Enola Holmes and the Black Barouche Nancy Springer OK, the pause was actually eleven years, which is brief compared to things that take much longer than eleven years... Between 2006 and 2010  Nancy Springer  published the first six  Enola Holmes  mysteries, which I have read and reviewed separately, and also summed up in my review of the omnibus collection  here . In short -- they are tremendous fun, the perfect refreshment after reading something longer and more serious. The final novel in this series of six,  The Case of the Disappearing Duchess , brought the series to a neat conclusion. We learned that Enola's mother had disappeared because she was ill, and that she had died sometime in the ensuing year. Furthermore, Enola was reconciled with her brothers Sherlock and Mycroft. And there the story rested for eleven real-world years. In 2020 Netflix released an Enola Holmes movie (which I have seen) and in 2022 a second (which I have not). In 2021  Sp...

Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade Nancy Springer Nancy Springer 's  Enola Holmes and the Elegant Escapade  begins with a prolog in which we find Lady Cecily Alistair locked in her room, and bitterly resenting her father who put her there. You remember Lady Cecily, I hope? She was the Left Handed Lady of Book 2 of the  Enola Holmes  mystery series,  The Case of the Left-Handed Lady , in which Enola rescued her from being stabbed. In the prolog Lady Cecily muses that "Enola was her very best friend even though they had only met twice". The second occasion was in book 4,  The Case of the Peculiar Pink Fan , in which Enola rescued Lady Cecily from being forcibly married to her repugnant cousin. The Prolog is followed by Chapter the First. Enola has temporarily set aside her career as a Scientific Perditorian, in order to "[take] classes at the London Women’s Academy, where I particularly enjoyed the challenges of algebra, geometry, and natural philosophy." ...

In the Woods Tana French The  Rob Reiner  film  Stand By Me  is famous for its portrayal of a close friendship of four boys. Of this  Stephen King  wrote I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone? Two such childhood friendships are important in  Tana French 's  In the Woods . And  French  also describes a friendship of two adults who are closer than lovers. ... above all that and underlying everything we did, she was my partner. I don’t know how to tell you what that word, even now, does to me; what it means... a girl who goes into battle beside you and keeps your back is a different thing, a thing to make you shiver. Think of the first time you slept with someone, or the first time you fell in love: that blinding explosion that left you crackling to the fingertips with electricity, initiated and transformed. I tell you that was nothing, nothing at all, beside the power of putting your liv...

The Way of the Bear Anne Hillerman The Way of the Bear  is the 26th novel in the  Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito  mystery series by  Tony  and  Anne Hillerman , and the eighth since daughter  Anne 's 2013 reboot of her father's series with  Spider Woman's Daughter . (The "About the Author" bio at the book's end claims "This is her eighth novel featuring Bernadette Manuelito and the twenty-fifth in the Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito series begun by her late father, Tony Hillerman." I don't know where the 25/26 discrepancy comes from -- in a series this long, off-by-one errors are easy.) I found this more entertaining than average, mainly because there was always something going on. There's more event and emotion in this one than in the last. If, however, you are a more traditional mystery reader, you might be disappointed in this one, because the mystery is largely spoiled by a short early chapter in which the identity of the main culprit is re...

Velveteen vs Volume Four Seanan McGuire Seanan McGuire  has announced on her Patreon that she intends to complete a Fourth Volume of her Velveteen vs series.  As some people have been asking, the currently extant installments in volume four, with their numbers for where they fall in-series, are: #51. vs. Recovery #52. vs. Temptation #53. vs. Dr. Darwin #54. vs. Gainful Employment Volume four's subtitle is "Velveteen vs. The Consequences of Her Actions," which isn't ominous at all, and I am going to finish it.  I won't be posting the whole thing here, as not everyone cares about Velveteen, and it would take over the Patreon completely for a year if I did that, but... This post is merely a place where I can collect links to the individual chapters while the work is in progress. To wit: 51.  Velveteen vs Recovery 52.  Velveteen vs Temptation 53.  Velveteen vs Dr Darwin 54.  Velveteen vs Gainful Employment 55.  Velveteen Presents The Princess vs...

Steve Jobs Walter Isaacson I listened to this  Walter Isaacson  audiobook on a road trip from Richmond, Virginia to Ithaca, New York in 2016. I remember this well, because I was accompanied on this trip by my colleague and very good friend. She is a much nicer person than me, and it was obvious that hearing about  Steve Jobs  made her suffer. Eventually I asked her if she would rather listen to the  Brotherband Chronicles , which I also had available. She had already listened to them, but would rather hear them again than  Steve Jobs . Why? Steve Jobs was an extraordinarily self-centered man, often abusive to the people in his life. Tina Redse, whom Jobs described as "the first person I was truly in love with,” said this She would later recall how incredibly painful it was to be in love with someone so self-centered. Even if one does not admire Jobs, it is hard not to admire his accomplishments. I read the biography because I hoped to learn what about him m...

How to Win Friends and Influence People Dale Carnegie I read  Dale Carnegie 's  How to Win Friends & Influence People  in the fall of 1999. I was a professor of Molecular Biology at the time and had just started business school -- a so-called Executive Master of Business Administration program, intended to allow experienced managers to get a biz degree while continuing in their current jobs. (I argued that, as a professor running a research group and responsible for bringing in research funding, I was a middle manager. Apparently they bought it, although perhaps only in the interest of diversity.) I did this for fun, and because I thought I would meet a lot of smart people whom I would not encounter in my ordinary life. And that was 100% right! Don, one of the business men I met there extolled the virtues of  How to Win Friends & Influence People , so I got it and read it. I was more than disappointed. It is, in my individual opinion (which is obviously not w...

Midwinterblood Marcus Sedgwick Marcus Sedgwick 's  Midwinterblood  begins in 2073 with reporter Eric Seven getting on a plane to travel to the remote far northern Island of Blessed. "Eric Seven" -- that's an odd name, is it not? Eric explains to those he meets how his parents came to choose it, but perhaps it has a significance that escapes even Eric himself? 2073 sounds like we're heading into a science fiction novel, but this is a 2073 that is, to my eye, almost indistinguishable from 2023, the year in which I am reading. The story of Eric Seven begins in Part One. After Part One comes, not surprisingly, Part Two. But it is not really after. Part Two takes place in 2011. Parts Three through Seven take place in 1944, 1902, 1848, the tenth century, and an unknown time long ago, in that order. There are some stories that are so good, so fundamental, that they are told over and over. You have heard the story of  Midwinterblood  before. I will not tell you which stor...

The Demon Sword Asperides Sarah Jean Horwitz Sarah Jean Horwitz 's books involve ordinary people in High Fantasy. So what?, you're thinking. Doesn't everyone do that? After all,  The Chronicles of Narnia  are all about the Pevensie children, and  The Lord of the Rings  is about beer- and breakfast-loving Hobbits, who are clearly just European farmers in disguise. But none of these really convince you (or me, at least), that this story is happening to someone like you -- someone who was perhaps an insecure teenager, someone who has allergies, someone who doesn't know quite how they're supposed to act at a party, someone who would really rather visit a library than a party but may be embarrassed to admit it... The reason is that in most fantasy the characters may start out ordinary, but they don't stay that way. By the time you get to the end they have become as high-falutin as High King Peter of Narnia. Horwitz  evades this trap. There are thirteen-year-old Nack,...

Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead KJ Parker The hero of this novel calls himself Saevus Corax. (Google translate tells me that is "fierce heart" in Latin, though I'm pretty sure nuance is being lost.) Saevus himself would object to the word "hero", but he is. He makes his living by profiting from war and the suffering of others. He's a liar and, as he himself says ...arrogant, callous, selfish and utterly devoid of any redeeming qualities; all, I’m sorry to say, perfectly true. I’m leaving out devious, because I happen to believe it’s a virtue. This is mostly true, except the "utterly devoid of any redeeming qualities" part. I will leave it to you to discover what those might be. Except for this one: he's clever and often funny. K.J. Parker 's  Saevus Corax Deals with the Dead  reminds me of the beginning of  Roger Zelazny 's  Nine Princes in Amber . As  Nine Princes  begins, we meet our hero Corwin (although he doesn't yet know that...

Enola Holmes and the Boy in Buttons Nancy Springer Between 2006 and 2010  Nancy Springer  wrote six short mystery novels (if you wanted to call them novellas, I wouldn't argue) that for the next eleven years constituted the  Enola Holmes  series. Enola is the younger sister of famous detective Sherlock Holmes and of his government thinker brother Mycroft. Their mother abandons Enola on her 14th birthday, and she, to escape the horrific fate of being confined to a finishing school by her brothers and made to wear a corset, escapes to London, where she goes into hiding. In the final novel,  The Case of the Disappearing Duchess  Enola becomes reconciled with her brothers on her fifteenth birthday. Also, we learn that Enola's mother ran off because she had cancer, and that sometime during the past year she died of it. Between 2021 and 2023  Springer  wrote this short story, and also another three novels. Of course I don't really know why  Springe...

The Enola Holmes Mysteries Nancy Springer The Enola Holmes Mysteries  reproduces the six short  Enola Holmes  mystery novels published by  Nancy Springer  between 2006 and 2010. They recount one year in the life of Enola Holmes, younger sister of famous detective Sherlock Holmes, from her fourteenth to her fifteenth birthday. Most of the story takes place in London, and for most of the year Enola is in hiding, so as not to be put in a finishing school by her brothers Sherlock and Mycroft. Enola sets herself up in business as a "Scientific Perditorian" -- one who finds lost persons and things. The six mysteries (which I have reviewed separately) mostly concern missing persons. And they are tremendous fun! On finishing the last, I had that all-too-rare feeling of sorrow at finishing a good book and knowing that I would never again be able to read it for the first time. I have been using them as palate cleansers between heavier works.  Robert Galbraith 's (AKA...

The Case of the Disappearing Duchess Nancy Springer Nancy Springer 's  The Case of the Disappearing Duchess , brought the  Enola Holmes  mysteries to a close in 2010. As is often the case in a series,  Disappearing Duchess  has two plots. One is the plot of the entire series -- Enola's family drama: her abandonment by her mother, her flight from the tender guardianship of her brothers Sherlock and Mycroft, and her attempt at an independent, free life. This plot is brought to a close in  Disappearing Duchess . The second plot is the particular mystery we are solving this time. As usual for self-styled Scientific Perditorian Enola this one is a missing person mystery, and the missing person is of course the titular disappearing duchess. The most surprising thing about  Disappearing Duchess  is that Enola, Sherlock, and Mycroft must work together openly to find the duchess. Previously this has never happened because Enola didn't trust her brothers en...

The Sacred Bridge Anne Hillerman The Sacred Bridge  is novel 25 in  Tony  and  Anne Hillerman 's  Leaphorn, Chee, and Manuelito  mystery series. It is the seventh novel by  Anne Hillerman . As is often the case in the series, we have two unrelated mysteries being investigated by two of the lead characters. Chee investigates the death (by accident or homicide) of a Navajo tour guide near the Rainbow Bridge (sacred to the Navajo and other Native American Nations). Bernie investigates the murder of a Chinese scientist, witnessed by Bernie. There is no question that this is a homicide, but Bernie doesn't get a good look at the murderer. Joe Leaphorn is out of the action for this novel -- he's vacationing in Hawaii with Louisa. This novel was more harrowing than usual, because both Chee and Bernie are in substantial danger for an extended period. Chee's mystery is not actually much of a mystery.  Hillerman  drops hints very early in the novel that...

Table Etiquette for Diplomatic Personnel, in Seventeen Scenes Suzanne Palmer Table Etiquette for Diplomatic Personnel  by  Suzanne Palmer is a short story (25 pages) that appeared in Asimov's magazine Jan-2021. (Thanks to @Hirondelle  for pointing it out to me. Her review is here .) It is available as a free PDF. More than anything else,  TEfDP  reminded me of Muir Lafferty 's Station Eternity  There is a murder aboard a space station inhabited by a large profusion of weird aliens, and it falls to our human protagonist to identify the murderer and contain the diplomatic repercussions. From the start  Palmer  makes it clear that she intends to attempt humor by describing a diplomatic incident caused by farting aliens. I freely admit that I am not too good to enjoy crude bathroom humor. If this describes you, too, you may enjoy  TEfDP . If you are too refined for this sort of thing, best give it a miss. Station Eternity  is a 463 page nov...