The Best Book for this period is The Hoarder, also named Mr. Flood’s Last Resort, by Jess Kidd! Also highly recommended is The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams!
Best of Ten!
Review 1650: The River
Harriet and her family live along the river in a town in India. Harriet is dismayed at the changes in her sister Bea, who is becoming a young lady and is no longer fun to play with. Her brother Bogey spends his time looking at insects and animals in the garden. Victoria is just a baby. Harriet spends some time each day writing in her book that she keeps hidden away, and she also is fascinated by her parents’ guest, Captain John, who was injured in WWI. Captain John, however, likes Bea best.
This little novel has a plot, but it is mostly atmospheric and descriptive, of the garden and house, of life on the river. I was just a short way in when I realized that I had seen the movie based on it by Jean Renoir. I said, “If there’s a snake, I’ve seen this.” There was a snake.
The semi-autobiographical novel is about Harriet waking up from childhood and complete self-involvement and learning to become a writer. It is beautiful and touching.
My Virago Modern Classics version also included two short stories, “Red Doe,” about Ibrahim, a bakriwar nomad who is on the way to another encampment to claim a wife, and “The Little Black Ram,” about Jassouf, a bad boy who is tamed by being give a black ram to care for.
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Podcast Review 1: Four True Crime Podcasts
I have listened to a very few podcasts over the years, but just recently I began listening to more of them. I realized that I had strong opinions about how the podcasts were handled, so I thought that occasionally I would review some of them. So, this week I start with my first podcast review of four podcasts about unusual occurrences or true crime.
I found all four of these podcasts in a Marie Claire article listing the 60 best current true-crime podcasts.
These four podcasts fit very neatly into two groups. Two of the podcasts are limited series about one specific crime. The other two podcasts are series that continue indefinitely in which each podcast discusses one or two unusual cases. I’ll discuss the limited series first.
Tom Brown’s Body
Tom Brown’s Body is a very professionally produced podcast by Texas Monthly. It features their seasoned reporter and published author, Skip Hollandsworth, in a series of eight 45-minute episodes about the effect of an unsolved crime on a small Texas town. Or was it a crime? A popular high school boy first went missing and then was discovered dead, but it’s not clear whether the death is a suicide or a murder.
Of course, with this powerful magazine to produce it, there is not a glitch in the production, but also impressive is the writing and interview technique of this scripted podcast. Everything about this podcast is interesting and professional. I don’t mean to imply that I am biased toward a professional vs. unprofessional podcast, just that there is nothing to criticize. I found this podcast very interesting.
Paper Ghosts
Paper Ghosts is also a scripted podcast produced by iHeart Radio of ten half-hour episodes. It features true-crime writer M. William Phelps (at one point he asks a witness to call him M), and is about the disappearances or murders of several young girls and women near his home town in New England during the early 1970’s. It is also professionally produced.
While Hollandsworth’s interviews in Tom Brown’s Body had the more conventional purpose of just investigating the history and current status of the case, and the effect the case has on the town, Phelps is actively trying to solve the murders, or at least the podcast gives that impression. He is also very self-promotional and constantly brings himself into focus during the podcast. (I don’t mean he interviews people; I mean he talks about himself and his efforts a lot.) One serious negative for me as a grammar nerd was that, although this podcast is also scripted, he makes a few but consistent grammatical errors. I am not familiar with him as a true crime writer, but I hope he has a good editor. I found this podcast interesting, but I felt it was more repetitive than Tom Brown’s Body and less impressive. I’m also not clear on the meaning of the title.
And here’s a bitchy remark: We all know from studying “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” that using an initial instead of a first name is pretentious. The M is for Matthew. There’s nothing wrong with the name Matthew Phelps, M.
And That’s Why We Drink
And That’s Why We Drink is a weekly half-hour podcast featuring Christine Shiefer, a writer for Nickelodeon, and Em Schulz, a prop designer. Its focus is the supernatural and true crime, and it is much less formal than the other podcasts. It’s format is a couple of friends sitting around with drinks and telling each other spooky stories. It is produced by Kast Media, but I doubt that it is scripted, and at least the episode I listened to had none of the interim musical effects of the others or anything like that.
I have to confess that while I listened to the entirety of the first two podcasts, I could only stand listening to one episode of this one, despite the podcast being very popular. I found the format and unscripted nature of the podcast troublesome because the two women spend a lot of time chit-chatting about things that only they are interested in (like what their mothers are going to say about their podcast) and making lame jokes. Now, I listened to the first episode, and it’s very possible that they got better at this as they went along. However, this is a criticism I have had of all the two-person podcasts I have listened to.
I have more serious criticisms, though. One in particular about the first episode is that they selected some topics that most people know a lot about already, that is, the history and building of Winchester House and the Jim Jones tragedy. Contrast that with the other series I’m reviewing next, which told me about cases I’d never heard of. Again, this is just one episode, though.
What disturbed me more than that was my impression that they spent about ten minutes researching each topic. (One of them even said she looked it up the day before.) They showed an astounding ignorance of the time periods and settings of these events. For example, they made the fatuous assumption in the first story that because someone was known as the Boston Medium, he was the only medium in Boston at the time that he was consulted by Sarah Winchester. In reality spiritualism was very popular at that time and there were probably hundreds of mediums in Boston. Similarly, they basically boiled the 60’s down into sex and drugs. I would think that these two women, who (probably ironically) exclaimed that they had Master’s degrees could have put a little more effort into exploring the context of their stories.
OK, in this podcast, the two girls knew that hardly anyone was listening yet and they were just basically entertaining themselves. To be fair, I should have probably listened to a more recent episode. However, these women seemed so silly and superficial to me that I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Supernatural with Ashley Flowers
Supernatural is a weekly podcast hosted by Ashley Flowers, a radio personality from Indiana and the creator of another podcast, Crime Junkie. My research on her, let me say right away, has indicated that she has been accused of plagiarism for some of the Crime Junkie episodes, in particular of copying other podcasts word for word. As an ex-writing instructor, I find this kind of behavior atrocious (apparently what she said in her defense was that people had copies from her as well), but I was not aware of this issue until I researched her name just now, and I didn’t see any similar allegations about Supernatural.
This podcast is concerned with unexplained cases, some of them true crime, that may involve the supernatural. I listened so far to two-and-a-half episodes. I found this series, which is produced by Parcast, to be very professional.
This podcast is clearly scripted, and in each half-hour episode Flowers covers one unusual case. Both of the complete episodes I listened to involved possible alien activity. I had not heard of either of these cases and found them interesting. One was a true-crime case about two men found dead wearing lead masks on the top of a hill near Rio de Janeiro. The other case was about possible alien abductions in 1980’s Maine. This podcast is professionally written and produced.
My Rankings
I ask myself “Would I return to this podcast?” for the weekly podcasts and “Would I listen to another podcast?” for the limited series that I have finished listening to.
In order from best to worst:
- Tom Brown’s Body: Would I listen to another podcast from Skip Hollandsworth? Yes
- Supernatural: Would I return to this podcast? Maybe, if I just consider the podcast and not the plagiarism charge
- Paper Ghosts: Would I listen to another podcast from M. William Phelps? Probably not
- And That’s Why We Drink: Would I return to this podcast? No
I just started out listening to these podcasts for my own amusement, but if there is interest in more reviews, I will take it on as more of a research project. Did you enjoy these reviews? Are there any podcast topics you would suggest I look into? Of course, the next review will be of book podcasts.
Review 1649: The Hoarder (aka Mr. Flood’s Last Resort)
Best of Ten!
Let me just start out by saying I hate the trend of changing the name of a book from the British edition to the U. S. edition. In this case, I got caught out buying both versions of this novel just because I didn’t realize they were the same. I loved this novel, but I don’t need two copies of it. If they are going to do this, the least they could do is warn us in really big letters on the cover.
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As with Things in Jars, it took a bit of time before I plunged myself into the eccentric world of The Hoarder. But when I did, I was all in.
Maud Drennan is a care worker whose job it is to feed the difficult Cathal Flood and attempt to make some headway in cleaning his house, for the old man is a hoarder. There are odd rumors surrounding Flood, not only about his recent behavior—he is supposed to have tried to brain carer Sam Hebden with a hurley—but also about his past—his wife died after falling down the stairs.
Maud herself is a little eccentric. She is followed around by the ghosts of saints, particularly St. Dymphna and St. Valentine, and her best friend is Renata, an agoraphobic transgender woman with an elaborate wardrobe. It is Renata who suggests that perhaps it was Cathal Flood who pushed his wife down the stairs.
Certainly, something is going on, because Maud is approached by Gabriel Flood, Cathal’s son, who is looking for something in the house. Then, Renata and Maud discover that Gabriel had a sister, Maggie, who disappeared as a teenager. Maud’s sister, we learn, also disappeared, so Maud becomes immersed in an investigation and attempts to search the blocked-off portions of Cathal Flood’s house.
This novel is a bit gothic, a bit funny, a bit haunting, and Kidd’s writing is brilliant. Love this one. Need more.
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Review 1648: Joanna Godden
At first, I wasn’t sure I was going to like Joanna very much, in this novel that is essentially a character study. She is large and brash. She likes to wear bright colors and to impress people. She is a fine figure of a woman.
As a young woman, she inherits her father’s sheep farm on Walland Marsh in far southeastern Kent. From the first, she will take no advice. She’ll run her farm the way she wants, and she scandalizes the neighborhood for firing her father’s shepherd of 28 years, for painting her wagons and her house yellow, and for other such offences against tradition.
At first, she makes some costly mistakes in her willingness to experiment. She hires a shepherd just because she likes his looks, but he is too docile and inexperienced to warn her when she’s about to make a big mistake in breeding. She sends her little sister Ellen away to a posh boarding school and gets back a sulky, discontented young woman who thinks she is too good for the farm.
I couldn’t help growing to love this heroine, though. She is bumptious but well-intentioned, pushy but kind. By the end of the novel, I was touched and sorry it was coming to a close. I read it for my Classics Club list and hope to find more by the author.
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Review 1647: The 1936 Club! Jamaica Inn
When Mary Yellan’s mother is dying, she makes Mary promise to go live with her Aunt Patience in Bodmin. However, Aunt Patience’s reply to her letter after her mother’s death tells her that she no longer lives in Bodmin. Her uncle is the landlord of Jamaica Inn out on the moors.
When Mary tells the coach driver her destination, he advises her to stay in Bodmin. Jamaica Inn is a place of ill repute. Mary feels, though, that she must keep her promise to her mother.
She finds Jamaica Inn a ramshackle, brooding inn with no customers. Patience, her mother’s sister, has changed from a vivacious, pretty woman to a terrified drudge. Her uncle, Joss Merlyn, is an overbearing bully with signs of being a habitual drunk.
Days after arriving at the inn, Mary must help serve the most disreputable bunch of men she has ever seen. Later, Joss advises her to stay in her room with her covers over her head. But she looks out the window and sees evidence of smuggling.
But the secrets of Jamaica Inn go far beyond smuggling. Mary looks for a way to safely remove herself and her aunt. In the meantime, she meets and is attracted to Joss’s younger brother, Jem.
It’s been many years since I read this novel, which I reread for the 1936 Club. I found it to be a truly exciting thriller.
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Review 1646: The 1936 Club! The ABC Murders
Of course, you must pick an Agatha Christie for the 1936 Club, and my choice was The ABC Murders. In this novel, it appears at first as if Christie is telling us everything but motive. However, she has some tricks up her sleeve as usual.
Captain Hastings returns from South America to find Hercule Poirot retired but still taking the occasional case. Soon, one arrives in the form of a letter, which challenges Poirot and tells him to look for news from Andover on a particular date. On that date, an old woman named Mrs. Ascher is killed by being bludgeoned over the head. On the counter is an ABC map.
The next letter refers to Bexhill-on-Sea. On the specified date, Betty Barnard is strangled on the beach and an ABC is found underneath her body.
In between entries from Captain Hastings’ journal, we briefly follow a man named Alexander Bonaparte Cust.
Round about page 75, I got an inkling about something that might be happening, and I was right. But the whole picture was more complicated than I guessed.
This wasn’t my favorite Christie. For one thing, the solution was just too complicated. For another, I didn’t feel as if Christie’s characterizations were as rich as usual.
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Classics Club Spin #26
It’s time for another Classics Club Spin. I have been trying to finish my list in time for my deadline, which is coming up at the end of June. I’m not going to make it, but I’ve been scheduling in books that I read months ago to try to get most of the books reviewed by then, and I have been reading like crazy to finish the others. With any luck, I’ll only be a month or so late. That means that my list for this spin is going to be repetitive.
To participate in the spin, you post a numbered list of 20 of the books from your Classics Club list (or in my case, however many books you have left over and over to make a list of 20). The Classics Club picks a number, and that determines the book you’ll read for the spin. So, here is my list! We are posting these lists by April 18th, and the deadline to read the chosen book is May 31.
- The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
- The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
- The Viscount de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Evelina by Frances Burney
- The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
- Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
- The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
- The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
- The Viscount de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Evelina by Frances Burney
- The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
- Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
- The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini
- The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault
- The Viscount de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas
- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster
- Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Review 1645: The 1936 Club! Nightwood
When I looked for books to read for the 1936 Club, I picked a couple of rereads, as I usually do, but also tried to find one I hadn’t read before. That novel was Nightwood, which I had heard of for years.
T. S. Eliot, who wrote the original Introduction and had a great deal to do with its publication, said that it would “appeal primarily to readers of poetry.” That comment struck dread into my heart, because I am not a big poetry reader. And indeed this is a difficult novel.
The plot is relatively slight. Felix, an Austrian Jew and pseudo-baron, marries Robin Vote because he wants a son to pass his heritage to. Robin is an enigma whom we only see through the eyes of those infatuated with her. She is boyish, and the Doctor, an intersex character who is also an enigma, implies that she is also intersex. Robin seems to view motherhood with horror, so she leaves Felix with his son and takes up with Nora, who is madly in love with her and spends most of her time dragging her, dead drunk, out of sleazy Parisian nightclubs. Then Robin dumps Nora for Jenny, a woman who always wants what other people have.
All the characters are distraught.
The novel is most known for its style and language. It is crammed with images and metaphor, but it is difficult to understand what the characters are talking about, especially the Doctor. I felt like I understood him less than half the time.
The novel seems filled with dread, as it might well in pre-World War II Europe, even though its characters’ preoccupations are not political. I found it disturbing, thought-provoking, and astonishing.
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Review 1644: The 1936 Club! August Folly
This week it’s time for the 1936 Club, hosted by Stuck in a Book. For my first book published in 1936, I am delighted to review August Folly by Angela Thirkell. As usual with my first posting for the club, I am also listing the links for the books published in 1936 that I have reviewed previously:
- The Sussex Downs Murder by John Bude
- Thirteen Guests by J. Jefferson Farjeon
- The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay
- The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer
- South Riding by Winifred Holtby
- Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
- Mary Lavelle by Kate O’Brien
- Begin Again by Ursula Orange
- Miss Buncle Married by D. E. Stevenson
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Louise Palmer, who likes to manage things, has decided to put on a Greek play. This endeavor will involve the participation of most of the young people around the village of Worsted, including her summer guests, the Deans. Richard Tebbins, just up from Oxford with a poor third, is at the age when everything his parents do irritates him (although that’s usually earlier, in my experience). However, when he sets eyes on Mrs. Dean, his parents’ contemporary, he falls into puppy love. Mr. Fanshawe, the Deans’ guest, seems to be a confirmed bachelor, but he has always only loved young Helen Dean. However, he fears he is too old for her. These are just a few of the characters and subplots of Angela Thirkell’s fourth Barsetshire novel.
Sometime, I would like to read these novels in order, because although each one concentrates on different characters, they have characters that reappear in different books—presumably also plot lines. However, I used to randomly encounter the novels in bookstores and just picked up whatever I found.
August Folly is one of the more fun books, featuring eccentric academics, delightful children, realistic but absurd romances, and a cat, a donkey, and a bull. It is froth at its best. I was happy to revisit it for the 1936 Club and my Classics Club list.
What? Me Read? 