Dodie Smith, 1948, republished 1998, St. Martin’s Griffin

Early on, the narrator of this story is dismissed as “a bit consciously naïve” by the man she will fall in love with. And he’s right, although she’s also strangely precocious, reflective, and sometimes wise (and even a little reminiscent of the young Brione in Ian McEwan’s Atonement).
It would be easy to dismiss the book as dated or excessively cute, especially if one were to take a simple statement of the plot (e.g., poor English girls of an eccentric family looking for redemption through marriage to wealthy Americans). But such an assessment would overlook the charm and sincerity of the story. It is funny and touching. And while it uses absurd situations to poke (mostly) gentle fun at artists and the arts world, at British mores, and at Americans, it also has a very real sense of wonder for the world, it has very believable emotions and interactions between characters, and, perhaps most importantly, it is a delightful read.

Pauline Réage, 1954, read as eText from MemoWare.com
Well, this eText had some problems, which appeared to be caused by an occasional missing page from the source, but the intermittent gaps in the narrative were not enough to account for my disappointment.
Given what I knew of the story (i.e., very little, other than it had been extensively banned and involved sadomasochistic sexuality), I was expecting the tale to be shocking, titillating, or at least interesting. Instead, I found myself bored. The character of O spends all her time either being abused or whining about her love for her abusers. They, on the other hand, seem utterly unemotional and without any character other than their predilection for abuse. There’s no drama here, just dull repetition of uninvolving social gatherings, floggings, and mechanical sexuality.

Walter Mosley, 1990, Pocket Books

I enjoy the hard-boiled noir genre, and am a sucker for a good Raymond Chandler novel, even if I often have trouble navigating the exact twists and turns of the plots. Devil in a Blue Dress not only fits the genre, but also manages to keep me confused as to exactly who is who and what it is they’re up to. It’s a fun read, that shares not only the feel of a Chandler novel, but Chandler’s exuberant use of the language.

Edgar Rice Burroughs, 1912, read as an eText from the Project Gutenberg collection.

A rippin’ good example of early science fiction with a few original ideas and plenty of fantastical adventures.

Zane Grey, 1910, read as an eText from the Project Gutenberg collection.

Zane Grey books are painted in great, broad, colorful strokes. There’s not a lot of ambiguity about the nature of the characters, and there’s rarely much doubt about how things will turn out in the end. Grey’s West is the same West that we go to see in the movies; a Moral Universe with strict rules that differentiate the good from the bad, a place where well-defined roles and behaviors are understood by all.
What makes Grey’s books such good reading, though, is not particularly the plots or the characters, unless you consider the West itself to be a character. It’s Grey’s obvious love of the land, and his painterly descriptions of the terrain and the weather that make the experience of reading his stories so pleasurable.