Haunted Bookshop...Parnassus at Home

I finished Christopher Morley's The Haunted Bookshop this morning and I loved it. The pace of the plot picked up quite a bit in the second half and the last couple of chapters were positively breakneck. Turns out this delightful book is a first-rate mystery. No, it's not spooky at all, but a nice, airtight plot which kept me guessing up to the end. What I particularly liked is how so many of the bookish asides from the first half ended up playing into the plot in the second half. Nicely done, Mr. Morley, nicely done. Now I need to read the first of the two Roger Mifflin books, PARNASSUS ON WHEELS.

Aubrey Gilbert, the advertising man turned moving-picture hero, and Titania Chapman, the earnest dubutante turned heroine, are enormously fun to read about, and Roger is the definitive bookseller, dreaming big about his life's work and calling.

I also really enjoyed Roger Gorsline's pen-and-ink illustrations. I looked online for some examples to share with you, but could only find this one...not bad, but not the best.



Now it's off to reread The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde and watch Olivier's Henry V [VHS]
, but first I have to do something with the two collanders of tomatoes and box of anaheims that are sitting on the kitchen counter, not to mention the zucchini and eggplant that demanded that they be harvested before the frost hit. Did I mention that we also have a bumper crop of apples?