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Jane N. (ramya) - Reviews

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13 Clues for Miss Marple
13 Clues for Miss Marple
Author: Agatha Christie
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 4.3/5 Stars.
 6
Review Date: 7/6/2005


Each chapter is a separate, brief mystery as expounded by the Tuesday Night Club, of which Miss Marple is a charter member.


Cimarron
Cimarron
Author: Edna Ferber
Book Type: Paperback
  ?
Review Date: 5/13/2005


"Here is Oklahoma, from the tumultuous Land Rush of 1889 down to modern times. Here is the hard, dangerous, and defiant struggle of the pioneers against heat, dust, thirst, Indians, and the wilderness; the first oil gushing from the parched ground, the incredible fortunes made overnight, the Osage multi-millionaires who startled the world, the amazing, mushroom growth of a skyscraper city in the middle of the prairie. ... The might novel of the opening of the West by one of America's most powerful writers." -- prefatory and back-cover text


Cinnabar
Cinnabar
Author: Edward Bryant
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 2.5/5 Stars.
 1
Review Date: 5/13/2005


"A city at the center of time where infinite possibilities converge ..." -- cover text


The Estate of the Beckoning Lady
The Estate of the Beckoning Lady
Author: Margery Allingham
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3/5 Stars.
 1
Review Date: 5/13/2005


Prefatory material:
"One murder was bad enough -- The unpleasant publicity could ruin the Cassand's preparations for their fabulous garden party. But the guest shrugged it off and came anyway.
"Two murders was getting a bit sticky. A guest will take just so much.
"The third murder couldn't be ignored -- the corpse was indelicate enough to show up right at the party."

An Albert Campion mystery -- pretty much as good as Lord Peter Wimsey!


Justine
Justine
Author: Lawrence Durrell
Book Type: Paperback
  ?
Review Date: 5/13/2005


The first novel of Durrell's Alexandria Quartet


Landed Gently (Inspector Gently, Bk 4)
Landed Gently (Inspector Gently, Bk 4)
Author: Alan Hunter
Book Type: Paperback
  ?
Review Date: 9/19/2006


"The traditional English mystery at its best" -- New York Times Book Review

An Inspector Gently mystery


Maigret and the Burglar's Wife
Maigret and the Burglar's Wife
Author: Georges Simenon
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
 3
Review Date: 5/13/2005


Product Description, as posted on Amazon.com:
"While committing what he intends to be his last burglary, "Sad Freddie" discovers something completely out of his line: the body of a dead woman, her chest covered in blood, holding a telephone in her hand. Inspector Maigret is called in to solve the crime, and after an exhaustive search, a psychological duel, a marathon interrogation, and innumerable glasses of Pernod, wine, cold beer, and brandy--a sure sign that this is no easy case--the famous French sleuth triumphs."

First Sentence, as posted on Amazon.com:
"The official slip of paper, duly filled in and handed to Maigret by the office boy, read: Ernestine Micou, alias Lofty (now Jussiaume), who, when you arrested her seventeen years ago on rue de la Lune, stripped herself naked to taunt you, requests the favor of an interview on a matter of most urgent and important business."


Mila 18
Mila 18
Author: Leon Uris
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 4.7/5 Stars.
 3
Review Date: 5/13/2005


The Warsaw Uprising (WW II)


The Negro Church in America/The Black Church Since Frazier (Sourcebooks in Negro History)
Review Date: 5/13/2005


"A brief but brilliant analysis of the historical origin and the present situation of a crucially importatn institution ..." --Gunnar Myrdal, quoted on back cover


Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper -- Case Closed
Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper -- Case Closed
Author: Patricia Cornwell
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
  • Currently 3.4/5 Stars.
 352
Review Date: 5/13/2005


"America's #1 bestselling crime writer solves the case that has baffled experts for more than a century." -- publisher's blurb


Raney
Raney
Author: Clyde Edgerton
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
 50
Review Date: 7/6/2005


Very funny, although my favorite Clyde Edgerton book remains "Walking across Egypt".


A Severe Mercy
A Severe Mercy
Author: Sheldon Vanauken
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
 4
Review Date: 9/19/2006


From Amazon.com
A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken, is a heart-rending love story described by its author as "the spiritual autobiography of a love rather than of the lovers." Vanauken chronicles the birth of a powerful pagan love borne out of the relationship he shares with his wife, Davy, and describes the growth of their relationship and the dreams that they share. As a symbol of their love, they name their dream schooner the Grey Goose, "for the grey goose, if its mate is killed flies on alone and never takes another."

While studying at Oxford, Sheldon and Davy develop a friendship with C.S. Lewis, under whose influence and with much intellectual scrutiny they accept the Christian doctrine. As their devotion to God intensifies, Sheldon realizes that he is no longer Davy's primary love--God is. Within this discovery begins a brewing jealousy.

Shortly after, Davy acquires a fatal illness. After her death Sheldon embarks on an intense experience of grief, "to find the meaning of it, taste the whole of it ... to learn from sorrow whatever it had to teach." Through painstaking reveries, he comes to discover the meaning of "a mercy as severe as death, a severity as merciful as love." He learns that her death "had these results: It brought me as nothing else could do to know and end my jealously of God. It saved her faith from assault. ...And it saved our love from perishing."

Replete with 18 letters from C.S. Lewis, A Severe Mercy addresses some of the universal questions that surround faith--the existence of God and the reasons behind tragedy. --Jacque Holthusen


She's Come Undone
She's Come Undone
Author: Wally Lamb
Book Type: Paperback
  • Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
 1457
Review Date: 9/19/2006


From Amazon.com
Oprah Book Club® Selection, January 1997: "Mine is a story of craving; an unreliable account of lusts and troubles that began, somehow, in 1956 on the day our free television was delivered." So begins the story of Dolores Price, the unconventional heroine of Wally Lamb's She's Come Undone. Dolores is a class-A emotional basket case, and why shouldn't she be? She's suffered almost every abuse and familial travesty that exists: Her father is a violent, philandering liar; her mother has the mental and emotional consistency of Jell-O; and the men in her life are probably the gender's most loathsome creatures. But Dolores is no quitter; she battles her woes with a sense of self-indulgence and gluttony rivaled only by Henry VIII. Hers is a dysfunctional Wonder Years, where growing up in the golden era was anything but ideal. While most kids her age were dealing with the monumental importance of the latest Beatles single and how college turned an older sibling into a long-haired hippie, Dolores was grappling with such issues as divorce, rape, and mental illness. Whether you're disgusted by her antics or moved by her pathetic ploys, you'll be drawn into Dolores's warped, hilarious, Mallomar-munching world.


St. Urbain's Horseman
St. Urbain's Horseman
Author: Mordechai Richter
Book Type: Paperback
  ?
Review Date: 5/13/2005


"Comedy illuminated by compassion ... richly textured, beautifully wrought ... reading St. Urbain's Horseman is an exhilarating experience." Donald Cameron, The Nation, quoted in prefatory material of book


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