THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective, by Kate Summerscale: I’d been looking forward to reading this for a while after seeing glowing reviews in Entertainment Weekly and elsewhere. The story of a scandalous nineteenth-century crime interwoven with a history of detection, including early detective fiction? Sign me up. But the book was unsatisfying, and even, I’m afraid, a little tedious. I’m not sure if the concept was faulty or if it would have worked better in the hands of a different writer, but compelling storytelling and insights were in short supply. There were too many disparate strands (the murder case, the biography of Jonathan Whicher, the history of detection, the literary references) that never came together, which just made it feel like there was a lot of dry, unnecessary padding obscuring the stuff you wanted to know about (what happened and why?). In particular, it bugged me how the literary references were often used out of context—although there was some interesting discussion of how the famous case was fictionalized in books such as The Woman in White and Lady Audley’s Secret, through the rest of the book quotes from earlier proto-mystery novels were just thrown in as though they were supporting factual evidence of what the actual people involved in the case might have been thinking or feeling (I’ve returned the book to the library, so unfortunately I can’t give any examples). I would have been pretty fascinated to read an article along the same lines, but there just wasn’t enough substance to sustain me through an entire book. The best thing I can say about it was that with its many mentions of Bleak House, it finally inspired me to get off my butt and read that massive tome, which I am quite happily enjoying at present.

WATCHMEN

Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons: OMG I loved this. I’m kind of embarrassed how much I loved it. It had been lying around our apartment ever since July, when we rescued it from A’s childhood bedroom at his house in Indiana, where it had been lying around for 10 years or so. With the movie adaptation imminent, I finally got around to picking it up and…wow. It actually became a problem for me, because I would read it in the morning while eating breakfast, get sucked in, and be late for work; then I’d read it at night before bed, get sucked in, and stay up too late. Sometimes the violence made me a little woozy, and I got a little weary of the pirate comic that serves as a counterpoint to the main plot, but I loved the story, I loved the writing, I even loved the scary, fucked-up characters. And then I saw the movie and loved that too. (Sure, there’s no way it could hold a candle to such a masterfully written book, and it certainly wasn’t perfect as a film—I didn’t like the way it unnecessarily jacked up the gore, which there was plenty of in the book already—but most of it was so spot-on perfect, especially Jackie Earl Haley’s amazing performance as Rorschach, and it took me right back into that world I’d been happily absorbed in while reading the book.) Even though I dig superheroes, I’d never been much of a comic-book reader before now; my linear brain clung stubbornly to traditional text-only books, and while I’ve been reluctantly addicted to the Buffy Season 8 comics, I secretly wish Joss Whedon and the cast could just reunite to act them out for me. But now The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is on my nightstand and I’m contemplating seeing Watchmen again, in IMAX this time. Apparently, I am suddenly a late-blooming fangirl.

SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK

Sleep Is for the Weak: The Best of the Mommybloggers, edited by Rita Arens: A lot of the blogs I read nowadays seem to be mommyblogs; some of them were already that way when I discovered them, while others changed after I started reading them (not surprising, since as a thirtysomething woman I gravitate toward reading about the experiences of other thirtysomething women, and thirtysomething is when many women start having babies). While I admit part of my interest stems from vicarious curiosity about the experience of motherhood (a sort of periodic self-testing: “Self, are you interested in doing this?” “Hmm…still nope.”), mostly it just happens that these blogs feature some of the best Web writers around, fiercely funny and movingly expressive. Since this BlogHer anthology featured some of those writers (Fussy, Finslippy, Amalah), I checked it out. Obviously, as a non-mom (and current-non-wannabe-mom), I’m not the intended audience, so I alternated between feeling little left out of the club during the sweeter stories and being relieved to be child-free during some of the warts-and-all cautionary tales. I wouldn’t have read this if I wasn’t already a fan of some of the blogs, but it was a fun, quick, easy read and would probably be great for any new parent to dip into between naps and feedings.

MAPS AND LEGENDS

A little continuation of last year’s Michael Chabon Month. Just when I thought it wasn’t possible for me to love Chabon any more deeply than I already did, this fun, intelligent collection of essays squeezed one more little drop of affection out of my heart. I heartily cheer his impassioned defenses of genre and cross-genre fiction, and as a bonus, the book itself, published by McSweeney’s, is beautifully designed, from the four-layer dust jacket to the pleasing font.

INDIGO’S STAR

(By Hilary McKay) Sweet, satisfying sequel to Saffy’s Angel, which I read last month. I’m getting addicted to this series.

MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS

Charming, comical (but slightly fictionalized, Wikipedia has since informed me) memoir by Gerald Durrell of the naturalist’s childhood years living with his eccentric family on the Greek island of Corfu. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of nature descriptions, and they are beautifully written; if I grew impatient with them from time to time, it was only because I was itching to get to the next anecdote about the wacky Durrells themselves. I don’t see myself rereading this over and over (I won’t end up adding it to my library), but I’d recommend it (as well as the recent BBC film adaptation), and I’m mildly interested in someday reading the other two books in the “Corfu Trilogy,” Birds, Beasts, and Relatives and The Garden of the Gods.

MISCELLANEOUS JANUARY READING

Best Food Writing 2007 and Best American Essays 2005: I’m sure I have told you many tiresome times how I am always tempted by anthologies, how they are perfect for airplane reading (I started both of these during the Thanksgiving/Christmas travel season and finished them off in early January), and how they amuse me in the short term but leave me feeling mildly unfulfilled (since there’s no chance to get in-depth/obsessed with any one story or writer’s voice). I have several more on my TBR list, but have to be sure to space them out over the course of the year to mitigate that nagging pointless feeling.

Out of the Wild, by Sarah Beth Durst: Sequel to Into the Wild, which I read a few months ago—not the Everest book, but a clever YA riff on fairy tales. The sequel was equally inventive and enjoyable, but didn’t leave me wanting more like the McKay book did.

SAFFY’S ANGEL

This is the first book in a YA series by Hilary McKay about the eccentric Casson family. It’s in the same old-fashioned, precocious, gently loony vein as Jeanne Birdsall’s Penderwicks books, but a bit more complex and mature. I picked it up on a whim after hearing nothing but glowing mentions on book blogs, was skeptical for the first few chapters (the title and plot sounded suspiciously cheesy), then found myself utterly caught up and placing the rest of the series on hold at the library (I have already read the next one, actually). These books feel so much like all the charming vintage messy-large-family classics I loved in my youth, it’s disconcerting to be reminded that they were all written in the last eight years, complete with occasional references to e-mail and cell phones (still, as with the Penderwicks, TV barely seems to exist for these kids; they have much better things to do).

SHAKESPEARE WROTE FOR MONEY

An excellent Christmas gift from S and the last (sniff!) of Nick Hornby’s fabulous “Stuff I’ve Been Reading” columns for The Believer (after The Polysyllabic Spree and Housekeeping vs. the Dirt). Hornby is such a smart and entertaining nonfiction writer, I’ll gladly read his descriptions of just about anything, from soccer (Fever Pitch) to songs (Songbook), but he is, foremost, a reader after my own heart—full of both joy and exasperation at how many books there are in the world, sometimes doubting and rationalizing and restrategizing his course, sometimes following his curiosity, both enjoying and lamenting the way one book can unexpectedly lead you to another and another. Even though I’ve read very few of the books he writes about, I can completely identify with his meditations on reading in general, and I’ll miss his comfortable, casual Believer voice (with its hilarious running-gag allusions to the magazine’s editorial board, “the Polysyllabic Spree, the forty-seven literature-loving, unnervingly even-tempered yet unsmiling young men and women who remove all the good jokes from this column every month”).

CORALINE

I saw the movie a few months ago and really liked it, so of course I had to track down the book and see what was different. As usual, the book was better, although the amazing animation in the movie (which made the Other Mother even more terrifying than Neil Gaiman’s description) makes it a closer call than you might expect. The movie does have one huge difference, however: it adds a male friend for Coraline who (although he does serve a few interesting functions in the story) ends up detracting from her independence/bravery/self-reliance as shown in the book. I don’t think it was as much of a “Why does the strong female character have to get saved by a boy?” travesty as some fans of the book would have you believe, but I’m not sure such a big change was necessary. The book didn’t blow me away, but it was efficient and nicely Gothic-creepy, and had a great central character. This was my first Gaiman book (I know) and I’ll probably seek out more down the road.