mojosmom

#97
The Unburied, by Charles Palliser

I'm a great fan of Palliser's layered pseudo-Victorian novels. This one is set in a cathedral close, where the narrator is staying with an old school friend while he studies an ancient manuscript and becomes involved in an old mystery.

#98
The Sibyl in her Grave, by Sarah Caudwell

Once again, Professor Hilary Tamar's former students need the advice, legal and otherwise, of their teacher. Julia's aunt and two of her friends have made unexpected profits in the market and are in a tax hole, but is their success due to insider trading or a psychic counselor? When the counselor turns up dead, it may be murder.

As a bonus, my copy of this book has cover art by Edward Gorey.

#99
The Wild Man, by Patricia Nell Warren

The story of the romance between Antonio, a famous bullfighter, and Juan, a peasant, in Franco's Spain, and their attempts to build a life together while developing an ancient tract of family land as a nature preserve.

#100
Landscape with Dead Dons, by Robert Robinson

This murder mystery set in academe is a bit too convoluted for my tastes.

#101
A Member of the Family: Gay Men Write about their Families, ed. by John Preston

Essays by some two dozen writers, from Michael Nava to Steven Saylor, about their relationships with one member of their family and about, as Preston puts it in his introduction, "being human in our world".

#102
Parisian Lives, by Samuel M. Steward

I find Samuel Steward endlessly fascinating. He was a professor of English at Northwestern University, a friend of Gertrude & Alice, a tattoo artist and a pornographer. Parisian Lives is a novel loosely based on people Steward knew in France in the late '30's, including a character, Johnny McAndrews, who in this and other of his works is a stand-in for Steward. The plot revolves around Sir Arthur Lyly, another protégé of Gertrude & Alice, a rising painter with a taste for rough trade. But this is really just a frame on which to hang the story of bohemian life in France in the run-up to the Second World War.

#103
Appleby Talking, by Michael Innes

A collection of short stories in which Innes' detective, Inspector Appleby, describes for the edification of his friends various cases in which he has been involved. They tend toward the bizarre, with some rather exotic rabbits being pulled from hats as the solutions. I think this is not to be read at one sitting, as the tricks wear after a bit. Dip into it from time to time, instead, and it will be more rewarding.

#104
Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner

I'd never read any of Ellen Kushner's work before, but stumbled on this at a used book sale and was intrigued by the jacket blurb. It's really excellent. Kushner has created a time and place that recalls Regency London, but isn't. Her hero is a swordsman, who makes his living by fighting to the death. He is drawn into the machinations of the nobility for control of the city, and must manipulate his way to safety, for himself and the young man he loves.

#105
Edge, by Jeff Mann

#106
Winter’s Child, by Margaret Maron

In the latest Judge Deborah Knott mystery, things get personal, as Deborah's new husband learns that his ex-wife has disappeared. And then his young son goes missing as well. As a result, he must hare off to Virginia, while, back at home, the obvious solution to the murder of a drunken wife-beater may not be so obvious, after all.

#107
Man About Town, by Mark Merlis

#108
Nothing Gold Can Stay, by Casey Nelson

Ray O'Brien is spending the summer in London as part of his graduate studies in theatre. All is going very nicely, thank you, until a series of murders occurs and circumstantial evidence points to Ray's current inamorato. Naturally, they try to solve the mystery on their own. Not great, but not bad, either.

#109
Important Things, by Melissa Springer

Springer has photographed a variety of people holding objects of importance to them. Very nice.

#110
Gentlemen and Players, by Joanne Harris

As Roy Straitley contemplates retirement from St. Oswald's, the posh English boy's school at which he has taught for ninety-nine terms, several new teachers join the faculty, and one of them is determined to destroy the school. Told in the first-person, but by different characters, Gentlemen and Players this is vintage Harris, with its multiplicity of masks and mysteries, its way of making your sympathies shift, first towards one person, then another. Follow along, I dare you, and see if you can fathom the biggest secret before it is revealed.

#111
101 Ways to Survive Four More Years!! of George Bush, by Pat Bagley

A bit of humor always helps. At least, now, it's only two more years.

#112
Vanity Fair, a Novel without a Hero, by William Makepeace Thackeray

Brilliant! You must read this. Don't be scared away because it's a classic. It's so witty! Thackeray carries you off on the wings of his writing, and you just keep turning the pages wanting to know what comes next. In case you don't know the plot, here it is: Becky Sharp, poor orphan, is at boarding school with Amelia Sedley, heiress. Becky is a cunning, manipulative type, who will climb over anyone to get money and position, but, honestly, considering how she's been treated, who can blame her? Amelia, on the other hand, is a sweet little thing, almost too sweet, in love with a bounder and loved by the faithful Captain Dobbin. All are caught up in the Napoleonic Wars, and the wheel of fortune keeps turning for them all. Thackeray, I must say, was a cynical sort! Loved the book.

#113
Fairy Tales Mother Never Told You, by Benjamin Eakin

"Fairy" tales in multiple senses of the word, as Eakin gives some familiar stories a gay twist, and invents a few new stories of his own.

#114
Death Takes the Stage, by Ronald Ward

Jake Weisman is a Hollywood agent, though most of his clients are unemployed. Now one of them is dead, weirdly murdered, and his lover wants him to find out what happened. So now he's a private detective on the side, and his detecting leads to a small theatre with a variety of odd types. The owner is an ex-stuntman who wants to play Hamlet, there's an aging bathing beauty who swam with Esther Williams, and twin teenage stagehands who may be the strangest of all. The only sane one seems to be the pretty soon-to-be-divorced young woman in the box office. A fun, quick read.

#115
Beneath the Skin: The Collected Essays of John Rechy, by John Rechy

The earliest of these essays is from 1958, the latest from 2004. Naturally, there is some repetition of ideas. They range from essays about other writers (he's virulent about Joyce Carol Oates' Blonde) to the portrayal of homosexuality in film to politics, past and present.

#116
The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, by Stephen Fry

Last (yes!), but certainly not least. I read the library's copy of this, and so I could not obey Fry's injunction to take your pencil and "get used to defacing this book". Really! He wants you to mark the stresses, right on the page. Shocking. I am most definitely headed to the bookstore to get my own, personal copy and then I will get out the pencil.

It's a wonderful book. Even if you never write, or want to write, a lick of poetry, this book will teach you all about metre and stress and rhyme and form, and you'll better understand and appreciate all the poems you'll read from here on out.

And, being by one of England's foremost comedians, it's funny. Don't miss the glossary (or the footnotes)!

Th,th,that's all, folks!

Happy New Year!