Today’s Post by Joe Farace
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.—Mark Twain
I have always though of myself not necessarily as a “bookie” but more of a bibliophile, someone who collects and has a great love of books. But according to BookGlow, that definition may not be entirely correct because they claims there are 25 different words for different kinds of book lovers. I may, in fact, be a Librocubicularist, someone who reads in bed and while that is certainly a place where i do read, I also like to read while seated in the comfy plaid chair in my office or in another, more elegant, chair in the living room that’s situated next to a fireplace and is a favorite Winter reading spot.
Some Random Book Thoughts
As I write this my “books read in ’23” count stands at 33. I don’t know if I will break last year’s record of 71 books and I’m not going to try. I’m just enjoying reading new (and old) books as well as new authors, such as…
Robert Goldsborough is an American author that is best known for continuing Rex Stout’s famous Nero Wolfe (more below) series. Goldsborough’s first novel starring Wolfe, Murder in E Minor (1986), was met with acclaim from both critics and fans, winning a Nero Award from the Wolfe Pack. Archie Goes Home is the fifteenth book in the series and I’ve reserved a copy from my local library. Look for a review here when it shows up/
What I’m Reading Right Now
It now it appears that I have become a Rex Stout junkie. It all started innocently enough on a night while I was, in fact, sitting in my favorite living room chair while Mary was sprawled across the sofa reading the monthly newsletter she gets from Barnes and Noble. They were having some kind of paperback sale and she suggested I get one of Jonathan Kellerman’s earlier Alex Delaware novels, But she was struggling finding another one—to get the “special” deal—until she bounced onto Rex Stout’s The Silent Speaker. I told her that sound good because I had never read any Nero Wolfe books.
All of the paperbacks in the “Rex Stout Library” series include an introduction by a famous mystery writer talking about why they love Stout’s work. In The Silent Speaker it was Walter Mosley, who wrote the recent Every Man a King, that I really enjoyed not just as a mystery novel but a thoughtful and contemplative piece of modern literature. What Mosley enjoyed most about the Nero Wolfe books, he wrote, was the narrative written by Wolfe’s right-hand man, Archie Goodwin, and I quickly discovered that he was so right. So much so, than I wanted to read another Nero Wolfe book fast and purchased a used paperback copy of The Doorbell Rang from eBay, one of Stout’s later novels that he wrote between Fer-de-Lance in 1934 and A Family Affair in 1975.
Recently I picked up a box set of four Wolfe paperback novels on eBay, including Fer-de-Lance and three other early novels including The Mother Hunt, Black Orchids, and Might as Well be Dead. As I write this, I am about three-quarters into Fer-de-Lance and while it’s the the first book in the series, it has all the hallmarks of the later books, including the charm, whimsy of both the story telling and Stout’s brilliance as an engaging writer,
If you’ve never read Nero Wolfe before, I suggest that you poke around a used book for the cheapest battened copy you can find of any of the books and give it a read. If you don’t like it, you’ll only be out few bucks but, if, like me, you love it you’re in for a wonderful ride. After all, Wolfe and Goodwin were featured in 33 novels, and 41 novellas and short stories., so there’s lots to catch up with.
In 1929, Rex Stout wrote his first published book How Like a God, In 1931. an electric typewriter was introduced by Varityper Corporation yet while Stout was a prolific writer. he continued to use an antique manual typewriter through the completion of his last Nero Wolfe book. But get this: He never rewrote. He wrote a first draft, sent it to the publishers and he was done. I once took a master class with Kurt Vonnegut and one of the things he emphasized to us was “writing is re-writing.” Even Steven King another prolific writer, stresses that “editing is writing.” But not Stout, and so I am told, Issac Asimov, who was a fan of Stout’s work and wrote or edited more than 500 books.