Library Books T/K

Note to self: I got the following out of the library yesterday --

After Hannibal, by Barry Unsworth
Tomb of the Golden Bird, by Elizabeth Peters (#18 in the series)
A Place of Hiding, by Elizabeth George (I don't *think* I've read this before)
Rules of Engagement, by Bruce Alexander (the last of the series, completed after his death by his wife(?))

An Experiment in Treason

One of the wonderful Bruce Alexander mysteries about Sir John Fielding, the "blind beak of Bow Street", who founded the Bow Street Runners with brother, Henry. All the stories are told from the p.o.v. of young Jeremy, his apprentice and sometime clerk. This one's about a letter stolen from a government official, having to do with the American colonies. Ben Franklin makes a discreditable appearance.

Death in a Strange Country

Donna Leon's Venetian Commissario Guido Brunetti investigates the deaths of two Americans stationed at a base near Venice. Purely through luck, I chanced on the 2nd of her many-book series, which is satisfying, since I dearly love going in order when it comes to a series.

I like the Leon's I've read, although they can be slightly one-note. But Venice itself is such a great character that I forgive her.

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman

P.D. James introduces young Cordelia something, an independent 22-year-old detective. The book is strangely dated for James, with lots of stuff about the generation gap that probably seemed very current in the early '70s but now just seems forced. Free love, undergraduates finding themselves -- I had to ignore that part to follow the mystery story, to wit: did young Paul something-or-other really hang himself in that rustic cottage?

Still, even slightly self-conscious James is still James.

Little Children

By Tom Perotta, the guy who wrote Election and something else I didn't recognize. More satire about current-day suburbia -- affairs, petty-mindedness, the mind-numbing rearing of children. Pretty biting, and just this side of too depressing.

Something about the fact that this was made into a movie put me off from reading the book, but a friend pressed it on me and J is still strolling through the 2nd Patrick O'Brian (am I really going to read this series for a THIRD time??) so I picked up the Perotta. And raced through it in two days. Nicely done, with a great ending.

Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor

This seems to have become a once-a-month list site, but whatever. The point is to keep track of what I've read so that I don't end up reading the same mystery over and over and over again. Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson (I read books by both last month and already can't remember what they were called, ARGH), Elizabeth George, whoever.

Anyway, I know I re-read this Jane Austen mystery, the first one, b/c I own it and it's still sitting out on my coffee table. It's much less cheesy than the title/theme might suggest, and is actually pretty complex and enjoyable.

An Instance of the Fingerpost

Really excellent Iain Pears that I read maybe 7-10 years ago. I picked up a used copy a little while ago and was all set to dive in again, and had gotten about 50 pages in, when J finished up the O'Brian series. He was bereft, and wouldn't be satisfied with Mystic River which, while a very decent thriller, is nothing more.

So I gave up Instance and moved on to Thunderstruck, Erik Larson's story of Marconi and Crippen, and how their worlds intersected on Crippen's transatlantic flight from justice. Really really great.

But then J kept making reference to his book, and since I did read it probably a decade ago, I have no memory of who did what or why. So I got my own copy yesterday and will read along, so we can discuss.

Toupydoops

Graphic novel by Kevin McShane. The inane title, the two-bachelor-guys-trying-to-break-into-showbiz plot, the fairly predictable setbacks -- let's say it didn't do much for me. I have to say, the grating names of both the protagonist (Toupy) and his pal (Teetereater) never became less irritating as the book went on. And while Toupy is some kind of blue insect and Teeter is a bear/human hybrid, every female in the work is a busty, tanktop-wearing clone. Oh, except for Toupy's teacher colleague, who actually wears shirts with sleeves. Not surprising, but no less annoying for it.

In fairness: the book is really well-drawn, and the sensibility is sweet. But overall -- yawn, ick, boring.

Arthur and George

I had great hopes for this Julian Barnes, in which he documents/novel-izes the story of how Arthur Conan Doyle defended the wrongfully convicted George Edalji, son of a Parsi vicar and a Scots mother, who was found to have sent threats to his own family and mutilated cattle -- railroaded due to racial prejudice.

George's bewildered p.o.v. was just too heartbreaking. I couldn't bear to watch his downfall, so after around 100 pages, I quit. Barnes did his job too well.

My French Whore

A novel by Gene Wilder, with a hero as sweet and bumbling, and of course ultimately triumphant, as one of Wilder's movie characters. In fact, the novel reads almost as a sketch for a movie script. It's short and poignant, and very economical with its language. It's the story of Paul Peachy, who joins up to fight WWI and then deserts almost as soon as he gets to Germany -- as soon as he realizes that "trench warfare" means "run right into the enemy's machine-gun fire with absolutely zero protection, and watch both your closest friends get killed within seconds."

Luckily for Peachy, he's an actor, and has recently met a very famous spy. An elaborate hoax saves his life, but for how long.

Really, a lovely, graceful, delightful work. Way to go, Gene.

The Year of Magical Thinking

I think I read this back in January and never wrote it about it. Joan Didion's account of the year her husband died and her daughter was hospitalized with a mysterious, devastating illness.

The only non-depressing thing about this truly grim work -- because all of this horrible stuff really happened, all at once, and there's no making it un-happen -- may be that the book has been a top seller. I like it when the good, smart books sell.

This entry isn't exactly "writing about it", but at least I have down that I read it, which is the point of this blog, since I always forget what I've read.

A Body to Die For

Mystery-thriller fluff, but a half-step up from the rock-bottom mass-market airport pulp. Maybe I only think that because I know it's written by Kate White, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, and I feel like that confers some kind of reflected intellectual glow. Yes, it's Cosmo, not Harper's, but I haven't met a dumb E-I-C yet. Although, to be fair, I don't know many who work at the glossies.

Anyway, the point is, this book was just that much better than crap that I finished it. In this one, freelance writer and sleuth Bailey Weggins investigates a murder at a spa owned by a family friend.

Blue at the Mizzen

Sigh. The final, complete O'Brian novel. It was published in 1999, and he died in 2000, at age 86. Can't really fault him for slacking. Still, it's depressing to get to the end. The only consolation is that now we own all the books and when I next feel like working my way through -- in five years, say? -- they're all there, waiting.

I wonder how many pages, more or less, there are in total? Say around 350 pages each, times 20 books. A 7,000-page novel, conveniently broken into commuter-portability-friendly chunks.

Even though O'Brian was supposed to be, in his personal life, perhaps less than admirable, I'll still say a little prayer of thanks for him, so grateful am I for the marvelous world he created.

The Hundred Days

The penultimate, number 19. I see from Wikipedia that O'Brian didn't coin this phrase, but that in fact it refers to the few months between the time when Napoleon got to Paris after escaping from Elba, and King Louis XVIII was returned to the throne. Amazing what you can learn if you actually look something up, even unintentionally.

Aubrey and Maturin are dispatched to North Africa to pick their way through the complexities of local rule and prevent a shipment of gold, provided by one Sheik Ibn Hazm, from reaching Napoleon's forces.

The Yellow Admiral

Aubrey-Maturin number 18, in which the specter of "yellowing" -- being promoted without possibility of a squadron -- appears and haunts Jack for a couple of books to come.

J and I took a break from these, but once we got started on the final four, we raced through. They're all, basically, the same book. As many reviewers have pointed out.

The Commodore

Number 17 in the Aubrey-Maturin series, in which our heroes suppress the slave trade. The particular heartstrings-tugging moment in this one is when Stephen returns home to find that his daughter is apparently autistic, and his wife has fled.

The Wine-Dark Sea

Excellent Aubrey-Maturin adventure, book 16, this time in and around Peru. Stephen's trying to overthrow the government and Jack is suffering setback after setback in His Majesty's hired ship Surprise. This one was a total joy. (Aren't they all?) J has already said that as soon as he's done the series, he'll just start over.

The Magician's Nephew

Yay, C.S. Lewis! The first of the Narnia series, which of course I've read multiple times, except not since the early '80s, so it's delightful to be going back again. His writing is so fresh and charming, and dryly English. The only problem is that while a good friend gave me 6 out of the 7 books of the series, book 2 (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) is missing, so I'm not sure what to do. Skip ahead to book 3? But that feels so wrong, somehow. Stumped, here.

Still Life with Husband

Decidedly mediocre, I only finished it because I was trapped in the house with a horrible cold, and I'd started it, after all. Lauren Fox has create a heroine who is clearly going to cheat on her husband. It's so inevitable, and the plot is so one-note, and the protagonist is so blah, and her husband is so dull, it's just all one can do to care about any of these people. And then there's plot twist at the very end that seems pretty tacked on. I resent the loss of the time I spent reading it.

Labyrinth

By Kate Mosse. Another crusader-era mystery. No reviewer has been able to resist comparing it to the Da Vinci code, with good reason. There's a secret society that's trying to retrieve three books that hold the secret of life, written in heiroglyphics. The modern mystery is ehh, but the half of the book that takes place during the Catholic invasion of the Cathar region (southwest France) in the early 13th century. There's a couple of plucky heroines (Alais, and her modern counterpart, Alice), great medieval atmosphere, some painless history lessons about the church of the time, and a mostly swiftly moving story. But the books a little long. There may have been a superfluous love story or bomb setting.

The Observations

Fabulously escapist, truly un-put-downable. Told in the first person, from the perspective of a Victorian Irish girl with a sordid past, who finds a new life as a kitchen maid for a rather odd mistress. There's secret literary ambition, a possible ghost, a repressive husband, political aspirations, madness -- the whole Victorian shebang. Narrator Bessy is entirely likeable, sharp, sweet and witty. The story of her origins unfolds alongside the present-day action, and the whole is a mysterious, interleaved delight.

Age of Consent

Not my usual, since it's a horror thriller, but very absorbing. By my friend, Howard Mittelmark! If you like teen horror at all, this book does it really well.

Little Pink Slips

Now THIS was a great read. Sally Koslow, former editor of McCall's before Rosie took it over, pens a roman a clef about a women's magazine that 's taken over and run into the ground by an outsize celebrity. All kinds of dish about the workings of a magazine, plus a romantic sub-plot and a happy ending. Fun fun fun.

Jemima J

By Jane Green. Borrowed this from a friend in Denver. I'm woefully under-read in the chick-lit arena, considering my job as editor of a women's website. Although the ending is clear from about page 2, it's still an enjoyable page turner, especially for a cofirmed anglophile such as myself. Even if the random switching from first-person/second-person narration gets a little mish-mashy.

Throne of Jade

Yes, I am a confirmed geek. No surprises there. I thoroughly enjoyed this, the second installment of Naomi Novik's Temeraire series, in which dragon and handler visit China during the Napoleonic wars.

Blood at the Root

by Peter Robinson. Detective Alan Banks investigates the death of a skinhead.

Not my favorite, but I always like Robinson.

Affinity

Dark Victorian novel/thriller about a gentlewoman who becomes entranced by one of the prisoners she visits as part of her suite of Victorian-lady good deeds. This is one of those where I came this close to missing my subway stop. Sarah Waters is so enormously engaging.

Freddy and Fredericka

Loved. It. I think this is the kind of novel you could describe as picaresque -- loveable rogue-ish hero and heroine, rollicking adventures across the U.S., lashings of satire. Hmm. That didn't sound that good. This book was so much fun, I'm telling you.

Plot: Prince and Princess of Wales, who bear a passing resemblance to the Charles and Di of yore, need to prove they're worthy of the crown, so are sent to America to conquer it. I love Helprin, and this was very him. Humor interspersed with magical, lyrical passages about nature and life and spirit.

Mindless Eating

Borrowed this from my Health Editor friend who had it on her shelf. I remember being curious about it when it came out. By Brian Wansink, PhD, it's addressed the growing amount of obesity in the U.S. by examining how various cues can cause us to overeat. He's basically a sociologist -- a food psychologist, I think is his official title -- who did all kinds of experiments involving making it harder or easier to eat. The "bottomless soup bowl" is one people seemed to report on when the book came out. He and his grad students (at Cornell, he's the director of their Food and Brand Lab) created a setting where they could keep a bowl of soup perpetually filled, so that the "stop eating" cue of an empty bowl never happened. Not only did people eat and eat, they didn't have any awareness that their soup wasn't disappearing at the right rate.

Anyway, all kinds of stuff like that. Most of it is "obvious", but a number of chapters address how even the obvious goes unnoticed by all of us. Even experts, even well-educated knowledgeable people, even the author himself. A pretty powerful argument for putting more veggies on your plate, and making your plate smaller in the first place. But the best part is how readable it was, fun, and not opaque in the slightest.

Lucky

I have to say, I didn't think I was going to enjoy Alice Sebold's memoir about how she was raped as a college student. But I did. The voice of the narrator -- her -- is that of a survivor. But rather than identify as a Survivor, she is adamant about being a person to whom something awful happened, rather than a career victim.

She has a unique, super-charged engaging voice and I thought the book was terrific.

I'm still wary of The Lovely Bones. Something about a story narrated by a dead girl, I find off-putting. Even having seen what Sebold did with her own personal horror story. But I have moved a little. I used to be adamant about not reading Bones. Now I'd probably be willing if I came across a copy. But I'm not going to seek it out.

Too Great a Lady

I'm done with Too Great a Lady: The Notorious, Glorious Life of Emma, Lady Hamilton. I got about a third of the way through but I just wasn't grabbed. The narrator was engaging and I love that time period, but I found myself dragging through it. Who knows why. Possibly only b/c there are so many books waiting in the wings that I couldn't focus.

Basically, I wanted to read about her and Nelson and instead I got what felt like acres and acres of her at age 15, scampering aorund London, misbehaving. Yawn.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

I know everyone's read it at this point so I'll just say I loved it and raced through it in a day. Probably missed a lot by reading it that fast but I was so absorbed I couldn't stop. I'll certainly keep an eye out for Mark Haddon's next one, A Spot of Bother. Random House has done a really good-looking website for it, by the way.

The White Rhino Hotel

Started it but gave up about 30 pages in. Thought I'd love it but found it too aggressively colorful for my taste. Sorry, Bartle Bull. Maybe I'd like his non-fiction, called Safari, also apparently about the Kenyan highlands right after WWI.

Too Much to Read

I have about 7 books on deck right now and I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with wonderful possibilities. I'm putting aside a perfectly fine Christopher Buckley (Wet Work) just because it isn't wonderful, which normally I wouldn't do, but I've got all of these other things going. There's a fictional bio of Emma Hamilton (which reads as a trashier Phillipa Gregory -- of The Other Boleyn Girl), a few mysteries I'd like to sample, Freddy and Fredricka, by one of my favorite writers, Mark Helprin -- whom I love for A Winter's Tale, rather than his Republican speech-writing ways. Side note: I'm always stunned that intelligent, sensitive people can be Republicans with a straight face. Still? After Bush? I mean, who voted for Bush A SECOND TIME???

That's really not my topic, though, so let's leave it. Anyway, I have the Helprin, plus a new Jodi Picoult. I'm not a Picoult fanatic as many seem to be, but I did like the one book by her that I read, My Sister's Keeper, about a collision between Amish people, the American legal system, and teen pregnancy. And there's The Curious Incident... that everyone except for me has read and loved, and a Graham Greene, can't remember which one.

Plus there are comics to review, and two or three recorded books to listen to. I should take a few days off of work to catch up on my leisure activities.

No, I Don't Want to Join a Book Club

By Virginia Ironside. Ridiculous title, wonderful book. Sort of a Bridget Jones for the 60-and-over set, our heroine, Marie Sharp, chronicles the wonders of becoming an official "oldie", as she calls it. No more pressure to look or behave in particular ways, no more pressure to learn Italian or become a photographer, freedom to give up sex entirely and just stop worrying about it. That all could be rather one note, but there is a plot here, and Marie is such a delightful narrator -- with her portraits of her down-market home in Shepherd's Bush, her shock at how incredible it is to become a grandmother, and her quiet bewilderment and acceptance of a friend's death -- the whole thing flies along. Plus, it's all so English. Loved it.

His Majesty's Dragon

There's another woman out there who loves Nelson's navy and dragons as much as I do, and she wrote a book about it. Naomi Novik imagines the Napoleonic wars as fought with ships and dragons. Actually, there are three books in the trilogy. I have to find the others. The first was lent to me by a kind friend who just showed up and handed me the book. I finished it in two days.

Of course if you don't like fantasy, this book isn't going to work for you. But if you fall into that part of the Venn diagram where the navy and dragons intersect -- as do I and Naomi and Misha, Naomi's friend who lent me the book -- you'll probably love it.

Chinese Lessons

Amazing book about China in the 1980s from an American, John Pomfret, who went to college there as part of the first foreign class allowed in the country. He traces the lives of eight of his classmates, exposing what life was really like in Mao's China. Not pretty. Everything you've heard about corrupt Communist party bosses and grinding poverty and public shaming and friends ratting out friends ratting out family members, and once-respected elders being crippled by hysterical rabble and the total gutting of the agricultural system and the countless unpredictable reverses of official philosophy so nobody ever knew exactly whom they were supposed to denounce or praise -- it all seems to be true.

I'd heard of all of these things, but they remained mostly abstract for me. It was hard for me to imagine a world as cruelly absurd as China of the 1960s and '70s, but Pomfret breathes life into it with the specifics of his friends's stories. Many are from the country, where showing the intellect one would need to get into college was precisely the kind of thing that could get you denounced. Saving books to read pegged you as a corrupt intellectual. And these labels had real repercussions, on how much food you got, what kind of jobs you could do, when you could leave your village or see your family or really do anything at all. There's lots more, but the book's across the room and I'm too lazy to get up and get it.

A really valuable work, utterly fascinating and highly readable.

Spent

A Joe Matt graphic novel collects three of his Peepshow comic books.

I like Joe, despite how enormously unlikeable he tries to make himself, what with his tight-wadness, and his truly pathetic addiction to porn that keeps him from being able to form a bond with any kind of real female human being.

But then I feel like a sucker, because that kind of seems like his game -- pre-empt any condemnation you might make but saying it first, and then forcing you to like him anyway. Manipulative, which is what his friends accuse of him of (another way he's self aware). J can't stand him; any time Matt's work surfaces around the house, J is moved to exclaim about what a dick that Joe Matt guy is.

Let's say I like his work -- his drawing style has something very clean and warm and human about it -- but wouldn't want to be friends with him. I'm curious to find out what happens next, but given his production schedule, it'll probably be another 3-4 years unti I find out.

Conquered by Six Frigates

I didn't finish it and I have to take it back to the library. I may actually end up buying this one, now that I've developed such an obsession with that era. What's it called? Empire? I have to look it up.

I guess you could call it Federal, although that really has to do with architecture, I think. It's also Napoleonic, although that wouldn't refer to the U.S. It's also exactly the time of Jane Austen, although the era isn't called Austen-ian. It's also Georgian, in that George was king of England.

So, who knows.

The Ruins of California

GREAT novel by Martha Sherrill. It's the coming-of-age story of Inez Ruin (hence the title), who has two flaky California-in-the-'70s parents, one in San Francisco, and one on the outskirts of L.A. I'd say the punny title is the least subtle thing about it. Mostly, it just exudes a kind of sense memory of the '70s, and shows how the turmoil of
cultural mores could shape two people, one kindly narcissist (dad), one loving-but-absent bent-on-self-development mom. Plus abuelita, who works all the time, and regal grandmother Marguerite, who takes Inez in hand when her parents fail to.

There's all kinds of artifacts of the era, here -- casual drug use, est, a raffish North Beach, an obsession with modern architecture, surfing and Hawaii and communes, tennis, '70s New Wave cinema, and on and on. It all hangs together, though; nothing feels pulled in as set dressing. It's all part of the story.

Gimp

This is the story of Mark Zupan, the quadraplegic guy who was the breakout star of Murderball, the movie. It's pretty much a straightforward What Life Was Like Before I Was Injured, How I Got Injured, How I Dealt With Recovery, How I Live Now story. Zupan has such an electric voice, though (nicely captured by Tim Swanson), that this book entered the class of "un-put-downable" for me. Another one that made the subway ride seem short.

See Delphi and Die

Yet another Marcus Didius Falco mystery from Lindsey Davis, which I listened to rather than read. The plot takes Marcus and Helena and assorted family members, plus Nux the dog, to Greece, as they research a package holiday gone horribly wrong for a couple of Roman girls who were murdered far from home. I love the complexity and authentic (I think, who knows) period details, which take me right back to one of my favorite classes ever, Roman Civ in college. Who know that the guys like Seutonius and Tacitus were such great, gossipy writers? I digress.

So, anyway, I highly enjoy these works -- but only on tape. Whenever I try to read them, the stories just feel a bit too dry, somehow. I'm not sure exactly why. The only time I really got into one of these stories on paper was when I was in China for a month and starved for an escapist story written in English.

I listened to this while walking around the park and puttering around the house, my favorite spots for recorded books. (I used to say "books on tape" but that phrase has become obsolete, I realize. This was on CD, taken out of the library and imported into my iTunes.) The books are now overdue. As soon as I finish ripping Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman, I'm going to walk up and return everything and pay my $23(!) fine. At least it supports the library, and would be the cost of one hardback book, new.

The Book of Lost Things

Catching up here on books I read during the first few weeks of January. The Book of Lost Things is by a thriller writer with whom I'm basically unfamiliar, John Connolly. Apparently he wrote Every Dead Thing, something I've also never heard of, but it's how he's cited on Amazon.com. Looks like he likes the word "thing" in a title.

So, anyway, this book is a fantasy and I must admit that what drew me to it was it's cover, which is this very beautiful cut-paper looking thing in deep blue and gold and white. And what it's actually about is a boy in war-torn England who accidentally crosses over to a magic realm where an evil crooked man is trying to do something very evil. Of course, very reminiscent of Narnia, but much darker and certainly more graphically violent, as one might expect from a thriller writer. I enjoyed it enough that I found myself looking forward to the subway ride in the mornings so I could get to it.

Fruit of the Lemon

Finished this over the weekend, on the train ride down to Baltimore. Levy is the author Small Island, a novel about Caribbean immigrants in England during WWII. I thought it was wonderful; so did the Whitbread judges in 2004. Anyways, I just read her latest, Fruit of the Lemon. Actually, I thought it was her latest until just a minute ago, when I visited her website and found that it was published in 1999. I have a review copy that says it's coming out in Feb 2007, but that must be its U.S. publication date.

Anyway, that pub date makes much more sense to me, because while it is a very good book, it isn't as transcendent as Small Island. It makes more sense to me that Levy was still working on various ideas relating to her topic -- in very general terms, it's the relationship of Caribbean people to the former Mother England, told through wonderful warm real human characters. And for sure the characters in Fruit were compelling. The problem I thought is that we don't get enough of a lot of them, and some appear and disappear abruptly. And the structure of the story is very First This Part Happened, and Then This Part Happened, and not much relationship between them.

Still, having said all that, I raced through it and would recommend it. I just think if you haven't read any Levy, start with Small Island.

Federalists vs. Republicans

I have got to get this straight.

Federalists:
-John Adams
-Pro-navy, to protect shipping and get out of paying tribute to the Barbary states (including Tripoli, Algiers, Morocco)
-Anti-army, because who needs it?

Republicans:
-Jefferson
-James Madison (seriously, doesn't that sound a lot like "John Adams", just phonetically speaking?)
-Sympathetic to the French revolution (until it became a bloodbath)
-Anti-navy, because of the cost and likelihood of it dragging the country into war
-Very conscious of severely limiting size and reach of federal government
-Anti-tax as much as possible
-Anti-debt

Note on Jefferson: even though he was theoretically anti-navy, when he succeeded Adams as President, he authorized three warships to go to the Mediterranean in order to get out of paying tribute to the various Deys and other Barbary rulers.

Six Frigates, cont.

Still working on Six Frigates. It's pretty dense, and I'm trying to keep track of all of the personalities. I've never really been able to keep straight any kind of detailed information about the various founding fathers, plus I think all of their names sound kind of similar. John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson -- lots of "J"s, short "a"s, and "s"s. But now I find that there was an intense and bitter rivalry between Jefferson and Adams, that the Federalists were totally anti-navy. I think -- this is the kind of thing I have to keep re-reading to cement in my mind, whereas the anecdote about the swampy path between the White House and the Capitol building, and the fact that housing was so scarce in the new capitol city that congressmen were staying in dorm-like boarding houses, that I remember with no effort at all. I do remember the name Truxtun; he was the captain who won the first of the navy's victories, against a French frigate in the Caribbean. And Humphreys is a Quaker shipbuilder who's never been to sea. And the first ships are the United States, the Constitution, and the Constellation.

Anyway, I've made it to part two.

The Hanging Valley

Finished a Peter Robinson thriller, The Hanging Valley, while having my hair colored for the first time in 8 months. I've been coloring my hair for the past 8 years or so -- reddish highlights, not a whole-hog color-changing thing -- and it still feels like an almost sinful extravagance. Except in the past year or so, I've begun to get gray hair that really shows against the dark brown, so it's moved from a total vanity to a vanity that's almost demanded by the NYC job market. (What a rationalization that is. But still, the gray looks sloppy.)(Whither my feminist ideals?)

Anyway, The Hanging Valley features Robinson's Chief Inspector Alan Banks doing his detective thing against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Dales, a landscape that I recently saw a glimpse of in a totally unrelated work, Michael Apted's most excellent 7 Up documentary series in which one of the characters is a farm boy from up north. The Dales appears to be lonely, beautiful country, and that's how Robinson describes it in his mysteries. In this particular installment, a body is discovered in a valley whose geologic designation is a "hanging valley" due to how it was originally formed by a glacier, or so I loosely gather from Robinson's description. Since it's the 2nd murder in five years in the town of Swainsdale, the local police take an interest. Repressive religion, Canada, and the class system all enter into the plot. Banks is an appealing hero, although why detectives so frequently have "loner" and "music lover" and often "smoker" as their default settings, I'm not sure.

After I finished the Robinson, I read a bit more of Six Frigates on the subway ride home -- a good one, on an express train with lots of seating.

First Day of the Year

What a dismal day in New York City, but it certainly kept me from feeling guilty for doing nothing but slop around the house and read. Eventually J and I dragged out to see Volver but then we came straight back home again.

I finished that ridiculous mystery The Main Corpse, read a few pages of Ali and Nino but didn't pay attention long enough to know what was going on (I was waiting for the microwave to ding), and finished Joan Didion's My Year of Magical Thinking, which I've been carrying around for a couple of months. Not the most upbeat work with which to start the year, being an account of dealing with the awful one-two punch of both Didion's husband's death and her daughter's mysterious and possibly terminal illness. But it is a beautiful book, very clear and crystalline in her descriptions of her specific experience of grief and fear. So, that was good.

And I started in on a history of the U.S. Navy called Six Frigates, by Ian W. Toll. Twenty pages in and it's very satisfying. For a Patrick O'Brian junkie -- and I'm an unrepentant one -- this is just catnip. All about how the ships were made, what was going on with American shipping in the late 1700s, how the English dominated the seas, blah blah blah. Obviously you have to be interested in this stuff to make the book at all worth it, but Toll is very readable so far.

So, a genre novel, a historical novel, an excellent memoir, and a taste of popular history: I call it a good kick-off to a year of books.