The only other of the Oz books that I’ve read other than The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (which was the only one I knew as a child) is The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) but on revisiting it now after many years, I was surprised to find how, besides being a fun and imaginative adventure…
Book Review: The Noh Mask Murder (1949/2024) by Akimitsu Takagi
I received a review copy of this book from Pushkin Press via Edelweiss for which my thanks. If you thought like me that Anthony Horowitz’s ‘Hawthorne and Horowitz’ series makes for a clever and certainly different mystery series where the author is himself a character, the detective’s ‘Watson’ in fact, reading The Noh Mask Murder,…
Book Review: Vincent: A Graphic Biography (2024) by Simon Elliott
I received a review copy of this book from Francis Lincoln books via Edelweiss for which my thanks. Vincent: A Graphic Biography (2024) by Simon Elliott tells us the story of Vincent van Gogh using a voice and perspective which became very important to van Gogh’s fame and art and someone I confess I wasn’t…
Book Review: The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart
I received a review copy of this book from Chiara Giacobbe at Kazabo Publishing for which my thanks. Described as the ‘American Agatha Christie’ though she was 15 years the latter’s senior, Mary Roberts Rinehart was a prolific writer of short stories, novels, plays and nonfiction. Although she wrote even as a teen, a serious…
Book Review: The Luck Runs Out (1979) by Charlotte MacLeod
In The Luck Runs Out, Canadian–American author Charlotte MacLeod gives readers a truly enjoyable read, with a different from the usual setting, eccentric, exaggerated characters, a pignapping (with plenty of other animals around-none harmed), plenty of literary references, witty writing but amidst all the fun also a quite solid murder mystery. The book, second in…
Book Review: The Cheltenham Square Murder (1937) by John Bude #1937Club
Third in the series of mysteries featuring Inspector Meredith by English author Ernest Carpenter Elmore, who wrote as John Bude, The Cheltenham Square Murder is in some ways the typical golden age murder with a closed circuit of suspects in a small tight-knit neighbourhood, but it still has its novelty in terms of the murder…
Book Review: Journey by Moonlight (1937) by Antal Szerb #1937Club
I received a review copy of this book from Pushkin Press via Edelweiss for which my thanks. Nostalgia, the pursuit of dreams and ideals of youth and of days gone by, which perhaps don’t turn out quite as one might think when they become or get close to becoming real, and social frames, those narrow…
Guest Post: Book Reviews: The Crimson Brier Bush (1937) by Frances K. Judd and The Whispering Statue (1937) by Carolyn Keene: Two Teen Mysteries #1937Club
Here are my mother's second and third picks for Karen and Simon's #1937Club, two teen mysteries which turned out a lot more dramatic than she expected After reviewing a short story by an unknown author as my first offering for the 1937 club, I decided to look for someone familiar and an assuredly comfortable read.…
Book Review: Jane of Lantern Hill (1937) by L. M. Montgomery #1937Club
On the lines of stories like Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, Elizabeth Von Arnim’s The Enchanted April, and Lucy Maud Montgomery’s own, The Blue Castle, where a change of scene and importantly nature bring about a life changing transformation in the characters’ until then dreary and oftentimes even miserable lives, is Jane of Lantern…
Guest Post: Review: ‘What Every Girl Wants’ (1937) by Phyllis Bottome #1937Club
Today I have a guest post from my mother who enjoys joining in with Karen and Simon's clubs. This is her review of a short story from a new-to-me (and her) author Phyllis Bottome. I am not overfond of short stories with a few exceptions, like “The Cats of Ulthar”. Afterall, how much can an…
Literary Potpourri 