynolds' penny-dreadful, The Mysteries Of London---which, though it carries the same title, offers an entirely different story from that told in Volumes I and II, which carried across the years 1845-1846.

Otherwise, I also want to catch up my other challenge reading, which was neglected this month basically because Doctor Zhivago left me not in the mood.

Series-wise, I want to do a run through my lists and see if I can collate another batch that are nearing completion, and focus on those---which should include a couple of two-book "series" (and their attendant baby pygmy marmosets).

And something else I'd at least like to try to do is force myself to skip over a book in those series where I've stalled because of an entry's actual unavailability, or because it's just too expensive.

I've had some luck in this area lately, with one or two books becoming available as ebooks, a relatively inexpensive copy turning up, or even (as with The Mystery Of The Creeping Man) me tracking down a serialised newspaper copy.

But there are still several on which I just can't budge; and realistically, I need to force myself to move on---hopefully coming back to those "missing" works at a later date.

Of course, all this is provisional on book availability generally at the moment: there is a lot of potential reading that can't happen just now due to the need for interlibrary loans. Though restrictions are supposedly beginning to lift as of next week, there is no word yet on library access.

So it looks like another month of ebooks and reading online.

>195 lyzard: Well, I won't try to claim my heart is broken! I have several other chunksters I'm looking at reading this month, so Exodus won't really be missed. When you're ready begin again, I'll join you.

Good look finding a few more of your missing links!

I guess what this boils down to is that the only thing I am definitely reading in May is Curtain.

I am, in other words, unnervingly close to the conclusion of the Agatha Christie challenge, which sometimes feels like it has been going on forever.

(A quick check reveals that I started this one in March 2013, which is quite close enough to forever!)

But though Curtain was the last Hercule Poirot novel, it was not the last work by Agatha Christie, being followed by both Sleeping Murder, the last Miss Marple novel, and by Miss Marple's Final Cases---the latter of which was published posthumously.

So technically I should be wrapping up this challenge in July.

However - you just knew there would be a 'however', didn't you?? - I still need to do a sweep to establish whether I have read all of Christie's series-character short stories; to decide whether I feel obliged to include her other, non-series short story collections in this challenge; and also whether I want to read Black Coffee, Charles Osborne's novelisation of Christie's play of that name, written and staged in 1930, and featuring Hercule Poirot. (I'd rather just read the play!)

Make things easy for myself? Don't be silly...

>196 Dejah_Thoris:

:D

I really do appreciate your offer but I think it's introducing a complication that neither of us need at the moment.

That said, I'd interested in doing a trial run of your Kindle loans, just for information purposes. Be warned, though: if it works I'll probably be hassling you endlessly for things not available in this territory!

>198 lyzard: Sadly, the loan privilege is available on very few books, but hopefully we'll be able to make use of it!

>199 Dejah_Thoris:

Does there seem to be any pattern to what's available? Is it on a publisher basis?

Anyhoo---

Now reading The Mysteries Of London: Volume III by George Reynolds.

Ooh, SCORE!!

It looks like my dear friends at Black Heath have dug up and Kindle-ised Herbert Maynard Smith's entire (i.e. seven-book) Inspector Frost series. :)

>200 lyzard: If there's a pattern, I haven't figured it out.

>202 lyzard: And congratulations on your find!

>202 lyzard: I assume that's not the Inspector Frost that the British television series was based on? Still, excellent find by you!

Ha! - no, he didn't come along until the 1970s, while mine is from the 20s - 40s. Might be a descendant, though. :)

Thanks, these accidental discoveries are always exciting!

Finished The Mysteries Of London: Volume III for TIOLI #17.

(Took me nearly a week to read and yet does *not* score a 'crushed by a book' image: take heed, authors of America's best-selling novels!)

Now...

After communing with myself, I'm feeling a weird sort of reading month coming on. My impulse at the moment is to tackle a second overlong 19th century novel, and then devote whatever remains of May to just reading mysteries. (Actual mysteries, that is, as opposed to those which specifically afflict London.)

It might also be an idea to try and catch up some reviews, too---at least to the end of April. Biy, that whole 'being up-to-date' thing sure fell off the table fast, didn't it? It's so self-defeating: there's been more time for that lately than ever before but I have just totally not been in the mood, sigh...

Anyway---

Now reading The Refugee In America by Frances Trollope.

Finished The Refugee In America for TIOLI #1.

Now reading The Mayfair Mystery by Henry Holt.

Ohhhh, dear...

As far as I was previously aware, The Mayfair Mystery was the first in the series by Henry Holt to feature Inspector Silver of Scotland Yard; it is, at any rate, widely referred to as such.

However, it appears that in some editions of this book the lead detective (at least, the police detective) is called 'Inspector Neville' instead.

There is not a lot of information out there about this novel - this is one of those cases where the later series works are available, but the first one more or less disappears - but it seems as if the detective's name may have been changed in the American release of the novel - for which, sigh, it also had its title changed to The Mayfair Murder. And then for some reason, the American text was used for the low-quality / low-cost post-war British reissue of the book, which is the version I was able to afford.

But I can't be sure about any of this, and it's starting to do my head in.

I'm also disappointed at not being able to find a bigger reproduction of the book's first-edition cover art:

Finished The Mayfair Mystery for TIOLI #6.

Now (re-)reading The Perfect Murder Case by Christopher Bush.

Hi Liz! I read my first Miss Silver book over the weekend! Grey Mask. I need another series like a need a hole in my head, but it was a great read! I've been on a vintage mystery binge lately because I can get them from my library in ebook form.

>211 casvelyn:

Welcome to the club! It's great that you enjoyed it, though as I think I've said before, Grey Mask is a bit different from the later books in the series, more romantic-thriller-y and less detective-story-y (though there is always a romantic subplot in Wentworth's mysteries). There was a nine year hiatus between the first and second Miss Silver books, during which Wentworth obviously rethought the character somewhat.

So I hope you continue to enjoy them! :)

Finished The Perfect Murder Case for TIOLI #19.

Now reading Murder On The Marsh by John Ferguson.

So I completely embarrassed myself at the supermarket the other day.

(No, no, don't worry: it didn't involve toilet paper.)

For some obscure reason known only to their head office, my local supermarket occasionally becomes a source of good quality, inexpensive underwear, sleepwear, etc. When I saw they were advertising women's pyjamas I decided to take a look.

The display could hardly have been located less conveniently---on the top shelf, and consisting of slender packets stacked upright on their narrow edges, and in constant danger of toppling over.

Nevertheless---after one glance I immediately tiptoed and started sorting through them---of course they had all the XS and S sizes at the front---swaying back and forth as I grabbed and flipped---and just about brought the entire display down upon my own head.

Why?

Because SLOTH PYJAMAS!!!!---


  

>214 lyzard: How wonderful! Well worth ANY embarrassment!

So...not a lot going on here, as you may have noticed.

At least some of that inactivity can be attributed to the fact that I got completely carried away while blogging about Frances Trollope's The Refugee In America. What I was hoping to be a relatively quick two-parter (two, in order to accommodate the necessary background information) turned into a lengthy three-parter, because I succumbed to temptation and included a nearly-all-quotes intermediate post.

Ahem. American visitors be warned: Mrs Trollope had a difficult and unhappy time in America, and took it out in her writing when she got home...

This satire is rather awkwardly blended into a pursuit plot involving a young English nobleman who believes himself guilty of murder:

The Refugee In America: Part 1
The Refugee In America: Part 2
The Refugee In America: Part 3

Ha! - I'm a genius.

It's just that I forget in between times that I am a genius.

I was bitching up-thread (>209 lyzard:) about the lead detective in Henry Holt's The Mayfair Mystery apparently having his name changed in the American edition of the novel.

While I was poking around last night doing some series research, I discovered that I had already made that discovery some six years ago...and had a good bitch back then, too.

Here's the relevant quote from my second thread of 2014---

******

And here's an even more exasperating case. Having discovered by accident that a mystery novel by Henry Holt was part of a series, I went looking for the start of that, too. All sources declare firmly that the Inspector Silver series begins with 1929's The Mayfair Mystery ("The Mayfair Murder" in the US) - except a single listing at AbeBooks, which comments, "According to Hubin, this book was one of many featuring the author's character 'Inspector Silver', but this would appear to be an error, since the Scotland Yard footpads that feature in this particular investigation are named Inspector Neville and Detective Sergeant Trim."

"Hubin" is a reference to the famous and much lauded Crime Fiction bibliography by Allen J. Hubin, generally considered the last word on the subject. In this case, as it happens, the listing for Henry Holt adds the following addendum with respect to The Mayfair Mystery:

>> (Note: Insp. Jim Silver does not appear as such in the U.S. edition, "The Mayfair Murder".)

And yes, the AbeBooks listing was for a copy of "The Mayfair Murder"...so, what? They changed the character's name in the US edition?? WHY???

Not to sound paranoid or anything, but I suspect the answer is, "Just to screw with me..."

******

Not much has changed since then, has it?? :D

Actually---one critical thing HAS changed: that many books that were unavailable back then have since become so, thanks to wonderful people like the Dean Street Press and Black Heath.

The lead-in to those comments about The Mayfair Mystery actually concerned a different issue with a different first book in a series: John Ferguson's Francis McNab series...which, completely coincidentally, I had just picked up again when I came across these old research notes:

******

Last year I read a mystery called Death Comes To Perigord, which turned out to be a middle book in a series. Naturally (naturally!) I then tried to go back to the beginning, only to find myself arguing with the dogma. There's not much information out there about the series in question, but every source insisted that the first book in the series was 1921's The Dark Geraldine. What information was out there, however, gave no indication that the series detective, Francis McNab, did in fact appear in that book. I eventually concluded that the "real" start to the series came seven years later, with The Man In The Dark, and that the misinformation was a case of one person making a mistake and everyone else copying it.

******

What I've worked out since is that this is, rather (as was also true of Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver, as I pointed out in >212 lyzard:), a case of a writer re-thinking a character between books. So while there is a "Francis McNab" in The Dark Geraldine, it's not the same "Francis McNab" who appeared seven years later in The Man In The Dark---which is therefore the beginning of the "real" Francis McNab series.

(The Dark Geraldine sounds interesting, though, so I might chase it up anyway.)

In fact, I've got myself bogged down in a whole stretch of going-back-to-the-beginning, involving those many frustrating series where the later books are available but the first one was impossible to get hold of until very recently.

Case in point: the Ludovic Travers mysteries by Christopher Bush, with #1 in that series, The Plumley Inheritance, being lately reissued for the first time in about ninety years.

This one is even more exasperating, since Travers is only a supporting character in that first book, and gives no real indication of turning out to be the series character. Like John Ferguson, Christopher Bush evidently changed his mind between books---and having done so, did so with a vengeance, writing no less than 63 books featuring Ludovic Travers!

Anyway...this helps to explain why, having been finally able to access The Plumley Inheritance, I then decided to re-read The Perfect Murder Case, the second book to feature Travers (though he still plays something of a supporting role).

I think I'll close this blather with one more quote from 2014:

They don't make it easy... :D

>214 lyzard: great pj's!

On another small positive note, I also remembered to research the correct series order of the next Ludovic Travers books, Murder At Fenwold - which - OH SURPRISE!! - had its title changed in America to The Murder Of Cosmo Revere - and Dead Man Twice, both published in 1930.

And once again the usually-given alphabetised listing is wrong. It is astonishing how often that is the case. It's Murder At Fenwold up next.

>215 Dejah_Thoris:

I'm not sure you should be validating me but thank you!!

>218 figsfromthistle:

Hi, Anita! I know! - oh, my heart! :D

SLOTH!'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pyjamas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I had to fight my iPad's autocorrect to give you your familiar spelling on that, but I prevailed over the ducking thing eventually. ;-)

>216 lyzard: Yes, Mrs Trollope found the Americans difficult to stomach!! She was appalled by the table manners, among other things, in Domestic Manners of the Americans. I'll have to drop by your blog soon to read the review.

>214 lyzard: I’m sure the sloth pyjamas were worth the embarrassment!

>214 lyzard: the sloth jammies were worth every ounce of embarrassment. They're fabulous!

>212 lyzard: I noticed the big gap between the first and second books. I like both romantic thriller mysteries and detective story mysteries, so I'm sure I'll be happy either way!

>221 rosalita:, >223 SandDune:, >224 Helenliz:

I was sure of finding an understanding audience here! :D

>221 rosalita:

The original Indian spelling, anyway. That usage seems to come and go.

One of the great days of my life was when the TIOLI wiki stopped fighting my spelling of 'lyzard'. :D

>222 NinieB:

Here she's mostly very tired of being told how superior America is. :D

I'd love to have you as a visitor but you should probably bring snacks and a cuppa for this one...

>225 casvelyn:

You should be good, then. Please do check in again and let me know how you get along. :)

Finished Murder On The Marsh for TIOLI #4.

Now reading Inspector Bedison Risks It by Thomas Cobb.

Sigh...

Now...you guys should know by now how much I love Black Heath and their low-cost Kindle releases of Golden Age mysteries, and the more obscure, the better.

And there can be few more obscure than the four-book Inspector Bedison series by Thomas Cobb: so very obscure, in fact, that this is a rare case of me being unable to find any cover image at all, and so being forced to use the generic ebook cover.

Which in the case of Inspector Bedison Risks It, presents me with a dilemma.

Tell me, my peeps: do I go with no cover image at all, or one with A TYPO in it!?---

>230 lyzard: ROFLMAO!

*catches breath* Er...I think I'd go with no cover.

Liz, just stopping by to wish you a lovely weekend. Are things more or less back to normal in Australia?

>230 lyzard: Oh, my. I just spent entirely too much time trying to pronounce 'inpsector' — I'm not sure it can be done, at least not by my mouth! That was a fun diversion, although anyone eavesdropping is surely convinced I've either lost my mind or had a mild stroke. :-)

>230 lyzard: No cover, or you need some photoshop skills - otherwise it'll just make the blood boil each and everytime you look at it.

>231 Dejah_Thoris:, >233 rosalita:, >234 Helenliz:

I feel so validated! :D

Yes, I've been doing that too! I've decided that the 'PS' is pronounced as in 'psychology', so that comes out as IN-SECTOR.

Or INSECT-OR, which I think I like better. Insector Bedison, fighting arthropod crime!

>232 PaulCranswick:

Hi, Paul! Yes and no, mostly still no. Schools are sort of going back, and some service businesses have reopened on restricted customer numbers, but a lot of other things are still closed.

Like libraries, sigh...

I have set up a new thread in the hope it will motivate me to get some reviewing done:

2020 Part 4

Hope to see you there! :)