Review: Leafy Greens: An A-to-Z Guide to 30 Types of Greens Plus More Than 120 Delicious Recipes

Leafy Greens: An A-to-Z Guide to 30 Types of Greens Plus More Than 120 Delicious Recipes by Mark Bittman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've known for a long time that I ought to be eating more leafy greens, but the ones I get from the fruit shop go off quickly, they're often bitter, and I didn't really know how to cook them for best results. Now that I've started a small garden, I can grow my own, and this thorough and informative book has encouraged me to plant more greens - since I now have more ideas on what to do with them, and more information about their nutritional properties.

Looking forward to trying some of the recipes with my own fresh produce (though you could certainly buy greens and cook them with the guidance in this book).

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Review: Emma’s Dragon: London and Pemberley

Emma’s Dragon: London and Pemberley by M. Verant
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the first book in this series, a Pride and Prejudice AU fanfic with OOC Mary Bennet (as the author says in his afterword to this book, she's basically Mary Shelley, although I don't think Mary Shelley was a lesbian). This one doesn't attempt to base itself at all closely on Emma (the book), though Emma (the character) is the same kind of sometimes-oblivious meddler. Both her friend Harriet and her eventual love interest Mr. Knightley are of African descent in this version, which allows the introduction of an overt political note that was much subtler in Austen's novels.

The politics, in fact, are not at all subtle - when you've said that the main antagonist is a right-wing populist, you've conveyed essentially everything the author conveys about him, his followers, his agenda and his attitudes; and all of the main characters on the "good" side, even real people (like Lord Wellington) who were notoriously conservative, have some degree of modern liberal sensibility. Early on in my reading, in fact, I was composing a rant to include in this review about how, these days, the only virtue is orthodoxy and the only sin is heresy, so regardless of when and where your book is set, you have to give your characters the exact views that Western progressives hold this week if you want them to seem like good people... but as I read on, and got caught up in what is actually a well-written, well-told story with some characters that take only some of their depth from their models in Austen, I calmed down a bit, and when I read the author's afterword (which mentions the progressive views held by some historical people in 1812) I calmed down a bit more. I still think the politics tend to the anachronistic side, and less would have been more, but I no longer feel that they spoil the book for me.

The spec-fic element is the presence of "draca" (dragons and related creatures), apparently now only in Britain for some reason yet to be revealed - or maybe I misunderstood, and it's just that it's only in Britain that women (of a certain social status and degree of virtue, and of course that's a plot point) "bind" to draca when they marry. Some of the history of draca comes out in the course of the book, and it's fascinating stuff and makes me want to know more.

Similarly to another dragon-featuring series set in the Napoleonic Wars (I'm referring to Naomi Novik's Temeraire), despite the fact that dragons exist in this world, everything up to the point the story started follows exactly our history, including the existence of Napoleon and Lord Wellington and Mad King George and the Prince Regent; and then almost as soon as the story begins it starts to diverge. It's not fatal to my suspension of disbelief, but it does put a strain on it.

But this is quibbling. Overall, the story worked for me, there's plenty of suspense and drama, it's Austeny but also an adventure story with dragons, and as Regency fantasies go, this went well. The issues I've laid out above keep it out of the Gold tier of my Best of the Year list, but not by a lot; it's solid, enjoyable work.

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Review: Jeeves in the Offing

Jeeves in the Offing by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I own a second-hand paperback of this, which I have presumably read before, though I don't remember it. Maybe I picked it up to read and never actually got to it?

In any case, a classic Jeeves and Wooster, for all it was published in 1960. It pulls together elements from previously in the canon, not only the Brinkley Court setting and Bertie's beloved Aunt Dahlia, but the headmaster of Bertie's prep school (who is the stepfather of Dahlia's goddaughter, and invited himself along when she invited the goddaughter to stay); the red-haired menace Bobbie Wickham, given to ill-advised action on a whim with disastrous consequences both to Bertie and his old friend/her fiancé, Kipper Herring; and Sir Roderick Glossop, the prominent loony doctor/nerve specialist, undercover as the butler, Swordfish, to observe the goddaughter's prospective fiancé for signs of mental instability. This fellow is the son of a man Dahlia's husband Tom is trying to close a business deal with, so she can't show open hostility to him.

Cue stratagems, pickles, mistaken identity, broken engagements leading to Bertie being next in line despite quailing from the prospect, and all the usual Wodehouse shenanigans.

It sticks to the formula, for sure, but it's a formula that works, the language sparkles as ever, the reader is caught up in what, objectively speaking, are very small stakes as if they were of world-shattering importance (because, to the characters, they are), and Jeeves brings the whole thing to a satisfactory conclusion, though rather at Bertie's expense as usual. This time, there isn't a tiff between them over some fad of Bertie's that Jeeves disapproves of, which is a departure from the usual formula.

The further on the series goes, the more Jeeves fades into the background and becomes an occasional deus ex machina for extracting Bertie and everyone else from the soup, in which he has been thrashing about in the foreground for most of the book, getting deeper and deeper (though occasionally pulling off a successful scheme). I think Wodehouse realised early on that if Jeeves just solves everything there's no tension, so he keeps him out of the action altogether or has him baffled in order to let the hijinks play out, occasionally throwing another disaster in just when the characters think they're doing well. It works.

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Review: Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Classic Wodehouse hilarity. I think the Brinkley Court stories may be my favourites, probably because of the fondly disrespectful banter that goes on between Bertie and his beloved Aunt Dahlia (and the character of Aunt Dahlia herself, a hearty fox-hunting countrywoman who's also something of a schemer).

Here, the point of tension between Bertie and Jeeves (there always seems to be one) is that Bertie has grown a moustache, but Jeeves, displaying the feudal spirit of the title, doesn't let it hinder him from helping in the inevitable complications that accompany Bertie wherever he goes. He's once again engaged to Lady Florence Craye, who he very much does not want to marry (but he can't tell her that; one must be civil). Her previous fiancé, Stilton Cheesewright (previously featured in The Mating Season ) is cutting up rough about this and threatening bodily violence to Bertie; Aunt Dahlia has pawned her pearls to pay for a prominent author to do a serial in her magazine, Milady's Boudoir, so that she can sell it to Mr Trotter of Liverpool, who is under his wife's thumb; Trotter's stepson is in love with Florence Craye; Roderick Spode, previously seen in The Code of the Woosters , appears likely to expose Dahlia's schemes to her husband; and in general it's as tangled a plot as any in Wodehouse, the kind that only Jeeves can sort out (after Bertie has had plenty of alarums and excursions).

(view spoiler)[One unusual factor is that a couple breaks up and doesn't get back together again, instead moving on to new partners who suit them much better. I don't think I've come across that elsewhere in Wodehouse, though I haven't read all the books by a long way. (hide spoiler)]

Fun plot, Wodehouse's language skills in full flower, and in general a classic. The only thing that might have improved it would have been a scene or two with the volatile French chef Anatole and his quaint grasp of English idiom, but he remains, sadly, offstage.

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Review: Thank You, Jeeves

Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Classic Jeeves-Wooster shenanigans, but not just previous books played over again, not least because this is the earliest novel-length story featuring the characters. There are a couple of new factors here:

1. The banjolele. This instrument is so objectionable (at least when Bertie plays it) that not only is he asked to vacate his flat because the neighbours are objecting, but Jeeves resigns rather than continue to listen to it in the country cottage Bertie then rents from his old friend Chuffy (Lord Chuffnell). Jeeves is still on the scene, though, going to work for Lord Chuffnell instead - quite probably out of a loyal desire to stay near Bertie in case of trouble, which inevitably ensues. Yes, this is very similar to other causes of conflict between Bertie and Jeeves (the purple socks, the Old Etonian spats, the white mess jacket), but it's not something that would normally come within Jeeves' remit as a valet, and he actually goes so far as to resign over it and remain outside Bertie's employment for almost the whole book.

2. The homicidal arsonist Meadowes, who Bertie hires to replace Jeeves, and who drives a good amount of the plot with his drunken antics. (view spoiler)[Among other things, he destroys the banjolele when he sets fire to the cottage, but Bertie is remarkably philosophical about the loss and decides not to replace it. (hide spoiler)]

There's also Pauline Stoker, the American heiress and menace to navigation, who, wanting to marry Lord Chuffnell, involves Bertie in a way that inevitably causes him to face multiple trials and tribulations, including being (for official purposes) engaged to her himself for reasons which seem good at the time. She's very like Bobbie Wickham in her madcap and careless scheming that always causes other people (mostly Bertie) to end up in the soup. It's notable that when Bertie finds her in his bed wearing his pajamas (having escaped virtual imprisonment on her father's yacht by swimming ashore to see Lord Chuffnell, defying her father's explicit ban), his immediate reaction is that he'll have to sleep somewhere else, even if it's in his two-seater car or on the floor of the potting shed. It's made abundantly clear that his code of honour excludes any extramarital hanky-panky of any description, which given the number of women he's engaged to over his career is just as well.

Pauline's father, J. Washburn Stoker, is a robber baron of the old school, several times compared to a pirate by Bertie, and very used to having his own way and not being called out on his high-handedness. And there's the usual awful aunt (Lord Chuffnell's, in this case) with a bratty child (Seabury, who tries to extort "protection" money from all and sundry).

Then there's Sir Roderick Glossop, the eminent "nerve specialist" (his term) or "loony doctor" (Bertie's), who has been an antagonist in previous stories and ended up convinced of Bertie's insanity thanks to shenanigans perpetrated, in fact, by Bertie's cousins (but since it got Bertie out of marrying his daughter, it wasn't politic to correct him at the time). He and Bertie share some trials and come to a new understanding and appreciation of each other as fellow human beings, which sets things up nicely for future encounters between the two.

Content note: Both Bertie and Sir Roderick spend an appreciable portion of the book in blackface, a practice which was not, at the time, thought of in the way it is today, and there's extensive use of a term now considered a slur (modifying "minstrel", which means it's actually being applied to white performers in blackface who are presenting an exaggerated parody of black people). Again, at the time this wasn't considered objectionable, at least not by white people, but today it very much is. If this is going to be a problem for you, skip this book. There's also a bit of corporal punishment of young Seabury.

Otherwise, there are plenty of hilarious moments, and the usual sparkling language, and while Wodehouse would go on to write better Jeeves and Wooster novels, this is certainly a good one.

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Review: The Red House Mystery

The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An enjoyable cosy mystery by an author much better known for his children's books (though he started out as a playwright). It's a pity he didn't go on to turn this into a series, because it's a cleverly constructed puzzle and the characters are fun.

It's very much in the vein of other mysteries of the time (1922), set in an English country house with several stock characters - several of whom are moved offstage early on: the gruff retired army officer and the widow and her pretty daughter play essentially no role in the plot, and the overly dramatic actress very little, and that in flashback. It opens with the viewpoint of the servants, somewhat unusually, but they are stereotypically limited in their perspective and soon drop out of the narrative almost entirely.

What we're left with is a young man, Bill Beverley, of more or less the Wodehouse type, who appears to have no occupation apart from visiting country houses; his friend Tony Gillingham, who happens to turn up immediately after the murder to see Bill, and becomes the amateur detective more or less on a lark; Cayley, the cousin of the owner of the house, who acts as his general factotum; and a characterless police inspector who comes across as competent but limited, though he can hardly be blamed for not having Gillingham's opportunities to observe from inside the house.

The house's owner, Mark, has disappeared, following the appearance and almost immediate murder of his brother Robert from Australia, and the prevailing theory is that he killed Robert (perhaps accidentally) and fled, probably with Cayley's collusion. But as Gillingham's suspicions stack up, and he pokes around with the help of his loyal Watson, Bill, it turns out something more bizarre has taken place.

I did guess the main reveal before it happened, but I didn't figure out how it could have been achieved, so from that aspect it's a satisfying mystery. It's told in a capable and often amusing voice, and if there were more like it I would happily read them. The characters have little depth, but that was the style of mysteries at the time, and the plot is clever and makes sense.

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Review: Joy in the Morning

Joy in the Morning by P.G. Wodehouse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this one in the BBC full-cast audio adaptation featuring Richard Briers (Tom in The Good Life) as Bertie, and Michael Hordern (who I know best from his King Lear and for playing Gandalf in the BBC Lord of the Rings full-cast audio series) as Jeeves. Although they, and the rest of the cast, did an excellent job, I still want to read the text version, since it alternates between dialogue and narration, and typically in Wodehouse's dialog sequences, there's a good deal of amusing description and commentary on people's expressions, stage business and the like, which is dropped here because of the format.

I hadn't previously read this Jeeves and Wooster, even though I thought I had, and while not my favourite (that would probably be either Right Ho, Jeeves or The Code of the Woosters ), it's a strong entry. The spectre of Bertie's Aunt Agatha looms constantly offstage, his difficult uncle-by-marriage drives a lot of the plot with his attempts to have a secret business meeting, Bertie's bad-tempered old school friend Stilton Cheesewright is constantly threatening him with awful consequences if he should interfere in Cheesewright's romance with Florence Craye, a woman to whom Bertie had once been engaged and escaped only with Jeeves' help, and the possibility that Florence will resume her engagement to Bertie is itself an awful consequence barely to be thought of.

Where it's a little weak is that Jeeves isn't very prominent in the plot or even onstage much, and spends a lot of the book professing himself "baffled" and not providing his usual level of help. I did wonder whether he was trying to let Bertie handle things for himself using Jeeves' methods, which he's had plenty of exposure to by this time, but maybe Jeeves just wanted to have a fishing holiday. It's still a lot of fun, regardless.

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