Book Club discusses "The Good Thief's Guide to Paris"

This month the book club read and discussed Chris Ewan's The Good Thief's Guide to Paris [a mystery]. The second of a new series--the first is The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam--continues the escapades of mystery writer and professional thief Charlie Howard. Here's a googled photo of writer Ewan.

The fictional roving Englishman Howard is on a book tour in France when he boldly takes a challenge to show how to break into an apartment. Rather, he takes the challenge after drinking too much wine with a new acquaintance.

Charlie pulls it off and soon he approached to break in the same apartment again--this time, to steal an oil painting. OK--Charlie is in his element--but things spin out of control when he discovers a dead body in his living room and he concludes he can't go to the police about the crime. Against the odds, he tries to clear his name while sinking deeper into art thefts.

The book was well-liked. Here are a few quick observations:

• Charlie enjoys success as a thief by working within a certain range of risk
  

• Charlie's books enjoy moderate success but it's suggested he has yet to reach his potential as a writer


• one book clubber said the writing on occasion seemed to awkward in the novel (the phrasing of sentences) while another said for English writers the sentences appear typical


• the novel takes the proper tone of not taking the story too seriously.

Fun note: with Ewan's next book, Charlie Howard will come stateside for a story set in Las Vegas.

"How Can I Keep Up With the Newest Books at the Library?"

In so many words, I was asked that question at my book club last week in regards to keeping up with new books at the library from authors that one may want to follow. Fortunately, the public library has a new convenient way to handle through your PC.

Wowbrary is a new resouce for weekly emails (or RSS) billed as providing information about "the newest stuff at your library (i.e. books, music CDs and DVDs)." On the website homepage, it also boasts of offering the advance of early notification of titles and the option to reserve bestsellers instantly. To begin, you provide your email address for the sign up page.

In the Charlotte area, go here to see our public library version of Wowbrary. The website is under the "Catalog Search" section and under the small heading "New Items." If you look closely, you will find "New Items" but this attractive resource doesn't get much promotion. Look and I think you're consider the website's layout is very user friendly too with its sections for top choices, dvds, recreation, personal growth, young people and more.

For the library user who has be up to date with new books and media this is just what the doctor ordered.

Updating "About Me"

When I started this blog, I did not think about incorporating myself as a focal fixture within the blog. The blog is about the book club, mystery books and books in general. So, I had decided to skip a photograph of myself and to have a very short "About Me" entry. And in case you've never noticed, About Me is on the right hand side of this blog page at the bottom.

However, it you look at the revised "About Me" entry--you can see I changed my mind. Recently, I read about the advantage of providing a fuller entry for readers to understand why the blog exists. Point taken. As a result, I decided to give more background about how the book club started with my involvement.

Hope it's interesting.

Now regarding the photo--that comes from playing copycat to the writer's photos which accompany their books (some are quite showy). In particularly, I'd say I roughly modelled my picture on two writer's photographs featuring Ross McDonald (in the hat) and Robert Crais (in the shades) as shown here.

Funny, clever and cute

In the book club selection this month of Chris Ewan's The Good Thief's Guide to Paris, I give credit him a good sense of wit. Late into this mystery novel, his protagist Charlie Howard describes one truly unique character as being "a good few hardbacks short of a full library, if you know what I mean."

Good line--or else I missed this joke during library school...