Death of a Fool, by Ngaio Marsh

What? A new "Golden Age Girl" for my Vintage Mystery Challenge? Delightful!

I had never heard of Ngaio (pronounced "Nye-oh") Marsh, but my friend Jessica has been pushing me to read her, and in my "I have nothing to read doo doo doo" searching of OverDrive for an audiobook, I found two that fit my reading challenge. Perfection! I couldn't decide between the two, so I asked Wikipedia to tell me what they were about. It then just outright spoiled one of the books, so the other it was!

And I'm quite happy with the one I read. It's from near the middle of Marsh's bibliography, so it's got a nice established detective who does not long to be Holmes and also it is obvious that Marsh still likes her detective (I don't know if she ever doesn't; I am basing this statement on my experiences with other writers).

AND it's a locked room mystery, and I love me a good padlocked door.

Well, except that there's not actually a door. Or a lock. Which kind of makes it awesomer. What happens here is that there's one of those pagan plays, with the dancing and the running around chasing girls and all, and this same family has been doing the play forever, and they're doing it again, except this time there's some German lady who drove out for two days to see the play but the fact that she's annoying the crap out of everyone means no one wants her to go see the play, and also there's some infighting amongst the family people who are all kind of sick of each other, and there's a sort of prodigal granddaughter returning to her homeland and also being in love with someone in the play, and whatever and the play goes on and then suddenly the family Patriarch is supposed to have a line or something except he doesn't say it because he has been BEHEADED. In front of everyone, because where else would he be, except no one saw it.

And that, my friends, is intriguing. All those things from before the play come into importance when Inspector Alleyn shows up and is all omg everyone seems to have wanted this guy dead, but no one could have done it, and also the way he seems to have died is just not right and what the heck actually happened?

So it's good, is what I'm saying. I liked that there were a bunch of clues that I could figure out, and I solved what is sort of the first mystery before it was revealed, but even with just a few minutes left to go on audio I wasn't sure what the answer to the whole mystery was. And when I heard the answer, I wasn't like, what. I was like, "Ohhhhhhh, iiiiiiinteresting." Also, there is a re-enactment, and although no one has to shut up and be a corpse, it's still a fun time. I will definitely be reading more Marsh in the future.

Recommendation: Do you like classic mystery novels? Then read this.

Rating: 8.5/10
(Global Reading Challenge: Australasia, Vintage Mystery Challenge)

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

I have been meaning to re-read this series since, oh, the first time I read The Eyre Affair almost exactly three years ago. But I really got it into my head to do it over the summer, and by that time I had lent the first book to a good friend who is apparently bad at returning books, and I was all, fret fret fret. But then I realized — audiobooks! So I grabbed this book on audio from the library, and I can now say that it is a rather different experience.

The idea behind The Eyre Affair is actually a complex set of ideas. You have an alternate universe where Britain has been fighting the Crimean War for, you know, 130 years, no big deal, so you've got the pro-war/anti-war/pro-soldier/pro-let's-have-a-nap-instead set of issues. This alternate universe also includes time travel that is constantly re-writing history. Also vampires and werewolves. Also people who really really know you're talking about them. Also reconstituted dodos. Also many other things, and also, primarily for the book's purposes, a Special Ops unit dedicated to solving crimes against books. Which is awesome.

It's a whole big mess of everything, and so when I read it with my eyes, I necessarily imbued a Hitchhiker's/Buffy/Monty Python snark-the-day-away sort of mentality into it. And in fact, the audio book box promises these things. But what struck me within the first chapter of reading with my ears is that the narrator, despite having a fantastic voice for Thursday, does not choose to play the book that way. She is very very earnest and plays very straight off the page, and I felt like I was missing out on a lot of Fforde's wit and sarcasm.

On the plus side, I can now pronounce a lot of things from the book better than I could a week ago. Darn British people and their un-intuitive spellings.

The other thing I found interesting about re-reading this book is that I had forgotten how different the first book is from all the rest, because Fforde had really intended The Eyre Affair as a standalone. The pacing is slower (we don't even get to the Eyre part until practically the end!), there is a LOT of exposition-y stuff, and Thursday is not quite the BAMF she becomes later. And oh my goodness had I forgotten about Daisy. Let me just go jump into this book and punch her in the face.

Right, yes. On the whole I recommend the eyes-reading experience better than the ears-reading, but either way is pretty fantastic.

Recommendation: Do you like books? Mysteries? Sci-fi? Love stories? Dodos? Characters called Braxton Hicks and Jack Schitt? Fun? Go read this series.

Rating: 7.5/10 (lower than last time for the audio sadness)
(A to Z Challenge)

Musing Mondays — Meme-tastic

I've been a Musing Mondays slacker of late, as I just haven't connected with a good question. But this week's offering is a little meme-thing, and you know how I love those little buggers. So!

What was the last book you…
• borrowed from the library?
I just today grabbed The Red Tent, my book club's next pick.
• bought?
A Visit From the Goon Squad, which I found at The Bookmark, my local-ish indie bookstore.
• cried over?
The Book Thief, because I am not made of stone, people.
• disliked and couldn’t finish?
I tried listening to a free version of Emma, but the narrator took her commas and full stops way too seriously for me. Not the book's problem, though, and I might try a different version later.
• read & loved?
Anya's Ghost, which I did not intend to like at all!
• got for review? (or: got in the mail?)
Well, I don't do that first part, and I like to buy my books in person... hmm... I think the last time I mail-ordered books I ended up with John Green's first three novels, and also The Secret History
• gave to someone else?
Uh-oh. I lent a friend some books recently and I don't remember what they were! I'm pretty sure I lent her The Sparrow and The Manual of Detection, and probably In the Woods? I should really keep better track of these things.
• stayed up too late reading?
The Hunger Games, which is just too engaging for its own good!

Whose Body?, by Dorothy Sayers

I usually make the case for reading an author's work from the beginning, because so often authors start off strong and then run out of ideas and so the first books are the best. But if I had been introduced to Sayers with Whose Body?... I would probably not ever read another Sayers again. Luckily, I didn't, and I know that things only get better from here!

My primary problem is with our amateur sleuth himself, Peter Wimsey. He is annoying and full of himself and very very eager to be Sherlock Holmes and I kind of wanted to punch him in the face more than once. This is in stark contrast to how delightful I found him in the otherwise mediocre Five Red Herrings, where he is still full of himself and eager to be Holmes, but far less annoying.

My other problem was that the writing was a bit uneven on listening. There are some weird second-person parts that seemed to come out of nowhere, and there's an extended confession at the end that make me think that I would rather not have found out whodunnit, and then some bits and pieces that are just a bit off. Maybe it comes across better in writing?

But the murder mystery itself was quite well done. This guy is found dead in a bathtub, with no obvious way for him to have gotten there except through the window (me: "Maybe it was an orangutan!"). Everyone except the dude who owns the bathtub has a good alibi, so the dude is arrested, but of course he totally didn't do it and so Wimsey, a friend of some sort, is on the case. Wimsey is all, what we need are connections, because the way to get away with things is not to have connections but there always is one and I am going to figure out what it is, and after talking with enough people he finds the connection and then the resulting motives and crime-committing are kind of gruesome. Or really gruesome. Definitely gruesome.

So, good times on the whole, but I'm going to need a really nice Sayers to make up for it. Suggestions?

Recommendation: For mystery lovers, of course!

Rating: 7/10
(Vintage Mystery Challenge)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum

Dorothy. Toto. Witches. Wizard. Hot-air balloon. The end! Review over!

Okay, no. I'll tell you more, as I actually found this book quite intriguing. My experience with Oz is primarily Wicked, the musical, which is fantastic; Wicked, the book (and its first sequel), which is frickin' weird; and The Wizard of Oz, the movie, which I have seen all the way through maybe twice and probably not more recently than a decade ago. So as I was reading the book, I was constantly asking the husband, who has seen the movie many times, whether these things in the book were the same at all. Mostly, they were, but even the things that were the same were a little bit different!

The general story is the same, with all those words up at the top. Kansas is still super-duper grey, but no one bicycles outside the window during the tornado. Dorothy still squashes dead the Wicked Witch of the East, but no one really cares about her. The Good Witch of the North is not Glinda, and is also awesomely self-important (see her line that is something like, "The witches of the North and South are the good ones, which I know because I am one"). There's a wonderful road of yellow brick, Dorothy meets some needy fellows, Oz is like, "I'm totally all-powerful but could you maybe go kill the Wicked Witch of the West for me?" Said W³ has not only flying monkeys, but also wolves, crows, and bees, but even with all that at her command she gives Dorothy a bucket of water which ends up melting the witch. The Wizard is like, crap, and placebos the needy fellows but offers Dorothy a ride in his hot-air balloon, which Toto totally screws up. Dorothy journeys to actual-Glinda of the South for help, with the needy fellows getting offered kingships along the way, and Glinda's like, "Well, you could just use those shoes you took off of W²E and wish yourself home," and Dorothy's like, "Sweet," and does just that.

So, interesting! I think that the book version manages to make more internal sense than the movie, except for that whole bucket of water thing, but of course there is no singing in the book and that is just disappointing! So, I should probably go watch the movie again, preferably with my cute little cousin-in-law dressed up as the Tin Man, as she is wont to do.

Recommendation: For lovers of delight and those who want to complete their movie experience.

Rating: 8/10

Sun of Suns, by Karl Schroeder

I got this audiobook as a free download more than a year ago and tried to read it then, but I quickly got bored of it and moved on to more exciting things. But for some reason I kept it on my iPod, and so when I ran out of things to listen to at work the other day I decided to give this another shot.

The story is something like this: There's a dude called Hayden who lives in a strange world where nations float through space and create artificial suns to light themselves and their allies. When he's a kid, his nation tries to build its own sun, but the big nation that already provided their sun was like "I don't think so" and came and destroyed the sun and also Hayden's mum, who was hanging out at the sun at the time. Okay? So then years later we meet Hayden again, and he's sort of infiltrated the government what killed his mum with the intent to kill the guy that led the raid that killed Hayden's mum (he's kind of obsessive about this). But then some stuff happens and Hayden ends up going with Killer Guy (who may not actually have done any killing) and a bunch of other people on some weird treasure hunting mission, and Hayden is torn between hating and liking these people.

And there's action and explosions and double-crosses and love stories and it's all pretty standard science fictiony fare. I had quite a few problems with the plot and lack thereof, and with some questionable choices by the characters, but it turned out a lot better than I thought it was the first time I listened. What I really enjoyed was how the universe was structured with the floating nations and all; Schroeder did a nice job with the world-building.

I won't be continuing with the series, but I will be giving this to my husband to listen to because it's totally up his alley.

Recommendation: For the action-adventure-sci-fi lover, and those who like interesting worlds.

Rating: 6/10

Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome

Yes, it's true, I only finished this because of my affection for To Say Nothing of the Dog, which steals its title from the subtitle of this book. I gave up on it for several weeks, and it took a plane trip and some work lunches to get me to actually finish it.

Which is not to say that it's bad. It's actually quite delightful. But this is definitely one of those stories that was meant for serialization, which is how it was first published way back in the day. It gets a little tedious all at once.

Three Men in a Boat is ostensibly about a up the River Thames with Jerome and two of his friends, to say nothing of Jerome's dog Montmorency, which is totally the name of my next puppy. In fact, it started out as a guide to river travel! But the river trip is less the point of the story than a vessel (see what I did there?) for Jerome to tell amusing anecdotes about fishermen lying about the fish they've caught, hitching a tow up the river with someone who lost the boat she should have been towing, cute little doggies starting giant fights, and other such tangential funtimes.

Jerome also has astute observations on life, like how to boil water: "If it sees that you are waiting for it and are anxious, it will never even sing. You have to go away and begin your meal, as if you were not going to have any tea at all. You must not even look round at it. Then you will soon hear it sputtering away, mad to be made into tea."

Or how to be lazy: "And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn’t a finger-mark on it. I take a great pride in my work; I take it down now and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do."

And all the writing is chuckle-ful like that, so that's good, but there's no plot and very little even connecting these anecdotes, so it's hard to stay focused. I can see what Connie Willis sees in this book, and as I read it I could where she stole things to put in her own. But I'd rather go read To Say Nothing of the Dog again!

Recommendation: Best in small doses, best read by lovers of non-sequitur humor.

Rating: 7/10