Review of The Tilted World by Tom Franklin & Beth Ann Fennelly

It is 4:30 in the morning and I have just finished reading The Tilted World. I want to start off by saying that the reason I picked this book turned out to be confusion on my part as I thought the book was called 'the titled world', so upon looking at it a second time at home after placing it in my stack from the library, I didn't read the title and in fact read an entire book before I looked again to read the title as it was truly known. sadly, this somewhat lessened my interest in the book as I thought I was going to be reading another book based on Jane Austen's style or Victorian era gentry. Alas, it was not ment to be. However, I considered it luck that I mistook the book and having decided to read it, went ahead and dove right in. The story centers on a Moonshiner and their spouse. Their names  are Dixie Clay and Jesse and their lives are complicated when government officials come to town looking for bootleggers. After a fashion, the novel also reveals that there is a larger issue at hand for the people of Hobnob, the small town in which the moonshiners live, The Mississippi River is at flood stage and the levee, protecting the small town and all the towns along the river, is at the breaking point. The novel opens slowly with a lot of buildup to the main storyline following Jesse and Dixie Clay, whose lives are being ever more complicated by both alcohol and prohibition. While I no next to nothing about fermentation or the making of alcohol, in any form, I felt for an armature, that vein of storyline was well written and believable. As to the character interactions, I felt that there were some characters you genuinely hated and some you really were rooting for while the main character Dixie Clay has you at odds with yourself throughout the story, doing things that both irk you and then make you want her to succeed. In a way, she becomes an antihero of sorts. If you are the kind of person who loves theif stories tied up in a little bow, this one ends with all the major plot lines pretty clearly laid bare and the main character sorted out nicely. I felt that, though there was not as much time for the supporting character to develope, owing to the lengthy introduction to Jesse and D. Clay, they were in some ways more deep than the novels stars, getting more flashbacks to their 'war time days' than we do of life as a child for Dixie or Jesse. In fact, in much the same way as Iago in Othello, we are left with a lot of questions about Jesse, his motivations and his endgame. Regardless of these mysteries, the novel has left me with good feelings about love and kindness, a different take on Calvin Coolidge as president, and a new outlook on moonshine, as a fine example of consumerism, capitalism, and growth. I am not saying moonshine is the way to go but I guess I am saying that it is better to take good with the bad and this book does just that. By the end, I had fallen in love with the characters and then been reminded of falling in love myself. Worth a lazy afternoon, or a few stolen moments throughout your week. I would say that after picking this book by mistake, I found serendipity between its covers both literal and literary. 

Review of The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

Hey Blog Readers,

This is a review of the novel, The Sherlockian by Graham Moore.  Sorry this review is coming so soon after the previous one about The Ghost Bride, by Yangsze  Choo, but I actually neglected to write a review for it and decided to write one curtailing the previous review because the novel was also a historical-fiction-turned-murder-mystery and so I thought it would be appropriate.

So, let's get down to it. The novel is a dual viewpoint novel and as such, is set in two different places and times giving the reader insight into the lives of the esteemed writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who is living in England and also a Sherlock Holmes enthusiast named Harold White, who is a literary researcher in the United States. The novel opens with from the perspective of Doyle during the time directly after he has 'killed off' Sherlock Holmes. We see the author paint a picture of Doyle that gives the reader insight into how and why Doyle wanted to end the Holmes stories and this chapter introduces us to the man behind Holmes, and all the real life problems he has. The book continues in chapter two with our first impressions of Harold when he is inducted into a fraternity of sorts called The Baker Street Irregulars, which is a group of people dedicated to lore associated with Sherlock Holmes but who are, surprisingly, not that interested in his creator Sir Conan Doyle. The novel continues in this manner, giving each character a chapter in turn, until the climax of the novel, which is itself a debatable event, as the time in between the somewhat 'dual climaxes' could give the reader pause.

The novel is well written and is free from useless musings and fluff, which plague the novels published nowadays so horrendously. It is not a long read and though there is some archaic language to draw the reader into the times in which Doyle lived, the adjustment is mildly enjoyable and can be, at times, quite diverting. As to the secondary characters, there is few, but they are well written and memorable. In the current day portion of the story, there is a man who is a would be villain and a reporter who is more than she seems. Within the Doyle timeline, there are basically Doyle and his friends along with a few odd characters thrown in for flavor. I don't know how much of the story written is truth and frankly, it is so engrossing that I daren't say I don't care to know.

The story in both instances follows the lost diary of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. In Doyle's time, he is living the events that he wrote about and in the present day, the diary has been found and is going to make a debut appearance at the annual meeting of The Baker Street Irregulars. The novel opens on the eve of the beginning of both timelines, the diary and the annual meeting and from the get go, the reader is drawn shamelessly into a world of intrigue and confusion that demands their full attention and gives them all the clues to guess where and how the story will end. It is written in the fashion of a Holmes story and I would wager that any fan of the Holmes stories would be pleased by the care with which the story was undertaken. Over all, I would rate this novel very highly!

Go and borrow it, buy it, read it in the store, just don't steal it.

If you want to purchase the book the link to the amazon store is listed below. I believe you can read the first six chapters online at Barnes&Noble.com.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sherlockian-Graham-Moore/dp/0446572586