Book Reviews – Page 2

CJ Verburg reviews Michael Lewis’s The Undoing Project

Posted on January 3, 2019 by LNH

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As a huge fan of Daniel Kahneman’s comprehensive research summary Thinking, Fast and Slow, and the riveting revelations Michael Lewis wove into Moneyball and The Big Short, I was delighted by this compelling story of how they’re connected. The Undoing Project delves into the profound, complex friendship between two brilliant psychologists, Kahneman and the late Amos Tversky, while explaining the ideas that drove their investigations into the quirks that distort human beings’ response to information.

For more, see https://carolverburg.com/thoughts-on-…

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Reviews: Rita Lakin’s “The Only Woman in the Room”; Rex Stout’s “A Right to Die”

Posted on September 14, 2018 by LNH

by CJ Verburg

The Only Woman in the Room by Rita Lakin

This delightful memoir offers a rare look behind the scenes at some turning-point TV shows back when television was first taking off: Doctor Kildare, The Mod Squad, Peyton Place, The Rookies. Rita Lakin didn’t set out to be a Hollywood screenwriter — in those days, that wasn’t an option for a woman. Widowed with three young children, her urgent quest was to support her family. Not surprisingly, she got in the the back way, as a secretary. Hard work and some lucky breaks turned a few brick walls into doorways, and for the next 25 years Rita Lakin rode the roller-coaster: sometimes given a hand, sometimes kicked in the face. She shares the fun she had meeting celebrities, and also breathes 3-D life into names the rest of us only see in the credits, such as Aaron Spelling and Sydney Pollack. Not least, she reminds us that the key to success is collaboration, not confrontation — though there are moments when you do have to stand your ground, go out on a limb, or just close your eyes and jump.

A Right to Die by Rex Stout

Nero Wolfe meets the civil-rights movement. Published in 1964, A Right to Die is a fascinating literary-historical periscope into the language and attitudes of left-leaning successful white men (e.g., author Rex Stout) when the fight against racism was first gaining traction. The politics are muted, but there’s a jaw-dropping racist outburst from one character whose prejudices have been hidden until Wolfe rips back the curtain.

This particular case enters the West 35th St. brownstone of the famous detective in the person of Paul Whipple, whom Wolfe (and his assistant and narrator, Archie Goodwin) met many years ago at Kanawha Spa in West Virginia. Then, Whipple was a student at Howard University and kitchen staffer at the Spa; now, he’s a Columbia University professor and the father of a young man who works for the ROCC (Rights of Citizens Committee) in Harlem. Paul Whipple opposes his son’s plan to marry a wealthy white volunteer. Wolfe owes him a favor; but as he sets out to repay it, a simple inquiry mushrooms into a murder investigation.

Racial attitudes and information in the U.S. have expanded so much since 1964 that this book feels more dated than most of Stout’s mysteries from that era. Still, definitely worth reading!

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When the Review’s Even More Fun than the Book

Posted on August 15, 2018 by LNH

We’ve been so pleased with Charisse Howard’s three Regency Rakes & Rebels novellas that we’re eager to publish more short-form novels. This enterprise brought our attention to (among others) Raymond Chandler’s 7th and last book, the Philip Marlowe novella Playback.

Checking reviews on Goodreads, we discovered that Playback has inspired Chandler fans to literary tours de force which are less comments on the book than nanovellas in their own right. Here are two:

Apr 25, 2017 Paul Bryant rated it liked it

I looked at her legs. It was only 10 in the morning but she had legs to look at. She had brought them into my office with her. Her legs looked at me but I never found out what they thought. She balanced all of next year’s expense account on her little finger and blew smoke over it. She was wearing the kind of perfume you could invade countries for. The rest of her was what your imagination wasn’t any use for any more. I’d had a tough night that day so I only looked in her right eye. She offered me a cigarette. She offered me a drink. She offered me the Pacific Ocean. She offered me ten different futures, in all of which I ended up at the bottom of a lift shaft with both feet at the wrong angle and no health insurance. I looked at her legs. They were probably a metaphor but I never read French novels. There was a guy in the sedan behind us. I turned right then right again on Ventura. Now he was only three cars back. Her legs looked at me. I unhooked her clothing. “You have to help me, Marlowe,” she said. She said, “You’re speeding, Marlowe, this is a residential zone and there’s a school somewhere round here.” Then she was naked and I poured all over her like moonlight. The sedan in the mirror was as subtle as a Nazi at a christening. I took a right then another right. He took a left and I was down on the floor, my jaw felt like Carnegie Hall after the 1812 Overture. He looked a lot taller from down there. But at least I could look at her legs without interruption. I was happy about that then all the lights went out.

Apr 05, 2014 Ian “Marvin” Graye rated it really liked it

“A Little Quiet Fun At My Own Expense”
The waiter set a glass down on the table in front of me. It was my sixth drink in an hour. I couldn’t even remember ordering it. I drank it. It seemed like the right thing to do. The waiter watched me put down the empty glass. “Another shot?” he asked. I nodded. “You’ll have to pay for this one.” I looked around the room in search of my benefactor. I saw her first, sitting alone at a nearby table, then I saw her legs. They didn’t look like any legs I had seen before. Then they moved. She could see I was watching them. She crossed her legs, and I hoped to die, but not straight away. She reached into her handbag and withdrew a packet of cigarettes. She flipped it open and put one in her mouth. Her lips glistened the whole time. Then she fumbled around in her bag for a lighter. She returned the bag to the chair beside her, empty-handed. She looked at me. I shrugged. I had given up smoking since my last novel, only I hadn’t told my author. There was much I hadn’t confided in him. The time had come to make some changes in my life. I didn’t move. I watched her mind working. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I wasn’t sure whether she was my type. “Well…” She paused. She was improvising. It wasn’t something she was normally expected to do. My author usually made our decisions for us. “If you won’t light my cigarette, will you at least kiss me?” I ambled over to her table and sat down. But first she had another request:“Stop looking at my legs.” I did as I was told. I was hoping the effort would be rewarded. She returned her cigarette to the pack and put it back in her bag. I looked into her eyes. I could see nothing unless you want to count lust, or was that just a projection on my part? I wondered what she saw in my eyes. The same? I moved closer to her, and had another look. I clasped my hands around her face. Then I pulled her closer and kissed her. She licked her lips, inquisitively. “Christian Dior?” She asked. “Of course,” I replied. Her lips embarked on the most direct path towards mine. “Kiss me harder.” I did. She slipped her hand inside my blouse and squeezed my breast. Maybe I could like her after all.

Heart of Darkness: A Voyage through Paradigms & Metaphors – Review by C J Verburg

Posted on June 19, 2018June 19, 2018 by LNH

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

This is a difficult book to appreciate if you care more about racism, sexism, and colonization than intricately crafted metaphors. Conrad seems aware of the layers upon layers of contradictions that envelop his characters, yet insofar as he confronts them, he does it by observing and reporting rather than judging. For instance, the condescension of Brits to Africans is blatant and grating. Yet the narrator Marlow doesn’t remark on it, either when these events took place or now, as he recalls them: he simply describes it, and leaves any judgment to us.

Marlow is a sailor, privileged by his race and gender but not by his social position, which presumably in the Britain of Conrad’s day counted just as heavily. This short book is a story he’s telling to a crew of old sailing comrades about a voyage up an unfriendly river in a wild land that was being exploited by his shipping-company employers. His task was to find Kurtz, the company’s most effective ivory collector, who’d evidently “gone native” (= turned traitor to his race, class, etc.). Before he could take command of his assigned boat, Marlow had to dredge it up from where it sank when the previous captain beat a local chief and was killed. So, as in Melville’s Moby-Dick, we’re traveling among misfits and renegades obliged to obey an arbitrary leader.

However, unlike Ishmael et al., Marlow and his listeners are old friends (not a motley crew of strangers) waiting on a yacht (not a working boat), in the safe comfort of London’s Thames River mouth, for the tide to change so they can set sail. The prose is suitably languid for men who are in no hurry. And the multifaceted paradox of Kurtz makes a neat paradigm for the larger paradoxes Conrad describes, or delicately alludes to.

It’s a book so full of arrogance that I had a hard time with it.

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Reviews & Comments: 4 by Rex Stout, & Why Language Matters

Posted on April 2, 2018 by LNH

And Four to Go by Rex Stout
Review by CJ Verburg

Four short novellas or long stories, each fun in a different way. Rex Stout was at his (long-lived) peak in the late 1950s, so these are vintage Nero Wolfe capers. Oddly, the first three are holiday-centered, whereas the fourth opens on a random Tuesday in the fashion business. In “Christmas Party,” Archie Goodwin strikes fear into his boss’s heart by announcing he’s getting married. “Easter Parade” features (you guessed it) orchids. “Fourth of July Picnic”–in which Wolfe leaves home to make a speech–and “Murder Is No Joke” both involve women named Flora. My favorite moment comes in “Fourth of July Picnic,” when Wolfe and Goodwin give us brief impromptu autobiographies. A treasure for Stout fans; a good intro for newcomers.

View CJ Verburg’s other Goodreads reviews

Pen vs. Sword, or Why Language Matters

Mystery Reviews & a Freebie: Boris Akunin’s The Winter Queen, Rex Stout’s Where There’s a Will, & Disarmed

Posted on March 6, 2018March 8, 2018 by LNH

by C J Verburg

The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Winter Queen is is the first of Akunin’s books featuring Erast Fandorin, a minor government functionary who starts out young and hapless, yet is sharp and dogged enough to find himself steering events he’s assigned to help decipher. Evidently each book in the series represents a different subgenre; this “conspiracy mystery” opens in Moscow, 1876. I was intrigued to step into such an authentically unfamiliar frame of reference: time, place, social assumptions and preoccupations. High points include the old-fashioned chapter titles (“in which many difficulties are encountered”), and Akunin’s use of common tropes (orphanage, British charity patron, femme fatale, rogue boss) in unexpected ways, along with his deft plot twists. On the other hand, the characters’ obsessions — particularly with nuances of rank — felt so remote that I didn’t care all that much about them or how things turned out.

Where There’s a Will by Rex Stout
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Rex Stout never wrote a Nero Wolfe mystery I didn’t love. His standard ingredients are outstanding: intriguing characters and situations, a fast-moving plot, and Wolfe’s Manhattan brownstone full of orchids, gourmet meals, and books, all presented to us by this Sherlock’s smart-alecky Watson, the clever, charming, resourceful Archie Goodwin. Where There’s a Will was particularly interesting to reread because it’s an early book, written before Stout got fully up to speed (pub date 1940). Therein lie my quibbles: a plethora of characters became a challenge to keep sorted; and the most intriguing oddity of the eponymous will remains a loose end. On the other hand, in spite of Wolfe’s horror of women, and the biases of the time, the three Hawthorne sisters are as capable and impressive as they are distinctive. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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In the mood for a quick summer sleuthing adventure? “Disarmed: an Edgar Rowdey Cape Cod Mystery Story” is FREE on iTunes, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, and most other e-outlets. (Amazon insists on charging $.99.)

Southern Noir: Crooked Man & Palm Beach Poison – reviews by CJ Verburg

Posted on January 30, 2018 by LNH

Crooked Man by Tony Dunbar
This is the second Tubby Dubonnet novel I’ve read, & I plan to keep going. The New Orleans setting is great fun, & the characters & plot have an appealing whiff of Elmore Leonard — that blend of suspense, sardonic humor, & gritty charm. Crooked Man features a bunch of crooked men, some lurking in the shadows & some fairly open about it, plus an up-against-it woman who doesn’t realize how strong she is until push comes to shove.

Palm Beach Poison by Tom Turner
Well paced & written enough to pique my interest for about half the book. But it’s clear from the start who’s behind the first nasty deaths, & then who’s pulling the strings, so the only suspense becomes, What horrible fate will strike somebody next?

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My Family & Other Animals by Gerald Durrell – Review by CJ Verburg

Posted on January 3, 2018January 3, 2018 by LNH

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

Of all the books I can imagine which mainly comprise richly descriptive recollections of the insects, plants, and other diverse critters discovered on a Mediterranean island by a ten-year-old boy, Gerald Durrell’s is undoubtedly the most compelling. That said, when I realized I’d only read 120+ of 614 pages, I was distracted by an impulse to reread his brother Larry’s Alexandria Quartet instead.

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The Secret Life of Nancy Drew, Part II: Book Review by CJ Verburg

Posted on November 6, 2017November 6, 2017 by CJ Verburg

Confessions of a Teen Sleuth by Chelsea Cain
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Readers of Carolyn Keene’s version of my life’s events may be surprised to learn that Ned Nickerson was not the love of my life.” That opening sentence epitomizes this book: Not only is fictional titian-haired teenage sleuth Nancy Drew a real person, but so are her equally fictional biographer and boyfriend. This parody of the youth-sleuth series churned out by a syndicate under the pen name Carolyn Keene mimics not only the novels’ comic-book plots but their somewhat plodding style. And, as a parody should, this one digs up our memories and then flips them upside down. Housekeeper Hannah Gruen is younger than we thought. Ned is needier. Nancy — who ages chapter by chapter, marries, has a child, but never gives up sleuthing — is a bit pompous, really.

I had the same reaction as several other reviewers: this book was such an inspired idea, I hoped it would be funnier. It’s even more lightweight than the original series, although author Chelsea Cain stirs things up by tossing Nancy into some political ferment in each era: “The Clue in the Nazi Nutcracker, 1942.” “The Mystery of the Congolese Puppet, 1959.” “The Haight-Ashbury Mystery, 1967.” Other highlights include cameo appearances by the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy’s feud with Cherry Ames, Student Nurse, her ambivalence about Ned, and her comical blindness to what any of us could guess about her chums Bess and (especially) George.

If you were a Nancy Drew fan growing up, you’ll get a kick out of this book.

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The Secret Life of Nancy Drew

Posted on October 13, 2017 by LNH

If you grew up with Nancy Drew, girl detective, you may be as tickled as we were to discover Confessions of a Teen Sleuth. Nancy’s adventures are so over-the-top, in their mincing conventional way, it’s hard to imagine how Chelsea Cain could parody them. Yet it’s also irresistible. How’s this for a first sentence?

“Readers of Carolyn Keene’s version of my life’s events may be surprised to learn that Ned Nickerson was not the love of my life.”

The Secret of the Old Clock: 80th Anniversary Limited Edition (Nancy Drew Book 1) by [Keene, Carolyn]

If you’re a publisher, your curiosity deepens quickly from artifacts and take-offs to backstory. What was the deal with Carolyn Keene, anyway? By now we all know “she” was a syndicate. But it took Wildside Press, LLC, to spell out the particulars. This revelation comes from their 2014 Bobbsey Twins Megapack: