Reading Sets You Free

Reading Sets You Free
(Image from Blue Cereal Education)

Yes, it does set me free. It always has.

Amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic, books keep me from being "locked down." I don't care if the books are in the hard copy form of actual physical books or if they are electronic. As long as the words are there. As long as they take me some place and show me a thing or two or twenty-seven.

Many of my friends  are working jigsaw puzzles. Thousands of pieces puzzles. They rescue them from the backs of closets. They retrieve them from storage units. They order them online. They share them back and forth and back again. They have preferences: puzzles about travel, puzzles about cats, brightly colored puzzles, oddly shaped puzzles.

I can't do puzzles. I have a cat. My Kočka, would no doubt love for me to work jigsaw puzzles -- on the dining table, sans 24-hour guard.

He plays with things. Carries things around. Loses things. He probably doesn't think he's "losing" things. The only thing he loses is "interest" in those things he carries around.

Kočka is an unusually smart cat, but words in books are beyond him. In fact, the books themselves hold no interest for him. And because my e-reader, unlike my cell phone, does not respond to his touching the screen, he's not interested in it either -- soooo, he leaves them alone.

Consequently, I may lose my place in whatever book I'm reading, but I won't lose the book, be it hard copy or electronic.

Our public library is closed for the foreseeable future. You can go online and put books on hold. Hard copy books you pick up curbside. It goes like this. They send you an email when the books you want are available. You park in the designated area at the library, call them to tell them you've arrived and open your trunk, then get back in your car. They bring your books out in a brown paper bag and put them in your trunk. You get out and close your trunk and go home. (Kinda puts you in mind of receiving contraband, doesn't it?) No face-to-face contact. Minimal risk of spreading Covid-19. Or you can download the books you want to your e-reader with absolutely zero chance of spreading the virus. Either way, it's free.



This week I finished Diane Mott Davidson's Tough Cookie, a cozy mystery, one of Davidson's series featuring the caterer sleuth Goldie Schultz. Her books are set in Colorado and are liberally sprinkled with recipes. 

Of course, I have to interrupt reading to prepare this recipe or that. The only thing is, even though her books are set just up the hill from where I live, I still have to amend them for cooking at altitude. At a book-signing, she explained that she has a professional change the recipes so they work at sea level.



And then I read Fredrik Backman's Britt-Marie Was Here. Let me just say, if it's a Backman book, it's worth my time. He writes people I know and philosophy I understand.

         

                   "A human being, any human being at all, has so perishingly few chances to 

              stay right there, to let go of time and fall into the moment. Explode with passion.

                    A few times when we are children, maybe, for those of us who are allowed 

              to be. But after that, how many breaths are we allowed to take beyond the con-

              fines of ourselves? How many pure emotions make us cheer out loud, without
              a sense of shame?
                     All passion is childish. It's banal and naive. It's nothing we learn; it's 
               instinctive, and so it overwhelms us. Overturns us. It bears us away in a flood. 

               All other emotions belong to the earth, but passion inhabits the universe."

Those two books, I downloaded on my e-reader from the library. 

My next book was Nevada Barr's Liberty Falling. Several years ago while my Daddy was still living, one of his care-givers brought me a grocery bag filled with Nevada Barr books. For those of you not familiar with her work, she writes murder mysteries, a bit more action-packed than Davidson's. Barr's main character is Anna Pigeon, a Park Ranger. Each mystery is set in one of the National Parks. This one takes place at The Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island National Park, and in New York City's Manhattan.

Remember the old James Bond movies, back when they included not only flash/bang/chase scenes but actual dialog. And that dialog was snarky?  Like when Bond was on the dance floor with a beautiful woman and he saw reflected in her eyes an assassin aiming at him. He spun her around so that it was she who was shot. He danced the victim over to a chair, gently sat her down in it and said to a bystander, "Do you mind if my friend sits this one out? She's just dead."

Barr laces her high energy action with the same kind of humor. At one point, Anna ascertains that a fellow Park Ranger, though injured, is not in danger of dying and she must go ahead and save the day. 


Barr writes,

"Anna squirmed under the Dumpster and retrieved Andrew's gun. A Glock 9mm, a good weapon. She chambered a round. 'I'll be back,' she promised. Arnold Schwarzenegger had said the same thing in Terminator 2. It sounded more convincing with the accent."

And a few pages on:

"Regardless of how divinely inspired, New York frowned upon unauthorized persons shooting people with borrowed guns. Anna spent seven hours with three different law enforcement agencies giving statements, defending her
actions, accepting congratulations, being bullied and drinking bad coffee. Drowning in polluted salt water was beginning to seem like the good old days."



Despite the current administration's hurry to "reopen," the simple fact of the matter is Covid-19 is here to stay. Until there is a safe and effective vaccine, those of us in an "at risk group" or who interact with people in such a group should continue to stay home when possible, observe six-feet social distancing and wear masks when away from home, and wash our hands often or use hand sanitizer.

And do whatever we can to limit cabin fever -- work jigsaw puzzles, read, watch old movies, dance in the laundry room, sing in the kitchen, paint, bake, write, take online ukulele lessons -- make our own happy!

Y'all stay safe.

A Book Signing

image from tatteredcoverbookstore.blogspot.com

Diane Mott Davidson 

Diane Mott Davidson, writer of culinary mysteries, signed books at Mountain Books in Conifer, Colorado, October 2.

She is gracious, delightful, and entertaining whether you're listening to her speak or reading her stories. And she makes a mean batch of Scout's Brownies from her book, Dying for Chocolate. 

That's the first book of hers that I read. Her main character Goldy is a mother, a good friend, a domestic abuse survivor, an amateur sleuth, and a caterer -- in that order of importance. As the series continues she adds wife to that list -- I would say tying for slot number 1.

In Dying for Chocolate, we meet all the main characters. Goldy, of course. She is happily divorced from The Jerk whose only positive contribution to her life is their son Arch. She has turned her passion for food into a career as a caterer. 

Marla is the Jerk's second ex-wife and Goldy's best friend. Marla has an extraordinary talent for collecting the town gossip which proves invaluable to Goldy's avocation as amateur detective solving local murder mysteries.

You know that info on the back of books? I seldom read that. Or book reviews. I read books because a friend recommends it or I hear an interview with the author on National Public Radio. But Dying for Chocolate I saw in the library and being notoriously addicted to chocolate, I checked it out based solely on its title.

Like all of her mysteries, it's set in the imaginary town of Aspen Meadow, Colorado, which is very like her town of Evergreen.

I was innocently reading along when I turned a page and there, in the middle of the murder mystery, was a recipe. That was on page 75. Then on page 98 there was a recipe for Scout's Brownies. To the kitchen! Murder mystery on hold, I baked them. They were delicious. 

Lucky for me because I lived in Oklahoma at the time, Ms. Mott Davidson had amended her high altitude recipe for us low altitude readers. I didn't find that out until the book signing. 

I've read all her books since. She inspired me to write Murder on Ceres. I took her a copy of my book as a gift.

I found out on Monday about her Friday scheduled book signing at Mountain Books in Conifer (from Colorado Public Radio, our local NPR station) and, of course I had to go. I'd never been to Conifer. I knew it was in the mountains and it would likely be dark when it was over, so I set about trying to enlist people to go with me. Daughter had to work. Husband had to work. Friends had other commitments. Well, shoot.

Conifer, Colorado. Google said thirty minutes away from my house. Four-lane highway. How bad could it be?

I left home at 4:00 pm to be sure I'd have plenty of time to find the book store and a parking place. After all, I clearly remembered my experience in February at Neil Gaiman's book signing in Ft. Collins,

There was a bit of rush hour traffic. It always amazes me how many people live up in the mountains and commute into Metro Denver for work. Needless to say, it was all uphill and curvy. Exits marked roads named "Raven Gulch" and "Sourdough Drive" and "Alpine Meadow." Of course they did.

The drive up? No problem at all.

Mountain Books is a wonderful bookstore. It's small and stuffed to the gills with books, new and used. Jesse, the owner, has been in this location for 18 years. His space is divided into categories -- Science Fiction, Mysteries, Religion, etc. and the books are shelved within those categories alphabetically by author. That pleases my library-trained heart.

His dog Sasha welcomes customers and keeps an eye on everything. Of indeterminate ancestry, she's a mature dog, about 30 pounds, mostly white with a lovely black patch over her right eye. Her coat is medium length and her tail is elegantly feathered. Most of the customers are local and they obligingly toss her ball for her to fetch.

Jesse suggested I walk over to the shopping center where there are several eating establishments. Of course he did. Everybody in Colorado walks. I'm getting used to it.

Weather Underground  forecasted possible thunderstorms for Conifer. Clouds were building, but to the east. 

They might drop rain out over the prairie but it wasn't likely I'd see anything from those clouds. And the aspen are responding to our changing fall daylight, their leaves bright as sunshine shimmering in the wind.

I bought Mott Davidson's latest, Goldy's Kitchen Cookbook, a collection of the recipes from her culinary mysteries, and sat down to wait. 

More fans filtered into the bookshop and we visited. One lady told me I was brave to drive in the mountains after dark. I decided to see what other books of interest to me Jesse might have. I found a Stephen Jay Gould I didn't have and one by Neil deGrasse Tyson -- both used for only $5 each.

One of the ladies said she got to hear Tyson speak at Colorado School of Mines a couple of nights before. How cool is that!

Another woman said I should be careful driving after dark because of deer on the highway. And elk are bigger than deer. Another said she'd seen a bear dead on the road the night before. Several agreed they'd heard someone hit a bear. "Do you know who?" they asked each other. "A bear?" I asked. "But they're not as dangerous as hitting a deer," they reassured me. Or an elk "because deer and elk are so tall, they'll come right over the hood into your windshield." 

Which brought on one woman's husband's experience with a deer leaping through his pickup truck's side window and going halfway through the windshield. "It was dead, of course." Of course, I thought. Then someone offered the wisdom that it would have been more dangerous if the deer had not died -- "flailing around in the moving truck."

Deer and elk and bears, Oh my.

To my relief, Diane Mott Davidson arrived bearing freshly baked Scout's Brownies. And signed our books. She talked about who inspired her villains -- which brought to mind Twain's warning that you ought not start a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. She explained that her husband Jim is nothing like the Jerk. And Arch is so believable because she has her three sons to draw on. 

Her husband is an aerospace engineer and has worked for NASA. She thinks he'll enjoy Murder on Ceres. Not only a wonderful writer, but she's kind, too.

And then it was time to drive home. In the dark.

When you see those yellow diamond highway signs showing a downward tipping truck above the percent grade you're coming to, you know you're in the Rocky Mountains and it's going to be steep. And yes, I do know to take those long, steep hills in Low gear, so my brakes don't overheat and fail.

After a half mile of 5% grade, (Doesn't sound like much, does it? But it is very steep.) I encountered an official Department of Transportation sign that read "ALL DRIVERS DON'T BE FOOLED 5% GRADE AND SHARP CURVES NEXT 5 MILES." Scared me, I'll tell you.

But then, it's like my husband says, it's not quite so scary when you can't see how far down it is. And in the darkness I couldn't see anything past the edge of the road. That's because the ground fell away to my immediate right and there was nothing there to be caught in my headlights.

At least I didn't have to worry about a deer or an elk or a bear leaping in front of the car from that side of the road. I just had to keep reminding myself that if one of those critters did come out of the darkness to my left, I should probably not swerve right to miss it.

I was relieved when I saw the 65 MPH speed limit signs. I knew I was out of the mountains and almost home.

S is for Sci-Fi/Murder Mystery

My first novel, Murder on Ceres, is a Science Fiction/Murder Mystery. “Why couldn’t you tell the same story on Earth, present day,” asked my writing teacher, William Bernhardt. (Please don’t judge Bill by my writing prowess. He is a much better teacher than I am student.) He has a habit of asking me hard questions. And I have a habit of getting defensive before I think about the answers to those hard questions.

But I do think about them. And why write my murder mystery as science fiction? That answer is “Because.”

Because I like murder mysteries. I like them as puzzles. They are all puzzles. Some are more puzzle than anything else.

John Lescroat adds the enticement of characters I would like to know personally. His characters age and change and grow from one book to the next in his series. (Plural – I tried ‘serieses’ and Word didn’t like it so I looked it up. The plural of series is series, just like deer is deer.)

Some mystery writers take me places in a way that makes me feel like I’ve been there. I’ve seen Venice, Italy, through Donna Leon’s Commissario Brunetti’s eyes. And I’ve visited many of the National Parks while following Nevada Barr’s Anna Pigeon who is a Park Ranger and apparently gets transferred a lot. Luckily for us readers.

Diane Mott Davidson has the murder mystery puzzle plus identifiable characters plus good recipes. And I like to bake.

When I was deciding what kind of murder mystery I wanted to write, I knew I wanted to follow a set of characters as they grow and age. That I can do. I like the idea of an exotic setting. As much as I love Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, those are the only locations I’m familiar enough with to write about. None of them seem very exotic to me. And I didn’t write recipes. I have family members who will tell you that I don’t even follow recipes very well.

So the search was on. What else did I like to read? Of course there were literary writers like John Irving and Margaret Atwood. Now I may have illusions of grandeur on occasion, but that is just not gonna happen.

And because I love Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan. I love their nonfiction even more than their fiction.

They inspire imagination. What will it be like to live off-planet, to emigrate from Earth to colonies scattered through the Solar System? How will humans be different? How the same? What will their everyday lives be like? Their problems? Their solutions? What will they call their washing machines?

These are subjects that could keep me interested enough, long enough to write a novel. And, in fact, these things are keeping me interested enough to get me well into my second novel. With concepts bubbling on the back burner for at least two more.

What I want to write are books I’d like to read. With my Sci-Fi/Murder Mystery crossover, I can develop my characters realistically in about as exotic a location as possible. And I believe readers will enjoy thinking about how things will be as much as I do.

Celebrity Writers

Do you know who this is?

 

   He's a celebrity author. He is one of the "world’s bestselling and critically acclaimed thriller writers" according to the publisher Simon and Schuster who's coming out with an anthology of stories from 23 thriller authors next year.

 

   Admittedly my sense of celebrity seems not to fit that of our general society. I have little interest in athletes or entertainers. Though I can admire the feats of a Michael Jordan or a Maggie Smith, I can't say that I would go out of my way to sit next to them at dinner. Though to be at table where they sat next to each other might be interesting.

 

   Celebrity writers, on the other hand, I would go out of my way to sit next to at dinner or at the same table or in the same hall. Wouldn't it be grand to listen to Ken Follett and hear him say in person that he did not sell his first novel nor indeed, his tenth? If he who has written so many good books and been so often published did not sell his first one then there is hope for me. And J.K. Rowling whose Harry Potter series was rejected by umpteen publishing houses before Scholastic picked it up, then my Rafael Sirocco series has a chance.

 

   Okay, for those two celebrities, it's more about me.

 

   Sometimes my admiration is for writers who have lived through and written about history that I'm interested in. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s novels are among the best in American fiction, but for me his celebrity status comes from his own life experiences. He was a World War II prisoner of war held in Dresden, Germany, during the Allies' bombing and subsequent firestorm there. Later, his work with PEN International to focus attention on the plight of writers being persecuted in their own countries.

 

   Maya Angelou is in this same category of celebrity writers because of whom she had known--from famous leaders in our country's civil rights movement to unknowns in that same struggle. I get a thrill every time I drive through Stamps, Arkansas, because I know she lived there as a child.

 

   Then there are some of my favorite authors--John Irving, Robert Jordan, John Lescroart (That's his photo, by the way.) Diane Mott Davidson, Donna Leon, Patrick O'Brien. These are the writers I come back to time and again. Not because they feel like celebrities to me. I'm not even particularly interested in meeting them. It's their characters that I would like to spend time with, talk to, or just admire in person.

 

   I would like to know:

 

   John Wheelwright, best friend to John Irving's Owen Meany, from A Prayer for Owen Meany my favorite novel. It's about growing up. It's about friendship. It's about living with disability and mortality.

 

    Egwene, the country girl who becomes the head of the greatest institution in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time world. She is only one of literally a world of characters with whom I would gladly spend time. Well, all except the truly scary villains and terrifying creatures. Those can stay on the pages of the book.

 

   Dismas Hardy and Abe Glitsky and their families from John Lescroart's San Francisco based crime novels. Beginning with the first of these novels we meet these people and follow them as they build their lives together. Maybe we could all meet at Lou the Greek's for lunch.

 

   Goldie Bear from Diane Mott Davidson's culinary mysteries. We follow Goldie and her best friend (who happens to share the same abusive ex-husband whom they both refer to as 'the jerk') and Goldie's son as they get involved in murder mystery after murder mystery. Goldie does meet and marry a Colorado, sheriff's detective named Schultz. Nice man. Nice country, since that's where I live. Goldie is a caterer so naturally there are recipes included, most of which I've tried in my own kitchen.

 

   Commissario Guido Brunetti from Donna Leon's murder mysteries set in Venice, Italy. This  policeman knows the vicissitudes of the Italian justice system but works to solve crimes and bring the bad guys to some kind of reckoning anyway. He loves and respects his wife. The stories don't always have an ending that satisfies my just-desserts sensibilities, but they feel real and I understand Brunetti's cynicism. Couldn't we have a great discussion about right and wrong?

 

   Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey from Master and Commander and the other books in this series that follow the British navalman through the Napoleonic wars. And let me just say Jack was hot in the books before the movie folk cast Russell Crowe to play him in the movie version. I might even flirt a bit.

Blog Hop

Thanks to Grace Wagner for tagging me.

1:  What is the working title of your book?
Murder on Ceres

2: Where did the idea come from for the book?
My favorite genres are mystery and science fiction. Diane Mott Davidson’s mysteries were my especial favorites. Her characters are believable and engaging. Her violence is done almost gently. For science fiction, I am drawn to Isaac Asimov. He provides believable, thought-provoking science.
I wanted to present humans as I think they are likely to be no matter the technological advances of the future. I want my characters to be accepted as real people by the reader. And I want my characters to realistically live in what is to them the normal universe.

3: What genre does your book come under?
Murder on Ceres is a natural cross-over, a traditional mystery set in the future.

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I’ve never thought of my characters as being like this or that actor. I will leave that up to the movie people, should it ever come to that.
No doubt, Rafe as the hero will be young and handsome; Terren as his wife will be tall and beautiful; Joe, the sidekick, will be older and ruggedly attractive. Mark, the antagonist, will be mature and charming. TePaki, the pirate will be tattooed and threatening.

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
In a time when Mars is the center of humanity and Earth is literally the Old World, humans will still be humans and murder happens.

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agent?
I am seeking an agent.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Almost three years.

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Vernor Vinge’s Rainbow’s End successfully marries science and character. His people seem perfectly normal and live normally in their very different world.

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Carl Sagan is the who. “Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.” – Cosmos
I believe out-migration from Earth is the inevitable and necessary next step for our species.

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
Our hero must solve a murder and bring the murderer or murderers to justice. He must survive professional and personal disasters, some natural and some man-made, from the lovely pearl that is the asteroid Ceres through the vastness of space to the beautiful blue marble that is Earth.

Tagging more Writers:
This I cannot do without permission. So if you are interested in joining in, give me a shout and we’ll do it.