How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain / Leah Price - Book Review

In her introduction to How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain (Princeton University Press;

ISBN-13: 978-0-691-11417-0), Professor of English and Chair of the History & Literature program at Harvard University, Leah Price, asks a few key questions: “… what meanings do books make even, or especially, when they go unread? And why did Victorian authors care?” Following on these prefatory posers, she asks a great many more regarding the format and treatment of books during the nineteenth century, all of which she attempts to answer in this 350-page exploration of how Britons understood, and what they felt about, the uses of printed matter during that time and age. In this critical analysis of the major focus of the publishing arena, attention is laid on three major activities that were undertaken in connection with such material, namely reading, handling, and circulating.

Asserting that she writes from within the parameters set by reception history, which centers on the reader’s reception of a literary text in historical perspective, Price first explores the relation of book history to literary-critical theory and practice, before embarking on more accessible and detailed case studies covering a wide span of relationships, ranging from husband-wife, through parent-child, to master-servant, that had to do with the literary output of the day. The author neatly guides readers with specific interests in certain types of printed material (including bibles and newspapers) to particularly relevant chapters of the book. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain pays much attention to the work of such leading writers of the day as Thackeray, Dickens, the Brontës, Trollope, and Collins, as well as to the urban sociology of Henry Mayhew.

Price’s discursive style does credit to her subject, as, in addition to it being packed with clearly well-researched information, it is also highly readable. The author provides prolific examples taken from the literature to illustrate the points that she expresses powerfully and clearly. Her profound insights and far-reaching understanding of her subject have emerged from her close familiarity with the genres of literature of which she writes. And, even though she clearly wrote How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain with the literary scholar in mind, the text should be highly accessible to any reader with a modicum of intelligence.

How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain is illustrated throughout with relevant satirical cartoons from Punch and black-and-white illustrations from some of the literary works that were produced during the nineteenth century. In addition to the 29 pages of endnotes, which are extensive and enlightening, the 24-page index is comprehensive and detailed, containing such key entries as “bildungsroman”, “it-narratives”, “libraries”, and “religious tracts”. How to Do Things with Books in Victorian Britain should make a worthy addition to any genuine book lover’s own library, as well as be acquired for any library or resource center that focuses on history and/or English literature.

Blood on the Stage, 1975-2000: Milestone Plays of Crime, Mystery, and Detection: An Annotated Repertoire / Amnon Kabatchnik - Book Review

Following on his previous three volumes in this series, which addressed the first three quarters of the twentieth century, comes Amnon Kabatchnik’s latest 646-page tome: Blood on the Stage, 1975–2000 (The Scarecrow Press, Inc.; ISBN-13: 978-0-8108-8354-3). As insightful and as rich a source of information on stagecraft as his previous repertoires have been, Blood on the Stage, 1975–2000 not only neatly rounds off his broad, sweeping overview of the century’s crime, mystery and detection stage productions, but also enhances the other volumes in the series by his many allusions to the dramatists of previous eras. For each of the 80 plays and musicals that Kabatchnik features in the latest volume, this Rodgers & Hammerstein award-winning director and Professor of Theatre provides a comprehensive and highly readable account not only of the plot, but also of the playwright’s background, the production history of the piece, and how it was received by both audience and critics alike.

Kabatchnik’s all round and firsthand experience of stagecraft conveys a sense of the enthraldom of the medium, of which he is an acknowledged expert. By contextualizing each of the dramatic works that he covers in relation to other theatrical pieces in the genre not only does Kabatchnik clearly show the depth of his erudition, but his expansive vision of the whole spectrum of which he writes entrenches his rapport with his audience. The result is that we are uplifted into the entrancing ambience and ethos of theatre, and transported from our everyday, mundane existence to the world behind and beyond the footlights. This is the best that a dramatist can do, and Kabatchnik clearly does it here in print.

The fluent rhythm and cadence of Kabatchnik’s writing has no doubt contributed greatly to the general reading public’s positive reception of the author’s work, with the authentic ring of his work being bound to appeal to those who love the crime, mystery and detection genre both on the stage and in the written text. Not sufficing himself with trenchant commentary on, and the contextualization and analysis of, each of the plays that he covers, Kabatchnik concludes the collection with several fascinating appendices, treating the use of deadly poison on stage and the vulnerability of children as portrayed in twentieth-century drama, as well as listing the century’s courtroom dramas, death-row plays and “Notable One-Acts of Mayhem, Mischief, and Murder”. The 20-page index is both clear and comprehensive, facilitating access to the text in such a logical and well-reasoned way that using it is a joy.

The Royal W.E.: Unique Glimpses of the Duke & Duchess of Windsor / Victoria Martinez - Book Review

What is essentially unique about the glimpses that Victoria Martinez provides us with in The Royal W.E.: Unique Glimpses of the Duke & Duchess of Windsor (Who Dares Wins Publishing; ASIN: B0058W5QLI) is her fresh and informed insight into the lives of the exiled couple that she has gained through extensive research into contemporary archives relating to both their own lifestyle and to the sphere in which they moved. Her primary intent in writing about royalty in such an invigorating way, Martinez claims, is her desire to convert the reader of fiction who, until coming to her work, had thought of history as fuddy-duddy and anachronistic. In a discussion with Ist Author Interviews, the writer states, “I…felt that it was important to write historical nonfiction in a way that would be as interesting and enjoyable to people as historical fiction.”

Martinez’s years in PR have certainly taught her how to publicize her writing well, with much of her material first having been blogged at the Unofficial Royalty website. She gives credit to Geraldine Voost for giving her the first opportunity to write to a large online audience about Wallis Simpson and the abdicated King Edward VIII, to whose defense she feels drawn, considering them both to have been much discredited in terms of both royal sanction and public sentiment. Much of the impetus in her writing does, indeed, seem to come from her having been a columnist for such a medium, as it is a far cry from dry academic texts that one sometimes associates with historical penmanship. The absence of extensive foot/endnotes, a bibliography and index are noted, which, though possible serving as a drawback to fellow historians and avid history cognoscenti, may appear in a more positive light to those who are looking for a fun and interesting read. After all, one hardly expects to find such careful annotation in a Georgette Heyer novel, for example, as one does in a work by David G. McCullough, does one?

Not that Martinez has only written for such an attention-grabbing and immediately accessible source, for she has also used Mark Gaulding’s quarterly journal of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor Society as an open forum for discussion on her work for many years. The final chapter of The Royal W.E., “A Fool Would Know,” was also originally published in Arturo Beéche’s European Royal History Journal. This chapter is of specific note for its extensive detailing of the 1946 robbery of Wallis Simpson’s jewels during a visit to Ednam Lodge, the country estate of the Earl and Countess of Dudley.

In short, if you are set on an enjoyable and informative read that requires little effort on your part, you can’t go far wrong by downloading The Royal W.E.: Unique Glimpses of the Duke & Duchess of Windsor. 

The English is Coming!: How One Language is Sweeping the World / Leslie Dunton-Downer - Book Review

This lively and informative account of the origins and development of the English language is written so fluently and well that one can read the entire work in a single sitting, which is definitely not what one can say about many works of non-fiction. The field of linguistics has always appeared to be somewhat daunting to the non-academic, but Leslie Dunton-Downer’s smooth-flowing and vibrant text conveys profound insights into the etymologies of more than thirty words in such a way that she makes her comprehensive explanation easily accessible to all.

In place of dry academic pedantries, in The English is Coming!: How One Language is Sweeping the World (Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 978-1-4391-7665-8), Dunton-Downer uses amusing anecdotes and imagined scenarios to illustrate the significant points that she makes about the English language. Her example of “anthropomorphized artichokes, some smiling cheerfully, as if eager to be ripped from their native fields, taken in a car to some strange house, steamed in a pot, and devoured” on hand-painted billboards that first helped to prickle her interest in language is an example of such. She also asks several leading questions that should have you thinking far beyond the parameters of The English is Coming! Examples of such questions are: “What is global culture like? What could it become within a generation?”

The readability of the text was clearly a key factor in the writing of this text. A full-out effort is made to avoid any distractions to the general flow of the text. Full-page figures are used to illustrate key points in the text, relatively minor points are elucidated in footnotes and endnotes, and there is a comprehensive index. 

For anyone who is interested in the field of sociolinguistics, this work is a gem. The way in which Dunton-Downer traces the history of such words and expressions as “credit card”, “cookie” and “lol” could serve as useful examples of how undergraduate students can set about their own research in the field. The English is Coming should make ideal reading for all linguistics college courses. The target audience for the book is most definitely the lay person, with all of the facts that the author presents having as a key focus the interest that they are likely to arouse in the average reader. I, personally, was fascinated by the work from start to finish, and am all the prouder now that I am a home speaker of such a rich and varied language, which has countless opportunities for future expansion.

 

Zaftan Entrepreneurs: Book One of the Zaftan Trilogy / Hank Quense - Book Review

Following in the wake of Avatar and many other politically correct works of the 21st century comes Hank Quense’s first book in the Zaftan trilogy—Zaftan Entrepreneurs (CreateSpace; ISBN: 9-781456-349387. Comfortingly enough, in the comparatively ‘safe’ world of fantasy at least the exploiters can be seen as tangibly less appealing than humans—the zaftans, as the alien race, are presented as intruders with “grayish-black skin covered with green, oozing slime.” The robots that they use as prospectors and miners to garner the mineral wealth of Gunderland add yet another element of distancing to the confrontation between the aliens from outer space and the planet-dwelling inhabitants. Rather than being portrayed as warmongers per se, the zaftans employ such a means as only part of their arsenal against those whom they wish to rob of their treasures, only to be brought into play if their chicanery and hoodwinking of the locals fails. That they are unscrupulous exploiters, bent only on their own self-aggrandizement, is without doubt.

 

Against such an obnoxious force, find pitted the dwarfs, elves, half-pints, humans and yuks of Gunderland, who, despite having their own shortcomings, are generally a much more attractive bunch, who clearly take pride in their appearance (even if that does entail curling and braiding their toe hairs) and in their professionalism. Life in Skensfirth (the town on which the zaftans descend), in short, has much to do with small town life in our everyday world. As Quense puts it, “All social classes need another social class to look down upon, a group that makes them feel socially superior. As long as someone is lower than they are, folks are content and put up with the situation.”

 

Quense also shows his keen interest in matters anthropological and ethnographic in his revealing of the origins of Gunderland in “a godly sneeze,” termed the “Big Achoo” made in response to the taking of recreational drugs by the great god Gundar. In fact, Quense seems to find as much pleasure reveling in the universe of his own creation as does s small boy in getting plastered with mud in the middle of a rainstorm. And we, as his readers, delight with him too, especially when his multi-layered meanings become transparently clear, reflecting the multiplicity of foibles that affect us as humankind. In their portrayal of an intriguing world of fantasy (that, nevertheless, has a great deal to do with the reality of our own), the remaining two volumes of the Zaftan trilogy are awaited with glee. 

 

The Lucifer Code / Charles Brokaw - Book Review

Excitement pulsates from the very first page of this eagerly awaited follow-up to the international and New York Times bestseller The Atlantis Code, though it does somewhat fizzle out towards the end. Given Charles Brokaw’s background as a scholar and an academic who has traveled widely, it comes as no surprise that the setting of his latest thriller is one of the most international of all cosmopolitan cities in the world—Istanbul, nor that the lead protagonist is an academic—Dr. Thomas Lourds, the world’s foremost expert on linguistics and a Harvard professor. Given that Brokaw is also an expert on aviation, international politics, and advanced weaponry, it also comes with the territory that The Lucifer Code (Tom Doherty Associates, LLC; ISBN: 978-0-7653-2093-3) is filled with international (and intercultural) intrigue, and contains several dynamic scenes of interpersonal combat and violence.

Brokaw knows how to get the adrenalin pumping. He clearly knows and understands his audience, and does his utmost best to appeal to their yearning for adventure and eroticism, though the latter is kept within the bounds of decency at all times. And that, perhaps, is where some of the disappointment creeps in—either you have a full-blooded, gung ho, no-holds-barred tale, or one that appeals to the more intellectual concerns of your audience. It is extremely difficult to find a balance between the two. And, yes, sometimes authors do manage to get the blend right, but more often than not, they don’t. Unfortunately, where The Atlantis Code succeeded, in a most remarkable fashion, The Lucifer Code does not, leading many critics to give it up as a bad job.

Chief criticisms that have been leveled against The Lucifer Code are that it just has too many characters and an oversupply of red herrings. Also that the ending is somewhat glib, with the final punch line amounting to just that—a single sentence. However, what is in its favor is that it appears very much to be a forerunner to a movie, and one can easily imagine the chief protagonists, both male and female, in combat on the large screen (or on the smaller one, for that matter). But what might appear to be unnecessarily obfuscating to us mere mortals might be anything but for a learned author of international repute, such as Charles Brokaw. So why not give it a try and see what you think? That it is a novel that is subject to much contention is blatantly obvious, so get a head start on those of your friends who haven’t yet read The Lucifer Code, grab yourself a copy, and be prepared to be intrigued—for at least the first half of the book. 

Montooth and the Canfield Witch / Robert Jay - Book Review

The award-winning first in a series of Carty Andersson mysteries, Montooth and the Canfield Witch (Cloverleaf Publishing; ISBN: 978-0-615-29645-6) is both exciting, no matter your age, and educational. Robert Jay is a first-class author who clearly researches his work well and knows how to appeal to a wide readership, so that, even though this novel is billed as being for teenagers, Jay’s audience spans the generations. While younger readers will easily be able to relate to the four friends who together embark on this adventure, those of an older generation will revel in the descriptions that Jay provides of products, including Moon Pies, Barq and Mercurochrome, that were readily available in their youth, but which, since then, have been taken off or have disappeared from the market.

Of overwhelming interest, apart from the riveting tale, is the intimate knowledge that Jay reveals of the animals, birds and flora that are endemic to the Florida Everglades. The straightforward narrative, which is enthralling from start to finish, is told against the background of an area in which the author is clearly very much at home. The awareness that Jay conveys of the surroundings in which he places his characters counterpoises and adds validity to the veracity of the story itself. The diversity of the four characters around which the story is built shows Jay’s appreciation of the multiplicity and richness of American society. While Carty epitomizes the adventurous and plucky spirit of the essential American gal, her three male cohorts have amazingly disparate natures. Being well-rounded characters, they are all shown to have both strong points and ones that still require working through as they progress towards maturity—Jay clearly has left some space for their growth in the course of the series. And, of course, that is one of the main criteria for a successful series—that one looks forward with anticipation to the upcoming volumes. The next book in this series is, in fact, already available, titled Montooth II: The Race for the Ryland Ruby, and has already met with some acclaim.

 

The clear ethical stance that Jay takes in his writing makes his stories all the more praiseworthy and only goes to add greater substance to the tales he tells. Montooth and the Canfield Witch has set an outstanding precedent for author Robert Jay, with it having garnered numerous awards, including the Royal Palm Literary Award for Historical Fiction, and Virginian Young Voices Awards for Juvenile / Young Adult Fiction, for Mystery / Suspense Young Adult Fiction, and for Adult Fiction. An exceptional work of undoubted merit, Jay’s books should make you long to be young once more, or else go a long way to enhancing your present appreciation of the youth that you possess.