Father Brown
G. K. Chesterton: Father Brown Investigates * (Harmat Kiadó 2019, short stories from The Complete Father Brown Stories) Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, playwright, journalist, rhetorician, theologian and critic. He would like to be an artist when he was young, but he soon changed the brush to a pen and then used it only until the end of his life. He was considered a man of contradictions. One of the recurrent characters in his works was Father Brown, who is, of course, English, but Catholic, with an insignificant appearance but a captivating personality, and while he performs his priestly duties with great professional competence and love, his other passion is investigating crimes. His purpose is not to overtake the police, but to save the human soul. He doesn’t pursue the criminal, but the crime. Chesterton discovered Christianity as an adult and it also influenced his stories. He…
Bookshops, booksellers and customers
Jen Campbell: Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (Constable 2012) Jen Campbell: More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (Constable 2013) Jen Campbell is an award-winning poet and writer who works in non-fiction and fiction genres, and has also published volumes of poetry. She has worked in the book publishing industry for over fifteen years, initially as a bookseller and now as a freelance editor, content creator and disability advocate. She writes book reviews and runs a YouTube channel where she talks about books, the history of fairy tales, and the representation of disability. She also holds online writing workshops. The Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores series grew out of a blog where, over the years, booksellers have uploaded their funny and not-so-funny experiences about customers who have wandered in. In the book, we can read the witty phrases heard in the Edinburgh Bookshop and the Ripping Yarns bookshop…
Murder is icing on the cake
Jessa Maxwell: The Golden Spoon (Simon & Schuster 2021) Many thanks to 21. Század Kiadó for sending me the book! Jessa Maxwell is the pseudonym of Jessica Olien, who works as a writer, illustrator and journalist. She is the author of several children’s books and in 2020 wrote a comic about how people can cook during the pandemic. According to her own admission, she loved to bake and cook even before Covid, but she developed her skill a lot during the isolation. The Golden Spoon is also the fruit of that period…or rather, the cookie of it. If this book were a cake, it would be layered, seasoned with lots of characters and covered with mystery like fondant. The Bake Week has been having mesmerizing viewers on TV for ten years now, with Betsy Martin, America’s Grandmother, at the helm. However, this year will be different… In addition to the…
Turtle in Paradise
Jennifer L. Holm: Turtle in Paradise (Random House 2010) In June 1935, Turtle has to move in to her aunt, whom she has never met, because her mother got a job as a housekeeper in a place where they don’t like children. Turtle therefore travels to Key West, Florida, to live with a family she has never seen for who knows how long. Compared to her dreamer mother, who always waits for the true love and the happy ending, Turtle is very much on the ground with both of her feet. She knows people and doesn’t think children are any different from adults. So far, she has only had bad experiences with both age groups. But now she has to learn to live with her three cousins, who are very lively boys. Will their story have a happy ending? The book is set during the Great Depression, when there were…