CBR15 Book 20: "Miss Buncle's Book" by D.E. Stevenson

Page count: 304 pages

Rating: 4 stars

15-word review: Anonymous spinster Barbara Buncle writes a book to pay the bills, her entire village rages.

This witty novel, originally published in 1934, features rather plain and unassuming village spinster Barbara Buncle falling on hard times and writing a novel to make enough money to be able to pay her bills. She briefly considered keeping chickens but doesn't like birds. As Miss Buncle hasn't really been anywhere or experienced much outside village life, she uses her own neighbours and the village of Copperfield where she lives as her inspiration. It's only when her novel, "Disturber of the Peace" comes out, under the assumed name of John Smith, that the shenanigans begin. 

Once a couple of the villagers read the novel, and recognise themselves and others around them in the thinly veiled caricatures, the rumour mill starts and soon everyone needs their own copy. Miss Buncle's London publisher, who wasn't entirely sure if the book he agreed to publish is a brilliant satire or just a strange little tale about a seemingly innocuous country village, visited one night by a mysterious piper, who sets in motion a lot of life-changing events for the inhabitants, is delighted. It's quite clear that the scandalised villagers have no idea that with every copy sold, the mysterious "John Smith" makes even more money so they're rather playing into "his" hands with their outrage.

Several prominent villagers become determined to uncover the true identity of the author, leading to some truly amusing conversations and meetings in sitting rooms. Then, several of the events in the novel in fact seem to start happening in reality as well. A confirmed bachelor proposes to his neighbour, and they elope. Two confirmed spinsters leave town together to visit warmer climates (as one is rather in need of somewhere less damp than an English village). As the weeks pass and more and more of the villagers read the novel, the search for the identity of the author gets a bit out of hand. Meanwhile, Miss Buncle has been tasked with writing a follow-up to her debut, as "The Disturber of the Peace" is selling like hotcakes all over the country. 

This book felt extremely British to me, and to anyone who's watched Agatha Christie adaptations, or other pleasant stories set in quaint English villages shouldn't have any problem imagining the various characters who populate Copperfield. Stevenson manages to flesh out and bring to life a large cast of characters, some very sympathetic, others rather loathsome. There are very few irredeemable individuals in the story, in fact, there is a refreshing amount of complexity in the sprawling cast. Miss Buncle is a very likable protagonist, and the reader can't help but be amused as she not only overcomes her initial financial difficulties but comes to realise that her little book has made her quite wealthy. With the advice of some new friends, she allows herself to splurge a bit and give herself a makeover. Even with her new expenditures, no one in the village seems to figure out that she's "John Smith".

I think I first saw this book recommended on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and bought it in an e-book sale ages ago. In March, it fit into a number of my reading challenges, and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. Apparently, it's the first in a series. I'm not entirely sure I need to read the continuing adventures of authoress Barbara, however. This doesn't feel like it needed sequels. 

Judging a book by its cover: This cover is obviously not the original, and until I got to the latter half of the book, when Barbara finally gets to spend some money and gets a fashionable haircut and new clothes, the lady on the cover seemed stylish, but rather inappropriate in what was the story of a dowdy village spinster. I especially love the scarf blowing in the wind. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR11 Book 7: "Why Didn't They Ask Evans?" by Agatha Christie

Page count: 279 pages
Audio book length: 7 hrs 12 mins
Rating: 4 stars

When out golfing one afternoon, young Mr Bobby Derwent finds a handsome stranger at the bottom of a cliff, near death. While his golfing companion goes to get help, Bobby sits with the stranger, who soon expires, but not before uttering: "Why didn't they ask Evans?" While looking for signs of identification, Bobby finds the photograph of a very beautiful woman in the dead man's pockets, but nothing else to give him a sign of the man's identity.

The local inquest rules the man's death a tragic accident. Yet Bobby can't entirely shake the feeling that there's something else afoot. Strangely, shortly after the inquest, the slightly aimless young vicar's son is offered a lucrative job in a law firm in South America, but feels he must decline. The next thing he knows, he wakes up in hospital, having been the victim of an attempted poisoning while eating a picnic lunch. It's almost miraculous that he survived. By this point, both Bobby and his childhood friend Lady Frances "Frankie" Derwent are convinced that the stranger was murdered. They decide to team up to discover why the stranger was murdered and what the significance of his last words were.

Over the course of my early teens, I pretty much read every Agatha Christie book that I could get my hands on. This is the very first one of Ms. Christie's books that I ever read. I got my love of books from my mother, and through my adolescence, I was a member of a subscription book of the month club. Only once I got older, did I realise just how generous my Mum actually was. I was rarely interested in every book, but if I asked for a book, she never said no. I'm pretty sure she easily gave me six to eight hardback books a year, just because I shared her love of reading (neither of my brothers are great readers).

After reading and very much enjoying this story, I went through my Mum's collection of Agatha Christie books (she's always enjoyed mystery as a genre and had quite a few). Then I took out any I could find at the local library. As I mentioned in my review of The Murder on the Orient Express, I was a big enough fan of Ms. Christie that I chose to write my 9th grade in depth term paper on her. I think I have also mentioned in a previous review that Christie's stand alone mysteries (not featuring Miss Marple, Poirot or even Tommy and Tuppence), usually with a romantic subplot are my favourite of her books.

Not that the romance is at the forefront here. Bobby and Frankie are very good friends, and grew up together, but she's the younger daughter of an Earl, while he's the third son of the local vicar and co-owner of a garage, they're not exactly social equals. There's some mild jealousy on both of our protagonists' part when the objects of their affection gets a briefly smitten by a handsome gentleman murder suspect (Frankie) and the soulful, sensitive and slightly harried wife of a sinister country doctor who runs an asylum (Bobby). Naturally, it all works out in the end.

Bobby and Frankie go through quite a few elaborate plots in order to try to solve the mystery. There's several likely suspects, some handsome, some sinister. Frankie stages a car accident in order to worm her way into the household of one of the potential murderers. There's attempted murders, and abductions and all manner of hijinks before the mystery is finally solved and our intrepid amateur sleuths get their well deserved happy ending.

Like a lot of the Agatha Christie audio books on Audible, this one is narrated by Emilia Fox. She does a better job with the many varied voices in this one than in The Man in the Brown Suit, where she sadly had the love interest's voice be so gravelly, he sounded like full on Christian Bale Batman. Not the most attractive of qualities.

I'm glad I finally found the time to revisit this favourite of my early teens, and even more glad that it held up as well as I remembered.

Judging a book by its cover: This isn't exactly the most exciting of covers, is it? A colour palette in shades of distinctly brown, with the exception of the silhouette of the couple in the centre of the cover. Doesn't exactly scream excitement and mysterious goings on. I remembered this book fondly, and was glad to see that it lived up to my memory. The book deserves a more inviting cover design.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 105: "Murder on the Orient Express" by Agatha Christie

Page count: 274 pages
Audio book length: 6 hrs 37 mins
Rating: 4 stars

Internationally famous private detective Hercule Poirot is on his way back to England after solving a mystery in Syria. He decides to take the Orient Express for part of his journey, only to discover that despite the train normally being quite empty during the winter season, it's so fully booked in first class that he has to stay the first night in a second class cabin. Poirot is approached by one of the passengers, a Mr. Edward Ratchett, who claims he has many enemies and that his life is in danger. He wants to hire Poirot to protect him. The little Belgian detective turns him down.

The second night on the train, when Poirot has been moved into a first class cabin, there are several strange occurrences, and in the morning, the passengers discover that not only has the train stopped entirely, due to large amounts of snow on the tracks, but Edward Ratchett has been murdered during the night. No one could have got onto or off the train, so one of the passengers is the likely culprit. Poirot is tasked with identifying the murderer before the train starts up again and the guilty party can escape.

Murder on the Orient Express is one of Agatha Christie's most famous crime novels. It's a wonderfully clever take on the "locked room" mystery and has been adapted into both film and TV more than once. I honestly can no longer remember if I read the book before watching the 1974 adaptation, starring Albert Finney along with a remarkably star-studded cast. I discovered Ms. Christie's mystery novels when I was around 11 or so, and proceeded to read my way through pretty much all the books I could get at my local library, first in Norwegian translation and later in the English originals. It turns out, by the way, that Agatha Christie's writing is not necessarily the easiest to get through when you're still learning English as a second language (it is, however, a great way to expand your growing vocabulary as long as you are diligent with a dictionary).

Fun fact - when asked to write an in-depth term paper on the topic of our choice in 9th grade (I will have been about 13), I ended up writing probably 40 pages on Agatha Christie - her life and literary career - and probably bored my fellow classmates, almost, but not as much, as the pretentious guy who chose Watergate as his subject. We also had to make a presentation on said term paper as well, and a nearly hour-long presentation about the intricacies of the Watergate scandal is not going to go down well with your average 13-year-old. Especially when most of the others wrote/talked about horses, their favourite sports, a pop group or similar. So while in my mind, they were much more interested in Agatha Christie than Nixon's corruption, hindsight forces me to admit that yeah, they were probably dead bored by my topic as well.

After giving you that charming insight into nerdy Malin's adolescence (I was just never going to fit in with the popular kids in school), back to the book review proper. I had considered re-reading this before the release of the new Kenneth Branagh adaptation currently in cinemas, and when a couple of my fellow Cannonballers revealed that the wonderful Dan Stevens narrated the book, I used one of my carefully hoarded Audible credits to get it right away. Not only do I find Dan Stevens extremely attractive (even when done up in CGI as the Beast), but he really does have a wonderful voice and I loved his narration of Frankenstein when I listened to that a few years ago. In this story, he has to voice a large number of characters of different ages and genders, and I generally think he did a very good job.

This is not a very long book, and if you have somehow been able to remain unspoiled for the solution to a mystery written in the mid-1930s, it's a really fun reveal once all the suspects have been carefully questioned and all the clues are examined. As the Branagh movie has gotten pretty middling reviews (I was somewhat sceptical after seeing Branagh's moustache in the promos), I doubt I'll actually spend my hard-earned pennies to see it in the cinema, but I'm glad I revisited the book.

Judging a book by its cover: I listened to this in audio book, so it's not like it strictly speaking has a cover, but the one that showed on the Audible website is this one, which seems to be one of the modern design covers for the book (at least it's not the movie tie-in version - shudder!) Is it strange that I think this could just as easily be a children's book cover? The train that magically made red balloons? It's more whimsical than suspenseful.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR8 Book 82: "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" by Winifred Watson

Page count: 256 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Miss Guinevere Pettigrew is a desperate, middle-aged governess, pretty sure that she's unlikely to find many more jobs, who by accident is sent to to the wrong address by the employment agency. Instead of a mother looking for a new child minder, she meets the glamorous and vivacious singer/actress Miss Delysia DeFosse (NOT her real name) and before she knows it, Miss Pettigrew's rather colourless and boring life is full of high drama and romance.

Delysia has not one, not two, but three suitors that she appears to be juggling and she's absolutely terrible at confrontations and making up her mind about what she really wants. Miss Pettigrew can't stand to see her being upset or bullied, and steps in to help whenever she can. While she may have been sent to the wrong address, she can't stand by and see a beautiful young woman in distress. Delysia is delighted, and insists on Miss Pettigrew coming along on new adventures throughout the most exciting and eventful day the lonely spinster has ever experienced.

One of the last few times I was in the US (not this summer), I watched the movie adaptation of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day with my best friend. Such a wonderful cast, with Frances McDormand absolutely perfect as Miss Pettigrew, Amy Adams absolutely radiant as the bubbly Delysia, Ciaran Hinds (the only Captain Wentworth worth mentioning) as the man Miss Pettigrew finally experiences romance with, and the stunning Lee Pace as Michael, the suitor it's clear Delysia must end up with, as they are perfect together. I was so charmed by the movie and in preparation for this year's US trip, I decided to read the book to remember the fun time I had watching the movie.

The book (and film) very much has the elements of a screwball comedy or a farce. There's a lot of people being pushed out doors just as others are entering and tons of drama and complications, before everything sorts itself out in the end. Poor Miss Pettigrew has lived a life of drudgery, mostly overlooked and unappreciated. She clearly doesn't particularly enjoy taking care of other people's children and in the late 1930s (when the book is set), with war looming, she's quite aware that she may be out of employment permanently soon. She keeps getting swept along in Delysia's drama, postponing her confession that she's there for a job interview (and the scatter-brained young actress never seems to question why Miss Pettigrew shows up on her doorstep in the first place), because she doesn't want her exciting interlude from real life to end too soon.

Anyone expecting deep and profound revelations or in-depth explorations of the various characters in this book are going to be disappointed, as they are really more generally sketched. The whole book does (as the title promises) take place over the course of a day and we get a snapshot into these people's lives. There is not a lot of time spent dwelling on the inner life of Miss Pettigrew or her previous life as a governess, but we are given enough to understand that she is a good and decent woman, who is deeply alone and desperate for a change.

One of the things I really liked is that despite Miss Pettigrew being from a conservative family and strict upbringing, occasionally briefly shocked by a few things, she firmly refuses to judge any of the people she meets and there is absolutely no slut-shaming, despite Delysia clearly struggling to get rid of a one night stand in the morning, before the (somewhat scary and very wrong for her) man who basically keeps her housed and in expensive clothes and jewelry returns to discover he's been cuckolded, plus has a dashing third man wanting to marry her. I also liked the mental image Miss Pettigrew builds of Michael, until the man actually appears in the latter half of the book and it's obvious to everyone that he's perfect for Delysia (who really isn't great at standing up for herself).

After a lifetime of being ignored, Miss Pettigrew is seen, acknowledged and appreciated, not just by Delysia, but as the day progresses, several of her friends. She drinks quite a bit of alcohol, she smokes a cheroot, she receives a make-over, she goes to a night-club, she dances with a handsome man and she gets to witness a punch-up. How can she ever go back to a life of raising other people's children? I don't want to spoil the ending, but I am happy to reveal that Miss Pettigrew gets just as happy an ending as Delysia eventually does, with the promise of more days truly worth living in her future.

If you haven't read this book, do yourself a favour. Read the book, then see the film - they are both so worth it. You'll have a delightful time.

Judging a book by its cover: Not really much to say here. It's grey. With a little with square letting you know the title and the author of the book. This may be the most depressing packaging of classic books I've ever seen. How in the world is this going to inspire people to pick up and read these books?

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR3 Book 104: "Rules of Civility" by Amor Towles

Publisher: Sceptre
Page count: 352 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Date begun: December 9th, 2011
Date finished: December 11th, 2011

In the book's prologue, the protagonist of the story, Katey, is in an art gallery with her husband in 1966. They're looking at photographs taken on the New York subway in 1937-38. In two of the photos, she recognises an old friend, Tinker Grey, in vastly different circumstances, despite the photos being taken less than a year apart. In the first, taken in 1937, he's clean-shaven, snappily dressed and obviously wealthy, whilst in the photo from late 1938, he's scruffy, wearing a threadbare coat and clearly much more down on his luck. Seeing the pictures, makes her think back to her youth, 25 years ago.

Katey Kontent (originally Katya - daughter of Russian immigrants) is young and optimistic as the year nears its end in 1937. She's an accomplished typist, commended by her superiors, and shares a flat with her best friend Eve, a beauty from the Midwest. In a jazz club on New Year's Eve, the two of them meet Tinker Grey - a young, handsome investment banker. Both girls are smitten with him, but before either of them get a proper chance with him, their lives change dramatically one evening early in 1938. They're in a car accident and Eve is seriously injured. Tinker insists that she recuperate and heal in his lavish flat on the Upper West Side. Katey and Eve grow ever more estranged, and Katey gives up Tinker as lost.

Over the course of the year, many things change for Katey. She starts moving up in society, making influential friends. She changes careers and learns a lot about reinvention, both of her own and others' identities. By the end of 1938, she's learned that one cannot trust outward appearances, both in positive and negative respects.

The book is wonderfully written, with beautiful observations on Jazz Era New York. I've read several reviews that compared it to The Great Gatsby, but unlike  that book (which bored me senseless), I actually enjoyed this one. The main reason for that is Katey, who's a wonderful heroine and I kept reading to see how her life developed. She's witty, clever, ambitious and observant, yet both she and the reader are forced to reevaluate their opinions on most of the events and characters in the story There are a number of twists, and just as you think you have a clear picture of what's going on, Towles turns the tables once more. This is his debut novel, and I will absolutely be looking for more of his books.