The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon

Fourteen reasons to read The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon by Alexander McCall Smith, the 14th book in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series:

1. It is the newest installment of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.

2. It is written by the brilliant Alexander McCall Smith.

3. You will wish that Precious Ramotswe is a real person so you can be her best friend.

4. For that you would have to move to Botswana, but that's ok because the author so obviously loves Botswana and Africa, making the reader love it also.

5. Grace Makutsi is the perfect counterpart to Precious.

6. Grace is very obviously pregnant, but she doesn't want to jinx it by telling anyone.

7. Grace's nasty auntie-in-law is back.  She's as nasty as ever, but gets what's coming to her.

8. There are snakes involved, but they also get what's coming to them.

9. Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni is the BEST HUSBAND EVER.

10. Mr. J. L. B.'s perpetual apprentice mechanic, Charlie, has redeeming qualities after all.

11. The bad guy/girl in this story doesn't seem to have many redeeming qualities. I think she needs a minor adjustment. (See what I did there?)

12. Also, sometimes the right thing to do requires stretching the truth.

13. Again, it is by Alexander McCall Smith. Duh.

14. This quote about children: "We wanted to protect them, she thought, of course we did, but we knew that we could not and they would have to deal with the disappointments and shocks of life as best they could. All we could do was to give them that one thing that they could use to protect themselves from all that. At least we could do that. That thing was love, of course."

TBC

Gone Girl

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is an excellent book.  It has superb writing, exquisitely detailed characters and a well thought-out plot.  So why have I been sitting here trying to decide if I should write about it? BECAUSE, this blog is supposed to be about the books I love, and this book made me SO MAD!!!!!!

Another problem with reviewing Gone Girl is the risk of giving away important plot lines. If I did that it would ruin it for you. But, I CAN say that it is a cautionary tale about marriage, and unresolved mommy/daddy issues, and beware-of-what-you-wish-for-crazy-psycho-people.

So, if you like books that keep you up at night because you can't stop thinking about them for love or money, read Gone Girl. Just don't say I didn't warn you.

TBC

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches

Today will be one of the best and worst days of any fan of Alan Bradley. It is the best because his new book, The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, is AWESOME. It is the worst because now we have to wait for him to write the next one. Waiting is not my happy place. But enough complaining! This is what you can enjoy now...

The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches is the sixth book in his Flavia de Luce series. Flavia is not a typical eleven year-old. She and her eccentric family live at Buckshaw, her family's ancestral but crumbling estate. The title to the property is in her mother's name, but she disappeared in the Himalayas a decade before. She left no will, and the taxes are financially killing the de Luces. But now Flavia's mother is returning to Buckshaw, and she brings mystery and mayhem with her. I can't say much more without spoiling it, but I can say it involves a dead stranger, Winston Churchill, MI5 and plenty of red herrings.

Alan Bradley has me flummoxed. With every new book that he writes about Flavia de Luce, I become more amazed that a late-middle-aged man from Canada can write so brilliantly about an eleven-year-old-chemist-savant-detective-girl from the 1950's English countryside. It is a beautiful mystery, but luckily one that doesn't need to be solved, just enjoyed.

TBC

Forgotten but Not Lost

I was organizing my to-read pile and came across a Laurie R. King book.  Yay!! I thought to myself, another Laurie R. King book!  Then I realized I'd already read it ages ago and forgot to write about it. Bummer.  Since it was quite a while ago I'll just give you the basics...

The book is The Moor by above referenced author.
It's about Sherlock Holmes.
It takes place on Dartmoor.
It involves mysterious happenings and giant glowie-eyed dogs.

If that all sounds familiar, that's because it is.  Sherlock and his partner Mary travel to Dartmoor to revisit the scene of one of his most famous adventures, The Hound of the Baskervilles.  Of course they encounter another creepy mystery which only they can solve.

Read The Moor by Laurie R. King.  I liked it as much as the original. TBC

Hyperbole and a Half

Allie Brosh is a smart, outrageous, hysterically funny, achingly honest, brilliant storyteller, but the best thing about her stories is that they are TRUE! Well, mostly true, except for a little exaggeration. After all, that's what hyperbole means, and it is perfectly illustrated in her first book, Hyperbole and a Half, unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened.

Based on her award winning blog by the same name, Hyperbole and a Half  is the story of Allie's life, from childhood to present day, illustrated by Allie in her own unique style.  I won't even try to describe this uniqueness, just know that the stories and the illustrations are the conjoined twins of Allie's genius, and one would die without the other. (That last may have been a little hyperbole of my own...let's just say that the book would not be the same without the pictures!) Moving on...

Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh is a riot!!  Read it now.  TBC

(Warning:  contains liberal usage of naughty words. If you don't like that sort of thing, this book might not be for you.  End of warning.)

And Speaking of England...

...here's another one.  Christmas at High Rising by Angela Thirkell is a collection of stories published between 1928 and 1942.  Angela Thirkell was a prolific writer, but I think she is/was popular mostly in England.  I can't remember how I found out about this book, but I know I had to order it through an Amazon seller that was in the UK.  When it arrived in its plain brown wrapper weeks later, and after Christmas, I had totally forgotten about it.  Happily, it was charming in every way.  Perhaps these books are available at a library so you don't have to wait. It would be worth a trip:) TBC

A Fine Romance

Things you need to do before you start to read A Fine Romance by Susan Branch:

Brew yourself a cup of tea.
Add some scones and tea sandwiches.
Grab a pencil and paper, because you will want to take notes.
Now you may start reading!

Susan Branch is amazing. Her many books are full of yummy recipes and inspiring ideas, but the incredible thing is she hand-writes and illustrates every single inch of every book. They are beautiful. She is also a self-professed lover of all things English, and that is what A Fine Romance, Falling in Love with the English Countryside is all about. She and her husband spent the months of May and June 2012 traveling to England on the QE II, exploring that timeless countryside and sailing back again to their home on Martha's Vineyard. And she documented this dream vacation as only Susan Branch can do, each page of her book a feast for the eyes and the frustrated Anglophile in us all.

So, if you love the English and their country, or if you just want to surround yourself with lovely things, you must read A Fine Romance. You just may fall in love.

(PS:  If you DON'T know her, check out Susan Branch at www.susanbranch.com.  You'll be glad you did!  TBC)