BookieMonster » 2009 July

What’s BookieMonster currently reading? The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, or the Murder at the Road Hill House by Kate Summerscale

Jul 272009

Phew. That’s rather a long title. Description: In June of 1860 three-year-old Saville Kent was found at the bottom of an outdoor privy with his throat slit. The crime horrified all England and led to a national obsession with detection, ironically destroying, in the process, the career of perhaps the greatest detective in the land. Inspector Jonathan Whicher’s real legacy, however, lives on in fiction: the tough, quirky, all-knowing and all-seeing detective that we know and love today…from the cryptic Sgt. Cuff in Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone to Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher reads like the best of Victorian thrillers, and has been nominated for the Samuel Johnson Prize in London. BookieMonster says: An enjoyable piece of non-fiction mystery, accompanied by some social and cultural history. Summerscale does an excellent job at conveying a sense of underlying secrets and subtle menace in her descriptions of [...read more...]

BookieMonster prizes and other stuff!

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Jul 242009

Just a quick reminder about the Mums On Top 1st Birthday Competition – where amongst some great prizes you can win books from BookieMonster! Check them out and join up! Also just a reminder that BookieMonster is on Twitter – you can follow us at @bookiemonsternz for conversation, blog post notices and other inanities… You can also connect with us on Facebook.

BookieMonster’s Unappreciated Classics No. 5 : Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett

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Jul 232009

BookieMonster's Unappreciated Classics No. 5 : Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett

This unappreciated classic is truly a classic in the category sense – Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett, first published in 1771. Humphry Clinker is an 18th century picaresque novel, in the tradition of Don Quixote and A Sentimental Journey, and also happens to be hilariously funny. It is the story of a somewhat madcap journey around the seaside resorts and spa towns of England, told through the letters of Matthew Bramble (Smollett’s semi-autobiographical character), Tabitha Bramble, Jery Melford, Lydia Melford and Winifred Jenkins. Humphry Clinker, who is Matthew Bramble’s manservant, is never actually heard from. The language is obviously 18th century and as such it does take some commitment of time to become familiar with the tone and the rhythm, plus it helps to have an edition with explanations of the unfamiliar words and practices. But any reader who does so will be well rewarded with a suprisingly laugh-out-loud story [...read more...]

New Zealand’s new Poet Laureate

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Jul 232009

Congratulations to Cilla McQueen, who is New Zealand’s new Poet Laureate for 2009 – 2011. Best wishes for your laureateship! P.S. Looking for a story on this announcement on the NZ Herald website? So far this morning it doesn’t appear there is one. Well, it’s not crime related, so… Here’s hoping they discover it at some point.

A new small entry to BookieMonster’s List of Do Not Likes

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Jul 222009

Sadly I have added a new entry to BookieMonster’s list of Do Not Likes. And I say “sadly” because I am genuinely sad about this one, I wanted to like it, I was really excited about finding a copy to read but when I read it I found myself increasingly confused and feeling a growing sense of loathing. “It” is On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan. Now I want to be an Ian McEwan fan. It seems from my other Likes that I should be the ideal Ian McEwan fan. I mean, I genuinely enjoy Booker Prize-winning books (odd, I know), I tend towards UK writers and I may be a tiny little literary snob. But other than Amsterdam (which I read a long time ago and can’t remember disliking) I just haven’t liked any of his books. On Chesil Beach is the story of the wedding night of Florence [...read more...]

Guinea Pig house? Sheer luxury!

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Jul 212009

In my day, son, guinea pigs didn’t have fancy cages and contraptions! They had houses with fireplaces, front doors, windows, gardens and gates. Guinea pig house at Seacliff Hospital, Dunedin, 9 November 1897 Reference Number: 1/2-140508-G Guinea pig house at Seacliff Hospital in Dunedin. Photograph taken by William Williams, 9 November 1897. With thanks to the National Library of New Zealand and the Alexander Turnbull Library. For full picture info click here.

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