Viewpoints and Reviews

Blaming

31. December 2010

I know I’ve recommended Elizabeth Taylor to you in the past. But I can’t resist mentioning this novel, her last, which was published posthumously in 1976. Blaming is the equally amusing and sad (somehow “bittersweet” is not the right word) story of an unlikely friendship that forms between Amy, an Englishwoman, and Martha, an American, [...]

What’s So Cosy About Murder?

21. August 2010

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Isn’t it odd that with all the poisonings, garrottings, stabbings, and hits and runs, the work of one of my favorite authors is generally categorized as cosy? I realize the likes of Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings rarely meet face to face with any real physical danger. And I suppose it does get [...]

The Letters of Arthur Conan Doyle

9. December 2009

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I hope you’re all recovering nicely from the Independence Day festivities. I don’t know if you caught it, but on July 4th those excellent people at WETA (PBS station 26 in Washington) broadcast a Sherlock Holmes marathon featuring the series that stars Jeremy Brett, whose Holmes rocks my world. (Acknowledging, of course, that Basil Rathbone [...]

Courting Scandal

28. October 2008

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One of my first thoughts when I started reading The Lady Elizabeth, Alison Weir’s second novel, was thank god I’m not Mary Tudor. Before earning history’s dubious distinction as “Bloody Mary,” she suffered heaps of humiliation from her father, Henry VIII…

Elephants Can Remember

19. October 2008

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I couldn’t let the week pass by without mentioning that September 15th (recently gone) was Agatha Christie’s birthday. She was born in Torquay, Devon on the English Channel in 1890, and had she lived, she’d be celebrating her 118th.

The Moonstone

9. September 2008

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Knee-deep in my research into the life of Agatha Christie, I discovered that high among the list of authors she most admired was Wilkie Collins. I had never read him, but if Agatha saw something in him, I figured I might, too. I decided to give him a go with The Moonstone, published in 1868. [...]

Dissolution

5. August 2008

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A few months ago, I mentioned reading C. J. Sansom’s Sovereign, the third in an excellent series set during the reign of King Henry VIII. Well, I’ve finally gotten around to the first installment, Dissolution, and am just as taken. Again (or, technically, for the first time) Matthew Shardlake proves an enlightening guide to the [...]

Esther Waters

23. July 2008

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In the game of love, it seems that the unlucky are apt to put the highest stakes on the ones who prove, time and again, to be their undoing. The title character in Esther Waters, by George Moore, is just such an unfortunate creature — pushed by her stepfather out of the family and into [...]

Paddington Here and Now

18. June 2008

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Hard to believe that Paddington Bear celebrates his fiftieth this year. What with one mishap after another, who’d have thought he’d have made it so far? To celebrate the unexpected milestone — and perhaps to keep up with the times — Michael Bond, Paddington’s authorial steward, has set the indefatigable bear in a new set [...]

A Far Cry From Kensington

30. May 2008

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I just love the title of this quiet masterpiece from Muriel Spark, originally published in 1988 and just reissued in a special cloth edition reprint from Virago Modern Classics. The past cries out — literally and metaphorically — to Mrs. Hawkins during the sleepless nights she spends reflecting on a period in her life when [...]

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Blaming

What’s So Cosy About Murder?

The Letters of Arthur Conan Doyle

Courting Scandal

Elephants Can Remember

The Moonstone

Dissolution

Esther Waters

Paddington Here and Now

A Far Cry From Kensington

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