If the Circus, Then the Museum

The Day 4 challenge for Bout Of Books #22 is:

Read Alikes
If you liked a particular book, then recommend a book(s) similar to the one you liked.

IF you liked "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern

THEN you should read "The Museum of Extraordinary Things" by Alice Hoffman

I loved "The Night Circus" a lot, and "The Museum of Extraordinary Things" is also very good. Both have heroines with strange fathers, and both girls are part of a show. "Circus" is more dreamlike and other-worldly, whereas "Museum" is more realistic (well, mostly).

My Precious

The Day 3 challenge for Bout Of Books #22 is:

Show Me Your Precious

Everyone has a book that they love; now is your time to bring out your precious and shine. Share your favorite book (in whatever format you choose)! You know the one that has that beautifully illustrated map, or gorgeous writing, or whatever it is that draws you to it. Share with the world what makes that book your precious!

I love books in general, so "When I'm not near the book I love, I love the book I'm near." (sorry Frank!) Current love is "Moby-Dick in Pictures" by Matt Kish. Matt is an amazing artist who decided one day that he should "create one illustration for every single one of the 552 pages in the Signet Classic paperback edition." He began posting them to his blog and eventually the entire collection was published. The result is stunning!

I got a chance to meet Matt at a recent showing of a documentary film "Call Us Ishmael", an intimate look at the world’s obsession with Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick,” which many consider the great American novel. He's a very nice librarian who, of course, is widely read. So nice that he signed my copy of his book, well, drew a whale picture, actually!! So cool!


Find Out More

The film "Call Us Ishmael"
https://www.facebook.com/CallUsIshmael/

Matt's Moby-Dick Blog, starting on Day 1:
http://everypageofmobydick.blogspot.com/2009/08/moby-dick-page-001.html

Year of Me

The Day 2 challenge for Bout Of Books #22 is:

Year of You

Share a book that was published the year you were born.

On my list of books to check into I found the 1947 novel "One Fine Day" by Mollie Panter-Downes, a British writer who lived from 1906 to 1997. She wrote several novels, short story collections, and a biography, but is better known for her column for the New Yorker, describing London during and after WWII.

Here's the description of "One Fine Day" from the current publisher, Little Brown:

It is a summer's day in 1946. The English village of Wealding is no longer troubled by distant sirens, yet the rustling coils of barbed wire are a reminder that something, some quality of life, has evaporated. Together again after years of separation, Laura and Stephen Marshall and their daughter Victoria are forced to manage without 'those anonymous caps and aprons who lived out of sight and pulled the strings'. Their rambling garden refuses to be tamed, the house seems perceptibly to crumble. But alone on a hillside, as evening falls, Laura comes to see what it would have meant if the war had been lost, and looks to the future with a new hope and optimism.

First published in 1947, this subtle, finely wrought novel presents a memorable portrait of the aftermath of war, its effect upon a marriage, charting, too, a gradual but significant change in the nature of English middle-class life.

As an avowed Anglophile interested in the war years, I will be reading and reviewing this book in the not too distant future.

Today, Tuesday, is the Last Day to sign up for Bout Of Books 22. Join us!

Bout of Books Read-a-thon

I’m joining #boutofbooks! This is the 22nd edition of the popular read-a-thon, and it sounds quite fun.

Here's the scoop on Bout of Books:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01 am Monday, May 14th and runs through Sunday, May 20th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 22 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team

My personal goal is to sit myself down and read as many books as I can, start-to-finish, within the prescribed week. I do hope to keep myself from wandering around various book sites online and finding more books I want to read, which takes up actual reading time. It's sort of a good habit / bad habit thing with me. And since book choice is open, I can slot in books for a couple of my challenges. Win!


Here's what I am planning to read:

•     "Red Bang", Brandt Monroe
•     "The Ladies of Missalonghi", Colleen McCullough
•     "Excellent Women", Barbara Pym

And maybe:

•     "The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra", Vassem Khan

Wish me luck! Why not join us on this reading adventure!

Herzoslovakian Feud Spills Blood

The Secret of Chimneys

Agatha Christie
Bantam Books, 1987 (first published 1925)
232 pages

I enjoyed Christie's "The Seven Dials Mystery" [my review is here] that I chanced upon at the library recently, and then realized it was listed as #2 in the Superintendent Battle series at Amazon.com. So back I went to retrieve book #1, "The Secret of Chimneys", and it's another nice mystery tale with many of the same lead characters.

The story takes place at Chimneys, the English country house setting of both books, but this time it's a weekend of political intrigue, with a house full of diplomats, aristocrats, and royalty, plus a few detective types, both professional and amateur. The plot involves the fictional Balkan country of Herzoslovakia, with its history of revolution, the murders of the King and Queen and of several recent Presidents. Prince Michael, the next in line, is maneuvering to get back the throne, financed by selling the rights to the newly discovered Herzoslovakian oil supplies. Several bodies are found in mysterious circumstances, a memoir by the late Herzoslovakian Prime Minister is threatening to start a European-wide war, a long-lost jewel is sought by a notorious jewel thief, and a bundle of blackmail letters are not what they seem. The requisite number of plot twists ensue and several characters are not who you were lead to believe they are. Quite satisfying and I never guessed the solution.

 

A lot seemed to happen in this book. People weren't just sitting around flirting or discussing the latest racing results to while away a weekend in the country. Important developments kept happening at a fast pace. There are quite a few characters, but most of them are talked about frequently and take part in the action, so it's not too hard to keep them straight, although now and then I did lose track of who Baron Lolopretjzyl was - and don't ask me how to pronounce that name!

Well, it's three down, two to go in the Inspector Battle 5-book series, although I'm not quite sure it really is a series. This 1987 copy of "The Secret of Chimneys" makes no mention of one, nor does the official Agatha Christie web site. Maybe the idea of calling them a series came from a publisher more recently. Both this book and "The Seven Dials Mystery" do feature a group of the same characters, so they are related in a way. Book #3 "Cards on the Table" is usually portrayed as a Hercule Poirot novel. It has four sleuths, including Poirot and Battle, trying to solve their dinner host's murder. I haven't yet read the other two, but for Book #4, "Murder Is Easy", Wikipedia says "Christie's recurring character, Superintendent Battle, has a cameo appearance at the end, but plays no part in either the solution of the mystery or the apprehension of the criminal." Battle does seem to be back in charge for Book #5, "Towards Zero".

Series or not, "The Secret of Chimneys" is fast-paced and entertaining!