It's the day when we nominate our dream reprint of the year i.e. a mystery that we read last year and feel it ought to be reprinted. For more details on this, please check out this post @ CrossexaminingCrime. My nomination is Mail Train which was first published in 1946 and about which I have … Continue reading #Dream Reprint #Classic Mystery: Mail Train by Kenneth Austin Dobson (1946)
Tag: New Authors 25
#HYH25 #ClassicsClub: The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
When I announced #HYH25, one of the books recommended was Willa Cather's The Professor's House. I had never read Cather and was keen to read her. So I tweaked my ClassicsClub list and finally almost at the end of the year, I finished the book. When the novel opened with the idea of shifting to … Continue reading #HYH25 #ClassicsClub: The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
Short Notes on Five Mysteries
Snow by John Banville (2020) The castrated body of a Catholic priest is found in the home of a Protestant landowner. This is the 1950s in Ireland and one can well imagine the scandal that will ensue. The all-powerful Catholic Church is keen to cover up the case but Detective Inspector St. John Strafford (people … Continue reading Short Notes on Five Mysteries
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Look Your Last by John Stephen Strange (1943)
Look your last on all things lovely Every hour. The year is 1941. USA has not yet entered the war. People are busy with their day-to-day activities but there is a feeling in the air that it'd be any day now. There are other things too that clamour for attention. For eg., Mr. Smith, who … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Book: Look Your Last by John Stephen Strange (1943)
#HYH25 #1925ReadingClub #ClassicsClub: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
Edith Wharton hailed it as "the great American novel". Marylin Monroe immortalized the central character Lorelei Lee on the big screen. It was a publishing sensation. When serialised in Harper's Bazaar, the magazine's sales quadrupled. When published in book form, it was an instant hit. A second edition of 60,000 copies was also quickly picked … Continue reading #HYH25 #1925ReadingClub #ClassicsClub: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
Two Classics about Man-Woman Relationship: Vera (1921) and The Stepford Wives (1972)
In September, I read two books, vastly different from each other, but both had at their core, the relationship between men and women, specifically between a husband and wife. In Vera by Elizabeth von Arnim, young Lucy Entwhistle, in a shell-shocked condition after the death of her father, meets Everard Wemyss. Everard, himself, is trying … Continue reading Two Classics about Man-Woman Relationship: Vera (1921) and The Stepford Wives (1972)
Friday’s Forgotten Classic: The Murder of the Mahatma by G.D. Khosla (1963)
I am often asked the question: 'What do you feel when you sentence a man to death?' Thus begins this book written by legal luminary, G.D. Khosla, who served in various capacities as magistrate, Civil Judge, District and Sessions Judge in British India as well as the Republic of India, and retired as the Chief … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Classic: The Murder of the Mahatma by G.D. Khosla (1963)
Friday’s Forgotten Book: Follow this Fair Corpse by Laurence Dwight Smith (1941)
Deputy Chief Crighton is a worried man. He had been called by publisher Jefferson Judd earlier in the day. Judd told him that his estranged wife, Cora, had visited him the previous night and demanded money from him. On Judd's refusal (he feels that she would spend it on her drug addiction), she had threatened … Continue reading Friday’s Forgotten Book: Follow this Fair Corpse by Laurence Dwight Smith (1941)
SSW: Great English Stories (ed) Lewis Melville and Reginald Hargreaves (1930) – Part V
Time to wind up the book. The last grouping begins with Ernest Bramah's The Malignity of the Depraved Ming-Shu Rears its Offensive Head which is an extract from his book Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat. Ming-Shu, the villain to the hero Kai Lung, attacks his village and kidnaps his wife and sets off with her. … Continue reading SSW: Great English Stories (ed) Lewis Melville and Reginald Hargreaves (1930) – Part V
#ClassicsClub Friday’s Forgotten Book: With Willing Hands by Diana Ridley (1945)
....and the firelight flickering in the hearth brought back dreams that could have hurt because they were all of a happiness that was finished irrevocably, once and for all. Susan Laird, who lost her husband, Phil, an RAF pilot, during an air-raid, now lives for her son Buster, born after his father's death, and her … Continue reading #ClassicsClub Friday’s Forgotten Book: With Willing Hands by Diana Ridley (1945)
a hot cup of pleasure