What Moves the Dead, by T. Kingfisher. A Tom Doherty Associates Book, 2022

When Alex Easton, former soldier, arrives at her dear friends the Ushers’ home, she is rather surprised by what she finds. The mansion is pretty much in ruins, the lake right out front is dank and full of… something… , there are some really weird hares in the brush, and it seems deserted. Worse is the appearance of his friends: Roderick is pale and gaunt, while Madeline looks at death’s door. A doctor friend is staying with them, and he is baffled as to the cause.

Based on Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, the story has a lot more life to it than the original. The story is very dark- there is body horror that really got to me- but there is a lot of wit in this version. Easton’s horse, Hob, is more articulate than many people I know. The dialog is well done. I love the characters.

It’s been a long time since I read Poe’s original (I first read it when I was in elementary school), but I really don’t remember it giving me the all-out creeps. This story did. It’s based on a concept I haven’t seen used before (but I’m far from an expert in horror). The story, like it’s inspiration, is pretty short – I read it in one night- but a lot happens in it. The atmosphere is close and creepy. Everything is dark, dreary, and nothing is nice about it. Another win for the author!  

 

 

The Elegant Woman: For the Woman Who Wants to Increase Her Elegance and Beauty, by Eunice Leong. 2013

I picked this book off the library shelf, while looking for something else, intrigued by the title. Elegance? In today’s day and age? And how did this woman become an expert in this subject?

Turns out she’s pretty much self-taught, and the chapters of the book are sections of her web site, which seems to be gone now. Ever since Leong was a little girl, she’s wanted to be Audrey Hepburn. That is her style icon, and she’s gone to lengths to mimic Hepburn’s appearance, manners, and education. Because it’s not enough to wear fine clothing and say please and thank you, you need to be classically educated and think good thoughts. Huh?

While I mostly agree with her dress code- clothes don’t have to be expensive, but they should be the best you can afford because they’ll last longer; clothing should be clean, ironed, and mended;  skirts should cover the knees; no plastic jewelry, no piercings other than one in each ear lobe (obviously, we’re in big disagreement here!)- and I certainly think manners should be stressed, I think that one of her basic tenets, that an elegant woman should never draw attention to herself, will be violated by following her rules! Because someone following her rules will certainly draw attention to herself in this day and age, unless they are in some small segments of the population. She will seem old fashioned, even if she tries to, as she says in her Amazon blurb, not look like someone trapped in the 50s.

There are a lot of good ideas in the book, but most will only pick and choose. A lot is pretty basic, things like posture and not cussing and don’t gossip. The book itself isn’t very elegant; it has a lovely cover but there is a lot of repetition. There are also quite a number of typos. I suspect that she copy and pasted her web site into book format and self-published, meaning an editor never saw it. An editor could have made the book shorter (it’s almost 500 pages long) and more readable. Three stars.

In Search of Perfumes: A Lifetime Journey to the Source of Nature’s Scents, by Dominique Roques. Editions Grasset & Fasquelle, 2021

Roques’s job was (is?) sourcing natural fragrance materials for high end perfume houses. He does this not just by sitting at a desk, but by going to the sites where the materials are gathered- to Provence for the very best lavender, Italy for bergamot, Andalusia for cistus tears, etc. Each chapter chronicles his visits to the producers- sometimes farmers of their own land, sometimes migrant workers, sometimes gatherers in the forests and jungles and deserts- one fragrant material per chapter. Most of the time, he writes not just about one trip, but several trips through the years, to see where the material comes from and how it’s harvested, to find out what the producers and gatherers need to survive and have good lives, because he doesn’t want to take advantage of the people, some of whom have lives that we’d consider very primitive. He doesn’t just make money for his clients and himself, but makes deals so the workers can have medical care and schools.

While the book wasn’t what I thought it would be- I thought it would be more about the fragrance materials- it was pretty interesting. I had never thought about how the people lived who gathered rose petals, or bergamot oranges, or the gums like cistus or frankincense. It’s good to know where the materials in those oh so expensive perfumes come from and what progress is doing to the areas they grow in!