![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/BRlead-Sept7.jpg\")
\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Posted:
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tSeptember 7, 2025\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\tBe transported into a fascinating, rich literary world<\/p>\n
Book Review<\/p>\n
By Derryll White<\/p>\n
Dunning, John (2006).\u00a0 The Bookwoman\u2019s Last Fling.<\/p>\n
This is a story about a rich woman, Candice, who had an incredible rare book collection. She embodies the best parts of being a bibliophile and Dunning perhaps does not focus enough on these attributes. She is plagued by a bibliomaniac who has to have her collection. This introduces Cliff Janeway, an ex-Denver, Colorado cop who owns a bookstore and was, in past novels of the Bookman series, an ardent collector of first edition fiction hardbacks.<\/p>\n This fact alone sets the Bookman series of five novels apart as something different in the mystery genre.<\/p>\n The first in the series, \u2018Booked To Die,\u2019 (1992), received all kinds of laudable reviews.\u00a0 It taught a lot about book collecting in its mystery format and spawned something called \u201chypermodern collecting.\u201d\u00a0 This only lasted a few years, mainly among mystery fans. Dunning\u2019s advice was \u201cSell the book when the book is hot!\u201d<\/p>\n Dunning (1943-2023) was involved in a bookselling business in Denver, with his wife Helen Dunning. The Old Algonquin Bookstore opened in 1984, specializing in rare collectible volumes, and closed in 1994. Helen Dunning has continued it as an internet and mail order book business at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n John Dunning\u2019s writing career was ended by a brain tumor in 2006 so \u2018The Bookwoman\u2019s Last Fling\u2019 is also his own last fling.\u00a0 The series is of real interest to people who love real, tangible books.\u00a0 Picking up any of the titles transports the reader into a fascinating, rich literary world.<\/p>\n ********<\/p>\n Excerpt from the novel:<\/p>\n BOOKPLATE \u2013 I picked a beautiful copy of Heidi and carefully opened it.\u00a0 I was guessing seven grand, maybe twelve for this copy, but what drew my immediate attention was an elaborate color bookplate tightly affixed to the inside front board.\u00a0 The illustration showed an adolescent girl standing naked in a bright garden with her right arm wrapped around a tiger, her left dropped below her navel and hidden by a bush.\u00a0 I opened another book, same bookplate.\u00a0 The material looked like vellum, perhaps paper vellum, which I had heard could be almost as tough as leather.\u00a0 The background was a fleshy pink, the style art deco.<\/p>\n Article Share<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Posted: September 7, 2025 Be transported into a fascinating, rich literary world Book Review By Derryll White Dunning,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[412,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-1790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/BR-Dunning-189x300.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHis tombstone should read \u2018He loved books!\u2019.\u201d\u00a0 \u2013 George Easter<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/BR-The-Bookwomans-Last-Fling-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a>All of this is particularly relevant to \u2018The Bookwoman\u201ds Last Fling\u2019 where Janeway\u2019s life partner, Erin, is also his partner in the bookstore. The author actually pulls much from his early life with this, his last novel. Dunning did work as a stable hand at a horse racing track and all of this story centres on the racing life and horse track etiquette.\u00a0 In fact, the novel strays from the bookman theme in its focus on the day-to-day work of racing.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/derryllwhite.jpg\")
<\/a>\u2013\u00a0Derryll White\u00a0once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.\u00a0 When not reading he writes history for the web at\u00a0www.basininstitute.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n