I thrifted a bunch of Ruth Rendell mysteries a while back, and promptly forgot about them … until recently when I ran out of other reading material. I devoured 3 of them in the space of a little more than a weekend, and they were really, really satisfying. I often forget about Rendell, although she should really be up there with PD James on my list of fave modern mystery writers. Her novels, although ostensibly centered around Detective Wexford and his team, are really more psychological thrillers or why-dunits than police procedurals. Her plots are often intricate and unusual, and yet somehow never seem implausible. I think they are similar in tone/approach to Tana French’s novels, but much better executed, in my opinion.

I read Babes In The Wood, End in Tears, and Sight For Sore Eyes and all 3 were excellent. I was fascinated by the character of Teddy Brex in Sight For Sore Eyes; Rendell has a great knack for getting into the mind of disturbed people and making their motivations and choices seem perfectly understandable even if not morally excusable. I also liked the more traditional whodunit plot of Babes In The Wood, which was a “missing persons” story chock-full of twists I did not see coming, not to mention a red herring or three. I am currently on the hunt for more Rendell mysteries at the thrift store to build up my library. These are definitely “re-reads” for me, so I would like to have them in my personal collection.

A big Amazon order also just came in, so I’m excited to delve into that new material. I think I’m going to start with a biography of Stalin … you know, just some light reading. With that said, my to-be-read stash is still pretty low, and I like to plan ahead, so if you have recommendations, keep them coming!

As for articles, this provocatively titled piece in Harper’s Bazaar caught my eye: Feminism Doesn’t Mean Liking Every Stupid Girl You Meet. To the extent that the idea that “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women” has been bastardized to mean that women have to validate/support any and all positions or choices espoused by other women, I agree with this writer’s take. To me, feminism means that all women should have the same rights and freedoms as men — including the right to autonomy of choice. But I don’t believe that feminism obliges me to agree with the specific choices of other women; only to fight for their right to exercise the choice. I think that is an important distinction. Feminism also doesn’t prevent me from criticizing a woman as long as my criticism is based on the same criteria I would apply to a man in the same circumstances, and my expression of that criticism takes the same form as it would if its subject was a man. I would love to hear your thoughts.

Cassie wrote a thought-provoking post about wearing your clothes versus modeling them (for blog purposes). As a blogger, I totally relate to this and can attest that it’s a pressure even “amateurs” experience regularly. As a blog reader, it’s one of the things that make it hard for me to relate to the majority of professional bloggers; I often find myself wondering, “did you really wear that — and for how long?”

On a totally different note, The Fashion Law reports that Louis Vuitton is suing a Canadian (holla!) flea market for selling counterfeits. Apparently, this may be a precedent-setting case in Canada; LV is attempting to hold the landlord/flea market owner responsible for the actions of individual sellers (stall tenants). My take: good on LV. I don’t consider myself an LV customer, though I own a couple of (authentic) bags, purchased secondhand; however, if I were an LV customer, I would appreciate the brand’s efforts because, even leaving the criminal elements involved in counterfeiting, the saturation of the market with counterfeits lowers the value of customers’ legitimate products, in my opinion. In other words, if I’m paying thousands of dollars for the real thing, I don’t want to see cheap fakes on every street corner. But that’s just my 2 cents.

Happy Friday!

We will get to the cute vicar in a minute, I promise, but let’s start with what I read because … I did read, folks. I gobbled up We Too, which is an in-depth (non-fiction) account of Victoria and Albert’s marriage. The book was recommended to me by several BCRL readers, and I can heartily endorse the recommendation. You might query the need for such a narrowly-focused biography, but if you are interested in the Victorian era, this is the best psychological portrait of its two figureheads. I’m not sure that V&A’s relationship qualifies as a “romance of the century”, but it was certainly a very successful partnership that brought satisfaction to both parties (which, based on my informal study of history, is no mean feat for a royal marriage). The book does an excellent job of showing how unlikely a result this was, given the strong personalities of both parties and the unconventional circumstances they faced. I liked that the author remained largely impartial, making neither spouse a “good guy” or a “bad guy”. My overall impression was that Albert probably had more admirable qualities, but Victoria was the more likable of the two. I will say that the more I read about her, the more fascinating a character she appears to me.

I also read One Night in Winter by Simon Sebag Montefiori, who also wrote the (non-fiction) biography of the Romanovs I wrote about a while back. This was an excellent book, but a difficult read for me. Having grown up in an ultra repressive communist regime, books about life during the Stalin years should probably be off my reading list because they simply hit too close to home. Montefiori nailed the sense of oppressive dread that permeates every facet of daily life in a communist regime where your every word could mean life and death for someone (including your own children or parents). The book is loosely based on a real story, the death of two children of high ranking Communist party members in 1945. In a way, I would call this the Soviet version of The Secret Game by Donna Tartt, except in this case the protagonists are largely not culpable for the terrible things that happen to them. I found some of the scenes in the book hard to read, especially as a mother of young children, so keep that in mind (not so much graphic violence as terrible cruelty).

Alright, alright. I teased you with a hot vicar, and here he is:

So, Grantchester. There are many things I liked about season 1, not least of them Mr. Norton, and a few things that bugged me. Let me start by saying that I totally buy Norton’s jazz-loving, gin-guzzling, weed whacking (not a euphemism), tortured gentle soul. 100%, no questions. (I have not seen Happy Valley yet, but would be interested to see how he plays a psycho.) What I did not buy, however, was the chemistry between Sidney and Amanda, or the reasons that kept them apart. For me, that was a big problem, because the show devotes a lot of time to that plot line. It bored me, much as I appreciated watching James Norton look adorably forlorn. The rest of the show and characters were very enjoyable, however. I loved Sidney’s camaraderie with Geordie, and his relationships with his housekeeper and curate. The mysteries are pretty straightforward, but I liked watching S&G piece together the answers. Overall, I liked the series a lot, but didn’t find it as compulsively watchable as Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries; indeed, I found myself more than once wishing that someone like Phryne would cross the vicar’s path. Alas, did not happen.

I would like to watch seasons 2 and 3, without having to pay extra for the pleasure, so I really hope that Netflix adds them to their line-up soon. Ditto for the Miss Marple mysteries. Come on, Netflix!

As always, let’s wrap up with some interesting articles. This article about a manufacturer switching the brand labels on clothing sent to a particular retailer was somewhat amusing at first, but mostly enraging on second thought. I would have expected something like this to be against the law, but apparently not. The fact that every facet of the entire clothing production-retail cycle is so obscure to consumers is beginning to bother me more and more. How can consumers make informed choices when they are being kept in the dark, or worse yet, deliberately hoodwinked? Gah.

There was an interesting discussion on Corporette this week, sparked by this article which questions the trope that motherhood is the most important job a woman can have. It got me thinking. Motherhood is not a job. It’s not even a volunteer position, because you are essentially creating the people who will later need your help. It’s a hobby. Hear me out. A job means a position where you create value (through a product or service) to someone external to yourself and get remunerated for it. Having kids does have, at a macro level, a societal value. We need new people to keep our social systems going. But at the individual level, your particular kids or mine represent a relatively small value to society. (I mean, yes, they could turn out to be the next Gandhi or Einstein, but there are no guarantees. They could just be the same as millions or billions of other people out there.) The societal value of your motherhood is compensated through things like tax benefits, tax breaks, etc. Beyond that, the primary value of motherhood is to yourself. People have kids to please themselves. It sounds almost wrong to put it like that, but it’s true. Some people value having kids, some don’t — just like some people value running or crocheting, and some don’t. Is it the most important hobby? Ideally, if it’s a hobby you’ve decided to take on, then yes. It should be the most important because it involves the well-being of small humans who are utterly dependent on you. Should it be the most important hobby to every woman in the world? Of course not. It’s not biologically necessary for every woman on earth to have kids, and at the personal level, importance is completely subjective. I understand why some women might want to stress its importance — it’s something that falls predominantly on female shoulders and women are encouraged by society to sacrifice other opportunities to take it on. They want recognition for that, and that’s fair. But I think that treating motherhood like a job just perpetuates the patriarchal status quo. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Lastly, not an article, but I recently discovered Justine Leconte’s YouTube channel, and she is delightful.

I was able to tear myself away from Netflix long enough to read a few books in the last fortnight. It was a struggle, people, and the results were mixed. I liked but did not love The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford. The main character was not as captivating to me as she appeared to be to the other characters in the book, so the story (which effectively chronicles her life and romantic affairs) did not strike me as particularly interesting. I kept waiting for the real plot to show up, and was surprised and disappointed when I got to the end of the book and realized that there was no more. The whole thing seemed to be roman a clef based on Mitford’s own life and that of her various sisters (conveniently white-washed of Nazi affiliations), which makes it all the more puzzling that I didn’t enjoy the book more — I love reading about the Mitfords. For my money, forget The Pursuit of Love and go read The Sisters, a non-fiction biography of the family by Mary S. Lovell. Then, if you enjoy historical gossip, dig up The Viceroy’s Daughters by Anne de Courcy; it’s the story of another set of aristocratic sisters (the Curzons), who ended up being connected to the Mitfords through the indiscriminately philandering Tom Mosley (second husband of Diana Mitford, prototype for The Pursuit of Love’s protagonist).

Moving on, I really enjoyed Devil in the White City, a non-fiction account of the 1893 World Fair in Chicago and the criminal career of serial killer H.H. Holmes, who operated a “house of horrors” close to the exposition grounds during the same time period. I’m not going to lie: I liked the chapters dealing with Holmes more, because they read like an old timey episode of Criminal Minds (minus the hunky profilers). Which is not to say that the chapters dealing with the World Fair were not interesting; the book was basically two separate books in one, and I’m not sure that the juxtaposition always worked. I would have enjoyed reading each half separately. The writing is excellent, by the way.

Last but not least, I’ve started reading All the Light We Cannot See, and it is okay so far. I haven’t gotten into it as easily as The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, but I’m waiting to see if it picks up soon.

Moving on to Netflix, I finished bingeing Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and then suffered severe withdrawals for a good week. I was unpleasantly surprised to find out that the last season only had 8 episodes (not 13, as I was expecting) and, to be honest, I found the Phryne-Jack payoff at the end rather weak sauce. But … at least THEY BLOODY KISSED, FINALLY. I was starting to suspect that the show writers were actual sadists who enjoyed torturing the audience with all that exquisite unrequited sexual tension. With that said … and please bear with me as I digress completely from the ostensible post topic … the experience of watching the show made me think back on a question that used to preoccupy me a lot more back when I was a regular primetime TV watcher.

How does a writer best deal with unrequited sexual tension without mucking up the story and losing the audience? Watching the will-they-won’t-they dance is wonderful … up to a point. Viewers eventually reach their limit, at which point, the writers have to move the romantic plot forward somehow. In Phryne and Jack’s case, keeping them apart makes a lot of sense; much of what makes Phryne such an original and appealing character would also make her a poor candidate for conventional romantic tropes. You can argue that Jack is a feminist ally, but ultimately we have been led to expect his romantic expectations to be of a traditional kind; Phryne is a free spirit. Can they “get together” without either sacrificing some essential part of themselves? On the flip side, supposing that they do “get together” … then what? The same unrequited sexual tension won’t be there, by definition. There are plenty of examples of happy on-screen marriages, but they’re rarely the subject of screwball romantic mystery/comedies. There’s The Thin Man movies and … that’s all I got. I can only imagine that the tone of movies like that is difficult to get right; otherwise, I’m not sure why we don’t see more of them. Which brings me back to Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries: WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT???

Ahem. Moving on.

After finishing that series, I tried to get back into Agatha Christie, only to discover that Netflix does not have the Miss Marple mysteries. More weak sauce. I watched a couple of episodes of Father Brown, but couldn’t get into it, although I do enjoy the GK Chesterton stories. Somehow, I ended up finding the British show Silk and got hooked on that instead. It’s about a barristers’ chambers (law office) in London. The show gives me job anxiety (even though I don’t work in criminal law) — I get exhausted and panicky just watching the characters go about their impossibly chaotic days — but it’s filled with eye candy so I can’t help myself. I’m talking Rupert Penry Jones (playing a cad miles apart from Frederick Wentworth), Tom Hughes (aka Prince Albert), and Natalie Dormer (better known as Margaery Tyrrell, now-deceased queen of the Seven Kingdoms). I’ve just finished the first season, though, so we’ll see how the next one fares.

If you have Netflix suggestions for me — preferably mystery or historical dramas, preferably featuring a healthy dose of eye candy — I’m all ears. I am considering North and South, if only because I know my friend A. is a huge Richard Armitage fan and I feel like I need to investigate what that’s all about.

I’ll wrap up this ungodly long post with a few articles. This one is a good resource for thrifters who love Anthropologie: all the Anthro labels, with handy visual guide.

This one is about a woman who wears the same outfit every day; note that the title is misleading insofar as she wears the same “uniform” everyday, but not the exact same pieces. You guys know I love my ‘core looks’ a lot, but I don’t think I could commit to only one for a week, much less a year. I can’t help but feel that people who are drawn to this idea of a super specific “uniform” are people who don’t care a lot about clothes. Otherwise, it would be like a concert pianist only ever playing one tune — why?

This one is about a mysterious green jacket that was found at a thrift store in Toronto and ended up being sold for $139,000 at an auction. It’s the thrifting equivalent of a Cinderella story.

Lastly, as a (tail end) Gen X-er, I have to admit that I quietly chuckled at this article about the war between Boomers and Millennials. With that said, I am generally not a fan of stereotyping large swaths of the population, so I’m firmly staying out of the “who’s better, who’s worse” generational debate.

Happy Easter / long weekend, everyone!