As I've said ad nauseum in my other journal, I'm currently totally nuts with end-of-semester flotsam and jetsam, all of which will be over and behind me by this time next week. Then I'll be heading to Texas for a week or so with family there. Long ago I promised I'd write about the young people's trilogy His Dark Materials, a promise upon which I have so far failed to make good. It will take me some long thoughtful time to write about those books, so have a seat while you're waiting.
In the meantime, I've just read John Dunning's latest Bookman mystery (a "bibliomystery"), The Bookman's Promise. If you like both books and mysteries and don't yet know John Dunning, hurry to your nearest source for books and get Booked to Die and The Bookman's Wake. Then pray for some long rainy days you can spend guiltlessly reading. The one I just finished is the third one in the series, and has been way too long a-coming. Our hero is a former cop, now owner of a used-and-rare bookstore on East Colfax in Denver. Seems like a stretch? Cop to bibliomaniac? No, it has never felt that way to me, I believe in Cliff Janeway's bibliopassion and have learned some interesting tidbits from reading these books. This latest begins with Janeway's being interviewed on NPR about a rare volume he's just purchased at auction, a two-volume set by Sir Richard Burton (no no no, not one of Liz Taylor's husbands, a Victorian traveler, explorer, linguist, writer, renaissance man). The story takes us back in time and place to the American South just before the Civil War. So if you like a little history in your mystery, there's that too.
John Dunning is himself a retired used-and-rare book dealer. His books are engaging mysteries, entirely convincing pictures of the trade, and you can tell yourself you're not just reading another trashy mystery, see? I learned enough about this Burton to make me want to read more about and by him. One of his many achievements was translating, for the first time, the Arabian tales of The One Hundred and One Nights.
1 comment:
I've heard of cook sleuths and catowner sleuths, but never a bibliophile sleuth. This sounds interesting, although I don't know where in my daunting TBR list I'm going to squeeze that.
I'm reading "Running With Scissors" by Augusten Burroughs right now. Very eclectic albeit funny. Also from the library recently the controversial "War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" by Chris Hedges.
I seem to be drawn to nonfiction lately. D. just got the "House of Bush, House of Saud" and the Bob Woodward book. Can't wait to read those as well.
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