You Say Tomato, I Say Yes!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Do any of you grow tomatoes?

Should the tomatoes be ready now?

We planted them, just as we usually do, not as many as in previous years, but whatever. And we usually plant Sun Golds, which are those little orange cherry tomatoes, which are so sweet and so delicious and I adore them. And grew like mad.

But we couldn’t find them this year, and I reminded myself that everything doesn’t have to be exactly the same every year, so go with the flow.


So we got another kind, I forget the name, and I have to say this is a different experience.

First of all, this plant, this particular plant, was never happy. It is in a perfect tomato place, many plants have thrived here before, but this one, I could tell from moment one, was not enthusiastic.

It produced two little tomatoes, bigger than a cherry tomato but not as big as a big tomato, and they were growing nicely, even as the leaves were giving up the ghost.

They tried to grow, but yeah, they were not happy. See all the yellow leaves? And it had just the right amount of water and sun.

It tried, it really did, but I could hear the death rattle. I picked one of the tomatoes, the redder one, while it was still too green, after the rabbits got the other one. 

We put it on the windowsill to ripen, and here it is. Next to a peach. You can see the size. ::shaking head:: It did the best it could.

As for our other tomatoes, they look like Roma tomatoes, that Italian tomato shape. They are still super tiny. Should they be so super tiny still?

Even the grocery store, Whole Foods, does not have those fabulous tomatoes that I long for every year.   Why? Even the heirlooms are not tasty.

One of my favorite things in the world is tomato toast. It is toast, with tomatoes on it. No mayonnaise, no butter, no anything. Just toast and tomatoes. The tomato juice sinks into the toast, and it is ambrosial.

But the better the tomato, the better the tomato toast, and so far we are at 80% good.

What’s your tomato situation, Reds and Readers? Are you as fond of them as I am?

((PS: AND THE WINNER of HER PERFECT LIFE IN gulp, mass markeet paperback is : DEE! Email me your address at hank@hankphillippiryan.com)

Books On The Path to Extinction?

 Did you enter the JUNGLE RED GIVEAWAY?  Winner announced below!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  It’s topical not only because the trade paperback of  ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS comes out tomorrow--see how cool?-- but there's a whole sea change about paperbacks right now that's pretty interesting.

There used to be two kinds of paperbacks: a trade, which is about the size of a hardcover book, and the mass market, the kind you could fit in your back pocket or in your purse or in the glove compartment. If you took in it your beach bag and got sand in it, or if it got dropped into the bathtub, you really didn’t care. They were kind of… disposable. 

All of my books have come out first in hardcover and e-book and audio, and then additionally  in trade paperback size, and then a year after the initial publication of the hardcover, in mass market paperback. (See? ARC, hardcover, trade PB, MMPB, and audio CD.)

But no more. No more mass market paperbacks. Done and over, and extinct. So they say.

So weird! You could buy them, though, in grocery stores and drugstores, too, and they were perfect impulse buys. I completely remember gasping with delight when I saw my books in the CVS, and in Star Market. It just made them seem like real books. And like I was a real author.

But after you read them, then what? I just found my battered mass market of In Cold Blood-- you can see I’d tried to use tape to keep the cover on, and failed.  But I do love this book, and it is a permanent fixture around here. 

It’s hard to donate paperbacks, because they are so battered so easily. And it’s hard to throw them away because, well, they’re books. And how could I throw away this shelf in my house:

or this one:

or this one?

ANYWAY. It’s not going to matter anymore, because as I said, they’re not going to make them anymore. 

 Tell me what you’ve heard are the reasons, but I heard that during the pandemic the paper costs went way up, and the administrative cost to make them and ship them from China went way up, and they were not cost-effective, and people were using Kindle instead.

So as a result, the big distributors decided they weren’t going to distribute them anymore. And as a result of that the publishers decided they weren’t going to print them anymore.

What do you think about that? Will it change your life? Will it change your reading? Will it change your buying habits? Do you have any mass market paperbacks that you will never part with?

HALLIE EPHRON: I’m sure it’s a business decision on the part of publishers. Pumping out an ebook costs so much less (no paper, no printing, no shipping and warehousing…) And I get it – over time I’ve become much more likely to download an ebook than buy a hard copy. Still I miss that mass market size – a book I could tuck in my pocket and then leave behind in my hotel room for the next lucky visitor. Buy in the airport and finish by wheels-down.

LUCY BURDETTE: I have a fondness for mass market paperbacks because my first eight books came out in that format. However, I understand this is a totally financial decision. I’ve learned to step back when the publishing gurus say something is gone because before you know it, it will be back again! Personally, I find them hard to read because the type is so small. But I get it that books have gotten so expensive that it’s hard for people to fit hard covers and big paperbacks into the budget.

RHYS BOWEN:  My early books came out as MM paperbacks a year after the hardcover but switched to trade paperbacks around ten years ago.. I think mm paperbacks fell out of favor because the type is too small for older readers, also because it’s harder to hold them open without their falling to  pieces. Personally I choose e-books over trade paperbacks. And if I’m buying it’s the hardcover. Not that much more expensive and looks better on the shelf. 

My Lake Union books come out in all formats on the same day. Strange but true. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: My books have only been trade and hardcover for a long time, but the early ones were hardcover and then mass market. But I think e-books now fill the mass market budget category and I suppose it makes sense for the publishers to discontinue the format. I’ve held on to some mass markets over the years, many of them out of print and irreplaceable, but when I’ve tried to read them the pages are yellowed and the print is too small. Maybe they will now be valuable to collectors?

Personally, I read in all formats, hardcover, trade, e-books, audio books, but I especially love trade paper. Still easy to carry around, but I don’t have to worry about leaving my Kindle–or worse, my iPad–somewhere!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: So many paperbacks! I still have them on shelves, in the attic, in boxes in the back of closets. I just can’t seem to make myself throw them away. 

I agree that the “affordable, and I don’t want to invest in a ‘good’ book” market’s been taken over by ebooks, but they will never replace the joy of spending hours in Owl Used Books lovingly going over each and every title to come up with five for one dollar. Not to mention the thrill of finding something interesting left behind by a traveller at a B and B, hotel room, or airport lounge. Ah, well. Tempus fugit, I guess.

JENN McKINLAY: Mass Market Paperbacks were all I read in high school and college because the price was right and the portability unbeatable. Alas, that print is so dinky, I much prefer trade or hardcover now. I was a heavy e-book reader for a decade but I’m so burnt out from screens that I just want a book to read. 

HANK: AND if YOU want a book to read:  BREAKING NEWS:  the winner of the very first Jungle Red Quarterly Giveaway is Diane W!    Diane@W**********.com       Diane, email me at hank@hankphillippiryan.com and send me your address–and SEVEN books will come your way!

And to all who entered–we are so thrilled! And we hope you enjoy our personal newsletters!

Now, Reds and Readers, what do you think about mass market paperbacks? Are there any that you will never give up? Will this decision change your life? (And one lucky commenter will get a MMPB of my thriller HER PERFECT LIFE! See? It's now a collector's item!)

Would You Live in a Castle?:

 RHYS BOWEN: My new baby book, THE CASTLE IN THE GLEN,  is now two days old. I’ve had some lovely feedback already including a review that says “Rhys Bowen knocks it out of the park again.” Not bad, huh?

This story centers around a castle on a lake shore on the island of Skye off the West Coast of Scotland.  A young writer is sent there when she agrees to complete the final novel of a very famous writer, now suffering from dementia. But is the fictitious murder really fiction? The more she digs into the story, the more she finds real clues and a family who might do anything to keep her from finding out more.

Atmospheric. Suspenseful. Romantic. These are three adjectives that have described the book by those who have read it.

So the story is about a family who has lived in a grim castle on a remote shore for many generations. This made me think: who would want to live in a place like this? Would the dark, oppressive atmosphere of such a building not shape your outlook on life? 

It's based on a real castle, or actually several real castles that families in Scotland still live in: They are grim and cold and dark and gloomy. this makes me wonder who would want to live there?

On social media I sometimes see some pictures of various houses and am asked which one I would choose (and thus reveal my true personality).  A cottage, a mansion, a lakeshore cabin, a mountain retreat, or a modern home on the sea shore. I find it hard to decide: I love being at the coast, watching the waves and smelling the salt air, but I also sense that coastside living is dangerous with climate change (ever practical as usual). I love the mountains but would I want to find myself snowed in? Avalanches? Lakeside cabin? Again beautiful setting but remote… what about bears and if I needed to get to a hospital emergency room? You see, my true personality is being revealed. Practical. Sensible. So I’d probably choose the cottage because the mansion would be too much to clean and heat. And the cottage would be in an English village which would suit me just fine.

To tell the truth I woud happiy live in my sister-in-law's manor house in Cornwall. Or in any cottage in Cornwall for that matter!

What about you, Reds. Which would you choose? And would you ever live in a real castle like the one on the island of Skye?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Absolutely no on the castle, Rhys. Ditto mansions. It may be fun to watch those restoration shows where people do up crumbling villas, but I've never had any desire to do that in real life. I am cottage all the way. In an English village, of course, so maybe we could go in together and do a time share!

But I have also always been fascinated by tiny living spaces. I have no idea why, as I live in a fairly big rambling house. My latest obsession is the Kris Atomic YouTube channel, where a couple give up their London life to live on a 70 foot narrowboat. I would do that, in an alternate universe.

RHYS: I'm obsessed with tiny houses. I'd like to see if I could live in one.

LUCY BURDETTE: I’ll do the cottage too, but not as a timeshare–I want to be in the village at the same time as you guys! Debs, when Hayley Snow and her hub were renovating a little houseboat, I had the most fun searching around online, including Pinterest, to find exactly the right features. The litter box was always going to be a problem…

Rhys, the new book is wonderful, but you sure did make that castle sound grim. And ditto for the little writer’s cottage! It was lovely to visit Skye and I am always in awe of your plot twists!

DEBS: Okay, we’ll just buy the whole village!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I have dreams,  and I can describe them completely, about living in a very very modern glass-walled house in the mountains on a lake. (Hey, it’s a dream, and that’s how it is.) I’m not sure what that means, but the house is amazing, so gorgeous, and I could draw every bit of it. Where did it come from? No idea, I have never been anywhere like that. So–talk  about a dream house, there it literally is!

Living on a houseboat or narrowboat? Or in a tiny house?  Yikes, no. Living in the Jungle Red village? In a heartbeat. What would we call it? Redlands?

HALLIE EPHRON: No castles for me, either. I’d be thinking about the house in the Sherlock Holmes story, The Speckled Band. Or more specifically, the snake’s head that descends from its fake bell-pull by the bed. Not a glass-walled house, either, thank you very much. 

But I love taking a “trip” to Rhys’s castle and letting my imagination run wild, just not a sleepover. Writers have fertile imaginations.

JENN McKINLAY: I’ll take the castle! When I traveled in Ireland, we stayed in Ballyseede Castle near Tralee and I loved, loved, loved it. Castle life is definitely for me – so long as it’s fully staffed and I don’t have to pay the bills. Otherwise, move me into a cottage in Redlands forthwith!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I’ll take the castle as well, Jenn, or an English Country House, and since we’re dreaming, I’m imagining I have SO much money I can pay for all the heating, upkeep, and a small staff consisting of a butler, housekeeper, cook, laundress, gardener, two garden assistants, two maids. I’m not fancy, I don’t need footmen or a chauffeur. 

I feel I’ve read about a group of either friends or relations who bought up a bunch of wonderful old houses in a French village and brought them back to life. Maybe that could be our JRW settlement! Terre Rouge if it’s in France, and if in England or Scotland, Redstow, because -stow (I looked this up!) means a gathering place in Old English!

RHYS: Leave it to Julia to come up with the perfect solution... of course we need staff to take care of the big house. But the idea of a Reds commune sounds so appealing to me. Restow, in the Cotswolds, right?

Or maybe Chateau Rouge and we'll take a floor or a wing each?

It's lovely to dream, isn't it?

But what about you, dear Reddies? What is your dream home? Are you living in it?  I have to say that I'd find it hard to beat my view right now...

Oh, and a request... If you read my new book and enjoy it, please do leave a review on Amazon or Audible. Reviews matter so much . And do let me know too. I love hearing from all of you.