Darn it, I wish I'd written that!

JENN MCKINLAY: It happened again. I discovered a book that has so captured my imagination, I wish I’d written it. 

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett is just perfection – in my opinion. A brilliant yet socially inept heroine, a charming and mysterious hero, and an adventure seeking and cataloging “The Folk” (faeries) of a remote Norwegian village for the Dryadology department in which they both work at the University of Cambridge in 1909. If Lessons in Chemistry and Grimm’s Fairy Tales (the originals not the watered down versions) had a book baby this would be it. It truly is the perfect winter tale. 

So, that’s my latest - Darn it, I wish I’d written that! - book.

How about you, Reds? What books have you read recently that are so good you wished you’d written them?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Wrong Place, Wrong Time, by Gillian McAllister. It’s a terrific novel of suspense, where in chapter 1, a woman sees her son murder someone. She’s baffled and astonished and horrified, and cannot figure out why this would happen! The next morning, she wakes up. And it’s the day before the murder. And the next time she wakes up, it’s the day before that. But! She remembers everything that happened. It’s hard to explain, and incredibly wonderful to read, and I cannot imagine how she wrote it. Highly highly recommend it.

 It’s not only a terrific mystery, but absolutely poignant, and touching, about how our lives go by so quickly and  we don’t notice the sweet and important little things, and we even forget our own happiness. 

HALLIE EPHRON: Whenever I read a book by Peter Abrahams (aka Spencer Quinn) I am transported and delighted, whether it’s one of his books for children (“Down the Rabbit Hole”…) or one of his Chet and Bernie books (“Doggone It”...), I am in awe. I’ve been a fan ever since I was gobsmacked by his mystery novel “Oblivion” more than a decade ago (opens with the narrator testifying in court while losing consciousness and his memory to a brain tumor–a tour de force) when I was reviewing crime fiction for the Boston Globe. So add his latest, “Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge,” to my list of Peter’s books that I wish I could have written. 

LUCY BURDETTE: My list is long (and I’m not including my blogmates)! Any of the Ann Cleeves Shetland or Vera books (love the characters and the setting,) Barbara O’Neal’s The Art of Inheriting Secrets, Ann Mah’s The Lost Vintage, Juliet Blackwell’s The Paris Key.

This is making me think I’d better get back to work ASAP!

RHYS BOWEN: The thing I most wish I had written was not a book but a TV series. The Bletchley Circle. When I saw that the first thing I said was “This is brilliant. Why didn’t I think of it?”  But among recent books I wish I had written LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY. I loved that it was quirky, funny and didn’t fit any genre. Different. I really want to write a book that is different from anything ever written. That’s not easy. Oh, and I was impressed with Magpie Murders. I thought the story within the story was so clever, and the TV version was fantastic.

JENN: Oh, I loved, loved, loved, Lessons in Chemistry. And I agree, it defied categorization. Such an achievement.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I hadn’t read anything by David Nicholls before we watched the Netflix series based on his novel ONE DAY. The series is astoundingly good–I can’t say much more than that because, spoilers, of which even the critics from a lot of major media have been guilty. (Maybe they assumed everyone had read the book? Or seen the Anne Hathaway/Jim Sturgess adaptation?) As soon as the last episode finished I had to dive into the book to see if it was as good, and there is my “Oh my gosh, I wish I’d written this,” moment. Such clever construction–the two characters meet on the day of their university graduation, July 15th, and the novel is a snapshot of that one day in their lives for the next twenty years. It’s funny, sexy, heartbreaking, human, and ultimately life-affirming. Just genius. Big sigh of envy and admiration from me!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Oh, this is hard. I often get the severe case of the green-eyed monster over one aspect of a book or another.  I remember reading BLOOD IS THE SKY the year after I met its author, Steve Hamilton, and wishing SO HARD I could write with his spare precision. Carol Goodman’s debut, THE LAKE OF DEAD LANGUAGES, is as perfect a blend of genre and literary as I’ve ever read, and damn it, I wish I could write like that! Who doesn’t wish they had written GONE GIRL, which not only won every award and was a major bestseller, but achieved the rare feat of jump-starting an entire new type of novel in the crime fiction realm.

If I could pick just one, though, it would be THE GLASS HOTEL by Emily St. John Mandel. A little less known than her also-amazing STATION ELEVEN, The Glass Hotel is beautiful and page turning and astonishing and heartbreaking and original and compelling - ugh! So good.

So, how about you, Readers? Is there a book you wished you'd written or a book you wish you could read again for the very first time?

Book Collections

  LUCY BURDETTE: Eight years ago, my wonderful stepmother died unexpectedly, which meant that we needed to move my dad (who had Alzheimer's) to be near my sister in Florida. And this meant that John and I needed to go to South Jersey to clear out his office. He'd been a book collector all his life – we didn't have the same taste, he preferred history to my fiction. As we were sorting through those books, deciding which would go to the library and which we would send to his room in an assisted living facility, we got a little window into his psyche. Here's an example of what he was interested in; as you can see he was fascinated with American Indians and their battles with white men. We got the biggest giggle out of his impressive collection of books about white women who'd been captured by Indians. Freud might've had a field day with that but I will leave it alone. 

If you look on my shelves, aside from the huge piles of mysteries and women's fiction, you'd find a big collection of foodie books. (This doesn't even count the horde of cookbooks I have in the kitchen, many of which I haven't looked at in years.) To me, food is so much more than eating to stay alive. And the people who write foodie books write about food as a conduit for relationships and history and love.

Reds and red readers, what are your book collections like, if you have them?

HALLIE EPHRON: I have a tiny book-lined office -- crime fiction, writing, and reference. If I acquire a new book one has to go out... that's the rule.

Jerry's cool collection

My husband, on the other hand, is a serious book collector. Old illustrated children's books, books about New York City, and birds are his sweet spots. He's also cheap, so most of what we have has been acquired at yard sales. And there's a TON of them in bookcases all over the house, so I'm sure my children will have a miserable time going through it when it comes that time.

Here's just a sample of some small books he has tucked in at the end of a row in a bookcase with glass doors. Irresistible, right? He's a keeper, too.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Not many "collections"- but a few books I treasure. 
These are in my study: the beautiful Sue Graftons, just a few so far. And my Nancy-Trixie-Cherry Ames shelf.   There are bookcases all over our house, gosh, just about in every room, and one lining the hallway upstairs.  We just gave hundreds of books to the library, but you almost cannot tell. Which is so sad. I fear there are piles on the floor in my study, but they are behind a chair so you can't see them.  :-)  It's just so difficult to get rid of books.  Hallie, that's a good rule. But so far, not doing it!  (But then--it drives me crazy that I can't find the one I want. Somewhere in our house is the Ruth Ware book. But where?) (I know, it sounds like a who's on first...)
 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: A couple of years ago I purged about 400 books from my house. To be fair, some of them were loads of foreign editions of my own books, but most were just accumulated odds and ends. Don't worry, there are plenty left! But I have tried to be better about passing on things I don't think I'll reread. The shelves in my upstairs office (once again groaning and triple-stacked) are mostly to-read books, and the research books I've used for my novels. The shelves in the downstairs office are mostly mystery series that are "keepers" for me, and some fantasy and sci-fi. The bookshelves in the hall and the dining room, however, are an odd assortment of classics and children's books, biology, poetry, biography, and things long out of print. Here are a couple of my favorite shelves (looking forward to sharing some of these with Wren in a year or few!) That's two bookcases out of five in our hall, and there are two more in the dining room. Maybe I should purge again...

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I'm not sure if I'm a book collector as much as I am a book KEEPER. We have boxes of books in the attic. Shelves in the hallways and on the stair landings. Each of the kids has at least three bookshelves in their rooms. There are stacks in the bathrooms. In fact, the only place where they're aren't any books are downstairs in the cellar (too damp) and in the entryway (we need the room for coats, boots, etc.)

That being said, I do have a nice collection of books by other mystery authors signed to me, or to Ross, or just signed. I keep a bunch of them in this living room bookshelf/glasses tray/curio cabinet. The only ones I know for sure have any monetary value are the three first printing, first edition copies of IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER that I saved for the kids, currently going for $300 to $400 on ABE. Why didn't someone tell me to hang on to the rest of my author copies?!? I also have THE WHITE TRILOGY by Ken Bruen, a softcover published by Justin Charles & Co, Kate's Mystery Books imprint. It was brand new in 2003 when I bought it at her annual holiday party in Cambridge (remember how much fun those were?) and now it's worth between $300 and $400, too. Who knew?

Of course, I'm never going to unload any of my books, so I suppose it'll be my grandchildren who reap the financial rewards of collecting. Unless they're book keepers as well, in which case, these babies may never go on the market.

 
SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Not really enough room in a NYC condo for collections of any kind (although that doesn't stop Noel), but I did put together a set of Random House children's classics for Kiddo. I started when I was in my twenties (a lot of them are my favorites, too!) and now he's been dipping in. I usually get him a new one every Christmas, too!

How about you Reds? what would we find on your shelves?

Our Best Books of the Year.

RHYS: A newspaper called me to ask me which were my favorite books of 2014. Needless to say there were Reds among my recommendations, but also Louise Penny's The Long Way Home. and Jacqueline Winspear's The Care and Management of Lies. I felt it was a good year for the sort of books I enjoy--great sense of time and place, strong likable characters.

So which books did you particularly enjoy?
And my second question: which books are on your holiday list?
I have a couple (one was given to me early as a present by Barbara Peters. It's a Hundred Special places for a woman to visit in France..., and the other I've suggested my husband might want to order for me. It's called Lisette's List by Sophie Vreeland, and is about Impressionist art, hidden from the Nazi's in WWII I love books that are set in France/span generations/have an element of mystery/and are about Impressionist art. So I can't wait to read it.

How about you? What books are on your wish list?

LUCY BURDETTE: Books are all I tell family members if they ask what I want for Christmas. This year, my choices seem to be all about food (natch!) and France. I jumped the gun and bought myself David Lebovitz's new cookbook, My Paris Kitchen. But I'm also dying for Dorie Greenspan's Baking Chez Moi, and Anne Willen's One Souffle at a Time.

It has been a great year for Red books, of course--have adored reading the latest from Hank, and Susan, and Debs, and Rhys--and can't wait for you all to get your hands on Hallie's new one, Night, Night, Sleep Tight! And I just ordered Mary Kennedy's NIGHTMARES CAN BE MURDER, and Sherry Harris's debut, TAGGED FOR MURDER. Yay, you'll hear more about her next week!

HALLIE EPHRON: #1 on my wish list is "The World of Raymond Chandler: In His Own Words" edited by Barry Day. Chandler was such a thoughtful writer, one of the reviews quotes him on writing "The Long Goodbye, Chandler": “I watched my wife die by half inches and I wrote the best book in my agony of that knowledge . . . I was as hollow as the places between the stars.” He's a prose poet. I love reading great writers talk about writing.

And my recent favorite to recommend is a wonderful collection of short stories, "In the Company of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon," edited by Leslie Klinger an Laurie R. King. Michael Connelly writes one where Harry Bosch meets a medical examiner who's earned the nickname Sherlock. In one by Michael Sims, the Silver Blaze (the horse) is the narrator. Fun!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I have been reading like MAD as a judge for a contest, so I can't say anything. I am reading so much my eyes are hurting. (And yes, it was indeed a wonderful year for Reds books. Quite extraordinary.)  I did give in and buy a book for myself,which I could not resist, and it's called WHAT IF. I hoped it as a book of mystery ideas (As if!) but it turned out to be a wonderful book of serious answers to hilarious hypothetical questions. Like: What If: everyone in the world went to the same place, and then jumped up and down at the same time? And: Could you make  rocket ship out of a whole lot of hairdryers?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Yes, a very good year for REDs, wasn't it. Now if we could just all manage to get in the same calendar year, we'd have a sweep:-) Now I'm struggling to remember what else I've read...  (One of these days I swear I really am going to keep up a book journal. 2015???) Just finished Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch, which I loved. I discovered author Mark Pryor when I did a panel with him on book tour. I've started with the first in the series, The Bookseller, and am now on the second, The Crypt Thief. Loved Karin Salvalaggio's Bone Dust White. Loved Louise Penny's The Long Way Home. And, this is cheating a bit because it's not actually out until January, but I LOVED A Fine Summer's Day, the new Charles Todd Rutledge novel.

I have so many books I need to read that I haven't thought of asking for any for Christmas, just for fun, but now I want the books on Hallie's list! And Lizette's List from Rhys's list.

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: A GREAT year for Reds! Woo-hoo! I'm reading galleys for an award, so I'm a little bombarded (in a good way) with fiction, so I'm hoping for some non-fic — DRINKING WITH MEN by Rosie Shiap (my Brooklyn neighbor!), THE GRAMERCY TAVERN COOKBOOK, Amy Poehler's YES, PLEASE, and Alan Cumming's NOT MY FATHER'S SON.

I'm also obsessing over — get this — a wine scratch-and-sniff book. Yes, you read that correctly! It's called THE ESSENTIAL SCRATCH AND SNIFF GUIDE TO BECOMING A WINE EXPERT: TAKE A WHIFF OF THAT by Richard Betts. I mean, I haven't actually sniffed it yet, but... c'mon.... it sounds so fun!

RHYS: Some great suggestions here for Christmas presents, and if I might include a small plug here (since it's the last day of my week as host) If you have a child in your life and you are looking for a stocking stuffer, or you are seriously missing Harry Potter, please give my new children's book a try. It's called Dreamwalker--an adventure/fantasy novel set at a strange boarding school in Wales and it's available as a paperback and an e-book.
http://www.amazon.com/Dreamwalker-Red-Dragon-Academy-1/dp/150310205X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417847542&sr=8-1&keywords=dreamwalker+rhys+bowen

Now please share your favorite books of the year and your wishes for holiday gifts!

Just the Facts!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:   It was a huge competition. Which of us--we must have been in fifth grade or so--could read the most books over the summer? Now, that was a contest I could win!  But-I'll never forget--one of the rules was that those little blue biographies did NOT count.

You remember them: Dorothea Dix, Girl of the Streets? (Is that right?)  The Wright Brothers, Boys with Wings.

But our teacher told us those books weren't good enough. For some reason. (I read them anyway! Did you?) But we also had to find other non-fictions..

 And that's how I found Kon-tiki. Which was a life-changing introduction to real-life adventure. (Did you read it?) I still think about it sometimes.





Triss Stein--whose new mystery is fiction!--has been thinking about the non-fiction world--and realized she's


BEING INSPIRED BY THE FACTS
  by Triss Stein


What was your favorite childhood book? Ask any group of writers or avid readers and you are sure to get some lively responses. I bet most of them will be fiction. “Tell me a story” is such a strong need for children, and they (we ) are always looking for a friend (Betsy and Tacy; Charlotte All of a Kind; those March girls), a world that is more interesting (the Big Woods) or beautiful (Narnia) or surprising (Edward Eager’s ). Or the opposite, our own world made special by being in a book (Beverly Cleary, in my day).

How about non-fiction? Did you have any non-fiction books that made the same permanent impression as Nancy Drew or Mary Poppins or Caddie Woodlawn?

I did have a few of those books. I owe it all to Aunt Barbara, my mother’s only sister, who was a children’s librarian and knew what I wanted to read even before I did.

Abraham Lincoln’s World, the first book I read by Genevieve Foster, changed my world. In short segments, with her own charming drawings, she described what was happening all over the world in one iconic person’s lifetime. While Lincoln was learning to read in a log cabin an Indian boy in Mexico named Benito Juarez wanted to go to school, a Frenchman had the idea of building the Suez canal and in Greece, where men wore pleated skirts, there was a war for liberation from Turkey, where men wore turbans. While Lincoln kept a small store, postage stamps were invented, a teen-ager became Queen of England and a painter named Morse sent the first telegraph message.History wasn’t just the story of America. It was happening all around the world, all at the same time. This was a huge revelation to me.

Our Independence and the Constitution is a dry title for a fascinating book. It told in two parts about a little girl who lived in Philadelphia at the time of the writing of the Declaration of Independence and years later, the Constitution. By describing how the issues looked to an ordinary family, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, a famous author in her day, made it alive and more, made it inspiring. I realized for the first time that it’s only “history” later. At the time, no one knows how the story will turn out and it all could have been different. That was another revelation.

Richard Halliburton was, perhaps, the first adventure travel writer. I cherished my copy of his Complete Book of Marvels, He told about exploring Chichen Itza and the pools where humans were sacrificed, fabled Carcassonne and even more fabled Petra, swimming in both the Panama Canal and the reflecting pool of the Taj Mahal, sneaking into forbidden Mecca. Now, some sections are appalling reflections of outdated attitudes, and some of the history is pure romance, but the fabulous stories and the photographs gave me a sense of the wide, exciting world that was unusual in small town America, 1955. When I went to Petra (!) I thought of Richard Halliburton

There was one more, a book for children about great paintings. It had gorgeous full-color, full–page reproductions and the cover was –I’m pretty sure – Holbein’s portrait of the infant Edward VI of England. That book disappeared along the way, but one of these days I will track it down and buy it and put it on the shelf next to Richard Halliburton and Abraham Lincoln. And I will say thank you to Barbara Dobbis Block.


HANK: Oh, great topic, Triss! Reds, was there a book of fact that changed the way you saw the world?


*********************

Triss Stein is a small–town girl from New York state’s dairy country who has spent most of her adult life living and working in New York city. This gives her the useful double vision of a stranger and a resident for writing mysteries about Brooklyn, her ever-fascinating, ever-changing adopted home.

Brooklyn Bones

Erica is a youngish single mother and oldish history grad student, keeping it all together with street Brooklyn attitude and grit. As they are working on her unrenovated home at the ungentrified end of trendy Park Slope, her teen-aged daughter uncovers the body of an unknown teenager, a discovery neither of them can ignore.

ON FAVORITES

One’s favorite book is as elusive as one’s favorite pudding.
***E. M. Forster “In My Library” pt. II (1949)

HANK:
There's a discussion going on elsewhere--what's your favorite book? it's asking. And interestingly, although mystery writers/readers could all talk for hours about books we adore, and are thankful to have read, my favorite of all favorites was a winner by a mile. So I typed it in, and said, anyone else love this? I'd love to know. Days went by, and I didn't hear a 'Me, too' from anyone.


There were Jane Eyres (of course) and a lot of To Kill a Mockingbirds (who doesn't love that?) and a Shogun or two. And many more, of course. But I started wondering, if my favorite book is no one else's favorite book, why is that? And then, days later, a reply came in...Carol Shmurak of Connecticut says, she was just about to type in the same book. And I felt--let's have dinner! I just know I'll like her. The book is Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. And if any of you have read it....


HALLIE:
And doesn't it feel like a betrayal when a best friend hates a book you loved-loved-loved and recommended? I recommended one of my favorite books from last year, Joseph Wambaugh's Hollywood Station to several good friends and their response was tepid.


HANK:
Well, you gave it to my darling husband for his birthday, and he's loving loving living it, I must say. So there's at least one soulmate. But yes, you offer a wonderful book, like a treasure you've discovered and want to share, and part of the fun is sharing the experience, right? Like in a book club. But then they look at you like, thanks but no thanks.


When it was my turn for book group, I chose Custom of the Country, my favorite of my favorite Edith Wharton. I went to the meeting, eager to share in a true reading delight. Instead I was hooted and booed. (Not really, but some of the group thought it was boruing and stilted.) The other half thought--as I do--it was innovative and thought-provoking and revealing and marvelous.


RO:
I've been in a reading group for over a year and a few months ago, I finally got to choose a book. I chose The Egyptologist, which I thought was clever, fun, smart, engaging, and original. Not my favorite book of all time, but a good read, as they say. People didn't get it, some hated it. I sat there and felt like I was from Mars. One of my favorite writers is Robert Hellenga (Sixteen Pleasures, Fall of a Sparrow.) And no one's ever heard of him. I keep waiting to mention his name and have someone say "Omigod, you like him,too!"


JAN:
Everybody brings their own life to a book. Also the mood of the moment. When I was in my late teens I went on an F. Scott Fitzgerald rampage, reading and adoring every single one of his books.

Now I'm reading The Great Gatsby for a second time. Clearly the revered author's most highly regarded book, and a story that intrigued me the first time around. You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking, geez Scott, this sentence construction is a little pretentious. And man, you could never get away with this melodrama today. In short, now that I've gone through my jazz-age fascination, I have less patience. But other favorites -- and less revered works -- that I've reread have only gotten better as a repeat. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry for one. I could read that book once a year and still enjoy it. And yet one of my very best friends, a writing buddy, couldn't stand it. It's all just all so personal...



HANK:
Yes, going back is always interesting. Maybe it means there's a favoirte for each time of your life. (I read Look Homeward Angel about 6 times.) It means something to you then, lasting, sometimes, but sometimes ephemeral. I had a lavender hot pants suit once, I loved it. It was my favorite. (I will pause now, for the general hilarity.) And when I think about it in that time--I still love it. (I will join in, now, with the general hilarity.)



BREAKING NEWS. (Hank couldn't resist.) Just to remind you all that the pub date for my first novel, PRIME TIME is Tuesday June 12! Reviewers say "it's a perfect comimbination of mystery and romance." Here's a fun photo of some of the (very wonderful) people who came to Book Expo America last week and actually stood in line to get a copy. (That's me in the black and white checks. The chic woman in the ice green jacket is the charming and indefatigible Anita Sultmanis from Harlequin, who kept everything working perfectly.)
And it makes me wonder--might PT someday be someone's favorite book? At least for as long as they loved their hot pants?
Anyway. I hope you like it.
And looking back at our opening quote--does anyone actually have a favorite pudding?