Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Travers

"A riveting courtroom drama of rape and premeditated murder. Pits a humble small-town lawyer against a hard-headed big-city prosecutor. Emotions flare as a jealous army lieutenant pleads innocent to murdering the rapist of his seductive, beautiful wife. Packed with drama, passion and intrigue." Sounds like something John Grisham wrote, doesn't it? But this bestseller was from 1958 and was penned by Robert Travers, which is actually the pseudonym for Michigan attorney, prosecutor and judge John D. Voelker. The story is based on an actual murder case in which Voelker served as the defense attorney. We read this book together to fulfill Dave's "Random Author" selection in the Take-a-Chance Challenge. For the most part, we agreed with the description above. The contrast between the small-town lawyer and the big-city prosecutor constantly reminded us of "A Time to Kill", right down to the older, hard-drinking, retired lawyer co-conspirator. Unfortunately, Mr. Travers could take a lesson from Grisham in brevity and pacing. This story tended to get bogged down in legalese and unnecessary detail, the "red herrings" tended to be more pointless distractions than intriguing false leads, and there were a couple of points that were never clearly explained. Surprisingly the story is still timely for today, including the conflict between the military and civilian factions of the town. We had fun with the outdated idioms and the changes in moral standards - the army officer's wife was accused of being promiscuous because she took off her shoes in public. We also were fascinated with the discussion of psychiatry as a new and, perhaps, unreliable branch of medicine. There was an unexpected amount of humor in the story which kept us from skimming over the wordy, rambling sections for fear of missing a great one-liner. The ending had enough surprise to make it satisfying and an over-all enjoyable read. We would give it 3 stars - point off for endless blabbering and point off for predictability. This evening's plan is to watch the movie version starring Jimmy Stewart, George C. Scott and Lee Remick. We'll let you know how the two compare.

Update: Once again, the book is better than the movie - and it honestly surprised us this time. Since we weren't overwhelmed with the book, and the movie featured an all-star lineup, we really thought there was a chance for the movie to outdo the book. We also hoped it might even clarify a couple of points we didn't follow in the book, but those points must have confused the script writers too, because they either left them out or changed the story. The story was mostly in tact, but it lacked the complexity and detail of the book. Had we watched the movie first we probably would have enjoyed it more but, as usually happens, once you've read the book the movie just doesn't measure up.

The Perfect Christmas by Debbie Macomber

If you happened to read my review of The Christmas Secret, I know you're wondering "Why is she doing this again? I tell you, it's an addiction. Put a book with a pretty Christmas picture in front of me and I'm powerless to resist. I listened to this one on audio, mostly in 3 minute increments during my 4 block commute or trips to the grocery store. And it's probably a good thing or I would have gone into diabetic shock from the sweetness. A woman pays out $30,000 to a matchmaker to find her "perfect husband" so she can have the perfect wedding, perfect children, perfect life and, most important, the perfect Christmas. We all know where this is heading, so for those of you battling your own addiction, I won't ruin the end. Well, maybe I will - just a little. This one doesn't have any surprise twists or comedy of errors to save it. It's just dripping in sugary, syrupy, gooey sweetness. But at least the only time you'll cry is when she writes out that ridiculous check. So have I finally learned my lesson? Will I avoid the rest of the beautiful holiday covers and sentimental claptrap? Of course not!

The Christmas Secret by Donna VanLiere

I'm such a sucker for anything related to Christmas - music, decorations, movies and, of course, books! The covers are so pretty, the titles entice me, and after a 10-month drought of holiday paraphanalia, I just can't resist. You would think I would learn that the majority turn out to be three-tissue-box, heart-string-tugging cryfests. And since I don't normally care for that type of story, a reasonable person would also think that I would stop reading them. But I don't. So I began the read-a-thon with this gorgeous little book. Also happens that my random word for the Take-a-Chance challenge is "secret" so this book had a double attraction. (see http://www.takeachancechallenge.blogspot.com/) By the end of chapter one I was having vague, wisps of memory about why I shouldn't read these books. Our heroine is a single mom, struggling with the bills, about to be evicted, dead-beat dad threatening the custody of the children, boss threatening to fire her from her dead-end job and, worst of all, babysitter issues. Joy to the world! But, since this was a challenge book, I plugged along. Wasn't this the point of the challenge? To read something outside my usual box? Besides, this is a Christmas book. It has to have a happy ending. Poor Christina just continued to sink lower and lower till I knew the only thing that would save her was the obligatory Christmas miracle. But I got more than I expected. Ms. VanLiere managed to throw a couple of curveballs into the tired mix. Now don't be dismayed, naturally everything worked out. The bills get paid, the mean landlord comes to his senses, dead-beat dad beats it out of town, dead-end job turns into a promising business venture and, best of all, she finds a couple of wonderful babysitters. The almost slap-stick near-miss encounters between the characters kept the story from becoming totally depressing, but what really kept this from being just another Christmas tear-jerker are the twists, and I never saw them coming. So, alls well that ends well - even when you knew it would. And look at all the other pretty Christmas books on the shelf!

Read-a-Thon Wrap-up

Our first attempt at Dewey's Read-a-thon was a success - at least we think so. We made it through most of the 24 hours - with breaks for a couple naps and the KSU football game. We read some good books, learned a few things and, best of all, did it together! Here are some random lessons learned from read-a-thon and ideas for next time:

1. We are too old to pull all-nighters! Our plan for next time is to pick a 12-18 hour span and allow ourselves a full night's sleep.

2. Blogging and participating in challenges can easily consume all your reading time. Next time around we will limit our challenges to those we can do in just a couple minutes.

3. Speaking of challenges, we are brainstorming a "read together" mini challenge for April. So start now to convince your significant other to join you.

4. We didn't get nearly as much reading done as we had imagined. Between distractions (children, people at the door, phone, food...) and time spent on challenges and blogs, we frequently lost focus on the books. Our goal for April is to actually read for 50 minutes of each hour - with 10 minute limit for challenges, snacks and potty breaks.

5. I noticed lots of participants making advance food plans in the days leading up to the read-a-thon, but didn't really pay attention. Now I understand the advance prep. Cooking and/or prowling the pantry looking for munchies consumes a lot of time. (At least it did for me. Dave's snack needs are much simpler - see Eat to Read challenge for details.)

6. I will limit myself to short books/novellas or at least easy reading - trying to absorb anything deep became impossible after the first few hours.

7. Cheerleaders are wonderful people!

8. The biggest lesson learned: The joy of Dewey's Read-a-Thon is not in the number of pages read or winning prizes, but in the people met and the shared love of reading. Our blog is only a month old and this was a great way for us to break into the book blogging universe. It will take me quite awhile, even once my brain returns to full function, but I intend to visit the blogs of every participant and send thank-you messages to those who commented on ours. Welcome new friends and fellow bloggers - it's great to meet you.

Read-a-Thon: The Wee Hours

It's 3:25 a.m. We may have dozed there for a minute (or 3 hours?) but we're awake now - mostly. The read-a-thon is in it's last few hours and we've had lots of fun with the challenges. Perhaps we haven't gotten as many books read as we had imagined, but who's counting. Now, back to the books.

4:32 a.m.- Another hour of joint reading on our courtroom drama "Anatomy of a Murder". We're down to the last few chapters, but pretty complicated stuff to digest at this hour.

5:23 a.m. - Only 35 minutes to go. We made it through one more chapter of our joint read and spent a little time cleaning up the kitchen from our snacking - just to get up and keep the blood flowing. We will fill the last few minutes with our individual books and call it a successful read-a-thon. Dave finished "Blood Covenant" and is beginning "Darkly Dreaming Dexter" by Jeff Lindsay.

Give Me Five Challenge - Read-a-thon

The Challenge: post a list of your five favorite children's books. That's an easy one!

1. Green Eggs and Ham

2. Blitz, Story of a Horse (Dave's fav)

3. Harriet, the Spy (Tami's fav)

4. Where the Sidewalk Ends - favorite of our daughter

5. Junie B. Jones series - favorite to read aloud

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Wisdom of the Ages Challenge - Read-a-thon

The challenge is to think of books featuring "older" protagonists or authors.

My all-time favorite reads are “The Cat Who…” series, written by Lilian Jackson Braun. I have read and re-read them many times. Ms. Braun is now well into her 90’s and, unfortunately, her age has shown in the last couple installments, and apparently the series has come to an end. Great loss for cozy mystery fans.

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