The Golden Age of Detective Fiction: A Christie and A Sayers Novel

Today begins the Golden Age of Detective Fiction Classics Circuit, and I have the honor of beginning the tour with reviews of two mystery novels. See the full schedule to see where the tour goes next.

It is rather ironic that I get to start off this great tour, because after reading my two novels, I’ve decided pretty strongly that I am not a great fan of the mystery novel. Although I enjoyed both of them, I found myself a bit bored, I’m sorry to say.

That said, both novels actually were rather excellent, just not my favorite genre. If you, like me, do not normally read mystery and would like to try one, either Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express or Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers would both be great books to start with, although for different reasons.

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Genre Fiction: A Tolkein, A Heyer, and A Verne

During the first two weeks of March, I read three lighter genre classic authors. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring took me to the fantastic Middle Earth, Georgette Heyer’s The Talisman Ring was an amusing foray into romantic historical fiction (albeit an unrealistic one), and Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea was an incredibly convincing science fiction novel that visited not space, as modern science fiction does, but the unknown seas of the nineteenth century.
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The Life of Wilkie Collins (Biographies by Clarke and Peters)

Today I welcome Wilkie Collins to my blog through the Classics Circuit.

Although I like reading classics, I don’t know much. Before August of this year, I’d never heard of Wilkie Collins! I first experienced Wilkie Collins through The Woman in White (loved it!), and I recently read The Moonstone.

For this Circuit, I decided to read about his life. Although reading two biographies does not make me an expert, it’s been fun to read reviews now that I feel I know about the man! I hope this overview of Wilkie’s life interests you too. Continue reading »

Victorian Second Helpings (The Moonstone by Collins and North and South by Gaskell)

My experiences with Victorian novels had been quite positive, so I jumped in to read a few more. I enjoyed both The Moonstone and North and South very much.

I did give up on A Tale of Two Cities this week. While Oliver Twist seemed intuitive and easy to breeze through, Two Cities has been confusing, especially in comparison to the other novels I’m reading. Dickens keeps introducing characters and I can’t see how it fits together. I’m also completely unfamiliar with the facts, dates, and details of the French revolution, so that is a big negative to my experience. I’m certain the novel does all fit together – and that it is definitely worth reading – but I’m ready for a few non-Victorian novels before I tackle Gaskell’s Mary Barton for the upcoming Classics Circuit tour. The past few weeks of Victorians have given me a slight burnout. I feel guilty admitting it, as I’m the one promoting the Victorian Classics Circuit! Nevertheless, rest assured that I’ll revisit Two Cities in the next year at some point when I’m able to read it “fresh.” For now, I’m setting it aside.

Because Wilkie Collins and Elizabeth Gaskell are both touring the Circuit in the coming weeks, I’ve kept these reviews brief. Check out The Classics Circuit to see where the two authors are going in the future! Continue reading »

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Late one evening in 1849, art teacher Walter Hartwright walks from his mother’s home in suburban London into the city. He meets a mysterious woman wearing white on his path, and he helps her to the city. The next day, he travels to his new employment in Limmeridge House, the Lake District, to teach the lovely Miss Fairlie. As the subsequent events are told through various people’s remembrances, letters, and journal entries, we learn how all the mysterious people and strong personalities are connected. It doesn’t all become clear until the very end.

I loved how I never knew what was coming next as I listened to the audiobook for The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. I was surprised to find that the titular woman in white appeared at the very beginning, and then I was surprised to find that I had no idea what would happen next and how it all fit together. I had suspicions that were generally correct, but the details were impossible to predict. That doesn’t mean it was out of the blue: far from it. I was just kept in eager anticipation for how the unknown would eventually resolve.

Beyond that, I delighted in the characters. I loved the recording I listened to, which was downloaded from librivox.org. While it was amateur, the narrators did a great job of capturing the personalities of the different narrators, and after listening to it, I wonder if the writing spoke clearly for itself. Were the characters written this strongly? I suspect they were, for most of the people in my librarything group (which read this two months ago) loved the characterization as well. Continue reading »

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie King

I was looking for a light-hearted mystery to fill the requirement for my library summer reading program, and The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie King certainly fit the bill. I’m glad I read it.

Mary Russell is an astute young woman residing in the World War I British countryside when she meets her neighbor, a retired middle-aged gentleman known to the world as Sherlock Holmes.

It quickly becomes clear to the reader that Mary Russell’s powers of observation help make her a competent match for the retired detective. From their first meeting, Holmes and Russell form a friendship. And when Russell becomes involved in some mysteries, Holmes takes her on as his unofficial apprentice.

I enjoyed reading this book. From the introduction, Laurie King made it appear that this was a true account and that she had simply came upon the memoir. I loved that little twist to make this feel realistic. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice was light-hearted, and it was fun to see a literary character in a new situation.

However, I felt I would have loved it more had I been originally familiar with Sherlock Holmes’ tales and maybe mysteries in general. I do admit that I’m curious to read Sherlock Holmes now.

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Possession by A.S. Byatt

In Possession, A.S. Byatt powerfully creates characters so believable that I found myself assuming that the events she writes of really happened, that the feelings described were truly felt, and that the characters actually lived.

For me, Possession‘s strength lies in this powerful creation. While I enjoyed the developing action (it is a literary mystery) and the powerful underlying themes, the story itself was not as fascinating to me as were the basic descriptions and the power of the characterization. They were marvelous: I am in awe of Byatt’s power with words. Continue reading »

Stories by Edgar Allan Poe

In my mind, Edgar Allan Poe is the most well-known Halloween-ish short story writer. To keep with the season, I reread some of Poe’s short stories. I enjoyed his stories when I was younger – I even rewrote “The Fall of the House of Usher” as a play for my high school’s Halloween “one-act plays.” But to my surprise, I didn’t love Poe’s writing or his stories’ subject matter this time around. Continue reading »

Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton

I’ve been in a short story mood lately. I picked up G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown (a collection of 18 of the 49 stories about Father Brown) when I saw it on a display at the library. I’d read somewhere, maybe on a book blog, that one should read Father Brown because it’s the definitive mystery short story, in the mode of Sherlock Holmes. Continue reading »

Alexander McCall-Smith

Favorite Authors
When I was a child, I would go to the library on my bike with a backpack full of already-consumed books, return them, and get another full backpack full of to-be-read books. Sometimes I’d go through a series, reading every single one as they were available at the library. Other times I went through “author phases.” Then I would check out every book by a particular author and read those.

For past two years or so, I’ve been on an author kick again: I was looking for quick, easy-to-read, “empty” fiction that was enjoyable. I realize this isn’t really a good thing. I should always use my precious reading time for books that actually add something to my life. But they do: they add sanity.

I enjoyed reading Alexander McCall-Smith’s The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency a few years ago; it’s a good book club book and every book club I’ve been in has read it. It is about a “lady detective” in Botswana. How McCall-Smith, a man in a kilt, is able to capture this delightful woman and the intriguing country in this series is just amazing to me. (I know he wears kilts because I met him in Chicago a few years ago: he was wearing a kilt. That was before I knew most of his books take place in Scotland.) When I went to find the subsequent books in that series to read them (I think I’d only read through number five), I found that he had a number of other series. Continue reading »