Crime Fiction 10

It is a curious coincidence, that this post on the Judge Dee novels of Robert van Gulik should follow a post on the novels of Janwillem van de Wetering, as the latter, after discovering the books of the former in 1960s, was so taken with them he wrote a biography of Robert van Gulik which was published in 1988.

Robert van Gulik, like Janwillem van de Wetering, led an interesting and widely travelled life. He is famous for the Judge Dee novels, a series of novels set in ancient China, featuring the semi-fictional character of Judge Dee who is based on the historical figure Di Renjie, magistrate and statesman of the Tang court.

I have a small collection of the Judge Dee novels in my library several published in a uniform edition by University of Chicago Press in 1977, and two large format Dover books. They all contain illustrations by the author.

I am drawing to the end of my crime fiction collection, so should be able to polish them off in the next post or so. Coming next Barbara Vine & Patricia Wentworth.

Crime Fiction 9

Tonight I bring to you the wonderful detective fiction of Janwillem van de Wetering, who wrote a series of novels set in Amsterdam, featuring Grijpstra and De Gier who work as detectives for the Murder Brigade of Amsterdam Municipal Police.

van de Wetering had an interesting and adventurous life, which included a stint working for the police, in the Amsterdam Special Constabulary. He was also a practising Zen Buddhist. His novels are quirky with an off beat humour. He died in 2008, so alas no more Grijpstra and De Gier  novels.

I have a pretty good collection of his novels, some in British paperback editions, some in US editions.  In chronological order they are as follows:

I have two hard covers as well – The Mind Murders & The Street Bird which I have previously posted. I’m missing the later novels published in the 1990s.

Coming next – Judge Dee, the Chinese mystery novels of Robert Van Gulik

General Fiction – Janwillem van de Wetering, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut & Edith Wharton

This will be the last mass market paperback post for the moment, though I will be returning to this sort of book later on.

The two Janwillem van de Wetering books below are not actually fiction, but rather his description of his experiences in Zen Buddhist monasteries in Japan and America, They are quite entertaining to read. He is best known for his series of detective novels set in Amsterdam featuring engaging detectives, Grijpstra and De Geir, which I will get to later on and have already mentioned in an earlier post.

Next, the sole book by Gore Vidal in my collection – Myra Breckinridge with a really cool cover published by Panther in 1969.

So, onto my paperback collection of Kurt Vonnegut, published in the early to late 1970s – a mix of British and American editions.

And finally a rather pretty set of Edith Wharton novels published by Berkley in 1981.

Coming soon – Picador books

A Miscellany

This entry marks the end of the books I will display from the small bookshelf. From here on I will move onto bigger, and hopefully, better things on the other two bookcases.

First off, two hard cover copies of famous books, which I basically purchased to fill a gap when the paperback copies disappeared.

The Enormous Room I first read way back in the 1960s when my sister in law recommended it to me. It was her favourite book. It is an oddity, a memoir by ee cummings on his experience when he was detained as a suspected spy in France during the first world war. It is written in the idiosyncratic style Cummings later developed in his poetry.

The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien is one of the great absurdist novels and probably O’Brien’s best known novel. I do have a first edition copy of The Dalkey Archive on another bookshelf, but alas this edition of The Third Policeman is a later edition.

Janwillem Van De Wetering wrote a series of detective novels set in Amsterdam featuring Police Officers Grijpstra and de Geir, two very engaging characters. The novels are laid back and gently humorous with ingenious plots. The following two novels, The Mind Murders and The Streetbird were published in 1981 and 1983.

I am saddened to see, on his Wikipedia page, that Van de Wetering died early this month on July 4^th which coincidentally is the day the remarkable Thomas Disch chose to end his life.

Another pair of oddities – Azazel by Isaac Asimov and The Kingdom Fanes, are respectively, a collection of short stories featuring the two centimetre tall demon Azazel published in one volume in 1988, and the other is an unusual fairy tale by Amanda Prantera. As a physical object, The Kingdom of Fanes is a lovely little hard cover. Amanda Prantera wrote several metaphysical novels early in her career – Strange Loop and The Cabalist to name a few, and also wrote a sort of tribute to Lord Byron in her novel Conversations with Lord Byron on perversion, 163 years after His Lordship’s death. She is an interesting writer and deserves to be better known.

Lastly, two unusual Faber publications – The Mystery of the Sardine by Stefan Themerson and The Pearl Killers by Rachel Ingalls. These books were part of the haul given me by my Faber rep friend.

Oh, I almost forgot – Billion Year Spree by Brian Aldiss – a respected history of Science Fiction, a bit out of date these days, but still valid.

There may be a short hiatus in postings as I scan books for the next stage of bookcase revelations - art books, science fiction and fantasy.