Sunday 3 February 2008

What I'm reading at the moment

Image of the book cover
Death in a White Tie
by Ngaio Marsh

narrated by James Saxon
"The season had begun. Debutantes and chaperones were planning their luncheons, teas, dinners, balls. And the blackmailer was planning his strategies, stalking his next victim. But Chief Detective Inspector Roderick Alleyn knew that something was up."
A very 1930's old fashioned detective story. Having just finished listening to the Wodehouse book, the contrast is interesting - same period (perhaps Psmith is a little later) but very different approach to upper class toffs. Marsh is very serious about the issue of debutantes and their 'coming out' parties; Wodehouse portrays most of the aristocracy as dim buffoons and lovable idiots.

3 comments:

Stew said...

I see on your profile you list Zen & the Art as a favorite book. I always keep 2 copies, one for me and one to lend out. I've read it many times over the years, not always cover to cover. There's times when it has all made perfect sense and times when I' thought WTF is he on about?
His comments on the schissm between clasiccism and romanticism is more true now than ever. viz the divides over GM food, nuclear power, immunisation.
As a geeky classicist I get very frustrated with hippies. Pirsig tries to show us how we can unite in the pursuit of quality.

The problem is they wouldn't know quality if it slapped them in the face.

Only joking.


a bit.

Stew said...

ps, a couple of glasses of Glenmorangie were reponsible for that rant.
Sorry.

Lola said...

Thanks for visiting, even though TBNIL beat you to it... I haven't actually picked up Zen & the Art for quite a while, but I know that it is there waiting for the right moment. It's the first book I ever read that made me think about things, take a step back and be objective, when I was still a teenager. I didn't do that much, as my parents would attest. Are all teenagers programmed to be utterly self-obsessed?