Bibliography: Penzler, Otto, Ed. (2010).  Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop.  New York: Vanguard Press.  ISBN:  978-1593156176

Penzler is well known in the mystery world both as the owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, and editor at the Mysterious Press, recently reacquired and set to relaunch with Penzler next year.  Every year for the past 17 years, Penzler has commissioned a well known mystery writer to pen a tale that was printed and given out to bookstore customers for the holidays.  The stories must take place at Christmas and feature the bookshop in at least one scene.

Contributors include Charles Ardai, Lisa Atkinson, George Baxt, Lawrence Block, Mary Higgins Clark, Thomas H. Cook, Ron Goulart, Jeremiah Healy, Edward D. Hoch, Rupert Holmes, Andrew Klavan, Michael Malone, Ed McBain, Anne Perry, S. J. Rozan, Jonathan Santlofer and Donald E. Westlake.  All of the stories are wonderful and none of them are alike–there are funny, serious, dark, silly and charming stories, something for everyone, or in my case, everything for someone.

If you love mysteries or short stories, this is a great way to get in the holiday spirit.

Reviewed from public library copy.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

The Anne books and all the short stories by L.M. Montgomery are all intertwined in my mind with the wonderful movies by Kevin Sullivan which I remember watching on PBS when they first came out.  After that, I had to read all the Anne books, followed by the Emily books, the Story Girl, several other novels and volumes of short stories.  One scene among many that stands out in my mind is when Matthew insists that Anne have a dress with puffed sleeves.  He knows that Marilla won’t approve, so he decides to make it a Christmas gift.  I have had this book on my shelf for years and not read it, because I assumed it was excerpts from the Anne books.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover many holiday short stories from Montgomery that were full of the characters, friendship, food and love that fill all her work.

Bibliography:  Montgomery, L. M. (1995).  Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories. New York: Delacorte. ISBN:  9780771062049

Review:  In addition to the excerpt from Anne of Green Gables about the puffed sleeves, there is also the story from Anne of Windy Poplars of how Katherine Brook came to Green Gables for Christmas and the magic of the place and Anne changed her life.  The other short stories in the book are all full of these moments, magic, where among other things lost relatives come home, quarrels are forgotten, Santa Claus finds you even snow bound on a train, and a cake delivered to the wrong address makes up for a Christmas alone.  But the real magic is in the people that live in Montgomery’s (and Anne’s) world.  Good natured, kind hearted, and human but willing to see the error of their ways.  Really the one thing I wanted to do when I finished reading this volume was go over to my shelf and start reading all the Anne books and then work my way through the rest of Montgomery’s work.

Readalikes:  Not holiday books, but Christy by Catherine Marshall has a lot in common with Anne, and A Girl of the  Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter was published around the same time and has at its center a determined young woman as well.

Review Excerpt: “Wilmshurst has selected tales as heartwarming as those set at Green Gables and beyond, and Montgomery’s fans are always ready for any new story that can be mustered from this fabled author’s pen.”–Kirkus Reviews

Reviewed from personal copy.  Amazon Affiliate: If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

]]> http://readspace.net/2009/12/holiday-reading-christmas-with-anne-and-other-holiday-stories/feed/ 0 http://readspace.net/2008/08/review-the-ghosts-of-kerfol/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=review-the-ghosts-of-kerfol http://readspace.net/2008/08/review-the-ghosts-of-kerfol/#comments Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:40:28 +0000 http://readspace.wordpress.com/?p=97 Bibliography:
Noyes, Deborah. August, 2008. The Ghosts of Kerfol. Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press. ISBN: 9780763630003.

Plot Summary:
In Kerfol, Edith Wharton tells the story of Anne de Barrigan, a French woman who was accused of murdering her overbearing older husband. She claims to have heard a pack of dogs near his body in the dark, although there were no dogs at Kerfol–no live dogs, anyway. Noyes takes this story as her inspiration and builds on its details, going so far as to incorporate some of Wharton’s wording in her first two tales.  In the first story, Noyes retells the events of Anne and her husband, their relationship and his murder through the eyes of her ladies’ maid. This personalizes the story that Wharton told mostly as Anne’s evidence and testimony given at her trial. In the rest of the stories, Noyes explores what happens to a house, to a place where such horrifying events occurred.

Critical Analysis:
It is interesting to me that this was published as young adult. Most of the characters in the stories are teens or young adults, but this is a very mature set of stories with some grown up themes–sensuality, infidelity, revenge. Noyes takes Wharton’s story and extends it,  imagining what the results of such events would be, on the house and the land, the air itself is charged with the supernatural. In addition to retelling Wharton’s story, Noyes also expands on the underlying sensuality hinted at by Wharton. There are interesting echoes, one girl pregnant with her lover’s child, another who cheated on her boyfriend, an artist so obsessed with capturing and keeping the woman in his mind’s eye that he tries to destory his masterful picture of her.  The necklace that played such a key role in Wharton’s story–Anne took it off her dog and gave it to her lover and when her husband realized it was missing, he somehow knew she had not lost it in the park. All of these details add to the spookiness, the atmosphere that culminates in the final story, where a deaf teen hears dogs barking, sees holes being dug by something he cannot see and runs into ghosts in the garden. The title of the collection is The Ghosts of Kerfol, but what Noyes has done is more than just created a sense of place, she has made Kerfol, the house and the land like another character in the story.  It feels like the house, the garden, the land are reaching out to grab anyone who comes too close, pulling them into the dizzying horror that happened so many years ago.

Review Excerpts:

Kirkus Reviews: “Told from a variety of perspectives, each story builds on the last, drawing the reader deeper into the passion and misery that wind their way through the estate. Beautiful and genuinely frightening.”

Publisher’s Weekly: “Readers will be eager to know how next this house and its ghosts wreak havoc-and even death-on those unlucky enough to darken its doorstep.”

Connections:

• To Edith Wharton and the original short story, Kerfol. There are multiple opportunities for discussion and comparision between the original and these newer tales.
• Especially interesting would be an exploration of the symbols, motifs, colors, and themes running through all of the stories.