Showing posts with label Why Shoot a Butler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Why Shoot a Butler. Show all posts

Monday, March 01, 2010

March Madness


In a way, winter is the real spring, the time when the inner things happen, the resurge of nature. Edna O'Brien

As a short story writer, I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't heard of O'Brien before I spied this quote, attributed to her, in this morning's paper, but I've added one of her collection, A Fanatic Heart, to my Amazon cart. While she also has a number of novels out there, I think I might enjoy getting to know her as an author via short stories first. I've found that collections of stories are a handy way to break up a long read and try on new authors. I keep a few on my reading tables for just such occasions.

I'm frustrated that I didn't get another post done since last Monday, but it's been a busy time in our family and in my reading life.

Almost done with Why Shoot a Butler, just in time for Heyer month on the Classics Circuit. I'm finding this novel so much better than Envious Casca, the only other Georgette Heyer mystery that I've read. There's actually a protagonist, Frank Amberley, in this one, and I may be old-fashioned, but I like having a central character to focus on, cheer for, care about, and empathize with.

Almost done with Fever Pitch, and the movie at Netflix is waiting in the wings, and I'm evaluating which Nick Hornby to go with next. I will be really interested to see how they extract a screen play from this book.

On a mini-break from New York: The Novel, by Edward Rutherford. It's really good--much better than the last Rutherford tome I read, The Princes/Rebels of Ireland--but I didn't want to inhale it. We're taking a week long trip to New York later this month, and I plan to be done with it before I get on the plane, so I need to resume reading it this week.

More futures. I really need to get a copy of Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho. I need to have it read before our April JASNA meeting. Of course, my backup plan is to read the graphic version in Gothic Classics, Vol 14, which I bought because of its terrific version of Northanger Abbey. Personally, I think the next adaptation of NA should just use this version as its storyboard.