I've changed my mind

Days ago, I wrote about a mystery that I was reading without exactly knowing why:  The Last Enemy, by Grace Brophy.  I didn't particularly like it, didn't find it suspenseful, and felt that it was a sign of my general state of lethargy, following a batch of great books that I had read throughout the course of the summer.

I stand corrected.  The story got better and better and I really got very hooked by the characters.  The end was surprising for a number of different reasons.  I'd have to say that I liked Brophy's Italian mystery more than the Venice-based books that I've read by Donna Leon (that said, I love Venice and will therefore keep reading Leon's mysteries for a long time, I suspect).  

But, as for Brophy, forget about what I wrote earlier.  I recommend this and will hope that she has written other books that I'll be able to throw myself into.  But first -- War and Peace, as I prepare for the fall session of my reading group.  It's September.

Here's the big mystery

Yes, TF-ers, there are times when I keep reading books that I'm not particularly in love with, mainly because of a depressing kind of lethargy (or else, a hope that things will get a little better).  So, at the moment, I'm reading a mystery by Grace Brophy (The Last Enemy), which was recommended by the booksellers at the wonderful Greenwich Village store, Partners and Crime.  It takes place in Assisi, and, as you know, I love mysteries that take place somewhere other than the U.S.  And, there are lots of great quotes on the cover (I know, I shouldn't even be mentioning that).  

But so far, I contemplate throwing in the towel every night.  If there were even an evocative description of an Italian meal it might get me motivated.

The problem is, this book is following The Road, which was unbelievably great.  And, waiting ahead of me is War and Peace, which I am reading -- or, should be reading --  for my reading group (one day, I'll tell you all about this group).   There's something very offputting about embarking on W&P during the last week of the summer.  

So, that's where I find myself.  Are there any Grace Brophy fans out there to send me some encouraging words?

The Road

TF-ers, I have hurtled my way through The Road, by Cormac McCarthy and I cannot recommend it strongly enough.  Reading it is an amazing experience -- you're filled with over-the-top dread; such a palpable sense of what life looks, smells, and tastes like in this nightmarish, post-apocalyptic world; and such an overwhelming longing for things to somehow work out for the father and son who are making their way along the road, in the hope of stumbling across something worth moving towards.  I couldn't stop reading it, yet at the same time, I constantly thought about giving up on it, for fear of what awaited me.   The emotional horror and the heartbreak of it all.  

What an experience.  There are moments in the book that will stay with me for a long time as will the extraordinary yet very realistic relationship between the father and son.  While I don't feel that I could handle anything else by McCarthy anytime soon, I actually feel changed by the experience of reading this one.  

Apocalyptic diversions

I've just started reading The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, and I can see from the first 30 pages that it is going to be very special.  The vision of the father and son, walking along a road to nowhere in a post-Apocalyptic environment is bleak, but irresistible.  I like the structure and style (very short scenes, sometimes just a paragraph or two).  Frightening, right from the beginning.  I can't stop thinking of the description of their joy over finding a can of coca cola (at first, just the father's joy over being able to give his son some type of pleasure).  Or, the father's feeling that dreams of the past are a seduction that he needs to wake up from fast.

 

While it's too soon to say more than this, the book reminds me of three movies I've been meaning to recommend to TF-ers:  Apocalypse Now (I know you've probably seen it, but if you haven't, do so very soon); Children of Men (I was really rooting for that to win the Oscar for Best Picture of the Year); and 12 Monkeys (great, great, great -- proof of what Bruce Willis is capable of doing, completely fascinating in terms of its plot twists, and about as bleak as it gets -- you won't forget the underground scenes).   

By the way:   Children of Men, the book (by P.D. James) is pretty good too, fairly different from the movie but a good read all the same.  That said, I'd choose the movie over the book for any number of reasons, including Clive Owen's great acting job.

My favorite things, List #1

As may be obvious from our occasional forays into recipes, TodaysFrase loves to cook.  In fact, if I ever achieve the true entrepreneurial success that I dream of, I plan to knock down a wall of my kitchen and, among other things, add an entire wall of bookshelves to hold the cookbook collection that I plan to buy, if I only had enough room to house it.

In the meantime, though, these are two of my current favorite cookbooks.  Think of this as a mini-list: Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything" (which I love because it's good at prompting general ideas, and never leaves you feeling that you need to stick to the letter of his law); and Dorie Greenspan's "Baking" (the exact opposite - one must adhere exactly to the recipes, but they're really terrific).    

I'm especially fond of Greenspan's sweet cream biscuit recipe, which I will quote while urging all TF-ers to immediately go out and buy this book (that is, after they go out and buy The Vanishing Child, which you will recall is my favorite mystery of all time).  A great thing about this recipe is -- it is incredibly quick to make.  You can decide you want biscuits and pull this together fast, impressing all those people who think that biscuits are hard to make.

Ingredients:  2 cups all purpose flour (there's also a flour variation, but I've never tried it); 1 tbsp baking powder; 2 tsp sugar; 1/2 tsp salt (Todaysfrase always uses sea salt when baking); and 1 to 1-1/4 cups cold heavy cream (I always use the larger amount).

Center rack in the oven; preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Greenspan suggests lining a baking sheet with parchment or a silicon mat but I use a nonstick cookie sheet (heavy duty) that I really like.  Whisk the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a bowl.  Pour the cream over the dry ingredients, then stir (lightly) to mix.  Don't overdo it.  Aim for a nice, soft dough but get there fast.  Then knead it very very briefly (3 or 4 turns).

Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough.  Roll it with a pin until it's about 1/2 inch thick.  Don't make it too thin - this is important.  Greenspan suggests using a biscuit cutter to cut as many biscuits as you can.  I use a glass because I don't have a biscuit cutter.  (Since I make a lot of different kind of biscuits and have never had a biscuit cutter, I suspect that this is an unnecessary implement and I will put off buying one until I break down the wall of my kitchen and have lots of extra room.)  Bake the biscuits for 14 to 18 minutes.  

Anyone, favorite biscuit recipes to share?  Thanks.

Struck by lightning

With all the storms we've been having this summer, this may be the right time to mention: TodaysFrase comes from a long line of women who have been hit by lightning.  Okay, it's a short line - just my mother and grandmother - but that's just a little too long for me.  During thunder and lightning storms, I always stay away from running water, telephones, electrical appliances, and golf courses (true, I don't play golf, except the occasional round of miniature golf, but I am especially happy that I don't play non-miniature golf whenever there's a T&L storm in the weather forecast).

This brings me to Alice Hoffman, a novelist whose novels I almost always enjoy.  The only exception is The Ice Queen, which was a little too painfully close to home since a number of characters in the book were indeed hit by lightning (this kept adding to my list of activities and appliances to avoid doing during adverse weather conditions).   

On a happier note, my favorite of Hoffman's books is Here and Now, which is a completely irresistible retelling of Wuthering Heights.  I read it in one day and night and scarcely remember taking time off for meals.

Along these lines, another truly great take on one of the classics is Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea.  Written in a hypnotic, elegant, very spare style, it's the story of the first Mrs. Rochester (as in, the crazy lady in the attic in Jane Eyre).  This is Rhys's best book by a mile.  After WSS, I read all the others, despite my growing sense they all move in the general direction of a bog-down in some type of depressing, usually sodden, incredibly tedious love affair.

I can't endorse the re-tell genre, as a whole, because so many of these books are just plain trashy.  But I'm wondering if any TF-ers have books like these that they'd recommend?

What I'm reading now

Yes, I'm in a mystery obsession at the moment.  So I've just started Exile, by Denise Mina, which is the second book in her Garnethill Trilogy.  

Throwing yourself into Mina's style is kind of like getting hit by a mack truck (I mean this in the best way).  Her characters are damaged goods -- rage-filled, ironic, funnier than might seem possible.  

Although I'm not yet very far into Exile, I'm strongly optimistic.  After all, I was blown away by Garnethill, the first book in the series, which had a strong sense of place (Glasgow) and very unexpected feel to it.  Maureen, who's at the heart of the book, is a powerhouse of an anti-heroine.  My only caveat:  I did figure out "who did it" as the end was getting somewhat close.  But that never bothers me in a mystery with strong writing and compelling characters. 

I ask, you tell & vice versa

Thanks to all for a great 1st week of TodaysFrase.  To celebrate, let me share some comments/suggestions that visitors sent by email during the past few days.

KP, a longtime Pelecanos fan, urged me to stick with The Night Gardener.  I'm glad that I did.  The final few chapters were really worth the wait.  I also like the way the Washington, DC based plot moves back and forth between today and 1985 (that's because TodaysFrase actually lived in DC in 1985!  This seems like a good time to confide that TF almost always moves in the direction of omens when they present themselves.  I also save highly positive fortune cookies).

KP says that her favorite Pelecanos novels are the Stefanos books (I'm not quite sure what that means, but it sounds good):  Down By the River; A Firing Offence; and Nick's Trip.  Thanks for the suggestions, KP.  I hope that other TF-ers will recommend favorite books too.  KP, did you try The Vanished Child yet?

MAFFIE confided that my love of Aveeno's SPF 70 sunblock could seem to some people to be a little over-the-top.  MAFFIE, I must respectfully disagree here.  After all, I once got an incredibly painful sunburn on the upper half of my fourth toe on my left foot -- just because I managed to overlook it when reapplying suntan lotion (that was back in the day when 15 was about as high as anyone went).  Now, I always pay special attention to my toes and I urge others to do the same.

That said, I take MAFFIE's point.  In my effort to be relevant to as many TF-ers as possible, let me mention that, on somewhat cloudy days, I switch to Neutrogena's 30 Body Mist Sunblock SPF 30.  But I'm always a little nervous when I go that route.

Finally, thanks to all TF-ers who sent in recipe ideas.  More more more!

My relatively obscure but most favorite mystery

Yes, all mystery lovers have them.  I'm so completely attached to this book that it's the one mystery I never loan to anyone, because I'm afraid that even my friends or relatives won't give it back to me.  And I just like having it around.

"The Vanished Child", by Sarah Smith.  If you haven't read it, stop whatever you're doing and buy this book.  Now.  It's perfect.  She's a great stylist (actually, I read another book by her that I didn't really like, so maybe it's just the case that this was the one mystery she was meant to write).  The mystery is really suspenseful.  It's easy to get hooked on the main characters, even the unpleasant ones.  There's even a very moving love story attached.  

Don't trust me (yet)?  Here are the opening lines from the first page, and I hope you'll agree that they're absolutely irresistible:

"The Baron Alexander von Reisden went mad after his young wife died, and in five years he had not gotten himself sane.  His friends were concerned about him.  He had tried suicide once, early on, and had not succeeded; this was encouraging in a man who was usually both well-prepared and lucky..."

What's your own favorite, least-well-known mystery?  Please share.

Mysteries and other mysteries

At the moment, I'm immersed in George Pelecanos's "The Night Gardener," which I am liking, but not loving anywhere near as much as I expected, given how fabulous his scripts were for "The Wire" (my true obsession of all obsessions).  That said, I am hoping for the best, given the pages of over-the-top blurbs and reviews for this book and some of his others.  Plus, I like the Washington, D.C. setting.

The problem may be that "Gardener" is following one of the great reads of my lifetime:  Peter Matthiessen's "Shadow Country."  I would recommend this book to anyone with a pulse and the willingness to stick with 892 pages of a completely haunting character profile and a really effective, looping and relooping stylistic approach.    Any recommendations of other Matthiessen novels or nonfiction to read????

Here's the real mystery:  How can a book be so good that after reading all those pages I went back and re-read the first 250 or so again, because I'd learned so much by the end that I felt compelled to revisit the beginning?  I'm in awe.