JoAnn Roe. The Real Old West: Photographs by Frank Matsura. (1981)

     JoAnn Roe. The Real Old West: Photographs by Frank Matsura. (1981) Matsura arrived in Conconully, Washington State, to take a job as cook’s helper in the local hotel. He quickly established himself as photographer, however, and when he died ten years later of tuberculosis, people from miles around attended his funeral. His photographic skills are evident in this selection of some 150 images, all taken in the Okanogan (NB the US spelling) on both sides of the border. He himself is a puzzle: very little is known of his antecedents, and the few clues haven’t apparently helped much in discovering his Japanese family, nor the reasons why he left there.
     But his pictures tell us a good deal about him, because he was able to capture the trust of his subjects, all of whom gaze into the camera with self-possession and self-assurance. He also took pains to record the business and social life, and the landscape of the area. I found this book in Donalda (Alberta) in the summer, and bought it because of its photos of buildings and transport; but in the several times I’ve looked through it this year, I came to admire Matsura’s sense of composition and his skill in presenting the characters of his portrait subjects. A very good book, with a mystery at its heart. *** (2005)

Simon Watts, ed. The Art of Arthur Watts (2003)

      Simon Watts, ed. The Art of Arthur Watts (2003) When we first went to England, my grand-parents had a pile of old Punch magazines. We children perused them thoroughly, for the pictures of course. Most of them we could not understand, but we did like the drawings. I remember full page cartoons with many wonderful details. Some of these I now know to have been drawn by Arthur Watts. Visiting Lee Valley Tools in Edmonton, I came across a copy of this book, a compilation by Arthur Watts’s son. The drawings charmed me again, and I bought the book, putting it aside as a Christmas present to me, which in due course it became. I’ve spent a couple of delightful hours looking at the pictures again, and reading the brief biography.
     It seems Watts also produced posters for the LMS, so I shall have to look for those. He was a keen sailor, and wrote articles for a yachting magazine, illustrated by himself of course. Simon also reprints a series of six short essays on the art and craft of drawing in back and white, which give some insight into Watts’s philosophy. He emphasises simplification, ironically, really, as he detested modern art, and often made satirical allusions to it in his own work. Yet those allusions were extremely skilful: Watts could have done work in the modern style if he’d wished. A book worth looking at repeatedly. Unfortunately, some of the originals were stolen from Simon Watts home as he was preparing the book, and on the last page he asks for help in recovering them. I don't know oof any success in recovering the drawings. *** (2005)

M. C. Beaton Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet (1993)

     M. C. Beaton Agatha Raisin and the Vicious Vet (1993) It looks like Dr Bladen killed himself by accident while attending to a horse, but a second murder changes that interpretation, and Agatha and James Lacey (the handsome but gun-shy ex-colonel neighbour whom she fancies) turn up clues that Detective Bill Wong has overlooked. Seems money and jealousy came together to provoke murder. The book is light-weight fluff, but entertaining enough. I read it almost at one go in about 2½  hours.
     Agatha’s on-going, somewhat over-coy not-quite-courtship of James Lacey can be a bit tiresome. Other sub-plots, such as Bill Wong’s life story, miscellaneous neighbours’ joys and sorrows, etc, are sketched rather than narrated. It looks very much as if Beaton wanted to write a more complex book, but a ruthless editor pruned her manuscript down to the little that’s needed to make the puzzle and its solution plausible, with just enough hints to make Agatha’s world believable while you read about her. She’s a decent sort, really. I’ve read some of the later books, and unfortunately they don’t get better. This is the 2nd book in the series, later on they do get married, but their little ship of love encounters some very rough waters. **

Ronald Weinland The Prophesied End-Time (2004)

    Ronald Weinland The Prophesied End-Time (2004) Weinland exhibits several of the characteristics of a crank, chief among them the claim that everybody else is wrong, an obsessive focus on a single main claim, marshalling of supposedly supportive evidence, misinterpretation of facts, misunderstanding or ignorance of relevant data, and an utterly arbitrary interpretation of whatever evidence he finds.  Weinland is a self-styled prophet. It seems God vouchsafed him a true revelation of hitherto hidden truths while he was on a Mediterranean cruise and passed the island of Patmos where John claims to have written his Revelation. The hidden truth is that the tribulation is at hand, and Weinland knows exactly when it will happen.
     The book is incoherent, repetitive, and only the kind of fascination one feels when watching a wreck kept me reading. Weinland joined the Worldwide Church of God founded by Herbert W. Armstrong. After Armstrong’s death in 1986, this organisation broke up into dozens of splinter groups, one of them being Weinland’s. In 2011, he was convicted of breaking the tax laws of the USA by siphoning off church cash for his personal use, which is a common failing of cult leaders. In 2012 he started jail sentence.
     I looked him up on the web; the rage and vituperation aimed at him by former fellow Armstrongites is amazing. Skeptics’ blogs are considerably more polite, since he is after all a garden-variety con-man and crank, not much different from dozens like him. Since 2004 he has prophesied the start-date of tribulation several times, the most recent being May19 of this year.
     The book was an experience that I don’t intend to repeat. For more about cranks and crackpots and how to recognise them:
http://www.skepticblog.org/2010/07/08/martin-gardners-signs-of-a-crank/
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html
     Although these pages deal with science crackpots, they apply just as well to theological crackpottery. Weinland's predictions rest on a goodly number of pseudo-scientific notions, which I think is always a sign of religious weirdness. It's rather pathetic that so many religionists want the imprimatur of scientific respectability.

Agatha Christie Peril at End House (1932)

     Agatha Christie Peril at End House (1932) One of Poirot’s most famous cases, in which he almost fails to solve the puzzle The story is set in a Cornish resort town with the usual cast of vaguely upper-middle-class characters and their servants. Christie allows herself a little wit and character development, but as in all her earlier books, she focusses on the plot. This one works well, in part because a couple of subplots are well integrated into the main story. As in most of her early tales, Christie tries a variation on a standard plot, the murder by mistake. In this case, the intended victim is in fact the murderer, and almost gets away with it. Since Christie’s time, this variation has itself become a standard plot. The TV adaptation was especially well done, as I recall, with a satisfying amount of period detail, and the kind of acting that hints at hidden depths in the characters, which made them more engaging than Christie's originals. **½ (2005)

Nick & Helen Mika. Canada’s First Railway (1985)

     Nick & Helen Mika. Canada’s First Railway (1985) A history compiled as commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the first train on the Champlain and St. Lawrence Rail-Road. It consists of narrative, the few pictures (all conjectural) of the Dorchester and the carriages it hauled, a couple of sketchy maps, and reprints of newspaper articles and other documents. Clearly a labour of love, and very good as such. But one does want to know more, and Mika’s limited research makes those questions acute. Still, worth having and reading. **½ (2005)

John Mortimer. Clinging to the Wreckage (1982)

     John Mortimer. Clinging to the Wreckage (1982) A paradoxical memoir, mixing pain  and happiness, gloom and laughter. Mortimer knows  the frailties of human beings, including his own. I found this memoir moving, and, despite its melancholy, oddly uplifting. I think he wrote a continuation; if so, I’ll want to read it, too. *** (2005)