original sin

I've read a few books by PD James now, and this one ranks up there with the others. there may be only two others yep, that's what I found* PD James is again writing here about her favorite detective, Adam Dalgliesh. Dalgliesh was also the man of choice in both of the other books I read as well. Dalgliesh is a solid character, and he does tend to get his man, but there wasn't so much dectectiving in this one as much as there was an unraveling of the plot by the murderer. Don't get me wrong, Dalgliesh and his team did plenty of good detective work, they just didn't really need it in the end. Unless you consider that perhaps all their hard work is what caused the failure of the murderer to conceal their tracks in the end.

James spins a tight yarn. Original Sin was written in 1994. The other two I read, The Black Tower is 1975, and Devices and Desires, is 1989. So this one is more recent; is this book, near the end of her career, less captivating than her early work, or does it show the polish of decades of writing? I don't know, I haven't read enough of her work to be able to answer that question. I can tell you that, like the other two, this was a slower read, but still fun and entertaining. I didn't read it instead of other things, as I sometimes do with great books.

PD James died in 2014 at 94. According to her website, there are 13 Adam Dalgliesh novels, and a bunch of other stuff she's written. Her website seems to be missing the last one in the series The Private Patient (making it 14 Dalgliesh** books.)

* That's two others that I have read. Now, is it possible that I read another P.D. James book before I started this blog? Sure, but I doubt it. I heard about James on a summer reading piece on the local public radio station a number of years ago, and I thought she might be something my wife would like. 

She didn't.

**  The Adam Dalgliesh character has appeared on television in the UK a fair amount it seems. Baroness. James was, and continues to be it seems, a very well known writer in the UK, and folks seem to enjoy the Dalgliesh character; there was a number of episodes of Masterpiece Mystery, featuring Dalgliesh, which began in the 80s and ran for years, a number of television movies , and there is currently a new TV show, on since last season.

read this book

'Read this book' or a version of that statement, is typically the last line in one of my book reviews for a book that I am recommending. Sometimes I qualify that recommendation, and many times I add something like 'and do it right now' if I think the book is great. Anyone who has read through this blog a little has probably noticed that.

Now, I've spend a hour or so, and I went back through each of my 550 posts over the past 13 years and I've found all of those books that I've given the 'Read this Book' credit to and tagged them that way. So, if you mouse on over to the tag cloud on the right of the page titled "what i'm talking about" and click on the tag read this book, you'll get a sort of all of the reviews that have that tag, arranged in order of most recent to older.

As as was going through my past reviews, I found a few that probably should have included the Read this Book phrase, such as The Count of Monte Cristo, but if they didn't, I didn't tag them that way. I'm happy to report that there are very few books that I really liked that don't include my accolade of choice. Going forward, I will also tag future reviews in the same fashion.

I hope this is helpful to some. i'm hoping that its helpful to me too

gambler's anatomy

A Gambler's Anatomy is by Jonathan Lethem. I don't know him, but it seems as though he's been cranking away, writing books, in spite of that. 

This is a character driver story and the backgammon that it hangs on it interesting tack. I played a bunch of backgammon when I was a kid, after we got a neat little kit that closed up like a briefcase, and had red and black leather (or leatherette) triangles on green felt on the board, and sweet little dice cups to roll the dice, and heavy, dense checkers (also called stones, pieces, or men) made of some kind of composite. I had a rude awaking when I played a teacher in high school during a study period and everything I had done, over and over again against my siblings, fell to ruin.

I was continually surprised, every time this story jigged and jagged. When I first met Bruno Alexander, I felt like I understood him, and where he was headed in life, altho I didn't have good idea where the overall story was headed. If you had told me where Bruno would end up, or had suggested some of the ways that he got there, I would have said you were crazy. 

In the end, I'm not sure why I met Bruno Alexander, or why I even cared about his story, but I did, so good on you Jonathan Lethem. On a side note, I was driving by the local church while I was reading this book,* and they had finished a tag sale earlier in the day and had left the remnants on the curb for free. I stopped with my son to look, and what did I find? A handsome wooden backgammon set made in Syria. No checkers, but perhaps I'll make those on the lathe out of wood. This was a fun and interesting read.

 

* No, I wasn't reading while driving. It normally takes a few weeks for me to read a book, so I have plenty of time to eat, sleep, work, or stop by a free tag-sale giveaway during that period.