Daily Blague

The other day, I was getting ready to pay for a book at Crawford Doyle Booksellers, on Madison Avenue near the Museum, when I saw a copy of Jane Gardam's Old Filth on the counter. "Now that's a terrific novel," I said. The bookseller shot back that the store had some new/old titles in stock. Old Filth may be Ms Gardam's most recent novel, but she's already written about a dozen, none of them available in the United States until recently. Why on earth this should be so is a great mystery, given that Old Filth has sold very well (I'm told) on the Upper East Side. The book's crisp British humor and sly penetration into well-concealed irregularities give Ms Gardam's work something of the iffy thrill of Ruth Rendell's. But her characters (on the basis of two books) are all sane, well-brought-up types whose delusions are not dangerous.

I added The Queen of the Tambourine to my pile. Give yourself a treat and do likewise.

¶ The Queen of the Tambourine.