I have a special place in my heart for Anne Fadiman’s essays. Several years ago my husband bought me her first collection Ex Libris, and spent my birthday reading “Marrying Libraries” aloud to me under a rose arbor in a favorite park.

When I saw her new book at the library, I had to read it. Unlike her first collection of essays, this book does not have one theme throughout. Instead, she meanders through varied interests, and whether she is discussing biographies of Charles Lamb or flavors of ice cream, she engages, amuses and informs. Fadiman’s essay voice is so much like BubandPie’s blogging voice that I sometimes find myself uncertain, as I muse over a remembered quote, which of the two wrote it (and I mean that as a compliment to them both).

Fadiman’s book concludes with an essay describing her memory of seeing a boy drown when she was a teen. The essay does not fit with the rest of the book, or rather, it changes the rest of the book. Instead of a pleasant diversion, her book of essays acquires a darker edge, ending with a kind of mea culpa for the detached observant nature that writes and makes connections between seemingly unconnected things.

I am uncertain why the final essay was included, and I frankly wished it had not been. Whether it was an extra bit included because there was no other place to put it, or it was a necessary catharsis for the author’s memory and emotions, or was included for more deliberate reasons, I think it was a mistake. The book generally maintains the tone of conversation between familiar friends, and the final essay ends the conversation on an abruptly tragic note. It would have been better developed into a separate book, or as a larger essay earlier and more integrated with the rest.

The famous author of the James Bond spy novels also wrote one children’s novel, a story about an unusual car rescued and restored by an eccentric family.

Caractacus Potts is an impecunious inventor who finally has a success with a new kind of candy. With the profits from his invention, he and his wife and son and daughter decide to buy a car. After looking around, they find an elegant old junker and decide to bring it home.

A car so well-built, so carefully restored and so loved proves to be more than meets the eye, and with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, as they name the car, magical things begin to happen. Chitty takes the Potts on several suspenseful adventures, each chapter ending in a cliffhanger. If you make this the kids’ bedtime book, expect a lot of complaints when you stop at the end of the chapter.

Fleming maintains an innocent lack of realism in Chitty. Throughout the story, even with its suspense and many dangers, there is an assumption that no one would really hurt the children. Criminals kidnap them, but, despite threatening them with harm, are too tenderhearted to wake the children from their nap.

The book is delightful, and unusual in its appeal to both girls and boys. It deserves to be a children’s classic, and deserved a better movie than the one it got.