Tuesday's Book Review

I could blog about all the books I have read this week but I will only blog about the 4 major books I have read. When I was at Pam's she had 3 books by Susan Wittig Albert of a series called 'The Beatrix Potter mysteries'. It was such a fun read that I downloaded 3 more of the series and read them this week. They were "The Tale of Cuckoo Brow Wood", "The Tale of Holly How" and "The Tale of Hawthorn House". I enjoyed them immensely. As I stated last week, Beatrix Potter is the protagonist in these little fictitious mysteries. She always seems to be in the right place at the right time to save the day. The animals do talk but only to each other. In "The Tale of Hawthorn House" there was a mystery among just the animals. Jemima Puddleduck is sitting on eggs that are not hers - but whose are they? These are fast fun reads. Susan Wittig Albert has a new book in the series but I am not willing to pay $15 for it. I will wait for the price to drop.

The other book I read was "The Four Feathers" by A. E. W. Mason. It was an interesting book but I have decided that I can only read these turn of the century novels once in a while. I find them terribly annoying because of all the description in them. To spend 2 paragraphs on the setting of a table is a bit much. But back then the authors were not paid royalties like they are now. Most authors were paid by the word for their novel and then given a very small percentage of the book sales (between 1% and 3%) unless you really got a good deal. Those good deals were few and far between [Beatrix Potter was paid quite well - when they remembered to pay her!] Because they were paid by the word - the books tend to be large on frivolous words. This had a good plot but a sad one too. It was quite interesting to read. I have never seen the movie made from it so I cannot compare it. I have had 2 people tell me that saw the movie and read the book that the book was better. That is usually the way. If you want to read a story about British soldiers and their cruelty to each other - this is a great read. I suggest that you skip over some of the superfluous description, but read all the dialogue. You will enjoy it more (unless you are into wordy books).