Category Archives: Books

The Reason To Polish My Trophy Case

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Filed under Books, Fiction, Memoir

For a very long time, it did not occur to me not to read any book I started cover to cover.  I didn’t know I didn’t have to finish. Never giving myself permission to put a book down means I’ve done some serious hatereading. (Hatereading is my least favorite kind of reading. It ranks below carsickreading and interruptedreading.) It’s not like I’m going to qualify for the ‘Always Finishes The Book’ Prize because it doesn’t exist and there’s no scoreboard for it anyway. No one is keeping book scores except for the unreasonable compulsive asshole who lives in my head, and she should shut up. Letting meanless scorekeeping sabotage my Main Fun Thing by sucking all the fun out of it is somewhat shortsighted.  Reluctantly, but necessarily, I have given myself an out in some specific instances when it becomes clear and a book and I are not compatible. Even though the breakups are handled gently and with respect – I always take the book out for coffee, and I NEVER give the bad news over a text message -there is a little part of me that feels like I let the book down. Please join me as we twirl around like happy autumn leaves in a mini tour of my Hall of Shame.

The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo I tried with this book. Twice. I still can’t believe I could not finish it. TWICE. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo has all of my Basic Crime Fiction requirements: down-on-his-luck grizzled male narrator, badass female protagonist, and a film adaptation starring Daniel Craig. When I first picked it up it seemed Smilla’s Sense of Snow-ish, and I was down with that because I loved that book. When I could not get into it, I figured I was just was not in the mood in that moment to feel Swedish so I put it aside. Then suddenly everyone I knew had read it and then the movie was announced then everyone had read the second book in the series I was all, ok, what the hell am I missing here? I hunted up my copy, took it with me on a vacation, and I cracked it poolside. It was slow going but I kept telling myself it was going to get better! Any page now! After I’d been at it about half an hour, the friend I was with said “OH MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG YOU KEEP MAKING SIGHING NOISES EVERY FIVE MINUTES STOP IT RIGHT NOW OR ELSE.” My involuntary breathing hated the book as much as I did, and my friend hated my exasperated sighing. It was time to bail. Sorry, Dragon Tattoo. I wanted it to work out as much as you did.

The Hunt For Red October Like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Tom Clancy books qualify on paper as something I would really enjoy. (pause to hold for laughter at my awesome play-on-words-paper joke) But I bailed on The Hunt For Red October in the middle of a 3-page description of…omg, something about sonar? I leave these books for the gearheads who can truly appreciate the magic of a dimly lit submarine full of gauges, each requiring their own lovingly detailed description of detail-y details. Gauge on, my gearheads.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea Ok, you got me. I did not bail on this book. I’m just here to say I am never ever going to read it ever. This book has a giant squid in it, and I don’t read about spiders. I know a squid is not a spider but it’s close enough because 8 legs and squids are WORSE because suction cups all over the legs. The only book I have ever read about a spider was It and that is only because I DID NOT KNOW Stephen King was going to go all giant town-eating spider on my ass and by the time I figured it out I was too far into the book to stop. That is the last time I let Stephen King bait me with a serial killer clown and switch me to a sewer-dwelling Charlotte with a gland problem. In fact, consider this whole paragraph my official request that bookstores have an Octopod/Arachnid section where all books even remotely related to spiders or squids are shelved. This will make it convenient for me to never get near that section.

Eat, Pray, Love  I know. You loved it. Your friends loved it. Everybody everywhere loved it. I tried. I really did. I’m dead inside. I donated my copy to the library so everyone can continue to love it.

A Brief History Of Time Shut up. You didn’t finish it either.

 

ribbon

Thanks for playing.

It can be difficult to tell when it’s not working out with a book because sometimes my best reads are the ones that made me work a little. When I find myself fantasizing about accidentally dropping a book off a roof, I know it’s time to break up. It’s ok. We can’t make it across the finish line every time! I’ll pick up my participation trophy on the way out.

#hatereading

Action Items
Book breakups are hard. Give yourself time to grieve.

Image courtesy Creative Commons

The Reason For Blowing Smoke

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Filed under Books, Crime Fiction

I’m in the mood to spill some dirt today. I’m going to blow my own whistle – a statement which, in hindsight, carries way more innuendo than is appropriate for a book blog, but whatever. Let’s fire up this drum circle and share some secrets. This is a big one, so get ready:

BookReasons is not my real name.

That’s right-pseudonym isn’t just a word that let me kill it back in that 5th-grade spelling bee. It’s the literary equivalent of a secret identity. It’s authorial intrigue. It’s a title page bob and weave, a misdirection, an invisibility cloak. Writing and publishing under a name not your own is a practice as old as the written word.
Socrates: I had to publish all my fanfic under a pseudonym
Me: You wrote fanfic?
Socrates: A graphic novel AU where Zeus is a building code inspector
Me: Ruler of Olympus? That Zeus?
Socrates: Zeus is a little volatile
Me: I’ve heard
Socrates: So I figured, pseudonym was the best way to go
Me: Better than being turned into a bull
Socrates: HAHAHA Zeus is so unstable

Literary history is littered with works published under fake names. There are a lot of great reasons authors go deep undercover. Spreading salacious, mostly-true gossip (Benjamin Franklin as Alice Addertongue), safely discussing controversial topics (Benjamin Franklin as Polly Baker), or to create an author persona that gives a work legitimacy (Benjamin Franklin as Richard Saunders). For female authors, using an overtly male name provided an avenue to publication otherwise denied to women. Stephen King published under a pseudonym in the 1980s as a workaround to an industry restriction to publishing more than one book a year. My personal queen of all things pseudonym? J.K. Rowling.

J.K. Rowling actually doubled down in the pseudonym game. When she first published the Harry Potter books, the prevailing wisdom dictated that her target audience of tween boys would be more apt to purchase a book by a male author, so instead of her full oh-so-girly name, her ambiguous initials went on the book. (Can I please have a medal for suppressing my rant on the “EW GIRLS HAVE COOTIES” assumption that motivated this whole thing? Preferably a shiny medal made out of chocolate? Or just some onion dip. Ship it to me.) After concluding the Harry Potter series (TAKE THAT, VOLDEMORT) she decided to publish her next books under yet another pseudonym, Robert Galbraith, to avoid saddling the new books with the weight and expectations of the Harry Potter baggage.

One of the delightful things about reading J.K. Rowling is the strength her joy in the elements of language give her books. Her pure etymological nerdiness gives her work a nuanced, crafted essence that is both specific and grounded. It’s an incredibly deliberate approach to word choice that is completely transparent. It makes her narrative style arresting. Her work is sticky— the words make the sentences interlock so solidly that it’s almost impossible to stop reading once you’ve started. There is lift and momentum that goes beyond the charm of the story, and that is a style that screams “J.K. was here”.

Sometimes, I am completely immersed in the writing and publishing history of a book. I know what prompted the author to write it, the writing life cycle, the publication date, what color the cover will be, who designed the cover, and the name of the FedEx driver who is delivering the books to the bookstore. Other times, I see a book, decide it looks interesting and pick it up. Honestly, there is no middle ground. I either do a full belly-flop into fangirl or I’m a magpie reacting to something shiny. Whatever my mood, it’s a win for me, because I’m going home with a book. I bought Robert Galbraith’s (WINK WINK) first book, Cuckoo’s Calling, specifically because I like the word “cuckoo”. Seriously. That’s it. I am a cheap date.
Socrates: In my fanfic AU sometimes Zeus is impulsive
Me: That’s not really AU though
Socrates: No he’s all “Let’s have tuna for lunch” or whatever LOL
Me: Not afraid of controversy I see

Cuckoo’s Calling is the first book in a series about struggling London private detective Cormoran Strike, an Afghanistan war veteran and amputee. Living paycheck to paycheck on menial jobs, Strike is swamped with debt and is reduced to living in the back room of his small office. As the book begins, Strike accidentally hires a Girl Friday, a temp assistant sent to Strike’s office by mistake by her employment agency. Already charmed by the bird imagery in the title and the main character’s name, I laughed out loud when I saw the assistant’s name was Robin. I liked the clever little aviary triangle and I stopped reading to flip to the author page to introduce myself to Robert Galbraith and found…not much. I thought that was interesting because the book didn’t read like a first-time novel, but whatever. It was marvelous to have a word nerd author to read.

 

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Cuckoo in its natural habitat

 

One of my favorite proverbs is “Blood will out”. A person’s nature, good or bad, can’t be disguised. You can morph it, package it, and give it a misleading name, but the proof is in the pudding (bonus proverb for you!) It took all of three months for the world to figure out that J.K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith were one and the same. I was a little disappointed I did not figure it out, but hey, that’s how J.K. wanted it to go down. Lucky for me, I don’t have any already-famous novels out there, so I can stay deep undercover.
Socrates: You can’t put lipstick on a pig
Me: Huh?
Socrates: That’s my favorite proverb
Me: You had lipstick and pigs in ancient Greece?
Socrates: Yeah and it was a bitch to get the pigs to sit still for makeovers
Me: Ancient Greece is weird

#cheapdate

Action Items
I did not come close to winning my 5th-grade spelling bee. I bit it in the fourth round on “thoroughbred”.

 

image courtesy wikihow

The Reason To Bring A Diva, Part Deux

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Filed under Books, Fiction, Non-Fiction

I had a cross-country flight today–4.5 uninterrupted hours in the air, perfect for some quality time with a diva book. Sadly, no delays, so ONLY 4.5 hours. But still. SQUEEEE.

ICYMI, my very first diva book was Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. For today’s flight, I brought along The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin.

Swans

Which, as it turns out, is about Truman Capote and his life with the social elite of New York City during the time that he wrote In Cold Blood. I was reading about Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. ON A PLANE. It’s all so serendipitously meta that I giggled pretty much the whole flight, which I assure was you was not appropriate considering the subject matter of the book.

Anyway, I recommend The Swans of Fifth Avenue, and not just because I’m on a diva book buzz.

I got so worked up about the whole thing that I’m immediately re-reading In Cold Blood, so if you need me, you know where to find me.

#bringadiva

 

 

The Reason It’s A Little Sloppy

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Filed under Books, Fiction

I love unapologetic, in-your-face perfection. I’m not talking about crafted, photoshopped perfection, the kind of shiny perfection intended to seduce you into purchasing a car or mascara or plastic surgery. (True story: I always buy the mascara. Because MASCARA.) I mean irregular, sideways perfection. Take flamingos, for instance. Flamingos are ridiculous. A flamingo’s purpose is to live in smelly marshy places and eat shellfish out of shallow, muddy water. They actually scoop up mud and filter it in their beaks to extract shrimp (and algae – which goes to prove the old saying, “It’s a good day when I can eat shrimp and algae!”). So, not only do these birds have weird taste in sushi, they are sucking the sushi out of wet dirt. Do you know what flamingos should look like? Short sloppy mud vacuums. Instead, they are perfect, pink and sinuous, elegant and gawky as they tower above the shallow water on one leg. There is no reason for flamingos to be this awesome, no good reason to be the color of a tequila sunrise and shaped like a couch pillow with dowels tied to it, but there they are. Taken apart—curvy neck, knobby legs, spring-break-airbrushed-t-shirt pink-the pieces are kind of silly. Together, they are unpredictably, undeniably perfect.

Photoshopped, staged, bland, watered down, crowd-pleasing perfection: it’s fun in its way, but too much of it leaves me longing for something deeper. There’s only so many times I can really believe that people “woke up like this”. No, you didn’t. You probably woke up like me: haggard enough to scare cats and in dire need of enough caffeine to restore the ability to use multisyllabic words. Imperfect perfection is so much more interesting. It’s like only listening to Taylor Swift songs, or being asked to live on a diet of nothing but butter noodles. After a few days of nothing but butter noodles, you’d jump for some eggplant.
Perfection: hey, don’t bring butter noodles into this
Me: sorry
Perfection: they are BUTTER NOODLES and they don’t deserve this shit
Me: I should have used a different example
Perfection: yes you should have, sicko

There aren’t that many perfect books, and there are even fewer perfect books that stand as an author’s first and only book, and even fewer that are a first novel that win a Pulitzer Prize. Whatever that formula is, Harper Lee figured it out when she published her one perfect book. Just one tiny, NBD, seismic, atom bomb of a book. To Kill A Mockingbird is rare, a quintessentially American novel about growing up in the Jim Crow South. This book is loaded with iconic literary BFFs and everybody has a favorite: Scout, Jem, Calpurnia, Atticus,  Boo Radley. (Back up off Boo. He is MINE.) Scout’s relationship with her father is so well-written and so realized that as readers, we effortlessly project ourselves into the story because we see ourselves there. By all appearances, To Kill A Mockingbird woke up like this.
Perfection: So you’re saying TKAM is like butter noodles
Me: um NO
Perfection: Pretty sure that’s what you said

To Kill A Mockingbird was published in 1960 and immediately made Harper Lee famous. Foregoing a splashy public life, she lived privately in her Alabama hometown and died in February 2016. It was nothing less than a bombshell when it was announced in 2015 that she was publishing a second book, a companion to To Kill A Mockingbird. Mildly put, Go Set A Watchman was (and is) controversial. Written in 1957, it tells the story of an adult Scout Finch, returning to Maycomb to visit her father. Harper Lee had submitted the book for publication, but it was rejected and the manuscript had been considered lost. Go Set A Watchman was a hot topic. Did Harper Lee truly consent to publish, or was she a victim of elder abuse? Would the book alter the essence of Atticus Finch? People couldn’t wait to read it. People were boycotting reading it. People bought the book, then returned it in protest. I hesitated to read it because I didn’t want to spoil my perfect memory of my perfect experience reading To Kill A Mockingbird, but ultimately my curiosity got the better of me. I ordered a copy and silently asked Harper Lee to forgive me.

 

flamingo

Flamingos: majestic and dignified.

Which came first, the Mockingbird or the Watchman? I didn’t know what to expect when reading Go Set A Watchman, but I was not expecting it to be so genuinely weird. It was like walking into a room full of people I’d known for years only to find that everyone has switched voices. The words and the sounds are familiar, but they’re coming from a brand new face. It was disconcerting. That familiarity makes it tempting to compare the two books, but Go Set A Watchman, for me, isn’t a book so much as it is an unusual look into the work it takes in order to produce something as perfect as To Kill A Mockingbird. You can’t hide genius, and Harper Lee’s gentle, humorous, devastatingly insightful voice still shines through in Watchman-unevenly, but it shines. The quicksilver flashes evident in Watchman become the lightning in the bottle that is Mockingbird.
Perfection: Same with butter noodles
Me: Not sure where you’re going here
Perfection: You have to boil the water first
Me: Do you eat anything else?
Perfection: Sometimes plain spaghetti

To Kill A Mockingbird was a book I’d taken for granted, a book so good and so ubiquitous that it was easy to assume that it just woke up like that. I mean, by the time Demi Moore is naming her kids after the characters in a book, it seems like that book has perhaps reached blandly perfect maximum cultural saturation. Go Set A Watchman reminds me that To Kill a Mockingbird didn’t just happen. Harper Lee had to figure it all out, had to put all the pieces together, take them apart, and put them back together again and again. Like a flamingo standing in murky water, To Kill A Mockingbird is startling, more beautiful that it needs to be, and crookedly, deliciously perfect.

#butternoodles

Action Items
Celeste Barber is a perfect flamingo on Instagram. Go check her out @celestebarber.

 

 

 

 

 

The Reason To Downsize

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Filed under American History, Books, Non-Fiction

I like everything about travel. I like airports and train stations and buying weird gas station snacks on road trips. I like tiny travel sizes of things: tiny shampoo and tiny bottles of ketchup and tiny tubes of toothpaste. IT’S ALL SO TINY. You know those tiny sewing kits that hotels provide? I can’t resist taking them home even though I have never ever needed a hotel room sewing kit. I have 17 of them. (When I get three more, I am going to host that sewing kit-themed party I saw on Pinterest.) Nothing about travel feels inconvenient because even the most mundane travel carries the promise of the bubble, that for a quick period of time you will float above whatever your normal life is, taking in a whole new view. It’s rejuvenation and experience and making memories and ironic souvenir Tshirts.

Travel is great. You know what isn’t great? Packing. I fucking haaaaaate packing. Packing is the sullen, tedious yin to my sunny travel yang.I don’t like anything about packing. I don’t like making decisions about what to take with me. I don’t like all the tiny things, the tiny toothbrush and tiny shampoo and tiny pillows, because no matter how tiny I make the tiny things I always run out of room in my stupid tiny suitcase. My track record is erratic on remembering to pack essential stuff like contact lenses or glasses or, on one memorable trip, my actual suitcase full of my actual stuff. Considering how much I hate packing just a fraction of my possessions for a limited period of time, the thought of moving fries my synapses. Pack ALL the stuff? Then take ALL the stuff to a different place and unpack it? I do not see the point. Let’s just stay here. It’s lucky for everyone concerned that it was not my job to be an American pioneer or Ernest Hemingway because believe me if it was my job there would not be a California or a The Sun Also Rises. We only have those things because people (not me) were willing to pack up and move.

van

No, we are NOT.

There are two kinds of moving: Back To and Away From. Back To moves circle around to where you started, like moving back to your hometown. Away From moves launch you into the great unknown, taking you out of the familiar, like when Luke leaves Tatooine so he can go blow up the Death Star. Arguably, American history is one big Away From move story and while many of those stories have happy endings, the Donner Party’s is not one of them. The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of The Donner Party by Daniel James Brown, isn’t just Away From, it’s Far Away From. This book traces the Donner Party’s journey, step by tortuous step, from its beginning in Missouri in May 1846 to their arrival in the Sierra Nevada mountains…where they, um, stayed a while. I don’t want to spoil the ending for you, but winter in the Sierra Nevadas did not go well.

Daniel James Brown is wonderful at translating his meticulous research into relatable human experience, and in this book that is never more evident than when he is scaling the westward journeys against the preparation for the journey. The detailed description of the provisioning that the Donner Party undertook blew my mind. Food, oxen, a mobile kitchen, linens, clothing, EVERYTHING–outfitting a traveling party for the great migration west took weeks. This is yet another story that proves to me I would have been the worst pioneer to ever pioneer. I am actually whatever the opposite is of a pioneer. Pion-not? If it took me weeks to pack for anything I would cancel my plans.
Pioneers: Westward, ho!
Me: meh
Pioneers: Let’s make history!
Me: Or stay here and make popcorn. WHO’S WITH ME

Moves can cross countries, or moves can cross oceans. Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway’s Masterpiece The Sun Also Rises by Lesley M. M. Blume tells the story of how Ernest Hemingway conceived, wrote, and marketed his debut novel, and how that experience created the public face of Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway and his first wife Hadley moved to Paris after the first World War, because Europe after WW1 was an inexpensive place to bring American dollars. While in Paris, Hemingway cultivated the nurturing support of the city’s literary elite, establishing the relationships and the network that would help make his name as a writer and living the experiences that would ultimately become The Sun Also Rises.

Hemingway’s move is, at first glance, an Away From move. It’s hard to get much more Away From than putting an ocean in between your start and your destination. Going to Paris was a lot more fun than going to Gatlinburg or Fargo, but it amounted to the same thing, because upon arriving in Paris, Hemingway immediately fell in with a crowd of…Americans. His Parisian friendships and social circle consisted of Americans and UK expats-until he went to Spain. In Spain, his friendships and social circles consisted of Americans and UK expats he brought with him from Paris, plus matadors. Hemingway loved him some bullfighting.
Hemingway: I really do like bullfighting
Me: I get it
Hemingway: My Tumblr is @fuckyeahbullfighting

If I actually HAD to move somewhere, which I’m absolutely not doing because I hate packing, I’d model it on the Hemingway method, which is
1. Not have a lot of stuff
2. Take all that stuff to Paris
3. Eat some cheese, probably
4. Become famous

That is way less strenuous than the pioneer method, which is
1. Have a ton of stuff
2. Get even more stuff
3. Skip the iffy pioneer cheese
4. Drag all that stuff for hundred of miles, on foot, and there’s not even a hotel with room service when you get there because frontier

A hat tip to those intrepid souls who pull off pulling up stakes and start over in a new place. I’m happy to come visit you, as soon as I finish packing.
Me: so what’s in the wagon anyway
Pioneers: Tiny sewing kits
Me: I knew it

#fuckyeahbullfighting

Action Items
Daniel James Brown is the author of The Boys In The Boat, another great Away From moving story.

 

 

The Reason I Kissed The Mailman

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Filed under Books, Cookbooks

It’s fun to preorder books. Well, it’s fun for me, because after I preorder a book I completely forget that I have preordered a book. Then when the book shows up, it’s like I’m getting a present from the universe and I get to high-five myself for being so clever. It’s a winning moment either way. One book I have perpetually on pre-order is Christmas With Southern Living. If you’d like a review as to why, I go into nauseating detail here.

IT CAME ON FRIDAY. LOOK AT THIS TURKEY. hahahaha I am never making this

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“Nice poultry”, you’re thinking. “But I am here for mantel porn.” Me too. Here you go.

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Yup.

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Yuuuuup.

Remember, if you’d like to see any of these decorating scenarios in person, do not come to my house. They’re not here. 

#mantelporn

 

 

 

 

The Reasons The Case Is Closed

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Filed under Books, Mystery

As hobbies go, being a junior detective is very fulfilling. It’s not difficult to be a clever and resourceful crimefighter if you start your career like I did – with lots and lots of books, obtaining a comprehensive detective education from fictional adolescent detective characters. I’ve read all the authoritative texts-Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, The Three Investigators, Encyclopedia Brown.  If there was a series about feisty, spunky kids solving mysteries, I was all in. (Except for the Hardy Boys. I can’t with them). If you did not spend your formative years obsessing over a mystery-solving career, don’t worry! I paid very close attention and took lots of notes on how to be a detective in my detective notebook (ALWAYS HAVE A DETECTIVE NOTEBOOK HANDY-I HOPE YOU CAUGHT THAT VALUABLE DETECTIVE TIP.). Since the world can always use more amateur crimefighters, I am happy to share what I know. It’s a master class you can take in the privacy of your own home, or hiding in your office at work, or behind the wheel at a red light – wherever you are surreptitiously* reading this.
*Being surreptitious isn’t required to be a detective but it doesn’t hurt. When you get a chance you should practice being surreptitious as fuck.

Junior Detection In Eight Easy Bullets

Language See how I used ‘bullet’ there?  Start using use crime words frequently in your everyday conversation. It subliminally communicates to potential clients that you are looking for cases. Other good crime words are ‘fingerprint’, ‘safecracking’, and ‘haunted mansion’.

Your Prerogative You should be under the supervision of a laid-back, kindly aunt and/or uncle, a laid-back, kindly housekeeper, or a laid-back, kindly parent who is never home. This will allow for reams of unsupervised time, and you are going to need all that time because mysteries don’t solve themselves, kiddo. Laid-back supervision also keeps adults from saying anti-mystery stuff like “No you cannot go in that abandoned gold mine, it’s dangerous” or “No you can’t break into a suspected criminal’s house to look for evidence, it’s dangerous”. Worst case scenario, you might have to be an orphan. If you are going to solve mysteries, you can’t be weighed down by authority.

Posse You thought you would be a successful detective all by yourself? WRONG. It’s critical to have best friends who love fighting crime as much as you do. (If all you have are one or two best friends who love committing crime, that’s cool, but we will cover those books on another day. Also, you should probably get a lawyer.) Cultivate best friends who are always available to go with you anywhere at any time with no other interests or calendar conflicts. Also-successful detection involves delegation. Give your friends all the boring crap jobs to do.

 

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Your friends should supply their own nets.

 

Branding Dazzle people with a nickname that conveys you are smart enough to solve mysteries but are completely non-threatening, like “Girl Detective”. Or “Young Girl Detective”.

Sphere of Influence Cultivate a robust networking circle to ensure a steady stream of mystery referrals. The best scenario here is a close relative who is a police chief. Specifically, a small-town police chief, because big-town police chief isn’t a thing. The police officers who work for this police chief should be nurturing and supportive of your investigative career and not at all threatened by your reasoning superpowers. They should also be relied upon to call you from a crime scene and when you show up turn the solving of a case completely over to you, no questions asked, even if you’re not old enough to have a driver’s license.

(Not sure what all those nurturing, supportive officers do in all the down non-crimesolving time they gain by utilizing crack junior detectives. I suspect CSI fanfic and assembling IKEA police station furniture.)

Independently Wealthy You need a steady stream of income to bankroll all your deductions. Detectives gotta eat, yo. Since you’d never do anything as gauche as accept payment for your awesome detective-ing, this is when your laid-back, kindly minimal supervision comes in handy. If nobody cares where you are, are they really going to care when you ask for money to get there? (If you’re an orphan, it’s okay–you have a huge inheritance.)

Convenient Locales Live in or near a community where petty theft and light embezzlement are people’s hobbies. It is helpful if these communities have a large population of wealthy elderly who live in rambling Victorian houses, all of whom have unscrupulous nieces and/or nephews who need to get their hands on a family fortune unscrupulously.

Target Market Only agree to solve mysteries that take place in houses with attics and basements, castles with attics or basements, or abandoned theaters with attics or basements. That’s because all the clues are in attics or basements.  If a mystery happens in a strip mall or a gas station, where are the clues? NOWHERE, that’s where. Because no attic or basement. What, you’re going to look for clues in a drop ceiling at a gas station? What’s detectivey about that?

Congratulations! You’re an official junior detective. Your newly cultivated air of adolescent authority is your entrance into the mysterious world of mystery.  We passed a deserted theme park about three miles back. It’s got a No Trespassing sign on it. Go check it out.

#surreptitiousaf

Action Items
If you need some Senior Detective action, check out Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch books.

 

 

 

 

The Reason To Crack The Cover

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Filed under Books, Fiction

I’m on a bookstreak-three really great books in a row, so I’m sharing my mojo. If you need something to help pass some down time as you fire up your summer this week, one of these might help. If you’re already in the middle of something you love, give it a shout-out in the comments.

Bull Mountain, by Brian Panowich, opens with a quote from Julius Caesar, so you know shit is about to get real. (Hint! Julius Caesar = stabby betrayals that are stabby).  This story about the legacy of violence and misplaced loyalties through three generations of a North Georgia family is blunt, brutal, and rapid-fire.  The insular Burroughs clan, career criminals trying to turn from locals running ‘shine to  major racketeers moving meth and guns, are Olympic contenders at grumpy grudgeholding. They all made me really nervous and I found myself yelling warnings at the characters while I was reading the book: “GET OUT OF THE WAY!” “DON’T GO IN THERE!” Spoiler: None of them listened to me. This book that made me wonder–how, exactly, do sharks feel about swimming with other sharks? It is just another day in the ocean or is there an awareness that you’re in the most danger when you’re surrounded by creatures exactly like you?  Just when you think you have this book figured out, it twists. And twists. And twists again. When it was over, I needed a hug, much to the chagrin of the person next to me in line at the pharmacy.

Bull Mountain

Where the Burroughs from Bull Mountain are intentional in inflicting pain and punishment, the Lee family in Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You are experts in more insidious forms of suburban torture. When your mom plays favorites. When your sister takes your stuff. Hiding failing grades from your parents. This is a family suffocating under the weight of its secrets and Ng’s shifting narrative successfully dances through multiple points of view, successfully conjuring equal parts empathy and disgust for each of the five family members. It has the atmosphere and flavor of a thriller, lending a sense of urgency that kept me turning the pages. Ng perfectly captures the slow burn of family-fueled bitterness. I could not put it down and when I was finished I needed a hug, much to the chagrin of the person next to me in the waiting room at the oil change place.

Everything

If you’re in non-fiction mood, you’re curious about one of the world’s greatest artists, and you’ve always wondered about the shenanigans that Charles I got up to before he ascended to the British throne in 1625, The Vanishing Velázquez by Laura Cumming just might fit the bill.  Cumming parallels the histories of the mysterious, brilliant Spanish court painter Diego Velázquez and John Snare, a 19th-century British bookseller whose accidental acquisition of a Velázquez in 1845 turns his life upside down. Velázquez served as the court painter for Philip IV during the zenith of Spain’s power in Europe and his paintings are known for their intimate realism. 185 years after Velazquez’s death, John Snopes buys what he thinks might be an unknown painting of British monarch Charles I at an estate sale and spends the remainder of his days devoted to proving it as a Velázquez at great personal cost. I didn’t need a hug after I finished this book, but I did need a trip to Spain. I settled for going out for tapas but I’m still a little bitter.

Velazquez

#hugitout

Action Items
Happy reading!

The Reason This Bag Is So Heavy

Posted
Filed under Books, Spring

Graduations, weddings, bail hearings-spring always brings with it a plethora of occasions appropriately marked with a gift. I have a long list of presents to get and since I solve all my problems with books I am headed to the bookstore. The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but my road to the bookstore is paved with printed, notarized statements promising myself I will not buy one more book. My picture hangs, poster-sized, in every marketing department of every bookstore in America. “Make her happy”, the head of marketing tells interns at orientation while pointing towards me, “and we’ll always make our stretch sales goals.” But today, I am not shopping for me. I won’t buy myself ANYTHING. It’s about willpower and…um…just willpower, I guess. And iron will. Which I have in spades! It will all be GREAT.

Mystery/Crime Fiction section first! Because nothing says “Congratulations and Best Of Luck!” like a book about a serial killer who psychologically terrorizes people by using psychology.
Me: oooh new thrillers
Book: Pick me!
Me: “This year’s Gone Girl”
Book: But I am way stabbier
Me: chill out book
Book: I WILL STAB YOU
Me: I’ll take it

Ok, one book for me, but hey- I’m not going to give a murdery book as a gift. That is tacky. Let’s hit up Contemporary Fiction because you know what makes a great gift? What everyone loved at your last book club gathering. Even if it was Fifty Shades Of Grey.
Me: The Lifeguard’s Wife’s Cousin’s Goddaughter’s Female Friend
Book: Oprah loves me
Me: I’m out
Book: But I have angst and hairstyles
Me: No more books where the title defines the female protagonist by her relationship with someone else
Book: Judgy much?
Me: Does David Sedaris have a new book?
Book: He does. It’s called Amy Sedaris’ Brother
Me: Touché.

I really love humorous books and I have a collection of them so I’m going to keep this one too. It’s important to add to collections. It’s called collecting and it’s a real thing LOOK IT UP. Maybe I’ll find some good gifts in History. Something ponderous and weighty about the world and how it turns or something.
Me: Oooooh things happened before
Book: Yes, for many years
Me: I want all the history
Book: Be more specific
Me: Speculative medical practices in ancient Babylonia
Book: TOO specific
Me: Ok anything with Teddy Roosevelt on the cover

History is important, so Teddy is coming with me. I’m working my way over to Science and Nature. Inspiration is going to hit me any time now.
Me: …..
Book: A Brief History Of Time?
Me: I’ve already not read that twice
Books: Cosmos?
Me: Haven’t read that one at least three times
Books: Here’s one about how science proves introverts are awesome
Me: I’ll take one for every room

Cookbooks! Everyone likes snacks! Cookbooks are super gifty.
Me: ooohhh provincial Portuguese farm to table
Book: ok really?
Me: LOOK AT ALL THE FARMING AND TABLING
Book: NO. Put me down.
Me: I will totally make my own cheese
Book: no you won’t
Me: It’s Portu-CHEESE get it bwaaahahahahaha

Geography and Travel
Me: OMG A GIANT GLOBE ON A FLOOR STAND
Me: (gets tackled and restrained by store employees until I calm down)

One more chance to check off my list – I’m sure I’ll find everything I need in all the fun stuff merchandised by the register.
Me: Origami stationery?
Bookstore: Send a letter that looks like ninja stars!
Me: …send mail that looks like a weapon?
Bookstore: yeah ok that this is not well-thought out

As I stack my books up to pay for them, I swear I hear the tinkling of a bell. I think an intern just got his wings.
#shoppingfail

 

forklift

Thank you for asking! I do need assistance getting my purchases to my car.

 

Action Items
Go shopping.

 

The Reason This House Is Not Clean

Posted
Filed under Books, Gothic

Until this year, I’ve been neutral about Jane Eyre. I’d read it once, so I was familiar with the fundamentals: Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 Gothic novel about the orphan Jane’s grim journey from unhappy schoolgirl to unhappy governess to unhappily falling in love with her unhappy employer, the emotionally unavailable Mr. Rochester.  Until this year, I thought the extent of my Jane Eyre experience was checking it off the list of Required Reading. Well, I was wrong, and there is no denying it anymore. Jane Eyre is flying at me from all directions lately and it’s starting to unnerve me. I am smack in the middle of an unintentional Jane Eyre moment. Until this year, I’ve never needed a literary exorcist. I don’t even know how to go about finding one. Craigslist? But it’s time to bring in a professional because Charlotte Brontë is messing with me.  I’m not sure why she has singled me out for her Jane Eyre immersion. I didn’t even know Charlotte Brontë read this blog.

This all started innocently enough this past winter at the sublime Kramerbooks in Washington, DC. (If you have never been to Kramerbooks, drop what you are doing and go RIGHT NOW. It’s beautiful. It’s got a bar. In the middle. Of the bookstore. GAH perfect bookstore is perfect.) Browsing the stacks for some holiday reading, my eye fell on The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. It was not the title of the book that grabbed me so much as the author’s last name. It has two Fs. I admire a man who doubles down on consonants, so The Eyre Affair went on my buy pile. The Eyre Affair is the ffirst book in Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series, taking place in a clever alternate universe where classic literature rules pop culture and special agent Thursday Next is kept busy trying to save valuable first editions from a mysterious criminal. There’s also a portal that allows people travel in and out of their favorite novels, which sets the stage for an extended chase through Jane Eyre. I cracked it open New Year’s Day. It’s a ffun and very ffunny book.

One Eyre encounter does not a haunting make, right? Hang on. A few weeks after I read The Eyre Affair, I landed on the 2011 movie version of Jane Eyre during some late-night channel surfing.  I’d just had my Eyre Affair refresher course, so I thought it was neat that I’d stumbled across the movie and settled in to watch it for a bit. I’d tuned in near the end after the fire destroys Mr. Rochester’s Thornfield Hall.  (True confession: I don’t like Mr. Rochester so much. He makes me stabby. All props to Michael Ffassbender, but even he can’t make Mr. Rochester appealing to me.)  By the time the movie was over, I’d decided what Jane really needs is some mascara and a less rigid class system and then fflipped over to watch Captain America: The Winter Soldier for the 18th time, um, ffor science.

Big deal. Encounters with a book and a movie, both based on the same classic novel. So what? OKAY you asked for it. A couple of weeks after the movie, I have my hands on Lyndsay Faye’s tremendous new book, Jane Steele. Someone more attentive than I am would probably pick up from the title that I had another Jane Eyre-ster egg, but I am not known for my attention to detail or powers of concentration. This is because shiny things exist, and I should look at them. Jane Steele is Lyndsay Faye’s reimagining of Jane Eyre with Jane cast as a serial killer. I read the book and love it, but I am now taking notice there is a lot of Jane Eyre in my vicinity.

Coincidence, right? I figure since things happen in threes I must be done with Jane Eyre. NOPE. Charlotte Brontë is apparently just getting warmed up, because a month or so after I finish Jane Steele I idly click on one of those round-up articles, something like “Ten Of Today’s Novelists Recommend Other Novels” and out of the ten novelists, three—THREE—mention Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea. Guess what? It’s a Jane Eyre-inspired book that imagines the backstory of Mr. Rochester’s attic-dwelling mad first wife. Charlotte has my attention. I immediately go get the book and immediately start reading.

Jean Rhys published Wide Sargasso Sea in 1966 as a prequel to Jane Eyre. It follows the marriage of an English gentleman (a huge jerk in this book–preach, Jean Rhys, preach) to Antionette, a Jamaican heiress. Cold and demanding, Antionette’s English husband changes her name, makes her move from Jamaica to England, and locks her in an attic after driving her insane. Hahaha! Just a story, right, Charlotte? We’re all just reading here, right? Right?…

 

Kramerbooks

Site of the first disturbance.

 

I know better than to fight a riptide so I am going to flip onto my back and float this one out. If I’m really living in a Gothic novel this year, then all of these Jane Eyre coincidences are actually foreshadowing and I’m due for some kind of freaky supernatural event any day now. Charlotte, if you’re listening? I am already going to re-read Rebecca, so please don’t send me any Daphne du Marier hints. I don’t think I can stand the strain.

Also, if nobody hears from me for a few days, just do me a ffavor? Please check the attic.
#eyreitout

Action Items
Spend New Year’s Day next year reading anything entitled A Non-Haunted Book About How To Be Ffabulous.