Bottom Line: This, the seventh book featuring Dandy Gilver by Catriona McPherson, is one of the strongest in the series with beautiful characterization and enough complication to make it fun to read.
I ran across the first Dandy Gilver book in my local library when I was on the hunt for a work by another author. Set in post-WWI Scotland, it featured what was left of the landed gentry, dressing for dinner, and servants. Since I was in a Downton Abbey mood, I tried it and have stuck with the series because I find McPherson's writing to be interesting.
For a cozy series, and let's not kid anyone because that's what these books are, they cover lots of ground. The title character is Dandy, short for Dandelion, who is married to Hugh, a solid gentleman with enough land to be somewhat of consequence. Dandy is persuaded to start investigating mysterious happenings, at first by a close friend, and then later in response to more distance acquaintances and word-of-mouth advertisements. In this most recent book, McPherson takes the readers into Dandy's memories of a youthful idyllic summer spent with friends before bringing things back up to speed in Dandy's adult life with murders, mysterious school mistresses, and a charming Italian.
One thing McPherson does well is create diverse characters with their own voices. The schoolgirls sound different from each other, the mistress have their own energy, and the transition of one of the characters from youthful blithe spirit into something else entirely has its own reality in this fictional world. McPherson also has fun playing with Dandy's relationship to her rather stodgy husband who tolerates her detecting because of the money it brings in and her sons, one of whom is turning out to be much less talented scholastically than hoped for. Dandy's close working companion, Alec Osborne, excites all kinds of comments and rumors from people on the periphery, but unlike other crime detecting duos (Castle and Beckett come to mind) there is no steamy undercurrent of desire. They work as a duo, without much sexism, and it seems to be staying that way.
I find these books perfect for when I want some light reading featuring a strong female lead and charming Scottish folk set in rugged countryside.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Book Review: How to Succeed at Aging Without Really Dying by Lyla Blake Ward
Bottom Line: Ward is not nearly as curmudgeonly as Andy Rooney. She actually knows how to use a computer and shop online, and she writes with clarity and wit.
I picked this book up on one of those super Amazon Kindle sale. I liked the title and am dealing with aging relatives. I have been working on creating a notebook for myself that includes all sorts of useful advice to myself for when I eventually grow old. I encourage myself to get a minimum amount of exercise and to write things down, among other such stellar wisdom. I thought I might glean a thing or two from Lyla Ward's book.
This collection of essays has its share of old-person grumbling about how things used to be simpler, and she's right. I remember when you turned on the TV without a remote and had only a few channels to turn access via the tuner dial. (I know that qualifies me as old in some people's eyes.) Now, I have to have at least two remotes or a computer to watch my shows because I stream so much of my visual entertainment. But besides the complaining, Ward includes some lovely snapshots of her life through the years.
I really enjoyed two of her essays. One was about trying to fit in with the sports/country club set. Ward is not a sportswoman, but through the judicious use of proper "outfitting," she was able to create the illusion that she either had just come from playing a sport or was about to join in a match, game, or set at any moment. Her other essay I really liked was about flower arranging. She uses satire nicely to skewer strange, artistic "individual" centerpieces for dinner parties or other occasions.
This book is easy to read and mostly fun. Ward has an intriguing mind. I enjoy essayists who present a clear voice in their work. I plan to look up more of Ward's writing.
I picked this book up on one of those super Amazon Kindle sale. I liked the title and am dealing with aging relatives. I have been working on creating a notebook for myself that includes all sorts of useful advice to myself for when I eventually grow old. I encourage myself to get a minimum amount of exercise and to write things down, among other such stellar wisdom. I thought I might glean a thing or two from Lyla Ward's book.
This collection of essays has its share of old-person grumbling about how things used to be simpler, and she's right. I remember when you turned on the TV without a remote and had only a few channels to turn access via the tuner dial. (I know that qualifies me as old in some people's eyes.) Now, I have to have at least two remotes or a computer to watch my shows because I stream so much of my visual entertainment. But besides the complaining, Ward includes some lovely snapshots of her life through the years.
I really enjoyed two of her essays. One was about trying to fit in with the sports/country club set. Ward is not a sportswoman, but through the judicious use of proper "outfitting," she was able to create the illusion that she either had just come from playing a sport or was about to join in a match, game, or set at any moment. Her other essay I really liked was about flower arranging. She uses satire nicely to skewer strange, artistic "individual" centerpieces for dinner parties or other occasions.
This book is easy to read and mostly fun. Ward has an intriguing mind. I enjoy essayists who present a clear voice in their work. I plan to look up more of Ward's writing.
Product Review: Paleo Bread by The Julian Bakery
I'm always on the search for good Gluten-free or Wheat-free bakery goods. When I came across Paleo Bread, I was intrigued and hopeful that I had found something that I could eat as a person allergic to wheat and that my brother, who eats no carbs, could also enjoy.
I ordered the coconut bread with 40 calories a slice. 5 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber, combined with 6 total carbs yields a net carb value of 1. The Julian Bakery website is easy to navigate and contains two different bread varieties and some recipe ideas.
My bread was shipped two-day air because it has no preservatives. The fiber in the bread comes from psyllium, the gritty husk of a plant, touted for its colon cleansing benefits.
Taking the bread out of the package, I noticed that it is a dense bread with kind of a spongy texture. It also smells kind of weird. I have had gluten-free things smell weird out of the package but be fine once they are cooked.
I toasted a slice of the bread. One bite and I decided maybe a little butter would help. Another bite and I opted for cinnamon and sugar to maybe help with the taste. Nothing was going to conquer the still spongy texture even after toasting. Two more bites and even the cinnamon and sugar couldn't make me finish the piece.
I think the best way to sum up my view of Paleo Bread is to try to recreate the sound I made when I bit it, even after the cinnamon and sugar treatment: Uhhhahhhbluuuggghhyeecchchchchchchahdjhuggjaldmg.....
I ordered the coconut bread with 40 calories a slice. 5 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber, combined with 6 total carbs yields a net carb value of 1. The Julian Bakery website is easy to navigate and contains two different bread varieties and some recipe ideas.
My bread was shipped two-day air because it has no preservatives. The fiber in the bread comes from psyllium, the gritty husk of a plant, touted for its colon cleansing benefits.
Taking the bread out of the package, I noticed that it is a dense bread with kind of a spongy texture. It also smells kind of weird. I have had gluten-free things smell weird out of the package but be fine once they are cooked.
I toasted a slice of the bread. One bite and I decided maybe a little butter would help. Another bite and I opted for cinnamon and sugar to maybe help with the taste. Nothing was going to conquer the still spongy texture even after toasting. Two more bites and even the cinnamon and sugar couldn't make me finish the piece.
I think the best way to sum up my view of Paleo Bread is to try to recreate the sound I made when I bit it, even after the cinnamon and sugar treatment: Uhhhahhhbluuuggghhyeecchchchchchchahdjhuggjaldmg.....
* * * * * * * * * * * *
That translates to "Horrible, icky, spongy, smelly, I never want to eat this again, and it ranks up there in the top three worst gluten-free bakery goods I have ever tried."Book Review: Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth
Bottom Line: If you like your memoirs jampacked with graphic details of the physical act of giving birth, then this memoir is just for you.
It doesn't take the reader long to figure out that Ms. Worth is going to treat us to an immersive experience of her years as a midwife in the East End of London in the late 1950s and the 1960s. But, that's not necessarily a bad thing. She doesn't throw details around just to shock or gross us out. The anecdotes are all in purpose of demonstrating a few important key idea.
First, midwives and birthing professionals are important to women and their babies. In the case of some of these East End women, living in condemned buildings but having no other place to go, the midwives were their main and only access to pre and post natal assistance. And some of these women had a baby almost every year. Diseases were spotted and treated, abuse reported, and lives saved because of the work of these midwives. I think the opening chapter serves to show the difficulty of birthing a baby. The chapters on handling breech birth and premature babies reinforce the fact that without the midwives' assistance, both mother and baby might have died.
Second, life is hard, and bringing new life into the world is a very difficult part of it. Worth recounts the conditions under which many of these women and their young children live: poverty, abuse, decrepit and uncared for building that sometimes don't even keep out the rain. She recounts how for many of the women she visits, the only water is cold water piped into the kitchen. If there is a toilet in the apartment, it is also in the kitchen because that's where the pipes are. In America, the 50s and 60s are seen as kind of a Golden Age--think of the glamor of a TV show like Mad Men. In contrast, the East End of London was a place of brothels and bombed-out properties. Many of the large buildings were condemned and therefore not kept up with regular city services, such as garbage removal. They are written off, but at the same time, fully occupied because there was just no place else for the people to go. They couldn't afford the other parts of London.
Spoiler / warning: There is a chapter near the middle of the book where Worth recounts the story of Kate, a young Irish woman who finds herself trapped in prostitution. Worth tells in graphic sexual terms what Kate witnesses at the brothel. It is a small part of the book, but could be disturbing to younger female readers and titillating to male readers.
I liked the book and am glad to have read it, especially now that one of my friends is a Doula. I feel like I understand more about the process of prenatal care, labor, birth, and postnatal needs.
It doesn't take the reader long to figure out that Ms. Worth is going to treat us to an immersive experience of her years as a midwife in the East End of London in the late 1950s and the 1960s. But, that's not necessarily a bad thing. She doesn't throw details around just to shock or gross us out. The anecdotes are all in purpose of demonstrating a few important key idea.
First, midwives and birthing professionals are important to women and their babies. In the case of some of these East End women, living in condemned buildings but having no other place to go, the midwives were their main and only access to pre and post natal assistance. And some of these women had a baby almost every year. Diseases were spotted and treated, abuse reported, and lives saved because of the work of these midwives. I think the opening chapter serves to show the difficulty of birthing a baby. The chapters on handling breech birth and premature babies reinforce the fact that without the midwives' assistance, both mother and baby might have died.
Second, life is hard, and bringing new life into the world is a very difficult part of it. Worth recounts the conditions under which many of these women and their young children live: poverty, abuse, decrepit and uncared for building that sometimes don't even keep out the rain. She recounts how for many of the women she visits, the only water is cold water piped into the kitchen. If there is a toilet in the apartment, it is also in the kitchen because that's where the pipes are. In America, the 50s and 60s are seen as kind of a Golden Age--think of the glamor of a TV show like Mad Men. In contrast, the East End of London was a place of brothels and bombed-out properties. Many of the large buildings were condemned and therefore not kept up with regular city services, such as garbage removal. They are written off, but at the same time, fully occupied because there was just no place else for the people to go. They couldn't afford the other parts of London.
Spoiler / warning: There is a chapter near the middle of the book where Worth recounts the story of Kate, a young Irish woman who finds herself trapped in prostitution. Worth tells in graphic sexual terms what Kate witnesses at the brothel. It is a small part of the book, but could be disturbing to younger female readers and titillating to male readers.
I liked the book and am glad to have read it, especially now that one of my friends is a Doula. I feel like I understand more about the process of prenatal care, labor, birth, and postnatal needs.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe: A review with a remembrance
I chose The Chronicles of Narnia, Book 2: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as my first book of the new year. There was a practical reason for this choice as I am tutoring a student and needed to refresh my memory of the details of the book. But, even more than that, I wanted to revisit this book that I read way back in my adolescent days.
Some 40 years ago, when I read the Narnia series, I remember not especially liking it, a strange thing in itself because I did like fantasy and science fiction. I think I found the story too heavy-handed with the allegory or the characters too stupid or too unbelievable. I couldn't quite accept Peter as a young kid able to do battle against the White Witch with no training whatsoever. At the time of my youthful reading, it was already well known that the stories were Christian allegories. I had already made my way through John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and strangely liked it, but LWW seemed too telegraphed, too predictable somehow.
This time as an adult reader I can appreciate C.S. Lewis's skilled writing. He captures the sensory experiences so clearly and succinctly: "But when the next morning came there was a steady rain falling, so thick that when you looked out of the window you could see neither the mountains nor the woods nor even the stream in the garden." I know what that rain looks and smells and feels like. Now I can see what a sensualist Lewis is, especially apparent in this passage: "Looking into the inside, [Lucy] saw several coats hanging up--mostly long fur coats. There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubber her face against them." And this one from near the end of the book: "...Aslan leaped again. A mad chase began. Round and round the hilltop he led them...now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again...and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind."
I also appreciate the theology more, and now the battle-ready Peter makes sense to me. In Christian theology, God equips his believers with the skills they need to battle the challenges that face them--though in the book only Peter and Edmund fight while Lucy and Susan are more of caretakers. I thought that might be sexism until I realize that Lucy and Susan had followed Aslan out of compassion the night before and were not present at the battle until it was all but over.
I liked the book, simply put. I didn't expect to and probably won't read the rest of the Narnia series, but I enjoyed Lewis' writing immensely.
Some 40 years ago, when I read the Narnia series, I remember not especially liking it, a strange thing in itself because I did like fantasy and science fiction. I think I found the story too heavy-handed with the allegory or the characters too stupid or too unbelievable. I couldn't quite accept Peter as a young kid able to do battle against the White Witch with no training whatsoever. At the time of my youthful reading, it was already well known that the stories were Christian allegories. I had already made my way through John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and strangely liked it, but LWW seemed too telegraphed, too predictable somehow.
This time as an adult reader I can appreciate C.S. Lewis's skilled writing. He captures the sensory experiences so clearly and succinctly: "But when the next morning came there was a steady rain falling, so thick that when you looked out of the window you could see neither the mountains nor the woods nor even the stream in the garden." I know what that rain looks and smells and feels like. Now I can see what a sensualist Lewis is, especially apparent in this passage: "Looking into the inside, [Lucy] saw several coats hanging up--mostly long fur coats. There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur. She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubber her face against them." And this one from near the end of the book: "...Aslan leaped again. A mad chase began. Round and round the hilltop he led them...now diving between them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catching them again...and whether it was more like playing with a thunderstorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind."
I also appreciate the theology more, and now the battle-ready Peter makes sense to me. In Christian theology, God equips his believers with the skills they need to battle the challenges that face them--though in the book only Peter and Edmund fight while Lucy and Susan are more of caretakers. I thought that might be sexism until I realize that Lucy and Susan had followed Aslan out of compassion the night before and were not present at the battle until it was all but over.
I liked the book, simply put. I didn't expect to and probably won't read the rest of the Narnia series, but I enjoyed Lewis' writing immensely.
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