Book news & reviews

March 27, 2011 at 7:18 pm (books, Magazines and newspapers)

These reviews bumped two titles up to the top of my to-read list:

In his review of Started Early, Took My Dog, Kevin Allman compares Kate Atkinson to Ruth Rendell. Judging by my reading of Case Histories and When Will There Be Good News, the comparison is apt. Speaking for myself, this is about the highest praise I can give to a writer of crime fiction.

Michael Dirda speaks of Richard Holmes’s stellar The Age of Wonder as a precursor to the The Philosophical’ Breakfast Club by Laura Snyder.

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Maureen Corrigan has some reservations about the latest by Chelsea Cain, an author whom I’ve not read. But I love what she says about The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers:

The problem with reviewing mysteries is that one can’t talk about who-(or what)-dun-it, yet sometimes the story’s ultimate value rests on that revelation. Take Dorothy Sayers’s 1934 classic, “The Nine Tailors.” If you’ve read it, you know what I’m talking about; if you haven’t read it, do so. Now. The atmosphere of the English fen country in the novel is haunting, and the character of Lord Peter Wimsey is, as always, blandly erudite. The ending, however, in which the murderer is unmasked, is so brilliant that it boosts Sayers’s creeper into the Golden Age of Mystery Hall of Fame.

I second Corrigan’s exhortation, but with a warning: it’s easy to get bogged down in the lengthy exegesis on campanology with which the book opens. One way to assist with this difficulty (besides skimming, the obvious one!) would be to listen to Ian Carmichael’s splendid reading. Carmichael portrayed Lord Peter Wimsey in five of the novels in that classic series. These are readily available on DVD and also highly recommended. Here’s a clip from The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club:

(There’s an interesting piece on the PBS site detailing the way in which these films, originally made for Masterpiece Theatre, provided the impetus for the creation of Mystery!)

In a recent Newsweek article entitled “Please Stop Writing!”, Susan Cheever bemoans the tendency of certain authors to continue producing novels in a series that has clearly run out of steam. She has her own examples to offer, but she also makes you think about your own favorite writers and their respective series. Are any of those that you read regularly starting to seem tired and/or stale and/or derivative?

Personally, I’d have to say I’m having the opposite experience. I am deeply impressed by certain contemporary writers who are maintaining an exceptionally high standard with every book they produce: Donna Leon, Alexander McCall Smith, Peter Turnbull, Archer Mayor, Robert Barnard, and Ruth Rendell, to name a few.

And speaking of exceptionally high standards, I’d like to put in a plug for International Anita Brookner Day. The immediate object of this fine event, co-hosted by Thomas at My Porch and Simon of Savidge Reads (a fellow WordPress blogger; Hi, Simon!), is to get folks to read at least one of Ms Brookner’s novels by July 16, which happens to be the author’s 83rd birthday. Tantalizingly, Thomas alerts us to “expect prizes!!”

Here’s the entry for Anita Brookner on the Contemporary Writers site. All her novels are listed, as well as her nonfiction works on art history.  In an article posted in this space two years ago, I listed some of my personal favorites from her oeuvre.