Lionboy

by Zizou Corder
August 2011

"Zizou is a creature of mystery who likes accordion music, dancing in chandeliers and telling stories. She was born in a Hungarian nightclub, to a Circus Family, and now sails the world in a blue canoe hoping that one day she will find an orchestra up a tree."

Actually, Zizou Corder "is Louisa Young and Isabel Adomahko Young, whose names are too long to fit on the front of a book."  In the posts on Zizou's blog, Zizou is referred to as a male. His(her?) name comes from a pet lizard.

I had been wanting to read this book for a while. The cover caught my attention. I always assumed it took place in Africa. I had no idea it was a somewhat of a fantasy adventure set in London, Paris and Venice in the near future and featured a floating circus.  But these things made me like the story even more than I had thought I would.

11 year old Charlie comes home from school one day to find that his scientist parents, "Magdalen Start, PHD, MD, PQRST, LPO, TP" and "Aneba Ashanti, Doctor of Endoterica and Tropical Sciences at the University of Accra in Ghana, (currently on sabbatical at London University) " have been kidnapped. Whatever they had been working on in their secret laboratory was obviously of interest to a person or persons unknown.  Luckily, Charlie can talk to cats. The strays that live at the nearby ruins tell him what has happened, but not much else.  He manages to escape from the "fancy slimy git" named Rafi who has tried to nab him as well, and goes off in search of more clues as to his parents' whereabouts.  

Charlie ends up on a floating circus called "Thibaudet's Royal Floating Circus and Equestrian Philharmonic Academy." This is where he meets a pride of performing lions and where he aquires the nickname Lionboy.  

Charlie has no idea why his parents have been kidnapped. They never told him about their latest research project. The cats he encounters along the way know something, but they aren't very forthcoming with information.  Charlie has to piece together various clues which lead him closer to his parent's location and their secret project.

The book doesn't really end, but leaves us with the words "to be continued."  This is a trilogy. Book two is Lionboy: the Chase. The conclusion is Lionboy: the Truth."

I love that the book started as a series of bedtime stories told by Louisa to her daughter Isabel. According to an interview in Audiofile magazine, "The collaboration process gives Louisa constant access to another imagination. They discuss escape routes for lions or names for acrobats. Louisa types up the scenes, Isabel reads them, and they revise together."

I listened to the audiobook. Actually, what made me finally pick this book up to read (listen to) was the narrator - the fabulous Simon Jones, whose voice and reading I fell in love with while listening to him narrate the Bartimeus Trilogy.  Interestingly, Jones does not narrate the British audiobook. His is the American edition.  From the Audiofile interview:  

"Young Isabel likes to listen to audiobooks; whereas, Louisa likes to “read books for the silence.” They listen to audiobooks together in the car, though, and it was there that they first heard narrator Anton Lesser reading Philip Pullman’s RUBY IN THE SMOKE. Anton Lesser reads the UK audiobook production of LIONBOY at their request, and Simon Jones narrates the American audiobook. After eight years of telling each other stories from LIONBOY, it’s surprising to hear it read by someone else. When Louisa listened to Jones’s version, she found herself wondering what was going to happen next."

That last line - "...she found herself wondering what was going to happen next" - that's because Simon Jones is so good you find yourself getting completely absorbed in the story.

One sort of odd thing about this audiobook is the music. At various times throughout the book music plays behind the narration. Sometimes it makes sense, as in the calliope music of the circus boat. Other times, the music seems added randomly.  When I picked up the book itself to look at the spelling of a couple of characters' names, I saw that music is actually printed in the book.   I'm not quite sure why it's so, but apparently it was important to the authors to include it. In fact, you can buy a book of the piano music with a CD - Music from Zizou Corder's Lion Boy by Robert Lockhart.

Besides realizing the music was in the printed book, I found that there are some neat illustrations, including a map on each endpaper as well as a diagram of the circus boat.

Fortunately, the added pleasure of the illustrations will get me through the second book because,  unfortunately, the library doesn't own the audiobook of Lionboy: the Chase.  I'll have to read it in order to get to the third book, narrated by the fabulous Simon Jones.

Callender Square

by Anne Perry
August 27, 2011

This is the second book in the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series.  It's kind of odd, but T & C don't figure very prominently in this book.  Most of the plot revolves around the residents of the houses in Callender Square.

The book opens with two workmen digging in the park that sits in the middle of Callender Square in order to plant a new tree.  They discover the bodies of two babies - one buried six months earlier and the other about two years earlier.  Thomas Pitt is assigned the case and questions the servants and residents of each house.

Two years have passed since the first Pitt book, The Cater Street Hangman and Charlotte and Thomas are married and expecting their first child.  Charlotte's sister, Emily, has married Lord George Ashworth and has jumped right into high society life.  But she's bored.  When she hears of the case of the two dead babies, Emily decides to find out all she can.  After all, it would be much easier for her to learn secrets through gossip than it is for Pitt to learn the truth through official questioning. Charlotte becomes involved when Emily suggests that she temporarily help General Balantyne with clerical work for a military history of his family. 

Callender Square  isn't so much about a detective solving a mystery as it is about the manners and morals of high society.  I think I said that about the last book, The Cater Street Hangman.  But it is more true of this book.  The narrator is omniscient.  In other words, we don't follow the plot from the point of view of just one or two characters.  Instead, we are sometimes with Emily, sometimes with Charlotte. Other times we are with one of the  murder suspects.

The hypocrisy and double standards that were so prevalent in Victorian society are both interesting and maddening to read about.  A man may have an affair, even with a servant, and it is ignored. It's looked down upon, but everyone does it - a don't ask, don't tell kind of thing.  The man's wife may even know about the affair, but she usually will accept it because the alternative would be worse.  The affair may be common knowledge, but if it is made public the man will be embarrased and shamed and his place may suffer in society. The servant woman would be dismissed "without a character" (references) and would probably have no alternative but to become a prostitute.  The wife would suffer embarrassment and loss of status as well.  She wouldn't divorce her husband because she would leave the marriage with no money or property. Even if she came to the marriage with money, she leaves it with none because marriage transfers her assets to the husband.  Besides that, the chances of her finding another husband is nearly impossible. Who would want to marry her?

It's in this atmosphere that Thomas, Charlotte and Emily try to find out who buried the two babies.

I enjoyed this book a lot.  Thomas is quite a different character from Monk, the detective in Anne Perry's other series.  Thomas is rumpled and less reserved. He doesn't care what others think of him and is very happy not fitting into society, so he is more able to speak his mind to the upper class people.  Charlotte, like Hester, is "not beautiful" but is charming enough that men admire her.  She is strong willed and doesn't like to follow convention, although she isn't as unconventional as Hester.

On to the next book: Paragon Walk.

The Cater Street Hangman

by Anne Perry
August 2011

This is the first novel that Anne Perry published. I expected it to be less polished than the rest of her books. However, it was very good!  I can see why this book set her on the road to success.

Most of the story centers around Charlotte Ellison, her sisters Emily and Sarah and their parents. Sarah and her husband Dominic Corde live with the family, as was apparently common back in those days.  Charlotte, the second oldest, has a crush on Dominic. Emily is enamored of the rich and handsome George Ashworth.  Sarah is content to be the the good wife. Charlotte is outspoken and self assured. She is practical minded and looks at the world with a mind open to new ideas. Emily is similar to Charlotte, but she's much more willing to play the game Victorian society demands of her in order to get what she wants.


In the midst of this setting a murderer begins killing young women on Cater Street.  No one particular type of woman is targeted. One victim is the daughter of one of the finer families. The next two victims are servants.  Inspector Thomas Pitt is assigned to the case. He comes to the Ellison house to question family and staff.


The theme of class distinction is explored. This is territory that Perry also presented in the early Monk books.  In Victorian society, the woman was to be protected and shielded from anything harsh in life. The finer the family, the more sheltered the woman was.  The Cater Street Hangman makes the reader wonder if women were more harmed than helped by this attitude.


This is the first book in the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series.  Of course, I knew that Inspector Pitt would end up asking Charlotte to marry him, but it was almost a minor plot point in this book.  I suppose in future books their relationship will develop and  we will learn more about who they are as a couple.


I really enjoyed The Cater Street Hangman and I look forward to reading more of this series.

What's Next?

I picked up two books (one audio, one paper) to read during vacation. Neither one has grabbed me. One is called The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman. I thought it would be a good comfortable food book. But, it doesn't seem to be that way. It's ok and I'll probably try to read it (not listen) again some time.

The other book is called The Herring in the Library, which caught my eye for obvious reasons. It's part of a mystery series by L.C. Tyler. so far, it's good. It's set in present day England. Ethelred Tressider is a second rate mystery writer. Elsie Thirkettle is his agent. They get mixed up in mysteries. It's a humorous cozy style mystery. I will probably keep reading this. It's short and I'm halfway through.

But I'm feeling the need for something familiar and comfortable. I wasn't going to start any more Anne Perry books because I thought I should go on to something different. But, when a person wants comfort, nothing else will do. So I am going to sart on the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series. There are 27 books - ten more than the Monk series. The first one, The Cater Street Hangman, is the first novel she ever published. I think I have the original copy that the library purchased back in 1979. It has an awful cover.

Perry published her first Monk book in 1990. It'll be interesting to compare this first book with her later works.

Featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt:
The Cater Street Hangman (1979)
Callender Square (1980)

Paragon Walk (1981)
Resurrection Row (1981)
Rutland Place (1983)
Bluegate Fields (1984)
Death in the Devil's Acre (1985)
Cardington Crescent (1987)
Silence in Hanover Close (1988)
Bethlehem Road (1990)
Highgate Rise (1991)
Belgrave Square (1992)
Farrier's Lane (1993)
The Hyde Park Headsman (1994)
Traitors Gate (1995)
Pentecost Alley (1996)
Ashworth Hall (1997)
Brunswick Gardens (1998)
Bedford Square (1999)
Half Moon Street (1998)
The Whitechapel Conspiracy (2001)

Southampton Row (2002)
Seven Dials (2003)

Long Spoon Lane (2005)
Buckingham Palace Gardens (2008)
Treason at Lisson Grove (2011)
Buckingham Palace Gardens (2008)
Dorchester Terrace (2012)

A Sunless Sea (2012)  (William Monk book)

Acceptable Loss

by Anne Perry
August 2011

Ahhh. I love vacation time. I was able to spend the entire morning just reading. The only problem? Now I'm done with the book and have to find something else to read.
Acceptable Loss was as good as I thought it would be. I'm sad that I'll have to a year or two for the next one.

This book continues the story from the last book, Execution Dock. Mickey Parfitt is found dead and floating in the water. When Monk and Orme find Mickey's boat and board it they are horrified to learn that Mickey has taken Jericho Phillips' (from the last book) trade in prostituting young boys. It's a hideous trade - one that I had not known existed before I read these Monk books. Apparently, prominent men in Victorian society involved themselves in such a thing not always because they desired young boys, but simply because they desired dangerous experiences.

Scuff, the nine-year-old urchin from past books has taken to living with Monk and Hester. He has nightmares from his brief involvement with Jericho Phillips and Hester is determined to end Scuff's nightmares. First, Rupert Cardew, a benefactor and friend of Hester's clinic, is suspected of the murder. Then the evidence seems to point to Oliver Rathbone's father-in-law, Arthur Ballinger.

Questions of loyalty and justice are running throughout the plot of Acceptable Loss. What would you do to save a loved one? When does a loss become an acceptable loss?

The plot was tied up at the end, but not for the characters of Hester, Monk, Rathbone and Margaret. There's a lot to be dealt with in the next installment.... which can't get here soon enough!

Note: I listened to part of the audiobook. It was narrated by Ralph Lister, who did an ok job, but was mostly just annoying. I really wish they had gotten David Colluci, who has read some of the past Monk novels. Or better yet, Simon Jones.

Masterpiece

by Elise Broach
August 2011

This was a cute, sweet book about a beetle and a boy. As it began, it reminded me of books like Stuart Little or A Cricket in Times Square. I would have been happy if the entire story had taken place in the Manhattan apartment of James and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Pompaday. Marvin, a beetle, lives with his family behind the walls of the Pompaday's apartment. The humans don't know of the beetles' existence and the beetles know how to keep out of the way of the humans.

But then Marvin makes one life changing decision. He tries out Marvin's new ink and pen, given to him by his father for his birthday. Actually, he doesn't use the pen. With his little beetle legs he draws a small and intricate drawing of the view out of James' bedroom window. The beetle is discovered by James who is delighted. The drawing is discovered by James' mother, stepfather and father. James' father thinks that the drawing looks a lot like an Albrecht Durer drawing. So he takes him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see an actual Durer.

James is asked to draw a copy of a Durer called "Fortitude" to use as a decoy painting in a plan to fool some art thieves. Marvin (who has hitched a ride in James' jacket pocket) obliges and makes a near perfect copy of the Durer. From there the story turns into an art heist adventure.

It was a fun story, and exciting at moments. James devises a way to make the parents forget about James' amazing artistic talents. Marvin finds a way to satisfy his need for artistic expression without revealing his presence to the rest of the humans.

Hopefully Elise Broach will write another Marvin and James story, but I hope she doesn't feel the need to continue the art theme. To me, it was the weakest part of the book. In order to teach her readers about Albrect Durer, Broach had her characters spend a chapter talking about Durer: who he was and why we should care. It reminded me of an episode of Quincy M.E.

Expert: "Like any artist, Durer put his life everywhere in his work. These drawings were a
response to his own sadness and lonliness"

Quincy, M.E. (nodding head) "Is that right?"

And like Criminal Minds the three art experts take turns explaining Durer and his art to James, as if they'd practiced their lines ahead of time.

That was really the only chapter that annoyed me. Broach didn't seem to be talented enough to weave information about Albrecht Durer into the plot.

I listened to this book. The narrator, Jeremy Davison, was very good.

Other Kingdoms

by Richard Matheson
August 2011

I was wandering through the new books at the library. A Richard Matheson book! And it was in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section! I loved Richard Matheson and read lots of his stories and books when I was a teenager: the Shock! series of short stories; Third From the Sun; The Shrinking Man; I Am Legend and so on.

Several years ago I read a suspense novel of his called Seven Steps to Midnight. I think that it had a fantastical element to it, but I can't remember for sure. It was awful. I was so disappointed and wondered if my memory of those Matheson books I'd read as a teen was wrong. Was he as good as I had remembered?

I was hopeful when I picked up Other Kingdoms. I wanted to like this book so much.

No good. I couldn't finish it. The story seemed promising. Narrated by an old man, a writer of horror fiction, the story goes back to World War I. The narrator learns of a beautiful place in England from one of his fellow soldiers in the trenches. After the English soldier is killed, the narrator goes to that beautiful place. He had been warned by the Englishman to "avoid middle..." but he never heard the end of that phrase. It had been the man's dying words. What could it mean? The narrator finds out. It's Middle Earth - the place of fairies and magic.

That's about as far as I got. The writing style in this book is highly annoying. Now, I like to use parentheses and dashes. Perhaps I learned to use these in my writing from reading Richard Matheson in the past. I can't remember if he wrote this way in his older books. But in Other Kingdoms, Matheson uses so many parenthetical asides and phrases set aside by dashes that I wanted to scream, "FOCUS!!"

"The book was fifty-seven pages long, and that was too much. Review? One word. Godawful. I planned - eighteen and brainless - to submit it to the primo publishers in New York - I'd show the damned Captain! - or, if necessary (most unlikely, I truly believed) London. Fortunately - thank God for the literary world - I never sent it anywhere. Rats (I'm not sure now, it was rats) chewed up the manuscript. Breaking my author's heart, but now at eighty-two, a source of profound gratitude. I will say that the wheels did begin to turn, later installed on the Arthur Black hearse. The rats - was it rats? - did me a favor."

I looked for reviews on Amazon to see if I was being too hard on Richard Matheson. Maybe I was just not in the mood for this style book. Maybe I should try it again later. Nope, the bad reviews pretty much summed up my own thoughts:

"Other Kingdoms is a far cry from Matheson's other works. The themes, characters, and overall writing style bear little to no resemblance to I Am Legend or Hell House. The narrator is annoying to no end, constantly making alliterations and drawing attention to them like a child showing off an awful drawing. The suspense, action, and eerie feel usual to Matheson are almost completely absent, replaced by dumb humor, an often disgusting and repetitive eroticism, and a bland paganism that can't be taken seriously, even in the context of a fairy story. It was so bad, I couldn't even finish the last quarter of the book. "

Here's part of another review:

"I am so disappointed in this book. I wanted it to be everything it promised to be! A fairy story by the Master! I mused in delight: "What ingenius twists and novel ideas will Matheson inflict on fairy lore?" The answer . . . is nothing new. Nothing fresh. And on top of this, the writing is amateurish at best. The overuse of parentheses and personal asides and apologies to the reader were so annoying that I almost flushed this book down the toilet page by crumpled page! You literally are interrupted and pulled out of the narrative flow EVERY FREAKING PAGE! Or just about. "

I looked online for a bibliography with timeline of Matheson's works. All of his great books were written between about 1954 (I am Legend) and 1975 (Bid Time Return). He published hardly anything in the 1980s and then began publishing again in the 90s. As I said, Seven Steps to Midnight (1993) was junk. Now Other Kingdoms in 2011.
What happened to Richard Matheson? Should I read more of his post 1980s books and give him another chance? Maybe third time will be a charm. Or maybe I should just go back to re-read those great stories that I loved all those years ago.

Bartimaeus Trilogy (plus one)

The Amulet of Samarkand
The Golem's Eye
Ptolemy's Gate
The Ring of Solomon
by Jonathan Stroud
Summer 2011


Madeline had been telling me to read this series and I finally did. What actually hooked me on them was the audiobook. The reading, by Simon Jones, is just fantastic. Bartimaeus, the 5,000 djinni is a sarcastic, egotistical, egocentric troublemaker. He is also charming and hilarious. To me, most of the charm comes from Jones' voice. He is and always will be Bartimaeus to me.

The trilogy involves Nathaniel, a magician's apprentice who summons Bartimaeus all on his own. He's smart enough to have made a foolproof plan for keeping the djinni from breaking the power Nathaniel has over him. It's a good thing, because Bartimaeus really doesn't like the boy. But it's his duty to serve his master.

The books are set in an alternate reality London where the government is run by magicians and common folk are considered to be inferior humans, fit only for manual labor and menial jobs. The chapters alternate between Bartimaeus and Nathaniel, the djinni's being told in first person and the magician's in third person. It's weird, but it works somehow.

Nathaniel has a great desire to become a great magician and to rise to the highest level of government. The problem is, he's not cut out to be part of the greedy, cut-throat world of magicians. The three books of the trilogy takes Nathaniel through that journey and follows Kitty, a commoner, in her quest to change the balance of power.

There's so much involved in these three books it would be difficult to describe it all.

The fourth book, a prequel to the series takes place during the time of Solomon, king of Israel and master of an extremely powerful magical token - a ring. Asmira, captain of the guard in Sheba, is sent to assassinate Solomon and take possession of the ring. Bartimaeus becomes involved as the slave of one of Solomon's magicians.

I loved these books. I hope that Stroud continues to write more and that Simon Jones continues to read them. With Bartimaeus' 5,000 year history, Jonathan Stroud certainly has lots of material from which to draw.



The fabulous Simon Jones

Dreaming in Chinese

by Deborah Fallows
June 2011

This is the second book I read this summer about someone from America living in China. Unlike Susan Conley, author of The Foremost Good Fortune, Deborah Fallows embraced China and tried to enter into the culture and language as fully as she could. Susan Conley resisted and remained a stranger in a strange land even before her diagnosis of breast cancer. Deborah Fallows found everything in China an opportunity for learning and growth.

The main point of the book is the Chinese language. Through the story of her language quest we learn a lot about the Chinese people (the Laobaixing) and their culture.

The Laobaixing are quite different from "The Chinese" - the government and the societal leaders. She tries to explain the difference, but I feel that it can be compared to the idea of "the people" from the movie The Grapes of Wrath: "They can't lick us. And we'll go on forever, Pa... 'cause... we're the people."

The Chinese language (Mandarin dialect) fascinated me. In some ways, it seems to be a very simple language. Words are usually small and made up of one or two syllables. Longer words are just a combination of those short words. (lao=old, bai=hundred, xing=names....kaixin=hai(open) + xin(heart) = joyous...Fangxin=fang(put in place) + xin(heart)=set your mind at ease....)

The sentence structure doesn't seem to be very complicated either. It seems to leave things to the speaker's body language, inflection and the context of the speach. But, it's one of the things that makes Chinese a difficult language - that and the sounds. The way a word is said can change the meaning of the word. For example, the word shi can be pronounced several ways. I don't have the right diacritical marks here, so I can't show the difference in inflection. Depending up on the rise or fall of the voice, shi can mean lion, or ten, or to make or to be...

There was a writer named Chao Yuen Ren who designed an early version of a way to render Chinese in the Roman alphabet. He wrote a story about a lion-eating poet that consisted of 92 Chinese characters, all pronounced "shi". Deborah Fallows says that "shi" sounds like "sure". I imagine it's probably "sher" not "shyoor".

"The Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den is the story of a poet (shi) named Shi who loves to eat lions (shi shi) goes to the market (shi) to buy ten (shi) of them, takes them home to eat (shi) and discovers they are made (shi) of stone (shi). Such language play works because the Chinese sound system usus only about 400 syllables, like shi that have multiple meanings."

This book was so fascinating to me. I'd love to learn more about the Chinese language. I don't think I'd ever be able to pronounce it - I wouldn't be that good at the subtle nuances of the sounds.

It was an interesting experience to read the two books about China this summer. I'd love to continue with more books. I'm glad I did read these because they gave me an appreciation of the Chinese people. I get so upset with China, but know I know that I can respect the Laobaixing.
This is the cover of another edition of the book. I thought it was interesting.