Recent Reads

Roast Beef, Medium by Edna Ferber.  Published in 1913, this is a delightful tale of a divorced, middle aged women who has worked for ten years as a travelling saleswomen selling women's petticoats.  Along the way she has various adventures involving a rival salesman, her college age son, and a disastrous change in the fullness of skirts.  She's tough yet charming and quite a remarkable specimen for a woman of her time.  The book is also quite humorous.  I'm looking forward to reading more of Ferber's works.

Through Glacier Park by Mary Roberts Rinehart.  A travelogue about Rinehart's trip by horseback through Glacier National Park in 1916.  The park was still in it's infancy at the time. A nice, short diversion.

Dere Mable, Love Letters of a Rookie and Same Old Bill, eh Mable! by Edward Streeter.  Humorous letters fro a WWI dough boy to his girl back home.  Okay, the humor does not hold up that well, but it's a nice glimpse of what was considered funny at the time.  Streeter's Father of the Bride is a much better book.

Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella.  This was free when I picked it up for Kindle.  It is the book Field of Dreams was based on.  The tale of an Iowa farmer who builds a baseball field for ghosts and kidnaps J. D. Salinger.  I enjoyed it more than expected, especially since I find Salinger to be way overrated.  Minor quibble in that the wife is too good to be true.

Heart of Darkness and A Set of Six by Joseph Conrad.  My main interest in Conrad was that his one story was the basis for the movie The Duellists which is one of my favorites.  The story "The Duel" is part of A Set of Six and tells the story of two officers in Napoleon's army who fight a series of duels over fifteen years and no one quite knows why.  "The Duel" is decent apart from Conrad throwing in French phrases here and there (language should be consistent--if your French characters are written in English they should speak only English).  The movie is better.  As for the rest, I will never read Conrad again.  I am not sure how Heart of Darkness got its stellar reputation since I found it a dull, wordy mess in which nothing much happened.

The Emo Bunny That Should by John H. Carroll and Hilda the Wicked Witch by Paul Kater.  The plus side of eBooks is that it is easier to publish your work.  This is also the downside.  The Emo Bunny is the tale of a rabbit who rescues other animals from the Easter Bunny.  Hilda is the story of a witch who somehow ends up in our world and needs to find a way home.  Both are lacking in plot and characterizations.  They might be okay as early drafts, but a good editor is desperately needed to whip the stories into shape.  Both were free, so at least they were only a waste of time and not money.

The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl.  A victim of the 100 page rule (okay, only made it to page 70).  A Baltimore lawyer who corresponded with Poe goes off the deep end and sets off to investigate Poe's death.  Slow, dull, nonsensical.  Poe deserves better.