Bailey's Window by Anne Lindbergh

Found in a box of books belonging to my younger daughter and held out of the repack because of the author's name. She is not Anne Morrow Lindbergh, whose books I devoured when I was about the age that this book targets, she is her daughter. The target audience is late elementary or middle school.

It is fairly well done, the fantasy is clever and not too heavy duty. It reminds me of Half Magic by Edward Eager, which my sisters and I read and reread as children. These children don't ever really "figure out" the rules like the children in Half Magic and a couple of fairly heavy duty issues get dropped with no discussion. In addition, there is a scary character woven through the narrative, but there is no real development or resolution of his role. Still, not bad compared to the average run of stuff mass-produced for young readers.

The Liaden Novels by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

I know, I know - I've read these repeatedly, but I've had a cold and sometimes it is nice to read something familiar. Besides, note that I am posting the eight books as one. I had finally calmed down a little from the dismal mess that attempted to pass for something in this series, and it was a good time to revisit and remember that it all started out amazingly well.

Definition - when I say "the Liaden books" I am referring to Conflict of Honors, Agent of Change, Carpe Diem, Plan B, I Dare, Local Custom, Scout's Progress, Crystal Soldier, and Crystal Dragon. I did enjoy the Theo Waitley books, and The Mouse and the Dragon, but I am extremely wary of the "Adventures in the Liaden universe" books.

For some reason, this reading I was very much aware of the "set-ups" in the Crystal books. It is almost as if they went though and checked off everything in the earlier books - "and here is the beginning of the divergence of the Xtrang troop language" and such. It wasn't as annoying as the loose ends left for future stories in Ghost Ship.

Blueberry Muffin Murder by Joanne Fluke

Ok, three in a row is enough for a while. The pattern has been quite consistent, although in the first book, the secondary victim was discovered before the primary victim which led to some confusion.

So far, the primary murder victim is someone who totally deserves to be murdered, and the second murder is to help hide the murderer. At some point, so far at the point of discovery, Hannah is threatened by the murderer and narrowly escapes with her life. Many cookies are baked, but the titles of the books have nothing to do with the stories.

On the other hand, the characters are appealing and the treatment is amusing. Besides, the recipes look pretty good.

Strawberry Shortcake Murder by Joanne Fluke

Stop fussing! So I have just read two in a row of the same genre by the same author. So what? I enjoyed the first one - I had to see if they held up.

This time the primary murder victim is the high school basketball coach, who totally deserves to be murdered, but not for the reason for which he is murdered. Follow that? He is an all-round nasty guy who beats his wife, but that doesn't get him killed. The secondary victim also deserves to die - not a nice lady.

Hannah's relationship with the police detectives is a little beyond the usual, the junior detective is her brother-in-law and the senior detective is her boyfriend. And anybody in their little Minnesota town will do anything for cookies. I suppose that if I wanted strictly plausible, I would be reading true crime instead of cozy mysteries.

A minor irritant - this really is picky - the titles have absolutely nothing to do with the content of the story. Hannah is a professional cookie maker, so of course she is baking cookies. The title recipe is by no means the only one in the book. They do sound good, I may have to sit down and transcribe them for actual use. For me transcription will be necessary because I have them on my Kindle and I like to see the entire recipe on one sheet when I cook.

Another thing to consider, in this book she kills the high school basketball coach, and the secondary murder victim in book one was a busted up former high school football hero. Does this point to some standing bias against high school athletics? Hard to say at this point, I guess I will have to read another.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke

Change of Pace!

This falls in the subgenre of mystery novels called Cozy Mysteries and into the subsubgenre featuring culinary settings rather than knitting or cats - although this one does have a resident feline. Aforementioned feline is named Moishe, which is somehow supposed to be after Moshe Dayan, because he has only one eye. I don't know enough Yiddish to know if Moishe is a diminutive for Moshe. Whatever - nobody but the cat is Jewish - and he doesn't keep kosher.

The story is set in Minnesota and the heroine is named Hannah Swenson. She has a bakery/coffee shop which specializes in cookies. The story reminded me very strongly of the Goldy Bear mysteries by Diane Mott Davidson. Goldy is a full-time caterer, and Hannah "caters" (beverages and cookies) many events in addition to running The Cookie Jar. Both are closely associated with the local police or sheriff's department. And both, after describing the food in mouth-watering detail, provide recipes. Herein lies one of the major differences: Hannah's recipes sound like ones I might actually try - perhaps because they are for cookies, or perhaps because they only call for a normal number of ingredients and far less arcane culinary knowledge.

Good fun, reasonably well-crafted mystery, and entertaining characters and plot line, plus the series suspense of wondering which of her two boyfriends (the balding but very funny dentist, or the totally gorgeous police detective) she will end up favoring.

First Lord's Fury by Jim Butcher

And all the really bad guys got dead and all the good guys survived and they all lived happily ever after. Well, maybe. There is a major loose end left hanging - the Vord are still occupying the continent which was the home of the Canim - the aptly named dog/wolf people, and inevitably, they will someday want the rest of the world.

As for the strands running into this book from the previous one: my not exactly a prediction turned out to be correct - Aquataine's Vord-controlled wife, Invidia, does do him in in the end - making it unnecessary for Tavi/Octavian to do it. But they did NOT name the baby Nonus, I suppose because they are building a new Alera, based on Truth, Justice, and something or other and it was a good time to stop numbering the generations. Decius wouldn't be too bad, but Undecius - or, horrible thought - Duodecius?

In all fairness, I enjoyed this more than I usually do these monster series. (I finished it, didn't I?) Butcher held it together quite well, and the pattern wasn't too dreadfully obvious. You know - just when things are absolutely at their worst, they get even worse and Our Hero must save the day.

His nonhumans were quite creative, ranging from the merely different Marat, the quite likeable canim, the eerie Icemen, and the monstrously alien Vord. The Roman names and stuff went unexplained - at one point someone is reading a book on military strategy recognizeable as Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars. There is a hint at the Pern thing - the human civilization originated on another world but it is merely mentioned and dropped.

The Celtic Twilight by William Butler Yeats

I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this. It all came about rather oddly, I saw a phrase from "The Second Coming" and looked it up to refresh my memory. I ended up reading not only that poem, but a number of others and various commentaries and criticism - and ended up considering whether or not I might actually like Yeats rather than just a couple of isolated poems. So ---- I went to Amazon to see what they had for free. After examining quite a number of pages of works by Yeats that were either free or nearly so, I just went back to the top and ordered the first thing on the list.

After Eavan Boland and a blast of feminist criticism this summer, I suppose I expected this to be nationalistic and chauvinistic. On the other hand, maybe I have no idea what I was reading - or what I was hearing this summer.

This was low-key, nostalgic, and anecdotal. It was also a little wistful at the sense that even Ireland was joining the world of rationality and leaving faery behind. It was in no way an attempt to define and categorize the tales he heard, or to trace origins and antecedents. He simply told the stories as they were told to him. He also threw in a little verse here and there - if not stating outright, at least implying that it was traditional and not of his composing.

I'm a little concerned that those whose lifework is the study of literature would be happy to inform me that I have absolutely no understanding of the subtext, but, since they are unlikely to read this, I shall go on my merry way enjoying what I read - at my own undoubtably superficial level.