Friday's Forgotten Books: Nero Wolfe

Now that we're all done with Thanksgiving dinner and preparing to tuck into leftovers today, I'd thought I'd choose a book that celebrates food along with a really good mystery.

Enter Nero Wolfe. Fifty-six-year-old (a fact you may have not known!) overweight detective genius from Montenegro (although his birthplace was changed to the U.S. for one book)who liked good food (especialy shad roe), beer (about 6 quarts a day), orchids and his luxurious brownstone on West 35th Street in New York City. Wolfe employed:

Archie Goodwin--Nero's "legman", a PI who can recite verbatim entire conversations. He does the bulk of the investigating (because Wolfe doesn't like to leave home) and drinks a lot of milk. He's also responsible for mundane office tasks, like opening the mail. Archie lives rent-free at the brownstone.

Fritz Brenner--Nero's talented Swiss cook

Theodore Horstmann--an orchid expert who lives on the roof of the brownstone who helps Nero daily with his plants from 9:00-11 am and 4:00-6:00 pm.

There are also three private eyes that Wolfe hires to help out: Saul Panzer, Fred Durkin, Orrie Cather. And remember Lon Cohen, the reporter?

And Nero is soooo eccentric with his yellow pyjamas, his inflexible schedule, his dislike of women, the way he closes his eyes and pushes his lips in and out when thinking.

Just typing these names and bits of description brings back so many fond memories for me. There wasn't a Nero Wolfe mystery I didn't enjoy. Not one. From the first one, Fer-de-Lance (1934), to the last, Death Times Three (1977).

Rex Stout wrote 33 Nero Wolfe books and 39 short stories. Journalist Robert Goldsborough wrote seven Wolfe books after Stout's death.

Oh, I am homesick for a Nero Wolfe. I'll have to re-read one. I've never read one of Golsborough mysteries. Perhaps I should do that. And I think I might ask for The Nero Wolfe Cookbook (it has 237 recipes!) for Christmas. It was also written by Rex Stout.



And I leave you with a super quotation:

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."~~Ray Bradbury

Please pop over to Patti Abbott at pattinase's blog for links to other posts for Friday's Forgotten Books. It's always a fantastic line-up.




sources:
wikepedia, answer.com, http://www.nerowolfe.org/htm/corpus/Time/index.htm

Friday's Forgotten Books: Perry Mason

Before I start my post for Friday's Forgotten Books, I'd like to give a BIG shout-out to David Cranmer of The Education of a Pulp Writer who totally made my day! Child #3 and I stopped in at The Yellow Book Road to drop off some book launch/signing postcard-invitations. Mary, the co-owner, informed me that David had called to order a signed copy of I So Don't Do Mysteries! Yowzer!



And onto Friday's Forgotten Books (how's that for an abrupt transition?). While at Aunt Agatha's bookstore in Ann Arbor,Michigan, I picked up a used copy of The Case of the Sleep-Walker's Niece (EIGHTEENTH printing, 1965, original price of 50 cents) by Erle Stanley Gardner. It is so wonderful to be back in the company of defense attorney Perry Mason, his confidential secretary and love interest Della Street, his private eye Paul Drake, switchboard operator Gertie Lade, Lieutenant Tragg. It's even a pleasure to re-visit District Attorney Hamilton Burger.

Why did I stop reading Perry Mason? He puts me in such a good mood. I should gobble up one a week. And how about Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. Ah ha! Another post for another Friday!

Some fun facts about Perry Mason: He's in over EIGHTY novels and short stories. He loves a difficult case. He shines in a courtroom. He lives in an apartment and likes to eat out, especially steak. We know nothing about his background or childhood. I personally feel that he strung Della Street along. But that could just be me.



Some fun facts about Erle Stanley Gardner (1889-1970): He got kicked out of law school after about a month for fighting. He worked as a typist in a law office, studied law BY HIMSELF, then took the bar and PASSED. He hung out a shingle at THE AGE OF 21 YEARS in Merced, CA. He practiced law until 1933 when The Case of the Velvet Claws was published. He wrote under his own name and SEVEN pseudonyms. He loved the courtroom and steak. He married his longtime secretary (as in, she worked for him for over THIRTY years) when he was SEVENTY-NINE and she was SIXTY-SIX. I think they were waiting for his first wife to die. That Erle Stanley Gardner was some kind of brilliant and some kind of character.

Please pop over to Patti Abbott at pattinase's blog for links to other posts for Friday's Forgotten Books. It's always a fantastic line-up.


Sources: Wikipedia, http://kirjasto.sci.fi/gardner.htm,http://www.erlestanleygardner.com/

Friday's Forgotten Books

It is with great delight that I join Pattinase's blog roundup this week for Friday's Forgotten Books.

Moving right along:

The Last of the Crazy People by Timothy Findley
1967

This was Timothy Findley's (1930-2002) first book. He is one of my very favorite Canadian writers. The Last of the Crazy People was not even published in Canada, only in Britain and the U.S. His second novel, The Butterfly Plague, (1969), was also rejected by Canadian publishers. His third novel, however, The Wars, (1977), won a Governor General's Award. Findley won several writing awards from both Canada and France.

Findley grew up in a wealthy section of Toronto (Rosedale) and attended private school, then Jarvis Collegiate, although he did not finish grade ten. I actually have a nephew who goes to that same high school!

Findley was briefly married. The marriage was annulled and Findley spent the rest of his life with his partner, screenwriter William Whitehead. Findley turned to dancing and acting. He was one of the originals at the Stratford Festival which opened in Southern Ontario in 1953 and where he worked with Alec Guinness. He wrote for television and radio and adapted Mazo de la Roche's The Whiteoaks of Jalna for CBC television. My entire family watched this show and I HAD NO IDEA, until I did a bit of research for this post, that Timothy Findley (Tiff for short) was one of the writers!

About The Last of the Crazy People: It's 1964 and the protagonist, Hooker Winslow, 11 years old, lives with his dysfunctional family. The family includes his crazy mother (who recently gave birth to a stillborn), his Aunt Rosetta (who caters totally to her brother/Hooker's dad), Nicholas (Hooker's dad and a man who can't connect with anyone and who talks whether he has a listener or not), his drunken brother, Gilbert.

From the back of the book: One brilliant, summer morning, an eleven year old boy commits a shocking and unpredictable crime. What drove Hooker Winslow to his act of insanity?

From an article written by Laura Moss: Although the stories differ dramatically in plot and form, the symbolic content of Findley's work is often predictable. His writing proliferates with scenes of violence, loneliness, animal rights, abuses of power, madness, and apocalyptic visions. Indeed, Findley himself jokingly points to his own recurring images and themes: "It came as something of a shock…to discover that for over thirty years of writing my attention has turned again and again to the same unvarying gamut of sounds and images…. I wish I hadn't noticed this. In fact, it became an embarrassment and I began to wonder if I should file A CATALOGUE OF PERSONAL OBSESSIONS.

Go see pattinase's blog for links to other posts for Friday's Forgotten Books.

P.S. Timothy Findley is the guy who wrote The Piano Man's Daughter. He hated the film.

P.P.S. Sorry. Got way too wordy on this post. But I do love this writer.

(Sources: Wikipedia, http://www.athabascau.ca/writers/findley.html, http://www.cbc.ca/news/obit/findley/)