No Regrets? by Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: last week Rhys had us talking about books. What we do when we have too many of them and how we make decisions about culling the herd. I’ve also done some “ridding out“ as my friend Yvonne would call it, of clothing and shoes. Already, I wish I could call a few things back that are long gone. We don’t have a lot of call to wear corduroy pants in Key West, but this winter we’re also going on a trip to a very cold portion of Europe. There was a pair of black wide wale corduroys that I hadn’t worn in years. They were ankle length, with a band around the bottom, almost a barrel shape. I wore them often, and I loved them, but I gave them away thinking I wouldn’t have opportunities to wear them again.  But now that it’s too late to summon them back, I miss them!

I also regret recycling my overalls. (See the photo at the top of me with my friend Carolyn.) I was in my late 20s when I moved from Tennessee to Florida to start graduate school. I wore those overalls nonstop which no doubt struck others in the clinical psychology department as peculiar. As I advanced farther along in the program, wearing overalls was less appropriate, and I gave them away. But now I see fashionistas wearing overalls everywhere. I miss that pair! 

I may have talked about this years ago, but I had a plastic bag of my favorite childhood stuffed animals. I collected cats that were covered with rabbit fur. They had names and lives and the games we played saw me and my sister through some unhappy times. In that bag were also several arms and legs from my mother’s Raggedy Ann dolls. Don’t know what happened to the other body parts! However, in Florida, my ex and I had a terrible infestation of roaches who ate the fur off of all those animals. I was finally talked into throwing them away. Now, the kicker…

Our local NPR station is soliciting people to bring unusual collections to their Audacious Live show and tell. They suggest things like a jar of cat whiskers—something unusual with meaning and a story behind it. I am positive that a baggie of bald stuffed animals and doll body parts would make a good conversation piece. However, they are gone and I’m filled with regrets.

How about you reds, any items that you disposed of but now regret? Or do you give things away and never look back? Do you have something 'special' you'd bring to that NPR show and tell?

A Great Month for Reading

 

LUCY BURDETTE: As you can see by the pile in the photo, I’ve had no shortage of books to read over the last few weeks. John has a new hip and is getting along famously, but in those first scary days when I was the sole caregiver, I wanted something soothing and so familiar. I was thrilled to discover the small Jenny Colgan book that serves as a prequel to her Mure series, which I adore. Hank’s book was daytime reading—full of twists and rocket fuel adrenaline, well done Hank! Now I’m finishing the new Ann Cleeves, which is a Matthew Venn book. It’s solid as always and I’m completely buffaloed about who could have killed these people. I’m sure Matthew will figure it out. I also read Ann Patchett’s Whistler for a second time (which I rarely do) because some friends were getting together to discuss it and eat cake. I loved it the second time too—such great depiction of characters. Kristan Higgins is the queen of women’s fiction, writing about four friends whose lives are upended by a terrible accident. 

Now I have to decide what’s next…what are you reading and how do you decide?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Ah, mostly it’s the book by the author I get to interview next or a book I have been asked to blurb! It’s fun to have my “job” assign me books–it lets me read some I might not have heard of or chosen. As a result, I’m just beginning Hallie Shepherd’s CALL OFF THE DARK  (a new author for me, and no idea what this will be) and just finishing the brilliant Jason Rekulak’s WHAT THE CAT DRAGGED IN.  It is so scary I can hardly read it! (And aw, thank you for the kind words about MOTHER DAUGHTER SISTER STRANGER! And it’s already in second printing, yay.) And next on the blurb list..the new LIsa Jewell! So looking forward.  

HALLIE EPHRON: YAY on that second printing, Hank! And YAY on John’s new hip, Roberta!!

I’m not doing a huge amount of book reading right now because I’m in the middle of teaching a 2-week class for the Sisters in Crime Guppies on how to write a compelling protagonist. I’ve broken it into 6 lessons and there’s a full contingent of participants and masses of homework for me to respond to.

When I’m done for the day the last thing I feel like doing is reading.

But queued up next are some books I somehow managed to miss when they came out awhile back. THE JANE AUSTEN BOOK CLUB by KarenJoy Fowler (I loved her WIT’S END.) And Elena Ferrante’s MY BRILLIANT FRIEND.

JENN McKINLAY: I’ve been reading mostly for endorsements lately, including the upcoming GIRL FROM IPANEMA by Mia Sosa and Ellie Alexander’s suspense/cozy MURDER MOVES IN. Both are excellent and I highly recommend them. I also have a book by the delightful Ang Pompano called SIMMERING SECRETS to read. Right now, I’m attending the Ashland Mystery Festival in Oregon and planning a visit to the post office tomorrow to mail back all of the books I’m purchasing at the local indie bookshop Bloomsbury Books.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I've been in and out of the hospital the last couple of weeks with some health stuff, so have definitely needed comfort reading. I ran across a series by LT Shearer about a retired Metropolitan Police detective who lives on a narrowboat in Little Venice (obviously irresistible to me) and who is befriended by a talking cat called Conrad. I never read Lillian Jackson Braun's books so I don't know how these compare. This series is a bit of an oddity, as it sounds super cozy but the mysteries, especially in the later books, are actually well-plotted police procedurals. The first book is THE CAT WHO CAUGHT A KILLER and I was charmed enough to plow through all five.

Also, I read MAD ABOUT YOU by British author Heidi Stevens. This one is set in the Cotswolds and I loved it so much I didn't want to read anything else when I finished it. Lucy, as you like Jenny Colgan you would probably love Stevens!

Now I've started Meg Mason's SOPHIE, STANDING THERE, for Kris Atomic's online book club, and I'm also reading a new biography of Charles Darwin, ORIGIN STORY, by Howard Markel.

Next up will be Ann Cleeves new Mathew Venn.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: After a bit of a dry spell, I’m finding a plethora of great, fun mysteries this fall! I just finished MURDER AT THE GRAND ALPINE HOTEL by Lucy Foley and Agatha Christie. Yes, it’s a new Miss Marple, okayed by the Christie estate. (Who benefits from that, I wonder?) It’s a stunningly scenic everyone-trapped-by-the-weather novel set in 1950. I have to admit, I figured out whodunnit about ⅔ of the way through, but it was so well-written I enjoyed the ride all the way to the end of the piste. 

Currently reading HOW TO WRITE A MURDER by Jessica Brody. Like THE ENDING WRITES ITSELF, which I raved about last time, this is a group of mystery writers gathered together in a remote place, this time for a conference. I’m only a little way in, but so far, it’s a real page-turner.

I missed Benjamin Stevenson’s latest Ernest Cunningham mystery when it came out this spring, so EVERYONE IN THIS BANK IS A THIEF is waiting in the wings. 

My total author crush Emily St. John Mandel has a new speculative fiction novel just out, EXIT PARTY. I think I’m 157 on the waiting list at the Portland Public Library, so we’ll see if my patience can outlast my desire to stick to my book budget this quarter.

Reds, what are you reading these days?

Rhys on Traveling and Musing

 RHYS BOWEN: As I write this I’m sitting at a hotel in York, England, coming to the end of a delightful trip. I started in London, with my daughter Jane and her husband Tom, then we took the train to Cornwall, picked up a rental car and drove to my sister-in-law‘s lovely 14th century Manor house.

It’s always like stepping out of the world stepping back in time there’s no pressure nothing to do at any time and we just relax. The weather was perfect all week. We went to Little fishing villages. We ate a lot of crab and fish. We saw loads of family members and it was perfect.

After this we flew from Newquay in Cornwall to Edinburgh, Scotland I had no idea you could do that until we until Jane found it out. I won’t say it’s the most comfortable flight. It was Ryan and we were only allowed a tiny under seat bag, but it got us there. After a night in Edinburgh Jane and I took the train up to Fort William in the Highlands while Tom went off to the golf tournament at Saint Andrews.  We had an Airbnb that was right on the loch and every day we went somewhere different. Of course we had to see the Harry Potter viaduct and the town of Mallaig where the ferry goes across to Skye everywhere we went was the same route that my characters had taken in the castle in the Glen so it was fun to point everything out to Jane. We also stopped at Rannoch Moor supposed home to Lady Georgie in my books. I chose it because it was the most bleak and inaccessible place in the UK that I could think of and it really is.

The weather was not very kind to us rain most days. But but it didn’t stop us. Tom loves driving on little narrow lanes and some of them were very little and very narrow, and you felt like you were at the end of the Earth. We returned to Edinburgh via two castles,  castle Doune that was the site for Winter Castle in Game of Thrones and for the castle in Monty Python and the holy Grail so that was fun. And then Stirling Castle, which was impressive and majestic

Back in Edinburgh we did some sightseeing and then I caught a train down to York to spend a few days with my college friends. We’ve been getting together once a year for the past several years. It’s always amazing to see them. I’m going to conclude the trip with a couple of days in London when I have to meet with some TV people and we hope to take in a show.

Some thoughts on this trip: English train journeys were delightful. I did pay extra to go first class, but it really wasn’t expensive and on the last trip from Edinburgh down to York they served a hot meal of choice cooked on the train plus they kept coming around every few minutes with hot and cold drinks cookies anything else you might want. I felt very pampered. I also have to say that English hotel beds have been amazing. Very comfortable everywhere I can’t say the same for English hotel bathrooms. It’s always slightly iffy when I step into that shower.Knobs are various sizes and directions. If I turn this knob to the right, am I going to get scalded with hot water or doused in freezing water, hit from a shower above my head or straight at my face or middle . Every single hotel has had a different shower configuration and one with which I’m not familiar today it was one in which you turned the bar one way and a stream comes out of the wall at your face. You turned the bar another way stream comes out  at your middle and the third way gives you the option of the shower you can hold. One thing they all had in common was the hot water could cook a turkey in 10 minutes. I’ve no idea why everybody needs hot water. It is so scalding  that you have to jump out of the way, but it was a challenge . As my son-in-law said throughout Scotland, it’s an adventure.

Suddenly facing life is a single lady. I’m facing the fact that I’m now a plus one and didn’t want to interfere with my kids vacation. But they have been so warm and loving and made me feel pampered. It’s been a bit strange I’m used to traveling with John and asking him what he wants to do today and fitting in with his request and now suddenly I can do exactly what I want to. It feels a bit scary but also rather freeing. I’m determined not to give up adventures.