REVIEW:- Kate ELLIS - “A Cursed Inheritance“

Year Published: - 2005 Piatkus Books Ltd
Where the book was from:- My own copy - ex-library
ISBN: - 0 7499 0725 8
Pages: - 360pp
Genre: - Crime
Location:- Annetown (Jamestown), Virginia, and Devon
How I came across it: - Serendipity
Rating: - ***** **

One sentence summary:- A brutal massacre at a Devon hall was 'obviously' carried out by the housekepper who then killed herself but twenty years later a reporter investigating the crime seems to have other ideas – and gets murdered for them.

Describe the plot without giving anything away:- The hall in which the massacre took place has become a New Age healing centre which DI Wesley Peterson suspects is not all it seems – nor are its visitors. The hall was already notorious for a crime committed centuries earlier and the novel tracks the history of that piece of villainy as well, leading Peterson's friend Neil to the ruined remains of an English settlement in Virginia.

General comments:- This was the ninth in the Wesley Peterson series:-
Wesley Peterson
1. The Merchant's House (1998)
2. The Armada Boy (1999)
3. An Unhallowed Grave (1999)
4. The Funeral Boat (2000)
5. The Bone Garden (2001)
6. A Painted Doom (2002)
7. The Skeleton Room (2003)
8. The Plague Maiden (2004)
9. A Cursed Inheritance (2005)
10. The Marriage Hearse (2006)
11. The Shining Skull (2007)
12. The Blood Pit (2008)
13. A Perfect Death (2009)
14. The Flesh Tailor (2010)
15. The Jackal Man (2011)
16. The Cadaver Game (2012)

I enjoyed this book - especially with its flashbacks to the 1600s - but I'm not sure I'll actually seek out any more Wesley Peterson novels. The plot was good but I didn't particualrly identify with the hero.

AUTHOR Notes:- Kate Ellis was born (1953) and brought up in Liverpool and she studied drama in Manchester. She worked in teaching, marketing and accountancy before first enjoying writing success as a winner of the North West Playwrights competition. Crime and mystery stories have always fascinated her, as have medieval history and archaeology which she likes to incorporate in her books. She lives in North Cheshire, England, with her husband, two sons and an overweight cat called Vivaldi!

REVIEW:- Terry PRATCHETT - “Once More * *with footnotes”

“Once More * *with footnotes”
Year Published: - 2004
Where the book was from:- My own copy
ISBN: - 1 886778 57 4
Pages: - 280pp
Genre: - Humour (mixture of fiction and non-fiction)
Location:- Somewhere in Terry's brain
How I came across it: - Sorting out the loft – decided it was time I re-read it.
Rating: - ***** ***** * (Yes, I know my system only goes up to 10 but anything Terry touches can be magical)

One sentence summary:- A selection of Terry's early writings, short stories, speeches and bits and bobs with occasional thoughts about fantasy and more than occasional bits of fantasy.


Describe the plot without giving anything away:- What plot? Although there is a definitely Discworld bias and a lot of witches. SOME CHAP IN A SKULL MASK puts in an appearance as well.

General comments:- Some serious comments on writing and the place of fantasy in entertainment and education together with little glimpses of what Granny Weatherwax does to people when she's nice to them. A must for any Pratchett fan and a darned good read for anyone interested in fantasy writing and mythology – with a little bit of the nuclear power industry thrown in for good measure. Probably the most important four pages are 187-190 – The Orangutans are Dying' but they get rather lost among the humour. Perhaps they would have been better as the last four pages...

Quotations:-
Michael has... impressed me by having a sense of humour while nevertheless being an accountant, an achievement of such magnitude that it almost certainly earns him an honorary degree in magic.


History records a great many foolish comments, such as, “It looks perfectly safe”, or “Indians? What Indians?” and Dogger added to the list with an old favourite which has caused more encyclopedias and life insurance policies to be sold than you would have thought possible.
“I suppose, he said, “that you'd better come in.”


It works best if your culture includes at least folk memories of Punch and Judy, a glove puppet show depicting wife-beating, child abuse, cruelty to animals, assault on an officer of the law, murder, and complete and total disrespect of Authority. It is for children, of course, and they laugh themselves sick.... It can only be a matter of time before an anger management consultant is included among the puppets.


If people didn't think very carefully about warning signs, a dead and buried nuclear reactor would make the classic cursed tomb; not long after breaking into it people would dies mysteriously.


The Wind in the Willows... I know now, of course, that it is totally the wrong kind of book for children. There is only one female character and she is a washerwoman. No attempt is made to explain the social conditioning and lack of proper housing that makes the stoats and weasels act they way they do. Mr Badger's house is an insult to all those children not fortunate enough o live in a Wild Wood. The Mole and Rat's domestic arrangements are probably acceptable, but only if they come right out and talk frankly about them...

...the world's second oldest profession (priest) became a growth industry (the oldest is 'flint-knapper' no matter what you may have heard).


Fantasy should present the familiar in a new light... And, at its best, it is truly escapist. But the point about escaping is that you should escape to, as well as from. You should go somewhere worthwhile, and come back the better for the experience.

Go with publishers to a fish and chip supper. Ah, but this is Doyles Fish Restaurant, where they serve barramundi and chips, and a barramundi is what a cod becomes if it's been a good cod in this life.


America got the '50s – all those juke boxes, rock 'n' roll, and Cadillacs with fins... In fact we weren't even allowed any '60s until 1964, when we were allowed to keep them until they were exported to the West coast of the USA in 1968. To be honest, they only happened to about 250 people in London, in any case. The rest of us read about them, and picked up the pieces.

In fact the whole book is so quotable you should go out and buy it!



AUTHOR Notes:- TERRY PRATCHETT OBE - Terry Pratchett, born 1948, is one of the most popular authors writing today. He lives behind a keyboard in Wiltshire and says he 'doesn't want to get a life, because it feels as though he's trying to lead three already'. He was appointed OBE in 1998. He is the author of the phenomenally successful Discworld series and his trilogy for young readers, The Bromeliad, is scheduled to be adapted into a spectacular animated movie. His first Discworld novel for children, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents”, was awarded the 2001 Carnegie Medal. I have read the whole of the Disworld / Bromeliad and Johnny Maxwell series (in most cases reading them three times).

Review:- Joan POWERS (Ed.) - "Eeyore's Gloomy Little Instruction Book"

Year Published: - 1997
Where the book was from:- My own copy
ISBN: - 0 416 19420 6
Pages: - 35 pp
Genre: - Humour
Location:- The Hundred Acre Wood (Five Hundred Acre Wood; in Ashdown Forest)
How I came across it: - I cannot recall
Rating: - ***** *****

One sentence summary:- Good things come in small packages and these 35 pages are some that I come back to time and again since I got it years ago; I love Eeyore and the choice of quotations from A.A.Milne and of the illustrations byE.H.Shepherd is excellent.


General comments:- A set of cynical comments from one of children's fiction's most loveable characters. A perfect little gift book for the pessimist in your life. , Eeyore's Gloomy Little Instruction Book is the very thing for those who see the glass as half-empty. In his lugubrious style, Eeyore offers wisdom of a gloomy nature on subjects ranging from food and friendship to what to do when one's tail is missing. Line drawings throughout.

Quotations:-
I could quote the whole book, it is so delightful!
“This writing business – pencils and what-not – is overrated. Silly stuff. Nothing in it.”

AUTHOR Notes:- Joan Powers is also the author of Henny Penny (a read along with me book).

BOOKS PUBLISHED IN THE FIRST YEARS OF MY LIFE CHALLENGE – 2011

Sadly I missed this challenge set by Words and Peace when it came out last December and have only just come across it. It has various levels:-
- 3 years = Toddler
- 5 years = Kid
- 10 years = Pre-Teen
- 15 years or more = YA

You have to choose one book per year and read it between 1^st January and 31^st December 2011.

(To find books published in a specific year, google: ‘Books published in… ‘, and you’ll find several links. The one Words and Peace and I prefer is the Goodreads’ ones: ‘Most popular books published in…’ The list displays 200 books, including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, for each year. But be careful some are re-prints or new editions of older books.)

Since I’ve only got a couple of months in which to do it I shall merely go for ‘Kid’ level – to the age of five.

My five chosen books are:-

1949 – The Story of Language by Mario Andrew Pei

1950 – Fifth Chinese Daughter by Jade Snow Wong

1951 – An English Murder by Cyril Hare

1952 – Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

1953 – Ring for Jeeves by P G Wodehouse

(I read the last one in my teens and fancy having a bit of light reading to finish off the challenge – probably over Christmas!)

Dedications

I'm going through the loft at the moment and among the hundreds of books up there are some with dedications in them.

These two, for example, celebrate quite significant friendships in the family. On the left is a little French dictionary which Dad gave to Uncle Eric during the War while Uncle Eric was serving abroad.

The dedication reads:- I hope you will be back before you can make good use of this dictionary. Morris. 16.3.43

On the right is an Apocrypha given to Mum. The dedication reads:-

A Simple Token January 5th 1953 for my Dear Friend Flora Edwards from John Dowd With great gratitude for the Special help she has given from time to time.

John Dowd was our next door neighbour and his wife was mentally unstable.  Mum gave him
 not only friendship but acted as a mediator in his stormy marriage.

The follwing dedication was in a Margery Lawrence book of Mum's.

Pixie was Mum and Fairy Queen was  a former office colleague of hers though which one I have forgotten (and nowadays have no way of finding out).

What does one do with books like this?  I have no use for an out-of-date (and tiny) French Dictionary or an Apocrypha or a novel I shall never read and yet to throw them away seems somehow sacrilegious. No doubt they'll go back in the loft...