They All Came to Barneys

 

Sadly, I never got to go to Barneys. Apparently there was one at South Coast Plaza but by the time I was old enough to know about such things it was long gone. I went into Neiman's once and immediately turned around and went out. I could see it was definitely too bougie for me (my budget, not my tastes. As far as tastes went, it was right up my alley). I'm pretty sure Barneys would have been similar.

Barney Pressman started Barneys in New York in the 1920s as a discount men's suit store. His son, Fred, decided to take the store in a different direction and focus on quality and up and coming designers. Fred loved well made clothes. When his son, Gene, turned twenty-one, he joined his father and grandfather at the store. Gene was the one who convinced Fred to branch out into women's clothing, and the store flourished for decades. Barneys became known as the place to go to see the newest, coolest things. Not just clothes, but home furnishings. Barneys sold things that you couldn't get anywhere else and discovered some major designers and brought them to America for the first time. 

So how did it all fall apart? Part of it was ambition. They wanted to open more stores throughout the country and of course the stores had to be built with the finest materials and designed by famous architects. They ended up going into a partnership with a Japanese firm. They couldn't pay the bills and Barneys declared bankruptcy. By then Barney was gone and Fred followed not long after. Gene and his younger brother, Bob, ended up losing the company their grandfather built from nothing. 

From what I understand, Bob is also writing his own tell-all book, and Gene doesn't come out of it looking well. So Gene struck first.

One of the best parts of the book was when Gene talked about hiring a woman for the store who thought nothing about wearing tiaras to work as business casual and how she was the only one he'd ever met who thought that way. That's me too! I don't honestly understand why more people don't wear tiaras (and crowns) to work on a regular basis. You only get the one life. You should enjoy it.  

The Last Death of the Year

 

I have to say, I was disappointed by this one. Normally I really enjoy Hannah's Poirot mysteries, but for some reason this one just didn't hold my interest. 

Catchpool and Poirot go to the Greek island of Lamperos for New Year's Eve. They're staying at a house known as the Spitty, inhabited by a group of people who, forty years later, would be called a commune. It's a ragtag group of people who subscribe to a philosophy of forgiveness above all else. 

Their leader, Austin, proposes a game in which everyone writes down their New Year's resolution and puts it in a container. Catchpool will them read them one by one and everyone has to try to figure out which resolution belongs to which person (sounds dreadfully boring to me, but hey, it was the 1930s). 

Catchpool comes to one resolution about murdering Matthew, one of the male members of the group, and he and Poirot are horrified at the prospect. Matthew takes it in stride, laughs it off as a joke, but no one confesses to having written it. 

So of course Matthew is murdered that evening. 

I can't say too much more without giving it away, but it was just lackluster. 

Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear

I finished this book on Sunday, which was National Winnie the Pooh day. I found that an interesting and unplanned coincidence!

I love Pooh bear. There's just something about him that makes me smile. I have a Pooh bear, he's my constant companion. He's a good friend. 

Christopher Robin Milne received his teddy bear for his first birthday, the other friends from the Hundred Acre Woods followed later. His father, A.A. Milne, wrote children's stories about Christopher and his bear. Milne was also a successful poet, playwright, and adult author as well, but of course he's best known for Pooh's stories. 

Christopher was his only child and while they were close when Chris was younger, they drifted apart once Chris became an adult. There was some resentment on Chris's part about how he helped his father gained success. He made his peace with being "Christopher Robin" in his later years, especially after having a daughter with cerebral palsy. The fortune he inherited from his dad's stories allowed him and his wife to get Clare the medical attention she needed, and to this day the trust in her name helps others with disabilities. 

The original Pooh and his friends live at the New York Public Library. Milne sent them on a publicity tour to the US, and they ended up at his New York publisher's office. Chris didn't want them back, so there they stayed until the publisher donated them to the library. They are the number one attraction, out of all the amazing things at NYPL. Over the years attempts have been made, including President Obama and the Prime Minister calling to ask the library to send the bear back home, and the library has politely declined. Pooh is theirs, and he's staying. 

The first story featuring Pooh bear was published on December 24, 1925, so we are celebrating 100 years of Pooh bear. I'm sure he will be around for 100 more 😊

 

Trixie Belden and the Mystery off Glen Road

It's been a hot minute since I reread this one, so I figured why not? It's quick and it makes me laugh. 

A storm blows through Sleepyside, and a tree knocks out part of the roof of the Bob Whites newly restored clubhouse. The kids don't have a dime to their name, having spent all their money on fixing up the clubhouse, except for Brian, who has saved $50 for Mr. Lytell's old Ford. Brian, being all noble, insists that he spend the money on supplies to fix the clubhouse.

Trixie doesn't want Brian to lose his car, and since the Wheeler's game keeper quit abruptly, she suggests the Bob Whites take over patrolling the preserve for the week, since it's the Thanksgiving holiday. That way, they can earn the $50. The only problem is, how to keep Mr. Lytell from selling the car before then? 

Trixie has a solution, of course! Jim gave her his great-aunt's diamond ring, which her father put in a safety deposit box. All Trixie has to do is convince her dad to let her have the ring for the week, give it to Mr. Lytell for security until they earn the $50, and then Brian can still have his car. Honey agrees it's a fine idea, but how to convince Mr. Belden to let tomboy Trixie have her ring? It's not like she dresses up or wears jewelry.

Honey has a solution, of course! Her cousin, Ben Riker, is coming to spend the holidays with the Wheelers, so Trixie must pretend to have a crush on Ben and therefore, become more feminine and want to wear jewelry, like her ring. Trixie hates the idea (mostly because Ben is a big pest and no one likes him) but without another solution forthcoming she rolls with it.

It works! Mr. Belden gets the ring for Trixie, who turns it over to a very suspicious Mr. Lytell, and the kids start patrolling the preserve. When Trixie and Honey discover a deer carcass, they're convinced they've come across a poacher on Mr. Wheeler's land!

It was lots of fun and the kids tease each other mercilessly (in a nice, clean cut, 1950s kind of a way), so that's always amusing. I love Trixie and her friends. 

The Last Devil to Die; Dolly Parton: Star of the Show

 

I swear I've been reading over the last few weeks, just not *finishing*. But I did finish two over the weekend, and they were both really good.

First up, the fourth Thursday Murder Club Mystery by Richard Osman (I watched the Netflix movie about the first book a few weeks ago and it was really good! I'm hoping they'll make more, but since they changed Bogdan's story in the movie I'm not sure what they can do going forward). This book had a lot of sad moments that I don't want to spoil, but I cried several times. 

One of Stephen's (Elizabeth's husband) friends is murdered after discovering heroin in a box that someone left at his shop. Now the box and the heroin are missing, and there are quite a few people looking for it. And even more dying. 

And Garth was wrong. The best Nirvana songs are not "Sliver" or "Heart Shaped Box". I'd put "Heart Shaped Box" in the top 10, but not "Sliver". The best Nirvana songs are: "Blandest", "Drain You", and "Lounge Act". 

All in all, it was a solid story with a good ending and I'm looking forward to the fifth one. I think that gets me all caught up, so Osman will need to write faster now 😊

Speaking of great songs: National treasure Dolly Parton. I will listen to "Jolene" on repeat for days. There's a legend that she wrote "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" on the same day. If it's true, then she accomplished more in 24 hours then I have in *mumble mumble* years. Just amazing. 

What a classy lady and she has such great style. This book was full of terrific photos and her memories of performing over the last sixty plus years. It wasn't a traditional biography per se, but it was fun to hear her remember some of her favorite moments from her shows. She's been working her butt off her whole life. I was exhausted just reading it. 

She's approaching her 80th birthday and I know she's having health issues. She isn't going to make her celebration at the Grand Ole Opry. I hope she'll be okay. I don't think any of us are ready for her to go just yet. 

In Such Good Company; Rewinding the '80s; The Bullet that Missed

I caught part of "Gone with the Wind" on TV one night, and afterwards they showed the hilarious sketch from Carol's show, the one where they spoof "GWTW" and she's wearing the curtain rod dress (if you haven't seen it, look it up). So I decided to read her book and it was a lot of fun. Plus now I'm watching "The Carol Burnett Show" on one of the million streaming services I subscribe to. Such a great show! I watched "Mama's Family" when I was a kid, and that came out of a sketch from her show. 

When I was younger I always got Carol and Vicki Lawrence mixed up and it's easy to see how. Vicki got her start on Carol's show at 18, fresh out of high school. They were looking to cast someone to play Carol's younger sister in some of the sketches and Vicki looked so much like a young Carol she was a perfect fit. The show had so many amazing guest stars: Tim Conway was a treasure, and Paul Lynde, Jonathan Winters, the list goes on and on. She obviously enjoyed working with so many funny, talented people. 

I was a bit trepidatious going into this one because so often the author makes it needlessly political, but Malahy didn't, which was refreshing. And it was a lot of fun to reminisce about the 1980s films. My parents didn't believe in watching kids' movies, so my sister and I saw a lot of these films as children: "Risky Business" was a favorite, as was "Beverly Hills Cop". I had no idea what was going on in "Risky Business", by the way, I just thought it was hysterical to watch Tom Cruise dancing to Bob Seger in his underwear and then running to catch that glass egg of his Mom's. The rest of it went over my head. This book brought back a lot of fond memories. 

 

Osman's third Thursday Murder Club, "The Bullet that Missed" was good. 

Joyce suggests that the club investigate a murder from a decade ago: Bethany Waits, who was a news broadcaster. She supposedly drove her car off a cliff but the body was never found. She was digging into a case of VAT fraud and about to expose the perpetrator. 

I can't really say too much more without giving it away, but the prime suspects in Bethany's murder start dying and members of the club are in danger. 

 

The People Vs. the Golden State Killer

 

This was an interesting look at how the GSK was caught and prosecuted. 

Ho was the lead prosecutor for the case, the trial being held in Sacramento. Apparently it was quite a process to decide who would be involved and where the trial would be held, since the killer's crimes covered a large swath of California, all the way from Sacramento to Dana Point. A lot of different agencies were involved. 

For multiple reasons, including the pandemic and the age of the victims and witnesses, the DA accepted a plea deal and took the death penalty off the table so the killer could plead guilty and be sentenced to life in prison without parole. I think it was a smart move, since no one who gets the death penalty in California ever is actually executed. And it allowed the victims of his crimes to hear him admit in court what he did and for them to make victim impact statements, which lasted for days since there were so many of them. I'm glad they finally got their justice and hopefully some measure of peace.