True Crime: The Monster of Florence, by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi

The darker side of Tuscany
The Monster of Florence is co-authored by an Italian journalist and an American novelist. Accordingly, this serial killer saga is told in two sections, the first with a focus on the activities of Mario Spezi, and the second, those of Douglas Preston. Spezzi is arguably the Italian expert on the [...]

Read Full Post »

Nonfiction: The Left Hander Syndrome, by Stanley Coren

Right minded
The word “syndrome” in the title of this book should serve to red-flag contents. Because the author views left handedness as a “pathological” aberration from the norm, his approach is to analyze it accordingly, which he does with painstaking attention to the science and statistics of neuropsychology. Much of what he presents as [...]

Read Full Post »

Watch This: Changeling, with Angelina Jolie

Changeling is the incredible story, based upon actual events, of Christine Collins’ quest to find her young son Walter, missing without a trace. It is also the story of appalling corruption in the government and police department of 1920’s-’30’s Los Angeles, which apparently has been a significant problem of long-standing. A third subplot involves a [...]

Read Full Post »

Biography: Shakespeare’s Wife, by Germaine Greer

A new Ann Hatheway
For centuries, admirers of the Bard have been wondering why he married Ann Hatheway only to leave her for most of the rest of his life. Historically, scholars have almost universally blamed Ann, primarily through the mechanism of applying passages from Shakespeare’s works to his wife, particularly if they are [...]

Read Full Post »

Biography: A Memoir of Jane Austen, by James Edward Austen-Leigh

The original
Jane Austen (as is so cogently noted in this volume) gained little notice or fame during her regrettably short life. Likewise, other than her six novels and some letters, little primary evidence exists to enlighten her admirers. Alas, it was common in the 19th century for families to burn all materials believed [...]

Read Full Post »

Nonfiction: What Would Barbra Do, by Emma Brockes

WWBD?

Emma Brockes was raised in England by a mum who would break into show tunes at the drop of a hat. Growing up in the age of DVDs, Emma and her girlfriends were free to to watch their favorite musicals ad infinitum , and boy, did they ever (imagine seeing Mary Poppins, voluntarily, [...]

Read Full Post »

Nonfiction: Assassin’s Accomplice, by Kate Clifford Larson

Guilt, gender, and capital punishment

Author Kate Clifford Larson has had the courage to examine a historical question that still has the power to raise hackles: Was Mary Surratt guilty of conspiracy to murder the president, and if so, should she have been executed. In doing so, she has provided a valuable service in clarifying [...]

Read Full Post »

True Crime: Lethal Guardian, by M. William Phelps

Lethal lawyers
“She didn’t pull the trigger but she did pull the strings.” So remarks one of the insiders about the woman who wanted her sister’s child so badly that she was willingly to do anything to get her. Lethal Guardian is the story of a murder for hire and the investigators who were [...]

Read Full Post »

True Crime: The Stranger Beside Me, by Ann Rule

Check the locks

Not being an aficionado of the true crime genre, I picked this book up because I had read that Rule’s version of the Bundy story was the best. There was the additional factor of her personal friendship with him. While Ms Rule claims to have known Ted Bundy well, those claims [...]

Read Full Post »

Nonfiction: The Forest in Folklore and Mythology

The woods are lovely
by Alexander Porteous
This title is a new edition reprinted from the original, published in the late 19th century. As is common in books of its time, Porteous’ is more a compilation of facts about trees in folklore, gleaned from a myriad of other sources. The Forest is less a book [...]

Read Full Post »