Miss Fisher’s stumbles into a series of murders while on vacation. The chalet fills with corpses while the murderer uses “The 12 Days of Christmas” to sequence the victims in order of the lyric.
The motive behind the murders keeps Miss Fisher off-balance until she cracks the mystery with roots in the Past. If you’re a fan of Miss Fisher, you’ll enjoy this entertaining Christmas confection. GRADE: B+
In troubled economic times like now, knowing how money works can help you through the trials ahead for all of us. The coronavirus is changing the world economy in drastic ways. This will accelerate inequality. Those of us with assets–houses, cars, stocks, bonds, 401ks, etc.–will get richer as the Federal Reserve pumps up the Stock Market. Those without assets will slide into poverty.
Jacob Goldstein’s clever Money blends a history of money with the invention of banking and finance. “The essence of finance is time travel… Saving is about moving resources from the present into the future; financing is about moving resources from the future back into the present.” (p. 46)
Goldstein writes clearly with excellent examples. Money explains what fiscal calamities loom ahead and what you can do to survive them. GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
AUTHOR’S NOTE — xi
I. Inventing Money — 1
1: The Origin of Money — 3
2: When We Invented Paper Money, Had an Economic Revolution, Then Tried to Forget the Whole Thing Ever Happened — 13
II. The Murder, the Boy King, and the Invention of Capitalism — 25
3: How Goldsmiths Accidentally Re-Invented Banks (and Brought Panic to Britain) — 27
4: How to Get Rich with Probability — 35
5: Finance as Time Travel: Inventing the Stock Market — 45
6: John Law Gets to Print Money — 55
7: The Invention of Millionaires — 63
III. More Money –75
8: Everybody Can Have More Money — 77
9: But Really: Can Everybody Have More Money? — 89
IV. Modern Money — 99
10: The Gold Standard: A Love Story — 101
11: Just Don’t Call It a Central Bank — 117
12: Money Is Dead. Long Live Money — 135
V. Twenty-First-Century Money — 149
13: How Two Guys in a Room Invented a New Kind of Money — 151
14: A Brief History of the Euro (and Why the Dollar Works Better) — 169
15: The Radical Dream of Digital Cash — 187
16: CONCLUSION: The Future of Money — 213
Acknowledgements — 227
Notes — 229
Index — 243
The 11-3 Buffalo Bills, with their 48-19 win over the Denver Broncos yesterday, have clinched the AFC East title for the first time in 25 years! Bills fans are deliriously happy. But, as the Bills players said after the game: “We’re not done yet.” How will your favorite NFL perform today?
The Buffalo Bills (10-3) versus the Denver Broncos (5-8) game has been “flexed” by the NFL moving it from Sunday to Saturday afternoon. The Bills are 6 1/2 point favorites.
My favorite story in Merry Murder (1994) is Julian Symons’s clever “Twixt the Cup and the Lip.” A greedy bookseller plans the perfect heist of the jewels at a department store. Unfortunately, his plan includes some sketchy accomplices. One key accomplice, Stacey, is depicted this way: “Stacey had two faults that prevent him form rising high in his profession. One was that he drank too much, the other that he was stupid.” (p. 201). Needless to say, the perfect crime unravels…entertainingly!
I also thoroughly enjoyed Joyce Porter’s “But Once a Year…Thank God!” about a charity party for young children that ends in the murder of one of the sponsors. Porter provides some delicious humor to her cunning mystery.
And there are classic stories: “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Simenon’s “Matter of Life and Death,” “Rumpole and The Spirit of Christmas” by John Mortimer, and Rex Stout’s “Santa Claus Beat” (non-Nero Wolfe). The stories in Merry Murder were selected from three previous anthologies: Mystery for Christmas (1990), Murders for Christmas (1991), and Murder Under the Mistletoe (1992). Perfect mix of stories for the season! GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
| Rumpole and the spirit of Christmas / John Mortimer — 1 | ||
| Supper with Miss Shivers / Peter Lovesey — 14 | ||
| The adventure of the blue carbuncle / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — 25 | ||
| A matter of life and death / Georges Simenon — 47 | ||
| I saw Mommy killing Santa Claus / George Baxt — 109 | ||
| Dead on Christmas Street / John D. MacDonald — 118 | ||
| The Christmas bear / Herbert Resnicow — 135 | ||
| Mystery for Christmas / Anthony Boucher — 151 | ||
| On Christmas Day in the morning / Margery Allingham — 168 | ||
| Santa Claus beat / Rex Stout — 179 | ||
| Who killed Father Christmas / Patricia Moyes — 184 | ||
| ‘Twixt the cup and the lip / Julian Symons — 195 | ||
| Auggie Wren’s Christmas story / Paul Auster — 225 | ||
| Murder at Christmas / C.M. Chan — 233 | ||
| Father Crumlish celebrates Christmas / Alice Scanlan Reach — 280 | ||
| The plot against Santa Claus / James Powell — 300 | ||
| Christmas cop / Thomas Larry Adcock — 324 | ||
| But once a year … thank God! / Joyce Porter — 337 | ||
| Christmas party / Martin Werber — 358 | ||
| Kelso’s Christmas / Malcolm McClintick — 367 | ||
| The spy and the Christmas cipher / Edward D. Hoch — 383 | ||
| The carol singers / Josephine Bell — 400 |
Diane has dozens of Christmas music CDs, but it seems like each year another couple albums compete to join her core collection. Ultimate Power of a Diva’s Christmas came out in 2002. It contains 24 “Holiday Favorites” sung by a variety of “name” singers. And, as you might expect, the results vary.
I really liked Karla Bonoff’s “First Noel” and “Everybody’s Home Tonight” as well as Linda Elder’s version of “O Holy Night.” I was less enthralled with Debbie Gibson’s version of “Silent Night.”
Some of these Christmas songs were new to me like Everything But The Girl’s “25th December.” Are any of your favorite Christmas songs here? Any of your favorite singers? GRADE: B
TRACK LIST:
Track Listing – Disc 1
Back in 1962, Science Fiction Adventures published John Brunner’s The Society of Time trilogy in three consecutive issues. An abridged version was published by ACE Books later that year under the title Times Without Number. Brunner was displeased with the abridged version and a few years later revised and expanded Times Without Number for the 1969 edition.
Don Miguel Navarro, a Licentiate of the Society of Time, investigates the appearance of a flawless mask from the Aztecs that shows up at a party celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the Spanish Armada’s successful invasion of Britain. Navarro discovers that the Time Line has been breached and the Society’s policing of time-travel is in imminent danger.
Meddling with Time is always tricky, but Brunner manages to juggle all of the paradoxes to deliver a suspenseful and exciting tale of saving the world from disaster. If you’re looking for pretzel logic and mind-bending action, reading The Society of Time would be a good investment of your time. GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction by Mike Ashley — 7
The Society of Time Trilogy:
Spoils of Yesterday –15
The Word Not Written — 65
The Fullness of Time — 115
Father of Lies –167
The Analysis — 239
Meryl Streep plays a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer, Alice Hughes, who is afraid to fly. When she wins an award that’s to be granted in England, Alice finagles a berth on a cruise ship along with accommodations for two of her College friends and her nephew.
The trip to England is filled with Candice Bergen’s character, Roberta, seething about Alice using her life as the key character in Alice’s most popular book. Susan (Dianne Wiest) is the Voice of Reason as the three friends try to connect again like they did in College.
There’s some publishing shenanigans, some confusion about who the mysterious guy reading The Odyssey is, and a silly romance. All in all, Let Them All Talk is a frothy cruise to nowhere. GRADE: B-
If you’re a fan of Space Art, or if you’re looking for a Holiday gift for someone who has Everything, I highly recommend The Art of NASA. Gorgeous Chestley Bonestell paintings grace the pages of this oversized coffee table book. Very cool sketches of various rockets, illustrations of space craft on the Moon, and dramatic paintings of Space Walks dazzle these pages.
Piers Bizony clearly describes the various NASA missions, writes about the type of artwork commissioned to promote the mission, and how the marketing was used to gain political and public support.
Some of my favorite illustrations capture the various landers planned for Mars and other planets and moons. And I love the details about the artists who created these marvelous, artistic glimpses of the Future! GRADE: A
The Buffalo Bills (9-3) are in Prime Time again–this time on NBC’s Sunday Night Football–taking on the 11-1 Pittsburgh Steelers. The Bills are 2-point favorites. The Steelers are playing their third game in 12 days. And, the Steelers are the only NFL team without a Bye Week (that was lost with all the Covid-19 problems with the Ravens) because their games kept being moved around. How will your favorite NFL do today?