It's almost Christmas, so I need to get these out of my hair

Christmas is fast approaching and I need to return most of my library books so I have room for my company. Sunday I went down to my sister's house and returned with a bagful of paperbacks, most of them belonging to her, so between Christmas and New Year's I'm going to have to turn off the phone and do some serious reading (not reading serious books, by any means). In the meantime, this is what I've recently read. Sorry, no pictures of covers on this one.



Diamonds Are Trouble by Scott Corbett. 1967, Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. 96 pp Mystery

College student Jeff takes a last minute summer job at Ambrose Bunker's inn on Cape Cod, where he arrives late at night. He starts by tackling his new boss who is attempting to crawl into one of the windows of a guest cottage. The explanation leads to suspicion and distrust of guest Augustus V Wolfe who is possibly angling after the diamonds belonging to another guest, the wealthy Mrs. Walling. This is a short snappy mystery. I'm not sure exactly who the audience is here. Mr. Corbett is best known for his children's stories, but there's a lot of brandy floating around for that.





Family Linen by Lee Smith. 1985, G.P. Putnam's Sons. 272 pp. Fiction

I thought this looked like a Krantz book--with the glamour, sizzle, and sass. This particular copy has been rebound, so there was no blurb, but I took a chance after reading the first couple pages about Sybill and her trip to the hypnotist. Krantz it isn't, but it is a funny book about a family full of oddballs, pretentious idiots, and kooks. It reminded me in many ways of Lorna Ludvik's Patty Jane's House of Curl.



Firestorm at Peshtigo by Denise Gess and William Lutz. 2002, Henry Holt. 267 pp Nonfiction

Many people know that on October 8, 1871 a good share of Chicago burned down killing 300 people. Unless they live in Wisconsin, most people are not aware that on that same day more than 2,400 square miles of forest burned and between 1,500 and 2,500 people died. This book tells about the Wisconsin fire and its aftermath. In 1871 Peshtigo was a booming timber town with 100 or more people a week arriving to log or farm on the cheap land available. In fact, nobody knows exactly how many people were in the area, so nobody knows exactly how many people died.



A Gladiator Dies Only Once by Steven Saylor. 2005, St. Martin's Minotaur. 269 pp Mystery

Gordianus the Finder has been around since 1991. I'm just now discovering him. (Don't you just love browsing up and down the shelves of the library and finding "new" authors to read.) Set just a little earlier than my favorite Roman mysteries, Gordianus pulls in historical figures like Cicero, Lucullus, and Cato and makes them come alive, some of them more than others. This is a collection of short stories that cover some of the early years of Gordianus' cases, 77-64 BC. I'll be looking for the full length mysteries now.



What They Didn't Teach You About the Wild West by Mike Wright. 2000, Presido. 370 pp Nonfiction

Part of a series, this book loosely organizes topics of western lore (Cowboy, cattle barons, Native Americans, railroads, etc.) and presents items to amaze--sort of "And now, the rest of the story..." Many of the facts are pretty well known to people with even a minimal interest in history, but there is sure to be at least a nugget or two that you probably never knew.



Yarnplay at Home: Handknits for Colorful Living by Lisa Shobhana Mason. 2008, North Light. 127 pp Crafts

These attractive knitting projects are arranged in three levels of difficulty, from the easiest to more difficult (which would be suitable for most reasonably competent knitters). There is a nice range of projects from the simple knitted cotton dishcloth to a lacy mohair curtain, with suggestions for decorating ideas, alternate adaptations, or gift ideas in many cases. The directions are clear and easy to follow. The Serpentine dishcloth pattern is just difficult enough to keep me interested.