Ten Second Reviews

A Broken Vessel & Whom the Gods Love

By Kate Ross

The second of the Julian Kestrel, regency detective mysteries, I enjoyed this one too. Although there were BY FAR too many clues, that was part of the mystery, and acknowledged by the characters partway through.  It was also entertaining how Kestrel investigated the upper class suspects, his valet Dipper managed the regular tradespeople, and Dipper's prostitute sister Sally handled the underbelly - I thought the use of each of them in their respective spheres was fun.  Kestrel is this time investigating an anonymous note which Sally stole from one of three clients, alluding to a woman in desperate trouble.  She's just died when they find her, and it quickly becomes a murder investigation instead.  Again, some coincidences, but the writing and characters still hold up - I'm checking out the third one as I write.


Aaaaand now I've finished the third, I'm checking out the fourth, and sad that the series will end soon.  Again, far, far too many coincidences (two sets of twins in this one? Not to mention that Kestrel magically lands upon the exact right madhouse by simply wandering around town, ahem) but for whatever reason, I guess I just don't mind them! These feel like dense books, since there's SO MUCH interviewing and discussion, but they're also pleasantly engrossing, especially as the clues start picking up.  I have to say though, these book jackets are driving me crazy, since all the book descriptions give spoilers about the victim and events in the book that don't become really clear until at least halfway through.  I did also guess some of the answers, but was still wholly surprised by the motives, so I'm happy both to be right and to be surprised.  Spoiler here, but I was really put off by the Jewish banker turned rapist subplot.  It felt really out of character and poorly explained how he could actually go through with it, and frankly, left the book on a pretty low note.  But onwards to numero quatro!

Predictably Irrational

By Dan Ariely

Why do our headaches persist after we take a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a fifty-cent aspirin? Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup?

Dan Ariely refutes the common assumption that we behave in fundamentally rational ways. From drinking coffee to losing weight, from buying a car to choosing a romantic partner, we consistently overpay, underestimate, and procrastinate. Yet these misguided behaviors are neither random nor senseless. They're systematic and predictable—making us predictably irrational.

Soooo, this was fine.  Probably my impression of it is coloured by the fact that I was trying to get my husband interested in it, and it was a complete loss.  I also felt like some of the research was kind of glossed over, in terms of, for example, the chocolate pricing one in the free chapter.  I assume that they controlled for people who came to the table and didn't buy any chocolate when it was 1 and 15 cents respectively but did just pick up a free one, right?  Like, I feel like the total numbers of people getting chocolate had to have gone up (versus those who paid even just one penny) but there isn't really an explanation as to how they covered that, aside from making the sign very small so people had to get close to see it.  But I do find the ideas fascinating, even if more broadly than specifically applicable (like, not everyone is a sucker for advertising) and the chapter on placebos oddly affecting.  Frankly, we should do more experiments with surgery (with knowledge and consent of course) because unnecessarily submitting people to the knife is awful.  But I think the message, that we're all unconsciously doing these things and in some cases, the only cure is to be more conscious, is one that's hit home.

Ten Second Reviews

Cut to the Quick

By Kate Ross

Julian Kestrel is the walking definition of a Regency-era dandy. He cares about little beyond the perfection of his tailoring, he lives for the bon mot, and his life has the specific gravity and the fleeting charm of a soap-bubble. At least that's what he'd like you to think. In fact, it rather suits Kestrel to be perpetually underestimated, particularly when as in this instance his weekend at a glamorous country estate is spoiled by a dead girl's body being found in his bed.

I did like this one - it was a nice break from modern day thrillers, which can be so overwrought.  This one is much more of a classic mystery, with interrogations and secrets discovered, although there is still the confrontation of the murderer, here, it's with the guise of an actual magistrate's duty.  It feels like a pretty chunky book - there's a lot to the back story, which comes out in pieces (and more than a few coincidences, but they aren't the most egregious), so it took me a while to get through it.  Overall, I enjoyed the Regency setting, and the characters, enough to look into the sequel.  Onward and upward!

Comics for a Strange World: A Book of Poorly Drawn Lines

By Reza Farazmand

 

This follow up in the Poorly Drawn Lines series was not nearly as good as the first, for some reason.  Possibly because it felt like it focused more on robots and technology than absurdist humor.  So-so, but I would get the first book and skip this one.

A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie

By Kathryn Harkup

 

This is an alphabetically arranged examination of the poisons used in Agatha Christie's books (funny: you'd never know it from the title).  I really liked this one - first of all, I never realized that Christie was a chemist, and that she kept her poison use really factual and close to reality.  Maybe this is a little embarrassing, but I barely noticed the actual murder weapon when I was reading  - it almost felt superfluous sometimes, since motive seemed so much more important (and Christie always made sure multiple suspects would have been capable of the means).  Harkup goes into detail not only in how Christie used the poison in a particular book/story, but also into the poison itself, famous real life murders, effects on the body, etc.  I have just one complaint, which is that Harkup gets into the chemical properties of the poisons more than is really necessary for most laypeople (and geez, I hope all of her readers are laypeople and not budding young poisoners looking for tips) so I tended to skim the passages about enzymes and receptors and molecules.  But the rest is highly enjoyable, although I would recommend against reading it while sitting with a dying relative receiving morphine, because it will give you bad dreams.

At Home

At Home, by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as found in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to "write a history of the world without leaving home." The bathroom provides the occasion for the history of hygiene, the bedroom for an account of sex, death, and sleep, the kitchen for a discussion of nutrition and the spice trade, and so on, showing how each has figured in the evolution of private life. From architecture to electricity, from food preservation to epidemics, from the telephone to the Eiffel Tower, from crinolines to toilets - and the brilliant, creative, and often eccentric talents behind them - Bryson demonstrates that whatever happens in the world ends up in our houses, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.

This is a no-brainer. Either you like Bill Bryson, and you like At Home, or you hate Bill Bryson, and you hate At Home. Or you feel tepid about both, whatever. All your myriad complicated feelings about Bryson's other work will hold equally true here, there is no great departure of style or character from his usual. Lucky for me, I happen to like his style and character.

Bryson takes on a bit more to chew this time around - more or less European and American history from maybe the 17th to the 19th century, with a bit of older events tossed in. It's an interesting read, for sure. Bryson covers just about every topic at least once (there's a handy index in the back which runs from actuarial tables to Yellow Fever - although come to think of it, those two topics may have something in common) skipping around in each chapter to discuss things not dreamed of when presented with the heading "The Study". For example: bats. Or using the Nursery as an opportunity to talk about workhouses.

For all it's compelling and fascinating, Bryson does like to go off on tangents, and often will mention a person in passing, only to reintroduce them fifty pages later, on a side tangent for a completely different topic. It can get a little frustrating at times, the sheer amount of information which Bryson pours out makes it well nigh impossible to retain individual names and events, especially when one (me) reads the books in chaptered segments instead of in one glorious swoop. Because the information is ordered -loosely- by room, instead of chronologically, it can get hard to figure out just what happened when. Did people have telephones and lawnmowers at the same time, or were they mowing and creating landscapes before they could call their neighbors to tell them about it? Was Coade stone popular when Thomas Jefferson began his never-ending quest to build Monticello, and did he use it in his plans? Did Darwin leave with gas lights and come back to kerosene, or vice versa or was it completely different? It's all in there, but it's so mixed up in stoves and wells and Phylloxera and smog and iron and locusts and the tendency of the British peerage to marry American heiresses that I did not, let's be honest, retain much of anything at all.

But for all it's faults, it's still a very entertaining read, and no matter how long the index is, or how many important-sounding names it contains, I would call At Home light reading. Bryson is a master at the art of the anecdote, the light quip. Every page has a bit to smile at:

While showing off his [$519,750 bottle of Chateau Margaux wine] at a New York restaurant in 1989, William Sokolin, a wine merchant, accidentally knocked the bottle against the side of a serving cart and it broke, in an instant converting the world's most expensive bottle of wine into the world's most expensive carpet stain. The restaurant manager dipped a finger in the wine and declared that it was no longer drinkable anyway. [The Garden - p.279]


At one point, a single manufacturer offered no fewer than 146 types of flatware for the table. Curiously, among the few survivors from this culinary onslaught is one that is most difficult to understand: the fish knife. Though it remains the standard instrument for dealing with fish of all kinds, no one has ever identified a single advantage conferred by its odd scalloped shape or worked out the original thinking behind it. There isn't a single kind of fish that that it cuts better or bones more delicately than a conventional knife does. [The Dining Room - p.187]

During [Benjamin Franklin's] years in London, he developed the custom of taking "air baths," basking naked in front of an open upstairs window. This can't have got him any cleaner, but it seems to have done him no harm and it must at least have given the neighbors something to talk about. [The Bathroom - p.350]

Oliver Goldsmith lamented the practice [of razing villages for a better view] in a long, sentimental poem, "The Deserted Village," inspired by a visit to Nuneham Park in Oxfordshire when the first Earl Harcourt was in the process of erasing an ancient village to create a more picturesque space for his new house. Here at least fate exacted an interesting revenge. After completing the work, the earl went for a stroll around his newly reconfigured grounds, but failed to recall where the old village well had been, fell into it, and drowned. [The Garden - p.259]

It's all very amusing - I just wish I could remember it better.

Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes

Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes, by Fadiman and Bernard, eds.

From Hank Aaron to King Zog, from Mao to Madonna, Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes is a collection of more than 4,000 entries and the best source for anecdotes on the market. Featuring more than 2,000 people past and present from around the world, in all fields of endeavor, these short anecdotes provide remarkable insights into the human character. Ranging from the humorous to the solemn, they span ancient history, recent politics, modern science, and the arts. Each entry includes a brief biography followed by one or more notable, lively, and insightful anecdotes that always deliver a punch of the unexpected.

So this is perhaps my all-time favorite reference book. Not a long list, admittedly, but this is leaps and bounds beyond all the others, with the possible exception of the Bartlett's Book of Quotations. Whenever I need a pick-me-up, a few pages flipped in BBoA will do the trick. One of my early favorites is as follows:

GEORGE-BROWN, Baron (b. 1914) British statesman, born George Alfred Brown
Lord George-Brown, at one stage of his career, was known to be a heavy drinker. At a certain diplomatic function when the orchestra struck up, he felt that as the senior British minister present he should start the dancing. Spying a gorgeously robed figure, he said, "Beautiful lady in scarlet, will you do me the honor of waltzing with me?" "Certainly not," was the sharp response. "In the first place, you are drunk; in the second this is not actually a waltz but the Venezuelan national anthem; and thirdly, I am not a beautiful lady in scarlet, I am, in fact, the papal nuncio."

And how I could resist this book after that, I will never know. This has spoonerisms, bon mots, even touching scenarios about invading soldiers who burst in upon maestros, only to ask them to accompany them on the piano as they sing in the company of greatness. All kinds of wild and crazy stories and improbable happenings are within. I leave you with this:

GRANT, Cary (1904-86) US actor born in England as Archie Leach.
A journalist was writing a story about Grant and needed some background information. Wiring to Grant's publicist, he asked, "How old Cary Grant?" Grant wired back, "Old Cary Grant fine. How you?"