The Saturday Morning Post EXTRA! EXTRA! (No. 144)

 

I discovered that you can browse the collection of books at the Gutenberg Project by categories. I started with adventure, and downloaded four books out of the first 300 I came across. There were a fair number of books in those 300 that I had either read or had come across before. I chose new ones that looked promising.  So how did that promise play out in the first two books I tried?

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

The Car of Destiny by C N Williamson & A M Williamson  DNF 6%

I know that I had read a book by this husband and wife writing team years ago. They wrote mystery and adventure stories usually centered around cars, which was C N's specialty. A M wrote many other novels on her own as well.

A poor-ish, i.e. wealthy, but not wealthy enough, soldier of fortune who is the son of a Spanish noble who fought on the wrong side in some sort of Spanish dispute, and thus is a person non-grata in Spain, instantly falls in love with a companion of an English princess who is marrying a Spanish prince... or something like that. And she instantly falls in love with him as well. But how can their love flourish when he dares not reveal his true identity? Plus, he's so "poor" as well? I'll never know, as the story seemed so improbable and so melodramatic that I simply couldn't take it at all seriously. I moved on.

One of the Six Hundred by James Grant  C+

Wouldn't you just know, this book starts out with the same premise of the last one, save that our hero, the narrator has met the girl of his dream, Lady Louisa Luftus, a number of times before he meets her again at he Uncle's estate in Scotland. There, on a month's leave from his Lancer Regiment, he and his rival, a fellow officer and a rich cad, vie for the love of the daughter of an earl whose wife aims to marry her daughter off to an old rich man. 

This story is set just prior to the Crimean War, i.e. 1853. The first third of this book concerns itself with our hero's courting of the beautiful Lady Louisa Luftus, who is one of a large party staying at his Uncle's house. Our hero is blind to the love of his sweet cousin Cora. It seems to have been a popular trope, and for all I know, still is.

 

If the first third is about our hero's romance, the second third recounts his experiences after leaving England, his regiment having been sent east to fight the Russians in the Crimean War. Over the summer months they camp in Bulgaria, ill supplied, ill housed, ill and inflectionally led, doing nothing but dying of cholera and dysentery. During this time he makes some friends, sees a bit of the generally squalid sights, and almost dies of cholera himself.

In the final third of the book, they are landed on the Crimean Peninsula, and begin to fight the Russians. I read the corresponding pages of this operation in George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman at the Charge, so that I would have somewhat cynical, but historically accurate picture of the events of this campaign to compare Grant's account to. In general, Grant did not glorify the battle; he faithfully describes all the carnage and horror of the battle and the aftermath; the wounded and dying left without waxing about the glory of the English victories. But besides criticizing the red tape that kept the army ill supplied, he does not comment directly on how poorly the champaign was run from on high, save to say that there was a lot of discontent within the ranks over spending those useless months dying of cholera. Anyways, in this section our hero is captured by the Russians, escapes, only be able to ride in the famous/infamous Charge of the Light Brigade; the six hundred, of the title, who rode down the valley of death in a charge that was misdirected to the wrong gun emplacements, a charge that resulted in over 50% casualties. He makes no mention of the unclear orders and mistakes that led to this foolhardy adventure. Wounded, he is returned home weak but whole to slowly recover, unlike many of his comrades.

Over long, and long winded, with the romance too melodramatic for my taste, but still, I have to give him credit; he does take the reader to many colorful and/or squalid places with his story, to a place that 170 some years later, they're still fighting over.

James Grant was a prolific author of both historical tales of famous Scottish historical figures and more popular novels such as this one. This one was written in 1875, and is a rather curious book. It is written in first person, but has sections that are set in a different locale and those parts are in third person. In addition there are at least three short stories - several chapters worth - which are unrelated to the main story included as well. These stories are told by characters in the story from their past experiences, or just stories they have heard. And brother, does he like to describe just about everything. There are pages worth of descriptions of everything from thoughts to people, to the landscape, not to mention the horrors of war. He spends many pages doing just that.

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 143)

 

This is the third book I've read by Jean Webster. Let's see how this one fares.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

Dear Enemy by Jean Webster   C

This is not a book I would recommend, unless you are interested in children and orphanages. Though it offers a detailed glimpse of the treatment of a hundred plus orphans, some with various disabilities, as practiced a hundred and twenty years ago. I read it out of curiosity, but I found it rather dense reading. Not without its charm, but, not a page turner either.

This is the "sequel" to Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs, which I greatly enjoyed. She uses the same format here as in that book; a collection of letters. In this case written to a number of different people, including Judy Abbot, the hero of the Daddy-Long-Legs story, now married to a wealthy husband. The writer of these letters is an old collage friend of hers, Sallie McBride, who she has talked into becoming the director of the orphanage that Judy Abbot grew up. Sallie is given in the mandate and money to modernize the orphanage to make it far less grim place than it had been when Judy was raised in it. Funded by money from Judy's husband, Sallie sets out to do just that, making a more cheerful and healthy place for the children. The long series of letters relate her struggles over the course of the better part of a year. to do just that. 

Whereas the letters in Daddy-Long-Legs were bright and interesting, these are often highly detail accounts of her effort and of individual children, one letter after the another to various people. While the content of the letters are varied and often laced with humor, I still  found reading this story pretty heavy going, perhaps because there were so many letters, and so detailed.

Webster was social active, not only in the suffrage movement but the reform movement to improve orphanages and the plight of the poor. She uses this story to highlight the challenges and possible solutions. My wife Sally was a special ed teacher, both in grade schools and high schools, and I recognize some of the issues this Sallie faced dealing with some of the children, brought to them, often out of poverty. Everything now has a name and some sort of classification, and some sort of treatment. But not back then. It was interesting to see how they approached these issues 120 years ago, how the approach and understanding changed, and how such things have not.

There are various storyline running through this novel, with a variety of characters, so you shouldn't come away from this review thinking this is a dry, dreary book. It is not, I just found it, well too dense, as in the Gutenberg copy I was reading had virtually no breaks between letters, so one tended to run into another, from one end of the book to the other, which made it  for me, rather tedious reading. As always, your mileage may vary.

This Blog

I had originally planned this post to be a piece entitled The Underlying Premise of My Books. I'd written it a month or two ago for a week when I had nothing in mind to write. So far, so good. But scrolling down my list of blogs, for some reason I don't recall, I came across a four(!) part series called "My Universe" that covered my characters, society, timeline and technology which I had posted a year ago. Talk about beating a dead horse...

But it did get me thinking about this blog. What it is, what it isn't, how it's read, and what I want out of it. And so today's post is just my rambling thoughts on this blog and what its for.

I started it 2015, when I published my first book. Back then, all authors were expected to have websites and/or blogs. Websites cost money, this blog is free, so I settled on a blog. These days most major author blog & websites are mostly dead. The purposes of those websites/blogs in 2015 has now been moved to newsletters, TikTok, and other such social media sites, which are not my thing. 

In 2015 I posted 25 post, all of them about the books I was publishing. My books continued to be the focus of the blog, but after 2015 I usually only published one book, so there was only so much promotion I could do. 

One of the other reasons we authors had to have websites & blogs, was to introduce ourselves and make a connection to our readers. The idea being to present the actual person behind that name on the cover of the book. And that, I took to mean, to talk about things that interested me, and to share my opinions about some things. I have continued to do that, and in the last three years, adding reviews of all the books I read. These days I publish a general post on Wednesday, and a book review on Saturday. An since I am currently so far behind  posting book reviews, I'm reading too many, I also post on Sunday as well.

As of writing the post, this blog has been visited 225,200 times, likely 220,200 times by bots. (Luv Y bots!) That number means nothing to me. I have no goals for this blog. Indeed, I've made a conscious effort to keep a low profile for this blog by not using the tags that search engines can record and show up on searches for most of my posts. I like obscurity, because in obscurity I can write what I want without worrying about creating any ill feelings. I (usually) have no agenda. I will share my opinions on a number of subjects and the books I read, but that is all I'm doing. Sharing what I think. You're welcome to think what you want.

Circling back to proposed The Underlying Premise of My Books post, the question is, would it have mattered if I had covered that material a year ago in far greater depth? How many non-bots read these posts, and would they ever remember something from a year ago? Does any non-bot ever search back and read any of my old posts? I don't have an index for them, so they would need to scroll down through the first page of posts, to the list at the bottom and pick a year, a month, and a post from the list of posts to read something. 

I know that I read the blogs I visit as newspapers; what's new on them and almost never go back and read posts from years ago. Still, as unlikely as it seems, it appears that all my posts pick up views over time, since many of them have around 70, plus views, far more than what they likely had a month or two after positing. Are there non-bots out there reading those posts, or are they just the usual suspects - bots? I have no way of knowing, and to be honest, I don't care. I never pay any attention to  old posts. The only reason I know those numbers is because I looked back on them to write this piece. As I said above, I ain't chasing views.

So what am I doing blogging? Well, there is still the promotional aspect of the blog. I can talk about upcoming books, and talk about the stories and how they came about. I can express my opinion on various book related subjects - stay tuned for a rant next week. And I can write reviews for the books I read. But to be perfectly honest, I do this for one simple reason; I love to write. This blog is just an excuse to write. Writing and posting my writing is its raison d'etre. While I hope to amuse all the bots and non-bots alike who happen by, that is the icing on the cake. I write it to write.

The Saturday Morning Post EXTRA! EXTRA! (No. 142)

 

With this installment, we have another Jean Webster story downloaded from Gutenberg. This time around it's a mystery.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

The Four-Pools Mystery by Jean Webster  C+

This is a murder mystery, though it had me wondering for a while, since we didn't get to the murder until something like 40% into the story. An attorney, our narrator, needing rest after an exhausting case - this seems to be a popular device to get people off of work and into the story - goes down south to visit his uncle on an old plantation in Virginia. The uncle has two sons, the elder of which he disinherited, the young is still around, but often at odds with his father, plus a daughter who ran off with a fellow her father disliked. He disinherited her too, but she died. You know, an old southern aristocrat. 

Once our narrator arrives, a series of unexplained events like the supper's chicken being stolen out of the oven, plus all sort of food and other stuff go missing. The black servants consider this the work of the ghost of a slave beaten to death, i.e. a haunting. Or as it is written in the book, "Ha'nt" Our murder then follows, and eventually an newspaper reporter who is known for solving mysteries for his paper is eventually brought in to solve the crime.

The story is well written, fairly entertaining, with a great deal of time spent in the lead up to the central mystery, examining the characters, local, and customs of the South, within 40 years of the end of slavery. The black characters all talk in that stereotypical dialect, all are superstitious, and all are portrayed as loyal to the stern Grandfather, even though he beats them on occasion. The northern narrator finds this surprising, and in the end, Webster has the newspaper man say that the person murdered actually committed suicide by the way he treated the blacks; the blacks needed to be respected and treated as people. Still, in 2025 I don't think this story would be considered acceptable on account of its stereotypical portrayal of the uneducated southern black, however sympathetic it might be.

So to sum it up, nothing special, dated, and not a story that I think you have to go out and read.

The Saturday Morning Post (No.141)

 

In the back of my Gutenberg copy of Daddy-Long-Legs, they included all the original ads for other books by the publisher you often find in old books. I browsed through them, and picked out one of them to read next. It is said to be a romance.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

Lavender & Old Lace by Myrtle Reed  C

Ruth Thorne, a newspaper reporter, is asked by an aunt she had never met, Jane Hathaway - not that Jane Hathaway - (Showing my age?), to look after her house along the ocean while the aunt goes on a guided tour of Europe for six months. Needing a break from her work, she takes the job and retires to this house on the hill. We meet some of the local inhabitants, including an exotic elderly (55 years old) lady down the hill from the Hathaway house, who it is hinted had a sad romantic past, but remains determinedly cheerful. Soon, another newspaper man, Carl Winfield, whose eyes need months of rest, turns up, sent by Jane's old boss. After a rocky start, there is a romance. Which you might think would be the main plot of the book. But you'd be wrong.

One of the things I enjoy about these old popular novels, is the sense of not only place and time, but of society and its expectations. Plus, it is interesting how these authors wrote their stories. This one was I found rather strange. There are lots of mysteries involving old and sad love affairs, lights in the windows, and the courtship of Ruth and Carl. The aunt returns early, and Ruth then moves in with the lady in the house below the hill. And well, the plot tends to expand to other characters, and eventually to the past for a melodramatic ending. This is another book where the reader is likely ahead of the characters, characters who seem to act, well, rather strange at times. As I said, a rather strange book, with rather strange characters.

It Seems I Like Girls

Girl authors. Or rather, the stories women write. Some of them, anyway.

I was casting around for something to write about for this blog post, when, after updating my list of books I've read so far this year, it struck me that all my favorite new books this year seemed to have been written by women authors. Was this in fact, true? So I went through my reading list for 2025 to date, and then back to 2024 as well, just to see just how many of my "A" grade stories were written by women.

Here are the numbers;

In 2024 I started 54 books, DNF'ing 5 of them. So far in 2025 I've started 81 books, and DNF'ed 17 of them, for a combined total of 135 books started.

Out of those 135 books, 34 books received a grade of "A" from me (25%). Not a bad average... On the other end, DNFs accounted for 16% Do I have a bell curve going on here? Too much work to do the math, or maths, depending on where you live. Anyway...

In 2024 18 books received a grade of an "A" or "A-" and of those, 13 (72%) were written by a women. Of the five written by men, two were P G Wodehouse books, one was a reread of Riddle of the Sands and two were by Jasper Fforde, one a reread of Shades of Grey and then the first read of Red Side Story.

So far in 2025 16 books have received a grade of an "A", of which 13 (81%)were written by a woman. All three of the "A" books written by men were rereads of Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey Series. 

However, these numbers are somewhat misleading, since they included series written by women. 

In 2024 only three women authors accounted for the 11 women-written books earning an "A" grade. They were Ellis Peters for her Brother Cadfael series, with 9 "A" grade books. The other two were Winifred Watson for her Miss Petigrew Lives for a Day, and Yangsze Choo for The Fox Wife.

So far in 2025, the five women authors accounting for the 13 books earning an "A" grade are Georgette Heyer for some of her historical and Regency romances, Beth Brower for all 8 of her Emma M Lion books, Paulette Jiles for News of the World, Jean Webster for Daddy Longlegs, and L M Montgomery for Anne of Green Gables and Anne of the Island. (Anne of Avonlea earned a B+ I'm reading Anne of Windy Poplars, it has a good chance of an A as well.)

Of course, being a woman doesn't get you a free pass. Susanna Clarke's Piranesi was the worst book I've read so far this year, and Pat Murphy's The Adventures of Mary Darling is a close second in that category. 

Nor do women dominate my reading in the number of authors. I read 30 different authors in 2024 of which 13 were women (43%) And so far in 2025,  I've read 47 different authors of which 17 were women (36%). They fare better in the number of books; in 2024, 29 of the 54 books I read were by women (54%). And so far in 2025, 46 of the 79 books I've read were written by women (58%).

Those are the numbers. But in the end, they are inconsequential. What matters is what is it about these "A" book writers that strike a cord with me?

I'm not going to make any sweeping statement about woman authors or the books they write. There are all sorts of women authors and they write all sorts of books. Plus there are plenty of woman authors in both lists whose books I enjoyed, but did not earn an "A" grade from me. 

What I can say is that the women authors who do did earn an "A" from me is that they wrote some wonderful books, clever, witty, insightful, often lyrical without being purple, and mostly cheerful, or at least hopeful. Their stories are focused on life as it is lived everyday by regular people, rather that epic accounts of the great and powerful, wars and disasters. This is simply the type of story I enjoy. Everyday life somewhere else is interesting to me, i.e. all those places and times you can't get to from here and now.

Of course, not all of the "A" story authors earned an "A" grade from me for every story. I even DNFed a Heyer story. Even they don't get an automatic free pass. But they are all authors that I can confidently pick up one of their books and expect to like, if not love.

I don't know if the fact that they're women gives their writing and stories the something special that appeals to me. Or if it's just that they are writing the type of book I most enjoy, and doing so with a great skill. I do however, think the types of books they write are not often written by men. However, Joseph Lincoln books are much in the same vein; small domestic stories about everyday people, and I enjoy them as well. And there is nothing grand about a P G Wodehouse story either. So story type does count. But male authors like Joe Lincoln or Wodehouse are rare. I think that you will find this special ingredient in women authors much more often. It's likely not a matter of talent or skill, rather, that they are writing from a different perspective, and see the world with different eyes from men. Whatever it is, it is impossible for me to put into words, nor do I care to go to the trouble to try to do so. Their stories are what they are, and I'm content to appreciate them for what they are.

The Saturday Morning Post EXTRA! EXTR! (No. 140)

 

We're having a Jean Webster weekend. I was curious about the author of When Patty Went to College, Jean Webster. Was she, by chance, famous enough to warrant a Wikipedia entry? The answer is yes.  That book was her first novel and she went on to write seven more novels until her death at the age of 39 of childbirth fever after giving birth to her daughter in 1916. Prior to this she lived an active life, traveling the world as well as writing and being socially active. I was curious enough to download several more of her books. In this episode I will review her most famous work.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster  A

I am not grading this book on the curve. I read this book in a day, and it has everything I value in a book; engaging characters, especially the narrator, along with clever and witty writing. Written nine years after When Patty Went to College, it is ten times more accomplished and engaging.

The narrator is an orphan, Jerusha "Judy" Abbot, who grew up in an orphanage and was then kept on after age 16 in order to attend high school, and work (for room and board) at the orphanage. She is offered the opportunity to attend college, with everything paid, including a monthly allowance, by one of the trustees of the orphanage. This trustee has done the same thing for several of the male orphans, and now wishes to it for her, since she is a promising student, especially in English and writing. His only requirement is that she write him a letter once a month describing her experiences, with the understanding that he won't write back. Everything will be handled by his secretary. She catches just be briefest glimpse of him, as he is leaving; only an impression of him being tall from the long shadows cast by a light outside. It gave her the impression of a daddy-long-legs spider, hence the name she gives him in her letters.

The book is mostly her letters to him over the course of four years, as she attends college, and spends her summers on a farm, reading like a diary. They, like her first book, describe life in a woman's college ca. 1910 or so. I need to have a "fried chicken and waffle supper" some time.

While I enjoy being emersed in this era, I loved her understated humor. But then, I'm a big fan of understatement in most everything. It's hard to pick out examples of this humor, But I'll give you a sample or two.

The first is from her first visit to New Your City, and shopping with a wealthy roommate. "And the shops? I never saw such lovely things as there are in the windows. It makes you want to devote your life to wearing clothes."

Or; "The weather of late has been ideal - bright sunshine and clouds interspersed with a few welcome snow-storms. I and my companions have enjoyed our walks to and from classes - particularly from."

Or on visiting the house of her rich roommate; "All the furniture was carved and upholstered and gorgeous; the people I met were beautifully dressed and low-voiced and well-bred, but it's the truth, Daddy, I never heard one word of real talk from the time we arrived until we left. I don't think an idea ever entered the front door." 

In short a wonderful story. My only complaint is a minor one, I thought the ending could've been handled with a little less melodrama.