Teaser Tuesdays

MizB of Should Be Reading hosts Teaser Tuesdays. Anyone can play along. Just do the following:

*Grab your current read.

*Open to a random page.

*Share two "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page.

*BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! You don't want to spoil the book for others.

*Share the title and author too, so other TT particpants can add it to their TBR lists if they like your teaser!

Here's mine from Ten Little Herrings by L. C. Tyler (p. 4):

What I needed to do was track Ethelred down and sort all this out. Explain to him in what senses he was dead and, to look on the bright side, in what senses he was alive. Explain to him in which (minor) ways it might be my fault and in which ways it was definitely entirely his fault.

A-Z Blogging Challenge: Letter D

Day 4 of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. Every day in April (except Sundays) I will be doing posts for each letter of the alphabet. It is my plan to make my posts reading &/or book-related. April 5th is brought to you by the Letter D.

D is for Detectives. What good would a mystery novel be without a detective? Whether it be an official representative of the law such as Lt. Bill Weigand or Inspector Heimrich in the novels of Frances and Richard Lockridge, a private, "consulting" detective like Sherlock Holmes, or your out-and-out amateur like Agatha Christie's Miss Jane Marple, you've got to have a detective to help the reader sort out the clues and get to the bottom of the mystery. Personally, I always enjoy trying to figure it all out before the detective. And I'm pretty broad-minded. I like most any kind of detective--even the hard-boiled type in small doses.

Within each category of detective there is even more variety....There are the quiet, unassuming elderly ladies like Jane Marple and Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver whom everybody seems to underestimate. Those fluffy old ladies drink in the gossip and have their eye on everything that goes on in their small towns. There's Nero Wolfe sitting in his brownstone home--drinking beer, raising orchids and unraveling all the mysteries that come his way. There's the very logical and scientific "Thinking Machine" (Dr. S. F. X. Van Dusen). And, of course, there's Hercule Poirot who depends on his "little grey cells." Representing the law, you have Inspector McKee, one of New York's finest and starring in some of the first examples of the police procedural. More recently, and on the other side of the pond, there is London's Inspector Lynley. A very good detective--but a very human one. Elizabeth George's stories have a lot of human interest mixed in with her mysteries.

Hmmm. I can't wait till lunch time so I can go read my latest detective novel.....

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a bookish meme hosted by Book Journey. It's where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week. It's a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list. So hop on over via the link above and join in...and leave a comment here so I can check out what you are reading.


Books Read Last Week (click on titles for review):
The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Jerusalem Inn by Martha Grimes


Currently Reading:
Ten Little Herrings by L. C. Tyler: (2nd installment in a series) When we last saw Ethelred Tressider, he was pulling a disappearing act, eager to pack in his career as a mediocre mystery-writer, and happy to leave his (deservedly) long-suffering agent, Elsie, holding the bag. But any bag that Elsie holds will soon be brimful of chocolates, and as Ten Little Herrings opens, she is tracking Ethelred to his secret lair, which turns out to be a run-down French hotel hosting a stamp-collector's conference. A murder (quelle surprise!) ensues, and as the title (a nod to Agatha Christie's famous Ten Little Indians) suggests, the whole thing turns into a blissfully funny parody of classic British crime fiction.

Books that spark my interest:
How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe by Charles Yu [For the Take a Chance Challenge]
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux [For the Victorian Literature Challenge]
Burial Deferred by Jonathan Ross [Because I haven't read one by Ross in a while]

A-Z Blogging Challenge: Letter C

Onward to Day 3 of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. Every day in April (except Sundays) I will be doing posts for each letter of the alphabet. It is my plan to make my posts reading &/or book-related. April 4th is brought to you by the Letter C.

C is for Challenges. Who knew when I started my blogging life that there would be so many Reading Challenges out there to tempt me? There are Challenges for every taste in books--from Vintage Mysteries to Victorian Literature; from Paranormal to Gothic; from Chunkster books (over 450 pages) to Nonfiction. There are Challenges based on your Birth Year and Challenges to get you to check more books out of the Library. If you participated in Challenges last year, there are even Challenges to entice you to Outdo Yourself. If you've had books that have been sitting around waiting to be read forever then you could have signed up for the TBR Reading Challenge or the Off the Shelf Challenge and get those books off your conscience. AND for those of us who have no self control over our Challenge habits....there's even a Challenge Addict Challenge. Believe me, that doesn't even give you the tip of the iceberg.

I, as you might have guessed, am one of those Challenge Addicts. I just can't resist them. Someone on my blogroll posts about one that sounds interesting and the next thing I know I've signed up for another one. They all just sound too darn good. How about you? Do you sign up for Challenges.? And if you do, do you find that they're like Lays potato chips--you can't have just one?

Meet Me on Monday (41)

Meet Me on Monday is a blogging meme hosted by Java at Never Growing Old. As she says: "Blogging is a funny thing...we tell our most intimate thoughts for all to read and yet most of the time I find myself wondering, "who is this person?" I know them...but yet I don't know them! I want to know who the person behind all those words is so I thought of a great way for all of us to "meet" each other!"

Every Sunday she will post five get to know you questions that we can copy and paste into our own Monday post and we can all learn a little more about each and every one of us. To play along click on her meme name and join up with the linky.

This Week's Questions:

1. If you had to eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? I'm going to to go for pizza. You can do so many things with the toppings that hopefully I wouldn't get tired of it.

2. Do you write your blog posts in advance or the day you post them? Usually, I do them the same day. Since I've joined the A-Z Blogging Challenge for April, I've been scheduling some of those because there just aren't enough hours in the day sometimes.

3. Have you ever ridden in an ambulance? No--thank goodness. Although my son has--and if there was any way I could have traded places and had it be me rather than him, I would have.

4. What is your favorite candle scent? None. Unfortunately, I'm allergic.

5. Coffee or tea? Tea. Absolutely. I don't like coffee--despite my mother-in-law's attempts to win me over.

Library Loot: March 30 - April 5

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire (The Captive Reader) and Marg (The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader) that encourages bloggers to share the books they've checked out of the library. If you'd like to participate, just write up your post, feel free to steal button, and link up using the Mr. Linky on Claire's site this week. And, of course, check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

Here's my haul this week:

How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe by Charles Yu: Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space on the outskirts of fiction, where paradox fluctuates like the stock market, lonely sexbots beckon failed protagonists, and time-travel is serious business. Every day, people get into time machines and try to do the one thing they should never do: change the past. That’s where Charles Yu, time travel technician—part counselor, part gadget repair man—steps in. He helps save people from themselves. Literally. When he’s not taking client calls, Yu visits his mother (stuck in a onehour cycle, she makes dinner over and over and over) and searches for his father, who invented time travel and then vanished. Accompanied by TAMMY, an operating system with low self-esteem, and a nonexistent but ontologically valid dog named Ed, and using a book titled How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe as his guide, Yu sets out, and back, and beyond, in order to find the one day where he and his father can meet in memory.

With echoes of both Mark Danielewski and Douglas Adams, yet altogether wildly new and adventurous, Yu’s debut is certain to send shock waves of wonder through literary space-time. - (Random House, Inc.)

Burial Deferred by Jonathan Ross: "Mad, bad, and bloody-minded" is how Detective Superintendent George Rogers describes himself to his second-in-command when he wakes up in a hospital bed with a throbbing head and no memory of the events of the previous evening. He is soon up and about again, his inquiries leading him to a baroque Victorian house atop a steep cliff overlooking the sea. There he meets Phaedra Haggar, a serene but passionate blind woman, and her paying guests. The discovery of a shallow but empty grave, the recovery of a girl's body from the sea, and the disappearance of a male guest from the house begin a hunt for a murderer--a search that involves Rogers in an emotional entanglement that threatens to upset his professional investigation.

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux: The well-known story of the disfigured composer who lives in the labyrinthine depths of the Paris Opera and his obsession with the singer Christine Daae. The Phantom strikes again and again, targeting foes from a jealous diva to a romantic rival.

I have seen the film with Lon Chaney and the film version of the musical. I thought it about time that I actually read the book they are based on.

Plus Leftover Loot (and my current read):

Ten Little Herrings by L. C. Tyler: (2nd installment in a series) When we last saw Ethelred Tressider, he was pulling a disappearing act, eager to pack in his career as a mediocre mystery-writer, and happy to leave his (deservedly) long-suffering agent, Elsie, holding the bag. But any bag that Elsie holds will soon be brimful of chocolates, and as Ten Little Herrings opens, she is tracking Ethelred to his secret lair, which turns out to be a run-down French hotel hosting a stamp-collector's conference. A murder (quelle surprise!) ensues, and as the title (a nod to Agatha Christie's famous Ten Little Indians) suggests, the whole thing turns into a blissfully funny parody of classic British crime fiction.

Vintage Mystery Sunday: Too Many Cousins

Since one of the great loves of my reading life happens to be Vintage Mysteries, I decided to find a way to feature them beyond the Vintage Mystery Reading Challenge which I am sponsoring (see sidebar) and the frequent reviews of my current reads. Here on Vintage Mystery Sunday I plan to revisit classic mysteries that I have read and loved before blogging took over my life and I began reviewing everything I read.

This week the spotlight is on Douglas G. Browne's Too Many Cousins (1946). The story takes place in England, toward the close of World War II. Six cousins, all descendants of the wealthy Victorian merchant Rutland Shearsby, have all survived one of the worst wars in history. But then suddenly, life takes an unhealthy turn. The first cousin to go is an army captain in London who abruptly steps into the path of a speeding van. A few months later, a second cousin who is a writer is found in remote country lane with his head smashed against a stone wall. A few days after that a third cousin, a schoolteacher is found poisoned in her cottage. Now only three of the original six remain.

Is this only a bizarre coincidence of accidents? Or is there something more sinister going on? Douglas Browne introduces us to Parmiter, an eccentric obituarist who has more than the usual facts about the deaths--some quite disturbing. Parmiter becomes alarmed enough to try and convince Harvey Tuke, a well-known public prosecutor, to get to the bottom of the dwindling numbers in this one family. Tuke is skeptical until a fourth Shearsby cousin comes to him convinced that someone is trying to kill her.

This is an extraordinary mystery with a maze of curious facts regarding this very odd family. Tukes uncovers a bitter conflict over an unconventional legacy, a very Victorian skeleton the closet, a short story title "Too Many Cousins" that supposedly predicted the family's troubles, and Uncle Martin, the proverbial family black sheep, who refuses to play dead.

The mystery is full of suspense and surprises. I originally read it as a loan from the local library, but I enjoyed it so much I immediately put it on my TBO list (To Be Owned) and can now say that I am the proud owner of the Dover paperback edition. I'm still on the look-out for a hardback copy. Browne was noted historian of his day and quite the master of British wit. In this book he gives the reader a fascinating look at bomb-shattered London and the effects of the war and profound social change on an England in transition. This is a very charming and challenging detective story that will keep the reader guessing until the last page.

Jerusalem Inn: Review

Jerusalem Inn is one of Martha Grimes' earlier Richard Jury mysteries that I somehow missed when I was on my Grimes reading jag back in the 80s. The earlier mysteries are much more my style--more typical, straight-forward detective story than some of her later work. This one involves Richard Jury and his sidekick Melrose Plant in a couple of Christmas-time murders. A chance encounter in a graveyard finds Jury meeting Helen Minton--a beautiful woman who Jury immediately takes a liking to. He is on his way to his cousin's for the Christmas holidays (not a visit he's particularly looking forward to) and arranges to stop by one day and have dinner when Helen. However, the next time he sees her, she's in no condition to appreciate a meal. She's dead. Her death might have been taken for natural causes if not for two things--her body was found in the Old Hall where she had been showing visitors around and Jury arriving on the spot. An autopsy reveals poison.

Meanwhile, Melrose Plant and his entourage of Ruthven, his butler, his Aunt Agatha, and Vivian Rivington have been invited to a house party in the area. While there, Melrose and a young Marquess stumble over the body of another woman. This time there is no doubt as to the cause of death...a bullet hole through the ermine coat she was wearing bears witness. Jury soon becomes involved in both murders as he finds that there are those in the house party who knew both women. But is there a single motive for the removal of the two? Jury and Plant each talk with the suspects and soon Jury is given the answer....in the form of a doll who has been requisitioned to play the part of baby Jesus in the local pub's nativity scene.

What I like most about the Richard Jury stories is the characters. Jury and Plant and all the recurring characters are great fun and I have enjoyed getting to know them through the series. This one is particularly good in the scenes where Jury is interacting with children. He treats them just right. Where I find Grimes lacking is in her wrap-up. Even though you know who and why at the end...there is still a feeling that you've been left dangling. That's why I'm giving this one three and a half stars instead of four.

Quote It! Saturday

Freda's Voice has an awesome Saturday meme for quote lovers called Quote It! and I have another blog, Quote Mistress, which is entirely devoted to the quotes I have collected over my lifetime. So my Quote It! may be found on my quote site. I'd love for you to visit...and be sure and visit Freda's Voice too!

Saturday Snapshot

Saturday Snapshot is a meme hosted by Alyce at At Home with Books. All you have to do is "post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken and then leave a direct link to your post in the Mr. Linky on [her] blog. Photos can be old or new, and be of anything as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give is up to you." All she asks is that you don't just post random photos that you find online.

It's almost softball season again. My husband and I have played on my English Department's co-ed softball team for the last six years. This is me crossing home plate (a rare treat for me!). Hubby just told me that the first spring game will be April 17th. Unfortunately, I'm on the DL this year...health issues are going to put me on the bench. But I look forward to cheering Hubby & the department on this spring.

March Reading Wrap-Up

I love lists and keeping track of all sorts of things, so what I started in January is fast becoming a habit for me. Here are the vital statistics for the month of March:

Total Books Read: 14 (down a bit from last month)
Total Pages: 3297
Percentage by Female Authors: 49%
Percentage by US Authors: 35%
Percentage Fiction: 97%
Percentage written 2000+: 14%
Percentage of Rereads: 7%
Percentage Read for Challenges: 100%
Percentage Mystery: 49%

Number of Challenges fulfilled so far: Five!

A-Z Blogging Challenge: Letter B

Today is Day 2 of the A-Z Blogging Challenge. Every day in April (except Sundays) I will be doing posts for each letter of the alphabet. It is my plan to make my posts reading &/or book-related. April 2nd is brought to you by the Letter B.

B is for bibliophile, bibliomania, biblioholic. Any of those. From the interwebs: A bibliophile is someone who loves books. Commonly known as a bookworm; a bibliophile may be, but is not necessarily a collector of books. (Oh yeah. That would be me.) Bibliomania describes the condition of someone who takes their love of books to the extreme--collecting books to the point where social relations or health are damaged, and the mere fact that the object is a book is sufficient for it to be collected and loved. (That's not me. Not quite. I don't think so, anyway....) And a biblioholic has the habitual longing to purchase, read, store, admire and collect books in excess. (I suppose I do have to confess to that.) Fortunately, this is a fairly benign form of madness.....it doesn't hurt anything--except my bank account.

I've been a bibliophile since second grade. Oh, I didn't know that's what it was called. But I loved books, I knew that. My mom gave me her set of 1950s Nancy Drew books and I was off and running. Then when I discovered Mason's Rare and Used Bookstore downtown, I was in heaven. Every Friday, I took my allowance and wandered the aisles...mainly the mysteries and science fiction...looking for buried treasure. I always came home with a stack. And now I cannot pass a used bookstore without going in. Somewhere, lurking on the shelves, might be that one book that been on my list forever. I've just got to go in and see.

[The picture is The Bookworm 1850 by Carl Spitzweg.]

Friday 56

The Friday 56 is a bookish meme sponsored by Freda's Voice. It's really easy to participate.

*Grab a book, any book.

*Turn to page 56.

*Find any sentence that grabs you.

*Post it.

*Link it up at Freda's site.


Here's mine from Jerusalem Inn by Martha Grimes (once again, my page 56 has nothing on it--literally....so, from page 55):

If there was something helpful locked in Robin Lyte's brain, Jury would have to find some other key.

Book Beginnings on Friday

Book Beginnings on Friday is a bookish meme sponsored by Katy at A Few More Pages. Here's what you do: share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments section . Include the title and author so we know what you're reading. Then, if you are so moved, let us know what your first impressions were based on that first line, and if you liked or did not like that sentence. Link-up each week at Katy's place.

Here's mine from Jerusalem Inn by Martha Grimes:

A meeting in a graveyard. That was how it would always come back to him, and without any sense of irony at all--that meeting in a graveyard did not foreshadow the permanence he was after.

A-Z Blogging Challenge: Letter A

The A-Z Blogging Challenge proposes that we post something on our blog every day but Sundays in April. Twenty-six days of posting--one for each letter of the alphabet. Since my blog is primarily a reading blog, my goal will be to do 26 posts that feature a reading or bookish theme. Let's kick off the challenge with the Letter A and A is for Academic Mysteries.

I am a mystery lover. There are various sub-genres of the field that I love--everything from Vintage/Golden Age mysteries to those with historical settings. One of my more recent favorites is the Academic Mystery. Now, my definition may not precisely coincide with a more accepted or expected definition. For my purposes an academic mystery must have one or more of the following: a professor or teacher acting as the primary (amateur) detective; a professor or teacher as the victim, culprit or essential main character; and/or a school or university setting. My love for this sort of mystery has loaded my shelves with all sorts of unlikely looking specimens. Sometimes I wind up with a real gem and sometimes I shake my head over what I have bought just because the back cover mentions Professor So-and-So or Whatsit Univeristy.

And within the sub-genre of academic mystery there is everything from the series with a university setting to stand-alone novels that have professors sprinkled in the mix. Some of my favorite acedimc series are Amanda Cross' series starring Kate Fansler, M. D. Lake's campus cop Peggy O'Neill, Edmund Crispin's eccentric Oxford don Gervase Fen, and Charlotte MacLeod's very funny Peter Shandy series. Kate Fansler is a witty, smart, feminist professor who finds herself mixed up in mysteries that often give her creator Amanda Cross (Carolyn Heilbrun, a professor herself) a chance to air her own views on women in the academy. Never preachy, the stories bring to life what it was like for women in the 1960s (and beyond) to make their way in a male-dominated world. This series also highlights Kate's relationship with her husband, Reed. It is one of those true partnerships that one would hope all couples aspire to. Campus cop Peggy O'Neill is more of a blue collar, hardworking policewoman trying to make her way through the mysteries of the ivory tower. She also finds herself in the middle between the academics and the city police. The tension of Peggy's position makes for an interesting story line. Gervase Fen is an eccentric and sometimes absent-minded Oxford don whose adventures are complex and fantastic with sometimes unbelievable solutions, but always fun and funny. I read the Crispin novels for pure enjoyment. The same is true of the Peter Shandy series. These mysteries are not for the who-dunnit fans who must have every I dotted and every T crossed; they are for students of life who want to see their professors as the human and sometimes humorous people they are.

My all-time favorite stand-alone novel is Dorothy L Sayers' Gaudy Night. Focused on a poison pen loose in a women's college, there is no murder in this one, but it is a story of human emotion and what crimes can be done to love and in the name of love. I would probably credit my interest in academic crime to this story of Lord Peter Wimsey and his lady-love, Harriet Vane. That and the fact that I work for a univeristy. It is very interesting to me to read mysteries with an academic setting and see how many types I recognize. There are often characters that read exactly like professors in my own English Department. Other very good stand-alone academic mysteries include Seven Suspects (aka Death at the President's Lodge) and The Open House--both by Michael Innes and Literary Murder by Batya Gur.

Although the two Innes books share the same detective, Inspector, later Sir, John Appleby, there is no other connection between the two. In Seven Suspects, Inspector Appleby is on the grounds of St. Anthony's College and he must confront academic intrigues, scholarly scandals and one clever killer. And it is not a nice quite, intellectual murder. It is a vulgar and ungentlemanly crime with bones scattered about the room, a grotesque drawing of grinning death's-heads scrawled on the wall, and President Umpleby's head wrapped up in an academic robe. Then in The Open House Sir John's car breaks down on a deserted road. He wanders up a drive in search of assistance. What he finds at the end of the drive is a large house with all the lights blazing merrily away. Candles are lit, champagne is on ice, and dinner is waiting in the dining room. But there is no one to be found to answer his calls for help. In this adventure he faces an absent-minded professor, a mysterious lady in white, South American conspirators, several murders and their victims.

Batya Gur's Literary Murder is one of those chance encounters. I found this one in the bargain bin at Borders (long before it closed, sigh). I was hooked from the first line of the back cover blurb: A star poet at a Hebrew University is beaten to death in his office. It also made a first for me...an academic mystery set in Jerusalem. Ms. Gur's police detective Michael Ohayon is a college graduate, so he is able to move easily in the academic world. This mystery was a delight in many ways, not least because it came up with a new motive for murder (new to me, anyway).