Friday Forgotten (or Overlooked) Book: THE FOURTH BEAR by Jasper Fforde

British author Jasper Fforde is best known, I suppose, for his satirically quirky Thursday Next series of novels which take place in a modern day England that never was; an England in which airplanes haven't been invented, air travel is by dirigible, time travel exists, and the denizens of literature pop in and out of their books often leaving literary chaos in their wake.

But today is not about Thursday Next, literary detective, today is about the Nursery Crimes Division series begun by Fforde way back in 2005 with THE BIG OVER EASY. Unfortunately, this series is still only two books along and here we are in 2015. After THE FOURTH BEAR was published in 2006, no further Nursery Crimes books have come along though we were promised a third - a book now forecast to be published in 2017 - but who knows? I hate to be toyed with. Especially when the writing and story-telling are this good. But patience is a virtue (or so they say) and so I must be patient.

In the meantime, it's true, we've had the very satisfactory SHADES OF GREY (No, not that shades of grey) and its sequel also due out soon. So I mustn't complain - much. The Grey book is set in yet another bizarre though oddly familiar world, but this time out, the color spectrum is in short supply. Go read it if you want to know more. Unlike the other 'shades of grey', this time, bring your thinking cap.

At any rate, this review of THE FOURTH BEAR was first posted by me in 2011 and since I am currently re-reading the book, I've decided to bring the post forward and re-work it. This is too good a book to be forgotten, overlooked or lost in the shuffle.

How high (or low) is your tolerance for nonsense? I don't mean run-of-the-mill nonsense - I'm talking intelligent nonsense - absurdity, if you will - the kind promulgated by...oh, let's say, Jasper Forde. I don't know about you, but I seem to be able to tolerate Fforde's brand of nonsense very, very well, indeed.

Incidentally, I love this artwork by Bill Mudron and Dylan Meconis. Hence my enlarging the cover to this gigantic 'bear' size.
 

THE FOURTH BEAR was Fforde's second entry in his two book (so far) Nursery Crimes series set in Reading, England in a Berkshire of his own devising. First book: THE BIG OVER EASY had to do with the death of Humpty-Dumpty who turned out not to have been a very nice egg. The likable detective in charge then, Jack Spratt, is back in THE FOURTH BEAR, where once again, due to an unfortunate incident involving a wolf, a girl in a red hooded cape and a bed-ridden grandmother, Spratt is on the outs within his small department. The powers that be are insisting that he undergo psychological evaluation or be trumped out of the NCD (Nursery Crime Division).

From the chapter headings:

First (and only) bear relocation: Mr. and Mrs. Edward Bruin, 1977. With the passing of the 1962 Animal (anthropomorphic) Equality Bill, all talking animals won the right not to be exploited or hunted and instead live in the designated safe haven of Berkshire, England. Bears were fully expected to take up residence in small cottages in the middle of the woods and eat porridge in a state of blissful quasi-human solitude, but they didn't. Most bears instead preferred to remain urbane city dwellers and shunned the notion of foraging in the countryside. Ursine elders deplore the situation but secretly admit that Reading's proliferating coffee shops, theaters and shopping opportunities are not without their attractions.The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition

While Spratt resists the evaluation,  the seven foot tall Gingerbread man - psychopath, sadist and convicted murderer - escapes from the loony-bin and is roaming the streets of Reading causing havoc. But since Spratt's career is on a downturn, he is not placed in charge of the investigation even though it was thanks to him that the vile ginger cookie was captured the first time around. Rather, Spratt and his associates, fellow detectives Mary Mary and Ashley the luminous (and squishy) blue Alien, get handed the Missing Persons case of golden-haired Goldy Hatchett, star reporter for The Mole newspaper. When 'missing' turns to murder, as it usually does in mystery books, we learn that the last three witnesses to have seen Goldy alive were, you guessed it, three bears.

Here, Jack Spratt interviews Ed Bruin and his wife.

"Have a seat, Inspector. Tea?" 

"Thank you." 

"Honey sandwich? It's all quota - no substance abuse in this house." 

"Thank you, I've already eaten." 

"Do you mind if I have one?"

"Not at all." 

Ed licked his lips and shouted across to his wife. "Two teas, pet - and a honey sandwich for our guest." He winked broadly at Jack and smiled slyly. 

"So when did you last see her?" asked Jack. 

"It must have been Friday morning - " 

"Saturday," said Mrs. Bruin from the other side of the room. Ed looked around. "I think it was Friday, actually, dear." 

"Saturday," she growled."We had to go to the vet about your worms." 

There was a ghastly pause. Ed looked at Jack with an expression of acute embarrassment etched upon his features. He smiled sheepishly....."What were we talking about?" 

"Goldilocks." 

"Oh, yes. It was last Saturday. My good lady wife had made some porridge for breakfast - again, strictly quota - and we all went for a walk in the forest while it cooled." 

"Is that normal procedure?" 

"Yes, indeed; it's completely true what they say about bears and forests. Our morning constitutional, as it were. The forest speaks, you know, Inspector. Every morning it has changed in some small way. By the way the trees sway and the birds sing and the leaves - "

"That's very interesting, Mr. Bruin," interrupted Jack, "but what about the porridge?"

"Oh, well, we came home to find that my son's porridge had been eaten. He was most upset about it."

"Goldilocks?"

Ed held up a claw."Wait a minute. Then we noticed that my son's chair had been sat on and broken."

"This one here?" 

"Yes, I've tried to mend it, but it's never quite the same, is it?" 

"And then?" 

"We went upstairs and found that woman asleep in my son's bed!" The bear stared at Jack as though he should be as outraged as Ed was. 

"Then what did she do?"

"Isn't that enough?" asked Ed angrily. "You would have thought that finally, after two thousand years of being hunted, kept in grotty zoos, made to ride motorcycles and dance to some forgettable tune played by a repulsive and usually toothless Eastern European, we members of the Ursidae family have won the right to be left alone."

"She broke a chair, but surely that's not the end of the world?"

"It's the thin end of the wedge," he replied indignantly. "How would you like it if a bear wandered into your house when you were out, ate your breakfast, destroyed your property and then had the barefaced cheek to fall asleep - naked - in your bed?"

"I see your point..."

Eventually, both investigations will intertwine as we knew they must, bodies start dropping like flies (including a woman who was wallpapered to her wall), giant cucumbers start exploding, and Jack and Mary Mary must save the day though they will, of course, not be thanked for it. Nobody likes to be shown up, less of all, Jack's ego-maniacal and mostly inept superiors.

Call this a wickedly funny police procedural satire or just a very strange book, whatever you will, just don't miss it.

World's oddest theme park: Contenders abound in this field, and several deserve mention. ElephantLand in impoverished East Splotvia is odd in that it has no elephants, nor a clear idea of what one is. GummoWorld in upstate New York is devoted to the Marx brother who had the distinction of never appearing in a movie, and Nevada's ParkThemeLandWorld is a theme park dedicated to other theme parks, but has no attraction of its own. SommeWorld in the UK invites its visitors to taste the marrow-chilling fear of being an infantryman in the Great War, and, by contrast, ZenWorld in Thailand is nothing but a very large empty space in which to relax. Our favorite, however, is La Haye's DescarteLand, which merely furnishes ticket holders with a paper bag to put over their heads and a note reading, "If you think it, it shall be so." The Bumper Book of Berkshire Records, 2004 edition.

Author Patricia Abbott is away at Bouchercon this week and so meme hosting duties will be handled by Todd Mason at his blog,  Sweet Freedom. Don't forget to check in to see what other forgotten or overlooked books other bloggers will be talking about today.

My Favorite Reads: THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT by Agatha Christie

I'm meaning this post for the March edition of the Agatha Christie Carnival hosted by Kerrie over at MYSTERIES IN PARADISE. Every month, the Carnival has a great listing of links to other Agatha Christie inspired reviews and info. If you have any interest in the work of Agatha Christie and the Golden Age of mystery, it's fun to take a look. This month's Carnival debuts on March 24th.

THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT is early Christie (1924) and one of my favorites. A book that, for whatever reason, I never tire of re-reading. A terrific book for when you're feeling ill or out-of-sorts or need general cheering up OR are just in the mood for a good mystery/caper. For me, reading THE MAN IN THE BROWN SUIT is like visiting an old friend whose company I've been missing.

The heroine of the plot, Anne Beddingfeld is a young, plucky English girl - Agatha Christie created dozens of this type, take your pick, this is a particularly good one. She is a country lass whose paleontologist father ( ...one of England's greatest living authorities on Primitive Man.) has recently died and left Anne alone in the world, in need of earning a living. Well, Anne has always wanted to see the world so off to London she goes, hopeful of landing something that will lead to 'adventure'.

My affairs did not progress very fast. The house and furniture had been sold, and the amount realized had just covered our debts. As yet, I had not been successful in finding a post. Not that I really wanted one! I had the firm conviction that, if I went about looking for adventure, adventure would meet me halfway. It is a theory of mine that one always gets what one wants.

Anne's theory proves correct: on the way home from another fruitless job interview - she is temporarily staying with the family of her father's lawyer in London - she is witness to a horrible incident on the underground line. The death of a man who has fallen onto the third rail and been electrocuted.

From that moment, Anne's life will never be the same. She surmises that somehow the death was no mere accident. This, coupled with the mysterious presence on the platform of a deeply tanned man in a brown suit behaving suspiciously (while claiming to be a doctor), sets Anne Beddingfeld off on the adventure of a lifetime. All because a piece of paper and a man's suit both smelled of mothballs. Then shortly thereafter, there is the dead body of a woman found in an empty cottage. A cottage (owned by Sir Eustace Pedler M.P. who was abroad at the time) in which the same man with a deep tan seen by Anne on the underground, has been spotted by a witness.

While all of London and the cops are looking for 'the man in the brown suit', Anne finagles a job with a newspaper and is soon onboard a ship bound for Cape Town, South Africa. (!) Onboard are all sorts of interesting characters as you would imagine, including the always mysterious and attractive Christie creation, Colonel Race, also the beautiful and wealthy Mrs. Blair, who befriends Anne and becomes her cohort in conspiracy. Sir Eustace Pedler M.P. (coincidentally, the same Sir Eustace who owns the cottage in which the dead woman was found) on a minor diplomatic mission is traveling with his grim-faced secretary. Also on board a missionary who doesn't act like a missionary and a few other assorted characters. Just enough to make for a nice selection of suspects when danger lurks as, of course, it will.

The book is divided between Anne's first person account AND the entertaining journal pages of fellow traveler, Sir Eustace Pedler:

It is an extraordinary thing that I never seem to get any peace. I am a man who likes a quiet life. I like my Club, my rubber of Bridge, a well-cooked meal, a sound wine. I like England in the summer, and the Riviera in the winter. I have no desire to participate in sensational happenings. Sometimes, in front of a good fire, I do not object to reding about them in the newspaper. But that is as far as I am willing to go. My object in life is to be thoroughly comfortable. I have devoted a certain amount of thought and a considerable amount of money, to further that end. But I cannot say that I always succeed. If things to do actually happen to me, they happen around me, and frequently, in spite of myself, I become involved. I hate being involved.

Pedler is one of Agatha Chrisite's more inspired creations and despite his faults, one of my favorite characters.

Onboard ship, when a small package is thrust through Anne's cabin window in the middle of one night AND on another night, a mysterious and attractive young man (with a deep tan) bursts into the cabin, wounded and needing help, the adventure threatens to overwhelm Anne. But only just. Ever resourceful, she manages beautifully. From that moment on, though, not only is she in fear for her life, but her heart has been touched as well.

(An incident like this was also instrumental to the plot in one of my other favorite Agatha Christie stories: THEY CAME TO BAGHDAD, but with rather a different outcome.)

After the ship docks in Cape Town, Anne Beddingfeld must go through several incredible trials and dangerous tribulations, including kidnapping, before the truth is known, the bad guy revealed and all claims of the heart are settled to everyone's satisfaction. Not bad for a country lass who'd never been out of England before.

There's no getting around it. I love this book.

Friday: Favorite Read - THE WORD MUSEUM

A book that I dip into every now and then. Not a book to read in one fell swoop - more a book meant for a bit of fun research. But only if you're interested in the English language and its various perambulations.

THE WORD MUSEUM The Most Remarkable English Words Ever Forgotten by Jeffrey Kacirk

Okay, I'm just going to dive right in and post some of my favorite FORGOTTEN words and their meanings: My editorial comments are in blue. And before you get all eagle-eyed on me, some of the words are not - strictly - in alphabetical order.

agglutinants: Those medicines which have the power of uniting parts together. (Who knew you could glue body parts together? Think of the fun you passed up. Sorry, couldn't help myself.)

ambidexter: It is intended by this Latin word to designate one who plays both sides. In a legal sense it is taken for a juror or embraceor who takes money from both parties for giving his verdict. This is seldom or never done in the United States. (Of course not.)


antipodes: People who live on the other side of the earth to us, going with their feet directly against ours.


answer jobber: One who makes a trade of writing answers. (Hey, that sounds like... like - BLOGGING! We're 'answer jobbers'. Who knew?


babies in the eyes: The miniature reflection of himself which a person sees in the pupil of another's eye on looking closely into it.


ballop: The old name for the flap in the forepart of the breeches which is buttoned up; in English, formerly called the cod-piece. (No comment and I emphasize, NO comment.)


batterfanged: Beaten and beclawed, as a termagant will fight with her fists and nails... see clapperclaw.


beggars' velvet: Downey particles which accumulate under furniture from the negligence of housemaids. (The offending maid would obviously need to be butterfanged.)


bellitude: Beauty of person; loveliness; elegance; neatness.


bedfellow: It was formerly customary for men, even of the hightest rank to sleep together, and the term bedfellow implies great intimacy...Cromwell is said to have obtained much of his intelligence during the civil wars from common men with whom he slept. (How come they never taught us this in history class?)


biblioklept: A book-thief; one who purloins or steals books.


bibliothecary: Keeper of a library.


bubulcitate: To cry like a cow boy.


cabobble: To mystify, puzzle, confuse.


crunkle: To creake like a crane. (Don't even know what the meaning means. But I like the sound of the word.)


crapulous: Surcharged with liquor; sick by intemperence.


croodle: To snuggle, a young animal snuggles against its mother.


clamberskull: Strong drink that clambers up to the skull...


dog-draw: One of four causes by which a man may be arrested as a deer-stealer.


death-hunter: Persons who go from village to village, as a burial occurs, carrying small black stools called buffets, on which the coffin is rested while the funeral hymn is being sung in open air, in front of the house where the corpse has lain. (It never occurred to anyone to, maybe, fashion their own little stools to keep around the house in case of, I don't know...a death?)


disquixotted: Disillusioned.


errorist: One who errs, or encourages and propagates error. (Instantly springs
to mind: Bush the errorist. Who knew?)


exlex: An outlaw. (Not the first thing I'd have thought of.)


flattybouch: One who goes from place to place in a van during the summer months, but lives in a houe during the winter.


gardyloo: A cry which servants in the higher stories of Edinburgh give, after 10 o'clock at night, when they throw their dirty water from the window. (No sane comment is possible.)


giggle-trot: A woman who marries when she is far advanced in life...


idle-worms: Worms bred in the fingers of lazy girls, an ancient notion...It was supposed, and the notion was probably encouraged for the sake of promoting female industry, then when maidens were idle, worms bred in their fingers...! (Now we know how women became the workers they are: fear of worms!)


man-browed: Having hair growing between the eyebrows.


married all over: Said of women who, after their marriages, fall in their appearance and become poor and miserable looking. (Never said of men, of course.)


merry-go-sorry: A mixture of laughing and crying.


peccable: Liable to sin.


pixilated: Led astray, as if by pixies; confused, bewildered. (Been there. Done that.)


quanked: Overpowered by fatigue. (I'm often quanked at the end of the blogging day.)


swazz: To swagger.


trinkle: To eavesdrop.


tweeny-maid: A servant who assisted both cook and housemaid.


vomitory: A door of a large building by which the crowd is let out. (No comment. Though I'm dying to make one.)


weatherspy: A stargazer, astrologer, wizard.


There are plenty more where these came from. Read the book. Check out the website. It's a lot of fun. Some of these words are so preposterous that they entertain in and of themselves. Some are just downright funny. Some, infuriating. Some, just plain mean. Some just plain 'flarting'.

Here's the scary part for me: I actually knew what some of these words meant. C'mon, I'm NOT that old.

Damn me, if I'm not 'quanked' and the day not even over yet.

My Favorite Reads: Two by Rex Stout: PLOT IT YOURSELF & MURDER BY THE BOOK

Nero Wolfe illustrated by Kevin I. Gordon.

"I understand the technique of eccentricity, it would be futile for a man to labor at establishing a reputation for oddity if he were ready at the slightest provocation to revert to normal action." Nero Wolfe

These two Nero Wolfe titles don't qualify for the Vintage Mystery Challenge because I haven't re-read them lately, but they are such great favorites of mine (I do reread them religiously every few years) I thought I'd include them in the My Favorite Reads category. And, since both are books about books and publishing, I'm posting them together.

With Wolfe, eccentricity is key:

1) The thousands of orchids in the glass greenhouse on the roof of the brownstone. The unbreakable 'orchid time' daily schedule.

2) The excessive beer drinking. The bottle caps always placed in the top drawer of his desk as Wolfe finishes the beer. Then the end of week tallying up of just how much he drank.

3) The gourmet meals of cook, Fritz Brenner. Wolfe will only eat out at one restaurant in all of NYC: the one owned by a friend from his Montenegro days. Otherwise, he eats at home.

4)The yellow shirts. The yellow pajamas. The black satin bed linens.

5)The 'I never leave the brownstone on business' routine.

6) The fourteen carat gold book mark.

7) "Phui!"

8) "Satisfactory."

9) The idea that women can't write a good novel, well, except for Jane Austen, of course.

10) Hamburgers and french fries are never served at the brownstone.

MURDER BY THE BOOK (1951)

With Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin stories, you never know what kind of murder you're going to get - kind of like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. In some of the cases, the murder is neat and tidy and only one victim is rubbed out. In other cases, there may be multiple victims but again, there's not much imagined bloodletting. And then there are the cases like the two I'm talking about today where the murders are particularly awful. (Don't worry, there's not much blood description, but it's just the sheer awfulness of the thing.)

These are nasty murders committed for motives that seem, on the face of it, hardly worth the shedding of so much blood, especially innocent blood. I don't like it when the victim or victims are killed because of some bit of knowledge they possess. That's one of the hardest motives to accept, at least for me. It's always so much worse than if the victim were involved, somehow, in his own demise by, either, acts of stupidity or greed or hateful behavior or even, for having too much money. Know what I mean?

In MURDER BY THE BOOK, Homicide's Inspector Cramer (Wolfe and Archie's friendly enemy on the force. Don't know what else to call him since they're not, by any means, pals.) audaciously (and I mean, audaciously) shows up at the brownstone on West Thirty-fifth Street with a list of names. Names unrelated to each other, names that make no sense to him. He's hoping to pick Wolfe's legendary brain for a clue, an idea, anything that will send him off in the right direction in a current murder investigation.Wolfe, as usual, is affronted, and manages to annoy Cramer with an abrupt dismissal.

"...Yeah. But we're only human. I just thought I'd show it [the list] to a genius and see what happened. With a genius you never know."

Wolfe shrugged. "I'm sorry. Nothing has happened."

"Well, by God, I hope you'll excuse me" - Cramer got up. He was sore, and you couldn't blame him - "for taking up your time and no fee. Don't bother, Goodwin."

He turned and marched out. Wolfe bent over his crossword puzzle, frowned at it, and picked up his pencil.

Cramer's crack about no fee had of course been deserved. Wolfe hated to start his brain going on what he called work, and during the years I had been on his payroll the occasions had been rare when anything but a substantial retainer had jarred him into it. But he is not a loafer. He can't be, since his income as a private detective is what keeps that old house going, with the rooms on the roof full of orchid plants, with Theodore Horstmann as tender, and Fritz Brenner serving up the best meals in New York, and me, Archie Goodwin, asking for a raise every time I buy a new suit, and sometimes getting it. It takes a gross of at least ten thousand a month to get by.....Then nearly six weeks after the day Cramer dropped in to see what would happen if he showed a piece of paper to a genius, and got a brush-off, a man named John R. Wellman phoned on Monday morning for an appointment, and I told him to come at six that afternoon.

Well, as so often happens with Wolfe, these little office contretemps are just preludes to murder. In this case, very cruel murder.

There will be three murders in this particular book. Once Wolfe takes on John Wellman as a client to find out who killed his daughter, a young woman from Peoria who worked as an editorial assistant (reading submissions from the 'slush pile' of unrequested manuscripts), the die is cast and deadly events set in motion. As soon as Wolfe links the names on the original list Cramer had briefly shown him (still alive in his photographic memory) six weeks earlier, a particularly ruthless killer is off and running.

PLOT IT YOURSELF (1959)

This book has one major 'fault', but it's not one that can't be explained. Wolfe does so in a throwaway sentence or two near the end when all involved are sitting in his office waiting, none too patiently, for the explanation of the crime and revelation of the murderer. This is all typically done in Wolfe-ian style. Where would we be without the revelatory office denouement? Count me in - I love these sorts of endings. They're not only satisfying, but they make things nice and tidy.

But for this 'fault' - PLOT IT YOURSELF would be a nearly perfect mystery. Again, the motive is knowledge. The quick-witted killer goes on a murder bender to protect injurious knowledge from becoming known. This is one case where Wolfe is up against someone who, he admits at the end, is brazenly fearless - acting as needs arise with a particularly cunning viciousness.

Author Amy Wynn, writer of a current debut bestseller, her publisher and her agent hire Wolfe to find out who is attempting blackmail by accusing her of plagiarism. Turns out this same ruse has been tried before and quite successfully, on several well-known authors. They, unfortunately, have either settled or gone to court and been forced to pay big money to the accuser. The cleverness of the ruse, once explained, is immediately apparent and yet, even knowing how the thing is worked hasn't prevented it from working. (It is such a brilliant con, that I won't reveal it here. If you've read it, you'll know what I'm talking about. If not, you're better off learning it fresh from the story.)

Wynn and her people want to fight back. Wynn is especially incensed since this novel is her baby, her ticket to the big time. Wolfe is not happy being hired by committee, so he makes arrangements with the publisher, since his fee, as he explains it, in this type of case, might be enormous. (Note: in those days, publishers actually had more money than their authors.)

Once Archie begins talking to the previous victims of the plagiarism con, dead bodies start popping up. Again, a frantic and particularly vicious killer is on the loose.

If you've never read any Wolfe books, I hope this post intrigues you enough to make you take a good look and maybe realize you've been missing out on some pretty terrific writing. I am an unabashed fan of Rex Stout and my admiration knows no bounds. I've lost count of how many times I've read and re-read my favorites and MURDER BY THE BOOK and PLOT IT YOURSELF are definitely two of them.

A few other Nero Wolfe favorites:

THE RUBBER BAND

THE LEAGUE OF FRIGHTENED MEN

WHERE THERE'S A WILL

THE DOORBELL RANG (In which Wolfe and Archie take on J. Edgar Hoover's FBI and win!)

THE GOLDEN SPIDERS

AND BE A VILLAIN

THE FATHER HUNT

THE RED BOX

PLEASE PASS THE GUILT

BEFORE MIDNIGHT

IF DEATH EVER SLEPT

...and on, and on and on.

A link to read about Rex Stout, his amazing life and work.

A link to the Nero Wolfe admiration society known as The Wolfe Pack.

A Favorite Book: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE WESTERN FILM by William K. Everson

I don't know about you, but as a kid growing up in the 40's/50's, the movies were my escape from the ordinary humdrum of everyday existence. Not that growing up in downtown Manhattan was all that humdrum, but there was little to compare it to until I hit the movies and saw the musicals, sci-fi and westerns and thought for sure, there was another life out there somewhere of which I was being deprived. We didn't get a television until the mid-fifties - the first program I saw was a kid's show: Rootie-Kazootie. (To this day I remember the characters: Rootie, his girlfriend Polka Dottie, their dog Gala Poochie Pup and the bad guy Poison Sumac. HA!)

Anyway, TV wasn't as expansive as the movies then. The movies were treasure troves. In those days, it was truly exciting to go to the movies on Saturdays - double feature and ten cartoons for a quarter. Early television couldn't beat that. Of course the matron with a flashlight chased you out after the first few viewings, usually round about 2 or so. But if you went early enough you could see the films and cartoons over and over if you wanted to. In some theaters they didn't chase you out at all if you behaved yourself. The theater names still vibrate in my memory: The Tribune, the Superior, Loew's Canal. Ah, good times.

Westerns were my first love growing up. They were so exotic. So other-worldly. And those tall, taciturn, silent heroes....sigh! They knew how to take care of business, get rid of the bad guy and ride off into the sunset with the often simpering heroine. I wished the heroines weren't so simpering, and some of them weren't - Dale Evans, for one - but mostly we made allowances. But I have to admit, my favorite thing was the horseback riding. I could watch a good rider streak across the plains for hours. (I still can.) Roy Rogers was an especially smooth rider.

I loved watching horses galloping across the screen, riderless, accompanied by a stirring musical score. I loved watching cowboys and Indians duke it out. Loved the chase part, mostly. I knew the Indians were getting a raw deal, but I watched anyway. I even loved watching stagecoaches pounding across the prairie. To me it was all thrilling and exotic.

So, this book by William K. Everson is always nice reminder for me, of those happy days of yesteryear with a Hi-Ho Silver Away!! It was actually a gift in 1969 from my ex-husband and I still like to look through the pages. If you enjoy old fashioned westerns even half as much as I do - did - this is a book you might like to get your hands on.

A few of the chapter headings:

The Beginnings - And Bronco Billy.

John Ford: A Half-Century of Horse Operas

The First Epics

The "B" Boom

The Forties - A Peak of Popularity

The Fifties - And Radical Changes
The Sixties: Westerns, Westerns Everywhere, But...

There are tons of black and white photos (like these) from old movie favorites (lots of them starring John Wayne), some films more well known than others:

Three Godfathers with John Wayne, Pedro Armendariz, and Harry Carey, Jr. (1948)

Massacre River with Guy Madison and Rory Calhoun (1949)

Red River with John Wayne and Montgomery Clift (1948)

The Searchers with John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter (1956)

Tall in the Saddle with John Wayne and Ella Raines (1944)

Stagecoach with John Wayne, John Carradine and Claire Trevor (1939)

Gunfight at the OK Corral with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas (1957)

Dodge City with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland (1939)
Shane with Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Brandon deWilde and Jack Palance (1953)
Arizona with William Holden and Jean Arthur (1940)

Yellow Sky with Gregory Peck, Richard Widmark and Anne Baxter (1948)

Streets of Laredo with William Holden, William Bendix and MacDonald Carey (1949)

The Angel and the Badman with John Wayne and Gail Russell (1947)

Blood On the Moon with Robert Mitchum and Barbara Bel Geddes (1948)

The Big Country with Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Heston (1958)

Some of the early black and whites I saw later on tv, there were terrific movie channels then.

(Million Dollar Movie, The Early Show, The Late Show etc.) TV is how I became familiar with 1930's western star Bob Steele. I was a big Bob Steele fan. And Johnny Mack Brown (though I think I also saw Johnny Mack at the theater) and the hairy chested Lash LaRue and Red Ryder and Roy Rogers. Though I probably saw these guys in western serials in the theater early on as well. Oh, and who could forget Hopalong Cassidy? I certainly couldn't. And Wild Bill Elliot and Gene Autry and Tim McCoy and Hoot Gibson and Rod Cameron.

There's lots in this book about the very early westerns, westerns even before my time. But they're fun to read about anyway. And I loved reading about Yakima Canutt, the best stunt rider, stunt man that ever was, at least according to the experts. John Ford used him in many of his westerns. Canutt stunted for John Wayne and many, many others. He was known for his ability to fall off a horse creatively. He was an amazing man, who, despite his profession lived to a ripe old age.

Many of these westerns featured the early work of some of the best directors in films: William Wellman, Howard Hawks, John Ford, King Vidor, Robert Wise and the like.

A Pictorial History of the Western Film is the sort of book you want to spend a little time getting to know. The sort of book you can dip into time and again. And for someone my age, of course, it's the sort of book that brings back plenty of good memories.

A Favorite Read: DODSWORTH by Sinclair Lewis (1885 - 1951)

Until DODSWORTH I hadn't read a Sinclair Lewis book since high school. So, I've read a total of two books by Lewis in my lifetime. Loved one, disliked the other. Yes, I am going to read more Lewis at some point. In high school we read his Pulitzer Prize winning novel, ARROWSMITH, and I wasn't so taken with it probably because I was too young to get what Lewis was doing (and who cared about a Midwestern doctor anyway). I'd originally thought the book was about cowboys and Indians and boy was I victim of disappointment.

I'd seen the film version of DODSWORTH with Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton and Mary Astor (as well as David Niven in a very small early role) and loved it. It remains one of my favorite films. Mary Astor is actually sympathetic and likable in her role as 'the other woman'. The screenwriters did a great job adapting the book to film.

Anyway, once I'd seen the movie I decided to read the book but kept putting it off until a couple of years ago when finally I picked up a paperback and began reading. Between you and me I thought I'd find the book boring or hard to get into. But the truth is, I had no problem. 

I know that Sinclair Lewis isn't much appreciated today but that doesn't apply to me. The man won two Pulitzer Prizes and the Nobel Prize for Literature in his lifetime, so how bad could he be? Times change. Fashions in reading change. I have a suspicion that the Lewis ennui is due to the fact that the world he wrote about has mostly disappeared. And let's face it, he was not the most razzle-dazzle of writers. Yet, I am more inclined to read Lewis than, say, one of Hemingway's manly little tales.

Back to the book:

Sam Dodsworth is a victim of his own early retirement. He's a millionaire, an automobile magnate, who, at 50 years of age finds himself willing to grow old gracefully, happy with who he is and what he's become. His wife Fran, however, is fighting age tooth and nail. She is a difficult character who really, borders on the satirical. She is much younger than Sam (she stresses the much whenever and wherever she goes) and now that Sam is retired, she want to LIVE life to the fullest, she want to travel and see the world. In a way, you can't blame her. But it's her motivation that's suspect. The woman is so childishly self-centered that you wonder almost immediately what Sam ever saw in her, why he married her. She totally disregards Sam's cheerful acceptance of a life he likes; his dignity and elegance of spirit escape her understanding. (In the film, Walter Huston plays this beautifully.) In fact, she goes out of her way to belittle Sam's quiet good nature in private and in company.

Their two children grown, their daughter Emily married, Sam and Fran finally sail to Europe, despite Sam's misgivings. Yes, he is a bit of a stick-in-the mud, but he is willing to acquiesce to Fran's desires, to make her happy. Despite her obvious faults, he loves her.

As you read further, you begin to realize how desperate Fran is and you slowly realize that Sam feels sorry for her. Aboard ship he indulges her need to be the center of every male attention because he understands she is terrified of growing old. He looks the other way when Fran encourages the attentions of the unattached younger males aboard the ship. He's convinced himself that these are harmless shipboard flirtations. When Fran appears to go too far with one of the young men, Sam reins her in, despite her denials and protestations.

When reading about this marriage, I found it most interesting that I was forever in Sam's camp. I understood Fran's terror at the passing years, but not her complete selfishness and self-absorption. It's obvious that Sam's devotion merely bores her.

Once they arrive in London, Sam tags along after Fran as she spins from one flirtation to another. In Europe she pretends a sophistication she does not possess embarrassing herself as well as Sam as she tries to run away from her middle-class upbringing, her Americanism. In this part of the novel author Lewis makes much of the many differences between the American way of doing things versus the European: two differing outlooks easily misunderstood.

Later, when they arrive in Paris, Sam and Fran grab a cab to their hotel.

He had been accustomed to 'sizing up' American towns;he could look from a Pullman window at Kalamazoo or Titus Center and guess the population within ten per cent. He could, and with frequency he did; he was fascinated by figures of any sort, and for twenty years he had been trying to persuade Fran that there was nothing essentially ignoble in remembering populations and areas and grade-percentages and the average life of tires. He had been able to guess not too badly at the size of British towns; he had not been too greatly bewildered by anything in England, once he was over the shock of seeing postmen in funny hats, and taxicabs with no apparent speed above neutral. But in Paris, as they bumped and slid and darted from the Gare du Nord to their hotel, he could not be certain just what it was that he was seeing.

Fran was articulate enough about it. She half stood up in the taxi, crying, "Oh look, Sam, look! Isn't it adorable! Isn't it too exciting! Oh, the darling funny little zincs! And the Cointreau ads, instead of chewing gum! These bald-faced high white houses! Everybody so noisy, and yet so gay! Oh, I adore it!"

But for Sam it was a motion picture produced by an insane asylum; it was an earthquake with a volcano erupting and a telephone bell ringing just after he'd gone to sleep; it was lightning flashes and steam whistles and newspaper extras and war.

Yes, you grow impatient with Sam's reluctance to enjoy himself, but he is who he is. He is slow to change. Fran's constant impatience with him, her zeal for their surroundings, her forced gaiety is fatiguing - both for Sam and the reader.

When Fran gives in to the attentions of another young man, a minor aristocrat, it is the last straw. A heartbroken Sam has no choice but to give her her an ultimatum. She either comes back home with him or he's leaving without her.

Fran stays in Europe, convinced she's found true love. Sam heads home, disconsolate and alone.

But Fran still hasn't quite released him. She sends letters detailing her new life in Europe. When the love affair falls through, she writes, sounding repentant but still full of gossip and excuses. This is a woman sure of her power, still needing attention, still pretending she's done nothing wrong, apparently not having learned a thing from her mistakes.

Sam decides to head back to Europe and, despite her behavior, to try and bring Fran back with him.

When he had finished her letter from Deauville, he had suddenly grasped something which he had never completely formulated in their twenty-three years of marriage: that she was not in the least a mature and responsible woman, mother and wife and administrator, but simply a clever child, with a child's confused self-dramatizations. The discovery dismayed him. Then it had made him the more tender. His other children, Brent and Emily, did not need him, his child Fran did need him! He thought of her, awaiting him there in Paris as he had thought of her in the uncomplicated days of their courtship.

In Paris, Fran again refuses to give up her friends and her frivolous existence. Clearly Sam's devotion and love are not enough of a lure for her. Finally, they separate once again.

In Italy, Sam hangs around, at loose ends, lonesome for his wife, willing to wait around for her if he must even though they've signed divorce papers. Then at the American Express office in Venice, he meets up with Edith Cortright an attractive woman (played in the film by Mary Astor) who had sailed across from New York on their first trip to Europe and whom he remembers vaguely. They begin talking and, as a fellow American, she invites him to dinner at her small villa.

It is through this friendship that Sam begins to see the possibility of a life without Fran. As they grow closer, he sees that Edith possesses the unique ability to enjoy life as it happens. She is more European than American and her point of view delights Sam. He throws caution to the winds and moves into the villa with her, finally the story seems headed for a happy ending.

But Sam's wife isn't through with him. She poo-poos his involvement with Edith and sends Sam a letter begging his forgiveness and letting him know she's finally going home and will he come with her.

This is a totally engrossing tale of a disintegrating marriage, proving once again that unhappy people are unhappy each in their own fashion. I think Sinclair Lewis also means to say that we each carry within ourselves the capacity for a fairly specific sort of happiness. The last line in the book is both touching and exasperating but very human.

A Favorite Book: A THOUSAND AND ONE DELIGHTS An Affectionate Pictorial History of Those Fantastic Films of the 40's by Alan G. Barbour

This teeny-tiny pix is not a very good copy of the cover of the actual book, but it's the best I could find online. A lot of these older film books, while still available on the secondary collectible market, don't have cover images on google or elsewhere. I own this one but I don't have a scanner so you'll have to use your imagination: the cover is of 1940's and 50's film siren Maria Montez in COBRA WOMAN. She is shown lounging within the golden coils of a huge cobra. Perfectly apt.

In the 1940's and 50's, Latin bombshell Maria Montez (who never lost her charming Spanish accent) starred with Jon Hall in a series of lurid adventures in Technicolor. WHITE SAVAGE, ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES, ARABIAN NIGHTS, etc, films that held us spellbound when, as kids, we saw these, along with ten cartoons and a second feature, at the local theater. The price for all this magnificence? Usually no more than 25 cents. (Though, in truth, a few of these films I saw later on, on early tv, but I can't remember what I saw in theater and what I saw at home, so I prefer to romanticize the whole thing and think I saw them all in theater.)

Okay, now that I've revealed my status as an ancient, let me go back to the book:

A THOUSAND AND ONE DELIGHTS An Affectionate Pictorial History of Those Fantastic Films of the 40's; with fond recollections of the best Saturday afternoon

Serials. Illustrated with over 260 stills.

By Alan G. Barbour

Published in 1971 by Collier Books

I debated whether I should include this book among my favorites post (even though it is), as well as one more title I'll list later, because these are older books, a bit harder to find. Oh, they're available but you have to look for them on the secondary collectible market mostly. Not that they cost all that much, unless you want one in 'mint' condition in which case, you'll pay quite a bit more. But if you just want a copy sort of like mine, showing the well worn effects of being read and looked at with affection over the years, you can easily find a copy. I've had mine for years and now I wish I'd taken better care of it.

A THOUSAND AND ONE DELIGHTS (trade paperback) is filled with black and white photos of the films people my age remember very fondly, films that fueled our imaginations as kids. Mostly B-films, not top of the line studio productions, but they were still, quite good enough. I suppose, it some ways, they served the same purpose that television and later, the internet, served for kids of later generations.

I loved these movies and so when I found this book years ago, I bought it instantly. I wanted to use it as memory resource and also as a possible illustration reference. I have quite a collection of various reference books from the time I used to earn a living as a freelance illustrator. You just never knew where an idea was going to come from.

But the book is just plain fun to look through and it does contain some interesting info as well. Most especially of course, if you love movies of a certain era. The pictures, whether you're familiar with the actors and/or films, or not, appear incredibly naive in style and come from an era when the world was viewed in a totally different way.

The book is split up into different chapter headings:

THE KING AND QUEEN OF TECHNICOLOR (Maria Montez and John Hall, not to mention, Turhan Bey.)

CHAMPS OF THE CHASE

BRING THEM BACK AGAIN...AND AGAIN

AND THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

THE BEST MEDICINE

THE FUN FACTORY

SATURDAYS ARE FOR THRILLS

MURDER FOR THE MASSES

DUSTY TRAILS TO ADVENTURE

NEW WORLDS TO CONQUER

MAN OF ACTION

THE HORN OF PLENTY

And interestingly enough, there is a chapter devoted to B-westerns - DUSTY TRAILS TO ADVENTURE - which showcases the old Republic Studio western stars. When I look at them now I wonder that we ever believed any of this cowboy stuff, but we did. I mentioned in a previous post that I was so influenced by these movies I wanted to grow up to be a cowgirl. Yes, it's true. Ah, the dreams of youth.

Most of Alan Barbour's book is devoted to the 'studio stills' promised on the cover, so there's plenty to see. (Not necessarily all the pix I've included, those are mostly to give you a flavor of the sorts of movies talked about in the book.) However if you want a really comprehensive history of this particular movie era, you'll have to go elsewhere. This is purely a fun book.

The second book from my shelves, similar to this one, but a bit more difficult to find (and forget about a copy of the cover), is: LOST LANDS, MYTHICAL KINGDOMS, UNKNOWN WORLDS by Val Warren A Pictorial Excursion into the Realm of Cinematic Fantasy...Featuring Three Hundred Photographs. ISBN: 930-36840-1 This was published by Simon and Schuster in trade paperback form in 1979, and there are, included, a few b/w stills from the original Star Wars film.

This has even less text than the previous book, so it's mostly a picture-fest.

It has amazing photos of many early science fiction and fantasy films featuring actors even I have forgotten about. The science fiction of the 50's was so incredibly different from what we view today and it seems inexplicable that anyone ever thought the future would come close to looking as it was conceived in those films.

But maybe it's just as well. It helps us to look back with affection.

A Favorite Read: HOW READING CHANGED MY LIFE by Anna Quindlen and EX LIBRIS by Anne Fadiman

I still have a bit of work to do if I'm successfully to go off tomorrow to my daughter's for an extended Christmas Holiday with family and friends - luckily I don't have far to go. (No airports, trains or buses involved.) Rocky is a bit suspicious about all the activity - ha! Last minute laundry and vacuuming and packing, but I wanted to talk about My Favorite Read (or Reads) today (I missed last week's post), so I've made the time.

Two books this week, shorties really - both quick reads but with much in them to think about: EX LIBRIS by Anne Fadiman (a book of short essays) and HOW READING CHANGED MY LIFE by Anna Quindlen.

Anne Fadiman is the daughter of famed editor and publisher Clifton Fadiman, she...is the editor of The American Scholar. Recipient of a National Magazine Award for Reporting, she has written for Civilization, Harper's, Life, and the The New York Times, among other publications. She received the National Book Critics Circle Award for her book, THE SPIRIT CATCHES YOU AND YOU FALL DOWN, she has authored and/or edited several books of essays.

Anna Quindlen is the author of several bestselling novels, among them: Object Lessons, One True Thing, and Black and Blue, Every Last One. Her News York Times column, "Public and Private" won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992. She is also the author of two children's' books, The Tree That Came to Stay and Happily Ever After.

HOW READING CHANGED MY LIFE and EX LIBRIS are book memoirs of the best sort; both these authors exude an enthusiasm and delight for reading - something inborn I suspect - and both have an affinity for the written word and how best to convey that love, the shared joy of reading as a natural extension of their lives. For those of us who share in this joy, there's not much about this we don't understand. It's a mutual love-fest.

Two other excellent things here: there's plenty of talk about favorite books, titles and authors galore. Both of these books and a spare afternoon would be a great way to pass the time, especially on one of those frigid January days we know are coming. But make sure to keep a pad and pencil near by to make notes for your TBR list. (Yes, pad and pencil is a euphemism.)

From: How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen:

...Of those of us who comprise the real clan of the book, who read not to judge the reading of others but to take the measure of ourselves. Of those of us who read because we love it more than anything, who feel about bookstores the way some people feel about jewelers.....we are what the world of books is really about. We are the people who once waited for the newest installment of Dickens's latest novel and who kept battered copies of CATCHER IN THE RYE in our back pockets and our backpacks. We are the ones who saw to it that PRIDE AND PREJUDICE never went out of print.

...It is not possible that the book is over. Too many people love it so...It is true that department stores no longer sell books, and that many of what pass for bookstores seem closer to gift shops, with far too many datebooks and trinkets. It's a little terrifying, the fact that in many of the mall stores there is an entire long wall classified as Fiction and a small narrow section to one side of it called Literature. That second, smaller, section is reserved largely for dead people, dead people who represent much of the best the world of words has had to offer over its long span.

But the ultimate truth is that they aren't dead, those people. The writers of books do not truly die; their characters, even the ones who throw themselves in front of trains or are killed in battle, come to life over and over again. Books are the means to immortality; Plato lives forever, as do Dickens, and Dr. Seuss, Soames Forsyte, Jo March, Scrooge, Anna Karenina, and Vronksy. Over and over again Heathcliff wanders the moor searching for his Cathy. Over and over again Ahab fights the whale. Through them all we experience other times, other places, other lives. We manage to become much more than our own selves. The only dead are those who grow sere and shriveled within, unable to step outside their own lives and into those of others. Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque.

(Anna Quindlan very kindly provides us with some handy 10 Best Lists at the back of her book.

Who doesn't love lists?)

From EX LIBRIS by Anne Fadiman:

A few months ago, my husband and I decided to mix our books together. We had known each other for ten years, lived together for six, been married for five. Our mismatched coffee mugs cohabited amicably; we wore each other's T-shirts and, in a pinch, socks; and our record collections had long ago miscegenated without incident.....But our libraries had remained separate, mine mostly at the north end of the of our loft, his at the south. We agreed that it made no sense for my Billy Budd to languish forty feet from his Moby-Dick, yet neither of us had lifted a finger to bring them together.

We had been married in this loft, in full view of our mutually quarantined Melvilles. Promising to love each other for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health - even promising to forsake all others - had been no problem, but it was a good thing the Book of Common Prayer didn't say anything about marrying our libraries and throwing out the duplicates. That would have been a far more solemn vow, one that would probably have caused the wedding to grind to a mortifying halt. We were both writers, and we both invested in our books the kind of emotion people reserve for their old love letters. Sharing a bed and a future was child's play compared to sharing my copy of THE COMPLETE POEMS OF W.B. YEATS from which I had once read "Under Ben Bulben" aloud while standing at Yeat's grave in the Drumcliff churchyard.....

Our reluctance to conjugate our Melvilles was also fueled by some essential differences in our characters. George is a lumper. I am a splitter. His books commingled democratically, united under the all-inclusive flag of Literature....Mine were balkanized by nationality and subject matter. Like most people with a high tolerance for clutter, George maintains a basic trust in three dimensional objects. If he wants something, he believes it will present itself, and therefore it usually does. I, on the other hand, believe that books, maps, scissors and Scotch tape dispensers are all unreliable vagrants, likely to take off for parts unknown unless strictly confined to quarters. My books, therefore, have always been rigidly regimented.

After five years of marriage and a child, George and I finally resolved that we were ready for the more profound intimacy of library consolidation.

I hope these two separate but equally delightful little memoirs will make for some pleasant reading, on any dreary and frigid winter day. If you're a really last-minute shopper, either/or both of these would make a great present for any reader in your life.

A Favorite Read: LOOT by Aaron Elkins

I've lost track of how many times I've read this book. I took it with me to Las Vegas many years ago, to a BOUCHERCON Convention so that Aaron Elkins himself could sign it for me. He wrote: "To Yvette, May the good guys always win..." It was a fun moment for me and I think, for him, when I told him how much I loved the book and how I liked to reread it. He told me that THAT was the ultimate compliment for a writer - when someone chose to reread his work. He appeared very pleased.

Almost all of Aaron Elkins' books are on my shelves, mostly mysteries featuring forensic anthropologist Gideon Oliver, the so-called Skeleton Detective. It's a terrific series of books and, of course, I've read them all and recommend them highly. Elkins has a second series featuring Chris Norgren, an art historian/museum curator as hero - books I like very much - but unfortunately he stopped writing them years ago. That series consists of only a few books. But they are well worth looking for.

LOOT, is a stand-alone - much as I wish it were otherwise - published in 1999, it is my favorite of all of Aaron Elkins' considerable body of work. It's an art-related mystery/thriller but the hero is Ben Revere, an ex-curator who stumbles upon an incredible find: a lost Velazquez painting in a junk-filled Boston pawnshop. When murder enters the picture, Ben's quiet life is turned upside down as he decides to get at the truth behind the mystery and the sudden reappearance of a masterpiece. His search will take him to Europe and into the darker, murkier corners of the art world as he, ill-equipped for mayhem - but reluctantly dealing with it as best he can -searches for the illusive answers. All the while he is being stalked by bad guys who may or may not be the zealous fringes of some left-over Nazi strain.

As Ben gets more deeply involved, we learn of the Velazquez's odyssey from salt-mine Nazi stash at the end of WWII, to it's eventual, intriguing landing in Boston. When the war in Europe was pretty much over, paintings and other art looted by the Nazis became mired in a kind of mad free-for-all. The Allies, thankfully, found the caves where much of the art had been stored and brought in experts and the like to figure things out, but some of the artwork slipped through the cracks in the scattered security network - masterpieces were lost and never seen again. Until one of them turns up in a seedy American pawnshop fifty years later.

(NOTE: Read more about this - the real-life looting of art treasures in WWII - here. A fascinating non-fiction book and documentary that explains what went on during this time is THE RAPE OF EUROPA The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn H. Nicolas. Read about it here.)

Okay, so far LOOT sounds like a straightforward tale of intrigue featuring a professorial type on the hunt for the truth about a painting and a killer - sounds esoteric enough. Plus we get to visit a few countries in Europe and learn a bit about art and the nefarious way (based on fact) that Hitler and his minions dealt with their insatiable appetite for, mostly, Renaissance art. We also get some hair-raising escapades and wicked plot-twists along the way - all very well and good. But it's in the way that author Aaron Elkins goes about the writing of all this that turns LOOT into something so much more.

For instance, check out this bit of description once Ben lands in Europe and begins, in his art quest, to have to deal with assorted human odds and ends:

Zykmund Dulska, the art dealer who wanted only to do the right thing, brought to mind a spiteful bullfrog. He was one of those uncomfortably swollen people who seem to have too much blood in their bodies, a spongy, fat-faced man with goggling eyes that wouldn't stop jumping around. At the door he greeted us effusively in English, the only language all four of us understood, and bowed us toward a table on which coffee, tea, and enough fruit, bread and rolls to feed the Chicago Bulls had been meticulously arranged on linen so white it hurt to look at it. His Czech accent - or, as Sergeant Cox might point out, what I took to be a Czech accent - was heavy, his voice a liquorish gargle that didn't go with all the fluttering.

Or this, later, when, in Russia waiting for a flight to Budapest, Ben runs into a friend named Yuri.

"So how was your meeting with the Dragon Lady?" he asked, pumping my hand up and down.

"Not too bad, except that she wouldn't tell me anything. Listen, Yuri, I haven't gotten you in a lot of trouble over this, have I?"

"No, only a little, don't worry."

Now, this doesn't come close to reconstructing our actual conversation, you understand; I've had to take some liberties. Remember, we were communicating in four languages at the same time: German, of which I knew a lot and he knew little; French, of which I knew a little and he knew a lot, Russian, of which he knew a lot and I knew next to nothing; and English, of which he knew next to nothing and I knew a lot. So our dialogue, while its gist was as indicated, wasn't a bit like the model of concision and linearity described above. To spare both of us - you and me - the pain and the laughter of a literal transcription, I'm honing it into something along the lines of comprehensible speech. Anyway, to appreciate the real thing, you'd have had to have been there.

I don't know about you, but this makes me laugh. I love words and wording that make me laugh. When I read this kind of thing, I instantly fall under an author's spell. I'm easy that way.

Later, when Ben lands in Hungary and goes to his hotel, Elkins writes as dry, wry and witty a description of Budapest and the Hungarian character and language as I've ever read. (Though I suppose if you're Hungarian, you might not find it so funny.) I mean, I've never been there, but reading this, makes me feel as if I'd already been and gone.

The Hungarian language is not related to any of the Romance languages, or to the Germanic, the Slavic, the Italic, or any other member of the Indo-European language family. It is (so Alois Feuchtmuller had told me) a member of the Uralic family, subfamily Finno-Ugric, branch Ugric, formal denomination Magyar. Its closest - almost its only - relatives are Ostyak and Vogul, which are still spoken in a few parts of Siberia. As a result, Hungarians have only each other to talk to. Save for the occasional visiting scholar of Finno-Ugric, foreigners who arrive in Budapest can rarely speak more than a few phrases of phrase-book Hungarian. By the same token, Hungarian vacationers who want to be understood on their foreign travels are pretty much limited to the general vicinity of Irkutsk.

It's Alois's theory that this has made them grumpy in their dealings with visitors, over and above the expectable general grumpiness of Eastern Europeans only now emerging from a grim and repressive political system.

...The Hotel Duna wasn't doing anything for my mood either. The minute I walked into the place, I knew that I was in one of the old State Tourist Authority hotels of the Eastern bloc - I'd been in them before, in Prague and East Berlin - now probably privatized but otherwise unchanged in atmosphere and appearance. If you've ever been in one of these places, you know what I mean. The building itself was typical Brezhnev-era style (otherwise fondly known as Neo-Brutal), a drab, cubical hulk with a facade of cement-colored cement. The lobby areas were shabby and neglected, with linoleum floors that smelled of disinfectant, and packed - even at midnight - with frazzled-looking tour groups huddled in clumps, waiting for - well, I'm not sure what they were waiting for. The night staff was overbearing, disgruntled, and pointedly slow. And the air was full of sinister, unanswered questions. Who was the bald man in the black suit who leaned against the counter sucking on a toothpick amd writing something in a notebook every time somebody got on the elevator? What were the cashier and the security guard sniping at each other about under their breath? Why was the chambermaid crying behind the laundry cart?

I LOVE this stuff. While reading the whole Hungarian chapter, I had a big smile on my face and sometimes laughed outright. Elkins can be darkly wicked when he wants to be. But as much as I enjoyed these sections of the book, I also loved meeting the Holocaust survivors Ben encounters on his quest. Aaron Elkins knows how to write, simply and effectively, about honor and triumph of the spirit. And all about the undaunted Big Dog courage of a certain little daschund.

Well, you can tell I loved everything about this book and I hope I've conveyed my enthusiasm to you - enough at least so you'll give LOOT a look-see.

Neo-Brutal. HA!

My Favorite Reads: THE LINNET'S TALE by Dale C. Willard

Right at the beginning let me say that I consider THE LINNET'S TALE a classic of its kind, a simply wonderful example of a book that creates a tangible link between child and adult. A book by an author who loves the English language and has loads of fun proving it. (A book that, by the way, would be great fun to read aloud to anyone within listening distance.) A book that sparkles with imagination and wit as the author spins the charming tale of a village of mice and the beautiful linnet - of the title - who comes to live among them and who narrates the tale.

I read this several years ago and still remember the delight I felt while doing so. All I have to do is think of this book and I smile. The Linnet's Tale was published in 2002 and I've always wondered why there hasn't been a sequel.

From the back cover: In the garden of an English cottage live the lovable, highly literate field mice of Tottensea Burrows - Peebles Carryforth the Mayor, Opportune Baggs, the inventor, the Fieldpea family with their three beautiful daughters, Grenadine, Almandine, and Incarnadine: the widow Proserpine Pockets and her young son Farnaby; and Merchanty Swift, the bold mouse who becomes the hero of THE LINNET'S TALE.

But if you're thinking this is just another sugary tale of cute mice doing cute things, you'd be wrong - there are no attacks of the cutesies here - author Dale C. Willard doesn't allow it.

He manages to come down, always, just this side of an overdose of cute, at least to my eyes.

The book reveals a secret world unto itself and soon enough you forget you're reading about mice and become involved in the ongoing drama of a way of life that is about to change.

Because the language in this book is so darned beguiling, I'm simply going to lift some paragraphs and post them for you to enjoy. This book, needless to say, would make a great Christmas present for any inventive, imaginative, language-loving adult or child you may know.

Prologue:

I am, of course, a bird. That is beyond dispute. And though some Americans will call me a house finch, I suppose, until the day they perish from the earth, I should like you to know at the beginning of things, that I refer to myself as a linnet.

Small difference, you might say. House finch. Linnet.

Perhaps. Still, would you be called a house finch if it were in your power to be known as a linnet? No, I thought not. Nevertheless, let's be good friends - whatever you may call me - and, though I did wish you to know my position, I shall not bring this matter up again.

And now to my purpose. I should like to tell you about a delightful company of field mice who once lived in a place called Tottensea Burrows and how it came to happen that they all went away...

Chapter 1 - Grenadine Learns the Language

Grenadine Fieldpea used to conjugate field mouse verbs, aloud, while sitting at the breakfast table, swinging her legs under the chair and waiting for her mother to finish boiling the oatmeal. It sounded like this:

I will eat porridge

you will eat porridge

he will eat porridge.

we will eat porridge

you will eat porridge

they will eat porridge

I will be eating porridge

you will be eating porridge

And so on.

Grenadine's sisters, Almandine and Incarnadine, would beg their mother to make her stop this and, indeed, at some point - as no one could likely parse an entire field mouse verb before breakfast! - her mother would be forced to do exactly that, saying something like "Stop conjugating Grenadine, and eat your porridge. It's getting quite cold. And besides, dear, you've got the future perfect progressive all in a muddle. It's 'I will have been eating' not 'I will have been having eaten.' "

Grenadine was, all her life, a quite linguistic mouse. But when she was little this characteristic tended toward extremes. At one point, for example, when her interest had turned a little away from conjugating verbs and more toward acquiring vocabulary, she began to run across words in the dictionary that she thought very fine and that needed to be more evident in field mouse usage. She thereupon undertook, herself, a small crusade to this end. The first method she tried was simply to quote the definition of the words to everyone, in turn giving full particulars, and at the end, an exhortation. Mr. and Mrs. Fieldpea found it pleasant enough to be accosted a few times a day by a small mouse holding a large book who would read out something like:

SIMULTANEOUS adjective: existing or occurring at the same time. See COINCIDENT.

followed by "Please use that as soon as possible." Or

SUBSEQUENT adjective: following in time, order or place. See SUCCEEDING.

"Before lunch, if you can. Thanks."

Some description later in the book pertaining to our hero, Merchanty Swift.

But if something of a tragic figure in amours, Mechanty Swift was legendary in commerce and had certain accomplishments of exchange which were repeated by others in tones almost hushed for very awe. Preeminent among these, to be sure, was the cheese thing. It requires a small book, I'm afraid, to tell it, but if one is interested the account is available in any reputable mousebook shop. SWIFT AND MODERN CHEESES may sound a dry tome but in fact I've always thought it moves rather well, if one may be forgiven for saying so oneself, and it is populated by the most colorful characters of every stripe, from the darkest brigands of mongery - smugglers and hoarders and monopolists and the like - to the fairest heroes and heroines of the mercantile arts. One might enjoy it.

He appeared to all, Merchanty Swift, a casual fellow - easily met and full of good stories. But his coworkers and a few close friends knew him to be, in fact, almost meticulous. Indeed, though I am certain that there were times when he actually worried, he had such an enormous natural talent for what he did that his work appeared easy and effortless. It wasn't, of course. It was difficult, rigorous, often tedious, and occasionally dangerous. But there was this: he had nerves of steel, Merchanty Swift.

Those who had seen him in the marketplace, toe to toe with bullies and wheedlers and flatterers and whiners - the whole panoply, in fact, of conscienceless higglers in the world - were certain that Merchanty Swift would come down in his price (or up his offer as the case may be) exactly one mousesecond before his opponent (if buying) would huff away from the table having taken irremediable umbrage or (if selling) would hurl his wares back into his valise in an ostentatious gesture of undisguised finality. Those who witnessed such bargaining events were often heard to use the word "breathtaking" in their description.

If you would like to read more about the mice of Tottensea Burrow and the strange affair that led to their going away, pick up a copy of THE LINNET'S TALE wherever you can find it. If you do, I truly hope you will love it as much as I do.

Note: Occasional light-hearted drawings in the book are by James Noel Smith.

Link to AT HOME WITH BOOKS' My Favorite Reads.