When Neil Madden reviewed Look to Windward last month, I was
both pleased and disappointed. Pleased because it meant there was
another Banks novel on the horizon; disappointed because I figured he was
reading a British edition and that it might be months before it hit the
shelves in the U.S. Much to my surprise, I found a copy of it the next
time I went the book store.

I won’t repeat the plot; Neil covered that in Ex Libris.

This is one of the more accessible Culture novels; and as always the
scenery is gorgeous. Banks has an outstanding imagination. The story
itself, however, is only so-so; some of his other books (notably
The Player of Games) are much better. But I have to admit,
the scenery is just about worth the trip. I wish I had Banks’ gift for
names; the “dirigible behemothaur” just about made my day.

Knitting as a popular pastime seems to be making a comeback in the last
year or two. By that I mean that other people besides the die-hard fiber
enthusiasts are taking it up and the publishing industry is responding
with really expensive books geared to the new knitter making faddish
sweaters with ultra expensive yarns. Normally, I page thru the books,
find every glaringly stupid design flaw they have included, sniff and
spend my money on yarn. Badly designed sweaters on twig thin models
aren’t going to look good on the average lumpy body no matter how
expensive that glitzy yarn is. I prefer to spend my book money on books
about knitting history, fiber production and design techniques that work
with more than a $35 dollar an ounce yarn. It really ticks me off when I
see a new knitter struggling with difficult yarn and a badly written
pattern that some shop owner sold her. Anyway, I found this book after
hearing about it at my knitting group and quickly snapped it up.

Annemor Sundbo bought a shoddy factory in a out of the way corner of
Norway as a way to finance her own fiber habit. “Shoddy”, in the textile
industry, is the word for recycled wool. It’s drifted into the common
language to mean “of poor quality” since the recycled wool is no longer
fit to spin for knitted clothing. It’s used, rather, as filler for
quilts, for carpets and for weaving tweed fabrics which are rough and
usually lined in the construction of garments. The factory Sundbo bought
took castoff old woolen garments, and picked and ripped them into shoddy
wool for Torridal Tweeds. However, as she was going thru the warehouse of
old garments she found thousands of garments handknit in folk patterns
dating back at least to the turn of the century. Some were earlier. Truly
a treasure trove for a knitter and a lover of folk knitting. But the
interesting part of the book is when she organizes the garments and then
does historical research using old pattern leaflets, old paintings and
photos and yarn company flyers to date and find the location of where
they came from. She traces patterns to England, Iceland, Sweden, Latvia,
and even Holland in her research. Some of the color designs have roots in
Persian carpet elements. Norway had a healthy sea trade and all those
sailors brought home gifts which were translated into design elements for
sweaters, mittens, and stockings.

The book does have problems. It is badly written and even more badly
translated. There were a couple of times I wondered what she was actually
trying to say and did the translator really know English? Plus, she
bounces all over the place in her organization of the book, making it
difficult to follow the text and giving me a real appreciation of what a
good editor can do for a book. All of that is completely and totally
offset by the fabulous color plates of the sweaters, often placed next to
the painting or leaflet she used to date them with. They were
astonishing. Breathtaking. Inspiring. The pictures are worth the price
of the book alone.

This is yet another Dalziel/Pascoe mystery, and it’s just as much fun as
the others I’ve reviewed recently.

When Dalziel was a young detective, he was involved in one of the last
“Golden Age” country house murders. A guest was murdered, and the lord
of the manor and a young nanny were determined to be the murderers. The
lord was hanged, and the nanny sentenced to life in prison.

It’s now many, many years later. A TV documentary has raised doubts
about the nanny’s guilt, and after some cursory investigations by the
Home Office, she is freed pending a full police investigation into the
case. Early signs are that the result of this “full police
investigation” will be a report blackening the name of Dalziels late
friend and mentor, Wally Tallantire. Dalziel can’t be having this, and
despite being told to leave it alone undertakes an investigation of his
own–and begins to realize that some of the other folks who were at that
country house that deadly weekend are still very important people indeed.

It’s not as good as the best of the series, but I enjoyed it thoroughly;
also, it provides some of the long term background presumed by the later
book Arms and the Women.

After reading The Bohemian Murders, which was ok but not
great, I went
back to the beginning of the series to see if she started out any better.
Not really. Day uses the conceit of the liberated, spirited young woman
defying conventions alone against the world but it’s been done before and
done better as well. I just wasn’t all that interested in Fremont or her
typing service. And she isn’t even a very good sleuth. She stumbles onto
the solution to her little mystery rather than doing any good detecting.
Fire and Fog had the San Francisco earthquake as its background and
that was kind of interesting. Both these books would have been much
better if she had skipped the mystery stuff and just kept it on the level
of a romance. Her love interest, Michael, has many more possibilities for
development than Day gives him. Unfortunately, I don’t think I will read
any more in the series.

I finished reading this book to David the night before last. It’s one I
hadn’t read before; my sister bought it for Dave some months ago, because
my niece had loved it once upon a time. I was initially skeptical: a
vampire bunny that sucks the juice out of vegetables? But the name of
the third Bunnicula book (The Celery Stalks at Midnight)
encouraged me to give it a try.

Let’s see: the Monroe family find a young rabbit at the movie theater (a
showing of Dracula) and bring it home. The family cat,
Chester, is concerned; the rabbit sleeps all day and gets up only at
night, has fangs, and the family has been finding eerie white vegetables,
sucked dry of all juice and color, on the kitchen floor. The rabbit is
clearly a vampire! Something must be done! The tale is told by Harold
the family dog.

The book read easily and well, though it’s a real lightweight compared
to what we’ve been reading together. There were a number of good lines,
and a few nifty if offbeat references; Chester the cat, for example, is
named after G.K. Chesterton. How many kids’ books mention
G.K. Chesterton?

So, bottom line: not my favorite, by any means. But David liked it, and
I liked it well enough to pick up the next two books in the series.