Tag: Shelly Frasier

The Golden Slipper, and Other Problems for Violet Strange

by Derelict Space Sheep on August 23, 2025 in 42 Word Retrospectives • 0 Comments

The Golden Slipper, and Other Problems for Violet Strange

by Anna Katharine Green (1915)

audiobook read by Shelly Frasier (Tantor, 2009) [as “Mystery Stories of Violet Strange”]

This collection of detective novelettes holds up quite well, though their virtue lies more in the refined telling than in the mystery element (which often relies on highly improbable concatenations) or denouements (which generally lack catharsis). Violet herself makes a memorable impression.

Stiff

by Derelict Space Sheep on November 6, 2020 in 42 Word Reviews • 0 Comments

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

by Mary Roach (W. W. Norton, 2003); audiobook read by Shelly Frasier (Tantor, 2003)

Roach manages in a roundabout, discursive way to answer just about every question ever asked about human cadavers and how they’ve been treated throughout history. She does this respectfully and intelligently yet also with a wry humour (centred on her research journey).