by Christie Purifoy | Apr 6, 2013 | Books, Uncategorized
The first books I ever truly loved were the Nancy Drew mysteries. In middle school I couldn’t get enough Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Miss Marple.
Today, mysteries are my number one comfort read. Actually, they’re just about the only thing I watch on television, too, provided they’re British.
This could explain why every time I take my kids to our local library (housed in an old railway station), I imagine myself in shoulder pads, sensible pumps, and wicked red lipstick making a dash for the 9:42 to London (even though I told my nosy neighbor I was taking the 8:42). Of course, our dimwitted constable will take my alibi for granted until Miss Marple proves me a liar.
Wait, you’re saying you don’t have daydreams like this? Well, you should read more books like these …
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Margery Allingham’s The Tiger in the Smoke: Albert Campion #14
is a classic, and it’s my favorite of the Albert Campion mysteries. You could read the first thirteen (something I do recommend you do eventually), or you could dive right into the best.
London is blanketed in a great fog, and a fierce, knife-wielding killer is on the loose. Allingham’s novel has the lightness and wit of all her Campion books, but this one is much more intense and terrifying. As other reviewers over the years have pointed out, this novel seems to straddle a literary dividing line. Feet planted in the golden age of detective fiction, it nonetheless looks forward to the contemporary psychological thrillers so familiar to us now.
The novel also has a theological bent that is (ironically) rare in these books about crime, death, and justice. There’s much more to contemplate here than just the goosebumps on your arm.
Lead us not into temptation, for of that we have already enough within us and must resist it as best we can in our own way. But deliver us, take us away, hide us from Evil.” – Margery Allingham
My next recommendation is much less serious, though it, too, centers on a creepy, mind-boggling murder. This is Edmund Crispin’s The Moving Toyshop: Gervase Fen #3
. I have yet to read numbers one or two, but number three is a treat.
In the interest of full disclosure, the crime-solver in this series is an Oxford literature professor, so my love for this book is easily explained. However! Amazon.com has just informed me that P.D. James (more about her below) named this book one of the top five mysteries of all time. So, I think this one has appeal beyond my own particular niche demographic.
Here’s the plot in a nutshell: Richard Cadogan is a poet in need of a vacation. He heads to Oxford where, toward the middle of the night, he discovers a murdered corpse in the apartment over a toyshop. Bashed over the head, Cadogan spends the night stuffed in a closet. He escapes and returns with police the next morning, but … the toyshop has disappeared. Of course, this is a case for Gervase Fen (Oxford Don extraordinaire).
This novel is funny, farcical, ridiculous, and, simply, wonderful. It is by far the most “literary” literary mystery I know. Who knew one could simultaneously solve crimes and spend hours drinking and talking Shakespeare in the pub?
None but the most blindly credulous will imagine the characters and events in this story to be anything but fictitious. It is true that the ancient and noble city of Oxford is, of all the towns of England, the likeliest progenitor of unlikely events and persons. But there are limits.” – Edmund Crispin
I might have included this final suggestion in my list of books I don’t know why I picked up but am so glad I did. You’ve probably heard of this one. I saw it for sale at Costco recently. This is Death Comes to Pemberley (Vintage)
by P.D. James.
I’m including this recommendation, not because I think it’s a literary masterpiece (it isn’t), but because it’s been a long winter, and I’ve been feeling desperate for books as comforting as mashed potatoes or chocolate cake. I’m also including it because you probably share my horror of Jane Austen spinoffs and ripoffs (zombies, anyone?) and so might miss what is a very enjoyable book.
The book cover says it all. The queen of mysteries writes a sequel to Pride and Prejudice in which Elizabeth’s and Darcy’s happiness at Pemberley is threatened by murder. James is no Austen, but she does a surprisingly good job capturing Austen’s characters. I’m actually embarrassed to admit how much I enjoyed this glimpse of Elizabeth and Darcy and their world after the wedding bells.
The mystery element makes it all the more fun. So, put down that chocolate chip cookie and try this instead (or, better yet, try both).
If this were fiction, could even the most brilliant novelist contrive to make credible so short a period in which pride had been subdued and prejudice overcome? – P.D. James
Do you read mysteries? Watch them? Any favorites?
by Christie Purifoy | Mar 22, 2013 | Blog, Family, Lent, Seasons, Spring, Uncategorized
These last awe-full days of Lent are upon us.
To be honest, the past few weeks seem to me like a blur of pictures and noise. The world is spinning faster now than it was just a month ago (something the poets know even if the scientists haven’t yet discovered it), and I feel the need to stop and steady myself.
And then … the headlong rush into a world made new.
I want to be ready. Or more precisely – I want to notice where it is already springing up.
I don’t want to miss any of it.
I’ll be opening my laptop a little less and stepping outside a little more.
Look for me in this space after Easter.
Thanks to our Photographer Kelli Campbell for this image of
my daughter on one of the most beautiful spring days I can remember.
Find more of Kelli’s photography here.
by Christie Purifoy | Mar 19, 2013 | Faith, Gardening, healing, Jesus, Lent, Seasons, Spring, Uncategorized, Waiting, Winter
Today is the day for a miracle …
Today the calendar says spring, but when has the calendar ever told us anything true?
As I write, darkness has dropped, the wind is howling, and the hanging porch lights are twisting like terrified animals on their chains.
The sound of this wild March wind does not make me feel cozy. It sounds too much like someone in pain.
Today is the day for a miracle …
I keep telling myself spring is already here. I’ve known for days that it was time to plant. Peas, lettuce, radishes, beets, spinach, swiss chard … so much needs to be in the ground.
But who has faith for gardening in the midst of snow flurries and sleet?
Today is the day for a miracle …
The apple trees we ordered months ago have arrived. They look like apple sticks. The children do not believe me when I tell them we’ll bake pies. I’m not sure I believe myself.
But I’ve seen more winters than my children, and I do know this: the day when daffodils emerge is not the day for hope. The day when seedlings show the bright green of new life is not the day for faith. That day came and went.
This is the day for a miracle. This day. The dark day. The cold day. The day when all you can see is mud and broken things, like so many toys strewn across the backyard.
Easter Sunday is not the day for miracles. It is the day for praise.
Every miracle we ever needed, every miracle we ever wanted begins on Good Friday.
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
Isaiah 43:19
*Today I am listening to this song by Hans Kraenzlin
by Christie Purifoy | Mar 16, 2013 | Books, Uncategorized
I tend not to read the books everyone else is reading. At least, I don’t read them while they are being talked about. Years after the fact, I might grab an “Oprah’s Pick” or a “Now a Major Motion Picture” paperback at the thrift store. Usually, I discover that everyone else was on to something good.
Still, this contrary streak persists.
I may not read the cocktail-party-conversation books, but I do read the The Big Conversation classics.
Of those, I re-read an even smaller selection.
Here are a few classics you may have missed. These aren’t the books to check off some must-read list (though if I had to recommend one of that sort, it would be James Joyce’s Ulysses, just fyi).
These are the books to read and read again.
These are books like old friends and crocheted afghans and steamy cups of tea.
First, there is The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. No doubt Oprah’s Victorian equivalent would have splashed her name all over the cover of this page-turner. Here is mystery, crime, intrigue, and atmosphere like only the English Victorians knew how to do.
My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody. – Wilkie Collins
For those of you whose appetites for emotional dramas set during the French Revolution have recently been wetted, I recommend A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
With all of the narrative padding that makes nineteenth-century fiction so maddening for some and so enjoyable for others, this is my favorite Dickens. That admission probably doesn’t say much about my critical prowess, but, remember, these are the classics we want to read, not the ones we must.
Not only do we have the French Revolution and a famous opening line, but, in hero Sydney Carton, we have a Christ-figure par excellence.
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. – Charles Dickens
Last, but, whoa-nelly, not least (this one’s a doorstop, folks), is George Eliot’s Middlemarch. If you want to impress people on the subway, el, or metro, then Eliot is your girl. But don’t let the length discourage you. The long length is one of my favorite things about this book. This is the kind of book that is most enjoyable while there are still lots of pages to go. It’s a sad day when the last page is turned and you must leave Eliot’s masterfully created world and the wonderful characters who populate it.
Middlemarch is Serious Victorian Literature, and so it is also Serious Reading Fun. I mean, there are so many words! so many characters! so many hyper-realist details! Open to the first page, read slowly, and do not worry about when you will reach the end. This one is all about the journey (and Eliot’s is a very impressive journey). Enjoy.
It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view. – George Eliot
P.S. I googled Sydney Carton’s name to check the spelling and discovered that A Tale of Two Cities was once an Oprah Book Club Pick. My mind is blown. I had no idea. How did I ever miss a televised interview with Charles Dickens? Someone, please tell me, did he jump on the sofa?
by Christie Purifoy | Mar 13, 2013 | Family, God's promises, motherhood, Pregnancy, Seasons, Spring, Uncategorized, Winter
I spent most of Saturday outside. It looked nothing like spring, but I could feel it. By afternoon we had taken off our jackets and were warming ourselves with shovels and gardening gloves.
The firstborn and I cleared away some of the invasive (but gorgeous) vine that blankets the edge of our property.
Do you remember, I asked her, what the porcelain berries look like? Do you remember that china blue?
They looked fake, she says.
Which is true. And telling. The most beautiful things look unreal to us. Maybe they are a part of some other reality. Maybe we are too, for that matter.
The dead vines were papery and grey in our hands, but when I ripped one open we could see a shocking, acid green.
They only look dead, my daughter said with round eyes.
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We are in those last days of winter. Those days when the cold has moved deep into my bones, and I no longer believe in spring.
I mean this quite literally. Three days ago I had myself convinced that the bleached yellow shade of our lawn was a sign it would never turn green. We killed it, I thought. Too many weeds, too many autumn leaves, and we killed it.
Today, I noticed a spotty green haze. Just here and there. And I remembered: I have seen resurrection. There is such a thing.
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Six months ago, we named our daughter Elsa Spring. Soon – very soon – she will see her first spring. There are no words for all I feel about that.
Born in late summer, we named her Spring. Our last baby, our second daughter, she is yet everything new to us.
Before she was ever conceived “My beloved spoke and said to me, ‘Arise my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come …” (Song of Songs 2: 10-12).
For a hundred and one foolish reasons I had not allowed myself to want another child, but I knew what those words meant. I bought a tiny, pink sweater, and I hid it in my dresser drawer.
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Sometimes winter fools us. We are taken in by the surface of things, and death seems total and irreversible.
The truth is, we aren’t waiting for resurrection. We are living it.
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“On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem … in summer and in winter.”
Zechariah 14:8
