What are you reading Mondays is hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog

I just finished two wins from publishers, two books recommended by readers, a 1930s genre classic, and the first of a relatively new detective series set in Montana: Supreme Courtship, The Last Dickens, The Sea Garden, High Rising, The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Coyote Wind.

Over the past two weeks I finished reading

1. Supreme Courtship
by Christopher Buckley

Amazon.com review

In bestselling author Christopher Buckley’s hilarious novel, the President of the United States, ticked off at the Senate for rejecting his nominees, decides to get even by nominating America’s most popular TV judge to the Supreme Court.

President Donald Vanderdamp is having a (terrible) time getting his nominees onto the Supreme Court. After one nominee is rejected for insufficiently appreciating To Kill a Mockingbird, the president chooses someone so beloved by voters that the Senate won’t have the nerve to reject her–Judge Pepper Cartwright, star of the nation’s most popular reality show. Will Pepper, a vivacious Texan, survive a Senate confirmation battle? Will becoming one of the most powerful women in the world ruin her love life? Soon, Pepper finds herself in the middle of a constitutional crisis, a presidential reelection campaign that the president is determined to lose, and oral arguments of a romantic nature.

Supreme Courtship is another classic Christopher Buckley comedy about the Washington institutions most deserving of ridicule.

This was a win from the publisher (thanks, Hachette Group) through Drey’s Library

Although the style of writing seems familiar, I don’t think I’ve ever read any of Christopher Buckley’s other books. What a shame.

The book reads quickly and easily and skewers politicians and television producers with a deft hand. I’m sure I would have gotten more out of this book if my understanding of U.S. politics went beyond befuddled viewings of West Wing but even so, I enjoyed this as a light romp through the peccadilloes of politicians regardless of their citizenship.

If you’re American, even halfway interested in what goes on in D.C., and want a laugh, pick up a copy of Supreme Courtship.

2. High Rising
by Angela Thirkell

Laura Morland is a widow, mother of three grown boys and one (very annoying) adolescent one. Laura has supported her family after her husband’s death (no great loss, it seems) by turning out pulp fiction which no one in her level of society will admit to reading [while discussing ancient Greek & Latin authors], but all admire her for being so clever so as to write.

Laura has made a loyal friend and efficient secretary in Miss Anne Todd and has old loyal friends widower George (an insufferable, but lovable bore) & his daughter Sybil, her son’s headmaster’s wife Amy Birkett and her publisher Adrian.

In fact, everybody loves Laura which should make the reader despise her. On the contrary, one grows quite fond of her over the course of the book.

There is a little plot: an incubus (that’s the word they kept using) in the form of a new secretary to George must be run out of the village. Miss Todd’s elderly mother is ill and dies, the doctor falls in love with Miss Todd, the publisher with Sybil (although he’s proposed to Laura), the incubus wants to get her claws into both George and Adrian, Miss Todd loves…well, not the doctor, and everybody loves Laura.

But mostly, it’s just gentle satire of the gentry class in rural England in the 1930s. This is the first of Thirkell’s Barsetshire Series. I may well read more.

Borrowed from the library on the recommendation of one of my readers.

3. The Sea Garden
by Sam Llewellyn

I’ve never read this author but saw a review on one of the book blogs I visit and decided to try this.

A young couple marry after a whirlwind romance and then he (unexpectedly) inherits the family estate, which includes the said sea garden. There’s some menacing secret about this garden that staff seem to be in on, but not the wife who determines to “dig up” (in more ways than one) the history of this particular plot of land.

The book lost me after only a couple of chapters when it flash-backed to the founding ancestor (Jonas?) Jones and his life at sea. I can’t follow narratives about boats or the ocean and I thought it highly probable that it was important to the plot to understand this chapter. I looked ahead – and dipped into another sea episode.

I guess I had hoped that the “garden” would have been major part of that title, and not the “sea”. This just wasn’t for me, so I returned it to the library unread.

4. The Last Dickens
by Matthew Pearl

Boston 1870 When news of Charles Dickens’s sudden death reaches his struggling American publisher, James Osgood sends his trusted clerk, Daniel Sand, to await the arrival of Dickens’s unfinished final manuscript. But Daniel never returns, and when his body is discovered by the docks, Osgood must embark on a quest to find the missing end to the novel and unmask the killer. With Daniel’s sister Rebecca at his side, Osgood races the clock through a dangerous web of opium dens, sadistic thugs, and literary lions to solve the genius’s last mystery and save his own life–and the life of the woman he loves.

5. The Postman Always Rings Twice
by James M. Cain

From Amazon.com:

Frank Chambers, a drifter, is dropped from the back of a truck at a rundown rural diner. When he spots Cora, the owner’s wife, he instantly decides to stay. The sexy young woman, married to Nick, a violent and thuggish boor, is equally attracted to the younger man and sees him as her way out of her hopeless, boring life. They begin a clandestine affair and plot to kill Nick, beginning their own journey toward destruction.

Originally published in 1934, made into two movies, banned in Boston. Considered to be “the noir novel that paved the way for all the noir fiction that followed.”

For a book that changed dime novels and potboilers of the twentieth century and about which I’ve heard all my life, it’s incredibly short. The style is terse, the plot advances quickly – and it’s steamy. Be forewarned.

6. Coyote Wind/a Montana Mystery: A Gabriel Du Pre Mystery
by Peter Bowen

From Amazon.com review by Nathan W. Casebolt:

Gabriel Du Pré is a simple Métis, descended from First Nation and French Canadian stock. He earns his keep as a Montana cow brand inspector, but sometimes serves as an on-call law enforcer. So when a small, decades-old plane wreck is discovered in the mountains, the sheriff asks Du Pré to check it out. And everything checks out as you’d expect, except for that extra skull with a bullet rattling inside it.

I was looking forward to this new series which was supposed to be a breath of fresh air to the murder mystery genre. Unfortunately, the air is quite rancid with Du Pre’s anti-establishment attitude, his filthy mouth, and his (non)-parenting style, which takes the form of sleep overs at his girlfriend’s while his fourteen-year-old daughter stays home alone.

The plot is weak, the mystery disappointing – the solution becomes apparent by half-time and the rest of the book is…what? Boring anyway. Offensive to some – me included.

P.S. If you click through the affiliate links in the book titles, you may notice a different cover. I like to see the cover that’s on the copy I read – and it’s usually different than Amazon.com because they display the American release, and I read the Canadian.
P.P.S. Canadian readers interested in any of these titles can click through at the bottom of this post. Or, even better, buy from an independent book seller.

And, yes, they are all affiliate links which means that I earn a small amount if you purchase after you’ve clicked through from this post.)

Links for Canadian readers
Supreme Courtship
The Last Dickens
The Postman Always Rings Twice

Technorati Tags: Supreme Courtship, Christopher Buckley, Laura Morland, Mrs. Morland, High Rising, Angela Thirkell, Barsetshire series, The Sea Garden, Sam Llewellyn, The Last Dickens, Matthew Pearl, The Postman Always Rings Twice, James M. Cain, Coyote Wind, Peter Bowen