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カメラ悪魔の辞典 dictionaire du demon

2008-02-17 14:03:38 | book(本)
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I've been enjoying for a couple of weeks with this "The Devil's Dictionary about Camera" by Chotoku Tanaka, 2003.
Chotoku Tanaka is the only critics about the classic cameras who can takes good pictures with the old cameras in Japan. In spite of his difinition about the critics in this dictionary, he is a good photographer. He is one of the famous correctors of classic camera including all of Leica brand.

Camera critic: 1. the irony of the "Camera writer." In common they criticize cameras at the media of non-commercial and look the articles would be reliable. But the fact is they are irresponsible writers who valuate everything whether it fits to their liking. For begginers their informations are vain and poison.
2. The cynist, the agitator,and dangerous person who insists that the classic cameras are better than modern cameras, and that the cheap price cameras are better than the expensive ones. They everytime get their money with insisting the anti-common-sense of values to get the common users in confusion. The camera compyanies regard them as necessary evils who sometimes would plead the swindling advertisements of the new expensive model of cameras.

In this book, there is only one camera which is commented without any irony or negative. It is Ricoh GR-1.

(@おさかな食堂、パールセンター、阿佐谷南3丁目、Asagayaminami, Suginami ward)
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Shoot The Scene by Ellery Queen

2008-01-15 04:52:26 | book(本)
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Shoot The Scene by Ellery Queen
Dell Publishing co., Inc. 1966 0.5 $.

I bought this book at the Sendai Maruzen Book store ,in 1967 and I've forgotten it for fourty years. I remember the first ten pages to remember why I've forgoten it so long time. This Ellery Queen's book is not a Detektive Ellery Queen's mystery. So I lost my concern about the book. The roll of the detektive is a Hollywood screenwriter, Casey Blake and not Ellery Queen! I was a teenager mystery reader. Ellery Queen is now one of my heroes. Casey Blake? Who is he?

Ellery Queen have (I dare write "have")a career as a screenwriter for a short time in their lives. The experience made them write a splendid novel, The Heart of Four. And they wrote this one, too.

Casey Blake is under a Big King of Hollywood, a great producer, Joe Maddox.
Joe loves Blake's talent of screenwriting so that Joe admitted Casey to use his villa for the holidays. The villa has no telephone. So Joe can spend his free time without bothering with Hollywood society, especially with Madeline D'Archy who is the most famous movie actress and sex queen of the world.

He spend his time to do surf casting and fishing.
One night he is awakened with two masked men who have kidnapped the wife of Joe Maddox and think nobody in the villa of the off Summer season. The first man is
a tall and the second man is short. They get astonished by the existence of Casey to confine him together. Two gangs are gentlmen. They start to negotiate with Joe about the ransom. Joe and friends actors report to FBI. The kidnappers request Joe to bring the rasom by himself. But Joe's relative actor proposes to play Joe's roll. During the time, Madeline visits to the villa with her underwares and swiming clothes. The number of hostages become three. The kiddnappers annoy with the selfish requests of the sex queen of Hollywood.
The kidnappers succeed to get ransom with tricks against the FBI. And at the last stage of recieving ransom, the catastropph occurs. One of the kidnappers shoots the relative of Joe who resembles to Joe too much.
At last police find three persons in good conditions in the villa.
And Casey start to deduce who are the criminals.

I've become a tough reader of mystery for these fourty years. So tough that I could deduce the true criminal before Casey does.

And now I remember the fact that I read this papaerbook through thirty years ago and I only remembered the answer!

But I can remember the seashore of California. I miss the smell of the sea and fogs and the sound of waves. This is a happy California story.

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The Dark Place by Aaron Elkins

2007-07-11 20:25:45 | book(本)
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Is there a lost world in America? Yes, it is in the middle of the Washington State's Olympic National Park.
Is there a lost tribe in America? Yes, it is there.
If you doubt it, please read this mystery and to visit the Rain Forest with the skeleton detective, Gideon Oliver.

In the national park, hikers vanished in a trecking route which has been blockaded. And a new lost has happened. A young woman is missing.
Then, people find a few set of old bones in a old indian basket. Gideon is invited for the inspection of the bones. Among them, a relatively new bones is there. Gideon judges the bones is of a young white man and the time would be back to eight years ago. The skeleton detective assumes that the man might be killed wit a bone spear used a super human power.
Journalism get excited with his opinion so as to jump the easy conclusion: there lives a supernatural wild creature, like a snow man, has done it. From all of the U.S.A. supernatural maniacs gather in the park to find it.
Gideon determine the weapon is a paleolithic bone spear. Gideon's ex-teacher, professor Abe wouldn't deny the conclusion and gives him the knowledge about the lost Indian tribe, Yahi. Julie, a woman park ranger would not admit there has been a Indian tribe in the park. The last Yahi died in the mid of the 20th century which is very very later from the paleolithic age. Gideon believes Yahi tribe survives in the park and they would have involved with the killings. Gideon thinks this is not a criminal murder but also a killing of war against the white man's America. U.S.A has perished these minorities since 17th centuries and one of the perished tribes has kept fighting against the white invaders.
Gideon trys to persuade them to stop the war. He walks into the Rain Forest......and loses his way in the heavy rain in the forest to be found and rescued by Julie. Gideon and Julie manage to find the small tribe among which the killer has been living.

In this novel, Gideon meets Julie to fall in love with her.

Like American white people, Japanese have perished the minor tribes in the islands for fifteen hundred years. But Japan is too narrow to create the fantasy in which a lost tribe survive freely.

The Dark Place, 1983 copyright by Aaron Elkins, 1986(Mystery Press edition), 2005(Berkley Prime Crime Books)

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Hard Time by Sara Paretsky

2007-05-06 20:57:37 | book(本)
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The private detective V.I. Warshawski is forty two years old.

One night she went to the Hollywood star's party with her friends.
In the mid night during the driving back home she found a body on the road.
She managed not to run it down and her car slipped and got broken.
She examined a body of a dead young woman and found wounds owing to being kicked by some one. The police interviewed her and made documents which would be lost in the police at next day. The body of the victim lost in the hospital. And a villain cop stalked her. He tried to arrest her owing to the possession of drug in her office. But she found the packs of drug and washed them away in the toilet. She started investigating the dead philipino woman's past.
The young woman had worked as a nurse in a big security company's owner's home.
where she had been accused for a theft of a necklace. She needed money for her ill baby. She had been sent to a private prison which was run by the company of the security company. The prison announced she had escaped and might have died with a traffic accident. And a man who have a factory of T-shirt ,which the dead woman had put on, telephoned to V.I. to visit his company in the night. Though she knew well it was trap, but she went there to be shot with the cop and lads. She managed to escape from the factory. Next morning she knew the T-shirt company owner's body had been found in the lake.
But, V.I. asked herself why her body had lost, where it was and why the documents about V.I.'s interview had been lost in the police? Why and how she put the T-shirt on, if she had run away from the prison ?
A son of the security company's owner visited her about the doubt of the death of his nanny and against his father who had been abused his son. The villain cop got chance to arrest V.I. for kidnapping of the son. The owner behind the cop sent her to his private prison. Almost of her friends and acquaintances left her. Only a journalist Morrell, a neighbor old Contreras, a local traditional Father Lou and an old doctor Lotty and two dogs fought with her against the big security company's owner.
At the end of the story, V.I. came back in success. The bad cop was dead in the last battle in a church. The vicious men would be fired and accused by police.
But the bad boss, the big security company's owner would not be accused in the local political system in Chicago, but he got harmed seriously with V.I.s dog, Peppy which was shot and wounded by the bad boss. The last battle was occurred when the son escaped from the boot-camp to the home of V.I. who took him to the church.

Copyright Sara Paretsky, 1999. Penguin Books.
ISBN 0-14-029278^0
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" The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria"

2007-04-12 19:28:13 | book(本)
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Laura is "the granddaughter of Chinese and Korean immigrants".
The stage of this mystery is the Edo era.
The detective is Ichiro Sano, the detective commanded directly by the Shogun Tsunayoshi Tokugawa. The name of his position is "The Sosakan-sama."

Her Edo-world is a fantastic fiction world. The wife of Sano walks around Edo with her husband's followers for investigation. The wife of Yanagisawa,the second commander of Edo bakufu, creeps around behind the ceiling of Edo castle. And the wives of high-lank officers hold a party freely.
The samurai-high-officials and the shogun have a meeting with smoking with Kiseru(= pipe). The chief of the metropolitan police can investigate the case of Samurai. And Yanagisawa and the chief of the police are lovers. The exectives in Edo government visit often to Yoshiwara like modern Japanese politicians have dinner meetings at Japanese cuisine restaurants.

And the heir of the Shogun is killed in a bed-chamber of Yoshiwara!
The lady Wisteria( 藤太夫 ), a prostitute, disappears.
She has a habbit of writing a pillow book (枕草紙) which disappers with her.
Hoshina the chief of the metropolitan police ,the political rival of Sano, arrests the woman manager of the lady Wisteria and a popular Taiko-singer to execute them steadily.

This Edo world is very absurd and nonsensical for the ordinary Japanese who enjoy carton comics and the dramas of TV which are all as absurd as the Laura's novel. But Laura's novels got a great success in the U.S. In the near future, ordinary American believes the Edo world would be like the world of Laura.

I've just gotten her another book, "Black Lotus" at the Oazo-Maruzen.

St.Martin's Press hardcover edition / April 2002
St.Martin's Paperbacks edition / April 2003
Copyright 2002 by Laura Joh Rowland
ISBN: 0-312-98378-6
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"Drop Shot" by Harlan Coben

2007-04-09 19:11:02 | book(本)
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When I read this paper book, it was drenched badly in the bag on a heavy rainy day. I had to lay its on the Vaio to dry it naturally. I had to wait a full months.

The stage of Myoron Bolitar, a sport agent, in this novel is the U.S. Open Tennis tournament. One of his client player, Eddie Crane who was born in the poor African-American family keeps continuous victories in the tournament. An contract problem occurs on the young player. A big agent connected with a family of N.Y. mafia proposes him to make a new contract. His family advise him to change the agent. Myron tells him that it's is his problem to make a decision and add that if Myron would keep his management, at the sixty years old the player would live a rich and comfortable life and that the mafia agent would give him a bigger money in those few years than Myron would be able to.
Out side of the stadium, a ex-famous girl champion player, Valery Simpson is shot to death. The day before the murder, she tried to meet with Myron. She visited the Myron's office, but before the return of him, she left rapidly. Before the murder, Valery met with Eddie.
The police doubts Eddie has to do with the murder. Myron starts the investigating.
Myron finds: Eddie's friends in the childhood broke into a court of the mansion where the rich family of Valery's fiance held dinner party. The poor boys stole tennis rackets and found by Valery's fiance with his friends. They chased the black boys and the fiance was shot to die. One of the black boys managed to come back home and too much lessing of blood killed him. The leader of the black boys succeeded to escape. He could escape from the police and since them nobody has never seen him.
Myron assures that the secret of the new murder is originated from the old murders. He investigates into Valery life to interrogate her ex-coach. But this coach gets killed and the mafia agent threatens Myron.

It is fun to chase the dark side of American professional tennis world with Myron and Win.

Published by Dell Publishing, copyright 1996 by Harlan Coben.
ISBN:0-440-22045-9 June 1998
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A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg

2006-07-13 14:51:13 | book(本)
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There lives a man of 52 years old in Chicago, named Osward T Cambell. One day on a December the doctor informs him that his emphysema is so critical as not to srurvive through the hard winter of Chicago. The doctor advise him to remove the moderate climate region. He says, "even with you going better climate, the most optimistic prognosis I can give you is a year ... or maybe two."

So he leaves Chicago for a town of Lost River, Alabama.
He is wellcomed by a good people in the town and a redbird which can not fly owing to the old damage of wings and which is always walking in a drugstore all day long.
He can have a wonderful Christmas at there and he survives through the winter.
He finds a hobby to paint the birds and flowers.

One day a creol young girl, Pasty, who has a heavy handicap on her legs appears to become a best friend of the redbird Jack. In a few weeks, she becomes a good friend with Osward and other people who live around the store. She is an orphan like as Osward was. Her handicap began since her birth day. The doctor says, "She feels very bad pain every time when she moves or walks. " Nobody has heard she complained about the pain.

The oprations need more than two thousand dollars. For the people it is too much money. But the people can manage to make it. Osward go to a picture dealer with his twenty seven drawings. The dealer says, "I will pay 250 dollars." Osward thinks that the sum is not much but it is better than nothing. But when he see the check, he gets shocked. The 250 dollars is for a piece. He earns more than sity seven hundred.

Before the day Pasty goes to the hospital, Jack dies. People astonishe too much and hide the death of the redbird from her. After the succeeded operations and in the way of rehabilitation, near the second Christmas for Osward in the Lost River, Pasty comes back to be told the redbird have flown back to the sky with their friend bird. Pasty gets dissapointed to effect her rehabilitation. She writes to Santa Clause that Jack would visit her on the Christmas with his family. This problem is too difficut for the people and for Osward.

But in the morning of the Christmas day, it snows! And in the white world hundreds of redbirds fly around. One of them lands on the windowsil of Pasty to wink her and fly away.

It is a very very happy fiction. Next time I go to the book store, I would look for another Fannie Flagg's work without fail.

Copyright 2004 by Willium Lane Production
2005 Ballantine Books Mass Market Edition
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CRUSHING CRYSTAL by Evan Marshall

2006-06-11 11:24:40 | book(本)
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The sleuth of this mystery is Jane Stuart who is a suceeded literary agent like the author. (Jane is of course a woman and Evan is a man.)
She lives with her son , his nanny Florence and two cat and a dog.
One day the nanny's sister Crystal appears. Crystal finds job as an assistant director of a public library. Crystal is am extreme meddler so that many enemies claim to Florence and Jane about the meddlings of Crystal. Jane tries to persuade Crystal in vain. One day Crystal is crashed to die with the falling bookshelf in the library. Stanely, a police detektive and a lover of Jane, tells her the bolts which fixed the shelf to the wall are removed. Chrystal is killed.
There are enemies of Crystal all around the town. The police find hardly a criminal. Florence asks Jane to find the killer.

This is not a great mystery but a good one. I cann't recomend it you should go to a book store to get it for itself.
(@hut in a construction site in the Tama river)
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Can the cats and dog drive a Porsche 911?

2006-06-03 11:28:20 | book(本)
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CAT ON THE SCENT by Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown

The Crozet is boiling with the heat of the Civil war reenactment.
And it is boiling for the hot argument about the construction for water supply.
When the feline detective Mrs. Murphy takes a walk in a foggy evening, she watches a plane landing down at an abandoned farm and two people walking out from it. She can not identify them. And after the night a man disappears.
On the festival day, a rich English land owner is shot on his back in the battle reenactment. He gets seriously wounded...
The mystery story is very interesting, but Mrs. Murphy's adventure is more interesting than that.
Near the end of the story, Blair Bainbridge (is a handsome model and lives on the farm next to Harry and family) is shot in his Porsche 911 in front of the cats and dog (Mrs. Murphy, Pewter and Tucker). For helping him, the animals makes up their mind to manage to drive the Porsche 911. Harry gets astonished to see her cats and dog driving slowly the car and shocked to see Blair is wounded seriously on his head. Harry dials 911.
If you want to know how the animals could drive a Porsche 911, please get this book.
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MURDER IN THE QUEEN'S ARMES by AAron Elkins

2006-03-31 20:40:56 | book(本)
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Anthropologist Gideon Oliver who is well known as "skelton detective" goes to England with his bride Judie. During this honeymoon, he visits a museam where he finds a 30,000-year-old skull is not so old one. Somebody stole it.
After then they visits his old friend Nate, a ambitious archaeologist who insists the Myceneans from Greece migrated to England to start the British Bronze Age in about 1700 B.C. Nate believes himself having found a myceneans bones in the dig site near the Dorchester. But Nate doesn't want to show the bones to Gideon. Nate doesn't tell gideon he has gotten the bone, but only the evidences.
One of the digging stuffs of Nate, Randy asks to Gideon to meet him in the evening about the finding. But this evening, he does not visit to Gideon.
So Gideon and bride leave there to continue their honey moon.
After a month, they back to the seaside to know nobody knows where Randy is.
Gideon tells to Nate that the bone is not an old Mycenans but a skull of 30,000 year old which stole from a musium.
The skelton detective is asked , by local police, to see the strange dead which was found almost as bones.
He thinks the bone was belong to a young white man who has ever been a professional baseball player as a pitcher and who was a rider of chopper type motorbike.
This profile of bone agrees with Randy's career. It's a great job of reasonning.
And after here, this book turns an ordinery good detective story.
(Copyright 1985 by Aaron Elkins
Berkley Prime Crime market-edition, 2005)
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