HSU IT Department

Ah, cozy mysteries -- those wonderful oh-so-English mysteries, where tea and toast are sipped and nibbled, there's a cameo by a vicar, and the corpses are as neat and tidy as the gardens. Such fun to read and so satisfying, since the guilty party is generally someone who richly deserves being caught and convicted.

Ah, but have you ever written one? If so, now's your chance to get published! Minotaur Books is holding a best first mystery competition. Hop on over and give it a shot.

(Note: If I didn't know better, I'd suspect shiv5468 of having authored that book shown on the left under a nom de plume, because hey, peacocks!)

Why yes, I have been reading, thank you for asking. Knocked three off my to-read list just this week, go me!

Garden Spells: A good and pleasant read, but thin: I wanted more on all dimensions -- length, depth (ok, maybe not width). Claire and Sydney were a little too pat as characters: Sydney the free spirit who finds out that freedom is more than just the ability to leave whenever you want, Claire the stay-at-home who discovers that fear of others leaving doesn't excuse never letting them in. I would have liked the book to have started when Claire and Sydney were children, so we could have seen their relationship develop its fraught character naturally, rather than being told about it in flashbacks or conversations. And for sure I would have liked to see more of their grandmother, latest of this long line of Waverley women who know so much about herbs and flowers.

That said, and despite what I found to be a completely non-credible resolution of the problem of Sydney's ex, what is here is lovely and a pleasure to read. The apple tree that's part of the family, a bit like a big shaggy dog that lives in the garden, is an unusual and fun touch. Evanelle, the giver of immediately-useless-but-eventually-important gifts, is just a delight, as is Bay, the little girl who knows instinctively where things (and by "things" we include "people") belong. I'd love to see a sequel that covered her growing up.

The Hill Bachelors is a collection of short stories steeped in the Irish psyche and landscape. I first encountered William Trevor a few months back in the break room at work, via his short story "The Women" in The New Yorker. Like that one, these stories are intense, focused, acutely observant, and often with some sort of secret or unspoken event at their core. Excellent examples of subtlety and keenness, though more often melancholy than happy. Sort of an anti-Maeve Binchy.

Once again, the unquenchable Flashman is off on a mad, bad, and totally unintentional adventure. While en route home, Flashy is shanghaied by his old enemy John Charity Spring, the Mad Don of Oxford, with the willing (to put it mildly) assistance of Spring's extremely sexy daughter. He ends up in America, where not one, not two, but THREE different groups either pay, strongarm, or blackmail him into becoming the second-in-command to abolitionist John Brown. Brown is in the midst of planning for -- or, more accurately, waffling about -- his raid on Harper's Ferry, and Flashy, depending on which employer he decides to follow, is supposed to (a) ensure it succeeds, (b) ensure it takes place, regardless of whether it succeeds or fails, or (c) delay and sabotage it so it never happens. Well, history takes its course and the raid of course does happen, but along the way Flashy manages to bed a number of women, escape by the skin of his teeth more than once, encounters more than one old enemy, and comes out smelling like a rose, as usual.

As always, the history is top-notch, the characters cleverly drawn, and the adventures harum-scarum. However, Flash is a bit more mellow in this one than in others, and seems to actually feel a bit fondness for "old J.B. and his crackbrained dreams," as he puts it. As a bonus, the story is bracketed by scenes of Flash with his grandchildren: Augustus ("young gallows...bursting with sin beneath the mud"), Jemima ("a true Flashman, as beautiful as she is obnoxious"), Alice ("another twig off the old tree, being both flirt and toady"), and John ("a serious infant, given to searching cross-examination"). Ha!

Francis Bacon's recommendations for being a "gentleman scholar" (1594), and my new ambition of what I want to be/do/have when I grow up. I love the idea of "in small compass a model of universal nature made private" so that you can study whatever it is you want to, right there in your own little realm :)

First, the collecting of a most perfect and general library, wherein whatsoever the wit of man hath hitherto committed to books of worth, be they ancient or modern, printed or manuscript, European or of other parts, of one or another language, may be made contributory to your wisdom. Next, a spacious wonderful garden, wherein whatsoever plant the sun of diverse climates, out of the earth of diverse molds, either wild or by the culture of man, brought forth, may be, with that care that appertaineth to the good prospering thereof, set and cherished; this garden to be built about with room to stable in all rare beasts and to cage in all rare birds, with two lakes adjoining, the one of fresh water, the other of salt, for like variety of fishes. And so you may have in small compass a model of universal nature made private. The third, a goodly huge cabinet, wherein whatsoever the hand of man by exquisite art or engine hath made rare in stuff, form or motion; whatsoever singularity, chance and the shuffle of things hath produced; whatsoever nature hath wrought in things that want life and may be kept, shall be sorted and included. The fourth, such a still-house, so furnished with mills, instruments, furnaces and vessels as may be a palace fit for a philosopher's stone. Thus, when your excellency shall have added depth of knowledge to the fineness of your spirits and greatness of your power, then indeed shall you be a Trismegistus, and then when all other miracles and wonder shall cease, by reason that you shall have discovered their natural causes, yourself shall be left the only miracle and wonder of the world.

When I was a kid, one of the few tv shows we watched was Masterpiece Theatre. Recently I've discovered how much fun it is to go back and watch those old series again, trying to spot later-famous people. Until tonight, my best "Aha!" moment had been the discovery that the villainous Sejanus from I, Claudius was Patrick Stewart (with hair!). Thanks to years of STNG this scene, which did very little for me at age 11, now gives me a serious "hubba hubba!" moment.

However, I think I've topped that. Tonight I was watching the first episode of Lillie, about Lillie Langtry, and I discovered that her brother William Le Breton is Rupert Giles!! Here he is at first (such a baby-face!), and here he is with a mustache (shudder!). The funny thing is, I don't know if I would have spotted it but Spouse was sitting in the other room and shouted, "Hey, that's Giles!" just based on his voice, heh heh.

So yeah, that's my idea of fun on a Monday night :)

Just finished a collection of short stories by A.E. Coppard, who is not nearly as well known as he should be. I picked it up from the library because I saw his name on The Supernatural Fiction Database -- stories like "Polly Morgan" in which Aunt Agatha is in love with a ghost, or "The Post Office and the Serpent" about a snake bound in a lake until Judgement Day. Unfortunately this collection doesn't include many of his supernatural stories (though there are a couple), but it certainly showcases the man's ability to write. His command of language is phenomenal -- intelligent, emotional, descriptive; the word "lyrical" might not be out of place. Some of the stories are heartbreaking in their simplicity (Dusky Ruth, for example, or the one about the old man and his dog), others just off-normal enough to engender a general sense of eeriness or discomfort without being able to quite put one's finger on why.

With all that, he's also got a mildly loopy sense of humor. Take this, for example:

The old gentleman, Arthur Mildway, lean, stern and grey, had never been a soldier of any kind although he had a military appearance. On the contrary, he was a person of private means, with certain accomplishments as a local ornithologist, and an authority on beetroot. He possessed a soft, sweet dumpling of a wife who for forty years had painted water colours that none but he appreciated, and at every picture she finished they would stare in animated contemplation together for a few moments, she blinking a good deal from weak eyesight and murmuring inarticulately...Occasionally he would buy one of these artistic productions from her...Forking out a sovereign he would insist on her acceptance of the coin and then tenderly convey the watercolour to a cellar or a loft or a cupboard -- and it was never, never, never seen again.

Thanks to the wonder of The Internetz, I discover there is also an A.E. Coppard Prize offered annually!

Speaking of contests and prizes...

This was a tall order, I must admit; a bit like MST3K trying to take on, say, Hamlet. I don't think it succeeded too well -- too much vomiting and bathroom humor. Some funny bits ("It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains"), and I was amused by Lady Catherine's ninjas and the baiting of traps with cauliflower (because it looks like brains). But overall I give it a "meh."