As Eva at A Striped Armchair yearned for a regency beau this week, I was reminded that I've been thinking about a Trollope re-read this summer. Have complete sets of both the Palliser novels and the Barsetshire novels but which to read? Or should I sink into the unread Trollope? Went looking about for some inspiration. The Trollope Society and the Trollope Society USA always have excellent events, info and links, but the sites are a little - hmmm, how to say this? - staid. But then I found anthonytrollope.com. Images above come from that site. Quotes, quizzes, contest plus the usual links to useful info including everything from the Trollope Society. Just a whole lot more visually appealing and fun. Go take a look if the spirit moves you.
A review copy of The Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection by Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler came my way a little while ago, and I have been curious to read it. So has Danielle at A Work in Progress. But (sigh) when does it leave the pile and sit in my hands? Had a little shove from a Washington Post book review this morning. Synopsis:
"Turn-of-the-century Paris was the beating heart of a rapidly changing world. Painters, scientists, revolutionaries, poets--all were there. But so, too, were the shadows: Paris was a violent, criminal place, its sinister alleyways the haunts of Apache gangsters and its cafes the gathering places of murderous anarchists. In 1911, it fell victim to perhaps the greatest theft of all time--the taking of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. Immediately, Alphonse Bertillon, a detective world-renowned for pioneering crime-scene investigation techniques, was called upon to solve the crime. And quickly the Paris police had a suspect: a young Spanish artist named Pablo Picasso...." (from the publisher)
To Carley Wells, words are the enemy. Her tutor’s innumerable SAT flashcards. Her personal trainer’s “fifty-seven pounds overweight” assessment. And the endless reading assignments from her English teacher, Mr. Nagel. When Nagel reports to her parents that she has answered “What is your favorite book” with “Never met one I liked,” they decide to fix what he calls her “intellectual impoverishment.” They will commission a book to be written just for her—one she’ll have to love—that will impress her teacher and the whole town of Fox Glen with their family’s devotion to the arts. They will be patrons— the Medicis of Long Island. They will buy their daughter The Love Of Reading.
Impossible though it is for Carley to imagine loving books, she is in love with a young bibliophile who cares about them more than anything. Anything, that is, but a good bottle of scotch. Hunter Cay, Carley’s best friend and Fox Glen’s resident golden boy, is becoming a stranger to her lately as he drowns himself in F. Scott Fitzgerald, booze, and Vicodin.
When the Wellses move writer Bree McEnroy—author of a failed meta-novel about Odysseus’ failed journey home through the Internet—into their mansion to write Carley’s book, Carley’s sole interest in the project is to distract Hunter from drinking and give them something to share. But as Hunter’s behavior becomes erratic and dangerous, she finds herself increasingly drawn into the fictional world Bree has created, and begins to understand for the first time the power of stories—those we read, those we want to believe in, and most of all, those we tell ourselves about ourselves. Stories powerful enough to destroy a person. Or save her." (from the publisher)