Marrying Mozart

I recently read Marying Mozart and didn't find it to be as good as I hoped. I suppose I was amused by the story, but the characters seemed familiar - far too familiar. The whole time I felt like I was reading some sort of combination of Pride and Prejudice and Little Women. For instance, I absolutely could not imagine the mother as anyone else but Mrs. Bennet due to the fact that her constant thought and ambition was marrying her daughters off and marrying them well. Even the way she spoke reminded me of Mrs. Bennet. I naturally couldn't help but wonder just where - and in what amount! - this author was getting her influences from ...

I feel like a hard reader to please, especially after seeing all the 5 star reviews this book got on Amazon. I would have given it 3.

Ten Little Indians

Not only did I start And Then There Were None yesterday, I finished it. I just couldn't stop. Remember how I wasn't going to read mysteries after dark? Well, at 10PM I was still going strong; there was no way I could actually sleep without finding the answer. About that time, however, I had to go downstairs and finish reading in the living room, close to my mom and sister. Yes, I know, only a huge wimp can't stand to be alone while reading Agatha Christie, but whatever. :)

My anxiety aside, the book was very enjoyable. The story flowed beautifully and the set up was clever. I did have numerous moments of slight confusion in the beginning due the fact that I'm terrible with names. I had to flip back and reread the little introduction to the characters at the beginning of the book a few times before I got them all straight.

The book opens with 8 different characters from all walks of life on their way to a place called Indian Island, which has recently been purchased from a millionaire. There has been a great deal of speculation as to who bought the island and the rumors range from a Hollywood film star to the Admiralty. All of the guests have been invited to the island in various ways by various, somewhat sketchy sources. When they arrive at the island, they find their host to be absent, leaving only a recently employed butler and cook to take care of his guests. There is a theme in the house, they notice. A framed poem about ten little Indians hangs in each bedroom over the mantel and ten little Indian statues grace the dining room table. "It's an amusing idea, isn't it?" says one of the guests.

After dinner everyone adjourns to the parlor for drinks. "The whole party had dined well. They were satisfied with themselves and with life. The hands of the clock pointed to twenty minutes past nine. There was a silence. Into that silence came The Voice. Without warning, inhuman, penetrating ...

" 'Ladies and gentlemen! Silence, please!'

"Everyone was startled. They looked round - at each other, at the walls. Who was speaking?"

One by one the mysterious voice accuses each of the guests of murder. There is a clatter as the butler drops his tray, and the cook faints. After she has been attended to, everyone tells how they came to be on the island and they see that something isn't right. They were tricked. They then explain, one by one, the accusations of murder made against them - and all, for the most part, were accidental. Then, without warning, one of the guests chokes violently and dies. It is later noticed that one of the little Indians from the table is missing, and so it begins ...

Is the killer one of the 10? Is there someone hidden on the island? I guess you'll just have to read it and find out. ^_^

And suddenly, from down the hall came the sound of ...

I love a good mystery. Not a ghost mystery, not a horror mystery, not a "now where is that old, expensive doll" mystery, but a good, page turning, who (THE HECK) dunnit mystery that will keep you awake and looking over your shoulder.

It's been a long time since I read anything that left me feeling delightfully spooked, but thankfully I found Miss Pinkerton. It is a collection of four stories about a nurse, Miss Adams, who works undercover for the police. The book consists of: The Buckled Bag (short story, 1914), Locked Doors (short story, 1914), Miss Pinkerton (novel, 1932) and Haunted Lady (novel, 1942). It was interesting to read Mary Roberts Rinehart's detective stories one after another, to see her imagination grow and her stories become more comprehensive.

I finished Haunted Lady last night around 2AM and was, as I had been the previous night, very much awake. I was also hungry, but too afraid to go downstairs alone for fear I might see a dark figure lurking outside a window. I recruited my sister to come with me. "You go first," I said.
I found something to eat, and we talked in hushed tones so as not to wake up our sleeping parents. After a bit we headed back upstairs.

"Do I have to go first?" my sister asked.

"No, I'll go." I wanted her to guard my back (hehee).

I proceeded to go up, looking down at the stairs while thinking, which is my habit. I was beginning to feel much more at ease and reminded myself that I was safe, in my own cosy home, not in an old sprawling, creaking, half empty mansion. I was about half way up the stairs so that my head was level with the hallway above. I looked up at that moment, and expected to see the familiar tan carpet of the hall and my sister's door. Instead I saw two eyes glaring at me. I gasped, startling my sister who gasped as well, and then realized I was looking at the cat.

My sister and I could barely contain our laughter until we got into her room and closed the door.
Yes, I do love a good mystery, but, being the uptight person I am, I really need to be more careful not to read them after dark. Hopefully I remember that as I go through Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None ...

I'm Getting Somewhere!

Today I gathered all (or nearly all) my library books onto my bed and checked to see which ones I was reading, had read, and wanted to read. I'm done with 6 of them; 5 I read and 1 was book 5 in a mystery series that I just checked out so I could look up the rest of the series later.
I finished Maisie Dobbs: Birds of a Feather today. After I got about half way into the book the pace picked up and I could hardly put it down. Thus I spent a leeetle too much time reading today, but you know ... I found Winter Season, A Dancer's Journal by Toni Bentley that I had got about 3/4 of the way through and forgotten about. I finished off the rest of it and put it in the pile of books to go back to the library. I began and finished my Dear America book over the weekend. One more to go back. Also in the pile are La Vagabonde and On Pointe. I am getting through them! ^_^
Now I only have about 9 or 10 library books waiting to be read.
All this came about because I got on Amazon.com and discovered tons of historical mysteries that I am itching to check out of the library. If I'm not careful, I could end up completely buried in library books. I really must get through most of the ones I have before I get anymore!

Thick

I was sitting in the other room, happily visiting book blogs. I had a stack of my current reads sitting on the piano in the living room. "Look how thick that one is," I hear my aunt say. "Jeez," says my grandma. "I can barely get through the little thin ones."
"Look at that sucker," my aunt marveled.
I smile to myself. They are referring to my biography on Margot Fonteyn and yes, it is quite thick. 580 pages, an inch and a half.
--
It's funny, lately I've been feeling so torn between reading books and book blogs. When I'm blog-hopping I want to be reading, and then when I'm reading I want to be blogging about it.
I love this new discovery of book blogs, I don't know why I never thought to look them up before. Reading is a huge part of my life. Sometimes I get busy and inadvertently "forget" to read for weeks on end. All of a sudden I'll think, "I haven't been reading at all," and I have this urge to find a book and start reading again. Once I start, I realize how imbalanced I've felt without reading. Reading, in a way, keeps me feeling "right". Does anyone else notice this? Anyway, it's nice to find other people who are so into reading. A lot even more than me, but still. With all these intriguing new blogs I'm exploring (oh the trails one can travel, going from link to link to link ... ) I've been using up most of my spare time. Hehee, hopefully I'll calm down pretty soon and things will go back to being more normal.

Anne of Green Gables

I'm currently reading the Anne of Green Gables series for the third time. I first completed the 6 Anne books and the 2 "other" books that are about her children (but still have her in them) two summers ago and was completely enraptured. I decided to reread the series every spring/summer. Last year, I got sidetracked in June after getting about half-way through the 5th book (I think). Hopefully I'll do better this time around, but with all my other books ...

But anyway, yes, here I am at 19 reading Anne of Green Gables. You just can't put age limits on good literature. The Anne books have a special place in my heart, right along with Little Women (oh yeah, I need to reread that one again). I absolutely adore them. I love being taken on the journey of Anne's life, going through her ups and downs, watching her grow up and get married. I cried at many points during the story, so deeply touched by all the facets of life, love, and even death that L. M. Montgomery so eloquently captured.

Unfortunately, my memories and emotions about the subject are a bit rusty and this isn't coming out as well as I wanted it to. I'll have to post more as I go along. I'll try to remembert to post a little update after I finish each book.

"Anne dropped on her knees and gazed out into the June morning, her eyes glistening with delight. Oh, wasn't it beautiful? Wasn't it a lovely place? Suppose she wasn't really going to stay here! She would imagine she was. There was scope for imagination here.
"A huge cherry-tree grew outside, so close that its boughs tapped against the house, and it was so thick-set with blossoms that hardly a leaf was to be seen. On both sides of the house was a big orchard, one of apple-trees and one of cherry-trees, also showered over with blossoms; and their grass was all sprinkled with dandelions. In the garden below were lilac-trees purple with flowers, and their dizzily sweet fragrance drifted up to the window on the morning wind.
"Below the garden a green field lush with clover sloped down to the hollow where the brook ran and where scores of white birches grew, upspringing airily out of an undergrowth suggestive of delightful possibilities in ferns and mosses and woodsy things generally. Beyond it was a hill, green and feathery with spruce and fir; there was a gap in it where the gray gable end of the little house she had seen from the other side of the Lake of Shining Waters was visible.
"Off to the left were the big barns and beyond them, away down over green, low-sloping fields, was a sparkling blue glimpse of sea.
"Anne's beauty-loving eyes lingered on it all, taking everything greedily in. She had looked on so many unlovely places in her life, poor child; but this was as lovely as anything she had ever dreamed."

From Anne of Green Gables