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Over the Edge by Brandilyn Collins

Oct17

Nominated and shortlisted for the INSPY Awards, Mystery/Thriller category.

Brandilyn Collins is a popular and award-winning writer of faith-driven suspense novels. Her books have sold well, and she’s written a lot of them. She’s also a survivor of chronic Lyme disease. Unfortunately, by the time I read a third of the way through Over the Edge, I was fairly sure that:
a) the author had battled Lyme disease herself or with someone in her own family, and
b) the author had an ax to grind and a lesson to teach.

I have a friend who received a very delayed diagnosis of Lyme disease. She has dealt with devastating illness and much pain. I do understand that Lyme disease and its diagnosis are controversial subjects with much suffering and pain involved. I understand the temptation to use fiction as a teaching tool to make people aware of the difficulties facing those who have Lyme disease. But maybe nonfiction would be a better way to go.

In this story, Janessa McNeil, married to research doctor Brock McNeil, becomes infected with Lyme disease. Her husband, whose life research is invested in the idea the chronic Lyme disease doesn’t exist and that Lyme can be cured by a simple, short course of antibiotics, doesn’t believe that Janessa is really sick. Nor does he believe that an evil intruder infected Janessa on purpose–to get Dr. McNeil’s attention.

Yeah, it’s kind of far-fetched, and I’d have a hard time believing it, too. In fact, despite the fact that Brock, the husband, is an adulterer and and a liar, I had a sneaking sympathy for him throughout most of the book. That’s because I don’t like being preached at and emotionally manipulated in my suspense novels. It makes me cranky.

If you’re looking for a fictional tract on the trial and tribulations of chronic Lyme disease sufferers, Over the Edge is your book. If you read Over the Edge and want “the other side of the story” about the so-called “Lyme Wars”, you might try this page from the CDC. I’m not taking sides, just reporting the facts, m’am.

Christian Thrillers?

Oct10

These three books were nominated for the INSPY Awards for “faith-driven” literature in the Mystery/Thriller category. Two of the three made it to the shortlist of five novels in the category considered to be the best of the nominations. My question is: can Christian (or faith-driven) and thriller go together? I’d answer my own question with a qualified “yes”.

I read The Bishop by Steven James first in this orgy of faith-y thriller mysteries, and I’d say it’s both the best of the three and the most problematic. It’s problematic, for Christian readers at least, because it’s grisly and graphic. FBI Special Agent Patrick Bowers is dealing with a pair of serial killers who murder for the fun of it, for the thrill of the chase and the game. The murders this pair commit are disturbingly violent and torture-filled, and the entire novel reminds me of the TV show Bones, a show that comes close to making the “art of murder and torture” seem to be an appealing and intellectually stimulating vocation. Murder by using chimpanzees as surrogate attackers or slow torture/murder by being chained to a rotting corpse are not creative acts of intelligence.

On the other hand, Mr. James does an excellent job of working the philosophical and moral questions raised by a detective’s job into his story. Agent Bowers has a teenage stepdaughter, Tessa, for whom he is the responsible guardian, and as an intelligent young adult still forming her own worldview, Tessa brings up a lot of food for thought, all in context with the story. There’s a wonderful discussion of detective fiction, Arthur Conan Doyle vs. Edgar Allan Poe in chapter eighty-one. (The chapters are short.) And in a couple of other chapters, the characters discuss human nature and whether being “true to oneself” is a good thing or a bad. All of this philosophical and religious speculation is neatly embedded in the story and not at all awkward or pace-slowing. Bottom line, it’s a good, well- paced novel IF you don’t mind the repulsive details of the crimes. The Bishop is the fourth book in The Bowers Files series. It can stand alone, but there are a lot of references to previous books and cases.

Fatal Judgement by Irene Hannon is the first book in a new series called Guardians of Justice. It’s the one of these three that didn’t make the INSPY shortlist, but it’s a creditable action mystery with a romantic angle that did a decent job of keeping my interest to the end, even though I knew what the outcome would be, romantically and mysteriously speaking. U.S. marshall Jake Taylor is assigned to protect a federal judge whose sister has been murdered. The possibilities are that the judge was the real target or that she is the next target. Marshall Jake Taylor already knows Judge Liz Michaels, and he doesn’t much like her. Nevertheless, a job is a job. Can Jake find the killer before he strikes again? And was he somehow mistaken about Judge Michaels?

The third book in my own trilogy of thrillers, Back on Murder by J. Mark Bertrand, was especially interesting to me because it’s set in Houston. The street names, the restaurants, the malls, the hurricane (Ike), and everything else is authentic Houston-flavored. Spotting the local references was fun. Back on Murder is a police procedural, heavy on the detective work and the politics within HPD. (Names and characters are, I assume, totally fictional to protect the innocent.) Detective Roland March is a veteran Houston cop, disillusioned and near burn-out with a secret in his past that has almost destroyed his marriage and his career. The current case, which takes place in the fall of 2008, concerns a houseful of dead gang-bangers, the missing daughter of a well-known Houston evangelist, a few crooked cops, and a Cars for Criminals sting operation. Could they all be related, or is the relationship between such disparate elements only wishful thinking on the part of March who wants to revive his career in the homicide division?

I can’t promise you’ll enjoy Back on Murder as much as I did. As I said, the Houston elements in the novel captured my interest immediately. The story was good, however, and the pace was O.K., a little slow sometimes and almost frenetic towards the end. I do think my dad, a fan of Ed McBain and the Tv show Law and Order, would have enjoyed this novel. And I have the second in the series, Pattern of Wounds, on reserve at the library.

None of these three novels is particularly preachy or even faith-driven, as far as I could tell. Christianity is an element in the novels; some of the characters, usually not the main character, profess to be Christians. But if you’re looking for a clear (or even subtle) presentation of the gospel in these books, you won’t find it. The Bishop raises interesting questions related to faith and worldview. Fatal Judgement, in a low-key way, “preaches” church-going and a return to faith as a foundation in the midst of suffering and problems. Back on Murder presents the story of a cynical, heart-wounded cop associating with some faithful Christians who certainly don’t wear their faith on their sleeves. However, I’m anticipating that Detective Roland March will have some questions of his own about Christianity and a life lived in faith, perhaps in the next book.

1920: Books and Literature

Oct4

Hercule Poirot appears for the first time in 1920 in the Agatha Christie novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. He is a Belgian retired police detective and genius, living in England as a refugee from the recent war. Captain Hastings describes Poirot in chapter two of The Mysterious Affair at Styles:

“He was hardly more than five feet four inches but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg, and he always perched it a little on one side. His moustache was very stiff and military. Even if everything on his face was covered, the tips of moustache and the pink-tipped nose would be visible.
The neatness of his attire was almost incredible; I believe a speck of dust would have caused him more pain than a bullet wound. Yet this quaint dandified little man who, I was sorry to see, now limped badly, had been in his time one of the most celebrated members of the Belgian police.”

Also published in 1920:
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s debut novel was a critical success, but it has been somewhat overshadowed by his most famous and successful book, The Great Gatsby.

Main Street by Sinclair Lewis. Main Street was initially awarded the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for literature, but it was rejected by the Board of Trustees, who overturned the jury’s decision. Semicolon review here.

Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. Newland Archer is torn between the expectations of society and his own desire for stability and respectability and the passion and adventure he experiences with the exciting and forbidden Countess Olenska. He must choose between May Welland, the woman whom all New York society expects him to marry, and Ellen Olenska, the woman who needs his love and awakens his passion. This novel actually won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for literature after Main Street was rejected.

Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence.

The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting.

The Bridal Wreath by Sigrid Undset. This novel about a young Norwegian girl in the Middle Ages is the first in a trilogy of books about the life of the fictional Kristin Lavransdatter. It is a lovely set of books, well worth the time and energy that it takes to read them in translation. Sigrid Undset won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1928. Semicolon review of Kristin Lavransdatter. More on the novel here.

For more book suggestions check out Reading the Twenties by Dani Torres at A Work in Progress.

Anna’s Book by Barbara Vine

Sep28

Anna Westerby is a Danish wife living in London around the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century. She is not a very nice person. Although conventionally moral, Anna dislikes her husband and only has a tempered affection for her two young sons. She can’t stand most of her neighbors, and her only happiness in life is the prospect that her expected third child will be a daughter, someone she can understand and love and share a life with.

We learn all of this information about Anna’s affections and distastes from excerpts of her journal, a journal that she keeps secretly from sometime in 1905 until an event in the 1950’s(?) causes her to stop writing. Anna does get her hoped-for daughter, and the two do share a special bond. The story moves back and forth between Anna’s early adult life, captured in her journals, and her old age and beyond, recounted by her granddaughter, Ann. There’s a mystery concerning Swanny, the beloved daughter, and whether or not Anna is an unreliable narrator or just a forgetful and somewhat incendiary old lady who enjoys conjuring up drama.

Barbara Vine is the pseudonymous “alter-ego” of mystery writer Ruth Rendell, and under the two names Ms. Rendell has written more than fifty published novels. Anna’s Book (originally published in the UK as Asta’s Book) is, like the others in her body of work, a suspense novel that majors on characterizations and psychological analysis. The book does a great job of picking apart the complicated psychological motives and inner workings of the various characters and then patiently putting them back together again, like Humpty Dumpty, to form a satisfying plot and a conclusion.

It’s not an action suspense thriller, but if you enjoy trying to figure people out and attempting to unravel historical mysteries, Anna’s Book might be just the ticket for a long winter’s night read.

More information on Barbara Vine and her books:
Fatal Inversions: A Barbara Vine Information Web(site)
Anna’s Book reviewed at Jenny’s Books.
Anna’s Book reviewed by Superfast Reader

While We’re Far Apart by Lynn Austin

Sep27

I read this book because it’s one of the many novels that has been nominated for the INSPY Award in the category of General Fiction. Also, I like historical fiction,and this book set during Word War II sounded interesting. In fact, I gave it to my mom to read first, thinking she might like the time period setting; she actually remembers the end of World War II. She says she remembers marching around her front yard banging with a spoon on an old pan to celebrate VE Day or VJ Day, one of the two.

However, for my mom the book was a non-starter. She read a few chapters, but since the main characters, or at least one of the main characters, is a twelve year old girl, the book felt too juvenile to her. She suggested I give it to Betsy-Bee who is also twelve years old.

However, since it’s classified as adult fiction, I thought I should read it myself. I’m glad I did. There’s not much in there that a mature 13 or 14 year old wouldn’t understand and appreciate, but the book, especially the pacing, is probably more suited to adults. It doesn’t move too quickly, but rather it’s what I would call a character-centered story. Esther, the twelve year old, is a love-starved little girl who’s just on the edge of adolescence and growing into adulthood. Her mother has died in a car accident, and her father is so absorbed in his grief that he has little or no emotional strength to give to his children. Esther’s brother, Peter, is just as confused and needy as Esther, but he expresses his suffering by becoming mute. The two children are further traumatized when their father decides to volunteer to go to war in order to escape from his memories and from the pain of his wife’s death.

Then, the most interesting character enters the story. Penny Goodrich is the girl next door who’s always, unbeknownst to him, had a crush on the children’s father. When their grandmother refuses to care for the children (she’s a hoarder and has her own issues), Penny steps up, hoping to make Eddie Shaffer, the dad, fall in love with her as she cares for his children. I thought at first Penny was going to be border-line mentally impaired, but as the story progresses, Penny is only very sheltered and a bit slow on the uptake because of her peculiar background and discouraging and over-protective parents who have always told her that she is as “dumb as a green bean.”

I liked figuring out Penny, and then the Jewish characters who show up in the story are also intriguing. Mr. Mendel, the Shaffers’ friend, neighbor, and landlord, is waiting to hear from his son who was trapped in Hungary at the beginning of the war. Mr. Mendel also lost his wife in the same accident that killed Esther’s mother, and he is quite bitter towards “Hashem” the name he uses to speak of God. The book includes lots of questioning about the goodness of God and His role in suffering and evil. “If God is good, why does He let bad things happen?” No easy answers are given, but Mr. Mendel eventually realizes that he cannot leave his faith, or else his faith in God and community will not leave him.

I liked it. If the setting and characters sound like somewhere you would like to visit and people you would like to get to know, if only briefly, check it out.

The Attenbury Emeralds by Jill Paton Walsh

Sep15

Jill Paton Walsh has continued the story of Dorothy Sayers’ famous sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, in her books Thrones, Dominations and A Presumption of Death. These two bring the story into the early 1940s, while Paton Walsh’s third installment, The Attenbury Emeralds, takes place after World War II with Lord Peter and his wife, the famous mystery novelist Harriet Vane, dealing with post-war changes and reminiscing about the good old days of post-World War I Britain and Peter’s very first case.

So the book happens in two time periods, both post-war. As fans know, Lord Peter was quite torn up by his part in the Great War, and he only recovered with the help and ministrations of that perfect manservant, Mervyn Bunter. As The Attenbury Emeralds begins, Lord Peter is telling Harriet the story of how he rejoined society after the war (slowly and with much trepidation) and how he blundered into his first detective case, recovering a stolen emerald for his friends, the Attenbury family.

Jill Paton Walsh isn’t Dorothy Sayers, but she’s a good writer in her own right. She’s written several good children’s and young adult books, and if anyone can presume to extend the story of Lord Peter Wimsey, Ms. Walsh has made a good claim on the right to do so with her first two volumes. (I wrote a little about Walsh and Sayers and the Lord Peter books when I first discovered Ms. Walsh’s sequels back in 2004.)

There is a big change in store for Lord Peter in his personal and his public life in this book, and I think Ms. Walsh writes about Lord Peter’s later years (he’s sixty plus by the time this story takes place) convincingly, with respect for Sayers’ creation and with some charm. This older Peter Wimsey is not quite so tortured and emotional as the youthful Lord Peter was, but he’s still just a bit vulnerable and highly attractive.

I recommend all three sequels by Jill Paton Walsh, if you’ve read the original series by Dorothy Sayers and just can’t get enough of Lord Peter Wimsey and his family and his lovely wife, Harriet. If you haven’t read Dorothy Sayers’ mysteries featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, you have a treat in store for you. Get thee to a library or bookstore and read. Here’s a chronology of the Lord Peter Wimsey stories and novels. I’d suggest that you start with the first novel, Whose Body?, and travel through the book-length stories, not worrying about the short stories unless you’re particularly fond of short stories.

1912: Books and Literature

Sep12

Gerhart Hauptmann, a German playwright, won the Nobel Prize for Literature. His most famous play was called The Weavers about workers struggling for their rights. I read the play a long time ago for a class in college, and thought it was forgettable. However, it is significant in that the play has no hero or central character. Hauptmann was attempting to dramatize “The Weavers” as a group who are suffering from poverty and oppression. You can read more about the play here.

Riders of the Purple Sage is Zane Grey’s best-known novel, originally published in 1912. The events in the novel take place in 1871; the book itself is an early and influential example of the Western fiction genre.

Tom Swift was the main character in a series of books, mostly popular with boys, that featured an intrepid and adventuresome boy who tires out all the latest gadgets and inventions. The first series of Tom Swift books began being published in 1910, and by 1912 you got exciting titles such as:
Tom Swift and His Air Glider
Tom Swift and His Great Searchlight
Tom Swift and His Wizard Camera
Tom Swift in Captivity
Tom Swift in the City of Gold
The books were published by Grossett and Dunlap, conceived by Edward Stratemeyer, and written by various writers hired to write “Tom Swift science adventures” from 1910 to 1941 (for the first series)–a total of forty volumes in all. Has anyone ever read one of these Tom Swift adventures?

Childrean’s and Young Adult books set in 1912 (but not including books about the Titanic):
Bread and Roses, Too by Katherine Paterson. About a strike in the early 1900′s, the early days of labor organizing. The girl who is the main character is afraid that her mother and older sister will be hurt or even killed as they participate in a strike.
The Tempering by Gloria Skurzynski. The Tempering tells the story of Karl Kerner who must choose between leaving school for a life in the steel mills or continuing with his education.
All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor. Five young Jewish sisters-Ella, Henny, Sarah, Charlotte and Gertie–live with their family in New York’s Lower East side. Follow along as they search for hidden buttons while dusting Mama’s front parlor, or explore the basement warehouse of Papa’s peddler shop on rainy days. The five girls enjoy doing everything together, especially when it involves holidays and surprises.
The Good Master by Kate Seredy. Young Jancsi and his cousin Kate from Budapest race across the Hungarian plains on horseback, attend country fairs and festivals, and experience a dangerous run-in with gypsies. This children’s story is set in Hungary just before World War I.
Surviving Antarctica by Andrea White is actually set in 2083, but it’s the story of how some future young people who live in a media-driven culture take part in a contest to re-create Scott’s doomed 1911-1912 expedition to the South Pole.

Labor, and unions, and the proletariat, and ways of relieving poverty and the oppression of the working class were all big issues in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as you can see from the literature of and about the time period. But, as evidenced by Tom Swift and his ilk, many people were quite optimistic about science and invention and the natural tendency of mankind toward progress to alleviate these problems and usher man into a golden age of brotherhood and the end of poverty. That was before the Great War.

His Other Wife by Deborah Bedford

Sep5

There was a certain man from Ramathaim, a Zuphite from the hill country of Ephraim, whose name was Elkanah son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephraimite.He had two wives; one was called Hannah and the other Peninnah. Peninnah had children, but Hannah had none. Year after year this man went up from his town to worship and sacrifice to the LORD Almighty at Shiloh, where Hophni and Phinehas, the two sons of Eli, were priests of the LORD. Whenever the day came for Elkanah to sacrifice, he would give portions of the meat to his wife Peninnah and to all her sons and daughters. But to Hannah he gave a double portion because he loved her, and the LORD had closed her womb. Because the LORD had closed Hannah’s womb, her rival kept provoking her in order to irritate her. This went on year after year. Whenever Hannah went up to the house of the LORD, her rival provoked her till she wept and would not eat. Her husband Elkanah would say to her, “Hannah, why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons?” NIV

His Other Wife is the story of a divorced woman, Hilary, and her son, Seth, and Seth’s “other family”, his father, the woman his father is now married to, and their children. The horrible effects of divorce and desertion are not soft-pedaled, but the story manages to jump from one character’s viewpoint to another and make the reader understand to some extent why everyone did what they did. Eric, the dad in the story, is a selfish adulterer, but he’s also a father who loves his son and wants to connect with him. The other wife, Pam, is competitive with an uncontrolled tongue, but she’s also fragile and insecure and trying to make a family with her husband, Eric. Hilary is lonely and way too dependent on her son for her own emotional stability, but she’s a good mom and a persistently loving one. Seth has his own issues, but he’s too busy keeping mom afloat and trying to make her happy to deal with his own emotional needs.

Then, tragedy breaks the entire family dynamic wide open. The story is loosely based on the family dynamic in Hannah’s story in I Samuel. But whereas Hannah and Peninah were rivals in having children, Hilary and Pam are competing for the love and attention of their children, especially Seth. The characters and their interactions are well-written and engaging in this book, and the calamity that brings out all the hidden dysfunction in the family makes the story move along and continue to grab the reader’s attention all the way to the end.

This novel is published by FaithWords, and there is some Christian content and teaching embedded in the story. Hilary’s faith both sustains and challenges her, even though she doesn’t think of herself as much of a Christian, just a semi-regular church-goer who prays emergency “help!” prayers when things go wrong. But in the book, God honors even those simple prayers and brings stability and peace into Hilary’s life when she is desperate enough to look to Him. It wasn’t over-poweringly preachy to me, but others may disagree with that assessment. His Other Wife was a good, thoughtful read which put great characters into an arresting situation that brought out the best and worst in each of them. Good dialog and good psychological insights complete this solid story of two families who must come together for the sake of a son who is suffering a life-changing trial.

Setting: Turn of the Century, 1900-1909

Sep2

Historical fiction is a great way to learn about history. In fact, I learned a lot of my history facts from novels. I’m often moved by a fiction book to go look up the story behind the story, to see if the author got her facts right. Here are a few adult fiction titles set in or around the turn of the century—nineteenth to twentieth, that is. No, I haven’t read all of these, but I have tried to give you a link to a review written by someone who has for each book listed. If you have reviewed any of these, leave a link in the comments, and I’ll add your review to the list. Or if you have read another book set in the early 1900’s that you liked, please share.

The Tale of Hilltop Farm by Susan Wittig Albert. Author Beatrix Potter solves mysteries in this book and the ones the follow in the series when she moves to Hill Top Farm after the death of her fiance. Reviewed by Allison at On My Bookshelf.

City of Tranquil Light by Bo Caldwell. Highly recommended. A young Mennonite missionary in China meets and marries a fellow missionary and lives through the turmoil of civil war. Semicolon review here.

Anna’s Book by Barbara Vine. Mystery and suspense in early twentieth century London. Reviewed by Superfast Reader.

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attempts to exonerate a falsely imprisoned man named George.

Beautiful Dreamer by Joan Naper. Chicago, 1900. Reviewed by Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past.

The Birth House by Ami McKay. A midwife in a Nova Scotia fishing village. Reviewed at Maw Books Blog..

Empire by Gore Vidal. Caroline Sanford runs a newspaper dynasty during the years 1898-1907–with insights into the Spanish-American War, the Hearst newspaper conglomerate, and the presidencies of William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, among other historical events and persons.

A Flickering Light by Jane Kirkpatrick. In 1907, a fifteen year old girl dreams of a career in photography, a dangerous job reserved for men. Reviewd by Tracy at Relz Reviewz.

Jack London: Sailor on Horseback by Irving Stone. Biographical novel about the eponymous author.

Lake of Fire by Linda Jacobs. Romance blossoms in Yellowstone National Park, June, 1900. Reviewed by Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past.

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. Highly recommended. Will’s grandfather elopes with a woman half his age three weeks after his wife dies in 1906, causing a scandal in their small Georgia town. Cold Sassy Tree is on my list of the 100 Best Novels of All Time.

City of Light by Lauren Belfer. 1901 in Buffalo, New York as Niagara Falls is being harnessed for electricity.

The Outlander by Gil Adamson. Idaho and Montana, 1903. A nineteen year old woman murders her abusive husband and then runs away from his brothers who are thirsty for revenge.

The Quickening by Michelle Hoover. American Midwest in the early 1900’s. Reviewed by Caribousmom.

Painted Ladies by Siobhan Parkinson. A community of artists in Skagen, a fishing village in the north of Denmark, live a Bohemian lifestyle while producing great works of art. Reviewed by Sarah Johnson at Reading the Past.

For more historical novels of the twentieth century, look at HistoricalNovels.info.

1906: Books and Literature

Aug17

Giosuè Carducci was an Italian poet and teacher who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1906. He was strongly anti-clerical, anti-Catholic, and anti-Christian. One of his most famous, and controversial, poems was called “Inno a Satana” (or “Hymn to Satan”.) He died in February, 1907 after receiving the prize in December, 1906.

Fiction Bestsellers:
1. Winston Churchill, Coniston
2. Owen Wister, Lady Baltimore
3. Robert W. Chambers, The Fighting Chance
4. Meredith Nicholson, The House of a Thousand Candles An early mystery genre story by an Indiana author.
5. George Barr McCutcheon, Jane Cable
6. Upton Sinclair, The Jungle. I read this one in high school, and I remember certain details quite well. I became a vegetarian for an entire month after reading The Jungle. Now that’s some influential muckraking literature!
7. Margaret Deland, The Awakening of Helena Ritchie
8. Rex Beach, The Spoilers
9. Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
10. Ellen Glasgow, The Wheel of Life

Critically Acclaimed or Historically Significant:
William Graham Sumner, Folkways
George Santayana, The Life of Reason
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent
G.K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens: A Critical Study. I love Chesterton, and I think this book quite the best thing I’ve ever read about Charles Dickens.
Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children, The Story of the Amulet. I’ve read Nesbit’s earlier Five Children and It (1902) and The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904), and I may have read The Story of the Amulet. However, I’ve never read or seen the movie version of The Railway Children, which it turns out is partly a spy novel. Anyway, Nesbit wrote over sixty boks fr children, and she was a co-founder of The Fabian Society in England.
Across the Page: Dragons Galore, Reading E. Nesbit to modern American children.
Librivox audiobooks of E. Nesbit.
John Galsworthy, The Man of Property. This one is the first volume in Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga, and I read it earlier this year. I never wrote anything about it because I thought I would finish the saga and then write. Also, I’m not too sure what I think. However, others think wel of it: Galsworthy won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1932 on the strength of his many novels about the Forsyte family.

Set in 1906:
Ah, Wilderness! by Eugene O’Neill. Random House, 1933. Set in July, 1906.
A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. A YA novel about a girl torn between her family and her future, set in 1906 in the Adirondacks. A review at One More Page.
Earthquake at Dawn by Kristiana Gregory. Semicolon review here.
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow (1975) is set in New York City in 1906, actually from 1902-1917. A lot of peoople swear that this novel is one of the best they’ve ever read. I hated it, and only managed to read about a fourth of the book. The book (fiction) is full of actual characters from the early 1900’s: Harry Houdini, Robert Peary, J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Emma Goldman, Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, Harry Kendall Thaw, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Countess Sophie Chotek, Booker T. Washington, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Theodore Dreiser, Jacob Riis and Emiliano Zapata. But I thought it was downright nasty; I am to Ragtime as Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn was to Balzac in The Music Man.