∎ Read Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Alan Bradley 9781409120018 Books

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Alan Bradley 9781409120018 Books

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Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Alan Bradley 9781409120018 Books

Why can't Amazon post a simple list of an author's titles in order of publication? If you discover an author, you might like to read them in the order they were written, to appreciate the characters' (and the author's) development. Here's the list of Alan Bradley's charming, scary, funny Flavia de Luce Novels, as of December 2014.

Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce novels in order:
1. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, 1/2010
2. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, 2/2011
3. A Red Herring Without Mustard, 10/2011
4. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, 10/2012
5. Speaking from Among the Bones, 12/2013
6. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, 1/2014
7. As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, 1/2015
Enjoy!


Tags : Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie [Alan Bradley] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. It is the summer of 1950–and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison,Alan Bradley,Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie,Orion Publishing Ome,1409120015

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Alan Bradley 9781409120018 Books Reviews

Alan Bradley's novels work grandly on so many levels. Most reviewers have touched both on Flavia's character and the plot; I only want to add that (IMO) she is truly 11 and she is truly precocious. She goes charging around on Gladys, shouting at the top of her lungs "Oomba-chuckka! Oomba-chukka Oomba-chukka-Boom!", then in the next instant goes into rhapsodies about chemistry. (I happened to also be reading Reavis Z. Worthams's Red River series at the same time, which has two youngsters about Flavia's age, and the focus on the ability of kids that age to hone in on details is the same. I also work a lot with that age group, and most 11-year olds are beginning to exhibit that annoying quality of being able to notice things you wish they wouldn't and argue constantly in support of their point of view.)

Besides loving Flavia, I also greatly admire Bradley's way with the English language--his sentences are clear and flowing, his descriptions out of the ordinary, and his similes/comparisons are never trite or overworn. Where else could you read "Don't puff out your cheeks like that It makes you look like a petulant pear." or "If poisons were ponies, I'd put my money on cyanide." or "I turned my attention to the steamer trunk, which was covered over with stickers like barnacles clinging to the hull of a ship. These colorful crustaceans, however,. . ." (I also greatly enjoy the alliteration).

Too, his work is a gold mine of cross-references to chemistry and chemical factoids, as well as music and literature. It's been a long time since I've read books that had so much interesting information that I can use to choose Pandora selections, include in my tours as a docent at our local museum, and just plain "literary treasure hunts" on Google.

These are books I just had to buy, so I can cover them with sticky tabs, highlighting, and marginal notes. Thanks, Alan Bradley!
Alan Bradley's writing is a delight. Every sentence rings with descriptive and humorous wit. The narrator, Flavia de Luce is a highly precocious, curious, and extremely bratty eleven year old chemist, with a fascination for poisons. Her two older sisters torture, torment and insult her, but she is their equal in family battles. I loved reading this, the first in this heroine's series of murder mysteries (must I mention that she's an observant sleuth, whose sense of hearing and smell lend a richness to her skills of deduction?) so much that I raced into the next book in the series, and the next, and the next, and the next. To paraphrase a snack commercial of old, "Bet you can't read just one!"
Flavia de Luce goes outside early one morning only to find a stranger breathing his last words in their cucumbers. Normal 11 year old girls would have screamed and fled the scene, but Flavia is 100% intrigued and when her father is arrested for the crime, is soon trying to untangle the knots surrounding the stranger, a rare stamp, her father's old schoolmaster, and the dead man in the garden.

I've been missing out! I should have discovered this series ages ago. Oh well, I shall work on remedying that and catching up on the rest of the Flavia books pronto because Flavia is one plucky, precocious girl with just the right touch of crazy misfit. In her case, the misfit comes in the form of not really connecting with her older sisters and of having a better understanding of Chemistry than most college graduates; the crazy comes in a penchant for poisons. Though this series is relatively new, it has all the feel of an old classic by Sayles or Christie. I liked the 1950 England setting, as most mysteries either hit right during WWII or earlier, and it's nice to see a different era. And the mystery itself was written very well. I fully expected it to be about to wrap up when I was less than halfway through, but then it got deeper and more complex, and it definitely kept me guessing (though I did figure out who done it before Flavia). I'll definitely be reading the rest of this series.

Notes on content A handful of minor swear words and about 5 strong British swear words. No sex scenes. A maid talks about a man grabbing her from behind and it is hinted he does more, but she is talking to Flavia so that's all that is explained. Two deaths are described, one is not bloody at all, the other is but the injuries are not described at all. Violence is threatened at one point, but not carried out.
Why can't post a simple list of an author's titles in order of publication? If you discover an author, you might like to read them in the order they were written, to appreciate the characters' (and the author's) development. Here's the list of Alan Bradley's charming, scary, funny Flavia de Luce Novels, as of December 2014.

Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce novels in order
1. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, 1/2010
2. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, 2/2011
3. A Red Herring Without Mustard, 10/2011
4. I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, 10/2012
5. Speaking from Among the Bones, 12/2013
6. The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches, 1/2014
7. As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, 1/2015
Enjoy!