Eclectic round-up: biography of Lady Randolph Churchil, Alphonse by Mme de Genlis, John Grisham

John Grisham's latest, The Appeal, has disappointed me a little. I really enjoyed his earlier novels, but as time goes by he hangs his plots of particularities of the legal profession and uses his novels as a bully pulpit. This last one isn't that good, but I'd read all of them and so I wanted to keep up. The biography, American Jennie, was superficial in its treatment and without insight in its conclusions. Finally (I must be crabby), Mme de Genlis' novel Alphonse about an illegitimate child was melodramatic in its plot, and didn't have her usual charm in writing. I also read a large number of magazines: Vanity Fair, with an article on women comedians which managed to be boring, this week's New Yorker, with an interesting article on magic and magicians, among other things, two issues of the New Scientist, Elle Quebec, and OK magazine. Meanwhile I'm carefully watching a storm brewing on Obama and his church attendance by reading dozens of newspaper articles and columns online.