PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Man Who Died Twice - Richard Osman

The Man Who Died Twice is a familiar title to me. It's been used to title a film a couple of times, a novel at least once, it's also the title of an episode of The Great Detective, a 1979 Canadian TV show. I suspect that most people buying Richard Osman's new book in the Thursday Mystery Club series aren't going to know anything about those old things. Not that it matters in anyway.

At the beginning of the book Ibrahim is attacked by a thug and his phone is stolen. He's been hurt physically and he's scared. He's was in the hospital briefly but soon comes home. He doesn't want to go out anymore. Elizabeth starts a plan of vengeance when the police fail to get anywhere with the investigation on the suspect. No witnesses or cameras on that street.

Elizabeth's ex-husband Douglas comes back into her life. He's still in the spy biz and some bad men want to find him. They claim Douglas stole $20 mil in diamonds during a break in of the home of an illegal money transferring guy. He takes cash and treasure and passes it along between scumbags. Helps keep their illegal doings secret. Sadly, he forgot to put away the diamonds before bed time and they got nicked in the break in. Now the mafia want to kill him and he wants to kill Douglas. He knows Douglas was there because Douglas popped his mask off during the break in. While MI5 is hiding Douglas the baddies manage to find him, he's killed along with the young agent minding him.

Elizabeth finds out he did steal the diamonds but he's hidden them and left a clue. With Joyce in tow she starts investigating the death of her ex and she ropes in all of her pals from the first book, Ron, Chris, Donna, Stephen and Bogdan, for a bit of fun.

I sure had some fun reading it. I plowed through it within 24 hours after downloading it to my Kindle. I'm glad to hear Richard is working on the third book in the series. I'll be happy to pick that up.

The Mystery Series by Enid Blyton

I finished the whole box set of the Enid Blyton Mystery Series. It's also called The Five Find-Outers Mystery Series. Each book features the investigative team of Fatty, Larry, Daisy, Pip, Bets and Fatty's Scottie dog, Buster. Fatty's the ringleader and the brains behind the outfit. He's a bit of a cheeky character who's got a good range of knowledge in his clever bonce. The other kids contribute what they can, often something they say or find out triggers Fatty's noggin and out pops the solution.

Fatty had a tendency to brag about himself at first but Larry and Pip often took the mickey out of him and he stopped. They eventually come to value his brains and look up to him. There's a whole crew of characters in each book, the kids parents make an appearance, Mr Goon the local policeman, Inspector Jenks, Mr Goon's poetry writing nephew Ern, and the oodles of new people for each book. You can read more about the series at The Enid Blyton Society.

Fatty's nickname is based on his initials, Frederick Algernon Trotteville spells FAT, and his somewhat portly figure. The 2016 edition I read, the one in that box, has a little note on the copyright page that says all the references to Fatty being fat have been removed and his nick name is just based on his initials. This was done by Enid's daughter. I have several of the books in other editions so I'm not too bothered. It doesn't really effect the story. Sadly, Fatty isn't that keen on his nickname, even his mom uses it.

I find the series entertaining and a nice quick breezy read, even after having read most of them once or twice already.

The covers in the series are all by Timothy Banks. This is the third time they've been used and the first time the paintings appear without the edges being cropped. I think the covers look better on the new editions, except for the Mystery Series bit that covers the bottom right corner.

The 2014 Egmont edition on the left and the 2016 Hodder edition on the right. The 2021 Hodder edition covers are below.

 

The Mystery Of The Burnt Cottage 1943

The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat 1944

 

The Mystery of the Secret Room 1945

The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters 1946

 

The Mystery of the Missing Necklace 1947

The Mystery of the Hidden House 1948

 

The Mystery of the Pantomime Cat 1949

The Mystery of the Invisible Thief 1950

 

The Mystery of the Vanished Prince 1951

The Mystery of the Strange Bundle 1952

 

The Mystery of the Holly Lane 1953

The Mystery of the Tally-Ho Cottage 1954

 

The Mystery of the Missing Man 1956

The Mystery of the Strange Messages 1957

The Mystery of the Banshee Towers 1961

Enid Blyton For Grown Ups by Bruno Vincent

Enid Blyton For Grown Ups by Bruno Vincent

In the fall of last year I picked up a whole lot of misc Enid Blyton books by scouring the cheap booksellers on eBay. Most of them were $3-5 with free shipping. They arrived with minimal wrapping but usually the books were in fine shape. A couple of the books I bought were in the Enid Blyton For Grown Up series. I wanted to try a couple to see if I might want to continue reading the series. I liked the first one I read and decided to order the lot. Like the other Enid Blyton's I had picked up cheaply on eBay I got most of these for the same $3-5, for some reason the last couple were harder to find on eBay and wound up costing in the $15 range.

There are 15 books in the series. Five were released in 2016, nine were released in 2017 and the last one in 2020. Even though Enid gets credit for the series on the cover the books were really written by Bruno Vincent, except for the one by Sophie Hamley. Bruno's the better writer of the two and I came to enjoy the adventures of the Famous Five in their late 20s. There's usually something odd going on and there's plenty of sarcasm. I often laughed to myself and several of the books had a gag that made me laugh out loud. Each book is based on an activity or an event in their lives, the titles give you a good idea on what's on offer. They go sober for a month, try dieting, deal with housing, Brexit and their families. I'd recommend them but if you don't know anything about the Famous Five it seems like it could be a waste of time to read them. Mostly I just wanted to post all the covers in one lump.

 

Five Give Up the Booze 2016

Five Go Gluten Free 2016

 

Five Go On A Strategy Away Day 2016

Five Go Parenting 2016

 

Five On Brexit Island 2016

Five Forget Mother's Day 2017

 

Five Lose Dad In The Garden Centre 2017

Five Get Beach Body Ready 2017

 

Five At The Office Christmas Party 2017

Five Escape Brexit Island 2017

 

Five Get Gran Online 2017

Five Get On the Property Ladder 2017

 

Five Go Bump In The Night 2017

Five Go Down Under 2017 Sophie Hamley

Five Go Absolutely Nowhere 2020

The Moomins And The Great Flood 1945

I recently decided to re-read all the Tove Jansson Moomintroll books as well as the comic strip she wrote and drew. I looked up Tove's bibliography and found I didn't have a copy of her first book, The Moomins And The Great Flood, and her last two books. I had already gotten the two comic strip collections from Drawn and Quarterly. They had a previous edition of 10 volumes, attractive slim hard covers which have now been collected into 2 slipcased volumes, very attractive thick and heavy hardcovers. The kind you could kill a man with.

I had 6 of her 9 Moomintroll novels already, I bought a nice box set of 5 paperbacks, the 2nd through 6th books, back in 1971. I wrote on the inside cover my name, the date and the 80 cents I paid for each book. There are a series of 5 picture Moomin picture books that I haven't gotten, same goes with all Tove's non Moomin books. A couple I might consider but I want to get past the series first.

I ordered the 3 missing novels, a biography and a book of Tove's letters. l read the first book first. It was published in 1945 in Sweden but wasn't translated until 2005. The first English edition was published by Schildts Förlags Ab. I got the 2018 Drawn & Quarterly edition published under their Enfant label. It's a lovely looking book, the story is short, it's only 62 pages with printed hardboard covers. The inside is heavily illustrated by Tove.

The story is about Moominmamma and Moomintroll looking for Moominpappa. On their journey a powerful rain creates a dangerous flood. There are plenty of interesting critters to meet. I enjoyed it and look forward to the rest of the series.

Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone in Yiddish

My copy of the Yiddish version of Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone came Saturday. It's a nicely made book published by Olniansky Tekst. It was $28 shipped world wide. You can read a bit about how the book came to be in this article on The Tablet. I like the cover by Johnny Duddle, it's appeared on English language versions too. My only complaint is the jacket on the book is printed pretty darn dark, no where near as light as the version above, hard to see what's going on. The title is in shiny gold foil letters which look great. It's printed on that velvety cover stock I like a fair bit. It's hardback and under the jacket is a purple book with gold foil letters. Look good. Nicely printed inside.

No illustrations but for the map of Hogwarts and the surrounding area. I liked it, it's by Tomislav Tomic, an illustrator from Croatia. I was Johnny on the spot when I ordered my copy, the first editions first printing sold out in 2 days. I got an email from someone at the company and they said there was a 2nd 1000 printed in Feb. That sold out and there's a third 1000 in March. I suppose they'll keep at it as long as they can. I might never be able to read it but I'm happy with having it collect dust on the shelf with all the other Harry Potter books.

The Phoenix And The Carpet 1997

The Phoenix And The Carpet is a shortened film version of a 1997 BBC mini-series. It's adapted from the 1904 E Nesbit novel, the second of a trilogy, Five Children And It was first in 1902, and The Story Of The Amulet was last in 1906. I've read all of them and liked the series. The teleplay is by Helen Cresswell and Michael Kerrigan is the director. Miriam Margolyes plays the cook, Christopher Biggins is the carpet dealer and David Suchet is the voice of the Phoenix. Jean Alexander, whom I've been seeing as Aunty Wainwright in Last Of The Summer Wine recently, plays one of the servants. There were a couple of other people whom I recognized but didn't have a name for, I do now, Gemma Jones and Shaun Dingwall. The kids in the house find a phoenix egg in an old carpet. When they accidentally knock the egg into the fire it hatches out the Phoenix. It tells them that the carpet grants wishes. They use it's three wishes a day to have some magical adventures. The kids aren't that smart, and act impulsively, so they have a lot of trouble. The Phoenix helps them out and causes them no end of trouble. Eventually the carpet and the Phoenix leave and the kid's life goes back to normal until the next book. It was OK but now I'm going to watch the full version on YouTube.

What I Read In February 2017

Here's the books I read in February 2017. Twenty one in total but I'm only keeping about a half a dozen of them.

 

Star Trek - Mission To Horatius by Mack Reynolds. An OK ST novel that I kept so far. I used to be a Mack Reynolds fan but haven't read anything by him in over 20 years.

The Unusual Mind Of Vincent Shadow by Tim Kehoe. A novel about a child inventor. Fun but not I'm not going to bother reading it again.

Professor Gargoyle by Charles Gilman. The first in the Tales From Lovecraft Middle School. Not bad, not great, not a keeper, though I would go on and read the other three from the library. The books come with a nice wiggle picture cover that switches between the normal looking person and the monster within. Nice graphics.

Once Upon A Toad by Heather Vogel Frederick. A fun read. I haven't followed up with more of her books but who knows. I should see what the library has but at this point it's not going to happen. I occasionally think about going back and seeing what I missed when I read the earlier books in a series but I have so many books piled up right now I can't see doing that. My too read shelf is nearly 20 feet long and there's a lot of unread books in boxes too.

The Slither Sisters by Charles Gilman. Here's the second book in the Lovecraft Middle School series. A bit of a scare with monsters inhabiting a school. Like the first it was entertaining enough but not a re-reader.

Red Ryder And The Riddle Of The Roaring Range by Jerry McGill. Good adventurous Western. Put on the keep pile back then, it'll get purged in the coming months.

Twilight Tales by Enid Blyton. Another collection of short stories. I picked up so many books int he last couple of years I'll have Enid books for years to come that I haven't read. There's used bookstore in Winnipeg that specializes in children's books and I cleaned out their paperback books by Enid and I've picked over the hardcovers looking for the cheapest ones. I even found several of the Secret Seven Annuals and Famous Five Annuals there.

Wally Wood - Galaxy Art And Beyond by Roger Hill. A nice collection of art from Galaxy magazine. I'm a big Wally Wood fan, have been for 50 years. I've been picking up collections of his art of late. There seem to be a great number of comic related art collections coming out, I only buy the ones I really want, I can't keep up. Mind you, you can't go wrong with Wally. At his best he's terrific. If you're going to collect his work, start with the EC Comics collections.

Teacher's Pest by Charles Gilman. Here's the third book. Danger at the Lovecraft Middle School. My high school in Winnipeg was dangerous, the students had a smoking lounge.

Gene Autry And The Ghost Riders by Lewis B Patten. A good fun read with Gene up to some good deeds with guns. There's plenty of baddies int he old west and guys like Gene are kept pretty busy rounding them up.

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. I wasn't that fond of the novel. I didn't think I was going to follow up on the series. I haven't so far but years mean nothing between books.

The Odd Squad - Bully Bait by Michael Fry. It's an anti-bullying book. OK but not a keeper. Better it be out in the wild, inspiring some other kids to help stop bullying.

Substitute Creature by Charles Gilman. The fourth and perhaps last book in the Lovecraft Middle School series. It came out in 2013 and there haven't been any more int he series. I got the first one at Half Price Books, remaindered and most of the other turned up there too. Pretty sure that means no more in the series.

The Clue In The Diary by Carolyn Keene. The 7th book in the Nancy Drew series. Nearly done the lot of them. Mildred Wirt Benson wrote the first 7 novels and returned to the series with book 11 for quite a few more. As usual a good read.

The Sixth Form At St Clares by Pamela Cox. Here's a lady continuing the Enid Blyton series. As if we need more Enid Blyton books, I don't know. I'm keeping it with the Enid books but not searching out more right now. The St Clare's books aren't my favorites.

The Secret Seven 14 - Look Out, Secret Seven by Enid Blyton. I'm not as big a fan of the Secret Seven as I am of the Adventure series, the Mystery series and the Famous Five. That Peter is a bit of a dick. Not sure which cover I have and I'm too lazy to got look. I picked on by Tony Ross. He's the guy who illustrates the David Walliams books.

The Forest Fire Mystery by Troy Nesbit. Another good southwest adventure novel with a couple of kids and their horses solving a mystery. I've liked all the books by Troy that I've found. He writes good kids.

Enid Blyton's Storyland by Enid Blyton. Another large book collecting short pieces originally written for her magazine. The stories are supplemented with puzzles and games and activities. There are plenty of color illustrations that, like the cover, are slight but pleasant. I prefer her stories in the regular size book collections.

The Third Round by H C McNeile. Another in the Bulldog Drummond series. I don't dislike them but McNeile's writing doesn't support his imagination.

The Secret At Shadow Ranch by Carolyn Keene. The fifth book in the Nancy Drew series and this is also by Mildred Wirt Benson. We meet Bess and George for the first time. The girls are out at a ranch when a mystery comes upon them. That and a mountain lion.

High Adventure with Enid Blyton by Enid Blyton. Another large size collection of older stories with puzzles and activities to do between the stories.

I was quite pleased to get a copy of Edgar Rice Burroughs 100 Year Art Chronology. I've been flipping through the volumes and looking at the art. The 15 pound set collects more than 5000 pieces of artwork that were used to illustrate the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs. There's a nice black slipcase and the 4 hardcovers have a page count of about 1200. Much of the artwork is printed about a quarter of a page. The illustrations still look fine and there are many full pagers.

Volume 1 covers the pulp magazines. It's the thinnest volume, just barely 200 pages. The other volumes are all over 300 pages.

Volume 2 covers the books and there have been a lot of those in 100 plus years.

They reprint my favorite series of covers. Richard Powers illustrated 22 covers for Ballantine Books in the 60s.

Volume 3 is the first of two volumes that cover the comic books. It's all cover reprints and the Dell and Goldkey runs are rather nice. Plenty of photo covers and nice paintings.

Volume 4 finishes off the US comic publishers. I can't say I liked the Dynamite comics versions much. Luckily it spends a nice bit of time with the British comics. There's, sadly, little material on the foreign language comics. A 5 page cover gallery just isn't enough. Mind you, that might mean another 2 volumes of comic covers.

The older illustrations have been cleaned up and images look as good as they did on the newsstands of the day. Micheal Tierney pens about 140,000 words to hep you to the background of the art. The books are nicely produced and there's a nice price. $250. It's published by Chenault and Gray and sold through their Troll House Games online store and other dealers. I got mine through DreamHaven.

What I Read In January 2017

Here's some books I read last January 2017. Another couple of months has past and I'm even further behind than I was before. Oh, well. On the plus side, I did read 19 books in January. That's a good chunk of words.

The Tripods 3 - The Pool Of Fire by John Christopher The last of the trilogy. Was OK but not keeping them.

The Secret Of Pirates Hill by Franklin W Dixon. The 36th of the series, came out in 1956. This is still part of the original series. The book would be rewritten in 1972 but I'm not interested in the rewrites. Frank and Joe go skin diving for missing gold and go up against some scumbag criminals.

Dragon Breath by Ursula Vernon. Something I picked up remaindered at DreamHaven. Turns out it was too slight to continue on with the series.

The Three Investigators 4 - The Mystery Of The Green Ghost by Robert Arthur. A fun series with three kids investigating, in this case a ghost. I picked up a few of these for under a buck each. I remember reading some of them when I was a kid. Not a keeper.

The Case Of The Rolling Bones by Erle Stanley Gardner. Perry Mason takes on a case involving a murder in the gold rush days. It leads to a murder in the book's present day.

The Three Investigators 9 - The Mystery Of The Screaming Clock by Robert Arthur. About average for the series.

The Three Investigators 21 - The Secret Of The Haunted Mirror by M V Carey. Same with this one.

When The Tripods Came by John Christopher. A prequel to the series that was included in the trilogy box set. It was OK but I'm not going to reread them again so they are already gone.

Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon. Another remainder from DreamHaven. More enjoyable than Dragon Breath but not going to keep this one either.

Claudine At St Clare's by Enid Blyton. The fifth novel in the St Clare series. Typical Blyton school stories with some girl out of whack to the place. The other girls put her on track behavior wise, after some troubles.

The Three Investigators 20 - The Mystery Of The Monster Mountain by M V Carey. About average. I've already forgotten what the monster was. Going bye-bye.

The Jinx Of Pay Rock Canyon by Troy Nesbit. I've read several of Troy's Whitman books and they all have been OK reads. I still have them but come the big purge, I think they will go. The stories are all set in the Colorado mountains and usually have interesting stuff happening.

Five On Kirrin Island Again by Enid Blyton. The Famous Five are back on Kirrin Island and there's some dirty doin's going on there. Enid wrote 21 Famous Five books, the first was in 1942, and by the end of 1953 they had sold over 6 million copies. Today they continue to sell 2 million copies a year and the total of the series sales have topped 100,000,000 copies. I enjoy them immensely and have been slowly filling in the series. I have most of them.

The Case Of The Baited Hook by Erle Stanley Gardner. The 16th Perry Mason book, someone gives Perry a third of a $10,000 bill to represent a masked woman in a future problem. It takes him most of the book to figure out who his client is. A fun read.

The Black Gang by H C McNeile.

Leven Thumps And The Gateway To Foo by Obert Sky. I got through this one but wasn't diggin' it too much. I had the second, started it, put it down after 50 to 60 pages. Not going to continue on. Just didn't care for the characters and such, much.

Mr Lemoncello's Library Olympics by Chris Grabenstein. The second Mr Lemoncello book, this time the wacky games guy has a special library and there are puzzles to figure out. OK, but probably going to go someday.

The Ghost OF Blackwood Hall by Carolyn Keene. The 25th Nancy Drew book, actually written by Mildred Wirt Benson. This book finds Nancy recovering stolen jewels. Nancy and her pals travel to New Orleans investigate. 

From Shadow To Light - The Life And Art of Mort Meskin by Steven Brower with Peter and Philip Meskin. The book came out in 2010 but I missed it back then. I used to be a fan of Mort Meskin when I was a DC comics reader in the 70s. I moved on and hadn't read any of those comics in decades. A few years ago I downloaded a bunch of House Of Secrets and re-read some of his Mark Merlin stories, they were OK. Someday I'll get back to those comics. The book about Mort was interesting. I just found a collection of Mort stories that the editor of this book put together. I'll have it soon and maybe read it some day.

Ratburger 2017

Ratburger is a 2017 SkyOne adaptation of the David Walliams novel of the same name. David wrote the script and Matt Lipsey directed the thing. Matt's directed a lot of David's TV work as well as shows like Vexed, Saxondale, Human Remains, and Psychoville.

Ratburger is David's fifth novel and it came out in 2012. I have several of the novels but haven't got that one yet. I really enjoy them and I know Suzie Dent says they're favorites in her house. I don't know how popular they are in the US, I usually pick them up from other countries.

Zoe lives with her father and step-mother in a tower block. Her step mother is horrible to her. She even killed Zoe's pet hamster. David Walliams plays a greasy burger seller called Burt and he parks his burger van outside Zoe's school. Burt harvests rats to make his burgers and he's not opposed to grinding up human remains to pad out his rat burgers. He has his eye set on Zoe's rat Armitage and Zoe's step-mom Sheila, played by Sheridan Smith.  Zoe, her rat, and her few friends will soon put an end to Burt. That will brighten up everyone's day and the show has a happy ending.

It's not often that you'll find cannibalism in a children's story and I can't think of anyone better than David Walliams to carry that off. Mind you most of his books have a bit of a dark side but they always have a happy ending for the characters we all like. The villains, well, let's say they're lucky if they live to go to jail and leave it at that. There's a link in the title above and you click on that to go to YouTube and watch the hour long program. Hopefully it will be there for a while. It's been there since January 3 this year.