Belles-Lettres: Brilliant, Blue-Ribbon Books 2013

Biggest Surprise of the Year -  I Loved This Book! 

So Big by Edna Ferber; published in 1924

Top Three Non-Fiction Books That Were Entire Educations in Themselves: 

At Home by Bill Bryson; How to Live, Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell; The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey

Top Three Fiction Books (not mysteries): 

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster; Equilateral by Ken Kalfus; Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.

Author Most Read: 

Donald Westlake - Six of his Dortmunder capers

Most Delightful Reread: 

Counting My Chickens... by The Duchess of Devonshire

Brothers I Would Most Like to Meet: 

Reggie and Nigel Heath of The Baker Street Letters, The Brothers of Baker Street, and The Baker Street Translation by Michael Robertson

Best Foreign Location: 

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen and West With the Night by Beryl Markham

Most Laugh-Out-Loud Dysfunctional Family: 

The Spellman Files and The Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz

Dreamiest Tale: 

The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys

Best Road Trip: 

The Lost Continent - Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson

Mystery Writer I Am So Glad I Found: 

Peter Lovesey - The Last Detective, Diamond Solitaire, The Summons, and Bloodhounds. 

As If I Needed More Reasons Not To Go On A Cruise: 

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace.

Proof That The South Shall Rise Again: 

Mama Makes Up Her Mind by Bailey White.

Authors I Have Met and Their Books I Read This Year: 

Duffy Brown (Killer in Crinolines), William Zinsser (The Writer Who Stayed), and George S. McGovern (Abraham Lincoln)

We Have a Winner!

Congratulations to LaLa!  With grand ceremony and much fanfare, I plucked your name out of the Book Giveaway Hat last night and you are the winner of a copy of The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey.

LaLa, if you will send me an email letting me know where in the wide world you would like the book sent, I will get it in the post to you tout suite. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks for participating.

Here is my address: 

bellebookandcandle[at]hotmail[dot]com.

The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey

I can certainly recommend that you read The Island of Lost Maps 
(2000) if you are:

1. Interested at all in maps and mapmakers.

2. Like the unraveling of a true mystery.

3. Enjoy a meandering read that includes a bit of history, a smattering of Greek and Roman mythology, tales of navigators who sailed in the Age of Discovery, and adventures of the pathfinders who helped to map and explore the United States.

The overall arc of this true crime story is about a mild-mannered man who committed crimes in public against the public. It is brilliantly told by author Miles Harvey.

Gilbert Bland was by all accounts as bland as his name. But his actions were not quite so unimaginative. Mr. Bland went on a map stealing crime spree that took him to research libraries in the United States and Canada and perhaps even Great Britain. After gaining access to rare books rooms with a fake identification card, Mr. Bland would ask for specific volumes and when no one was looking - which apparently was quite often - would cut out valuable maps, stuff them under his shirt, and walk out of the library. He then sold the stolen maps to collectors and dealers. He actually had a Hit List - a notebook full of specific ancient maps that he wanted to pilfer.

It made me feel quite sick to my stomach to read about someone who had the temerity to handle a book with razor blade in hand.

In the telling of Mr. Bland's criminal career, capture, confessions, and convictions, the author gives the reader so much more than just a tale of thievery.

There are stories of Christopher Columbus, American explorer John Frémont, famous mapmakers, and wheeler-dealers in the map collecting world. Mr. Harvey takes the reader all over the map from the Garden of Eden to El Dorado; from Ponce de León's Fountain of Youth to Vietnam; from the Peabody Library in Baltimore to the University of Washington Library in Seattle; and from mapping land to mapping oceans and space. 

One also gets a glimpse into what drives Mr. Harvey to track down information about a man whom he is destined never to meet and the lengths to which he goes in order to try and determine the Why of Gilbert Bland's actions.

Mr. Harvey also interviews professionals that give insight into the motives that drive individuals to obsessively collect everything from ancient maps to books to PEZ candy dispensers.

And, after reading this book, you will never again look at the people sitting at reading tables or lurking in the stacks in your local library without just a smidgen of suspicion.

The Island of Lost Maps is truly a remarkable trip into known and unknown worlds. As a matter of fact, I am so delighted with this book that I will happily send my copy (which has a few markings in it from the previous owner) to anywhere on the map if you leave a comment expressing a desire to read it. In the event of multiple comments, I will draw the winning name out of the proverbial hat on Monday or Tuesday. Happy tripping!

Two Treasures From the Sale Table

When I was at the library recently, I plucked two gems off the sale table. I was intrigued by the subject of each and also attracted to the end-of-summer hues of both covers.

The first, The Island of Lost Maps (2000), is a true story about a fellow who went around stealing valuable maps from libraries in the U.S. and Canada. It makes me a bit sick to think about the destruction that he wreaked on rare books because not only do I love books but also have a great fondness for maps. Anyway, I am looking forward to reading what author Miles Harvey has to say on this cartographic crime.

One can never read too many books about Tuscany and this one, A Thousand Days in Tuscany (2004), looks to be a treat with chapters titled "The Gorgeous Things They're Cooking Are Zucchini Blossoms" and "Perhaps, as a Genus, Olives Know Too Much".   Author and chef Marlena de Blasi writes about life in her adopted Tuscan village along with its food and festivals and includes some mighty tasty looking recipes.

Have you picked up any bargains lately?