Peckerwood Manor

Welcome, trollops, to the latest edition of the Peckerwood Book Club, where we can giggle and share our favorite books we've been reading - and giggle some more. Today, let's chat about Patricia Highsmith, the inimitable author of unputdownable suspense novels whose reputation has only grown since her death in 1995. Whenever a Highsmith virgin asks which of her novels to start with, I first ask if they've seen any movie or TV version of " The Talented Mr. Ripley ." If they haven't, I cry out, "Lucky you!" and recommend that they read it immediately -  since it's a masterpiece, yes, but also because it's best to have Highsmith's unadulterated "Ripley" foremost in your mind before you approach the many big and small screen incantations. None of them have equalled his jeweled, sometimes elegant, evil in this first of five "Ripley" novels. If they have seen screen versions of "Ripley," I usually recommend they st...

Welcome back, Manor Hors, to The Peckerwood Book Club, a periodic dispatch where we joyfully recommend the books we love, new or old, favorite authors we can't get enough of, dead or alive, and other urgent book-minded minutia! Meanwhile, do you have a favorite book genre? And do you sometimes hop to other kinds of books on occasion just to mix things up? For my part, I love literary fiction, but sometimes after half a year of them, for example. I need to take a break. One time I hopped to trashy murder-mystery novels - or "airport novels" as they're sometimes called, since you can read them on a long flight - and explored the works of Lee Child, Elin Hilderbrand and James Patterson. That lasted maybe three months, and it was definitely funzi (I mean that in a good way), but I can't take a diet of cotton candy for long. Another time, I explored memoirs, including books by Christopher Hitchens, Mariah Carey and George M. Johnson. That lasted a bit longer than trash...

Welcome, reading floozies, to another edition of "The Peckerwood Book Club," a place to discuss what your currently reading, what you recommend, along with other book-loving minutia.  Speaking of minutia, how do you read a book? When I was in college a mere two or three years ago - ride with me on that, won't you? - I always had a yellow highlighter in my paws, and found that highlighting key phrases or sentences helped me better remember the book's contents, even though I'd seldom go back and re-read any of it. Just the act of highlighting, I think, help burn important portions in my brain.  I can't seem to break the habit. Though I always have a highlighter handy for material I read for work, I sometimes find myself highlighting books I read for pleasure, things like character names or other story elements I think I might forget. This is helpful when I have to stop reading a book for whatever reason - life intervenes! Elder Cat demands attention! - enabling ...

Greetings, Manor hors, and welcome to another edition of the Peckerwood Book Club, a place where we can giggle, gab and exchange suggestions about the books we've been reading, which ones we've enjoyed, and which ones we'd very much like to set aflame or use for target practice. Hopefully it's not too much of the later! Meanwhile, have you ever picked up a book, read a few chapters and thought, "Meh," then tossed it aside, picked it up later and found it compelling? This has happened to me a few times, once with Kazuo Ishiguro's " Never Let Me Go ," which made me shrug and think, "So what? Who cares?" after the first two or three chapters. I tried again several months later and found it riveting. And, no, I have no explanation for this, other than maybe I wasn't in the mood for it the first time around, or maybe I didn't think there would be anything more to the story once I understood the premise, which at first seemed like a p...

Greetings, Peckerwood Book hors! Summertime's a fun time to catch up on your Guilt Pile™ - or that stack of novels on your nightstand that you have yet to read. Plus, there's always time for more, isn't there? As for literary novels, I have a major pet peeve: the pretentious style of dialogue formatting wherein the open-and-close quote marks are not used. Confused? Me, too. Normally, dialogue formatting goes like this:  "Trump is a cunt," said Fiona, a charming Scottish lass. "He started out as a bit of a numptie, but now - aye! - he can just piss off and eat me dick." Callum nodded his head, for he, too, found Trump intolerable.  "Bet he smells, too."  Easy to read, right? But blowhard literary types do this:  Trump is a cunt, said Fiona, a charming Scottish lass. He started out as a bit of a numptie, but now - aye! - he can just piss off and eat me dick. Callum nodded his head, for he, too, found Trump intolerable. Bet he smells, too.  Witho...

Welcome back, fellow readers, to The Peckerwood Book Club, where we chit-chat about what you've been reading, what you recommend and what you're looking forward to. In the meantime... ...remember lending your books to friends and family members? I say "remember," because if you're like me, you've been burned far too many times. Plus, the few times you bothered to ask for your book back, you invariably got responses like, "Really? Did you lend that to me? Gosh, I don't remember" or "I'm sure I'll find it somewhere" or "I think I lent that to someone else." Look, I'm not a scold (You: "Coulda fooled me!"), and by that I mean, if it's a paperback, I truly don't care if you keep it, lose it or feed it to your dog, but if it was something I cared enough to buy in hardback, then yes, actually, I want it back. One time a friend gave me back a book with various sentences marked in yellow highlighter. ...

Welcome, fellow book sluts, to the latest edition of "The Peckerwood Book Club!" Let's get right into it: who's your favorite trashy author? Or your favorite trashy books, the ones you can't resist, no matter how scorned they may be by friends or reviewers? Dearly departed critic Pauline Kael was once asked the same question and responded that she only read non-fiction and literary novels, since "movies more than satisfy my craving for trash." I believe her. I also believe that my craving for trash is not as easily sated as hers was. How else do I explain my teen devotion to "Lucky Santangelo," the sexy, gutsy-as-all-get-out heroine of ten compelling Jackie Collins novels? Ten! Or my ravenous consumption of Ken Follett thrillers or anything by Sidney Sheldon? And I could go on forever about the irresistible Dominick Dunne. I think I've read "The Two Mrs. Grenvilles" at least four times over the years. And yes, I much prefer his wo...

Welcome back to The Peckerwood Book Club, the first of 2024! If you're like me, your bookshelves are always near-to-bursting. Me and the hubs have floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the bedroom, the guest room, the living room, and in what we call the dining room, or dining area, against the wall next to the kitchen table. Too much? Probably, but Elder Cat has plenty of wee areas in the shelves to hop up on and rest, or to leap from (without warning) if he's so inclined.  But when is too many books too many? Is there such a thing? Are you panicking just thinking about this? How do you decide which books to keep and which to pitch? And when? For our part, we moved to a new place last summer, and just after, did a serious inspection of every book in our collection as we unpacked them. We had room for them all - we'd already made sure of that - but knew that our shelves would likely be bursting at the seams (again) in about a year if we didn't take drastic action. And so we d...

Welcome, book hors, to another lively edition of The Peckerwood Book Club, because you can't always be prostituting about the manse looking for love in all the wrong places (give it a rest, trick!) (and wash it off!). Sometimes it's nice to look for love between the pages of a good book, don't you think? I'm not necessarily talking about frothy bodice rippers, though they have their place, too, but contemporary, historical, literary and classic romance, from "Pride and Prejudice" to " Tom Lake " and everything iteration in-between.  What are your favorite love stories, or novels that truly made you swoon? For my part, a friend recently recommended "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats" by Jan-Philipp Sendker, which was first published in Germany by the former Asian news correspondent-turned-novelist. Once it was translated for English readers, it became an instant best-seller in North America, and after only a few chapters, I understood why.  In ...

What was your favorite book this year? Something new? Something old which you encountered for the first time? As for what the critics think, I have to laugh whenever I read their year-end "Best Books" lists, because there are not a finite amount of mass-market books released each year (like there are similarly with movies), but scads upon scads of them. So how can anyone rightly pick "the best?" You can't, of course, though the old adage, "the cream rises to the top," has to be taken into account, and this year, the best book according to over 20 reputable "Best Of" lists, is, drumroll, please, " Yellowface " by R.F. Kuang, a novel I'm very much looking forward to digging into over the holiday break, even if I'm slightly wary, as it's yet another navel-gazing scenario which takes place in the publishing world. But, hey, it's the top pick of the year according to big cheese critics everywhere, so it's got to be go...

As the winter holidays sneak up, I'm making my lists, making them twice, then making a batch of peanut butter cookies 'cause they're my favorite and it's a good distraction from making lists-lists-lists. But make them I must. I love giving books as gifts - frequently two or three to the same person - especially to my nieces and nephews, who've learned over the years that their Bawdy Foul-Mouthed Uncle™ knows from books and gives really good ones. And, yes, I slip a twenty in between the pages because it's fun (and paper money is so retro). Do you give books as gifts? Do you like giving big, hefty, delightfully oversized tombs (I'm thinking of giving this  to a friend who's into horror)? Or do you prefer giving the latest bestsellers? Personally, I avoid those, if only because you never know if the recipient hasn't already read them. I've also given Kindles in the past, but only if I know that the person will be into it, because many, like me, pre...

Greetings Peckerwood Book Hors! Do you have any favorite true-crime novels? Do you love a good 'n' gory serial killer entry, like the classic " Deviant: The Shocking True Story Of Ed Gein " by Harold Schechter? Or an immersive, nail-biting historical tale, like " The Poisoners Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York " by Deborah Blum? There's no wrong answer, of course. And sheesh, there's so many to choose from in a book category rife with sloppy rush jobs (most of which read like dry, extended Wikipedia entries). But when they hit the sweet spot between credible accuracy and shocking, you-can't-make-that-up incidents, there's nothing like them. In fact, I prefer an excellent true-crime novel over an excellent true-crime movie or miniseries. They creep under my skin with more intensity, and stay with me much longer.  One of my favorite, newer true-crime novel's, " Provenance," by Laney Salisbury...

Greetings, Peckerwood book lovers! What type of books do you like to read in the fall? Something spooky or scary? An easy bon-bon of a book? Fall is allegedly a time for "serious or important liter-a-chure," or at least that's what the Big Five publishing houses have long decreed. Why release a "feel good" novel like " The Midnight Library " in the fall, their thinking goes, when it can sell like hotcakes in the summer months as a popular, breezy beach read? Sales have born out this marketing strategy, though "serious" and "important" are certainly in the eyes of the beholder. Is " Absolution " important, serious fiction? Let's see: a National Book Award-winning author, a decades-spanning scenario originating in the Vietnam War, pre-publication praise from no less than Ann Patchett. Why, yes, I'd say it qualifies and I look forward to reading it. Are Britney's and Jada's and Stamos' tell-all memoirs ...