NY: Viking, 1999.
A few avid fellow readers have been urging this book on me for some time (we often start conversations with “What? You haven’t read that yet?!”) but I’ve just now gotten around to it. I wish I hadn’t waited.
Walter, Jess. Citizen Vince.
NY: HarperCollins, 2005.
“Vince Camden” isn’t his real name but he’s gotten used to it, just like he’s come to enjoy the donut-baking job in Spokane that the federal witness protection people put him into in October 1980. His life could be much worse.
Lurie, Alison. Truth and Consequences.
NY: Viking, 2005.
Lurie is a first-rate storyteller, and has been for fifty years now, though her oeuvre isn’t huge. You take a stroll with her around a college campus in upstate New York, and she tells you things about the academics she knows, and their families, and before you know it, you’re caught up in their lives and relationships.
Bowen, Rhys. Royal Blood.
NY: Berkeley, 2010.
Okay, so it’s late in 1932 and Lady Georgiana, living on tea and toast because her family’s broke and she has no way to earn a living, gets drafted by her cousin, Queen Mary, to go and represent the family at a royal wedding in a castle in Transylvania.
Smith, Jennifer E. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight.
NY: Little, Brown, 2012.
Seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan of Connecticut is not having a good day. Being very reluctantly packed off to London by her mother to act as a bridesmaid in her father’s second wedding, she misses her flight at JFK by four minutes.
Bowen, Rhys. Royal Flush.
NY: Berkeley, 2009.
As Bowen’s fans know by now, Lady Georgiana of Glen Garry and Ranoch, half-sister of the Duke of Ranoch, is trying to live in the family’s London townhouse on beans, tea, and toast. She’s a granddaughter of Victoria and 34th in the line of succession, but she’s still basically penniless.
Bujold, Lois McMaster. Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance.
NY: Baen, 2012.
As the many fans of the adventures of Miles Vorkosigan know, Miles has reached the age of forty (in Cryoburn) and is about to enter upon a new and very different phase of his life. (No spoiler details for new readers, sorry.) His days as the Little Admiral are far behind him and probably even his work as Imperial Auditor is going to be affected. But, of course, Miles isn’t the only inhabitant of the dozen or more novels about him.
Pratchett, Terry. Dodger.
NY: Harper, 2012.
A new book from Sir Terry is always a cause for celebration, and this one is no exception. It’s also somewhat unlike any he’s done before, being in the way of an “historical fantasy,” as he himself describes it.
Spark, Muriel. Symposium.
NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1990.
This is my latest attempt to try to figure out just what it is about Muriel Spark’s novels that get her so many points with the critics. There’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, of course, which is marvelous, but I haven’t really been that impressed by her other works that I’ve read so far. So I keep reading, and wondering.
Ross, Josephine. Jane Austen’s Guide to Good Manners: Compliments, Charades, & Horrible Blunders.
NY: Bloomsbury, 2006.
Jane Austen wasn’t really appreciated in her lifetime, except by her family, and it took several more generations for her to acquire a firm reputation as a great writer. In fact, the steadily increasing regard for her novels has reached the level of idolatry and has engendered a considerable cottage industry since the 1970s of ancillary books and derivative fiction. This small, quiet volume is one of the better examples of that trend.
