Howling Frog Books

The Rose Rent , by Ellis Peters It's been a while since I read a Brother Cadfael mystery, and it was about time.  And I found one I'd never read before!  The Rose Rent is about a wealthy widow who has given her house to the abbey because she couldn't live where she had been so happy and lost her husband and child-to-be.  In a gesture worthy of a chivalric ballad, she requires that the abbey pay her a yearly rent of one perfect rose from the white rosebush in the garden.  But then a young monk is murdered beneath the rose-tree, now hacked and mutilated--and the widow herself is kidnapped. A nice mystery, short, but as good as the other Cadfael mysteries.  Though I certainly got tired of hearing about the widow's "great sheaf of hair."  That image must have been repeated 10 times in a 200-page story.

Ake: The Years of Childhood, by Wole Soyinka This was my Classics Club Spin title!  It was great and I'm very happy with my luck.  I actually had this out of the library over the summer, but the first couple of pages didn't hook me in and I didn't continue, though I meant to read it properly eventually.  I'm glad to have gotten the chance, and I'll be trying out more Soyinka at some point. Wole Soyinka, born 1934, is a Yoruba Nigerian.  He has been a vocal critic of dictators for a long time--by now he is world-famous for his writing on "the oppressive boot and the irrelevance of the colour of the foot that wears it."  His writing is very eloquent and written at a high level, to the point that he is sometimes criticized for being too difficult and obscure.  He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, the first African and the first black person to do so.  These days he is very elderly, but still going and currently focusing on religious tyranny...

The Souls of Black Folk , by W. E. B. DuBois  In 1903, W. E. B. DuBois published this collection of essays to portray the character of black people in America and the conditions they struggled against.  He says: Herein lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century.  This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line. DuBois calls the color line "the Veil," meaning that the real lives of black people are lived behind a veil that ensures that white people will never see their true feelings.  Each chapter is headed by a verse from a white poet and a phrase of music from the oldest black songs, in order to show that the races have equal artistic genius.  DuBois has a lot to say about old songs, especially the ones he considers to be most authentic. The early essays are set as response...

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde Lately I've been wanting to re-read some old favorites, and I picked up The Eyre Affair.  I love the Thursday Next books but haven't re-read them at all, and I'd forgotten a lot! Thursday is a Special Operations officer in the Literary Fraud division--she tracks down counterfeit Cardenio s and the like.  In the alternate Britain she lives in, the Crimean War has been going on for over 100 years, genetic sequencing has allowed everyone to have dodos and thylacines for pets, and literature is a national obsession.  Radical Marlovians firebomb Baconian meetings, thousands of people have changed their names to Percy Shelley or John Milton, that sort of thing. The super-criminal genius Acheron Hades has stolen both Thursday's Uncle Mycroft and the manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit .  With Mycroft's invention that allows entry into books, he plans to kill off beloved literary characters until the ransom is paid.  And Jane Eyre i...

You Can Understand the Bible: A Practical and Illuminating Guide to Each Book in the Bible , by Peter Kreeft I've been going through this book slowly for some time, but it's not a difficult read at all.  Kreeft just gives a summary and discussion--from the Catholic POV plus of course his own thoughts--of each book in the Bible.  He wants to point out the main purpose and message of each book.  It's very interesting, full of good insights and things to think about.  Kreeft is clearly an intelligent guy (he seems to be a respected author in the Catholic world, but I've never read him before).  He uses an informal and often humorous style, and I often quoted pieces to my husband. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on Job, Jonah, and the Psalms in the Old Testament section.  There is a section on the Deuterocanonical books and the Apocrypha, which was great since I don't know much about those.  And the New Testament section is very good, with descript...

The Laughter of Dead Kings , by Elizabeth Peters I found another Vicky Bliss novel!  It's a new one!  Oh wow!  If you're not familiar with the Bliss stories, there are only a few of them and they are older.  Vicky is a historian who gets caught up in international intrigue at the drop of a hat. And Elizabeth Peters wrote just one more! This time, Vicky's boyfriend (reformed international art thief John) and good friend Faisal (Egyptian historian) arrive at her apartment at the same time.  Faisal needs help, because the single most famous mummy of all time has been stolen!  Off they go to figure out who has the mummy before the theft is discovered, and lots of adventure happens. There are a few inside nods to Peters' other series and even an appearance by the author herself, so it's just a really fun read--a perfect Peters story.  If you're a fan of her stories, by the way, you'll want to visit Bookshelves of Doom the week of March 3, because s...

The Return of Captain John Emmett , by Elizabeth Speller This is an extremely complicated murder mystery set just after World War I.  Laurence Bartram, veteran and widower lacking in direction, is asked by his old friend's sister to shed a bit of light on why the friend might have committed suicide.  Captain John Emmett was living in a sanatorium for shell-shock victims, but seemed to be improving; why would he commit suicide?  The more Laurence looks into John Emmett's life, the more puzzling that question becomes, and soon Laurence is discovering how very much Emmett hid from his family. I'm feeling kind of lukewarm about this novel.  It wants to be a more serious and literary mystery than your average cozy British mystery, and that's fine, but the result is more verbiage than I was really interested in.  The mystery is pretty difficult to follow, though it resolves well enough.  But I felt like my interest was smothered a bit by those elements. ...

Howling Frog Style, that sounds pretty cool, like Gangnam Style only better.  Now I just need a surreal video and theme song! The WEM group-- Adriana at Classical Quest , the the WEM Ladies from A Classic Case of Madness , and Ruth from An Experiment with TWEM --is posting today about their reading and note-taking habits, and they were very kind and asked me to participate.  They say I can be an honorary WEMer, which is awfully nice of them I think. I should explain that WEM is short for The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had .  This is a book by my favorite homeschooler, Susan Wise Bauer, on reading to fill in the gaping chasms of ignorance many of us have.  It's divided into five genres: fiction, autobiography, history, drama, and poetry, and gives lists of pivotal works in each genre.  The idea is that if you read the lists chronologically, you'll get a good idea of the development of each genre.  It's a great bo...

I think this is the only famous H. G. Wells story that I have not read, so I thought I ought to fix that.  I didn't actually know the first thing about the story, except that there's an island, and I had a vague idea that an old Oingo Boingo song ("No Spill Blood") had something to do with it.   It's an early short novel--Wells' third--written after The Time Machine .  Wells famously called it 'a youthful piece of blasphemy.' The story is told by Mr. Prendick, an accidental visitor to Dr. Moreau's island, and the the sole survivor.  He is something of an upper-class twit, but a traveling one, and he is forced to get off his ship at Dr. Moreau's island.  Prendick finds a nightmare society of animals turned into pseudo-men, ruled over by Moreau, a vivisectionist determined to create a human being of his own by means of surgery.  It's all very Victorian and eugenics-y, with lots of meaning to discuss.  Wells wasn't kidding about the b...

Our lucky number is 14 , so I'll be reading Wole Soyinka's Ake: The Years of Childhood , an autobiographical account of childhood in Nigeria.  Sounds good!

Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime: the Ocean's Oddest Creatures and Why They Matter , by Ellen Prager Ellen Prager would like to introduce you to some interesting critters.  She will happily lead you on a trip through our oceans to meet copepods, hagfish, jawfish, cookie cutter sharks, and her favorite--the bone-eating zombie snot worm.  This is a great little book, but I'm warning you now: don't read it over lunch .  Unless maybe your lunch isn't very good anyway and you're OK with skipping it.  If you want to enjoy your lunch, pick a different book. Each chapter focuses on a particular kind of sea-creature, starting with the teeny ones like diatoms and arrow worms, moving on up through snails and coral reefs, and ending with larger fish.  There are chapters specifically about extreme environments and what Prager calls "X-games" (a sort of Guinness book of skills).  Every section ends with a piece about current research into the animals and why we should pay...

In honor of the very exciting confirmation that Richard III's remains have been found (and by the way I'd like to thank Livius Drusus at The History Blog for being so informative about it!), I though I'd revisit a couple of fun mysteries: the classic Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey , and Elizabeth Peters' homage, The Murders of Richard III . Grant's portrait of Richard III In The Daughter of Time , Inspector Grant is laid up in hospital, unable to move and bored stiff.  A friend suggests he study a historical mystery and gives him a pile of portrait prints to keep him entertained--Grant has an interest in faces.  One face grabs his attention, and he wonders: how can a man who looks so careful and virtuous be one of the worst murderers of all time?  The portrait, of course, is Richard III and Grant spends his time going back to primary sources, reading up on history and realizing that there is no evidence to convict Richard III of murdering his nephews (Te...

It's taken me forever to finish this month's post for Katherine's Turn of the Century Salon .  Sorry Katherine!  But here it is, and it's about Henry James' Portrait of a Lady , which squeaks in under the wire, having been written in 1880, but really--who is more turn of the century than James? Do you like the author's writing style? I don't mind Henry James' writing style, but I don't love it.  The man did like a good long sentence!   For the most part I enjoyed reading his prose medium-well.  I didn't hate it, I liked reading it, but I didn't love it either. I often felt like even though I was getting a lot of words that described Isabel and her actions, I was not truly getting inside her.  I read this 800-page novel about her, but I didn't feel like I knew her well.  I don't know if that was on purpose; maybe James didn't mean for me to know her well?  Since it was a "portrait" perhaps it was supposed to b...

I found a new toy!  And you have to try it out!  At least, if you love old paperback art and B-movies like I do. First, you find the " Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual" website, which features  interactive serial stories modeled on old pulp SF magazines--the current story is "The Toaster With Two Brains" and it's kind of like a Choose Your Own Adventure story.  The Pulp-O-Mizer is this great toy on the website that lets you design covers like these.  You pick from a library of backgrounds, characters, and titles, and then add your own subtitles and comments.  It took me quite a while to figure out how to use it--it's a complicated little set-up that lets you do quite a lot of customizing. Also, you have to use it in Chrome so make sure to do that. If you're stuck for ideas, there are some samples to show you how to get started and how to create certain effects, and there is a really fun extra help with titles: Cornelius Zappencackler...

The Givenchy Code , by Julie Kenner Story first!  The other day I had to take my car to get smogged, and I took it to a place I hadn't used before.  I took a book with me of course, but to my delight, the waiting room was piled with books!  There were two or three skinny bookcases and a two-level coffee table, all covered with books and interesting magazines.  The owner told me that it had started when he had brought in some of his old history books from college (which explained the gigantic military history tomes--he was a history major), and his wife had thrown in some mysteries and other things, and then people kept bringing in more...in fact, he had 3 big boxes of books in the back so they could change things up every so often.  He said I could take whatever books I fancied with me and bring them back whenever I liked.  I snagged a fun Aunt Dimity mystery that I've read before, but the real prize was when I saw The Givenchy Code , the first in a tril...

I should get around to these memes a little sooner!  February's Classics Club question is: “What classic has most surprised you so far, and why?” Surprise, I have two answers!  On a general level, I have been surprised by how very much I have enjoyed a lot of the books on my list.  Yes, this is kind of dumb.  But like most people, I always put off reading Classics (which as we know are intimidating and difficult) in favor of lighter fare, especially whatever was closest to its library due date.   Even though I knew I ought to read, say, Madame Bovary , I didn't truly expect to love it. Books from my list I have liked quite a lot more than I expected to: The Age of Innocence Bleak House, and also what I expected out of it Bleak House The Return of the Native Dracula Madame Bovary Anna Karenina Doctor Zhivago Nervous Conditions Labyrinths For my second answer, I had no idea what the plot of Bleak House was, and had always assumed it wou...

The Classics Club is throwing a spin!   What is that, you say?  Read on: It’s easy. At your blog, by next Monday, Feb 18 , list your choice of any twenty books you’ve left to read from your Classics Club list – in a separate post. This is your Spin List. You have to read one of these twenty books in February and March. (Details follow.) So, try to challenge yourself. For example, you could list five Classics Club books you are dreading/hesitant to read, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favorite author, rereads, ancients — whatever you choose.) Next Monday, we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List, by April 1 . We’ll have a check in or something in April, to see who made it the whole way and finished the spin book. I think that's a fun idea--I like games like this.  So here is my list.  Some of them are so lon...

Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile , by Julia Fox If, like me, your European history is a bit on the fuzzy side, you might be as surprised as I was to realize that Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first queen and unwilling catalyst of the Anglican Church, was sister to Juana the Mad, a famously mad Spanish queen who...had something to do with the Hapsburgs, right?  Not only that, they were both daughters of Isabella and Ferdinand, the uniters of Spain, kickers-out of Moors and Jews, and sponsors of Christopher Columbus.  Since I hadn't realized any of that, I figured I'd better read this book. Julia Fox gives us a truly fascinating look at England and Spain during the Renaissance and digs deeply to get to know Katherine and Juana on a personal level.  History and legend have covered up their personalities to a large extent, especially Juana's. Katherine emerges as a political personality in her own right, eve...

Did you know that March is Diana Wynne Jones month?  To her loyal fans it is, anyway.  Last year was the first DWJ March, to commemorate her passing in March of 2011.  I actually missed out and didn't find out about it until April, which was very disappointing .  But this year is my chance, and we are going to celebrate the second annual DWJ March here at Howling Frog.  The event is hosted by Kristen R. of We Be Reading. Image by YellowCrayolaCrayon There will be a readalong of a title not yet chosen (guess we'd better get on that), I will be writing a guest post on DWJ, which makes me very nervous, since the more I love a book the less coherent I am about it, and the amazingness of DWJ just reduces me to babbling idiocy.  On the bright side, it looks like I will even get to do a giveaway!  My very first giveaway!  And how fun is that, it will be with my very favorite author! Have you ever read anything by Diana Wynne Jones?  If not,...

I took a week or so off to recover from January's efforts ; I was a little blogged out, and now I have a pile of things to write about.  First, there are lots of fun things comi ng up-- Allie at A Literary Odyssey is hosting a Classics Club event in March and it's all about the modern literature.  Not modern as in written in the last 20 years, but the Modernist movement.  Allie says: it generally refers to literature written between the very late 19th century and the halfway point of the 20th century. In general, Modernist writers experimented with style, form, and theme. They broke away from the traditional viewpoints found in literature until that point and strove to focus on the darker and more unpleasant sides of life. This is also the time period where stream-of-consciousness made its roaring appearance. Some of the big writers of the Modernist period were: William Faulkner Virginia Woolf Ezra Pound F. Scott Fitzgerald Ernest Hemingway Samuel Beckett...

Ready Player One , by Ernest Cline Forty years from now, as society slowly collapses, everyone spends all their time in the OASIS, an immersive online environment that has become the new Internet.  It's a giant MMORPG*, it's where everyone does business, and you can even go to school there.  The original designer, a video-game genius obsessed with the 1980's media he grew up with, died five years ago and left his entire fortune to whoever solves the riddles that lead to the biggest Easter egg in history.  Wade, like many others, spends just about all his time in the OASIS, studying everything about the 80s and hoping to solve the riddle.  Then one day he figures it out and suddenly there are an awful lot of bad guys after him. This novel was all over the book blogs several months ago, but my library only just got it.  I remembered being intrigued by the descriptions I'd heard, but when I brought it home I wasn't at all sure I was going to read it.  The ...

The Portrait of a Lady , by Henry James I tackled this giant intimidating chunkster with the aid of the WEM ladies at Classical Quest and A Classical Case of Madness .  I really like Adriana's idea of a readalong on Facebook--she figured on reading 3 chapters a day and we would check in report progress.  It's fun and not too overwhelming to manage such a small amount--and since I was reading Anna Karenina at the same time I needed all the help I could get! Isabel is a young American woman from Albany, and her crotchety aunt whisks her off to England to live and to see Europe.  Nothing much happens in the first 400 pages, except that every man she meets falls in love with her and asks her to marry him.  She successfully fends them off (if I were her, I'd want to be left alone to explore Europe without constant hounding from these guys!), until she meets Gilbert Osmond.  Although her other suitors are all good upstanding men, she of course has to marry the r...

The Middle Window , by Elizabeth Goudge Judy has talked her parents and fianc é into a holiday in Scotland.  Somehow she just knows she's supposed to go to Scotland, though she's never been there, and that her life is going to change completely.  But how is it that she knows exactly where to find the house they've rented?  Why is Judy suddenly assailed with someone else's memories, and why does the owner, Ian, seem so familiar? I'm not even sure what to call this book.  It's a romance, but it's different--plus the lovers are hardly ever together.  It's part historical fiction, part ghost (?) story, and nearly all tragedy.  The first third is in 1934 and features Judy and Ian.  Most of the rest concerns Judith and Ranald as they are caught up in the 1745 Scottish Rebellion.* It's a bit like those Gothic thriller romances by Barbara Michaels (aka Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Mertz), but better written and without a trace of Michaels' sardonic hu...

Anna Karenina , by Lev Tolstoy I am so happy that I finally read Anna Karenina .  I had it on my must-read list for this year, and then I won a free movie tie-in copy from The Blue Bookcase !  (Plus a candle and soundtrack CD.)  I wasn't sure about reading a tie-in edition, since I was sure they would have picked just any old translation that was free of copyright, and really I would like to read the Pevear/Volokhonsky translation that everybody raves about.  And indeed they picked a 1918 translation by the Maudes; a foreword notes that the Maudes were friends with Tolstoy, lived in Russia for a long time, and shared many of his ideas.  So that disposed me to like them more.  I did enjoy the writing just fine, though I would prefer the names to have been less Anglicized--but at least they didn't go as far as one translation I've heard of that calls Prince Stepan Arkadyevich Oblonsky--informally Stiva--  "Steve."  I loved this book.  It's...

The Violinist's Thumb: and Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code , by Sam Kean Aren't fashions in titles funny?  Title trends come and go, and right now very long subtitles seem to be the thing.  The shorter and/or more cryptic the main title is, the better, and then the subtitle should be long and elaborate, with a touch of humor.  It reminds me of A Little Pretty Pocketbook.   This title has been on my library wishlist since it came out; I really enjoyed Kean's previous book about chemistry, The Disappearing Spoon , and I like lay books about science in general (especially chemistry!).  The Violinist's Thumb is a detailed look at DNA--the history around its discovery, how it works, what we know and do not yet understand about it.  It's got lots of interesting anecdotes, funny turns of phrase, and more than you ever needed to know about A, T, G and C. But. I was enjoying the book and zipping through it, when a ...