Friday Flashback: Rec. #235: I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Author Jaclyn Moriarty wryly and thoughtfully follows members of the Zing family into illicit swimming pool visits, through fake letters to the editor, past aeronautical engineers, over a beach umbrella, and --- most of all --- beyond a family secret that necessitates clandestine weekly meetings. In a garden shed. As you do.

Comparable to: Imagine William Goldman (author of The Princess Bride) writing about Lisa Lutz's Spellman family, but cunningly threading out a channel of story for each character.

Opening lines: "Once upon a time there was a watercolour painter who thought he could invent a parachute. This was in the early days of parachutes."

Representative quote: "A year ago she didn't even know the Zings. Today, she gets a spasm in her right eye when she sees one. (The letter V has the same effect.) Also, she has lost her personality. She lost the personality a few weeks back. To be specific, it was burned to cinders in the Zing Garden Shed."

You might not like it if: All the story threads get tangled in your brain before you get to the wow at the end.

Connections to other Wreckage: Jaclyn Moriarty is also the author of Feeling Sorry for Celia (Rec. #48) and The Year of Secret Assignments (Rec. #330).

See also List #51: Great Books, Terrible Titles (Bonus Round!).

[Originally posted 5/14/12.]

List #61: Unpretty Women and Their Cities

I had some complicated reactions to this article from The Telegraph and this article from The Guardian, but they did make me think about a few recent(ish) documentaries that, to different extents, foregrounded their profiles with the framing of the subject as "not beautiful/pretty."

Here's to them. And their cities.

Finding Vivian Maier:
The thoughtful, skilled work of a street photographer daylighting as a nanny is discovered after her death. Represent, Chicago! (streaming on Netflix)

Iris:

Iris Apfel, fashion icon, putters through New York City. Not unlike Bill Cunningham, Apfel has been graced in her old age with an unbreakable aura of adorable eccentricity. (streaming on Netflix)

Public Speaking:
Fran Lebowitz talks and thinks and talks some more. As her friend Toni Morrison says, Lebowitz is "almost always right, but never fair." (For more Lebowitz, see Rec. #188 and Rec. #347.)

Friday Flashback: Rec. #133: Sweet Danger

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Albert Campion, the very intelligent and highly skilled amateur detective, is so good at slipping into other roles that most of the world is convinced he's every bit as vacuous as he appears. This appearance of affable stupidity comes in very handy when he's being his cleverest. 

Sweet Danger opens with Campion knee-deep in an investigation that requires him to masquerade at different times as minor royalty, a woman, and an author. As you do. And, of course, his real name is not actually Albert Campion ...

Comparable to: Margery Allingham's Albert Campion and Edmund Crispin's Gervase Fen both are in it for the fun and thrills, and their creators' novels reflect that playfulness.

Representative quote: "The man really was amazingly like a duck."

You might not like it if: Your mind reels when you learn that our hero's butler/valet/bodyguard is named Magersfontein Lugg.

How to get it: First of all, you have several different title options. At different times, this novel has been published as Sweet Danger, Kingdom of Death, and The Fear Sign.

Connection to previous Wreckage: If you wish to try out Gervase Fen, you can start with The Moving Toyshop (Rec. #60).

Bonus fun fact for Whovians: Several of the Campion stories were adapted for a BBC television series starring Peter Davison. This is the Peter Davison who also played the Doctor in the early '80s. He is also the father-in-law of David Tennant.

[Originally posted 5/24/11.]

Friday Flashback: Rec. #66: The Passion

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: I'll be honest; this book is pretty trippy. On the surface, it focuses on two people: Henri, who is Napoleon's chef, and Villanelle, who is (among other things) a Venetian gondolier's daughter. Through them, the reader is introduced to the worlds of croupiers, pickpockets, Napoleon's army, and an island of madmen. 

It is a story about the often selfish nature of love, but it is not a love story. I don't know how she does it, but Jeanette Winterson manages to make this short, sometimes harsh, novel feel positively lush.

Comparable to: It's a somewhat dizzying blend of magical realism, history, fairy tale, and modernism. It's a bit Thomas Pynchon, a bit Woolf's Orlando, a bit Angela Carter.

Representative quote: "In spite of what the monks say, you can meet God without getting up early."

You might not like it if: You want your historical fiction to be more historical and less fictional.

How to get it: Kindle download, brick-and-mortar store, online store, library.

Connections to previous Wreckage: If you long for lush surrealism in a moving picture format, I'd like to direct your attention to Rec. #49: The Fall. (Note that The Passion and The Fall have similar, deceptively simple, titles. For balance.)

Also see some of Winterson's other work: Art & Lies (Rec. #349), The PowerBook (Rec. #302), and Weight (Rec. #272)

[Originally posted 3/6/11.]

Friday Flashback: Rec. #274: The Forsyte Saga

I decided to start doing Friday Flashbacks in case you missed some early posts the first time around. You're busy; I understand.

What: Adapted from the novels by John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga follows a British family over the course of five adulterous, scheming, artistic, wrenching, scandalous, tragic, well-funded decades.

Comparable to: Before Downton Abbey chomped its way through early twentieth century domestic drama, The Forsyte Saga made its own mark, with people running off with governesses, getting engaged to penniless architects, supporting spendthrift husbands, being killed while running around in the fog, and disinheriting people (and then reinheriting them).

A few key phrases from the Wikipedia plot summary:
"ends up vulgarly kissing her arm in public"
"June returns from a holiday in Switzerland and discovers the lawsuit"
"when he pulls the trigger he finds it was not loaded"

Representative quote: "There is something ironic, isn't there, that all the people I love, really love, all gravitate to her in the end. And they always love Irene more."

[Originally posted 2/6/13.]

List #60: Happy Birthday, Kate Beaton

Who: Cartoonist, children's book author, web comic artist, proud Canadian

Hark! A Vagrant, website

(Rec. #95)

(List #21)

Never Learn Anything from History, comic collection, 2009

Hark! A Vagrant, comic collection, 2011

(Rec. #186)

(Gift Idea #2)

Step Aside, Pops, comic collection, 2015

The Princess and the Pony, children's book, 2015

(List #57)

And! She has a new book coming out! King Baby is on its way, and Beaton is doing a tour for it.

HELLO. I am back. Again.

Another move and, with it, another unexpected hiatus. It wasn't Comcast's fault this time.

But! Back again! (Although now coming from a new and very different location.)

New content tomorrow!






[Image taken from the "1,000 Frames of Hitchcock" section of the Alfred Hitchcock Wiki. It is fantastic; do check it out.]