13 best children's books of 2013 part 2

I subscribe to a great weekly Newsletter called Brain Pickings. Brain Pickings is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large, who has also written for Wired UK, The New York Times, Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, and The Atlantic, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. In the latest post Maria lists the 13 Best Childrens books of 2013. The first six I published yesterday, here are the rest. Her list is interesting and well worth the read. For the entire newsletter and to subscribe, go here. 

7. THE MIGHTY LALOUCHE

The more you win, the more you win, the science of the “winner effect” tells us. The same interplay of biochemistry, psychology and performance thus also holds true of the opposite — but perhaps this is why we love a good underdog story, those unlikely tales of assumed “losers” beating the odds to triumph as “winners.” Stories like this are fundamental to our cultural mythology of ambition and anything-is-possible aspiration, and they speak most powerfully to our young and hopeful selves, to our inner underdogs, to the child who dreams of defeating her bully in blazing glory.

That ever-alluring parable is at the heart of The Mighty Lalouche (public library), written by Matthew Olshan, who famously reimagined Twain’s Huckleberry Finn with an all-girl cast of characters, and illustrated by the inimitable Sophie Blackall, one of the most extraordinary book artists working today, who has previously given us such gems as her drawings of Craigslist missed connections and Aldous Huxley’s only children’s book. It tells the heartening story of a humble and lithe early-twentieth-century French postman named Lalouche, his profound affection for his pet finch Geneviève, and his surprising success in the era’s favorite sport of la boxe française, or French boxing.

8. GOBBLE YOU UP

For nearly two decades, independent India-based publisher Tara Books has been giving voice to marginalized art and literature through a collective of artists, writers, and designers collaborating on beautiful books based on regional folk traditions, producing such gems as Waterlife, The Night Life of Trees, and Drawing from the City. A year after I Saw a Peacock with a Fiery Tail — one of the best art books of 2012, a magnificent 17th-century British “trick” poem adapted in a die-cut narrative and illustrated in the signature Indian folk art style of the Gond tribe — comes Gobble You Up (public library), an oral Rajasthani trickster tale adapted as a cumulative rhyme in a mesmerizing handmade treasure released in a limited edition of 7,000 numbered handmade copies, illustrated by artist Sunita and silkscreened by hand in two colors on beautifully coarse kraft paper custom-made for the project. What makes it especially extraordinary, however, is that the Mandna tradition of tribal finger-painting — an ancient Indian art form practiced only by women and passed down from mother to daughter across the generations, created by soaking pieces of cloth in chalk and lime paste, which the artist squeezes through her fingers into delicate lines on the mud walls of village huts — has never before been used to tell a children’s story.

And what a story it is: A cunning jackal who decides to spare himself the effort of hunting for food by tricking his fellow forest creatures into being gobbled up whole, beginning with his friend the crane; he slyly swallows them one by one, until the whole menagerie fills his belly — a play on the classic Meena motif of the pregnant animal depicted with a baby inside its belly, reflecting the mother-daughter genesis of the ancient art tradition itself.

9. BALLAD

The best, most enchanting stories live somewhere between the creative nourishment of our daydreams and the dark allure of our nightmares. That’s exactly where beloved French graphic artist Blexbolex transports us in Ballad (public library) — his exquisite and enthralling follow-up to People, one of the best illustrated books of 2011, and Seasons.

This continuously evolving story traces a child’s perception of his surroundings as he walks home from school. It unfolds over seven sequences across 280 glorious pages and has an almost mathematical beauty to it as each sequence exponentially blossoms into the next: We begin with school, path, and home; we progress to school, street, path, forest, home; before we know it, there’s a witch, a stranger, a sorcerer, a hot air balloon, and a kidnapped queen. All throughout, we’re invited to reimagine the narrative as we absorb the growing complexity of the world — a beautiful allegory for our walk through life itself.

10. THE DARK

Daniel Handler — beloved author, timelessly heartening literary jukeboxer — is perhaps better-known by his pen name Lemony Snicket, under which he pens his endlessly delightful children’s books. In fact, they owe much of their charisma to the remarkable creative collaborations Snicket spawns, from 13 Words illustrated by the inimitable Maira Kalman to Who Could It Be At This Hour? with artwork by celebrated cartoonist Seth. Snicket’s 2013 gem, reminiscent in spirit of Maya Angelou’s Life Doesn’t Frighten Me, is at least as exciting — a minimalist yet magnificently expressive story about a universal childhood fear, titled The Dark (public library) and illustrated by none other than Jon Klassen.

I think books that are meant to be read in the nighttime ought to confront the very fears that we’re trying to think about. And I think that a young reader of The Dark will encounter a story about a boy who makes new peace with a fear, rather than a story that ignores whatever troubles are lurking in the corners of our minds when we go to sleep.

11. JANE, THE FOX AND ME

“Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality,” Nora Ephron wrote. “If I can’t stand the world I just curl up with a book, and it’s like a little spaceship that takes me away from everything,” Susan Sontag told an interviewer, articulating an experience at once so common and so deeply personal to all of us who have ever taken refuge from the world in the pages of a book and the words of a beloved author. It’s precisely this experience that comes vibrantly alive in Jane, the Fox, and Me (public library) — a stunningly illustrated graphic novel about a young girl named Hélène, who, cruelly teased by the “mean girls” clique at school, finds refuge in Charlotte Brönte’s Jane Eyre. In Jane, she sees both a kindred spirit and aspirational substance of character, one straddling the boundary between vulnerability and strength with remarkable grace — just the quality of heart and mind she needs as she confronts the common and heartbreaking trials of teenage girls tormented by bullying, by concerns over their emerging womanly shape, and by the soul-shattering feeling of longing for acceptance yet receiving none.

Written by Fanny Britt and illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault — the artist behind the magnificent Virginia Wolf, one of the best children’s books of 2012 — this masterpiece of storytelling is as emotionally honest and psychologically insightful as it is graphically stunning. What makes the visual narrative especially enchanting is that Hélène’s black-and-white world of daily sorrow springs to life in full color whenever she escapes with Brönte.

12. MY FIRST KAFKA

Sylvia Plath believed it was never too early to dip children’s toes in the vast body of literature. But to plunge straight into Kafka? Why not, which is precisely what Brooklyn-based writer and videogame designer Matthue Roth has done in My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs (public library) — a magnificent adaptation of Kafka for kids. With stunning black-and-white illustrations by London-based fine artist Rohan Daniel Eason, this gem falls — rises, rather — somewhere between Edward Gorey, Maurice Sendak, and the Graphic Canon series.

The idea came to Roth after he accidentally started reading Kafka to his two little girls, who grew enchanted with the stories. As for the choice to adapt Kafka’s characteristically dark sensibility for children, Roth clearly subscribes to the Sendakian belief that grown-ups project their own fears onto kids, who welcome rather than dread the dark. Indeed, it’s hard not to see Sendak’s fatherly echo in Eason’s beautifully haunting black-and-white drawings.

Much like Jonathan Safran Foer used Street of Crocodiles to create his brilliant Tree of Codes literary remix and Darwin’s great-granddaughter adapted the legendary naturalist’s biography into verse, Roth scoured public domain texts and various translations of Kafka to find the perfect works for his singsong transformations: the short prose poem “Excursion into the Mountains,” the novella “The Metamorphosis,” which endures as Kafka’s best-known masterpiece, and “Josefine the Singer,” his final story.

“I don’t know!”

I cried without being heard.

“I do not know.”

If nobody comes,

then nobody comes.

I’ve done nobody any harm.

Nobody’s done me any harm.

But nobody will help me.

A pack of nobodies

would be rather fine,

on the other hand.

I’d love to go on a trip — why not? –

with a pack of nobodies.

Into the mountains, of course.

Where else?

13. MY FATHER’S ARMS ARE A BOAT

The finest children’s books have a way of exploring complex, universal themes through elegant simplicity and breathless beauty. From my friends at Enchanted Lion, collaborators on Mark Twain’s Advice to Little Girls and makers of some of the most extraordinary picture-books you’ll ever encounter, comes My Father’s Arms Are a Boat (public library) by writer Stein Erik Lunde and illustrator Øyvind Torseter. This tender and heartening Norwegian gem tells the story of an anxious young boy who climbs into his father’s arms seeking comfort on a cold sleepless night. The two step outside into the winter wonderland as the boy asks questions about the red birds in the spruce tree to be cut down the next morning, about the fox out hunting, about why his mother will never wake up again. With his warm and assuring answers, the father watches his son make sense of this strange world of ours where love and loss go hand in hand.

Above all, My Father’s Arms Are a Boat is about the quiet way in which boundless love and unconditional assurance can lift even the most pensive of spirits from the sinkhole of existential anxiety.

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13 Best Childrens books of 2013

I subscribe to a great weekly Newsletter called Brain Pickings. Brain Pickings is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large, who has also written for Wired UK, The New York Times, Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, and The Atlantic, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow. In the latest post Maria lists the 13 Best Childrens books of 2013. Her list is interesting and well worth the read. For the entire newsletter and to subscribe, go here. I will post the rest of her list tomorrow. The hard to please child will love anyone of these books.

This is The 13 Best Children’s, Illustrated, and Picture Books of 2013  by Maria Popova

Young Mark Twain’s lost gem, the universe in illustrated dioramas, Maurice Sendak’s posthumous love letter to the world, Kafka for kids, and more treats for all ages.

“It is an error … to think of children as a special kind of creature, almost a different race, rather than as normal, if immature, members of a particular family, and of the human family at large,” J. R. R. Tolkien wrote in his superb meditation on fantasy and why there’s no such thing as writing “for children,” intimating that books able to captivate children’s imagination aren’t “children’s books” but simply really good books. After the year’s best books in psychology and philosophy, art and design, and history and biography, the season’s subjective selection of best-of reading lists continue with the loveliest “children’s” and picture-books of 2013. (Because the best children’s books are, as Tolkien believes, always ones of timeless delight, do catch up on the selections for 2012, 2011, and 2010.)

1. ADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS

In 1865, when he was only thirty, Mark Twain penned a playful short story mischievously encouraging girls to think independently rather than blindly obey rules and social mores. In the summer of 2011, I chanced upon and fell in love with a lovely Italian edition of this little-known gem with Victorian-scrapbook-inspired artwork by celebrated Russian-born children’s book illustrator Vladimir Radunsky. I knew the book had to come to life in English, so I partnered with the wonderful Claudia Zoe Bedrick of Brooklyn-based indie publishing house Enchanted Lion, maker of extraordinarily beautiful picture-books, and we spent the next two years bringing Advice to Little Girls (public library) to life in America — a true labor-of-love project full of so much delight for readers of all ages. (And how joyous to learn that it was also selected among NPR’s best books of 2013!)

While frolicsome in tone and full of wink, the story is colored with subtle hues of grown-up philosophy on the human condition, exploring all the deft ways in which we creatively rationalize our wrongdoing and reconcile the good and evil we each embody.

Good little girls ought not to make mouths at their teachers for every trifling offense. This retaliation should only be resorted to under peculiarly aggravated circumstances.

If at any time you find it necessary to correct your brother, do not correct him with mud — never, on any account, throw mud at him, because it will spoil his clothes. It is better to scald him a little, for then you obtain desirable results. You secure his immediate attention to the lessons you are inculcating, and at the same time your hot water will have a tendency to move impurities from his person, and possibly the skin, in spots.

2. YOU ARE STARDUST

“Everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was … lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam,” Carl Sagan famously marveled in his poetic Pale Blue Dot monologue, titled after the iconic 1990 photograph of Earth. The stardust metaphor for our interconnection with the cosmos soon permeated popular culture and became a vehicle for the allure of space exploration. There’s something at once incredibly empowering and incredibly humbling in knowing that the flame in your fireplace came from the sun.

That’s precisely the kind of cosmic awe environmental writer Elin Kelsey and Toronto-based Korean artist Soyeon Kim seek to inspire in kids in You Are Stardust (public library) — an exquisite picture-book that instills that profound sense of connection with the natural world. Underpinning the narrative is a bold sense of optimism — a refreshing antidote to the fear-appeal strategy plaguing most environmental messages today.

But rather than dry science trivia, the message is carried on the wings of poetic admiration for these intricate relationships:

Be still. Listen.

Like you, the Earth breathes.

Your breath is alive with the promise of flowers.

Each time you blow a kiss to the world, you spread pollen that might grow to be a new plant.

The book is nonetheless grounded in real science. Kelsey notes:

3. THE HOLE

The Hole (public library) by artist Øyvind Torseter, one of Norway’s most celebrated illustrators, tells the story of a lovable protagonist who wakes up one day and discovers a mysterious hole in his apartment, which moves and seems to have a mind of its own. Befuddled, he looks for its origin — in vain. He packs it in a box and takes it to a lab, but still no explanation.

With Torseter’s minimalist yet visually eloquent pen-and-digital line drawings, vaguely reminiscent of Sir Quentin Blake and Tomi Ungerer yet decidedly distinctive, the story is at once simple and profound, amusing and philosophical, the sort of quiet meditation that gently, playfully tickles us into existential inquiry.

What makes the book especially magical is that a die-cut hole runs from the wonderfully gritty cardboard cover through every page and all the way out through the back cover — an especial delight for those of us who swoon over masterpieces of die-cut whimsy. In every page, the hole is masterfully incorporated into the visual narrative, adding an element of tactile delight that only an analog book can afford.

4. MY BROTHER’S BOOK

For those of us who loved legendary children’s book author Maurice Sendak — famed creator of wild things, little-known illustrator of velveteen rabbits, infinitely warm heart, infinitely witty mind — his death in 2012 was one of the year’s greatest heartaches. Now, half a century after his iconic Where The Wild Things Are, comes My Brother’s Book (public library; UK) — a bittersweet posthumous farewell to the world, illustrated in vibrant, dreamsome watercolors and written in verse inspired by some of Sendak’s lifelong influences: Shakespeare, Blake, Keats, and the music of Mozart. In fact, a foreword by Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt reveals the book is based on the Bard’s “A Winter’s Tale.”

It tells the story of two brothers, Jack and Guy, torn asunder when a falling star crashes onto Earth. Though on the surface about the beloved author’s own brother Jack, who died 18 years ago, the story is also about the love of Sendak’s life and his partner of fifty years, psychoanalyst Eugene Glynn, whose prolonged illness and eventual loss in 2007 devastated Sendak

Indeed, the theme of all-consuming love manifests viscerally in Sendak’s books. Playwright Tony Kushner, a longtime close friend of Sendak’s and one of his most heartfelt mourners, tells NPR:

5. DOES MY GOLDFISH KNOW WHO I AM?

In 2012, I wrote about a lovely book titled Big Questions from Little People & Simple Answers from Great Minds, in which some of today’s greatest scientists, writers, and philosophers answer kids’ most urgent questions, deceptively simple yet profound. It went on to become one of the year’s best books and among readers’ favorites. A few months later, Gemma Elwin Harris, the editor who had envisioned the project, reached out to invite me to participate in the book’s 2013 edition by answering one randomly assigned question from a curious child. Naturally, I was thrilled to do it, and honored to be a part of something as heartening as Does My Goldfish Know Who I Am? (public library)

As was the case with last year’s edition, more than half of the proceeds from the book — which features illustrations by the wonderful Andy Smith — are being donated to a children’s charity.

The questions range from what the purpose of science is to why onions make us cry to whether spiders can speak to why we blink when we sneeze. Psychologist and broadcaster Claudia Hammond, who recently explained the fascinating science of why time slows down when we’re afraid, speeds up as we age, and gets all warped while we’re on vacation in one of the best psychology and philosophy books of 2013, answers the most frequently asked question by the surveyed children: Why do we cry?

6. LITTLE BOY BROWN

“I didn’t feel alone in the Lonely Crowd,” young Italo Calvino wrote of his visit to America, and it is frequently argued that hardly any place embodies the “Lonely Crowd” better than New York, city of “avoid-eye-contact indifference of the crowded subways.” That, perhaps, is what children’s book writer Isobel Harris set out to both affirm and decondition in Little Boy Brown (public library) — a magnificent ode to childhood and loneliness, easily the greatest ode to childhood and loneliness ever written, illustrated by the famed Hungarian-born French cartoonist and graphic designer André François. Originally published in 1949, this timeless story that stirred the hearts of generations has been newly resurrected by Enchanted Lion.

This is the story of a four-year-old boy living with his well-to-do mother and father in a Manhattan hotel, in which the elevator connects straight to the subway tunnel below the building and plugs right into the heart of the city. And yet Little Boy Brown, whose sole friends are the doormen and elevator operators, feels woefully lonely — until, one day, his hotel chambermaid Hilda invites him to visit her house outside the city, where he blossoms into a new sense of belonging.

Reading on the break

I was looking for some free e-books to read over the holiday and came across a number of site where one could search to find free e-books. I made a list of some that I found useful, including a great little search engine site devoted to finding free e-books (http://www.justfreebooks.info/) One of the best sites I found was from Australia (http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm) as this site categorizes and gives a brief description of the link. Something I was planning to do, but this site does it well. All the sites have  different features and are worth a look for those of you who want to read

http://www.freeliterature.org/index.html

http://www.gutenberg.org/ 

http://bookboon.com/

http://manybooks.net/

http://www.overdrive.com/default.aspx

http://www.inkmesh.com/

http://gutenberg.ca/

http://www.pixelofink.com/

http://blog.booksontheknob.org/

http://www.feedbooks.com/

http://www.freebooks.com/

http://www.ereaderiq.com/

http://www.free-ebooks.net/

http://www.kobobooks.com/free_ebooks

http://www.setbc.org/setbc/accessiblebooks/freebooksforyou.html

http://www.e-book.com.au/morefreebooks/freedigitalibraries.htm

Reading for parents raising boys

Some interesting ideas for young parents raising boys. Happy reading (when you can find the time :-)

• http://raisingboysworld.com/

• http://www.sde.com/Downloads/TeacherResources/JimGrant/Tips_for_Teaching_boys.pdf

• http://openschoolnetwork.ca/2010/01/09/effective-teaching-practices-for-reaching-boys/

• http://www.parentingideas.com.au/Parents/Boy s

• http://www.pbs.org/parents/raisingboys /

• http://www.kidspot.com.au/Preschool-Tools-Best-books-for-raising-boys+2096+92+article.htm

• http://www.amazon.ca/Raising-Confident-Boys-Parents-Teachers/dp/1555613209

Reading list for a great early xmas present

Jasper Fforde is one of my favourite authors. His work is, in my opinion, a salute to his readers. In his books he expects the reader to have read the books he alludes to and to understand the skills needed to write
Fforde published his first novel, The Eyre Affair, in 2001.

On his website, he says:
Hello! If you are completely new to my writing, the best place to start is either with the 'Thursday Next' series or the 'Nursery Crime' Series. I Agree as I started reading his work with the book "First Among Sequels" and then went back in order and read the Thursday Next series in order and the read the Nursery Crime series in order and am now looking forward to reading his latest series "Shades of Grey". If you want to read works that move in a riotous universe that allows traveling into Shakespeare's plays and tampering with the novels of Austen and Dickens with wordplay, humour and satiric wit then Fforde is your man. Fforde's books are noted for their profusion of literary allusions and word play, tightly scripted plots, and playfulness with the conventions of traditional genres. His works usually contain various elements of meta fiction, parody, and fantasy. None of his books has a chapter 13 except in the table of contents where there is a title of the chapter and a page number. In many of the books the page number is, in fact, the page right before the first page of chapter 14. However, in some the page number is just a page somewhere in chapter 12.


I recommend him to you. Visit his web site to find out more

His published books include a series of novels starring the literary detective Thursday Next: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, The Well of Lost Plots, Something Rotten, and First Among Sequels. The Eyre Affair had received 76 publisher rejections before its eventual acceptance for publication.[4] Fforde won the Wodehouse prize for comic fiction in 2004 for The Well of Lost Plots.[5]

The Big Over Easy (2005), which shares a similar setting with the Next novels, is a reworking of his first written novel, which initially failed to find a publisher. Its original title was Who Killed Humpty Dumpty?[6], and later had the working title of Nursery Crime, which is the title now used to refer to this series of books. These books describe the investigations of DCI Jack Spratt. The follow-up to The Big Over Easy, The Fourth Bear, was published in July 2006 and focuses on Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

The English language is unpredictable

As I have taught ESL, I am interested in the problems the English language causes students, so my thanks to Gale for this information and a fun read.  I thought it might be interesting for people who enjoy the vagaries of English. http://www.englishspellingproblems.co.uk/

Quoting a bit from the article, "English Spelling,

Problems in learning to read and write": "The average English-speaking child takes nearly three times longer to learn the basics of reading and writing than users of other alphabetic writing systems (Seymour, British Journal of Psychology, 2003). Numerous surveys in Anglophone countries during the past five decades have established that nearly half of all English speakers have severe difficulties with writing. One in five cannot even read properly, as was confirmed in 2005 by the UK's House of Commons Select Committee for Education."


Learning to read and write English is exceptionally difficult.

Learning to read English is difficult because identical letter strings often have  different pronunciations, for example,The English writing system is uniquely difficult because it has spelling and reading problems. Other difficult alphabetic systems have only spelling problems  To become even moderately competent spellers of English, learners have to memorize at least 3700  words with some unpredictable spellings...
on – once - only - woman – women – worry
[wunce] [oanly] [wooman] [wimmen] [wurry]

Learning to spell is even harder because different spellings for identical English sounds are twice as common as different pronunciations for identical letters. The EE-sound and OO-sound, for example, can be spelt as:
peep - leap, people, here, weird, chief, police, me, ski, key;
food - rude, shrewd, truth, group, move, fruit, tomb, through, blue, shoe.

A little more than half of all English spelling difficulties are caused by four problems:

unsystematic consonant doubling like 'shoddy - body' and unpredictable spellings for the EE-sound, the long O -sound and the two OO-sounds.

Other serious spelling problems are caused by unpredictable spellings for the sounds Ur / er / ir, Au / aw, S, Sh and the unstressed half-vowel in endings (like –er / -or / -ar or –en / -on / -an).

Reading List

Here are some of the books I have been reading

Sherlock Holmes and the king's evil : and other new adventures of the great detective by Donald Thomas

Thoroughly researched, with some interesting historical heft, however Thomas, whose forte is history, revels in the history and leaves the adventure out, but this is an easy read. Other works by Thomas about Holmes are (Source Wikipedia)

The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes (Macmillan 1997) ISBN 0-330-36977-6 (Pan Books 1997) ISBN 0-333-64729-7 (Carroll & Graf Publishers 1997) ISBN 0-7867-0636-8
Sherlock Holmes and the Running Noose (Macmillan 2001) ISBN 0-333-90522-9 (Pan Books 2002) ISBN 0-330-48647-0 (the UK edition of Sherlock Holmes and the Voice from the Crypt, see below)
Sherlock Holmes and the Voice from the Crypt (Carroll & Graf Publishers 2002) ISBN 0-7867-0973-1 (the US edition of Sherlock Holmes and the Running Noose, see above)
The Execution of Sherlock Holmes (Pegasus 2007) ISBN 1-933648-22-8
Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil (2010)

The laughter of dead kings / Elizabeth Peters. I am familiar with Elizabeth Peters work but only the Amelia Peabody series, which I have read a larger number. I was not familiar with her work on the Vicky Bliss seies. This book was written with the, I think the understanding that one was familiar with earlier books in the series, which made it hard to follow at time. I was interested in how the author connected the Amelia Peabody series and the Vicky Bliss series. I enjoyed the book and I hope to read more of this series, titles which include:

Borrower of the Night (1973)
Street of the Five Moons (1978)
Silhouette in Scarlet (1983)
Trojan Gold (1987)
Night Train to Memphis (1994)
Laughter of the Dead Kings (2008)

A rag, a bone, and a hank of hair : the twenty-first Lovejoy novel / Jonathan Gash.
I was a big fan of the Lovejoy TV series. Lovejoy is a British antiques dealer based in East Anglia whose scruples are not always the highest. So I was glad when I stumbled on this novel, which is not an easy read as the author takes you through the shadier side of antique dealings in London. The other books in this series are:

The Judas Pair (1977)
Gold from Gemini (1978), U.S. edition: Gold by Gemini (1979)
The Grail Tree (1979)
Spend Game (1981)
The Vatican Rip (1981)
Firefly Gadroon (1982)
The Sleepers of Erin (1984)
The Gondola Scam (1984)
Pearlhanger (1985)
The Tartan Ringers (1986), U.S. edition: The Tartan Sell (1986)
Moonspender (1988)
Jade Woman (1988)
The Very Last Gambado (1989)
The Great California Game (1991)
The Lies of Fair Ladies (1992)
Paid and Loving Eyes (1993)
The Sin within Her Smile (1993)
The Grace in Older Women (1995)
The Possessions of a Lady (1996)
The Rich and the Profane (1998)
A Rag, a Bone and a Hank of Hair (1999)
Every Last Cent (2000)
Ten Word Game (2001)
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovejoy_(novel_series)

The boy-bishop's glovemaker / Michael Jecks.I first read Jecks last summer and recently found that he has written a series of novels featuring Sir Baldwin Furnshill, a former Knight Templar, and his friend Simon Puttock, Bailiff of Lydford Castle. These books are interesting and paint an interesting picture of medieval England and France. I enjoyed the books I have read in this series, they are easy and fun to read. Some of the other titles in this series are:

Knights Templar Mysteries
The Last Templar (March 1995
The Merchant's Partner (November 1995)
Moorland Hanging (May 1996)
The Crediton Killings (June 1997)
The Abbot's Gibbet (April 1998)
The Leper's Return (November 1998)
Squire Throwleigh's Heir (June 1999)
Belladonna at Belstone (December 1999)
The Traitor of St. Giles (May 2000)
The Boy Bishop's Glovemaker (December 2000)
The Tournament of Blood (June 2001)
The Sticklepath Strangler (November 2001)
The Devil's Acolyte (June 2002)
The Mad Monk of Gidleigh (December 2002)
The Templar's Penance (June 2003)
The Outlaws of Ennor (January 2004)
The Tolls of Death (May 2004)
The Chapel of Bones (December 2004)
The Butcher of St Peter's (May 2005)
A Friar's Bloodfeud (June 2006)
The Death Ship of Dartmouth (November 2006)
The Malice of Unnatural Death (December 2006)
Dispensation of Death (June 2007)
The Templar, The Queen and Her Lover (December 2007)
The Prophecy of Death (June 2008)
King of Thieves (November 2008)
No Law in the Land (June 2009)
The Bishop Must Die" (November 2009)


The monk who vanished / Peter Tremayne. Valley of the shadow / Tremayne Peter. I have read a number of works by Peter Tremayne and love his description of the early days of the church in Ireland and the adventures of Sister Fidelma. I look forward to reading the rest of this series, although not in the correct reading order as listed on her website.
Absolution By Murder (1994)
Shroud for the Archbishop (1995)
Suffer Little Children (1995)
The Subtle Serpent (1996)
The Spider's Web (1997)
Valley of the Shadow (1998)
The Monk Who Vanished (1999)
Act of Mercy (1999)
Our Lady of Darkness (2000)
Hemlock At Vespers (2000)
Smoke in the Wind (2001)
The Haunted Abbot (2002)
Badger's Moon (2003)
Whispers of the Dead (2004)
The Leper's Bell (2004)
Master of Souls (2005)
A Prayer for the Damned (2006)
Dancing With Demons (2007)
The Council of the Cursed (2008)
The Dove of Death (2009)
The Chalice of Blood (2010)

The Stargazey / Martha Grimes. I first read a Richard Jury mystery novel a few years ago and enjoyed the interplay between the characters and the visions of London they evoked. Grimes is best known for her series of novels featuring Richard Jury, an inspector with Scotland Yard, and his friend Melrose Plant, a British aristocrat who has given up his titles. Each of the Jury mysteries is named after a pub. Her page-turning, character-driven tales fall into the mystery subdivision of "cozies." The Richard Jury series consists of the following titles:
Man With a Load of Mischief (Boston: Little, Brown, 1981)
Old Fox Deceiv'd (Boston: Little, Brown, 1982)
Anodyne Necklace (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983)
The Dirty Duck (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984)
The Jerusalem Inn (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984)
Help the Poor Struggler (Boston: Little, Brown, 1985)
Deer Leap (Boston: Little, Brown, 1985)
I Am the Only Running Footman (Boston: Little, Brown, 1986)
The Five Bells and Bladebone (Boston: Little, Brown, 1987)
The Old Silent (Boston: Little, Brown, 1989)
The Old Contemptibles (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991)
The Horse You Came In On (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993)
Rainbow's End (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995)
Case Has Altered (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997)
The Stargazey (New York: Holt, 1998)
The Lamorna Wink (New York: Viking, 1999)
The Blue Last (New York: Viking, 2001)
The Grave Maurice (New York: Viking Penguin, 2002)
Winds of Change (New York: Viking Penguin, 2004)
The Old Wine Shades (New York: Viking Penguin, 2006)
Dust (New York: Viking Penguin, 2007)
The Black Cat (New York: Viking Penguin, 2010)