Espresso Tales (44 Scotland Street Series #2)

The second installment to Alexander McCall Smith's series 44 Scotland Street, Espresso Tales, was so deliciously satisfying! Mr. McCall Smith says in the introduction that this installment ties up many of the loose ends left in the first book. First of all, narcissistic Bruce, after losing his job as a surveyor, decides to plunge into the wine trade without any prior knowledge and gets what he deserves. Our hopes of him finally seeing himself for what he really is may just become a possibility. Then easy-going and kindhearted Matthew who failed at every business endeavor his millionaire dad set up for him suddenly starts making a profit at his art gallery.  When his father finds a new girlfriend Matthew thinks she's only after his money and the two have a heart to heart talk.

Then of course, our beloved Bertie, our favorite 6-year-old prodigy, finally gets a chance at playing in a rugby game for real but decides it's not for him. Desperately unhappy under his mother's iron grip, Bertie's father Stuart finally decides to intervene.  Bertie now has a chance to enjoy his boyhood-with train rides, bowling games and all.  But the highlight of it all was Pat...attending a shocking nudist party! I've never heard of this kind of party before and it was kind of eye-opening for me!

Delightfully charming, witty, and entertaining, 44 Scotland Street was a blast.  I wonder what could be in store for us in the 3rd installment!  

Evil Water by Inger Wolf

Inger Wolf

From Danish crime writer Inger Wolf comes a new crime series that is well-poised to compete side-by-side with the some of the best English crime novels in the international scene! Evil Water is the 5th book in her crime series starring Deputy Superintendent Daniel Trokic, and the first book to be released in English in ebook format. 

Synopsis: Two unrelated women who look uncannily alike disappear without a trace, and the same autumn a farmer on the outskirts of Århus finds them murdered in suitcases under a heap of stone. The skin of one woman is filled with the letter Y and the other has a rare flower in her hair. Inspector Daniel Trokic is leading the case which goes in several directions: to a tribal population in Africa, religious insanity and a horrifying meeting with leeches. When a third woman disappears, Trokic is under pressure to find out what the killer wants to say with his macabre scenery and rituals and later discovers that they are inexplicably linked to the case of a woman who killed herself twenty years ago....

Evil Water has all the elements of a gripping crime story, starting with two mysterious women who are found dead and buried in a ritualistic grave.  Fans of forensics will be delighted with the various evidence discovered and examined in this page-turner, including mysterious bite marks on the victims, strange flowers, and missing bones.  It felt like watching an episode of CSI:Arhus as I saw geographic profiling being used in action to catch this killer as well as other modern tools such as computer forensics.

Inger Wolf included little vignettes which shifted the story away from the investigation into the mind of the killer as he did his dirty work.  I loved these because it was the core of this frightening mystery and defined the danger and challenge that Detective Trokic and his team were up against.   Trokic reminds me of James Patterson's Alex Cross, and the killer vignettes reminded me of those found in Jeffrey Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme novels. It didn't bother me that the book was translated into English from the original Danish because it was so well-written it didn't feel like a translation at all to me.  Casual and spontaneous, the English read rather smoothly. 

I also loved the way Wolf subtly embeds little clues in the narrative about the killer's identity which you dismiss as trivial detail as read along. Everytime a clue would lead to a new person you always thought "it must be him", only to find out later on that he's not and the case develops further.  Her masterful plot filled with unexpected twists and surprising turns keeps you guessing until the very end.   As I reached the end of this macabre page-turner I found myself wanting for more from Detective Trokic and his team.
For more information about Inger Wolf, visit her website here.

44 Scotland Street

 

You probably know by now how much I love Alexander McCall Smith's books, particularly his series The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency and The Sunday Philosophy Club. So while waiting for the next installment of both series I decided to try his other one--44 Scotland Street.

The book is about the varied characters who live on 44 Scotland Street.  There's Pat, a 20-year-old who leaves her parents and lives independently for the first time; Bruce, a self-absorbed Greek god-look alike; Domenica, an eccentric elderly lady; and Bertie, a gifted child whose mother Irene pushes him to learn the saxophone and to speak Italian--all at the tender age of five.

When I started the first book I began to think I was in for a disappointment.  What I thought would be a another light yet insightful read turned out to be a bit heavier than I expected. Unlike The No. 1 and Sunday series where the leading characters were true and good-hearted, this one was filled with characters with a lot of issues, such as Bruce, Irene and Lizzie. Matthew, though, has a kind heart and has the potential to be a strong and principled character but he's not there yet. Pat seems to be a well-grounded person but needs to build her maturity and strength of character some more.  Then there's Domenica and Angus Lordie. Domenica reminds me very much of Isabelle Dalhousie. To me she is like a sneak preview of how Isabelle's character is going to be. 

The book though is not just a sampler of Edinburgh city life, but also an delightful collection of human insights.  McCall smith touches on universal issues such as the growing insecurity of men, the effect of overly pushy mothers on their children especially on young boys, and the idealism of the youth.   Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"Men were a mess these days - virtually all of them. Women had destabilised them, made them uncertain about themselves; undermined their confidence. And then, when the men fell to pieces, the women tried to put them together again. But it was too late. The damage had been done."

"The young rarely believe that they will not be able to get what they want, because there is always an open future. I may not be beautiful today, but I shall be beautiful tomorrow. I many not have much money today, but that will all change. Not so."

“Daughters could survive a powerful mother, but boys found it almost impossible. Such boys were often severely damaged and spent the rest of their lives running away from their mothers, or from anybody who remotely reminded them of their mothers; either that, or they became their mothers, in a desperate, misguided act of psychological self defence.”

The last thing that sad people want to be reminded about is the greater sadness of others  and I agree. As if a precursor to Isabel Dalhousie, it touches on some moral issues. And just like The Sunday Philosophy Club, there's a lot of discussion about Scottish art and music.   There is also talk about Scottish politics but which I'm not able to relate much to, unfortunately. 

But unlike the other two series this one had several nice illustrations and I rather appreciated them being there. 

Alexander McCall Smith 44 Scotland Street 2005 Hardcover Polygon Edition Illustrations © Iain McIntosh 2005

 

The plot is simple enough and revolves around the petty desires and troubles of these Scottish citizens, the highlight of which was a wild-goose-chase after a lost painting, then ends with a rather satisfying discovery. My favorite character is Bertie, and, having a son myself, I'm eager to find out if Bertie will someday be able to enjoy his childhood. As I turned the last page I was pleasantly surprised to find myself wishing for more from 44 Scotland Street. But then I should've known that you can't expect anything less from Mr. McCall Smith!

 

When It's Gone, It's Gone: The Book Depository's 100 Books in 25 hours

Yesterday I had the uncanny experience of witnessing some 10,000 books (100 titles in 100 copies each) get sold out in a matter of seconds.  The Book Depository, an online bookseller that ships free worldwide, was behind this one-of-a-kind book sale where in a book would be offered at a huge discount (even up to 100% off) every 15 minutes for 25 hours, selling a total of 100 titles in 100 copies each.

 

 

I thought I was early when I logged in at 8:05 on Thursday night. I was very wrong because the first offer, a signed hardback copy of Salman Rushdie's Luka and the Fire of Life offered at 100% OFF (can you believe it?) was already sold out!  Fans who were logged in to The Book Depository's Facebook page commented that it sold out in 15 seconds flat!

Offer #1: Signed Copy at 100% off! Sold out 15 seconds!

I couldn't believe it so I took screenshots just to show how fast these offers go. Here was an offer for Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus (which I have never heard of.)   This book was offer #96 already but just to give you an idea, I took this screenshot as the 15 minute interval started.  Pay close attention to the number of copies...

After a few seconds....

So in less than 2 minutes....

If there was going to be another signed copy I didn't want to miss it! So I browsed the net while waiting for the next offer without realizing that the 15 minutes had already passed and the next offer had sold out again!  Oh no, this needed a bit of a strategy, so I set my iPhone to alarm every 15 minutes like this: 

This strategy worked for me and I managed to bag a hardback copy of The Original Frankenstein for only $8.49 (I couldn't remember the original price.)

The Original Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

It wasn't signed but I learned that I was already lucky considering several people were having difficulty getting anything even if they clicked on the checkout button as soon as a new offer was up. Everyone was doing the same thing so the site would jam especially for those without broadband. By the time they refreshed their browsers the item was already sold out, much to the disappointment of some fans who gave up out of frustration after trying several times.

The type of books offered were a wide variety, from fiction books to non fiction books. The Book Depository promised to publish a complete list of the offers here here but at the time of this writing the list was still empty.  While some titles were noteworthy, such as this complete set of Jane Austen's novels,  Penguin Great Ideas titles, and Lego mixed media sets,    

Jane Austen's Complete Novels 

 Penguin Great Ideas Series

From $25 to $10

  
...some were downright hilarious, including  

Why Are Orangutans Orange?

The Mammoth Book of Gorgeous Guys

but they sold out anyway!  This shows how people will buy anything with a huge ##% OFF and a countdown next to it even if they will probably never use it!   It's a great strategy for Book Depository to dispose of slow-moving titles.  A friend who is a fellow book blogger is one of these people, but she said she was going to use it for her blog give-away!  OK then, she's excused! :-) 

Offer #100 was Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver, Linger, Forever Trilogy, and just like the last 99 books, I saw it get devoured like this:

One..

...Two...

...Three!

In all this frenzy panic buying was not uncommon. Several fans commented on Facebook that they got something they didn't really want because they clicked on the check-out button without thinking just to get the deal.   The Book Depository allows cancellation of such orders, but since these would not be re-offered it resulted to some strong objections from other buyers would have wanted to buy a copy of the title.    

I didn't try to purchase another one after Frankenstein, but some fans got 3-4 books.   Throughout the entire sale The Book Depository was present on Facebook, actively replying to customers' technical problems or cancelling impulse orders.  After the 100th title they deserved a bit of a lie down!  Kudos to their staff!     

All in all I enjoyed this sale, if not for the great bargains, for its novelty and the feeling of being connected to a worldwide audience of book lovers all participating in the same activity.  I can't wait for the next one!

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

"Reading is definitely not for passing the time. One actually wishes that one had more of it"

If you like to think of yourself a reader, then you will love reading about this most uncommon reader, Her Majesty the Queen of England herself.  Written with a lot of wit and notable charm, The Uncommon Reader is a testament to the wonders of reading.  By using the queen as the subject of his book, Alan Bennett was able to discuss profound and interesting insights into why we read - and don't read - as Her Majesty embarks on this remarkable journey.

The book, a short novella of only 120 pages, has a simple enough plot. It starts when the queen discovers a travelling library parked outside the Buckingham Palace.  Not wanting to waste her trip she borrows a book by Ivy Compton Burnett which turns out to be too dry for her. Unfazed she returns for another one and settles for Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love which she thoroughly enjoyed. Then one book leads to another and she was addicted to reading.

Together with Norman, a bibliophile working as a kitchen helper at the palace whom she met at the moving library, she embarks on a journey of literary discovery. From Nancy Mitford to Marcel Proust, from popular fiction to ethnic literature, the Queen takes her reading to a serious level, and discovers not just the joys of reading but also herself.

If you are a reader then you know the many challenges of reading. The never-ending list of books to be read can be daunting, but the queen discovered her new passion for books at a late time so she devoured book after book as fast as she could to make up for it.   When asked why she suddenly started reading, she simply answers that she has always been able to read, only she was reading more.  When her staff started to get irritated with her new found 'pass time' thinking that to read was to withdraw and to exclude herself, she simply replies that reading is definitely not for passing the time. It is about opening yourself to other lives and other worlds. On the contrary one actually wishes that one had more time to read. And because everyone else can read, then it shouldn't exclude. 

Alan Bennett

If people read tabloids, magazines and newspapers instead of books would you consider that as reading? With wit and charm Bennett discusses issues like this about reading today, including literature, the difference between briefing and reading, and cites many authors including EM Forster, Dylan Thomas, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen and Alice Munro to name a few. Even if what people read are not books it's still reading to me, except Mr. Bennett doesn't seem to think so.  Thus, the queen is proud to be setting a good example by being seen reading a book in public, even fishing in her handbag for her book and letting them catch a glimpse of what she is currently reading.

But what I found particularly loved about The Uncommon Reader was how it was able to capture in one book that reading is a journey. It matures and develops as one takes it further. In the beginning the queen read popular fiction and copied passages that struck her. Later she would write down her comments and thoughts on them, her own literary criticism so to speak.  Eventually she could read more 'difficult' books with ease and delight, up to the point when she realized that she didn't want to be simply a reader. Reading, though highly enjoyable, was not doing.

Aside from chronicling the queen's reading journey and challenges and talking about the issues on current reading habits, the book is not without its light moments, such as when her security connives with her footman to hide the book she was reading after she leaves it in the coach.   Though there are occasions  when i couldn't read Bennett's long sentences without stumbling, i found his writing to be charming, funny and witty overall.

The book concludes when the Queen's reading journey takes her to the point when she realizes that when she is writing she was doing, and she had always been a doer.  Because, according to her, you don't put your life into books. You find it there.