RECOMMENDATION SUNDAY

[valancy_s]

BOOK: Reading about Sherlock Holmes, I came across a reference to "the best-selling mystery novel of the 19th century." Was it by Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allen Poe, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens? No! It was by a man named Fergus Hume, and though time has forgotten it, his The Mystery of a Hansom Cab was the Da Vinci Code of its day. Of course I had to track it down. Hume's 1880s novel is not only entertaining and surprisingly modern in spots (he's not as elegant a writer as some of his time, but this makes one realize people then must have talked much more informally than they wrote), it's also something new to me: a glimpse at Victorian-era Australia. Cravats in Melbourne! Mysterious death! Society scandal! If your library system is even halfway decent, this is so worth digging up.

FILM: One of the greatest films of all time is called It Happened One Night, and if you've never seen it, you're missing out on a real treat. Claudette Colbert plays a spoiled millionaire's daughter who runs away to marry a man her father disapproves of, and Clark Gable plays a washed-up reporter who promises to help her reach New York in exchange for exclusive rights to her story. Hijinks ensue, including the famous scene where he teaches her his strategy for hitchhiking. Can't be beat for zinging dialogue and pure charm!

SONG: Josh Rouse, It's the Nighttime. Great song; sorry I could only find a pathetic live recording.