I Like to Read

January 27, 2012

The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1920)

Well, I went on Wikipedia to discover what year THE BAT was published, and I discovered a whole lot about MRR that I did NOT KNOW! For instance, she FOUNDED the Publishing house FARRAR and RINEHART! and the RINEHART was HER!

I mean, I knew she was awesome, but I did not comprehend HOW awesome. I just knew I like the books by her that I managed to find over the years. WOW.

Also, I have NOT read all her works; there are quite a few that I haven’t yet read. Which is MORE totally awesome, now I can look forward to reading them!

This book, which she wrote with a person named Avery Hopwood (I had thought that a pseudonym, but apparently not) is the main inspiration for BATMAN, among other distinctions. It was published as a serial, and three books came of it, and it was also made into a movie in 1926. The style isn’t classic Rinehart, and I wouldn’t put it near the top of my Rinehart Recommended List, but it was a perfectly good read. Some of the plot points were tired, and the characterizations were a little thin. It features a master criminal named THE BAT and he uses the BATMAN emblem we know of today….very interesting really. I rate this, as a Rinehart book, “Merely Okay”.

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January 27, 2012

Where There’s a Will by Mary Roberts RInehart (1912)

MRR’s writing spans the spectrum of “kinda okay” all the way up to “G*E*N*I*U*S!” I attribute that to several things: her career was long and varied, so naturally, she got better over time, and some projects (especially longer novels) she clearly worked on longer and harder than others; also, she wrote for a LIVING, so sometimes she was just dashing things off to get PAID; also, she wrote in two distinct styles (and I am not really sure which came first), REALLY PAINFULLY EARNEST, and Flip, Frothy, and Funny.

Naturally, the Flip, Frothy and Funny writing is the best, because, she was having fun! These novels and stories tend to be about the absolute upper class, and is gently mocking and usually at least somewhat HILARIOUS. Many of her Mystery novels fall into this category. Typically, her novels about poor and working people, whom she wrote about quite well and memorably, tend to be the Dreadfully Earnest ones (maybe she was trying to write The Great American Novel?)

But in THIS novel, she is writing in the Frothy and Funny style, and it is one of her most enjoyable. The story concerns a bunch of rich people at a spa (an American Spa that I like to imagine is like Hot Springs, Arkansas…though more likely it is in New York State, as the temperatures get to be below zero, so definitely not Arkansas!) But the story is told through the eyes of a working class girl who works at the spa, and that gives all the hijinks a little more depth. Loads of Hijinks, memorable characters, farce, romance.

A Delightful Read.

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January 27, 2012

Alibi for Isabel by Mary Roberts Rinehart

So, you MAY remember when I “accidentally” ended up buying $60 worth of books at A Libris? In my first post? Well, ONE of the books, I guess the seller decided NOT to sell it to me, so I just got a refund (BOGUS!) (To be perfectly fair, it may have already sold to a REAL person in a REAL bookstore and they use hadn’t updated….but still….update your listings, you guys) But I DID get ONE of the books I ordered that day, ALIBI FOR ISABEL.

I knew it was going to be a paperback, but what I DIDN’T know is that it was going to be SO PRETTY! What a lovely artifact! Essentially, I think what this book is, is a way that publishers used to make a little extra dough, by glomming together two rather long short stories (that probably originally ran in magazines) and put them out AGAIN for the paperback market (which I think was mainly people taking subways and commuter trains…we are talking about My Imagination here, of course, I wasn’t around back then.)

But this is a nice book because although I have read pretty much ALL of the LONGER works of Mary Roberts Rinehart, I hadn’t read these two stories, so at least I didn’t pay to re-read something I JUST READ (I read all MRR’s works last week. I just haven’t gotten around to listing and reviewing them yet.)

ALIBI FOR ISABEL reads like a dashed off lightweight dumb little story that MRR wrote to pay the bills….it reads like it originally came out in True Confessions or something, seriously, WAY below her pay grade. I only give it a “Reasonably Enjoyable” rating. The second story, however, THE LIPSTICK, was much better. It reads like it came out originally in something like True Detective Stories. Much more professional, and less overwrought.

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January 20, 2012

TISH by Mary Roberts Rinehart (1916)

For starters, let me say this: I am a HUGE Mary Roberts Rinehart fan. I have a beautiful copy of When A Man Marries, and I think that is a truly excellent book in oh so many ways. I am always on the lookout for her books in their earliest editions, but, the pickings are pretty slim, and sometimes when you DO find them they are like twenty bucks, and I prefer to pay LESS than that. I like to get a really great book buy an awesome author for like, three to seven dollars. When I got my Kindle Fire, though, ALL of Mary Roberts Rinehart’s catalogue was there, FOR FREE. Yes, FOR FREE. So I downloaded it all (she was very prolific) and I READ IT ALL. In fact, I read them all the first week of January…and I will be reviewing them here! (This won’t stop me from buying her books when I am lucky enough to find them, I should add.)

THIS book is the first in a series about a middle-aged lady (Rinehart specializes in middle aged lady protagonists, thank God somebody does!) named Tish, a spinster of fifty (which at the turn of the previous century was pretty old I guess) who refuses to not live life to the fullest. But the pretense of Respectability cannot be dropped either…so Tish and her two spinster friends are constantly having adventures and scrapes of various sorts that they must hide from, essentially, everybody else, and in some cases they have to do hilarious mental gymnastics to allow themSELVES to get away with defying convention. The TISH stories (and I think all the TISH books are essentially collections of stories, some shorter than others) are funny and ridiculous, and usually involve Tish and her friends smoothing the way for various star-crossed young lovers, but the books are wholesome, fun, funny, and surprisingly feminist for their era.

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January 14, 2012

Bossypants by Tina Fey

For Christmas DH got me (among other things), a Kindle Fire. I wasn’t exactly sure that I would even like it (I probably would never have bought one for myself) because I LIKE BOOKS…..BOOKS…..MADE OUT OF PAPER.

But, as I discovered in about 30 seconds, giving a Reader a Kindle is like giving a drug addict Crack cocaine. Instant access to every book ever, instantly? That could never be a problem! In what world would that ever be a problem?

Add to THAT, most of the kind of books that I like to read (fiction published between 1875-1950) ARE FREE!!!

As you will see, I have read my eyes SORE with the thing. I think I have read ten books this week on the kindle…the first of which was this one.

I L*O*V*E 30 Rock, I think it is the best television show ever made. EVER EVER EVER !! It is ART!!! So I wanted to read Tina Fey’s book, and on the Kindle it only cost $12. I probably would not have read it if I had had to buy a copy, because it is not the sort of book I tend to buy (I like my books old and cheap). Anyway: Bossypants is pretty good. It’s a light read, funny, and quick (I think I read it in one evening…) It isn’t a chronological autobiography. It reads more like a series of essays, light essays, almost like stand-up bits. The words “frothy” and “lightweight” really apply (but not in a bad way). My major thought after finishing it was, “Tina Fey is SO VERY in the RIGHT ART for HER!!) (Comedy Television) This book gets the: * A Perfectly Fun Read* rating

January 14, 2012

I Was Murdered

The first book of 2012! I WAS MURDERED by G.M. Wilson. I just spent like AN HOUR trying to find out G. M Wilson’s full name, because I read somewhere it was Gertrude, and I was going to mention the BOGOSITY of the still-true fact that if you are a woman, it pays to HIDE it with initials. (I am looking at YOU, J. K. Rowling!) It is like the worst thing, because the ONE thing every brain test et cetera says is that female humans are better at is: LANGUAGE. UGH don’t get me started! Now I am tired, I still don’t know her name, and I ended up buying $50 worth of books at A LIBRIS by accident. I will review this fabulous book LATER!

OKAY, now it is later:

This particular author specialized in a particular niche, a combination of mystery and the supernatural, as in, GHOSTS! It is kind of a natural when you think about it, but as far as I know, Wilson was either the first or ONE of the first to use this magic combination. (She wrote in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s).

Her writing style is British (always satisfying in a mystery), cultured, and deft. The action is rather slow by modern standards, but her literary abilities more than make up for it. She wisely sticks to writing about what she knows about, which is living on or near British marshland and canals. Her books are good enough to entice me to start searching on A Libris for all her titles, and they seem to be skyrocketing in collector value (just like ALL THE BOOKS I LIKE!). The admixture of ghosts and detecting is perfectly believable; I am a little surprised her books never achieved wide popularity. This book is a million times better than the majority of mysteries published today. Jesus H Christ, if I won the lottery, I would open a publishing company and publish some decent books, I tell you what!

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