Books1

Jan 26. THE SAME MAN (George Orwell & Evelyn Waugh) by David Lebedoff. Good biographies of Orwell and Waugh with the underlying theme that they had the same shared vision, that the West was floundering morally and headed downwards culturally. Waugh had an upperclass education and a middle class upbringing, so he became a snob and a bully. Orwell, on the other hand, went to Eton but was snubbed socially, led a hard life with meager earnings and support. They met only once, when Orwell was dying, just before his most famous novel 1984 was published. Also, Waugh was a devout Catholic, while Orwell was an athiest. Seems to me that the differences outweigh the similarities.
LADY ORACLE by Margaret Atwood. Story of a woman, obese in childhood and unloved by her mother and classmates, who tries to justify her actions in adulthood. Lives a double life with a series of men.
May 26. AN UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS by Ruth Rendell.Two young woman belonging to a militant women's rights group kill and injure several men in an English village. Inspector Wexford investigates.
June 20. THE SNOWBAll, Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder. Longish biography (960 pages) by a Wall Street analyst turned writer. Warren loved money and gobbled up wads of it in the forms of undervalued companies, but when advising students he stated that the purpose of life is to be loved by as many people as possible among those you want to have love you. One immediately thinks of his marital arrangements. For the last 20 years of her life, his wife Julie lived in San Francisco, while Warren in Ohama was taken care of by her "understudy" Astrid. His wife left a secret codicil leaving eight million dollars to her tennis coach. She had a secret life of her own.
CREEPING VENOM, an Irish village mystery by Sheila Pim. Too much horticulture for me, but Ms Pim is a clever, interesting writer. The continuing social disconnect between Catholics and Protestants is brought out in this novel about poisoning.
THE LAST TEMPLAR by Michael Jecks. The pope and the French king decide to destroy the Knights Templar, one of the military arms of the Catholic Church, a group created to defend Christianity from Islam. A Templar knight escapes to Devon in England. Afterwards, there occur ugly murders in the woods, when people are attacked and burned. Who did it? Interesting social info in this book set in the fourteenth century after the suppression of the Templars. For example, farmers at that time kept livestock in their own homes and most of the people were villeins, who were attached to one lord and forbidden to go outside his domains. Too much of the book is set in the woods, where horsemen ride in fear of attack. Boring episodes.
Oct. 5. THE NIGHT LORDS by Nicolas Freeling. The corpse of a naked young woman is found in the Rolls Royce of an English High Court Justice. Henri Castang is called in to find out who dun it. Very good novel that handles history, social connections, and international policies in a sophisticated, literary style.
Oct 13. THE SEACOAST OF BOHEMIA, by Nicolas Freeling. A son of a prominent family in Brussels is kidnapped. The police find no leads, but the parents plead with Henri Castang to look for him. The boy is finally found by Castang's wife after a dangerous chase around around the Czech Republic and Germany. We learn little about the family and the son, so the reader never cares whether he is found or not. The novel is written in a modified stream of consciousness by the detective. Disappointing.
Nov 22. NIGHT TRAIN by Martin Amis. A detective novel from one of the best writers in English. Detective Mike Hoolihan is called in to solve the case of a beautiful woman killed by a pistol fired directly into her mouth. She is the daughter of a recently retired head of the police, so much of the novel examines the official pressure to find a killer, in spite of the evidence that it was a suicide. Occasional brilliant writing to illuminate a description or make a point. Fuzzy ending. Why did , do it--drugs?
Dec 11. FRIENDS, LOVERS, CHOCOLATE by A M Smith, celebrated author of The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency. Isobel, the editor of the Edinburgh Review of Applied Ethics, befriends a man who has recently received a heart transplant. He is disturbed, because he has visions of an evil man with a scar peering at him. A vision triggered by his new heart? Most of us would scoff, but Isobel takes on the case. Delightful accounts of friendship, the near breakup of friends, their ultimate reconciliation.