Monthly Archives: December 2008

Kate Summerscale, “The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher”

Posted on December 31, 2008 by

Here’s the subtitle, too: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective. Now here’s the final wonderful paragraph: “Perhaps this is the purpose of detective investigations, real and fictional — to transform sensation, horror and grief into … Continue reading →

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Elizabeth Jane Howard, “Slipstream”

Posted on December 30, 2008 by

I’m a huge fan of Howard’s The Cazalet Chronicles. I also knew that she’d been married to Kingsley Amis, and that she had been very kind to his son Martin, then a surly teenager. So of course I had to … Continue reading →

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Donna Leon, “The Girl of His Dreams”

Posted on December 25, 2008 by

They have a tightrope to walk, these writers of murder mysteries.  On the one hand, they are constrained by their genre to offer readers the conventional experience: a puzzle in the course of which damage is done and order, ultimately, … Continue reading →

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Pat Barker, “Life Class”

Posted on December 21, 2008 by

I’m glad I don’t live in Pat Barker’s head.  If we accept that what a writer puts on the page is  tiny fraction of his or her mental furniture, Barker’s thoughts are full of the gruesome sights and sounds and … Continue reading →

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Magdalen Nabb, “Vita Nuova”

Posted on December 19, 2008 by

I had almost forgotten about Magdalen Nabb; I’d certainly given up on her.  She was one of those mystery writers who surfaced in the 1980s – Edmund Crispin, Sarah Caudwell, Julian Barnes writing as Dan Kavanagh – who brought a … Continue reading →

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Ron Hansen, “Exiles”

Posted on December 18, 2008 by

Often I wonder what keeps me turning the pages of a particular book. Some of it is pure curiosity: what happens next?  Many readers like to feel they’re being informed, which may  influence the current fashion for historical fiction.  (We … Continue reading →

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Albert Boime, “Art and the French Commune”

Posted on December 17, 2008 by

I haven’t really decided what to do about books that I read for work, but Albert Boime’s Art and the French Commune proposed such an interesting idea that I thought it worth sharing.  By way of background, the French Commune … Continue reading →

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Rebecca Stott, “Ghostwalk” and Markus Zusak, “The Book Thief”

Posted on December 14, 2008 by

Strictly speaking, this is cheating.  I was originally going to just post as I finished books but my fine flurry has paused as I started something rather long and probably pretty mediocre, Penny Vincenzi’s  No Angel.  But in the meantime … Continue reading →

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Audrey Niffenegger, “The Time Traveler’s Wife”

Posted on December 11, 2008 by

Wow.  So much to like here!  Though I have to say, if Meg had told me it was a book about a woman whose husband travels back and forth in time I would have thought of Isaac Asimov and handed … Continue reading →

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Per Petterson, “Out Stealing Horses”

Posted on December 8, 2008 by

I’m not such a big fan of this kind of book, where a stoical narrator tells you in simple declarative sentences about the terrible things that have happened to him.  (It’s a very male voice.)  My friend Meg, whose taste … Continue reading →

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