The 1909 novel Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work by L. Frank Baum writing as Edith Van Dyne, is the fourth volume in the Aunt Jane's Nieces series. The three young women, Louise Merrick, Beth De Graf, and Patsy Doyle, met in the first volume of the series on the estate of their Aunt Jane, who was dying and trying to decide which niece would receive her inheritance.

In this fourth book of the series Kenneth Forbes, the young man who inherited Aunt Jane's estate, is now running for the state legislature, in what he thinks will be an easy election against a corrupt politician. He is the richest man in this poor district but inexperienced in the ways of the world. When he starts to have a rough time, and it looks like all hope is gone, his three cousins decide to go to work for his election They show up with their rich Uncle John and, even though women can't vote in 1909, they organize an effective campaign. This is an interesting story that describes the type of political maneuvering of 100 years ago. Baum's mother-in-law was the famous women's rights activist Matilda Joslyn Gage, and I feel she would have been proud of her son-in-law's characterization of these three young political women.

Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History by Yunte Huang

Yunte Huang was born in China, came to the US in 1991, and is now an English professor at UC Santa Barbara. Charlie Chan is a fictional Chinese police detective created by the White American author Earl Derr Biggers, who wrote six popular Charlie Chan mystery novels. Biggers based Charlie Chan on a real Honolulu Chinese detective named Chang Apana who was a respected member of the department. Hollywood made 47 Charlie Chan movies with White actors in "yellowface" makeup playing the Chinese detective. Many Chinese find these movies to be racist and offensive.

In this book the author looks at Chang Apana, and the literary and film versions of Charlie Chan, and puts them into the context of very negative American attitudes and perceptions of the Chinese over the past 150 years. This survey of America's troubled relationship with its Chinese population is what gives this book its broad value. It also sets into context the stereotyped Chan and the use of "yellowface" actors to portray him in the film industry. When seen against the much more negative images and attitudes that also existed at the time, the author makes Charlie Chan seem like a positive portrayal of the Chinese in American popular media.

This book leaves unasked an interesting question. Are the original Charlie Chan novels fatally flawed because they were written by a White American author? The White American author James Patterson writes novels about a Black Washington DC detective Alex Cross. His books have been made into movies with Morgan Freeman playing the lead. Could a Chinese actor play Charlie Chan in a way that would reflect the racial tensions of the 1920s?

Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville by L. Frank Baum writing as Edith Van Dyne is the third book in a series written for young girls. It was originally published in 1908. The three nieces are Louise Merrick, Elizabeth De Graf, and Patsy Doyle and in this book they go to a fictional upstate New York town called Millville for the summer with their rich uncle John who has gotten a farmhouse there as payment for a bad debt. Much of the novel deals with the vast cultural differences between the small town farmers of the town and the rich "nabobs" living in the summer house. Soon after moving in the three young women sense a mystery in the sudden death of the previous owner of the house, a seaman named Captain Wegg, and the disappearance of his fortune. Suspecting murder and theft, each of the nieces has her own theory as to what happened and who may be guilty. The plot develops nicely providing a pleasant mystery/detective book with a happy ending.

Austin and Mabel is an amazing record of 19th century adultery. Austin Dickinson was the older brother of Emily Dickinson and the chief financial officer of Amherst College, as well as a leading citizen of the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. He was married and had three children. When the college hired a new astronomy professor, David Todd, along with him came his lovely young wife Mabel Todd. She was an artist and loved socializing. Austin and Mabel fell in love and maintained an intimate relationship while both stayed married. This book tells their story and prints their 13 years of letters, providing a detailed history of their love. Through these letters we see Austin, who is 27 years older than Mabel, grow old and die, while Mabel matures into an accomplished writer, editor and lecturer. "No love story approaches it" Mabel said of their relationship. While reading over 200 pages of love letters can get repetitious at times, Mabel and Austin are both wonderful people and their story is impressive.

Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad by L. Frank Baum (writing as Edith Van Dyne)

With the fabulous success of his Wizard of Oz books, L. Frank Baum finally found himself financially well off. He and his wife Maud used their new wealth to take a trip overseas. On 7 April 1906 they were witnesses to a major eruption of Vesuvius. This experience becomes the background for Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad which takes the characters to this same event and makes the novel interesting reading.

Baum portrays the three young girls and their Uncle John as nationalistic Americans, extremely proud of their culture and values, who are always making comparisons with how much worse Europeans are in all they say and do. This adds humor to the story which is basically an adventure tale that centers around the mysterious men they meet in their travels. Filled with detail from Baum's own travels, the book ends up being a cautionary tale for Americans traveling abroad.

The Wish Express by Ruth Plumly Thompson

Originally serialized for the Philadelphia Public Ledger in 1916, Ruth Plumly Thompson's first novel The Wish Express starts when a boy named Berens, discontented with his math homework, wishes he was someone else somewhere else. The next thing he knows, a giant Discontented Bug with 19 arms and 17 legs has grabbed him and his dog Rags and is flying him to the wish trolley ... and Rags can talk! The trolley is filled with other discontented wishers, both human and animal who must make what Thompson calls "the perilous journey on a wish through Talktown and the State of Discontentment to the misty city of Somewhere Else" to have their wishes granted.

The publisher, Hungry Tiger Press, calls it "a tale of self-discovery, talking animals, amazing little towns, great new friends, and a happy ending!" The book definitely shows the delightful play of words and interesting characterization that Thompson will later display writing 21 novels as L. Frank Baum's successor to the title of The Royal Historian of Oz.

Never before printed in its entirety, the Hungry Tiger Press paperback features a flip-book Wish Express Trolley created by Eric Shanower that moves along the top of the pages as you read. If you flip through the pages you can watch it move. Also included are the original illustrations by Public Ledger artist James Hammon. The Wish Express is a delightful illustration of the proverb "Be careful what you wish for because it might come true" that has lost none of its charm in the 95 years since its first publication.

The Forest: A Personal Record of the Huk Guerrilla Struggle in the Philippines
by William J. Pomeroy


Bill Pomeroy came to the Philippines as an American soldier in World War II. During the war, Philippine Huk Guerrillas battled Japanese occupiers. One of the Huk was Celia Mariano. After the war the Huk continued fighting for the freedom of the people against the Philippine government and oppressive landlords. Celia and Bill married and Bill joined the Huk movement.

In 1950 Celia and Bill left Manila to join the Huk guerrillas in the Sierra Madre mountains as they struggled to free the islands from foreign influence and the power elite. The Forest tells the story of their two years living with the Huk and training them in revolutionary theory in various mountain camps. It has short chapters in chronological order with months marked out as if it was a journal. As a personal account by the only American in the Huk movement it is a valuable inside look that can help us understand what it was like in such a group at the time.

Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman by Emma Speed Sampson is the eighth of a ten volume series of Bluebird Books for young girls featuring two young amateur female detectives. Originally started by L. Frank Baum writing as Edith Van Dyne, the series was continued by Emma Sampson after Baum's death in 1919. While Baum favored Mary Louise, Sampson continues the series focusing more on Josie,the young detective, and treats Mary Louise as a minor character. In this book, Mary Louise donates the house she inherited from her grandfather and a significant sum of money to the local orphanage. Two new orphans attract the attention of Josie O'Gorman who begins to investigate the mystery of their missing parents and the strange young woman who abandoned them. This was an enjoyable novel of the post-war years written with a strong female character which is a pleasant light read.

Mary Louise Solves a Mystery (1917) by L. Frank Baum

This is the third in a series of girl detective novels L. Frank Baum created featuring Mary Louise Burrows and her friend Josie O'Gorman. They appear fairly late in the book with the beginning given over to the sad story of Alora Jones. Her wealthy mother dies when she is 11, leaving Alora and her inheritance in the care of her ex-husband, who Alora had never met. He is sullen, secretive and unsupportive, and Alora is neglected for several years while her father forces her to live in seclusion with him in a remote Italian villa. Mary Louise meets Alora and her father while traveling with her grandfather in Italy. Befriending Alora, Mary Louise senses there is a mystery, and seeks to find out what is behind the strained relationship between Alora and her father.
Baum's young adult novels usually involve class issues and this book is as much about class as it is about mystery. While the novel is almost 100 years old, the detective work is well crafted and will keep the reader interested.

Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls, by L. Frank Baum writing as Edith Van Dyne

The Mary Louise series is about a girl amateur detective and were written for teenage girls. Set in World War I, Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls explores the themes of patriotism and dissent in wartime. Mary Louise is 17 and teams up with her friends aged 14 to 18 to form the Liberty Girls to help out the war effort. They start with helping to sell bonds, but, when anonymous letters opposing the war appear, the girls go searching for the treasonous pro-German people of the town. Are they traitors or are they just voicing their right to disagree?

Being in the Public Domain you can find a copy of Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls in Project Gutenberg.

The Emerald Wand of Oz, by Sherwood Smith.

Sherwood Smith is an award winning author who was contracted by Byron Preiss to write 4 novels as the new Royal Historian of Oz for the L. Frank Baum Family Trust. This is the first of 2 novels published by HarperCollins as part of that agreement. The second book, Trouble Under Oz (2006), continues where this book leaves off. A third called Sky Pirates of Oz was written, but Preiss's death in 2005 & subsequent bankruptcy put the future of that book and the fourth book into doubt.

The story is about Dorothy Gale's modern day grand nieces Em and Dori who are transported to Oz by a tornado where they get caught up in adventures with local Oz characters new and old. Like Dorothy, they live in Kansas in an unhappy household. Their parents are separated and they respond to the stress in opposite ways. Em is practical and realistic like her namesake Aunt Em, while Dori is disorganized and imaginative, dreaming of the fairy land her namesake Dorothy once visited.

Every Oz story has a visit to at least one strange place filled with amusing but dangerous inhabitants. Dori and Em start their Oz adventure in Unicorn Valley, which is reminiscent of "My Little Pony" with brightly colored unicorns living with children who spend their days grooming and decorating the vain animals. The girls want to get home to Kansas to let their mother know they are alright, so they decide to visit the castle of Glinda the good witch of the south. Only the unicorns, needing groomers, will not let them go. Teaming up with a boy named Rik, and with the help of a freshwater mermaid, they escape Unicorn Valley. However they can't escape an ominous cloud with barely visible faces that seems to follow them.

When they arrive at Glinda's castle Dori and Em find out that a witch named Bastinda, the niece of Dorothy's Wicked Witch of the West, has ransacked the castle for magical tools and used an emerald wand to magically steal Glinda's smarts, leaving her and everyone in the castle laconic and dazed. Scraps the Patchwork Girl tells Em that Bastinda has stolen Ozma's smarts as well, casting an evil spell on all the people of the Emerald City. Meanwhile, Dori discovers that Rik is after magical tools for his own purposes. Dori and Em must team up with Scraps and other famous non-human Oz characters who are free of the spell in a three-way struggle with Bastinda and Rik to get the emerald wand and break the enchantments.

Sherwood Smith devotes 75 pages to Unicorn Valley which makes the first half of the book slow, but the pace picks up and never slackens once the girls leave. This is a wonderful book for anyone who has read L. Frank Baum's early Oz books or seen the movie. Smith is marvelous at character development and her characters Rik, Bastinda, and Bastinda's Giant Gecko Guards are complex and rewarding. They fit in well with her recreations of such Oz personages as Scraps, Scarecrow, Jack Pumpkinhead and the Glass Cat.

This Brief Tragedy: Unravelling the Todd-Dickinson Affair

by John Evangelist Walsh

I picked up this book because I was interested in whether the sexual relationship between Emily Dickinson's married brother Austin and Mabel Todd, wife of an Amherst professor, had any grounding in the Free Love movement of 19th Century USA.
The Free Love movement’s goal was to prevent the state from legislating sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery, claiming that these were personal issues of the people involved, and no one else. In the United States there were several 19th century Free Love advocates who lectured to packed houses. While Free Lovers argued for the rights of women, they were often rejected by the leaders of the first wave feminist movement.
Both Austin and Mabel, and her husband David, do seem to feel they are engaged in activities that should not be judged by the community, yet John Evangelist Walsh looks on their activities with a Puritanical eye. He spends most of the book portraying Austin's wife Sue as a wronged woman and Mabel as a home wrecker and opportunist. While Walsh quotes often from Mabel's letters journals and diaries to build his case, he never uses Sue's writings, leaving this a very one-sided presentation. There is a sub-plot of how Mabel Todd became, after Emily Dickinson's death, the first editor of Dickinson's poetry and letters which is also marred by this one-sided attack on her character.
While the story of the Dickinsons and the Todds is a very interesting one, Walsh's telling of it is lacking in depth, and will appeal mostly to those interested in protecting the sanctity of heterosexual marriage.

Nikola The Outlaw.
Ivan Olbrecht

Nikola the Outlaw is set in the Ruthenian region of Czechoslovakia just after World War I. This area is now the Zakarpatska province of Ukraine, but at the time it was part of a newly formed nation. Nikola and his Ruthenian friends, who were in the Austrian army, return from the war and decide it is easier to be outlaws than to fit into a new social order run by Czech soldiers and Jewish shopkeepers. Living in the mountains with the secret support of many of the townspeople, they evade capture and become local heroes. However, as the village settles into its new life, the outlaws find it harder to maintain their existence. Rich in cultural details, the novel provides a detailed look at Ruthenian life in the newly formed country of Czechoslovakia.

The Marvelous Land of Oz

Eric Shanower and Skottie Young's graphic novel is a retelling of L. Frank Baum's 2nd book about the Land of Oz written in 1904. Shanower does a wonderful job of taking the original novel and turning it into a comic, and Young's drawings give the characters new life. The book is the story of what happens after Dorothy and the Wizard leave Oz. So neither of them are in this story.

Baum used the first book's publishing success to turn it into a successful musical that made stars of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow. This second book was written with the idea of a second musical using these two characters but starring a giant talking bug called The Wogglebug. While the second musical was not a success, Shanower was able to use some of the added dialog of the musical to enhance this comic.

The story is about a young boy named Tip who is living with a mean witch named Mombi and runs away with her most prized magic, the Powder of Life, that can give life to inanimate objects. He creates a pumpkin headed wooden man and a living sawhorse, and they travel to the city of Oz to see the Scarecrow who is its ruler.

A story element that was timely over 100 years ago about a revolt of the women of Oz under the leadership of General Jinjur is a bit dated today. Jinjur loses a bit of her spicy independence to be just self-centered. Over all though, this is a delightful second collaboration between Shanower and Young to bring the Baum Oz books to life for a new audience.

The Story of Lottie Deno: Her Life and Times, by J. Marvin Hunter

This book was the last biographical work of J. Marvin Hunter, an amateur historian who wrote and published magazines, pamphlets and books about the history of Texas. He had met Lottie Deno when she lived in New Mexico in 1901 under the name Charlotte Thurmond.

This work is made up of many short pieces that together tell the story of Lottie Deno, her 4 years as a gambler at Fort Griffin Texas in the 1870s, and her later life in New Mexico. By using short sketches to build the story, Hunter quotes many points of view and the focus is not only on Lottie, but also on the history of Fort Griffin and Deming, New Mexico.

During the 1870s Fort Griffin on the Brazos River was the US Army's outpost in their war with the Comanche and Kiowa people, a center for the slaughter of the buffalo, and a stop on the Dodge City Cattle Trail. These activities brought a lot of men with money to spend who were looking for a good time to the town outside the fort. That attracted people like Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, John Wesley Hardin, Billy the Kid, Sheriff Pat Garrett and Bat Masterson to what Mr. Hunter calls The Wickedest Town on the Frontier. It also attracted a woman gambler who called herself Lottie Deno.

The author does a good job of gathering together a lot of the published materials about Lottie and Fort Griffin that appeared in magazines and books and making it available again in one place. As a result the book jumps around and repeats itself, mixes facts and legends, and is as much about Lottie's times as it is about her life.

The first chapter is his own telling of her early life in a rich family in Kentucky where her father was a prominent citizen farmer with a love of card playing. Having only daughters, he shares his love of cards with his oldest daughter Charlotte. After his death, she takes up gambling on the Mississippi river boats and New Orleans as a way to support her mother and sister, moves on to San Antonio to gamble, and then is drawn to the fast and easy money of Fort Griffin. To protect her family from scandal she takes on the name of Lottie Deno, which was a short form of the slang term "Lotta Dinaro" - Lots of Money.

The second chapter is a re-publication of a description of "Old Fort Griffin" by Don H. Biggers that appeared in his 1908 Shackleford County Sketches. Biggers focuses a lot on the lawlessness of the town. While it was an Army base, the Army's job was war with the native Americans and not civil law, so the town that sprang up outside the fort was not their jurisdiction or concern. He paints a lawless town where over 50 people were killed in a dozen years with little or no legal proceedings.

Chapter III tells the story of Lottie's arrival at Fort Grffin with a long quote from Edgar Rye's 1909 book The Quirt and the Spur. Mr. Rye calls her "a female monstrosity" and relates a story where she stayed calmly at the card table as everyone else in the room fled as two players argued and shot each other. When the sheriff sees her calmly counting her chips near the carnage, he says she has a lot of nerve and that he wouldn't have "cared to take his chances in that scrimmage." Her reply is "Perhaps not, sheriff, but you are not a desperate woman."

The next two chapters are from the point of view of John Jacobs, one of the sheriffs of Griffin, and an acquaintance of the author in the 1920s. These are followed by a chapter that quotes from Alfred Henry Lewis's 1902 novel Wolfville Nights in which his character Faro Nell is modelled after Lottie. More chapters then tell the story of Fort Griffin from and some of the men who lived and died there. Basically, after the buffalo are slaughtered, the Cherokee and Kiowa are starved onto reservations, the fort closes, the town dies, and everyone leaves. It is a story of its own that deserves telling in more detail.

In Chapter XI Lottie's life picks up again in Deming, New Mexico where the author was a reporter for the local newspaper in 1900 and she is married to a rancher named Frank Thurmond. She is a founding member of the town's Golden Gossip Club, and an upright member of the community. There are only rumors that she may have been Lottie Deno.

Little is told of the saloon and gambling room Lottie and Frank ran in New Mexico after they left Texas. Frank killed a man in self defense, and they decided to give up gambling and move to Deming. Much of the end of the book is devoted to turn of the century Deming life.

One of the strengths of this book is the early sketches of Lottie's life and Fort Griffin that Mr. Hunter is able to bring together in one place. He knew Texas history well and was able to piece together a lot of different sources. However, this approach makes the book fragmented, episodic and dated. Hopefully, a new book by Jan Devereaux, Pistols, Petticoats & Poker: The Real Lottie Deno: No Lies or Alibis, published by High Lonesome Books, will provide a more cohesive in-depth look at this woman that many claim was the model for the beautiful, redheaded Miss Kitty who ran the Longbranch Saloon in the famous "Gunsmoke" television series.

Mary Louise by L. Frank Baum writing as Edith Van Dyne

L. Frank Baum wrote book series for girls under the nom de plume Edith Van Dyne. Mary Louise is the first of a series featuring Mary Louise, a plain ordinary rich girl whose grandfather is wanted by the State Department. The novel starts with Mary Louise in a private boarding school while living with her grandfather and mother in a small town. All is well and she has been getting very close to the old man until he is recognized by a stranger staying at the hotel. It is then that Mary Louise's family steals away in the night leaving her alone at the school to face the sudden knowledge that her grandfather is a wanted criminal.

She doesn't know where he is or why the government is seeking him, but she knows deep in her heart that he is too good to have done anything wrong. Watched by secret agents who seek to find the old man through her, Mary Louise must find her way through a cloud of suspicion. The book is the story of how she goes about seeking to find her grandfather and to prove his innocence. A very good adventure story but it is plagued by Baum's stereotyping of black servants and a disabled friend that he refers to as "the chair-girl" because of her wheel chair. An interesting glimpse into the children's books of the early 20th century.

My Talks With Dean Spanley by Lord Dunsany, 1936

A first person narrative of a man who meets Dean Spanley, an elder minister, at his club and discovers the Dean has a strong belief in Reincarnation. He begins to suspect the Dean has more than a belief, he may have actual memories of a past life and becomes determined to find out. Hoping to find scientific proof of the transmigration of souls if he can get Dean Spanley to talk, the narrator invites him to dinner. Believing in the adage "In vino veritas" he plies the Dean with wine. When Spanley drinks too much Imperial Tokay, a rare Hungarian wine, he starts talking about his former life as a country hound in the first person.
The narrator is astounded by the revelation and invites Spanley back several times hoping to discover scientific proof of reincarnation in Spanley's stories of his life as a dog. Each visit is harder since Spanley does not like to drink to excess, but each lapse reveals more of his canine existence.
An excellent short novel full of wonderful detail and dry understated humor. Recently made into a film called simply Dean Spanley starring Jeremy Northam and Sam Neill, this is a delightful tale.

Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley (1922)
A novel by Lord Dunsany.

"Don Rodriguez: Chronicles of Shadow Valley conveys its young disinherited protagonist through a fantasized Spain, gifting him with a Sancho Panza companion, good luck with magicians, and a castle" -- The Encyclopedia of Fantasy.

Lord Dunsany's first novel, this is a historic fantasy set in a pastoral Spain that could never exist with all the charm and innocence that the author attributes to it. Don Rodrigues sets out on a quest to find a war to fight in so he can win a castle and wealth of his own. Along the way, he finds a loyal servant who wields a mighty fry pan and encounters a magician who shows them how to astral travel and allows them to see the past and the future. Hi finds a lady he loves, wins his castle in a fantastic manner and they "live happily ever after."

The beauty of the story is in Dunsany's prose which is a delight to read and well-suited to the fantastic setting he creates. I totally enjoyed this first novel by one of my favorite authors.

The Tough Coughs As He Ploughs the Dough: Early Writings and Cartoons by Dr. Seuss is a collection of writings from 1927 to 1937 by Theodore Geisel, from the time before be became known to the world as Dr. Seuss. These are not works for children, but rather humorous pieces for magazines like Judge, Life, College Humor, and Liberty. Filled with word play and absurdist writing, the pieces have lost some of their humor but are still interesting background reading for those interested in Dr. Seuss. The illustrations are probably more important than the writing as they show the development of the cartoon style that made Dr. Seuss famous.

Many of the essays are written under the pen name of Dr. Theophrastus Seuss, which would later be shortened to Dr. Seuss. There is a long piece where Uncle Theophrastus explains to his nephew Quackenbush "The Facts of Life." Another delightful story tells of a corporation that decides to forego profit to manufacture items of the highest "Quality."

A series of one-page Little Educational Charts attempt to explain the most absurd aspects of things like the importance of Simplified Spelling (see the book's title for a sample) and other one-page essays on imaginary uses of birds and beasts and whimsical word meanings were obviously humorous magazine pieces. The book ends with a series of ads for a spray insecticide called FLIT that all contain the catchphrase, "Quick Henry, the Flit."

While the writing has suffered a bit from the passage of time, the artistic humor of Geisel's drawings remains, and provides good background for those who only know his children's books.

Milk: A Pictorial History of Harvey Milk is a tribute to a man who was a major force for Gay Rights in the United States. Billed as a photographic history, it also contains moving statements by people who worked with Harvey Milk during his political career in San Francisco.

Part One is called "An Oral and Pictorial History of Harvey Milk" and is filled with pictures form his life and statements from those who knew him or were influenced by him.

Part Two is titled "Milk, The Making of the Movie" and details the movie starring Sean Penn. Both sections were put together by the Academy Award winning writer of the movie, Dustin Lance Black, based on his research for the film.

The Real/Reel life story of Harvey Milk and the 1970's Gay Scene in San Francisco are laid out side by side in this book which provides insight into both the era and the movie.

Important reading to anyone interested in Milk the man or Milk the movie.

The Art of the Aloha Shirt by DeSoto Brown & Linda Arthur

The Aloha Shirt is what people on the mainland call a Hawaiian Shirt, a bright-patterned, collared, short sleeve shirt meant to be worn untucked. Although today we cannot imagine a world without them, this book delves into the origins of the classic shirt looking for its creator.

But first the authors look into the roots of the Aloha Shirt which are deep in the multicultural society of these islands. Polynesian, Japanese, Filipino and Chinese influences are found in this garment's past. The Hawai'ian fabric industry is the subject of one chapter with the local small businesses importing and producing fabric designs and competing with the larger mainland factories.

The roots of Dress-Down (or Casual) Friday are found in the adoption of the Aloha shirt as acceptable business attire in Hawai'i starting in 1947. Hawaii's Aloha Friday during the summer months spread to the mainland in the 1960s.

While the exact date and creator of the Aloha shirt has not been discovered by the authors, they do point to the decade of the 1930s as the likely time. The first mention of Aloha Shirts they can point to is a 1938 children's book called Hawaiian Holiday.

The Art of the Aloha Shirt is richly illustrated in full color with pictures on every page. Celebrities in Aloha print garments abound. Many of the pictures are ads from shops or magazines. There are also pictures of shirts housed in the Bishop Museum and the University of Hawai'i's Historic Costume Collection (Linda Arthur, one of the authors, is curator of this collection).

The Aloha Shirt becomes a symbol of Hawai'ian culture, something that the diverse population can find unity in. As such, it is much more than a garment. It becomes a cultural symbol that is not based on ethnicity, but on a shared sense of place.

The Beats: A Graphic History

This book is "by Harvey Pekar et al." with "art by Ed Piskor et al." While the majority of the text and art are by Pekar and Piskor, the book is actually 25 different pieces on various people and topics of the Beat Generation created by a diverse group of writers and artists.
In the first half of the book Pekar and Piskor tackle the lives of the three major figures: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. This is followed by shorter pieces on other people associated with the movement: Kenneth Rexroth, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, William Everson, Robert Duncan, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Philip Lamantia, Gary Snyder, Diane di Prima, Slim Brundage, Jay DeFeo, d.a. levy, and my favorites Kenneth Patchen and Tuli Kupferberg.
To set these biographic pieces in context there are chapters on Jazz, Art, the City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, and women in the Beat movement.
All together Pekar writes 18 of the 25 chapters, giving the book a continuity yet allowing for diversity of views, while Piskor inks just over half the graphics which keeps the book visually interesting.
Highly recommended even if you only read the two chapters on Patchen and Kupferberg.

Shadow On The Hearth by Judith Merril

A typical day in a Westchester suburb of New York for a family of four is shattered by a nuclear attack on New York City. Gladys is in the basement doing her laundry, her two daughters, Barbara and Ginny are at school, and her husband Jon has taken the train to Manhattan to his job when the bombs start to fall.

The following week's events are viewed from Gladys' viewpoint as she takes in the children's teacher, a discredited nuclear scientist critical of atomic bombs, and hides him and her Slavic maid Veda from the Civil Defense patrols who might see them as enemy spies or saboteurs.

Written in 1950 this is an early science fiction look at the after effects of a nuclear war. It was adapted the same year with a less provocative script as the television drama Atomic Attack, which was the television debut for Walter Matthau as the young doctor.

Judith Merril does a very good job or of presenting Gladys as the US stay-at-home mom of the post-WWII years facing a world turned upside down. I enjoyed reading the book and recommend it.

City of Belief is a novel based on a true story written by a person who was there. The "Author's Note" at the beginning of the book starts with this statement:
"In the early morning hours of November 9, 1965 a young man walked up to the United Nations in New York City, sat on the cement island on First Avenue before the darkened building, doused himself with gasoline and lit a match. The young man was Roger La Porte and he was my friend."
Roger and the author were volunteers at the NYC Catholic Worker, a movement started by Dorothy Day and committed to nonviolence, voluntary poverty, and the Works of Mercy. In 1965 a group of the Catholic Worker volunteers including Roger were involved in anti-war protests and a draft card burning in New York's Union Square.
This novel is a faithful chronology of the events leading up to and immediately following Roger's self-immolation. They have haunted the author for 40 years, and she has finally written about them to share with the world.
It is a story of faith and belief and an accurate depiction of the tumultous times. No one may ever understand what caused Roger to set himself on fire to protest a war he saw as unjust, but this book will give you a glimpse into his life and thoughts.

Besieged, set in 1630's Ulster area of Ireland, is the first of Small's Skye O'Malley series I have read which is a matrilineal historical romance series. It tells the romantic story of Skye's granddaughter Fortune Lindley and Kieran Devers, she a Protestant and he a Catholic, in a very intolerant world. They are faced with the classic “A fish could marry a bird, but where would they live?"

While Small does a fairly good job of portraying the conflict between the local Irish Catholics and their new Protestant landlords, Fortune's family is painted as the only tolerant Protestants in the book. The noble Irish under the cruel Protestant yoke makes the story a bit one sided. Kieran's brother William is a nasty, obsessive villain as is his stepmother, Lady Jane Devers, who marries a poor Irish lord for his land and covets Fortune's large estate.

It is in romance where Small excels and Fortune and Kieran are inspiring lovers. Their passion and devotion are well-portrayed. Her sex scenes are excellent examples of women's erotica, although they are less prominent in this book than they are in works like Love Slave.

Last Dance For Grace : The Crystal Mangum Story — By Crystal Mangum with Vincent Clark

Crystal Mangum was a student at NC Central who in 2006 worked as an exotic dancer. In March of that year she went to a house to dance for a bachelor party being held for Duke University students. She claims she was raped by three people while there. The District Attorney had to withdraw from the case & was disbarred. The Attorney General took over and dropped all charges. She never had a day in court.

Working with Vincent Clark, a documentary film maker, this book is the story she would like the world to know about her. While there are two chapters about the events of March 2006 and one about the legal struggle that followed, the heart of the book is a six chapter biography and a final chapter on how she is putting this event behind her.

Her story is wrapped in three chapters by Vincent Clark who describes the Crystal he met in working on this project. A Foreword by Myra Shird, an NC A&T professor, looks at the broader implications and compares Crystal to Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter.

If you are wanting to know what really happened that night in March 2006, this is not the book that will help you. If you want to know more about "the accuser" Crystal Mangum from her point of view, not that of the press or the Blogosphere, this is her story.

Trouble Under Oz by Sherwood Smith

Trouble Under Oz by Sherwood Smith

This sequel to The Emerald Wand of Oz continues the adventure of Dori and Em, two modern sisters who think they are related to Dorothy Gale (whose adventures in Oz over 100 years ago were chronicles in 14 books by L. Frank Baum). The Nome Prince Rikiki is planning to return home to claim the throne from Kaliko who has been ruling since Rik's father was driven out. Ozma summons Dori, who became friends with Rik in the first book, and asks her to accompany Prince Inga of Pingaree on a mission to visit Rik. She fears that a struggle for power in the Nome Kingdom might trigger a war with their hostile neighbors, and feels Inga, with Dori's help, will be able to communicate with Rik. Meanwhile Em is left at home to cover for Dori's absence.

It is best to be familiar with Baum's original stories to appreciate the many adventures Dori has with Inga and Rik as they revisit lands and people that Dorothy knew 100 years ago. For those familiar with Baum's work this can be a delightful chance to learn more from the latest Royal Historian of Oz. Being the second book of a trilogy, however, do not expect all plot themes to be completely worked out. The third book of this trilogy, while written, has not yet been published. Hopefully soon, the final volume will become available and we can learn the conclusion of this interesting contribution to the Oz series.

All Things Oz is editor Linda Sunshine's "whirlwind tour" of Oz, L. Frank Baum's literary fairyland. She teamed up with Oz memorabilia collector Willard Carroll to put together a sampling of Baum's writings, surrounded by images from Carroll's collection that provides a delightful introduction to new readers and wonderful memories for loyal fans.

Sunshine scoured all 13 of Baum's Oz novels as well as his short stories for passages that exemplify the wit and wisdom that has endeared these books to readers for over 100 years. Each page is in full color with illustrations of Oz and its citizens from all over the world. The result is a beautiful book in word and image that is truly a delight for anyone interested in learning about Oz.

Scouts in Bondage is a photographic collection of book covers of titles that have not withstood the test of time. Compiled by a retired British secondhand book seller, this is an amusement for the bibliophile with a taste for the double entendre. This is a very short book with minimal text. Highlighted are about 45 photos of book covers whose intent was serious at the time but, over time, have developed unintended secondary meanings. Facing these covers is the bibliographic details (Author, title, publisher, date, and size) and occasional excerpts or additional information to add to the amusement.

Being an engineering librarian, I was especially drawn to the technical titles gone wrong such as:

The Resistance of Piles to Penetration

and

Hardening and Tempering Engineers' Tools

as well as the illustration of the goddess Hygieia holding a water closet pull chain on the cover of The Modern Plumber and Sanitary Engineer.

I Love [heart symbol] Lord Buddha. Hillary Raphael

The setting for I Love Lord Buddha is the hostess bars of Tokyo in 1997. The main characters are western hostesses who spend their nights socializing and drinking with men in these bars. Amongst them is a charismatic leader from New York who takes the name HIYOKO and starts recruiting these displaced women into a new-Buddhist group called the Neo-Geisha Organization. Reinterpreting Buddhist philosophy through her cultish mind, HIYOKO plans for a cataclysmic event that will shake humanity into exercising Buddhist values so as to avoid a larger global catastrophy. It is a lively story with lots of sex, drugs, and Buddhist theory, which portrays the lack of spiritual values in modern commercial Tokyo.

The plot unfolds as HIYOKO's cousin Heidi Peterson, a sociology grad student from the States, arrives and starts doing her research on the Neo-Geishas and their enigmatic leader. It takes the form of Heidi's notes, interviews, police reports, and pages from various documents following each other in brief chapters, many only one page long.

Fast pacing and an interesting structure give the novel a unique look and feel. Very little is capitalized. which makes reading a bit hard since the break between sentences is only the tiny period. Without a leading capital letter new sentences can be hard to find at times. However this typographic style contrasts well with the fact that HIYOKO is always in all caps.

Well written and plotted the novel does a good job of creating the world of the characters and the moral dilemma of our times.

The Visitors from Oz. L. Frank Baum

This book is considered by some to be the lost "Third Book of Oz" since the material it contains was written in 2004 and 2005 after the publication of Baum's first two Oz books: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904). The book features six characters from The Marvelous Land of Oz who leave Oz to travel through the United States of America.

This is probably the worst of Baum's Oz writing. Baum reused ideas from other books, and engaged in what are today offensive racial and ethnic stereotypes. Twenty six chapters of this book were originally Sunday newspaper pieces that were written as promotional material to advertise the books and the upcoming 1905 stage musical called Woggle-Bug. Seventeen of these were part of a contest in which each story ended in a situation that puzzled all the visitors except the Woggle-Bug who told them the answer but which wasn't revealed until the next week. The readers were invited to guess the answers for a chance at a prize. The last and longest chapter was originally published in 1905 as The Woggle-Bug Book. This segment follows the plot of the stage musical and, with its heavy reliance on ethnic humor, gives a pretty good idea as to why the musical failed. At the end of the book are 15 newspaper articles dated between August 18 and October 3 1904 that detail the flight to Earth by the Oz characters and relate their adventures in false news story style.

At the back of the book is a history of the material's creation and publication called "American Fairyland" that was written by David Maxine. Here we learn that two prior attempts to publish these stories in 1960 and 1986 were edited or abridged to remove offensive words and dialect. This is the first time since its original publication that the stories are printed as they were written.

The book does provide a look into life in the US as it was perceived by Baum 100 years ago. In that sense it provides a clearer perspective on Baum's world than his fairy tales. Also the illustrations by Eric Shanower, although created much later than the text, are delightful representations of the stories by the best Oz illustrator.

A Kiss is Just a Kiss. Bruce Velick

This is not a narrow-minded boy kisses girl tribute to heterosexual romance although there are lots of pictures like that. The book contains 60 black and white pictures that span the 20th century from 1915 to 1988. In addition to the heterosexual romantic kiss there are men kissing men, women kissing women, people kissing animals, animals kissing people and other animals, children kissing each other, adults kissing children, people kissing statues, statues kissing statues, kissing in the foreground, kissing in the background, and even a person kissing the pope's ring.

Each picture has the photographer's name beneath it and a list at the end of the book lists the photographer, the title, the date, and the owner of each photo. Two are from before the 1920s, three are from the 1920s and 30s, eight are from the 1940s, nine are from the 1950s, five from the 1960s, eleven from the 1970s, and 12 are from the 1980s. Ten have no dates associated with them.

These are famous photographic kisses. Included are William Mortensen's The Kiss, Robert Doisneau's Le Baiser de l'Hotel de Ville, Dennis Stock's Cafe de Flore, Weegee's Palace Theater, an untitled kiss by Elliott Erwitt, Louis Stettner's On a Dutch Ferry, and Alfred Eisenstaedt's Times Square VJ Day,

There are also pictures by Peter Marlow, Bruce Davidson, Joan E. Biren (JEB), Chris Steele-Perkins, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Leonard Freed, André Kertész, Burt Glinn, Mary Ellen Mark, Ernst Haas, Barbara Crane, Gilles Peress, Lou Stoumen, Josef Koudelka, Sage Sohier and many others.

Combine this with a delightful essay on the history and importance of kissing by Tom Robbins and you have a great book. It would make a wonderful gift for a lover or a friend. Buy one for yourself and be inspired.

Forever Fifty. Judith Viorst

Judith Viorst has become the poet of aging with books of poetry dedicated to her lyrical and funny perceptions of each decade of life from the 20s to the 60s. With Forever Fifty And Other Negotiations she explores with insight and humor the joys and fears of being in your fifties. The book contains 24 one-page poems that are accompanied by full page graphic illustrations in green ink on a rich cream paper. The 24 graphics are reproduced on the end papers. The attention to design makes this a wonderful gift for a quinquagenarian friend.

The poems are funny and sentimental yet bittersweet. In some poems we see a person who is struggling to accept the limitations of middle age (where running wild is to go for a walk without sunscreen and memory can't be relied upon). In others she seeks the joys that come with the wisdom of years as when she says "We're quicker to laugh, and not so eager to blame." In yet others, she makes affirmations to live life "as a sexy old lady" and lists the things she'd like to do before she goes.
There are poems that take humorous looks at adult children, long-term marriage partners, and young doctors.

Overall, a wonderful but light look at the aging process of the 50s. It is a book you will enjoy, but one that will not burn into your soul.

Nothing Natural. JennyDiski

I found this to be a powerful book that delved deeply into the life of a woman named Rachel who becomes involved in a sadomasochistic relationship with an emotionally distant man. Initially I felt the title referred to this s&m relationship. However, as the author reveals more of Rachel's life, it appears that there is nothing natural in her emotionally starved world. Her parents fought bitterly when she was a child. She struggles with paralyzing spells of depression and is incapable of emotional closeness. She is delightfully articulate and quick witted - an intelligent woman with a large share of emotional distress. We watch her spiraling deeper into a suicidal state and it takes a strong reader to maintain compassion. Finally her darkest hour passes, and the novel ends with her first steps towards a healthier self concept. Compelling reading and wonderful character development - a great first novel.

Parsival: Or, a Knight's Tale. Richard Monaco

This is the first of a now out of print four volume series based on the Arthurian Grail quest of the hero Parsival. The other three volumes are: The Grail War; The Final Quest; and, Blood and Dreams.

This first volume follows Parsival from his overprotective mother and his childhood home on his first quest to become a knight at King Arthur's round table. Once he is a knight, he begins his second quest to find the Grail Castle and discover its secret.

A parallel story tells of Broaditch, a servant from his mother's castle, who sets out soon after to find Parsival. The two quests compliment each other with short episodic chapters from each telling the tale of the book.

The book is not for the squeemish. There is a war and lots of bloodshed. The people are bawdy rather than chivalric, and the sexual relationships are not always consensual. However, it is an exciting and humorous retelling of a medieval tale. I can't wait to read the rest of the series.

Mystics, Mavericks, and Merrymakers: An Intimate Journey Among Hasidic Girls. Stephanie Wellen Levine

I read this book as a non-Jew who was interested in Hasidism. This particular book attracted me because I am the parent of two teen-age daughters. Having close contact with the problems my daughters face in the modern world I felt would help me understand the issues of Hasidic young women. Although the book is not designed to give a rigorous introduction to Hasidism, I am quite delighted by Stephanie Levine's work and the chance it has given me to have a glimpse into the spiritual and mundane issues of modern Lubavitch Hasidism.

Far from being a broad review of young Hasidic women, Levine focuses on the Lubaticher sect of Hasidism and its community in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, New York. She spent over a year living with and interviewing the students, teachers, and parents associated with the Bais Rivka Lubavitch high school, a girls-only school.

Hasidic girls have very little contact with males outside their immediate families. Their religious beliefs allow them only the slightest contacts with the world outside their community. Popular videos and music are not allowed and dietary restrictions only allow eating in the most kosher of restaurants. The "mavericks" part of the title has to do with the rebellious response that the young women sometimes bring to these severe restraints.

The "mystics" aspect of the title has to do with the deeply spiritual aspects of Hasidism where every thought and action of an individual's life has cosmic implications as the community does all it can to bring about the coming of the messiah. The last chaper of this book, "Into The Future," begins with a wonderfully clear and concise description of Lubavitch mystical beliefs.

The irrepressible joy and exhuberance of the young women, that the spiritual practice of Hasidism seems to promote, leads to the author's use of the term "merrymakers" to describe the subjects of this book.

Levine starts off the book with a general introduction to the Crown Heights Lubavitch community and the background to her study. She talks about the Bais Rivka school and its students.

Then in a series of seven chapters she takes in depth looks at seven of the young women she was able to get the closest to in her year of research. We meet their families and see their day to day life. We hear them describe their current life and aspirations. As the most important duty of a Lubavitch woman is to marry and have children, their mate selection and preparations for married life are part of these chapters.

The last chapter contains a look at the future for both the young women and the Hasidic movement. This is a wonderful book for anyone like me who is interested in Hasidism or the lives of young women in the modern world. Levine is a wonderful writer and she treats her subjects with fondness and respect. Yet she is honest and direct. So this study has both objectivity and admiration, a delightful combination in such a work.

Castle Rouge. Carole Nelson Douglas

Irene Adler is a character created by Arthur Conan Doyle and the only woman who ever outsmarted his famous detective, Sherlock Holmes. Carole Nelson Douglas has taken Irene and turned her into a detective with her own series of mystery novels. In this book, Castle Rouge, the action picks up from the previous volume Chapel Noir, with Irene seeking out the person or people who have perpetrated Jack the Ripper like murders in Paris a year after the Whitechapel murders in London. She is in desperate pursuit because it appears that her colleague Nell Huxleigh and her husband have been taken by the same culprits. But who are they? In this second volume Irene leaves Paris first for Prague and then a castle in Romania. Who is responsible for this international crime spree? Don't read the Selected Bibliography at the end of the book until you have finished it. You may find a spoiler of a clue there,
A long tale that stretches across two large volumes, but the excitement never flags. Highly recommended - a feminist point of view on the Victorian era.

Chapel Noir. Carole Nelson Douglas

Irene Adler is the only female adversary to outwit Sherlock Holmes and she may have stolen his heart as well. Carol Nelson Douglas has taken the brief outline of Irene Adler in the Sherlock Holmes adventure A Scandal In Bohemia and fleshed it out into a marvelous sleuth of her own design. She has created her own series of books with Irene Adler as a 19th century detective with a feminist flair.

Adler's latest two-part adventure, Chapel Noir and Castle Rouge, is told through a series of journal entries by her female companion Penelope Huxleigh. Additional chapters are supposedly taken from notes written by a prostitute called Pink and sections of a mysterious yellow book of anonymous authorship. This multiple "authorship" allows Douglas to present her story from different perspectives.

And what a story! In Chapel Noir Adler is called on by Baron de Alphonse Rothschild to investigate a particularly bloody murder in a Parisian bordello. Before long Jack the Ripper is the suspect and Sherlock Holmes (sans Watson) has come to Paris to investigate. As the plot moves on, more famous historical figures are drawn in either as suspects or allies. 470 pages later I found, instead of the end, that this is the first of a two part story.

A rollicking adventure that continues for another 470 pages in Castle Rouge. Lots of fun if you can stand the gruesome aspects of the crimes.

Kushiel's Dart. Jacqueline Carey

What an epic adventure! This book starts out slow and I was tempted to stop reading it often during the first 300 pages.

It is a hard book to read. There is a six page Dramatis Personae that lists the major characters and it can be very confusing at times. The second half is easier as less characters are introduced and the action kicks in big time.

The author sets up an alternative historical France that she calls Terre D'Ange, the Land of Angels, at around the time 800CE. There is a whole alternate theology based on the son of Jesus (Yeshua in the book) and the Magdalene.

The book reminds me of The Hobbit in the sense of it being an epic adventure through many lands and past many challenges, but the hero is a woman and a masochistic prostitute at that. The book is more sensual than explicit with a free love theology as a theme. However, the emphasis is on the machinations of courtly politics and war.

Once the action starts, it is hard to put down.

Folly. Laurie R. King

Laurie King's Folly is a very sympathetic portrayal of the effects of psychosis and madness on the individual. In this case it is Rae Newborn who is literally reborn from her last bout of suicidal mental illness through the solitude of an uninhabited island and the project of rebuilding a burned-out house. We join her as she leaves therapy to live on an isolated island off the coast of Washington state. Her only human contact is a weekly visit by a tatooed man called Ed who drops off her supplies and picks up her laundry and shopping list. She starts off by dumping her medications into the Sound (pharmaceutical pollution!) to live drug free with her imaginary Watchers and her suicidal depression.

The mystery aspect of the novel is based on the old adage: "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean the world isn't out to get you." She is a famous artist with her own and inherited wealth. Her son-in-law is involved in shady dealings and always seeking money from Rae. Her geat uncle Desmond originally built the house and disappeared when a mysterious fire destroyed it just before completion. Is someone out to get her or is she just psychotic? As the work on the house proceeds and her health improves this question keeps up the suspense.

The structure of the novel is broad sections named after the progress of the house reconstruction (Clearing the Ground, Laying the Foundations Building Walls, Raising the Roof Beam, and House Warming). Each of these is introduced by some brief statement by an anonymous Victim who seeks vengeance against The Thief. Who these two are the ultimate mystery of the novel. Each section is divided into chapters that are told from the point of view of Rae Newborn. To break up this a bit, the author introduces chapters throughout the text that are selections from Rae's journal, Desmond's journal, Rae's letters to her granddaughter Petra, and letters from Petra.

Laurie King is a master of character development and locale. Her depiction of Rae and the people with whom she interacts brings these people to rich and complex life. Even when the readers know they are minor characters, we are still treated to people who bring a complexity to their roles. This is also true of the setting in the San Juan islands. The pace and ecology of this community is lovingly portrayed. Add to these the technical details of house carpentry and woodworking, and you have a very rich and satisfying novel.

Folly is an excellent mystery. Without the known anchors of Ms. King's mystery series (Mary Russell and Kate Martinelli), this book may lack some of the success of books in those series. I found it difficult at the start because Rae has been suicidally depressed and I have a natural reluctance to make friends with people like that. Yet it is by confronting our discomfort that this book is ultimately successful in providing a deep insight into the stigma of mental illness.

Harding's Luck. Edith Nesbit

Are Edith Nesbit's novels where J. K. Rowling got the idea for her Harry Potter series in which magical witches and wizards live secretly among normal humdrum people (muggles)? It was Nesbit, who wrote 60 children's novels, that first started writing about everyday English children discovering magical people, charms, and spells in their midst. One of the founding members of the Fabian Society, Nesbit was famous in her time for her Socialist beliefs and friends. However, presently it is her children's books that are her enduring legacy.

Harding's Luck is the second of a pair of novels about Dickie Harding a young orphan in 1906 London who uses a crutch because his left leg doesn't work. When his father died he left Dickie an old toy that was to bring him luck, but as the story opens there is little luck or joy in the child's life.

Nesbit's Socialist beliefs are strongly represented in her portrayal of Dickie's poverty. She describes life for the poor of the time as follows. "...All the green trees are gone, and good work is gone, and people do bad work for just so much as will keep together their worn bodies and desolate souls. And sometimes they starve to death." She also portrays a society strictly divided by class in which Dickie is poor but has noble blood which elevates him above those around him.

The magic of the story is a spell involving the toy his father gave him that puts him in contact with a trio of magical moles called Mouldiwarps and a nursemaid witch. This group transport him back 300 years to the time of King James I where he is Richard Arden, a young boy of noble family who has two healthy legs. He travels back and forth between his London and that of James I with the help of the Mouldiwarps. In the process he saves the Arden family's fortune and has to decide between his present-day London and that of 300 years ago.

Nesbit is a wonderful storyteller and the plot is full of detail and adventure that make it a delight to read. Her use of the street language of the time makes this a difficult book for young readers of today, but adults who like children's literature will find it a delightful glimpse of English life. H. R. Millar's 16 original drawings help bring the tale to life. This Books of Wonder edition suffers from bad proofreading. I found over a dozen misspellings that should have been caught in the editing process. Although this is one of a two volume series, it can be read alone with no problem.

To Play the Fool. Laurie R. King

To Play the Fool is the second of a series of mystery novels by Laurie King that feature the San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli. The first book, A Grave Talent, was an Edgar Award winner.

This book picks up about a year after the first, and finds Martinelli and her partner Al Hawken investigating the death of a homeless man in Golden Gate Park. There are no witnesses or evidence, but an enigmatic old man called Brother Erasmus who speaks only in quotations becomes a prime suspect. Quickly the story changes from a homicide investigation to an attempt to find out about the mysterious Erasmus, who is either a saintly fool or mentally ill.

Laurie King is in her element as the scholarly street person quotes from the Bible and Shakespeare to answer all questions, leaving the two worldly detectives to puzzle over his meaning. Either he killed the man, or he knows who did. They must find a way to make him talk in a way that will make sense to the legal system to solve the crime.

As with A Grave Talent, King creates wonderfully complex characters that draw the reader into the story. Also her plot is sufficiently complex to keep you guessing. I fell in love with the kindly Brother Erasmus and the people who were drawn to him. A delightful story that is well told.

The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue. Robert Klein

The Amorous Busboy of Decatur Avenue is Robert Klein's memoirs of growing up in the Bronx in the 1950s. Born in 1942, Klein writes affectionately of the basic influences of his youth during the years 1951 to 1966. Each chapter begins with a picture of Klein during the period discussed.

His parents were children of immigrant Jews who were "careful, cautious, wary people" and passed on their concerns to Klein and his sister. His bedroom was a Castro convertable ottoman in the living room of their small 6th floor apartment.

The first four chapters cover his life in junior high and high school in the Bronx. Having grown up in the Bronx myself during this time, I found these very well written and full of delightful details.

The next five chapters are about his life at Alfred University in rural upstate New York. Here he confronts anti-Semitism and develops a love of acting and comedy. He also works summers in the Catskill Mountain resorts made famous in the movie Dirty Dancing. He is no Patrick Swayze, and his amorous nature is mostly unfulfilled.

The last six chapters tell the story of his breaking into show business. His first success in Chicago's Second City and his friendship with Rodney Dangerfield are highlights of this section.

One of the recurring themes of the work is his sexual relations over time. Beginning with his losing his virginity to a 112th Street prostitute, Klein reminisces about the women in his life and the sexual and sometimes loving relations he had with them. Although he is not very graphic in his descriptions, this male oriented portrayal of sex in the 50s and early 60s may seem insensitive by modern standards. Yet it is his very honesty at representing the male attitudes of the time that makes this aspect of the book especially interesting. He says he writes "not to titillate but to communicate the excitement that sex held for me and its importance in my life." This was a time of great changes in sexual attitudes and his depictions of his and his friends' sexual interests over these 16 years shows how radical the change was.

All in all this is a wonderful memoir of New York life in the 1950s. It is also an insightful portrayal of college life at the time, especially in an era when Jews were still being discriminated against in fraternities and other aspects of academia. Lastly, Klein does a great job of describing his beginning career as an actor. How he learned his craft, the problems he faced, and the people he knew are all well represented.