Ellen Gilchrist
Cadillac Jukebox
James Lee Burke (mystery)
This stars New Iberia detective Dave Robicheaux, who Burke introduced
six or seven books ago. Far-fetched characters with names like
Clete, Batist, Bootsie, Sabelle, Mingo Bloomberg, Fat Daddy
Babineau, Buford and Karyn LaRose, Persephone and Dock Green,
Mookie Zerrang and No Duh Dolowitz are made believable through
colorful dialogue dished out Louisiana-style. I really enjoyed
this funny, frightening and wise book.
Keeping the Love You Find: A Personal Guide
by Harville Hendrix (self-help)
Admitting to reading this sappy-sounding self-help book is
embarrassing to me and I would have disguised this by calling
it a "psychological study," except the title screams
"self-help." But in truth, it did help me. Now I
know much better how I tick and why I keep doing "crazy
things" in the field of love especially, but also in
all of my life. Hendrix brilliantly lays out an incredibly
complicated, convoluted, and yet wholly plausible and logical
explanation of why we do the things we do. I tried reading
it a few years ago and got a headache every time I picked
it up. This time it made perfect sense to me.
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Anna’s Book and Brimstone Wedding
by Barbara Vine (mystery)
Barbara Vine is Ruth Rendell writing more gothically and with
more attention to character study than her other fiction.
Anna’s Book refers to a diary that is presented
in part to the reader along with some trial transcripts and
letters that, put together, will solve a gory crime that took
place in London in 1905. As the main character who is trying
to figure it all out says, "It is a double detective story."
Also intriguing is The Brimstone Wedding in which parallel
situations between two British women–one living at Middleton
Hall, a residential nursing home, and one working there–become
more and more eerie. I thought I could guess what was going
to happen, but the author had more twists in store than I
ever imagined. Extremely compelling.
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Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis (fiction)
Having died laughing over the supposed letters between the vitrioloc
head devil and his fumbling trainee nephew in The Screwtape Letters,
I wanted to try a novel by him. The myth of Cupid and Psyche is
brought back to life by the narrator, Orual. She unflinchingly tells
the reader of her own flaws while spinning a brave and rather heart-breaking
story that is quite hilarious at times. The book flows well, and
the author makes you really care about his extraordinary characters.
Beat Not the Bones by Charlotte Jay (mystery)
I was captivated and charmed by this offbeat and haunting mystery
published in 1952–the very first Edgar Award winner for mystery
fiction.
Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler (fiction)
One of her best, in my opinion. It’s funny, poignant, well-plotted
and a total delight from page one to the terrific, not-telegraphed
ending. It reminded me of that fabulous Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel
Love in the Time of Cholera–also about bizarre human
behavior that only makes sense in the context of love and power
struggles. (Just remember the line: "There was soap.")
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