From Pillar to Post

I have been jumping from pillar to post in my reading this past week. I started and put down two mysteries: Neon Rain by James Lee Burke because I could tell right away it was not suitable for bedtime reading, and Dead Angler by Victoria Houston in which the main character - a widowed dentist - couldn't stop lusting after the town sheriff instead of trying to discover who killed the angler.

Moving on.

I did finish Mr. Dixon Disappears by Ian Sansom. It is the second in the Mobile Library series (here are my thoughts on the first). In this installment - more of a comic novel than a mystery - Tumdrum's mobile librarian Israel Armstrong is accused of theft and kidnapping and finds himself in many an outlandish situation. Laugh out loud funny. 

I recently wrote about attending an event with organizer and declutter guru Peter Walsh (here). The only book of his that the library had as an ebook was Lose the Clutter, Lose the Weight. I reserved it and finally it arrived on my Kindle. In it he outlines a six-week program that is guaranteed to change my life (if only!). I am just beginning the book's introductory section but may skip ahead to the 'lose the clutter' bits.

And finally, I just started a mystery in which the action takes place on the Isle of Lewis, the northern most spot in Scotland's Outer Hebrides. I am just a few chapters into the first book of the Lewis Trilogy by Peter May.  In The Blackhouse, Detective Sergeant Fin McLeod is sent to his home village on the island to investigate a murder that is similar to one he worked on in Edinburgh. I have heard good things about these books. 

By the way, a blackhouse is the traditional stone-and-earth dwelling with a thatched roof found on the islands.

So there you have it. I am not sure if today finds me at the pillar or at the post. Where might you be in your reading?

The Case of the Missing Books by Ian Sansom

The Case of the Missing Books is not so much a mystery as a comic novel. To be sure, there is the mystery: who stole the 15,000 books from the Tumdrum Library? And there is grievous bodily harm but only to our hapless hero's wardrobe and dignity.

After traveling by train, ferry, and bus from London, when Israel Armstrong finally arrives in Tumdrum, a coastal town in Northern Ireland, to begin what he thinks is his new career as town librarian, he discovers that the library has closed - permanently. His job, it seems, now entails operating the town's beat-up, rusty - and bookless - mobile library.

Israel is not happy about this. In his mind a mobile library lives at the bottom of a long list of libraries that is topped by the British Library, university libraries, big public libraries, and even falls below libraries in prisons and mental institutions. Of course, a mobile library is not a library if it contains no books and he sets out to find who stole them which leads to many merry adventures. Merry for the reader, that is, but not for Israel who is definitely a stranger in a strange land.

To wit: His living quarters on a family's farm turn out to be an abandoned chicken coop complete with a few straggly hens; he is forced to wear borrowed and too-short camo pants and jacket as his one corduroy suit burned while drying out on the farmhouse stove (along with his credit cards and cash); and just about everyone he meets is suspicious of him and a wee bit combative.

Poor Israel. He just doesn't seem to ever get a break. But all's well that ends well, and he does manage to solve the case.

This book is the first in the Mobile Library Mystery series by Ian Sansom that I referenced in last week's post (here). I loved the characters and the bizarre situations that Israel, the hopeful librarian, finds himself in. (Although he doesn't enjoy them as much as the reader!)

And the cover, a throwback to pre-computer days, is a gem.

There are many literary references that, of course, are always fun, and Mr. Sansom's writing is clever and entertaining. I have to say that I enjoyed this romp a little better than his Norfolk Mystery, but will give the second installments of both series a try.

These books have offered me a literary vacation which has been quite pleasant. What places have you visited via books this summer?

The Norfolk Mystery by Ian Sansom

Start with England in the 1930s. Add the author of tomes ranging in subjects from penguins to ponies, lighthouses to lilies, churches to chimneys. Stir in a war-weary lost soul as the assistant. Send them off across England's thirty-nine counties in search of 'all the good things' of each place to record in a series of guidebooks. Sprinkle in a dead body or two and you have a delicious recipe for a mystery series.

Swanton Morley, known as The People's Professor, knows a lot of things about a lot of things. He often quotes Latin, Shakespeare, and throws in a Bible verse or two for good measure. He would certainly be a winner on Jeopardy. His ongoing prattle about subjects that have nothing to do with the conversation or events at hand is a constant, although brilliant, annoyance to his assistant Stephen Sefton. (As well as, I suspect, to the reader. I know my eyes sometimes race through some of the professor's ramblings although I hope I am not missing any clues!)

Mr. Morley is rigorous in his daily routine. He keeps an egg timer beside his typewriter and types away in spurts of 15 minutes. His writing philosophy: 'Avoid haphazard writing habits. And avoid haphazard writing materials.'  He even has a desk fitted out in his automobile so no time will be wasted while motoring from village to village. 

It is my desire merely to set down a record of this place before its roots are cut and its sap drained, and the ancient oaks are felled once and for all. I do not wish England - our England - to be unknown by future generations... A celebration of England and the Englishman. From the wheelwrights of Devon to the potters of the north, from the shoe-makers of Northampton to the chair-makers of High Wycombe...

Sefton has returned to England from fighting in the Spanish Civil War and has been unable to settle back into British life. He refers to himself as 'impoverished and rootless' until he answers The Professor's help wanted advertisement: Assistant (Male) to Writer; be prepared to travel; intelligence essential.

Ian Sansom, author of this series, has thrown these two fellows together and seems to be having a great time letting their two distinctly different personalities and quirks unfold for the reader. 

The first of the guidebooks, The Norfolk Mystery, finds this unlikely duo in Blakeney where, upon minutes of their arrival, they come across the body of a reverend hanging by the neck from a bell-rope in the tower of St. Nicholas Church. Was it suicide or murder?

I have a ways to go yet to find out the answer to that question. In the meantime, I am enjoying meeting some of the characters that may or may not be suspects and that Morley and Sefton interview in an effort to determine what happened and so be on their way to exploring other spots in Norfolk.

The second book in this County Guide series, Death in Devon, is out and the third installment, Westmorland Alone, will be available in the United States in September. Mr. Sansom also writes the Mobile Library Mystery Series, the tales of which take place in Ireland. I would also like to give those mysteries a try.

There are small photographs included in the book which is quite different for a mystery series. I assume they are of places in Norfolk in keeping with the guidebook theme. I find them to be a nice addition to the story. 

If you are looking for car chases and a dizzying amount of action this series most likely won't be for you. But you can safely add them to your list of Cozies!

The Idea of Writing Letters

I am a big fan of the Idea of Writing Letters. Therefore, I am waiting patiently (sort of) for my name to come up on the library's reserve list for The Missing Ink: The Lost Art of Handwriting by Philip Henscher in which he writes about the joy of slow communication.

I would also love to get my hands on a copy of For the Love of Letters by John O'Connell. It was published in Great Britain but, alas, it is only available here in an e-book edition which doesn't seem quite right. (Update 27 Jan 2013: The O'Connell book is now available in hardcover from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.)Another book along the same lines and also published in Britain is Ian Sansom's Paper: An Elegy which I see won't be released here until May 2013. 

Of course, that would be reading about writing letters and not actually writing them. 

How does one get inspired to do the writing part?

Well, I see there is a Month of Letters challenge afoot to write and send a letter or postcard every day in February which was mentioned on "A Work in Progress" (here). It looks promising but I don't want to have to register to participate. Another site that encourages the art of snail mail is Postcrossing - which has been on my radar for a while but I haven't signed up - in which you send postcards to random people around the world and receive postcards in return.

Like I say, I love the Idea. But actually sitting down and writing is another thing entirely. I do a pretty good job of writing thank you notes. And, I don't buy greeting cards but do send birthday cards and sympathy cards with my own handwritten messages. 

All this comes to mind because I received a letter from a friend recently. Over the years we have kept up a fairly inconsistent correspondence (she is more consistent than I). The envelope's postage stamp is a photo of my friend and her two dogs. I laughed out loud when I saw it. How fun! That is something you don't see every day.

And I have another friend who sends postcards on a very random basis, but I rarely reply in turn although we do keep in touch by phone. 

To cut to the chase:
I went to the post office today and bought stamps both for 1st class letters and for postcards. The good news is I have plenty of note cards, postcards, and stationery in my stash so I don't need to buy any...unless I just want to. 

So I will attempt to write a letter or postcard each day in February. That actually turns out to be only 23 pieces of mail as Sundays and the one holiday, Washington's Birthday, don't count. 

What are your correspondence habits? Do you write letters or just like the Idea of Writing Letters? Are you willing to write a letter a day in February?