July Reading

It's been a very busy month around here, so all my reading has been at bedtime, which means Kindle books only. I haven't sat down during the day to read in weeks. Oh, maybe a page here and there, but that's it. I did only one post for Paris in July; and I gave up the idea of reading Edwin Way Teale's Journey into Summer for now.

Summer is always busier than the rest of the year, but it seems that Tom's retirement is opening up time to do more visiting than we usually do. We have seen just about all our friends in July, times of great joy and conversation; a three-hour brunch on the patio of a local restaurant, going to two movies - Hannah Arendt and 20 Feet From Stardom, a play at the local summer stock theatre - Annie Get Your Gun, and family meals. It has been wonderful. There's been some gardening, and Tom has been working on getting wood together for the winter. But not much daytime reading. I guess that will happen after the summer. Around here we don't have too many months of warm weather so we truly take advantage of them.

In July I 'met' a new author named Stuart Palmer. 

43. Murder on the Blackboard - book 3 in the Hildegarde Withers series
by Stuart Palmer
mystery, 1932
Kindle book
finished 7/29/13

42. Murder on Wheels - book 2 in the Hildegarde Withers series
by Stuart Palmer
mystery, 1932
Kindle book
finished 7/24/13

41. The Penguin Pool Murder - book 1 in the Hildegarde Withers series
by Stuart Palmer
mystery, 1931
Kindle book
finished 7/16/13

I first heard of him in a publication I receive called (Give Me That) Old-Time Detection which features mystery writers from the past. If you are interested, email me (click on the About Me tab, and then View My Complete Profile) and I'll tell you how you may subscribe. It is quite singular in the literary world, and is put together and typed up by one man, Arthur Vidro. He has letters from readers, he finds reviews from years ago, and he has full articles about many writers that are almost unknown today. It's a little known gem. When I first inquired about it, Arthur wrote this to me:

     Ever since its autumn 2002 premiere, (GIVE ME THAT) OLD-TIME DETECTION has been published three times a year.  Since issue #10 we have always included at least 32 pages (sometimes more), not counting the cover.
      We are devoted to discussion of older (pre-1970, usually pre-1960) detective-story writers, their careers, their characters, individual novels or stories ... sometimes we include "lost" pieces, such as a story by Anthony Berkeley or an essay by John Dickson Carr ... when I was lucky enough to meet Mathew Prichard (Agatha Christie's grandson), that led to an interview.  We provided several pages of coverage of the 2005 Ellery Queen Centenary Symposium.
      The more famous of our contributors of new material are Marvin Lachman and Jon Breen.  In addition, we have reprinted reviews by Charles Shibuk and essays by Ed Hoch, Susan Oleksiw, Francis Nevins, Tony Medawar/Arthur Robinson, and Douglas Greene.
      It's hard to pigeon-hole us, but we do focus much more on the Golden Age style than on the Hard Boiled style.

After my introduction to Stuart Palmer within its pages, it was a recent post on the At the Scene of the Crime blog which got me to begin reading Palmer in earnest.

There's a terrific piece about Stuart Palmer here. 

Palmer's sleuth is an amateur who is very smart, fearless, and so much fun. Her name is Hildegarde Withers. She is a 'spinster' who is 39 years old when we first meet her. She teaches third grade in New York City, and lives with a couple roommates in an apartment. In the first book, she actually becomes engaged to Inspector Piper of the NYC police at the end, but by book two they have decided they are happier being great friends, detecting companions, and single. Pretty bold for a writer in the 1930s to feature a woman who is frankly contented to be a 'working woman.' And what a woman she is. I've never read about anyone like her. It is hard for me to understand why Jane Marple became so very well-known while Hildegarde Withers remains a hidden treasure. She is amazing. I've read about the old movie versions starring Edna May Oliver and James Gleason, and since they aren't available on Netflix, I may just buy them. 

Though there is a bit of screwball comedy in the books, they are mostly quite serious, and well thought out mysteries. It is also a treat to read about an amateur sleuth who is respected and supported by the police. The plots are intriguing, the characters terrific, and the writing good. I couldn't ask for more. I've just begun the fourth one. I do so enjoy reading through a series one right after the other. Though I've read that many people don't enjoy this, I find it great fun. 

I really liked The Broken Rules of Ten, a prequel to The First Rule of Ten and The Second Rule of Ten. 

40. The Broken Rules of Ten - prequel to the Tenzing Norbu series
by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay
mystery, 2013
Kindle book
finished 7/13/13

It was really wonderful to read about Tenzing Norbu as a young boy living in the monastery with his father. Ten lives part of the year there, and the other months with his free spirited, alcoholic mother. The poor boy didn't fit into either parent's lifestyle. He learned to depend upon his two friends, who are still important to the older Ten. It was most interesting to see what life in a Buddhist monastery was like - the food, the rituals, the order of life. Hendricks and Lindsay can't write fast enough for me. I love this series. The books have sparked my interest in Buddhism and I've bought two books to help me learn more: The Buddhist Catechism by Henry Steele Olcott, and Taking the Path of Zen by Robert Aitken. I also bought a sweet sounding book called The Dalai Lama's Cat by David Michie. This is one of the things I love best about reading. When I read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I mentioned in my book report a quote from the book which I began to call 'the Guernsey effect' - 

That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

39. Dodsworth in Paris - book 2 in the Dodsworth series

by Tim Egan
children's fiction, 2008
Kindle book
library book
finished 7/13/13

This was a precious little children's book for early readers. Dodsworth has a companion duck who can't help getting into trouble, which makes for delightful reading. One of his adventures is making their money into paper airplanes and flying it off the Eiffel Tower, causing Dodsworth to get a job in the city in which he was supposed to be merely vacationing. I'd like to read the whole series, but will borrow the print versions instead of reading them on my Kindle. This was supposed to be a reading for Paris in July, as was a great movie I saw called Waiting for Fidel, but I just didn't have the solid time to sit down and give either the book or movie the time they deserved. I may write about the movie sometime.

The latest Maisie Dobbs book was great. I thought it one of the best in the series. 

38. Leaving Everything Most Loved - book 10 in the Maisie Dobbs series
by Jacqueline Winspear
mystery, 2012
Kindle book
library book
finished 7/9/13

The title figures into both the case Maisie has taken on, and her own personal life. I skipped book 9, Elegy for Eddie, because I found the story too painful after reading some of it. Things happened in that book to the main, ongoing characters, but I felt that Jacqueline Winspear caught me up so I knew what had occurred. Honestly, this is one of my favorite series ever. I love Maisie, her dad, and Billy. They are drawn with such care that the reader really does know them well by now. In this book, a woman from India has been killed. She had been living in a sort of hotel for servants who had been let go once they moved to England with British families, and were no longer needed. What a horrible thing. We meet the owners of the place who are no saints themselves though they talk as if they are doing the women a great service. The whole thing was very sad to read about, but still the mystery and the story of Maisie's inner thoughts are simply excellent. I love the slow, quiet writing where every single word is important. The stories are always complex and multi-dimensional. I've learned so much over the years of the books. 

This monthly books format is working out well for me, though sometimes I do miss writing longer book reports. I intend to do so for the two challenges I've joined - Sherlock Holmes and the Canadian Book Challenge.