Latest Purchase: The Price of Power

Over 700 pages long, this political tome is about Henry Kissinger and his influence on American foreign policy, especially during the Nixon administration. The book was published in 1983. The reporter who wrote it was there and saw it all with his own eyes. A historically important theme from a contemporary viewpoint. Should be interesting...

The House on the Cliff

When I started reading the Hardy Boys again, I was determined to get a hold of this book. The House on the Cliff is the second book in the series, but for some reason it was never published in the UK. I found out about the book in 1979 because a friend of mine had a copy of The Tower Treasure that I think his uncle had brought from the USA. Three things about that book struck me. First of all, in the UK, The Tower Treasure was Number 31 in the series, whereas it was actually the first one to be written. In Britain, The Mystery of the Aztec Warrior was the first title. Why? I have no idea. The second thing I noted was that my friend's book was Copyright 1959. The British editions all had much later copyright dates. I was even more surprised years later to discover that the books had actually first been written in 1927. The third thing I noticed was that the second title in the series was The House on the Cliff. I waited but, alas, no copy of this book ever materialized in the UK. So, in June of this year, I purchased the e-book and finally got to read it. It is not a remarkable story, but it is a good one and the first time the boys tangle with a "master" criminal. The only thing I would criticize about the book is that, like in The Tower Treasure, the criminal is nicknamed Red. The two crooks also have similar surnames: Jackley in the first story, and Snackley in the second.

The Firebird Rocket

In June, during my Hardy Boys nostalgia trip, I reread The Firebird Rocket. I got this book from John Menzies in 1979. It was written by Vincent Buranelli. In this story, Frank, Joe and Chet are on the trail of a missing scientist, and their search takes them to Australia. I think this was one of the best in the series. The plot is one of the few that I remembered clearly after such a long time.

Currently reading...

Lilian Turner

A few months ago I was introduced to Australian literature from the turn of the twentieth century. My friend Elizabeth suggested reading Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner (1872-1958). So, I dutifully headed to Project Gutenberg. But instead of this author, I found myself reading a book by her lesser known sister, Lilian Turner (1867-1956). I can’t remember why exactly. It was a Sunday morning and maybe I just didn’t feel like having to get to know seven characters in one go. The Lilian Turner book was called An Australian Lassie (1903). It was quite interesting to read about this new setting of Willoughby, just across the water from Sydney. The main character in the story is Elizabeth Bruce, twin sister of Cyril. Her mother was disowned by her father when she married a penniless author. Betty, as she’s called, longs for wealth and makes several attempts to get her brother adopted by her grandfather, Captain Carew, who lives just next door but never speaks to his daughter or any of his grandchildren, being a proud and stubborn old man. Instead, he has adopted the son of the man whom he intended his daughter to marry. John Brown arrives in the neighbourhood and makes life hell for the Bruce children, especially Cyril. However, he comes to have a reluctant admiration for the feisty Betty and a sort of friendship is struck up between them. They both dream of getting away and having an adventurous life. Although the girl and boy are only twelve and thirteen, respectively, they decide to sneak off to Sydney to make their fortunes. Betty earns a few shillings by singing in the streets. But eventually they are returned home by the police. Captain Carew, looking at his granddaughter, feels affection for her, but is too stubborn to admit it. The story ends happily enough, although the Bruce family do not find wealth. The moral of the story is that money does not ensure happiness. Betty’s parents, despite their poverty, are always happy together, while the rich Captain Carew is portrayed as a proud and bitter old man. I read this pleasant story in one day; my first taste of Australian literature. 

I discovered that there was a sequel called Betty the Scribe (1906). In this story, Betty is nineteen. She has just lost her mother and been encumbered with her numerous little siblings. Her big sister, Dot, is living the high life with a wealthy friend. Dot is the one on whom her parents built all their hopes, being educated privately and the only one of the family that enjoys any sort of luxury. Betty is an aspiring writer, having taken after her father. But she can’t find the time or the peace to write because of her many household duties. The first half of the book is one long tale of woe, filled with death and frustration. Cyril’s role in the plot is greatly reduced and the focus shifts to Dot. Little sister Nancy idealizes her and has a very strained relationship with Betty. Nancy writes to Dot, begging her to come home. Dot is all set for a trip to New Zealand, but struggles with the guilt of leaving all the donkey work to Betty. After her trip to New Zealand, she decides that her duty is at home. With Dot running the house, and with quite a knack for it, Betty is now free to pursue her writing career in the city. Her career meets with mixed success. John Brown returns from college and announces to Captain Carew that he cannot be his heir and that his wealth should go to the Bruce family. The old man offers Betty a chance to be his heiress, but she refuses. However, soon afterwards, he dies suddenly and leaves everything to her anyway. John Brown reappears and hints that he wants to marry Betty, but the book ends with Betty’s refusal, although the reader cannot be sure that she will not recant.

This second book was not as good as the first one. The younger siblings who crave Betty’s attention are cute but annoying, and there is too much misery in the early chapters for the book to be a comfortable read. At the end, things get better, with Betty selling her first book for fifty pounds. Here there is a stark contrast. Although so many things go wrong for Betty, her career as a writer is somewhat idealized, as if the author were thinking “I wish this had happened to me”. The idea that a nineteen-year-old girl could turn out a novel in practically no time and get it accepted by the first publisher she sends it to is a bit hard to swallow. She also gets a job at the first newspaper she applies to, although she gets fired for not doing a very good job. Again, the recurring theme of happiness with a simple life at home runs through the story, especially after Dot’s homecoming. At least the author allows the family to be happy about Betty’s inheritance, although we don’t actually see her with the money, as she has to wait until she is twenty-one to get it.

As far as I can tell, this was the last appearance of Betty Bruce in Lilian Turner’s writing. Her next two books, published in 1908 and 1909, respectively, were Paradise and the Perrys and The Perry Girls. I may return to Lilian Turner one day. But now I’ve moved on to a heavier tome: Villette by Charlotte Brontë.

Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed

This was one of the first books I read this year. Miles Russell makes a very convincing case for naming Charles Dawson as the perpetrator of the Piltdown Man hoax of 1912. It's an excellent book, although it tends to drag a little in the middle as he really piles on the evidence. But for anyone interested in hoaxes, it is highly recommended.

The Little House on the Prairie

Yesterday I finished reading The Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was only a few months ago that I found out that this is a true story and that Laura Ingalls was a real person. When I was a boy back in the mid-1970s, we used to watch the TV series on Sunday afternoons on STV after Cartoon Cavalcade. The story is actually the second in a series of books in which Laura Ingalls looks back at her childhood as she and her family move west. Although exact dates and ages are not mentioned in the books, websites on the Ingalls family state that this story is set in 1873-1874, when Laura was aged between five and seven. At the beginning of the story, her father decides to leave his kinfolk and venture from Pepin, Wisconsin to set up a farm 12 miles from the town of Independence, Kansas. The book is told from the little girl’s viewpoint, and does not offer much of an explanation for this apparently ludicrous upheaval. However, a little research showed that Mr. Ingalls was induced by the possibility of obtaining 160 acres of free land that was offered (through the Homestead Act of 1862) to anyone willing to settle the region. The problem is that the land in question is claimed by the Osage Indians.

It is a nice little story of a close family venturing into unknown territory in pursuit of the American dream. The children and Mrs. Ingalls are ruled by the kind but firm hand of Charles, or Pa as they call him. However, Mr. Ingalls takes some risks that can only be described as madness and the whole family nearly drowns before they reach the prairie land because of his rash decision to cross a creek in the wrong place. But they eventually reach their destination in one piece and Pa builds a house with nothing more than felled trees and a few borrowed nails. Adventures follow: trouble with the Indians, starting a farm, building a barn, trading in the nearby town, meeting the neighbours and fighting a prairie fire. There are also general descriptions of daily life and the surrounding lands. At the end of the story, the family are informed that troops have been sent to remove the settlers because the government have decided to side with the Indians. Mr. Ingalls reacts angrily and announces the family’s immediate departure. The end.

Some contemporary readers have been alarmed by the openly racist language used in the book. The normally wise, polite and docile Ma has harsh words for the Indians, and the sentence “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” occurs several times in the story. But as this is the way people spoke back in the day, I think it has to be kept in the text to preserve its authenticity. We only see the situation through the eyes of the Ingalls family and their neighbours. We don’t see the Indians in their camp. I’m sure there were Indians who said that the only good white man was a dead one. Another opinion that troubles modern readers is the argument, again forwarded by Mrs. Ingalls, that surely the land ought to belong to the people willing to farm it and that the Indians only roam around like wild animals. The Indians are also portrayed as thieves, entering the Ingalls home and stealing food and tobacco.

I enjoyed this story, and intend to read more of the books in the series. I wonder if the characters will turn out to be as they were portrayed in the television series. I noticed that in the last book, These Happy Golden Years, one of the chapters is called Nellie Olsen. I remember her as the blond, snobby nemesis of the Ingalls girls in the TV show. I wonder what she was like in real life.

While the Clock Ticked

The Flickering Torch Mystery

In June, I started rereading The Hardy Boys. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I read these books over and over. After thirty years, I felt a bit nostalgic for them and started buying them from Kobo and Amazon. I was surprised that some stories weren't what I had remembered. A number of the stories were revised and modernized in the late fifties and throughout the sixties. Others were totally rewritten, retaining only the title but with a new story. The Flickering Torch Mystery was one such book. The British Armada edition (above) that I had, for some reason, was the original story, although I bought it around 1979. When I bought the book from Kobo (below) I got the rewritten one, which wasn't all that good. I managed to find a copy of the Armada edition and read it as soon as I finished the rewritten version. Now, I am not being a Hardy Boys purist. A few days later, I read both versions of While the Clock Ticked and preferred the new one.

Latest Read: A Traveller in Time

A lot of negative things are said about online friendships. I often hear people showing disdain for Twitter and Facebook, claiming that they prefer “real people” rather than a never changing photograph that has to say everything in 140 characters. They laugh when they hear someone say that it’s time to “clear out their friends on Facebook”. I suppose there is some truth in this viewpoint. Every Facebook user has friends that they hardly know. I certainly do. A student who does one class adds me as a friend. Someone who agrees with something I wrote on Goodreads sends me a friend request. Yes, these are not friends in the traditional sense of the word or maybe not even friends at all. But that does not mean that everyone you meet online is just a face on the screen. To me, online friendships have been a lifeline. I love books, and down here in Brazil where hardly anyone speaks English and no one reads the kind of books that I do, the only way to talk about reading is online. For years, I had no one to talk to about the books I enjoy. I’ve worked at English schools, but the other teachers seldom read fiction in English, preferring to concentrate on books about ELT. So, when the internet came on the scene, I welcomed it gratefully. During the Lord of the Rings craze in 2001, I was online chatting every day. But it was only after I started the Jane Shaw blog that I started to meet people who enjoy a wider range of stories. There have been five people in particular: Pam from South Africa, Jan from Scotland, Ruth from Scotland, Pamela from the USA and Elizabeth from Australia. Recently, I’ve been having a nice correspondence with Elizabeth, who has a PhD in literature and has read tons of books. She recommended some of the best reads I’ve enjoyed this year, including An Australian Lassie by Lilian Turner and The Girl from the Big Horn Country by Mary Ellen Chase. Another book that she told me about was the one I finished reading yesterday, A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley, published in 1939. I’d never heard of this book, but I soon discovered that it has been enjoyed by generations of readers. It is classified as a young adult novel, although the level of vocabulary is quite advanced.

It is an interesting story about a girl called Penelope who believes that she lives in two time periods simultaneously. She was born in the late Victorian age, but finds herself being transported back to the time of Mary Queen of Scots in the 1580s and becoming embroiled in a plot to rescue the queen and smuggle her over to France. Of course, the outcome of this doomed plot is known from the start, so the focus of the story is on the characters. It is a very well written book and the author shows great skill when wielding her pen. It is interesting because when you finish reading it you are left wondering. Was she actually slipping through time or was she dreaming or imagining it all? In my opinion, it was either a vivid imagination or an illusion. But who knows? A very intense book. Not a page-turner, and few cliff-hangers. This is a book to savour and enjoy. I certainly did. An interesting comment that I read on Goodreads about this book was by a woman called Hannah. She said: "Absolutely enchanting YA novel. I only wish I had read it as a young girl so that I could have fond memories of it!"

Recent Read: The Girl from the Big Horn Country

This book by Mary Ellen Chase is the first of the two novels.Virginia is in love with her Wyoming home but will have to leave it to go to school in the East. It's a very well told story, originally published in 1916. It has many breathtaking descriptions of Wyoming and very interesting characters. It was recommended by my friend from Australia, Elizabeth Lindsay, who has recommended a lot of good books to me this year. The second book in the series is Virginia of Elk Creek Valley, published in 1917. It's definitely on my "to-read" list.  

Thorpe Green

I've never been one for poetry, but this one by Branwell Brontë is very nice. I think it's the simplicity of it that appeals to me. It reminds me of the sort of poem that would pop up in our readers at primary school and the teacher would either ignore them or go over them very briefly. I first came across Thorpe Green in 2001 and never forgot it. It was written by Branwell Brontë on 30th March, 1843. 

I sit, this evening, far away,
From all I used to know,
And nought reminds my soul to-day
Of happy long ago.

Unwelcome cares, unthought-of fears,
Around my room arise;
I seek for suns of former years
But clouds o'ercast my skies.

Yes-Memory, wherefore does thy voice
Bring old times back to view,
As thou wouldst bid me not rejoice
In thoughts and prospects new?

I'll thank thee, Memory, in the hour
When troubled thoughts are mine-
For thou, like suns in April's shower,
On shadowy scenes wilt shine.

I'll thank thee when approaching death
Would quench life's feeble ember,
For thou wouldst even renew my breath
With thy sweet word 'Remember'!

Reading in 2015

This year I made a resolution to read a wider range of authors rather than rereading my favourite books. The result so far is quite impressive. There are some rereads on the list like The Mystery of Death Trap Mine and Mansfield Park, and a couple of months ago I went on a nostalgia trip revisiting some Hardy Boys stories. But on the whole, I've been reading a much broader scope of books and articles. This is what I have read so far in 2015. Some of the books were quite disappointing, especially The Burden by Mary Westmacott (a.k.a. Agatha Christie). I also read three of Christie's Tommy and Tuppence books. The first one was really good, the second one was passable and the third one was dreadful. No surprise there as it was written towards the end of her life, around the same time that she wrote Passenger to Frankfurt, which was awful. However, there were also some excellent stories. Two books that I bought in Scotland deserve a special mention. The first was The Island of Lost Horses by Stacy Gregg and The Accidental Time Traveller by Janis MacKay. I read the latter on my way back to Brazil and absolutely loved it. I found out that there was a follow-up, The Reluctant Time Traveller, so I added that to my Kobo collection. At the beginning of the year, I became really interested once again in the Piltdown Man hoax. With e-books easily available, I added several to my collection, including the original Piltdown Forgery by Joseph Weiner and the later Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed by Miles Russell. Other books were found simply by browsing on Project Gutenberg. One was The Automobile Girls at Newport by Laura Dent Crane, published in 1910. This is a story about a group of girls who have the freedom to travel around on their own (accompanied by only one chaperone - pretty daring stuff!) because one of them has her own car, a pile of money and a free-thinking father. Anyway, here is a complete list of what I have read so far in 2015.

Missing One’s Coach (Anonymous)

Summa Theologica Part 1 (Saint Thomas Aquinas)
The Mystery of Wreckers Rock (William Arden)
The Mystery of the Smashing Glass (William Arden)
Azazel (Isaac Asimov)
The Alternate Asimovs (Isaac Asimov)
Lady Susan (Jane Austen)
Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)
The Piltdown Inquest (Charles Blinderman)
The Martian Chronicles (Ray Bradbury)
The Mystery of the Two Toed Pigeon (Marc Brandel)
A Fortunate Term (Angela Brazil)
Monitress Merle (Angela Brazil)
Loyal to the School (Angela Brazil)
For the School Colours (Angela Brazil)
Thorp Green (Branwell Brontë)
The Mystery of Death Trap Mine (M. V. Carey)
Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President (Jimmy Carter)
The Girl from the Big Horn Country (Mary Ellen Chase)
The Secret Adversary (Agatha Christie)
N or M (Agatha Christie)
By the Pricking of my Thumbs (Agatha Christie)
The Automobile Girls at Newport (Laura Dent Crane)
The Visitor (Roald Dahl)
Parson’s Pleasure (Roald Dahl)
The Idea of Prehistory (Glyn Daniel)
A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)
The Firebird Rocket (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Flickering Torch Mystery (Original) (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Flickering Torch Mystery (Rewritten Version) (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Firebird Rocket (Franklin W. Dixon)
The House on the Cliff (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Tower Treasure (Franklin W. Dixon)
The Secret Agent on Flight 101 (Franklin W. Dixon)
While the Clock Ticked (Franklin W. Dixon)
Man in the Empty Suit (Sean Ferrell)
The Governess (Sarah Fielding)
Jill’s Gymkhana (Ruby Ferguson)
Remembering America: A Voice from the Sixties (Richard N. Goodwin)
The Island of Lost Horses (Stacy Gregg)
Timecast (James Hanback Jr.)
Wendy and Jinx and the Missing Scientist (Valerie Hastings)
The Whispering Statue (Carolyn Keene)
Alfred Hitchcock: Quotes and Facts (Blago Kirov)
The Planned Planting of Piltdown (Wilton Marion Krogman)
The Fib and Other Stories (George Layton)
Surprised by Joy (C. S. Lewis)
The Accidental Time Traveller (Janis MacKay)
The Reluctant Time Traveller (Janis MacKay)
Mission to Mars (Patrick Moore)
The Little Frenchman with his Water Lots (George Pope Morris)
Newton’s Gift (Paul Nahin)
Flowering Judas (Katherine Anne Porter)
The Grave (Katherine Anne Porter)
The Piltdown Man Hoax: Case Closed (Miles Russell)
Susan in Trouble (Jane Shaw)
The Wilsons Won’t Mind (Jane Shaw)
House of the Glimmering Light (Jane Shaw)
The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock (Donald Spoto)

The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class (Guy Standing)
An Australian Lassie (Lilian Turner)
A Traveller in Time (Alison Uttley)
The Piltdown Forgery (Joseph Weiner)
The Burden (Mary Westmacott)
The Earliest Englishman (Sir Arthur Smith Woodward)
Ginnie Joins In (Catherine Woolley)
Ginnie and the New Girl (Catherine Woolley)