booktastic

I was once in an Agatha Christie play; possibly her most famous play, The Mousetrap. I was featured as Molly, the young housewife (and, if I may say so without blushing too much, the ingenue of the play). It was an enjoyable experience, so it may come as somewhat of a surprise that, until last year (some eight years after the production of said play) - I had never, ever read an Agatha Christie novel.

I don’t know why. Possibly because I tend to avoid things that are overly popular on the supposition that “if everybody likes it, it can’t be any good” (a supposition that proves itself at least partially wrong when you consider the popularity of things like chocolate.)

But then I suddenly picked one up last year. I suppose it has to do with this mystery kick that I’ve been on: I was at the bookstore near where I worked at the time (Mustard Seed Christian Books - an unpromising name for a bookstore that I actually came to sincerely enjoy visiting) picking up a couple theological texts, when I happened to notice a copy of the Agatha Christie novel Murder at Hazelmoor (also published as The Murder at Sittaford) on the discount rack.

One dollar, it was tagged. I picked it up - it looked like a quick read, it was a mystery, and one couldn’t beat the price in this area of the world - so I threw it upon my stack of Thomas Mertons and beat a hasty retreat.

Oddly, of all the books I had picked up at that store, that was the one I was the most curious about… possibly because it was the one book I knew the least about. I had cracked it open and read the first couple pages before I even finished my lunch break that day.

The plot, as I recall it, is this: a group of people are at a dinner party and decide to have a seance (as they just randomly did in those days). It’s all fun and games until the “spirit” announces that a certain acquaintance of the group has just been murdered - which rather casts a pall over the party. Distressed, one of the party goers goes to check on the friend, and discovers that he has, indeed, just been murdered.

I wouldn’t say that Murder at Hazelmoor was the greatest work of fiction I’ve ever encountered - but it was an enjoyable book. Exciting in spots, intriguing in spots, and the mystery was fundamental to the plot (an issue I take with lots of modern mystery novels, as I’ve mentioned before, is that the mystery is almost incidental to the plot). It was good, light mystery reading.

However, despite my enjoyment of this book and the volume of Agatha Christie’s work, it has taken me several months to pick up another one… possibly because I really didn’t know where to start. I abhor reading books out of sequence, so I had to do some research before I could start with Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot. I picked up a Poirot novel a few months back under the impression that it was the first, and quickly discovered that it was not - and had to lay it aside as a consequence.

However, this year I am making solid progress. I found a book that was the first of three in a series by Christie - The Secret Adversary, a “Tommy and Tuppence” book. (Christie evidently only did three books featuring the characters of Tommy and Tuppence - a pity, as I rather enjoyed the characters in this first book.) I followed this up immediately with Murder at the Vicarage, the FIRST Miss Marple novel, which I have almost finished.

I suppose the point of this meandering is that Agatha Christie novels really are good. Oh, not good in the “well-honed brilliant writing” kind of good - in sheer writing quality I would say they are above average, but only just - but they are good mysteries. She keeps you guessing, gives you clues, eggs you on, lays out red herrings… and so far, of each book I’ve read, some aspect of the resolution has come as a surprise. I may have guessed the murderer once or twice - but something else still took me unawares, so I have to give her credit.

I guess that here is another instance of something being deservedly popular.

Somehow in the course of the first ten days of the year I have finished not one, not two, but four books. This is not because I have become an astoundingly voracious reader with the beginning of ‘09 - but because I had quite a few books already under way on January 1st. (Shh, don’t tell).

Well, that and the fact that two of the books were rather insubstantial. The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus was only a hundred-something pages, and big print at that.

The Salmon of Doubt was not as insubstantial as that - technically speaking. It was about the length of a regular book. However, I found the description of the book (implying that it was the last Dirk Gently novel) entirely misleading: the majority of the book is made up of bits and snips, articles, forwards, introductions and the like, all written by Douglas Adams. There are exactly four chapters of the lost Dirk Gently novel, leaving us with a tantalizing non-ending while the story is still substantially and confusingly underway. Following the chapters are a brief summary of the planned book by Adams; a summary which gave us more details about how the story went but not how things finished up. So while I did enjoy those four chapters (they reminded me of what fun I had reading the first two Dirk Gently books, and made me sad that there won’t be any new adventures) - it was more tantalizing than anything else.

Incidentally, who else thinks that the cover of the book pictured here (describing this as “Hitchhiking the galaxy one last time”) is extremely misleading as well??

All and all, I would not advise Adams fans to go out of their way to pick this book up. Maybe, if you want to read a prolongued tribute to Douglas Adams, are interested in his non-fiction work and aren’t bothered by incomplete stories, you could look it up… but if you want a new complete Dirk Gently novel (or are misled by the cover into thinking that this is a last Hitchhiker novel) you can totally give it a miss. — Mrs. Hall

Well, today is the official last day of Christmas by the Catholic calendar (we celebrate Christmas officially on the 24th through the day of Christ’s Baptism, which this year falls on the 11th of January. This gave us an awkward 18 days of Christmas, but who can really complain about a couple extra days of Christmas? Mr. Hall and I were rather sad to discard our beloved tree and pack all the festive decorations away…)

But, in deference to the last day of Christmas, I have one last Christmas offering for you:  The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by Julie Lane. This is distinct and different from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum (in spite of the identical names). I finished reading this one yesterday by the lingering light of our last Christmas tree’d night for the next twelve months.

As could probably be gathered from the title, this book is an account of Santa Claus’s life. It describes how the “filling the stockings” tradition came about, how the plant holly got named and put to its use, how he wound up with a red suit, sleigh, reindeer and so on.  It goes all the way from his tragic beginning (his parents and little sister all died in one night) to his own sad but miraculous end (yes, he does die at the end!)

There are some odd elements to the book. It was published (originally) in 1932, and is rather “of its time period” at times - like when young Nicholas’ father see Nicholas making his little sister a doll and complains to his wife, “Eh, Mother… I’d rather see Nicholas down at the boats with me learning to mend a net than fussing with little girls’ toys and forever carrying Katje about with him. ‘Tisn’t naturual for a boy to be so…”

My biggest problem with the book, however, is that it is essentially a realistic fictional account of Santa’s life. Why not, you ask? Well, if you want a realistic account of Santa’s life, why not just write a factual biography of the real St. Nicholas? Writing a realistic but fictional account just seems to be an (inadvertent) attempt to muddy the waters.

I’m not saying this is a terrible book. Quite the opposite - it was cute and had its charming moments, and I daresay child readers might enjoy it. It even had “discussion questions” after each chapter (which I must say I did find a bit odd, since this isn’t a factual, historical book) to increase the enjoyment and understanding of the book, I assume. If you’re a Christmas aficionado, you should probably check it out.

And with this review, the Christmas season of 08-09 comes to a close. I hope it was a good one for you! — Mrs. Hall

I had bad luck downloading audio books yesterday. It has been some time since I downloaded one on account of the fact that I haven’t been at work much the past couple weeks - and for most of last week I had library fines, which meant I was prohibited from making any online downloads (as if that makes any sense at all.)

Yesterday I started out listening to music while I did my data-entrying at work, but that simply wasn’t cutting it. I slept little and poorly night before last and my brain was in need of more stimulation if it was going to remain working. So in the end, I decided it was time to download a book.

My first choice was one I actually tried to download last week (but couldn’t), Death on the Air by Ngaio Marsh. She’s considered one of the great mystery writers, apparently, and I figured I ought to give her a try. I selected Death on the Air from the library’s downloads because it said this about it in the book’s description: “Death on the Air and Other Stories serves as the perfect introduction to Ngaio Marsh and her creation, Inspector Roderick Alleyn, or as a nostalgic journey for their many fans.”

This turns out to be entirely misleading. I thought I was looking at the first book in the series here - not so. It’s a book of short stories and I have no idea where in chronology it takes place. Not only that, but the first part of this book is an introduction by someone else that entirely gives away some things about the main character - things that are a total spoiler for someone who hasn’t read the series.  I am most displeased with the Chicago Public Library right now. Turns out that the actual first book of Miss Marsh’s is called A Man Lay Dead - which the ChiPubLib does not have for download. Perhaps not surprisingly.

I irately moved on. Skipping around, I found that they had a Douglas Adams book I have never read, The Salmon of Doubt, for download. I knew that this book was published posthumously, and that it was the lost Dirk Gently novel (and I had been a huge fan of Adams’s Dirk Gently books, prefering them over the Hitchhiker books to a large extent - and I loved the Hitchhiker books) . The Chicago Public Library had this to say about it: “Rescued from his beloved Macintosh, The Salmon of Doubt provides us with the opportunity to linger and frolic one last time in the uniquely entertaining and richly informative mind of Douglas Adams. For the millions of readers who expressed their grief and shock at his untimely death, this is a treasure; his final book and our last chance to see new work from an acknowledged comic genius.”

Perhaps. However, upon opening the book on the player, I had a snag… The menu was confusingly laid out and I couldn’t find the actual start of the book. I found myself listening to first an introduction by Stephen Fry (not a problem in itself, as I am rather fond of said gentleman) - and then, perplexingly, what seemed to be another introduction by Richard Dawkins (yes, that Richard Dawkins, of “You Hear Me, God? I Don’t Believe In You!” fame) - which droned on until I felt inclined to switch it off. I never did locate the actual beginning of the Adams book.

So that was my second failure of the day. I went back to the website and finally located a book by an author I was interested in reading - a book which didn’t have spoiler-laden introductions or a confusing layout, and it was the first in a series - No Graves As Yet by Anne Perry. It promises to be the first (!!) in the “World War I” series.

Well, that was all well and good. But as I got going, I found that it just wasn’t the book for me that morning. Oh, it was well-written and intriguing and all of that. But I’ve been a bit fragile for the past couple days, and I’m rather in the mood for some light entertainment; one of the last things I want to listen to is somebody dealing with the traumatic and unexpected death of his parents. Jeez. What a way to start a morning.

Discouraged, I went back to the CPL website one last time.  Finally, I found something that promised to be what I was looking for: My Man, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. It’s been forever since I’ve read any Wodehouse - that’s just the ticket as far as light entertainment goes - and the CPL website promised that this was Wodehouse’s first Jeeves book. I couldn’t remember if I’d read My Man, Jeeves (but if I had, it has to have been somewhere in the arena of fifteen years since I did so) - so I downloaded it. I’m relatively certain now that I have read it before, but it has proven to be just the ticket for this morning. It’s light, entertaining and nobody’s parents die in a disgusting and traumatic manner. (And even if they did, in a Wodehouse book they would simply brush it off with a “Dash it, what a spot of bally bad luck!” or something like that, and then dress for dinner.)

So I spent the rest of the day listening to Wodehouse, and it was quite pleasant indeed. The only problem is that I downloaded four books yesterday - and the limit at a time is six - and they make you wait like three weeks before your “loan period” is up and you can download more - so if I finish Jeeves too fast I haven’t got a lot of leeway to find new listening material. Oh well! I guess I really should go back and decipher my way through the Salmon of Doubt menu. Perhaps that will last me until my lending period is through! — Mrs. Hall

My plan for the day was this: grocery shopping, trip to the library (to finally return those overdue books) and post office to mail some bookmooch requests.

Well, I quickly talked myself out of the post office. It just seemed like a bit much for today - and my husband is going to have a good amount of free time this coming week, so I figured he can probably mail them for me. (I know, I know… I could have mailed them. I’m just lazy feeling today and didn’t want to walk the extra five blocks.) I did the grocery shopping shortly after getting up (so that we would have some food to eat for lunch) - and then at three, when my husband left to go to work, I walked the seven blocks to the library and returned my books.

I was returning Catering to Nobody, the Rita Mae Brown book and that other one I checked out (back when I posted that picture of the books I was checking out and complained about the size of the omnibuses… As I had anticipated, since I seldom feel like toting an enormous, heavy book that won’t fit into my purse along with me, the two omnibuses didn’t get read. It couldn’t have helped that I checked them out in December either, when I had a billion other things to do.) I meant to return them before we left for our very short Christmas vacation, because they weren’t overdue yet then.

That didn’t work out. (It’s a long story. Attempting to put it in a nutshell: my father-in-law, Mr. Hall senior, was giving us a ride from Chicago to Kansas City for Christmas. He drove up on the 22nd, was going to stay the night, and drive back down with us on the 23rd - and I thought we might have an opportunity to drop off my library books before we headed out of town on the morning of the 23rd. However, on the 22nd he heard some bad weather forecasts for Chicago and decided that, rather than get stuck up here, we’d better make the eight-hour-drive back that night. Hence, Mr. Hall and I spent the evening of the 22nd scrambling wildly to get ready for the trip which we hadn’t even packed for yet. My library books were forgotten about, but they were the least of our concerns.)

I also thought about returning them a couple days ago on the 1st, but talked myself out of that as well since the library was (I think) closed and I wouldn’t be able to pay my fines anyway… So I returned them today. And guess what? It turns out that the cost of Library fines at the Chicago Public Library DOUBLED on January 1st!! Cripes! Now, I’m not going to gripe about that too much - after all, it was my fault they were overdue, and 20 cents a day isn’t exactly highway robbery - but really? Doubled? Has the cost of training the librarians to be unsmiling and taciturn gone up?

Okay, okay, that was a little much; sorry, Chicago Public Library Librarians. And I must say that today I actually encountered the most cheerful librarian I have ever seen at the Chicago Public Library (any branch). She smiled and wished me a Happy New Year and everything.

Books returned and paid for, I wandered out into the stacks, even though I had agreed with myself that I was not going to check out any new ones. I idly strolled over to the Mystery section thinking that I was just going to “glance around” since I happened to be there - after all, it seemed like a waste to walk seven whole blocks to the library and then immediately walk home again. However, then I spied Dying for Chocolate, the next Diane Mott Davdison book after Catering to Nobody - sitting on the shelf. I hemmed and hawed for a moment, thought about sitting and reading it for a while at the library… Then just gave in. After all, it was just a little bitty paperback, and I’m already more than half way through A Monstrous Regiment of Women - I’ll be needing a new book soon. (A lame excuse: I already have plenty of books to read… but the title of this one has always appealed to me…)

So, in the end, I did still come home with a book in my bag (promising the cheerful Librarian to bring her some more fines in about a month’s time). But no more until this one is read and returned! And that’s final! — Mrs. Hall

Yesterday evening, Mr. Hall turns to me and goes, “Say, did you hear Terry Pratchett is going to be knighted?”

I’m something of a fan of Mr. Pratchett, so this was good news. It’s always nice to hear that an author you like is getting the acclaim he deserves. (Well, sometimes. Sometimes I’d rather that nobody but me knew about a certain author… but that situation probably wouldn’t be very good for the author in question. Anyway, I’m badly digressing here.) Terry Pratchett, in case you don’t know, is a British author of humorous fantasy. He’s also one of the few (well, the only, really) authors who once sat on my “favorite author” list who I have also met in person! Charming, charming man. Wonderful sense of humor. I asked him to sign my copy of Maskerade; he signed it, “Unmasked! Terry Pratchett.”

Then John went on, “He also announced that he’s got Alzheimer’s.”

Talk about a change of direction.

What terribly sad news. Click here to read the speech he gave to the Alzheimer’s Research Trust UK. It has all his characteristic wit and good humor. Although he is, of course, not happy with the situation and would much rather (as he put it) “die like my father did - of cancer, at 86″ - this 60-year old author seems to be approaching it with a good attitude and a fighting spirit, which is of course the best possible way to approach an illness.

And, of course, he just got knighted (December 31st! Hot off the presses!) which seems to have perked him up a bit. “I’m having difficulty fitting it into my head. I’m very pleased indeed. It cheers me up no end,” he said in an article called Knighthood Stuns Pratchett from The Independent (from which I also got the photo I used in this post).

So now he’s Sir Terry Pratchett! I know extremely little about how the British knighthood system works - I don’t know if this means that he’ll be credited on his books now as “Sir Terry Pratchett” or as “Terry Pratchett, OBE”, or if it even effects that at all… I rather hope he does use it on his books. Could look a little pretentious, I suppose, but in my opinion this is definitely a case of if you’ve got it - flaunt it!

But it’s just nice that a nice person got a little pick-me-up after receiving such bad news last year. — Mrs. Hall

As some of you may know, I spent three hours last New Year’s Eve reading Visions of Sugar Plums while locked in a women’s toilet and waiting for my husband to get off work. Well, I can’t top that for a New Year’s Eve reading adventure this year, but I did have one, if minor and disguised as a misadventure…

Yesterday, New Year’s Eve, I got off work early. I wasn’t even scheduled to work yesterday, but they said we could come in to pick up extra hours (and that we didn’t have to worry about the dress code, and I was that eager to pick up the “Nostalgia City” t-shirt I bought over break) so I went in and worked until three-thirty. Then I ran by Trader Joe’s and picked up a couple groceries (including a bottle of Moscato for the evening’s celebrations) and called my husband to see if he needed me to drop anything by the Zoo where he currently works. He would be working until nine, you see, but he didn’t need anything, so he told me to just head on home. We would be spending New Year’s Eve quietly, together, with that bottle of Moscato and a lovely ball of fresh mozzarella cheese from Trader Joe’s.

It takes me about an hour to get home from my temp job. I ride one bus for twenty minutes, then wait ten minutes for my transfer bus, and ride that for another thirty minutes. I did so, and got home at about five-thirty; cold, and ready to put down my heavy grocery bag and put up my feet. I regretted not wearing my gloves on the walk from the bus to my door as it was colder outside than I thought, and my hands had gotten quite chilled. At the door, I paused, put down the grocery bag, and opened up my purse. I reached into the small, inner pocket where I usually clip my house key.

It wasn’t there.

Sometimes it falls out into the bottom of the purse, so I reached in and hunted around for a while. It still wasn’t there.

So I took everything out of my purse and looked through every nook and cranny, looked inside my wallet and inside gnarled twists of old receipts, and still nothing. That was when it finally struck me that the last time I’d actually used my key was when I let my in-laws into the house two days before, when I was wearing my old winter coat.

I was wearing my NEW winter coat.

I sighed. My feet had gotten very cold: I was only wearing canvas shoes and one pair of socks, as I hadn’t expected it to be very cold out that day - and my hands were getting colder every minute. For just a second I contemplated waiting on the porch until my husband got home - but five hours in fifteen degree weather? Without proper winter boots? Not even to mention the bananas I had bought would go black. I dismissed that thought pretty quick.

I walked around the house shaking the windows to see if any of them were loose - a futile gesture, as I know I keep the windows locked tight. I checked the back door to see if the neighbors had left it open - no such luck. For just a few moments I contemplated phoning our landlord, Mr. Komarek, and asking him to let me in… but I couldn’t see doing that to him on a cold winter night, especially as he’d recently been kind enough to pick up our mail for us while we were away for Christmas. And the thing that I used to do when I was locked out of the house - go and hang out at my almost-next-door friend Georgia’s until Mr. Hall got off work - wasn’t going to happen. My friend Georgia moved to England earlier this year, and I don’t have any other friends in the neighborhood.

I was left with only one option.

I sighed, picked up my grocery bag and trudged back out into the night and down to the bus stop. I had no other alternative but to ride the bus to Mr. Hall’s workplace, get his keys, and ride back again. I would ride the bus there (forty minutes), chat with Mr. Hall for a moment or two explaining where my keys had gone (ten minutes at least), wait for the returning bus (ten to fifteen minutes) and then ride it home again (thirty to forty minutes). At least an hour and forty minutes of wasted time before I could relax for the evening, all because I’d forgotten to put my keys back in my purse.

There was naught to be done about it, so I decided not to fret about it. I experienced a few moments of anxiety that Mr. Hall might get sent home early from his job and I would have spent the bus-ride in vain, but I didn’t worry about that too much since I had no other options and riding the bus was better than being out in the cold anyway. And I could read!

As soon as my bus came (which was a relief, as my feet were getting really cold by that time) I whipped out the book I happened to have with me, A Monstrous Regiment of Women. I had just gotten to a rather interesting spot when the bus dropped me off near Mr. Hall’s workplace, so I really didn’t notice that half of the bus ride at all. I had no problem with motion-sickness as (oddly!) since I started wearing my New Winter Coat it simply hasn’t been an issue.  I suspect it is because my new winter coat is more breathable and I don’t get as stiflingly hot.

I chatted with Mr. Hall for a few minutes at the Zoo as expected - it was a slow night at the Zoo, and I was actually able to do him a favor; he had gotten a Christmas present from the Zoo (a Zoo mug and a book about the Zoo) and I agreed to tote them home for him. I pocketed his keys as well, shook his hand (no overt displays of affection at work) and trudged back to the bus stop to wait.

This was probably the worst part of this excursion, as it is always extremely cold at that particular bus stop, and my feet hadn’t quite recovered from their previous chill - and it was too dark to read. I kicked my feet on the ground, trying to get the blood flowing to them, and trying not to be annoyed with the odd hoard of children who kept frolicking around me (who seemed unaffected by the cold). It was forever before my bus finally came. Actually about fifteen minutes, but it seemed like forever.

But it did, and I whipped my book out again. It got more interesting and I barely even noticed the time passing. I was a little worried that I’d get so “into” the book that I would miss my stop and ride all the way out to Cicero… but I didn’t. (Thank goodness). My feet warmed up again, and at long last I got off my bus at the corner and made the short, chilly walk up to the block to our apartment, and let myself in again. It was seven-thirty when I got home, so it had been exactly two hours since I first realized my keys were missing.

However, I’d read a hundred pages of my book, I can’t say the time was wasted! And once again, I had an odd New Year’s Eve reading adventure. — Mrs. Hall

P.S. Happy New Year! Mr. Hall and I had a quiet, pleasant, and even romantic New Year’s Eve and beginning to 2009. We turned the lights down low, drank our wine, listened to George Harrison and gazed at the lights on our Christmas tree. All and all, a lovely evening.

Merry Christmas!! I hope that a wonderful 25th was spent by you and yours. If you don’t celebrate Christmas… well, I hope that you had pleasant day regardless.

Christmastime (Advent and Christmas proper) effectively removed any possibility of my posting on a regular basis during the month of December. I was reduced to posting once a week (or less) on both my blogs.

That situation should improve now that January is almost upon us! Christmas purists will know that Christmas is still going on (until Epiphany) - but the most complicated parts for me (the decorating, gifting, and visit home to family) are done. Now I just have to enjoy its remaining days. I have to go to work on many of them, unfortunately, but I do have a weekend AND two days off for New Year, so I shall make the most of what I’ve got. (I plan on baking a “King’s Cake” for 12th Night, by the way. This will be a new tradition for my family… so, I guess it’s technically not a tradition at this point… but I would like it to be so in the future. I’m going to research traditional cake recipes and everything.)

Very little reading was done this month. When I wasn’t distracted with Christmas, I was sleeping. And although I did bring two books along on my Christmas vacation (A Monstrous Regiment of Women and Shepherds Abiding), I did not read them because most all of our time was spoken for. I am still in the midst of reading The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by Julie Lane, and a copy of my beloved The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum arrived with yesterday’s mail! (Thanks, Jeanne at Bookmooch!)

I have three overdue library books (forgot to return them before vacation… eep!) and also received a book from Miss Landis for Christmas…! So I suppose what I’m saying is that I have a goodly portion of Christmas reading to fit in before Epiphany, and also two other books that I wish to start reading (and would like to finish reading, and return to the library) soon.

I also have a book that I wrote this past year that needs to be submitted to publishers in 2009…!  This looks like a busy month and year in the offing… – Mrs. Hall

At that book sale last week, I happened to pick up a copy of a brand new children’s picture book called Ocean Wide, Ocean Deep, by Susan Lendroth, published August of this year by Tricycle Press.

Now, I didn’t buy it for myself, even though I have a “thing” for well-made children’s books (my minor at university actually focused on children’s literature. When my fellow students were struggling with Henry James, I was reading Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.) I picked it up for a baby I know.

I chose this book over several other picture books because this one had very nice illustrations and a sweet story. It’s about a girl, in the olden days, waiting for her Dad to get back from the sea.

Pretty simple story, right? Well, it’s a picture book for small children. It’s SUPPOSED to have a simple story. When your book is less than twenty pages long and has fewer words than this blog post, you have to be pretty concise in your story structure: You announce the problem, deal with the problem, and at the end of the book, resolve the problem. The problem is announced - girl’s dad is going away to sea. Deal with the problem: girl misses her dad. Resolve the problem: Dad comes home. Everybody’s happy.

Unfortunately, although I really like this book, I haven’t got a lot to say about it… because it’s less than twenty pages long and has fewer words than this blog posting. But let me reitterate: sweet story, BEAUTIFUL illustrations. If the book has one flaw, it’s that some of the vocabulary used in it is a bit advanced for the “picture book” age group… but I suppose that would be a good opportunity for vocab building, too, so I can’t even really complain about that.

So, to sum up - if you need a pretty, sweet, new picture book for a young lady you know this Christmas: pick up Ocean Wide, Ocean Deep. Definitely a keeper. (Although I’m not keeping mine, darn it. Lucky baby!) — Mrs. Hall

I have a shameful confession to make. When I was a child, I owned the complete set of Paddington Bear books…

And I never read them.

I don’t know why I never read them. After I learned to read I became a voracious reader and consumed almost every book I owned and many I didn’t (thanks, West Plains Public Library) - including an entire series of rather crappy “Solve it Yourself” mysteries and “Choose Your Own Adventure! ” books.

But not Paddington. There were just a handful of books I owned that I never read (including Misty and King of the Wind because I could just never get into a book about a horse. I liked horses, like all eight year old girls do, but I was never interested in reading stories exclusively about them. I mean, who cares what a horse is thinking about? In my experience growing up on a farm, horses think about two things: eating and finding things they can use to knock off/crush the people riding them. But I digress.)

I don’t remember why the books never interested me. I was always interested in the British Isles, so it kind of surprises me that I didn’t take to the books… I seem to recall, at some point, asking my Mother where they had come from and if she had ever read them; I don’t remember her reply, except that it can’t have inspired me to read them. But I do remember what happened to those books - I wound up giving them to the children of some friends of ours who were even more poor (poorer?) than we were (!!). They were excited to get them.

And so I have gone through my life Paddington-less. The story would have ended there, but for the fact that recently I was searching for audiobooks to download from the public library website. I searched, on a whim, for “Stephen Fry” (a British actor of whom I was overly fond at one time; he was half of the team of Fry and Laurie, the other half being Hugh Laurie of House fame)  - and discovered that Stephen Fry was the narrator for a copy of A Bear Called Paddington, available for download. Somebody else had it checked out, so I patiently waited my turn for it, and downloaded it last week.

It only took me a few hours at work (data entrying) to finish it… but it was delightful. This kind of story was made to be read by someone like Stephen Fry: so quaint and distinctly British, with lots of emphasis on subtle puns and wordplay. Mr. Fry has an amazing speaking voice and was able to do all the different characters (with different accents and intonations, depending on the case) perfectly.

As far as Paddington goes… I am very sorry, now, that I did not read these books as a child. This one at least was very cute and enjoyable, and I even chuckled out loud a couple times. As far as the narration by Stephen Fry goes - it was fabulous.

If you’re in the mood for a sweet, light, enjoyable, entertaining book - and want to hear it narrated by a great voice actor - buy or download this copy of A Bear Called Paddington!! – Mrs. Hall