2010 books, #11-15

A crop of three audiobooks and two actual books this time - combination of winter-bluesiness, class preparation and Ravelympics means the only actual book-reading has been on the Tube...


Busman's honeymoon, by Dorothy L. Sayers [audiobook]. Read by Ian Carmichael. Bath: Chivers Audio/BBC Audiobooks, [n.d.]


I love this book, and either read it, or get the audiobooks out of the library, every couple of years. The final of the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane books, and probably my favourite even above Gaudy Night. Sayers described it as 'a love story with detective interludes', and the central mystery isn't particularly convincing; but the characterisation is such that I never really care... Additional poignancy was lent to this one by the death of Ian Carmichael last weekend; I heard the news just a couple of minutes after reaching the mid-point of the book... I preferred the gravitas Edward Petherbridge brought to Peter Wimsey in the TV adaptations, but Carmichael will always be the voice I associate with the books...



The stone monkey, by Jeffery Deaver [audiobook]. Read by Adam Sims. Rearsby, Leics.: W.F.Howes, 2003.


Another re-read; part of my readthrough of the Lincoln Rhyme/Amelia Sachs series. Even knowing the twists and turns in the plot, this is gripping stuff - Deaver is brilliant at pulling the rug out from under you, repeatedly, without making you feel as if you're being played... Adam Sims is a very good reader, and I'll be looking to see what else he's narrated.

Over the edge, by Jonathan Kellerman. London: Headline, 2008 [originally published 1987].

An Alex Delaware book - and one I didn't really warm up to. The plot was somewhat one-track; none of the characters (including Delaware himself) were really all that sympathetic; and the dénouement is predictable a little too early for comfort. I've given Delaware four chances to impress me (and the only reason I've done that is because Wibbo prefers them to Faye Kellerman's Peter Dekker/Rina Lazarus books and we're usually in synch with likes and dislikes...); I suspect that might be it for a bit...

The lost throne, by Chris Kuzneski [audiobook]. Read by Jeff Harding. Bath: Chivers Audio/BBC Audiobooks, [n.d.]

Gosh, this was eye-bogglingly, astonishingly bad. Entertainingly bad, in fact, because Jeff Harding was reading it with the same sort of edge he gives to Dan Brown books, as if he's trying to convince himself, as well as you, that this is not a total waste of our mutual time ... But, as I've said before, Mr Harding could read the Yellow Pages to me and I'd listen, which is why 13 hours and 30 minutes of knitting/cleaning/tidying/ironing/etc. time has been spent listening to this tosh...

You do know what you're in for with a book when the first sentence of Chapter 1 reads "The monk felt the wind on his face as he plummeted to his death, a journey which started with a scream and ended with a thud." Yes folks, it's the whole creepy religious/conspiracy theory/bad writing trifecta. And of course there are experts in a particular field, supposedly talking to equally learned colleagues, who feel the need to say "As you probably know...." and then bang on at great length without the aforementioned colleague either interrupting, or hitting them over the head with something heavy...

I think the thing I particularly loved about it was that you get to the halfway point in a book called The lost throne to discover that A) it's all about... a lost thing; and B) the lost thing is.... wait for it..... a throne. Now, who'd 'a thunk it... Or OMGWTFBBQ, as the kids would have it.

In my defence, another reason I kept listening was that it has more than a tangential connection with Heinrich Schliemann and Troy, which always conjures up memories of Michael Wood's not-unattractive rear view wandering up hills in 1984 or so, which was the thing which reminded me that in my primary school days I'd got interested in Roman archaeology (due to a mad, inspirational teacher called Pat Cassidy who spent the school's entire excursions budget on taking us off to various sites on Hadrian's Wall, making us write songs about the latrines at Housesteads, the Mithraeum at Carrawburgh and so on, to the tune of The Blaydon Races) and made me sign up for a Gallo-Roman archaelogical dig in my gap year; which in turn made me realise I was good at classifying things and taxonomy; which eventually got me the job I have now. So thankyou, Mr Wood, for your fascinating facts and your nicely-fitting jeans.

I shan't, however, be going back to Chris Kuzneski's works again, unless Jeff Harding continues to do the audiobooks and I'm doing another major decorating job over a holiday weekend!

Moonshine, monster catfish and other Southern comforts : travels in the American South, by Burkhard Bilger. London: Arrow, 2002.

It would have been so easy to make this some sort of comic "let's-make-fun-of-the-rednecks" book. There are chapters on advanced marble-throwing, cockfighting, frog-rearing, coonhunting, catfish-noodling, moonshining, the eating of squirrel brains and other more haute cuisine offal...

But Bilger is genuinely interested in the people involved in the activities and their passions; he brings the same degree of friendly curiosity to his subjects as Stuart Maconie does to his investigations of Middle England (although without quite as much of Maconie's humour); he isn't intending to denigrate or belittle, even when the activity seems pretty appalling to an outsider. These are great documentary essays written with a journalistic flair - you can hear the people speaking.