And so it's time to move on to a new place in life.....





When I said my goodbyes to posting on My Random Acts of Reading 18 months ago, I truly thought I would not return, but I did.  I am so grateful that I have spent the last 9 months buried in my reading, the Internet, and writing this blog.  It has given me the focus I needed to be able to put one foot in front of the other and keep on keepin' on.  My heart was so heavy at the beginning of the year as I watched my mother's health and mind decline.  This blog and interaction with people here was a great distraction.  I have spent these 9 months doing what I needed to do in order to grieve for Mom and then recover.  

I've realized in the last few weeks that I have begun to come out of my shell.  I am not reading as much, but I am exercising more.  I am not spending as much time on my computer, but I am joining new activities, such as attending a weekly Bible study that has been very meaningful to me.  I'm getting out of my house and taking on tasks that I have been putting off for months or even years.  I'm starting to enjoy pursuits like cross-stitch, which I used to do in the past.  I'm planning on taking a beginning quilting class after we move to our new home.  I'm supervising the renovations that are being done on our current house and dreaming about the next one.  I'm beginning to experience the next stage of my life and it's a very good thing.

I'm reading what I want when I want, but I'm not putting quite so much effort into it.  I have energy and purpose and I feel like I'm moving in a wonderful direction.  On the other hand, I'm weary of writing about what I read.  It seems a chore now and so I'm going to stop.   

It's the right decision for me at just the right time.  I won't disappear altogether.  I have trimmed my Google Reader down to a very few blogs, but I'll still be around off and on, commenting and enjoying updates to your lives.  My little "reading lady" will still pop up now and then.  I'm going to leave my blog up for the month of October and then decide whether to delete it entirely.  It's possible that once we get moved, I might begin another blog with a little different focus.  I don't make any promises at this time, but it's something I'll consider in a few months. 

My heart is full of appreciation for all the support and genuine friendliness I've experienced in the last 9 months from all of you.  The comments and notes have been more meaningful than you can possibly know.  I was honored that you would stop by and read my thoughts.  I wish all of you well and may God bless each of you.  Take care and Happy Reading!

Stiltsville by Susanna Daniel

What to say about Stiltsville....my goodness, what to say.  Stiltsville is the debut novel of author, Susanna Daniel.  It is a book that is deceptively simple.  It tells the story of a woman and a family and a city, Miami, and a way of life that has for the most part ended.  The setting is vivid and lush, Miami not like you see in the flyovers on TV today, but Miami of the past.  But it is mostly the story of a woman and a marriage and her life during that time - simple and powerful.

Frances Ellerby visits Miami for the first time in 1969, attending the wedding of a friend.  She meets a woman who will remain one of her best friends throughout her life, Marse, and she meets the man who will be her husband, Dennis DuVal.  Marse takes Frances out to a place called Stiltsville, a fascinating community of houses built on pilings in Biscayne Bay.  They visit Marse's brother and his friend, Dennis, and so begins the story of Frances' life with a man, a vacation house in Stiltsville, and a future that she didn't suspect she would live.  Frances and Dennis marry and have a daughter, Margo.  They work and play and spend time on the water and at their Stiltsville home.  There are ups and downs, times of plenty and lean times, weather problems, marriage problems, parenting problems, and grave illness.  All of these times are told by Frances and I read her narrative like I was reading a diary, slowly, carefully, with laughter and with tears.  It was very moving to me.

Susanna Daniel has a gift of description and she uses it well in Stiltsville.  The setting comes alive and the reader feels like swatting at mosquitoes, wiping away the perspiration from the sun or humidity, or slathering on sunscreen.  The Florida landscape appears again and again in various guises.  The community of Stiltsville, which actually exists, is a fascinating place and I found it rather unnerving to think of sleeping above water in a house built on stilts.  The author is a native Floridian and spent time in her childhood at her own family's stilt home in Biscayne Bay.  She knows of what she speaks.

I was very drawn to several of the characters.  First of all, Frances, probably because her life has some similarities to my own.  I nodded my head and sympathized through her worries and traumas parenting an only child.  I also loved Dennis, Frances' husband.  There were certain aspects of his character that reminded me of men I have known. including my own husband.  Their marriage survives many stresses, not without turmoil and compromise, but with much love.  The last quarter of the book impacted me hugely.  I share one quote from Frances:

I lived in Miami through scandals and riots, through dozens of tropical storms and one devastating hurricane, through the Mariel boat lift and the cocaine cowboys.  Outside Florida, I've never met anyone else who lived in Miami or cared to, or even anyone who is not somewhat surprised to hear that I lived there for half of my life.  Perhaps what is still more surprising to me about Miami is that in spite of its lurid excesses and unreal beauty and unreal ugliness, it was possible for me, a girl from Georgia, to create a life there.  Overall, an excellent life.  A life I knew even as I was living it, I would miss when it came to an end.

Thank you so much to Lisa of TLC Book Tours for letting me be a part of this blog tour and sending me a copy of the book for review.  I am most appreciative.  Other tour stops can be found here.

September Book Group Meeting at the Library - South of Broad

My book group met at the library yesterday afternoon for a discussion of Pat Conroy's novel, South of Broad.  Wowie, zowie, what a discussion we had!  It was almost a knock down - drag out!  Are you familiar with that phrase? 

I began the meeting by announcing to the group that my tenure of being the moderator/facilitator was going to come to an end in December.  My husband and I will be moving further north in our area and it seems like an opportune time to bow out gracefully.  Happily, the program will remain active at the library and one of the group members, who is already a library volunteer, will step in and take care of the administrative chores.  The members will rotate leading or facilitating discussions.  I may or may not remain as a regular member.  I haven't planned that far ahead yet.

Next, I shared some info I gleaned from Pat Conroy's website concerning various aspects of his life, his writing career, and his future plans.  If you are a Conroy fan, his website has a lot of things to look through and read.  Another member shared some articles she found about Charleston, South Carolina, the setting of our discussion book, and also some interesting information about hurricanes.

And then, the discussion began or rather the first punch was thrown!  Not really, but it was a very animated time with comments flying fast and free, a lot of back and forth opinions, and a great time.  Half of our group really, really disliked South of Broad.  Half of it was enthralled.  I was in the mostly enthralled, but feeling like I had just read a soap opera camp.  Several members felt that there were too many characters, that they were one dimensional and pretty much unbelievable.  A couple of members felt that Conroy wrote dysfunctional very aptly and that in order to show what he needed to show, the characters had to be over the top.  One person felt that it had a serial episode feel and I added my soap opera analogy, while saying that I was compelled to find out what happened regardless. 

A couple of members had read other Conroy novels, Prince of Tides, The Great Santini, and Beach Music.  They felt that he had lost some of the expressiveness and beautifully scripted momentum that occurred in those novels.  One member felt that he had just thrown together a book with further sales in mind.  I shared that it took him five years to write South of Broad, so that kind of preempted the whole "thrown together" aspect. 

As a humorous note, a new member visited, a lady from another culture.  She had read the book but was reluctant to share her thoughts because she was unsure of her English.  She did tell us that her English teacher had suggested she attend an American book group in order to see what American culture was like.  She asked us if South of Broad would be considered American literature.  As you can imagine, the fur started flying at that point. 

I made the group laugh by telling them that they couldn't judge literature because when I brought them Jane Austen (my precious Jane!), several were not impressed and said Persuasion was like a Harlequin romance (no offense to Harlequin).  I said they couldn't be trusted because they didn't immediately love my Jane and they had wounded me deeply!!

On a serious note, I did share with the group that next week is Banned Book Week.  Some of the group were not familiar with that special time in many libraries and I got to inform them.  I think the new leader of the group is planning to have a special Banned Book read next year during September, a very good idea I think.

We will be reading and discussing Loving Frank by Nancy Horan for our October meeting and will hopefully not be tearing Frank Lloyd Wright apart during the discussion!  Several of the members left the meeting telling me that they thought it was one of our most fun meetings.  So, I guess a little disagreement and All Star Wrestling is good for an afternoon book group at the library.

I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

Once upon a time (or in 1985), there was a 15-year-old girl named Elizabeth.  She loved Madonna and thought her parents were mean to tell her she couldn't dye her hair or spend all her time at the mall or at the Roy Rogers on Route 40 (she could easily cut through the woods to get there).  So, she put on her fingerless lace gloves, her bouffant black skirt over leggings and her black ankle boots and took a walk.  It was a bad decision, for on that walk she saw a man with a shovel.   The man helped her cross the creek, but after she got on the other side, he grabbed her hands and took her with him....for 39 days.

Laura Lippman has written a successful mystery series, set in Baltimore, along with several stand alone novels.  I'd Know You Anywhere is the latest of her books, and it is a definite winner, full of twists and turns and escalating psychological suspense.

Eliza Benedict has a nice, ordinary life with her husband, Peter, and their two children, Iso and Albie.  They have recently moved back to the area where Eliza grew up after having lived in London for several years.  Soon afterward, a letter is delivered to their new home addressed to Eliza.  It begins, "Dear Elizabeth, I'm sure this is a shock, although that's not my intention, to shock you...".  The letter is from Walter Bowman, the man who kidnapped Eliza when she was 15 and held her for almost 6 weeks, the man who killed another girl, maybe more, the man who is on death row for raping and murdering that other girl, the man who has now found Eliza and who wants to talk to her.

Albie put his hand in hers, as if the walk to the kitchen were a journey of miles.  She wished it were, that he would stay this age for three, four years, then be nine for a decade or so, then spend another ten years being ten.  But onetime graduate student of children's literature that she was, she knew there was no spell, no magic, that could keep a child a child, or shield a child from the world at large.  In fact, that was where the trouble almost always began, with a parent trying to outthink fate.  Stay on the path.  Don't touch the spindle.  Don't speak to strangers.  Don't pick the rose.

I'd Know You Anywhere was hard for me to put down.  It is a character study of a woman who has endured so much trauma in her younger years, but has now replaced that horror with normality and structure.  And yet, how can she be normal?  Eliza was a fascinating person, hard to know at first, but as the narrative progressed, more and more facets emerged.  In fact, there were many vivid characters included in the story, from Iso, Eliza's teenage daughter, to Trudy, the mother of another of victim, and Barbara, the woman who facilitates Walter's contact with Eliza.

The story is told from various points of view and goes back and forth from the present day to 1985, as more and more of Eliza's kidnapping story is revealed.  There is quite a lot of discussion of the death penalty and the author presents arguments for, against, and also in between.  She left it to her readers to come to conclusions on their own on that issue.  I found a few of the characters annoying, but I think they were meant to be.  The kidnapping sections are almost surreal, but I found them quite gripping.  All in all, a very good read that should appeal to crime novel lovers as well as people who enjoy a good psychological suspense story.  I'm planning on searching out Laura Lippman's backlist and settling in for a good time.

I want to thank Trish of TLC Book Tours for making sure I got a copy of this book and allowing me to be a part of this blog tour.  Check out the other stops here.

A scattered morning...and the new TV season approaches...

I am now at the end of my scheduled obligation reading and I am so excited about that.  I put down Stiltsville yesterday afternoon (powerful ending) and sighed.  Finally I can read what I wish to....so naturally I can't decide what to read.  I'm wandering around picking up books and laying them down.  Something will strike me soon I'm sure.

I am excited that the new TV season will be beginning next week.  Do you watch TV very much?  I am pretty much a crime show junkie.  I probably watch way too many regular crime shows, but I love them and so I don't worry about that.  We are lucky enough to have a DVR through our cable (Digital Video Recorder in case you aren't familiar with that) and so I can program to record shows as I please.  I will admit that we have gotten very spoiled to zipping through the commercials.  I positively itch to press fast-forward when watching "regular" TV.  Here's what I will be watching this fall - not sure I'm adding much as I have a full dance card already:

• CSI (getting a little "long in the tooth", but still OK)
• CSI Miami (even with Horatio and hands on the hips - LOL)
• CSI New York (love Gary Sinise)
• Criminal Minds (probably my favorite crime show of all)
• NCIS (my husband's favorite - love that Jethro)
• NCIS Los Angeles (just because if it says NCIS, we must watch)
• Bones (has gotten better and better IMHO)
• Lie to Me (getting a little tired of this one)
• Fringe (if I can get caught up through Netflix on season 2)

We also usually watch Biggest Loser.  I'm planning on trying Hawaii Five-O (gotta at least try it - they kept the theme song!) and Blue Bloods (I'll usually watch anything with Tom Selleck - at least once).  Masterpiece Mystery is still running and has some good episodes upcoming and The Glades has not finished it's first season yet.  The Closer and Rizzoli and Isles are at an end for now, as is Leverage.  I told you I keep up with a lot of TV shows. 

So, are a you a series watcher?  Do you wait until things are available on DVD or are you not a TV person at all?  I'm curious, so comment away.

Fragile by Lisa Unger

Fragile by Lisa Unger is a book that I savored.  It's not a thriller, but is definitely a mystery.  And more.  The psychological twists and turns were very satisfying for me to follow.  I relished the journey and I took my time with it. 

Do you live in the same community where you went to high school?  Do you keep up with friends from that time?  Has your life and your personality changed and growth occurred?  Or....are you still the same?  Fragile speaks to questions such as these and to so much more.

The Hollows was a small, relatively affluent town, about a hundred miles outside of New York City....a safe and quiet community.  People who had grown up in The Hollows often returned after college to raise families.  Doctors, lawyers, businesspeople who worked in the city commuted home by train on weekday nights.  It had that quaintness to it, the kind that rich urbanites started to crave in their forties, when the glitz of the city ceased to glamour them.  It was a nice place to live, with good schools, a lively center with trendy boutiques, an independent bookstore, a couple of nice restaurants, and The Hollows Brew, an upscale coffee shop that hosted a weekly poetry reading, showed the work of local artists on its walls, and had become a kind of general meeting place.
   Maggie had never thought in a million years that she'd end up back in The Hollows.  But she had.  She didn't regret leaving the city behind and starting a practice here, in the town where she grew up.  But sometimes, in a low moment, she wondered what would have happened if her father hadn't died, leaving her mother alone.  Would she ever have come back here?  

Maggie Cooper is a psychologist, married to Jones Cooper, the head of The Hollows Police Department detectives.  They have a teenage son, Rick, whose girlfriend Charlene disappears one night.  Maggie and Jones both grew up in The Hollows, went to high school at the same school their son attends, and have a connection to many people who live in the small community.  They know Charlene's mother, Melody, and stepfather, Graham.  They know the school counselor, Henry, having gone to school with each of them.  The threads of familiarity run back and forth throughout the town and people think they know their neighbors well.  They might and then again, they might not.

Charlene's disappearance mimics another tragic event that occurred over 20 years ago.  Another girl went missing.  Her name was Sarah and her abduction shook the residents of this area profoundly.  How could something like this happen again?  Jones is in charge of the investigation and he is acting strangely.  Their son, Rick, has become more and more withdrawn of late and some evidence seems to point to him.  Maggie tries to support her son, reason with her husband, and also remember something that is just on the edge of her memory.  Something from that time when Sarah disappeared.  It might be important...

This is the first book I've read by Lisa Unger and I loved it.  It is my understanding that it is somewhat of a departure for her.  She shares in an author's note that a similar disappearance occurred in the small community where she grew up.  Fragile is not the story of that crime, but writing it seems to have come from her memories of that time period.  This book is a gripping psychological study of a community and the myriad of small secrets that exist in such places.  It is the story of many characters, very well drawn and imagined, and what might happen when a significant portion of them know things about each other that they've tried to forget, tried to lock up in a safe place in their minds, but because of another event that acts as a catalyst, those same secrets come spilling out for all to see.  Can hidden things ever stay completely tucked away?  Perhaps not, especially when damaged people remain part of each other's lives.

I was drawn into this story a little at time.  Soon, I felt that I had to know the secrets that were hinted at.  I love a good character study and Lisa Unger has written a doozy, in my opinion.  The action is never over the top, but I found myself reading faster and faster as I went along.  She really draws you into this community, these characters, this crime, and especially the hidden places.  I had a very hard time putting this book down in the last third.  I had to know.  Had to.  Understand?

I will definitely be seeking out this author's other works and looking forward to her next endeavor.  This book will appeal to lovers of psychological mysteries or readers who enjoy well drawn characters whose motives are revealed a little at a time.  Well done, Lisa Unger!

Maggie and a couple of mothers that she's known since high school:

It didn't take long for tensions to build.  The three of them--the pretty cheerleader, the sexy burnout too old, too knowing for her age, the geek with gothic leanings--they were all there, these representatives of the perennial high school subcultures, squirming and pink beneath the shells of their adulthoods.  Maggie thought that childhood things would be left behind, these silly groupings would fade and become meaningless, but they never were.  Not in a town like this.  These teenage girls, each awkward and unsure in her own way, never left The Hollows.

Another quote, somewhat menacing, about the small community of The Hollows:

There was something about The Hollows that held on tight, kept you here though you'd intended to leave, or brought you back when you weren't paying attention.  It made promises that it didn't keep--safety, peace of mind, tranquillity--until one day you were too tired to even want to find another place to live.

Thanks to Amanda of Booksparks and Sarah of Random House for bringing this book to my attention and sending me a copy for review.  It was most appreciated.

Inspector Lewis on Masterpiece MYSTERY - I love this show!

First of all, do you watch Masterpiece MYSTERY?  I always look forward each year to the new season on PBS and this year has been a lot of fun.  One of my favorite shows is Inspector Lewis.  We are being treated to 5 new episodes this year.

Some or many of you may have watched the British crime show Inspector Morse, based on Colin Dexter's series of books.  There were many, many episodes and I know this is a well-loved TV show.  I'll confess that I have not read the books nor have I watched the shows.  Perhaps one day.  However, I did begin watching the Inspector Lewis episodes soon after they began. 

Robert (Robbie) Lewis was Inspector Morse's Sergeant, both of them working for the police in Oxford, England.  After the completion of the Inspector Morse run and the death of actor John Thaw, who played Morse, many thought that there would be no more Lewis as well.  However, a new series was conceived and it begins as Lewis, promoted to Detective Inspector, returns to England after 2 years away in the British Virgin Islands.  Kevin Whately continues playing Robbie Lewis with the addition of a new assistant, Sergeant James Hathaway, played by Laurence Fox.  In the first show, Morse has been dead for 5 years and Lewis, whose wife was killed in a car accident, tries to make a life again with the Oxford Police.

I love Lewis and have enjoyed his settling into his position, but my favorite character is Sergeant Hathaway.  What an intriguing man.  He comes to the police, Cambridge educated, having left his course of study where he was training to be an Anglican priest.  Bit by bit, as the episodes mount up, we are learning more about Hathaway, more about Lewis and the two are bonding quite nicely.

If you like British crime shows, I highly recommend Inspector Lewis.  It's a real treat!

Remember when I mentioned a class called Recreational Reading?

Earlier in the summer, I mentioned a class I took when I was in 8th grade called "Recreational Reading".  It was in the Bookish Nostalgia Post about author Mary Stewart here.  I shared that my parents had been concerned that "no learning" would take place in such a class and also said that I felt a lot of learning occurred.  I read as it suited me and roamed the school library for wonderful treasures.

I have decided that I am going to conduct my own private (or you are welcome to join in) "Recreational Reading" time for the rest of 2010.  I told you all that I planned to begin reading what I wanted when I wanted.  I have 3 more blog tours to complete and I will say that I am looking forward to the books involved.  They will all be finished by the end of September.  I am not really a challenge joiner.  I know that many have decided to do Carl's R.I.P. V Challenge and I thought about it.  However, in the spirit of freedom for the rest of this year, I'm going to pass.  Perhaps next year, if it appears again.  I have decided to read with subtle themes for October, November and December.  And I feel like I will probably do a lot of rereading of old favorites as well.

I'm going to focus on the spooky in October be it ghosts, ghoulies, haunts, vampires, werewolves, witches, or magic of whatever kind.  November will be spent including stories with family themes, perhaps some spiritual or thankful books in keeping with my favorite holiday of Thanksgiving.  As is my tradition for most Decembers, I will be selecting books with Christmas cheer included during that month.  I also gravitate to winter settings and have several books that I reread most years during the holiday season.

I may or may not write actual reviews of many of the books I'm reading.  We'll see what seems best, especially if my reading takes me down paths that I have visited before.  Perhaps my "reviews" will be more sharings of thoughts engendered or memories.  Perhaps I'll just have a 3-month period of Bookish Nostalgia.  I hope I won't run all of you off.  I'd love for you to share in my journey.  I know that mysteries will be read during all the months for a reader that searches can find a mystery that will fit virtually any theme or circumstance.  Right??

Cleo, The Cat Who Mended a Family by Helen Brown

Are you a cat person?  I think I would consider myself a cat person.  We had two memorable cats as my daughter was growing up, Jonathan and Xena, both gone now.  They were very different from each other and remarkable in very different ways.

There is only one correct name for a cat--Your Majesty.

Cleo, The Cat Who Mended a Family is a memoir of sorts by Helen Brown.  The author is a native of New Zealand where she worked as a journalist for many years.  Cleo was the dainty cat that came to live with the Brown family at just the moment that they needed her.  She lived with them for almost 24 years, such a great age for a cat, and will be remembered forever as their salvation.

Helen Brown had two sons.  Sam was almost 9 and Rob was 6.  Her husband, Steve, worked as the radio officer on a ferry, one week on and one week off.  Sam's birthday was coming up and Helen took her boys to check out her friend Lena's new kittens, even though she said that they weren't really cat people.  It turned out that all the kittens had been spoken for except the smallest one, a solid black female, the runt of the litter.  Lena told them that it would be a couple of months before the kittens could leave their mother, but Sam was enchanted and insisted that their kitten should be called Cleopatra, Cleo for short. 

Little did the family know that a tragic accident would claim the life of this precious child in the intervening two months and when Cleo was delivered to them, they would have forgotten her completely.  However, this scrawny, little feline thrived with the Browns.  Rob, the 6-year-old, took over as her champion, and the antics and care of Cleo reminded this family that life could and would go on, even in their deep sorrow.

Helen Brown has written a moving portrait of a family in pain and the little cat that moved through their lives, like the queen she was named for, sharing love, sharing humor, sharing her kitty conquests (like mice with no heads), and binding up their wounds as she became a much loved member of their family.  She took them through their grief, divorce, new love, more children, moves to other cities and countries, and severe illness.  Cleo loved them and they loved her back.  They were cat people after all.

There are a few quotes I'd like to share, the first two about Cleo's appearance:

Rob was curled up in a corner of the living room, cradling the tiny creature in his arms.  To have called it beautiful or even pretty would have made Elton John's spectacle frames the understatement of the eighties.  It was a scrap of life wrapped in a dishcloth.  A toy you'd take back to the department store to exchange for one with more stuffing.

The kitten couldn't have been blacker.  From the claw and pads of its feet to its whiskers it was black.  Even the pins of its claws were black.  Its eyes were the only things that broke the rule.  They were shimmering green mirrors that hardly belonged to a cat.  Surely they had been stolen from a creature from another world.

About a cat's purr:

A cat's purr is said to have a profound effect on the human body.  Tests have proved purring reduces people's stress, lowers blood pressure and helps mend muscles and bones.  The healing powers of cats are increasingly acknowledged by the many hospitals and nursing homes that employ resident cat doctors...listening to her throaty melody, my chest filled with liquid honey.

Cats and guilt:

Guilt isn't in cat vocabulary.  They never suffer remorse for eating too much, sleeping too long or hogging the warmest cushion in the house.  They welcome every pleasurable moment as it unravels, and savor it to the full until a butterfly or falling leaf diverts their attention.  They don't waste energy counting the number of calories they've consumed or the hours they've frittered away sunbathing.
   Cats don't beat themselves up about not working hard enough.  they don't get up and go, they sit down and stay.  For them, lethargy is an art form.  From their vantage points on top of fences and window ledges, they see the treadmills of human obligations for what they are--a meaningless waste of time.

If you're a cat person or even if you're not, you'll likely enjoy this heartwarming tale of a little black kitty and her family.  This book will appeal to animal lovers everywhere.

Thanks to Rose Marie at Inkwell Mangement for asking me to participate in this blog tour and sending me a copy of the book for review.

Mystery Book Club Meeting for September

I enjoyed meeting with my mystery friends last Wednesday evening for our monthly discussion time at the library.  The group has settled into a nice mix of people and we are an informal group, but a chatty one.  We always do some discussion of recent movies or TV shows that relate to crime.  The topic we talked about the longest as we all arrived was a recent episode of The Closer.  We also mentioned Rizzoli & Isles and discussed the differences between the TV show and Tess Gerritsen's books. 

Our books discussion for this meeting centered on Rebecca Cantrell's crime novel, A Trace of Smoke.  I had read this book before leaving on my vacation and so was a bit more silent at the beginning of the discussion as I reminded myself of some of the plot points.  The cover on this book is very noir looking.  The setting is Berlin in 1931 and the story is compelling.  Everyone was pleased with the book, and the comments were fast and furious.  The author had done a lot of research about this time period and she also spent some time living in Germany.  We were all reminded of the movie Cabaret, which is set about the same time period and location.

In the book, a crime reporter, Hannah Vogel, comes across a photograph of an unidentified dead man who she recognizes as her brother, Ernst.  Hannah tries to investigate his murder, delving into the gay cabaret lifestyle that her brother was a part of, while trying to maintain her job and keep food on her table.  She meet an assortment of people who alternatively thwart and assist her in her task. 

We discussed Hitler and the Nazi's rise to power as this played a part in the storyline.  We also mentioned the fact that it was not only Jews that the Nazi's persecuted.  Really, any subset of society, almost any ethnicity or alternative lifestyle choice was targeted.  That doesn't even include the medical experimentation that went on.  It was all truly depraved.  However, at the time of A Trace of Smoke, Jewish families were being singled out and targeted, but the roundups had not begun.  Life was still quasi-normal.

The author has a second book in this series available, A Night of Long Knives, which continues Hannah's story after the action moves to 1934.  Everyone was pleased to know about the availability of another book and we will all be looking for A Night of Long Knives.

Our meeting next month is a little different.  We will be having what I have termed a "Cozy Carnival".  Each member will read whatever they wish in the cozy section of crime novels.  I had pulled in an assortment of books, all first in their respective series, for the members to choose from.  We will come together and each share mini book reports on where our reading has taken us this next month.  Cozies could be comprised of hobby-type mysteries, amateur detectives, small village mysteries, historical settings, really a wide assortment of choices.  I look forward to hearing what all the members select to read.   

Because I love to give books to people who will enjoy them...

I'd like to give away several books that I've reviewed in the last couple of months to readers who think they would enjoy them.  Instead of running a contest and choosing a random number, I'm going to list them.  If you see one that you think would suit you or that you have on a wishlist, please leave me a comment that includes a way to contact you.  This is a first come-first pick sort of deal.  Once they are spoken for, they will be gone.  I'll update the post as the the items are taken and will email you for your shipping address after they are all gone.  Good luck!

Here are the choices:

Love Finds You in Victory Heights, Washington Tina

Hearts on a String scottsgal

Bird in Hand Joy

Sand in My Eyes Stacy

Think of a Numb3r Cath

A conscious step back to simplicity....and a new step forward...

I've been planning to talk about a few things that have been floating around my head for several weeks.  I've hinted that I did some real thinking while I was on my vacation and now I'm going to share what I pondered. 

Coming back to blogging at the beginning of this year was a good decision.  I had missed connecting with others through the blogs, even though I visited and commented on several during my hiatus.  It has given me an outlet for my reading thoughts and it has also been a social outreach.  After "retiring" from my library position, I still had a way to talk books and share my reading life.  I know this sounds like I'm quitting again, but I'm not.  I'm just simplifying.

Even though I read multiple blog posts at the beginning of this year in which bloggers took a step back from accepting ARC's and participating in tours and other events due to being overwhelmed, I really didn't think that would happen to me.  And I'll admit that the book blogging world changed and revved up during the time I was away.  It's exciting to think about getting books to review early and participating in the publishing world in a more active way.  However, it is so very easy to find yourself with more books than you can handle and commitments that seem rational when you accept them, but weigh you down when they come due.

I took a look back at my reading logs for the years 1993, 1994, and the few years after.  In 1993, I read 58 books total.  That year my daughter was in 5th grade.  Our lives were busy, but I wasn't working outside the home.  She played sports and we had other commitments.  However, no internet.  Do you know that I am reading almost 3 times that many books a year now?  And also spending hours a day reading and surfing on my computer.  I am astounded at the amount of time that I spend on the internet and also the speed that I read now.  It sounds good, but sometimes it feels like I'm on fast forward or even fast forward (2) (like on my DVR).  I'm getting through a lot of material, but I seem to remember very little of it soon afterward. 

I've read several posts lately by some of my favorite bloggers and many of them are voicing similar concerns of feeling pressured, overwhelmed, or on fast forward.  Staci of Life in the Thumb wrote me a note about organizing her commitments just recently.  Molly of My Cozy Book Nook has written some thoughtful things this summer about self awareness.  Amy of My Friend Amy really touched my heart with a post about Reading Like a Child.  She talked about actually feeling overdosed on books, publishing knowledge and book talk and longed to read with abandon as she saw her two nieces do on a visit with her. 

The internet is a seductive and addictive thing for me.  I have loved finding people like me in the world - the ones who love to read as much as I do.  I spent the time before the internet sometimes feeling like a square peg in the round hole of my family.  But, I really miss being able to go to the library and peruse the shelves blindly, not knowing something about the vast majority of the authors and books there.  Does that sound crazy?  I miss reading slowly and carefully, finishing a book, closing it with a sigh, and just sitting and thinking about what I've read for a time.  These days, I usually jump up, run and write a review, and quickly turn to my calendar to see what I need to read next.  I am on every publisher and author newsletter list on the planet, I think.  I was the go-to person at the library when a patron couldn't think of the title of a book or an author because I was a walking encyclopedia of book and publishing lore.  I always knew what was coming out next and was so far ahead of the curve, books seemed old by the time they were published.

Well, I have decided to make some changes.  I know a lot of this is self-inflicted.  I chose to accept and to seek out this knowledge.  But, I'm now choosing to simplify.  I took my follower widget off my blog while I was on vacation.  I will no longer "follow" other blogs, although I will subscribe through my Google Reader.  I did a severe cutting back on the number of blogs on my Reader during my vacation as well.  I mean, how many blogs can a person read really?  I'm down to less than 100 and aim to keep it that way.  I also took my stats counter off my blog.  And I've decided to:

• Accept very, very few publisher and publicist offers of books
• Accept very, very few blog tours (mostly crime fiction)
• Quit clicking on ARC's on Shelf Awareness
• Unsubscribe from the vast majority of the newsletters I receive
• Read what I want when I want
• Read more slowly and deliberately
• Start another book buying ban
• Spend much less time on the computer
• Find another hobby besides reading and blogging

I'm never going to get to read all the books that I want to and sometimes this all feels like I'm strangling.  Too much info feels like work and not in a good way.

With all of that being said, I'm going to step out and try to read some books in a new genre - fantasy.  Over our vacation, my husband and I talked about my reading and his reading.  He has always read fantasy and I've always said, "What are they about?".  He challenged me to see for myself.  So, if you're a reader of fantasy, which books would you suggest for me as "not to be missed"?  I'd love to have a lot of suggestions, so please spill!

Oh, and we're going to be doing a bunch of renovations on our house (I'll share some pictures as we go along).  That is going to involve packing up and storing the vast majority of my books, as in almost all of them.  I'll keep out maybe 30 or so of the 1,500 I own.  I think it will be good for me.  I'll have to visit the library and actually check some books out or read on my Kindle or even just not read so much for a bit.  Imagine!  I might go for a walk and listen to the birdsong or something nutty like that.  Thanks for listening and thanks for being supportive in every way.  I'm off to maybe not read!