Two Envelopes And A Phone > Recent Status Updates

Hmm. I think "Who was Bertie's valet, previous to Jeeves being hired?" is a trivia question I shall now be prepared for, the next time Ghost-Face calls and asks me in that annoying way of his "Do you like funny stories?" and starts up with trivia designed to stump me and get me killed, as if that's fair. Meanwhile, if my life depends on "In what Jeeves tale was Lord Emsworth mentioned?", I'm refreshed on that, too!

I suspect that at best this will be like reading Owen Gregory's Meccania: The Super-State, or even the later SF of Wells - like The World Set Free, or The Shape of Things to Come. But this pre-dates all of that. Anyway, I'm not expecting much plot - more prediction...emanating from 1834!

Another fun Mystery by Boucher.

First chapter was full of happy, peppy theatre types meeting by chance for the first time...and then ended with a shocking collapse. So, I'm hooked. The funny thing is, the style is very Thorne Smith, but as applied to The Paper Dragon. I have not roamed all that far from flirty, flighty dialogue, or struggling playwrights - but this time, there's murder too.

The shorter version of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds offered here - apparently created by Wells to go with some special artwork - does make me want to revisit the full novel; maybe one day. Next up is something called 'The Cloud-Men' - a title I love - by Owen Oliver. Here, we can assume, be monsters. Or at least one.

Update! Plans have changed! I've gone from toying with the idea of no USA authors for 4 years, 2025-2028, to seriously considering it as the ultimate tough challenge. I don't think I could do it, but what this means right now is that my focus will be on all the books by US authors I own now, and trying to read as many as possible until January 1st. Wish me luck!

Yeah, this is emerging as my favourite Thorne Smith novel. And I always liked the covers on these Del Rey Fantasy Classics editions - The art by Norman Walker on all of them, plus the design. Actually, I only ever owned Turnabout, Topper, and this one, as these lovely editions, but it looks like the whole line, back around 1980, was eye-catching. Anyway, Mr. Lamb keeps changing into different animals, usually happy.

Okay! I think this has a good chance of being my favourite Thorne Smith novel. I don’t dislike his stuff; I liked Topper, Turnabout, and especially Rain in the Doorway. I mean, Wodehouse has kind of ruined all other humourists for me - a lot of authors seem cutesy and dashed-off. I do like the Fantasy elements of these Thorne Smith things; that’s all cool, and zany. Wodehouse only has a few Fantasy novels and tales.

Thorne Smith wrote playful, humorous Fantasies, that launch from terrific premises. They are a bit out of date, in predictable ways - The Stray Lamb is from 1929 - and I haven't rated one above 3 stars yet, but I'm always willing to try another Thorne Smith. A man named Lamb is about to experience life as several animals...can Smith get a higher rating out of me for this? We'll see. This will not be Lady Into Fox...

I said hello and goodbye to a lot of pages today…but I’ll have to finish this biggie tomorrow. It has been much better than I thought it would be; I guess we should always have faith in our favourite writers. That said, I don’t want a legal thriller or a courtroom story for a long time, thank you.

I thought this might be the Evan Hunter novel it would be best to ignore - irrelevant, dated, even offensive, skip it or save it for last - but I think it's still an interesting book. A few Mystery books I have read recently have suddenly switched the courtroom in the last stages, and I have not enjoyed that as an unexpected finale...but a plagiarism trial unfolding before me has got me hooked. The proving is tough.

Whoops. I had to follow my update with a revised update…I have not read 210% of the book! Typo King Award again goes to…

This is fiction, but…it must be difficult to prove plagiarism, when the plagiarist is clever. Don’t tell anyone what you stole from, make enough changes that similarities cannot be traced from one work to another. The case in this novel seems to be boiling down to one specific similarity that is against the odds of happening by sheer coincidence. When the plagiarist doesn’t not just copy text, it’s tricky. Good book.

I wasn’t sure at first - but now I’m quite into it, and anxious to get back to it. I’m more interested in the plagiarism case than I am in breaking away for the life-stories of all the players, but I guess an unending trial in progress would become monotonous. Years ago, I did read the nonfiction look at well-known plagiarism cases, Stolen Words. And I read Assassin of Secrets prior to it being outed.

Ready for a re-read of this, right when I’m also committing to Thorne Smith. Not enough handy to do an All Humorous November, even if I wanted to…but coming out of Oct., I need a few laughs. We’ll see if Thorne Smith can finally get a high rating out of me, and is Carry On, Jeeves as fabulous as I remember - or even better?

Loving it.

Ordered this on a whim, due to loyalty to Evan Hunter aka Ed McBain. It's fascinating to think of Hunter working on 87th Precinct novels as McBain, but also giving us these huge reads as Evan Hunter. 1966...so this big book is from around when Eighty Million Eyes got published, Doll...plus, Hunter was writing a bit for Hollywood. I think of the 87th Precinct as his main focus, but maybe they were his relaxation!

Funny to have picked this, while I'm still working through the Joe Gores DKA Files stories. Similarities. Anyway, off to an enticing start.

I had three books with the word ‘Ghosts’ in the title, that I thought I might get to in October. But, I only read Holy Ghosts. So I will read this Crime novel as a sort of chaser. The premise seems Hitchcockian, which works for me.