November, 2024 Reading: "November's sky is chill an drear, November's life is red and sear." (Sir Walter Scott)
Talk Literary Snobs
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1CliffBurns
Starting off the month with Richard Powers' latest novel, PLAYGROUND.
Anticipate my usual mix of fiction and non-fiction in November, trying my damnedest to hit 100 books by the end of the year.
Anticipate my usual mix of fiction and non-fiction in November, trying my damnedest to hit 100 books by the end of the year.
2Cecrow
About a third of the way through The Tale of Genji, a thousand-year-old soap opera from Japan. Loving to hate this guy, such a womanizer.
3mejix
October readings:
Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman: Written with narrative stamina. Sustaining reader interest for over 1k pages is quite an achievement. It never lags. The war scenes are the best I can remember. At some point the individual plot lines become irrelevant. The narrative force is the evolution of the war itself. This is part of a larger project so in the end it felt like seeing an incomplete building: impressive, monumental, but also unresolved. Very good though.
Oscar Wilde: Reminiscences by Andre Gide: Don't know much about Gide but his attitude toward Wilde in this book and his initial dismissal of Proust elsewhere makes me think he was kind of an idiot. The best thing about this book is when Wilde himself speaks.
Bluets by Maggie Nelson: Nelson is a hyper intellectual romantic. Boy does she love name-dropping. But what an exquisite selection of quotes. What would her books be without the quotes? Her next book should be all quotes. She is my guilty pleasure. Love her.
We the Animals by Justin Torres: Beautiful written, very moving. The first two thirds are the strongest. Seems to lose direction after that. Overall it's a solid first effort. I'd say something like 3.75 stars.
Boathouse by Jon Fosse: The incident from the past at the center of the story turns out to be kind of meh. It really can't carry the dramatic weight it is given. The writing is superlative though. This hypnotic, trance-like style works very well in audiobook format. It has a very strong ending.
Still slowly working on Polish Poetry of the Last Two Decades of Communist Rule: Spoiling Cannibals' Fun.
Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman: Written with narrative stamina. Sustaining reader interest for over 1k pages is quite an achievement. It never lags. The war scenes are the best I can remember. At some point the individual plot lines become irrelevant. The narrative force is the evolution of the war itself. This is part of a larger project so in the end it felt like seeing an incomplete building: impressive, monumental, but also unresolved. Very good though.
Oscar Wilde: Reminiscences by Andre Gide: Don't know much about Gide but his attitude toward Wilde in this book and his initial dismissal of Proust elsewhere makes me think he was kind of an idiot. The best thing about this book is when Wilde himself speaks.
Bluets by Maggie Nelson: Nelson is a hyper intellectual romantic. Boy does she love name-dropping. But what an exquisite selection of quotes. What would her books be without the quotes? Her next book should be all quotes. She is my guilty pleasure. Love her.
We the Animals by Justin Torres: Beautiful written, very moving. The first two thirds are the strongest. Seems to lose direction after that. Overall it's a solid first effort. I'd say something like 3.75 stars.
Boathouse by Jon Fosse: The incident from the past at the center of the story turns out to be kind of meh. It really can't carry the dramatic weight it is given. The writing is superlative though. This hypnotic, trance-like style works very well in audiobook format. It has a very strong ending.
Still slowly working on Polish Poetry of the Last Two Decades of Communist Rule: Spoiling Cannibals' Fun.
4CliffBurns
PLAYGROUND was pretty damn impressive, another masterwork by Richard Powers.
Intelligent and timely.
Highly recommended.
Intelligent and timely.
Highly recommended.
5iansales
The Anomaly, Hervé Le Tellier
This was shortlisted for the Clarke Award last year, but lost to Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman (a good winner, I enjoyed it a lot and thought it well done). The Anomaly… Well, when I started it, I wasn’t so sure, but by the time I finished I thought it would also have made a good winner.
An Air France flight from Paris to New York enters a hurricane just off the coast of the US. The book briefly describes the lives of some of its passengers - including a French author who writes a book titled The Anomaly, and then commits suicide. Having a book within a book which share a title is always a hostage to fortune. But…
Three months later, the same aircraft appears in the skies off the US. It’s identical in every way - plane and crew and passengers completely duplicated. The US promptly hides them on a military base and invokes a first contact protocol, but no one knows what’s going on. Eggheads from assorted disciplines, including the world’s religions, are consulted. Eventually, they all settle on the “the universe is a simulation” as an explanation, and the duplicated flight is simply a glitch. The Anomaly then charts the subsequent lives of assorted passengers who get to meet their originals from the previous flight - with a range of different outcomes, from good to bad.
In parts, The Anomaly reads like something Michel Houellebecq might have written, although not as pessimistic (I’m a fan of Houellebecq's novels). It has the same level of detail and research, and it foregrounds analysis, rather than emotional interiority. Which is a definite plus for me. I’m not about the “feels”, I’m about clarity and verisimilitude. The Anomaly scores on both.
On the other hand, The Anomaly thinks it’s cleverer than it actually is. Its plot is not dissimilar to some recent popular TV shows. Which is not unusual when non-genre authors write genre - although the situation is slightly different in France. But non-genre writers’ takes on genre tropes often proves as interesting, and sometimes more so, as the best the genre has to offer. Le Tellier’s take here is neither ground-breaking nor especially startling to a genre reader, but he not only makes a good fist of the trope, he wraps it in a novel that’s well-written and interestingly structured (it’s Oulipo, apparently).
As I said earlier, it would have been a good winner of the Clarke Award.
This was shortlisted for the Clarke Award last year, but lost to Venomous Lumpsucker by Ned Beauman (a good winner, I enjoyed it a lot and thought it well done). The Anomaly… Well, when I started it, I wasn’t so sure, but by the time I finished I thought it would also have made a good winner.
An Air France flight from Paris to New York enters a hurricane just off the coast of the US. The book briefly describes the lives of some of its passengers - including a French author who writes a book titled The Anomaly, and then commits suicide. Having a book within a book which share a title is always a hostage to fortune. But…
Three months later, the same aircraft appears in the skies off the US. It’s identical in every way - plane and crew and passengers completely duplicated. The US promptly hides them on a military base and invokes a first contact protocol, but no one knows what’s going on. Eggheads from assorted disciplines, including the world’s religions, are consulted. Eventually, they all settle on the “the universe is a simulation” as an explanation, and the duplicated flight is simply a glitch. The Anomaly then charts the subsequent lives of assorted passengers who get to meet their originals from the previous flight - with a range of different outcomes, from good to bad.
In parts, The Anomaly reads like something Michel Houellebecq might have written, although not as pessimistic (I’m a fan of Houellebecq's novels). It has the same level of detail and research, and it foregrounds analysis, rather than emotional interiority. Which is a definite plus for me. I’m not about the “feels”, I’m about clarity and verisimilitude. The Anomaly scores on both.
On the other hand, The Anomaly thinks it’s cleverer than it actually is. Its plot is not dissimilar to some recent popular TV shows. Which is not unusual when non-genre authors write genre - although the situation is slightly different in France. But non-genre writers’ takes on genre tropes often proves as interesting, and sometimes more so, as the best the genre has to offer. Le Tellier’s take here is neither ground-breaking nor especially startling to a genre reader, but he not only makes a good fist of the trope, he wraps it in a novel that’s well-written and interestingly structured (it’s Oulipo, apparently).
As I said earlier, it would have been a good winner of the Clarke Award.
6CliffBurns
COLD CREMATORIUM: Reporting From the Land of Auschwitz by Jozsef Debreczeni.
Most of us (I hope) have heard of the Nazi death camps, know their infamous names.
Debreczeni was judged fit enough to be worked to death in one of the Nazis' many, many "labor camps", doomed to a slow, lingering death as opposed to instant annihilation at Sobibor, Treblinka or Auschwitz. He quickly recognized his labor camp was a kind of "cold crematorium" that would kill him just as relentlessly and inescapably. Over time. All in the service of Hitler's war machine.
Horrific reading, but essential.
(It will take me awhile to get over this one.)
Most of us (I hope) have heard of the Nazi death camps, know their infamous names.
Debreczeni was judged fit enough to be worked to death in one of the Nazis' many, many "labor camps", doomed to a slow, lingering death as opposed to instant annihilation at Sobibor, Treblinka or Auschwitz. He quickly recognized his labor camp was a kind of "cold crematorium" that would kill him just as relentlessly and inescapably. Over time. All in the service of Hitler's war machine.
Horrific reading, but essential.
(It will take me awhile to get over this one.)
7iansales
Blow Fly, Patricia Cornwell
The twelfth book in the series featuring Dr Kay Scarpetta. Unlike the preceding books, this one is written in third-person POV, with lots of chapters written from different characters’ viewpoints. Scarpetta has resigned as Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Virginia, is now freelance and lives in Florida.
Her niece Lucy, and an ex-FBI colleague who has since joined the Last Precinct (Lucy’s private security company), have tracked down Rocco Caggiano (mob lawyer and Marino’s estranged son) to a hotel in Poland. They kill him. In Texas, serial killer Jean-Baptiste Chandonne, the one covered in hair like Cousin It, is on death row. His twin brother, Jay Talley, ex-FBI, ex-Interpol, and also a serial killer, is in Louisiana, killing women. But the police there are so inept and corrupt, they’re clueless.
The Baton Rouge coroner asks for Scarpetta’s help in solving a cold case, the wife of a local millionaire, who allegedly died of an accidental drug overdose. Then it turns out someone everyone thought was dead is actually still alive and secretly manipulating everyone in order to have his revenge on the Chandonne family. It all links together.
It is, frankly, stretching it a bit to consider everything in the preceding eleven books to have all been part of some complicated story-arc involving a French gangster family, but Cornwell tries her best to stitch it all together. I’m reminded of Asimov’s attempt to turn his robot and Foundation stories into one big future history, which may have been more ambitious but was just as hard to swallow.
The change from first-person to third-person is initially a bit weird, but you soon get used to it. Unfortunately, Cornwell hops about a lot, and each hop is a fresh chapter. So there are a *lot* of chapters, most of which are very short. Also, the story jumps about a great deal - Florida, Poland, Texas, Louisiana… It makes it feel a bit disjointed. And it doesn’t help that the manipulator steps out of the shadows at the end and kills all the baddies.
I like Scarpetta as a character, and if she often seemed implausibly overset by difficulties and enemy machinations, she was also a leader in her field and it showed. The whole Chandonne thing never really seemed believable – the way past events slotted into it was too neat and convenient. Hopefully, now the main actors in it are dead, Cornwell can move onto something else. I mean, clearly she moved onto *something*, as there are a further ten books in the series. I guess I’ll find out what.
The twelfth book in the series featuring Dr Kay Scarpetta. Unlike the preceding books, this one is written in third-person POV, with lots of chapters written from different characters’ viewpoints. Scarpetta has resigned as Chief Medical Examiner of the Commonwealth of Virginia, is now freelance and lives in Florida.
Her niece Lucy, and an ex-FBI colleague who has since joined the Last Precinct (Lucy’s private security company), have tracked down Rocco Caggiano (mob lawyer and Marino’s estranged son) to a hotel in Poland. They kill him. In Texas, serial killer Jean-Baptiste Chandonne, the one covered in hair like Cousin It, is on death row. His twin brother, Jay Talley, ex-FBI, ex-Interpol, and also a serial killer, is in Louisiana, killing women. But the police there are so inept and corrupt, they’re clueless.
The Baton Rouge coroner asks for Scarpetta’s help in solving a cold case, the wife of a local millionaire, who allegedly died of an accidental drug overdose. Then it turns out someone everyone thought was dead is actually still alive and secretly manipulating everyone in order to have his revenge on the Chandonne family. It all links together.
It is, frankly, stretching it a bit to consider everything in the preceding eleven books to have all been part of some complicated story-arc involving a French gangster family, but Cornwell tries her best to stitch it all together. I’m reminded of Asimov’s attempt to turn his robot and Foundation stories into one big future history, which may have been more ambitious but was just as hard to swallow.
The change from first-person to third-person is initially a bit weird, but you soon get used to it. Unfortunately, Cornwell hops about a lot, and each hop is a fresh chapter. So there are a *lot* of chapters, most of which are very short. Also, the story jumps about a great deal - Florida, Poland, Texas, Louisiana… It makes it feel a bit disjointed. And it doesn’t help that the manipulator steps out of the shadows at the end and kills all the baddies.
I like Scarpetta as a character, and if she often seemed implausibly overset by difficulties and enemy machinations, she was also a leader in her field and it showed. The whole Chandonne thing never really seemed believable – the way past events slotted into it was too neat and convenient. Hopefully, now the main actors in it are dead, Cornwell can move onto something else. I mean, clearly she moved onto *something*, as there are a further ten books in the series. I guess I’ll find out what.
8CliffBurns
A reread of Richard Russo's CHANCES ARE--after COLD CREMATORIUM I needed something a bit more affirming.
But CHANCES ARE is minor Russo, nowhere near as good as EMPIRE FALLS.
A creative mis-step for a fine author but still entertaining and not without its attractions.
But CHANCES ARE is minor Russo, nowhere near as good as EMPIRE FALLS.
A creative mis-step for a fine author but still entertaining and not without its attractions.
9iansales
Tales of Known Space, Larry Niven
I used to own a copy of this, so I know I must have read it sometime in the 1980s, probably the first half of the decade, and no doubt prompted by having read Niven’s Protector and Ringworld, both of which I remembered reasonably fondly until rereading them this century. Which doesn’t exactly explain why I bothered to reread Tales of Known Space, given I’ve known for a long time what Niven, er, and his fiction, is like.
On the other hand, I like future histories, and Niven’s is a good example. It wasn’t until he was a few years into his career that he decided to fit his stories into a single timeline, from 1975 through to 3100 (at the time of Tales of Known Space’s publication in 1975). As a result, there are inconsistencies, such as the planet Mount Lookitthat, the setting of the novel A Gift from Earth, being occasionally referred to as Plateau.
Tales of Known Space is a collection of stories, set during the centuries covered by Niven’s future history (and also handily shown in a timeline chart after the table of contents). And speaking of contents… I must have purged some of these stories from my memory because, well, wow… One is the most homophobic genre story it has ever been my misfortune to read: first settlement on Mars is all male, some of the men “turn queer”, one is beaten to death when he flirts with a homophobe, homophobe flees in a Mars buggy, but does not survive, leader of mission writes report explaining why all-male colonies are a Bad Thing.
It doesn't help that Niven’s early stories get the planets of the Solar System entirely wrong - Mercury does not rotate, Mars has a nitrous oxide atmosphere (the secretive Martians are forgivable, but not the noxious atmosphere). Later stories are set after humanity has encountered several alien races, but even then relations between the races are implausibly easy. The Kzin, Niven’s most popular creation, giant alien warrior cats, go figure, may have been hostile from the start, but they’re so easily defeated, despite their advanced technology, it makes them a joke.
The stories generally make a lot of their scientific credibility, throwing out terms and concepts that would not look out of place in a hard sf story, but even back in the 1960s and 1970s Niven would have got more right if he’d actually bothered to do any real research. I think he tried, I think he didn’t understand everything he researched, and I think he didn’t let his imperfect understanding of his research get in the way of drama – and today, in the 21st century, we would hold writers to a much high standard because research has become so much easier (right-wing misinformation and lies notwithstanding).
I quite like the idea of Niven’s future history, even if the individual instalments are actually pretty bad. Niven has never been a great writer – he’s a fan of “transparent prose”, he may even have originated the phrase – and the stories in this collection vary from bad to mediocre. It includes a single Beowulf Shaeffer story, and yet hints at many much more interesting ones. The whole organ bank concept is offensive, and ‘Intent to Deceive’ reads like a right-wing wank fantasy. ‘Cloak of Anarchy’ at least reads like a sensible commentary on libertarianism, but calls it anarchy…
Even as an historical document, this collection is best avoided. Reading it will add nothing to a reader’s appreciation of the history of the genre. It should certainly never be read for enjoyment in 2024. I believe Larry Niven is still in print. I have no fucking idea why.
I used to own a copy of this, so I know I must have read it sometime in the 1980s, probably the first half of the decade, and no doubt prompted by having read Niven’s Protector and Ringworld, both of which I remembered reasonably fondly until rereading them this century. Which doesn’t exactly explain why I bothered to reread Tales of Known Space, given I’ve known for a long time what Niven, er, and his fiction, is like.
On the other hand, I like future histories, and Niven’s is a good example. It wasn’t until he was a few years into his career that he decided to fit his stories into a single timeline, from 1975 through to 3100 (at the time of Tales of Known Space’s publication in 1975). As a result, there are inconsistencies, such as the planet Mount Lookitthat, the setting of the novel A Gift from Earth, being occasionally referred to as Plateau.
Tales of Known Space is a collection of stories, set during the centuries covered by Niven’s future history (and also handily shown in a timeline chart after the table of contents). And speaking of contents… I must have purged some of these stories from my memory because, well, wow… One is the most homophobic genre story it has ever been my misfortune to read: first settlement on Mars is all male, some of the men “turn queer”, one is beaten to death when he flirts with a homophobe, homophobe flees in a Mars buggy, but does not survive, leader of mission writes report explaining why all-male colonies are a Bad Thing.
It doesn't help that Niven’s early stories get the planets of the Solar System entirely wrong - Mercury does not rotate, Mars has a nitrous oxide atmosphere (the secretive Martians are forgivable, but not the noxious atmosphere). Later stories are set after humanity has encountered several alien races, but even then relations between the races are implausibly easy. The Kzin, Niven’s most popular creation, giant alien warrior cats, go figure, may have been hostile from the start, but they’re so easily defeated, despite their advanced technology, it makes them a joke.
The stories generally make a lot of their scientific credibility, throwing out terms and concepts that would not look out of place in a hard sf story, but even back in the 1960s and 1970s Niven would have got more right if he’d actually bothered to do any real research. I think he tried, I think he didn’t understand everything he researched, and I think he didn’t let his imperfect understanding of his research get in the way of drama – and today, in the 21st century, we would hold writers to a much high standard because research has become so much easier (right-wing misinformation and lies notwithstanding).
I quite like the idea of Niven’s future history, even if the individual instalments are actually pretty bad. Niven has never been a great writer – he’s a fan of “transparent prose”, he may even have originated the phrase – and the stories in this collection vary from bad to mediocre. It includes a single Beowulf Shaeffer story, and yet hints at many much more interesting ones. The whole organ bank concept is offensive, and ‘Intent to Deceive’ reads like a right-wing wank fantasy. ‘Cloak of Anarchy’ at least reads like a sensible commentary on libertarianism, but calls it anarchy…
Even as an historical document, this collection is best avoided. Reading it will add nothing to a reader’s appreciation of the history of the genre. It should certainly never be read for enjoyment in 2024. I believe Larry Niven is still in print. I have no fucking idea why.
10justifiedsinner
>9 iansales: Ringworld I would guess. Great concept poorly executed. I may be wrong but at the time it seemed like one of the first Big Dumb Objects.
11iansales
>10 justifiedsinner: yes, I think it was. And it's in the SF Masterwork series. Some of the later Fleet of Worlds series are also in print.
12CliffBurns
NAZI WIVES: The Women at the Top of Hitler's Germany by James Wyllie.
Enough with the Nazi stuff already--it's staining my spirit.
A somewhat interesting look at the women who staunchly stood by their war criminal husbands. The writing isn't stellar but it's definitely a subject worth exploring.
Some of those gals were as nasty and unrepentant as their husbands--see: Magda Goebbels.
Enough with the Nazi stuff already--it's staining my spirit.
A somewhat interesting look at the women who staunchly stood by their war criminal husbands. The writing isn't stellar but it's definitely a subject worth exploring.
Some of those gals were as nasty and unrepentant as their husbands--see: Magda Goebbels.
13RobertDay
>12 CliffBurns: For me, a continuing source of fascination is how a land that in the 19th century was a bastion of culture and learning became in the 20th the home of a regime that set the standard for evil that all others are measured against.
I recently read an account of the parallel lives of Melissa Stauffenberg (sister of Hitler's would-be assassin) and Hanna Reitsch, both talented flyers but with very different lives (The Women who flew for Hitler). (The title is a bit misleading, suggesting something far more organised than reality.) One of Stauffenberg's other brothers commented after the war that "Not everybody who was in the Nazi Party was necessarily a Nazi; but not everyone who wasn't in the Party, wasn't."
Having said that, although I am not an overtly religious man and rarely hold grudges against anyone who hasn't done me personal harm, I still hope that there is a Hell, and in it a special corner where Joseph and Magda Goebbels can ROT FOR ALL ETERNITY.
I recently read an account of the parallel lives of Melissa Stauffenberg (sister of Hitler's would-be assassin) and Hanna Reitsch, both talented flyers but with very different lives (The Women who flew for Hitler). (The title is a bit misleading, suggesting something far more organised than reality.) One of Stauffenberg's other brothers commented after the war that "Not everybody who was in the Nazi Party was necessarily a Nazi; but not everyone who wasn't in the Party, wasn't."
Having said that, although I am not an overtly religious man and rarely hold grudges against anyone who hasn't done me personal harm, I still hope that there is a Hell, and in it a special corner where Joseph and Magda Goebbels can ROT FOR ALL ETERNITY.
14CliffBurns
PRECIPICE, another ripping good yarn by Robert Harris.
It's 1914, the world is on the brink of war...and the Prime Minister of Britain (Asquith) is embroiled in an affair with a much younger woman. The P.M. is so smitten he shares confidential cabinet documents and information with her, violating the Secrets Act (and leaving both lovers badly compromised).
Meanwhile, there are forces within cabinet working on Asquith's ousting and his indiscretions with Venetia Stanley could give them all the ammunition they require.
Much tamer than Harris's usual stuff but an engrossing read.
It's 1914, the world is on the brink of war...and the Prime Minister of Britain (Asquith) is embroiled in an affair with a much younger woman. The P.M. is so smitten he shares confidential cabinet documents and information with her, violating the Secrets Act (and leaving both lovers badly compromised).
Meanwhile, there are forces within cabinet working on Asquith's ousting and his indiscretions with Venetia Stanley could give them all the ammunition they require.
Much tamer than Harris's usual stuff but an engrossing read.
15CliffBurns
CONSTELLATION OF GENIUS by Kevin Jackson.
1922, the year Modernism exploded, reaching the far corners of the world.
This book is a remarkable compilation of the innovators, artisans and thinkers who were at their peak in 1922--that roster includes Joyce, Eliot, Proust, Cocteau, Louis Armstrong, Coco Chanel...truly it was an "annus mirabilis".
Riveting read, recommended.
1922, the year Modernism exploded, reaching the far corners of the world.
This book is a remarkable compilation of the innovators, artisans and thinkers who were at their peak in 1922--that roster includes Joyce, Eliot, Proust, Cocteau, Louis Armstrong, Coco Chanel...truly it was an "annus mirabilis".
Riveting read, recommended.
16CliffBurns
CLASSIC GHOST STORIES, no credited editor.
A relatively weak compilation (from Vintage), mostly British authors, a lot of them from the Victorian era.
Very few made any impression: M.R. James, of course (he really was a master of spook tales) and a couple of others. I've long despised the writing of Henry James and never even made it through his story.
I love the British tradition of ghost stories at Christmas--far better than the consumerist craziness that assails us every year around this time.
A relatively weak compilation (from Vintage), mostly British authors, a lot of them from the Victorian era.
Very few made any impression: M.R. James, of course (he really was a master of spook tales) and a couple of others. I've long despised the writing of Henry James and never even made it through his story.
I love the British tradition of ghost stories at Christmas--far better than the consumerist craziness that assails us every year around this time.
17RobertDay
>16 CliffBurns: For years, the BBC ran a series of "Ghost Stories for Christmas", which (with one exception - Dickens' The Signalman) were all dramatizations of M.R. James stories.
Also worth finding is another story in the same vein, but shown as part of an arts programming strand: Schalken the Painter, based on the Sheridan le Fanu story. The British Film Institute have issued this on DVD.
Also worth finding is another story in the same vein, but shown as part of an arts programming strand: Schalken the Painter, based on the Sheridan le Fanu story. The British Film Institute have issued this on DVD.
18CliffBurns
I've watched some of them, Robert, they're excellent (saw them thanks to YouTube).
There's one BBC show featuring Christopher Lee as M.R. James, performing one of his tales for students and invited guests.
Loved the Robert Powell readings too, some fine entertainment on a cold, snowy night.
There's one BBC show featuring Christopher Lee as M.R. James, performing one of his tales for students and invited guests.
Loved the Robert Powell readings too, some fine entertainment on a cold, snowy night.
19CliffBurns
AGATHA CHRISTIE: A Very Elusive Woman, a biography by Lucy Worsley.
Worsley clearly likes her subject but never resorts to hagiography: Christie may have been a fiercely dedicated writer, but she was less than perfect as a mother. Her work (and attitudes) reflected the times, the casual racism present in that era.
A snappy, chatty biography, thoroughly entertaining.
Recommended.
Worsley clearly likes her subject but never resorts to hagiography: Christie may have been a fiercely dedicated writer, but she was less than perfect as a mother. Her work (and attitudes) reflected the times, the casual racism present in that era.
A snappy, chatty biography, thoroughly entertaining.
Recommended.
