13 signs you are addicted to books!

http://media.bookbub.com/blog/2015/04/27/addicted-to-books/

How many did you get "right"?

I was watching the most recent Who Do You Think You Are. They visited the Los Angeles Public Library. I love this quote which is on the building at the entrance.

Books Invite All. They Constrain None.

Enough said.

I had the privilege of hosting a family of wrens. The rented for a few week, I guess. They were pretty quiet until the past few days. And then suddenly they took the kids and moved out. I was able to catch one of the babies getting ready to go.

I need some feedback please. I get  some views to my posts but am not sure if they are people, Google staff monitoring, or if I have something blocked and no one can
 comment or everyone has to much to do with their daily lives.  I was set up for Google + and while I got more views, I was told by a friend that she for one couldn't comment because she didn't have an account. I thought I turned it off...

I am considering moving my blog elsewhere to see if this "spot" is too tricky for me.

Thanks

 I just finished this book and enjoyed it a lot. A great cozy about a retired couple that decides to break up the monotony of their days by solving the mystery of the murder of their elderly neighbor. There was some similarities of the central characters that made me wonder...people who like Pawn Stars, people who like to fix things, and a few other things. Oh, and there is a cat like mine in the story; a male, chubby Tuxie whose main goal is food. A cat in the story is always a plus for me. The story also has some funny moments and I laughed out loud.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24404034-the-corpse-wore-gingham



"Piper and Bill Robins, a retired married couple, are enjoying their leisure years spent in the tranquil, leafy Washington, D.C. suburb of Beverly Park, Virginia. Bill watches “Pawn Stars” on TV and mows his lawn while Piper shops for clothes and solves crossword puzzles. One sunny June afternoon, Emily Davenport, who lives in California, telephones Bill and asks if he’ll check on her elderly mother Anna living next door to the Robinses. She hasn’t answered Emily’s repeated attempts to call. After Bill and Piper go over, they discover Anna lies murdered in her bed. The only found clue is her bloodstained gingham bathrobe. Appalled and even more outraged, Piper persuades Bill to become wife-and-husband amateur sleuths, and they set out to find Anna’s killer. Meantime, Bill’s younger sister Noreen, a retired CPA, joins the Robinses’ investigation. She taps her ex-cop boyfriend Rick Novak and her mysterious, opinionated tuxedo tomcat Snoozy Q for support. While the city homicide detectives run their official investigation, the skillful snoops Piper, Bill, and Noreen train their sights on four murder suspects. Besides a clean read and fair play modern “whodunit” mystery, The Corpse Wore Gingham offers cozy mystery fans likeable protagonists, good-natured humor, and a lively pace."

Well we actually turned on the a.c. here in central Texas for a second this week. The combination of humidity and mid 80's was a bit much. But today we got a nice cold front to bring us back to cooler weather. I hate to go from needing the furnace on to a.c within two weeks!

Lots of flowers blooming now.

 

 

 

 

I am currently reading "The Corpse Wore Gingham" by Ed Lynskey. It is a short 223 page cozy about a retired couple who decided they will be amateur sleuths and solved the murder of their elderly neighbor. It is just a light, funny at times, quick cozy to clear my reading brain after "Natchez Burning". Too tell you the truth, there are so many similarities and parallels to my life, I am wondering....other than the elderly neighbor being murdered.

 

http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/43989607-the-corpse-wore-gingham-the-piper-bill-robins-cozy-mystery-series-boo

 

 

Our May mystery book club selection is "Cuckoo's Calling" by Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling. As a big Harry Potter fan, I am anxious to see how her "grown up" book is.

 



Natchez Burning

I finally finished this book; all 798 pages. # 4 in the Penn Cage series.

"Raised in the historic southern splendor of Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned all he knows of honor and duty from his father, Dr. Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor and pillar of the community has been accused of murdering Viola Turner, the African-American nurse with whom he worked in the dark days of the 1960s. Once a crusading prosecutor, Penn is determined to save his father, but Tom, stubbornly invoking doctor-patient privilege, refuses to even speak in his own defense."

My take on it: most mysteries have one or two bad guys and the good guy trying to right the wrong, solve the crime, remove the bad guy.  This book has a handful of good guys and two states (as in Mississippi and Louisiana) of really bad guys.

 Per Dictionary.com:

Sociopath: a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience

Icky:  disgusting; repulsive. Synonyms: revolting, disgusting (this is the word that kept coming to my mind)


It is full of sociopaths that have been operating for many, many years and getting away with it. They have performed horrible atrocities to black people, white people, animals, family members, anyone they didn't like the looks of. (I.e.Nazi's, Taliban, KKK) The only reason I finished it was to make sure these people did not make it past the end of the story. Unfortunately, I am not sure about that.

It was well written and was a page turner, I will say that much.

I think I will go read a nice cozy now.

Susan Wittig Albert fans

Any Susan Wittig Albert fans?
Book #23 in the China Bayles book comes out April 7, 2015.


http://www.abouthyme.com/China/Bittersweet.shtml

"The China Bayles Herbal Mysteries feature herbalist China Bayles, who abandoned her career as a hot-shot Houston criminal attorney to buy an herb shop in a small town located half-way between Austin and San Antonio, Texas. China wants the things that many contemporary women seek: a quieter life, rewarding work, a close relationship, friends, and community. Each of her mysteries has a signature herb that is connected to a major theme, and each is liberally sprinkled with information on growing and using herbs. The China Bayles novels have been praised for their intelligent plots, quirky and appealing characters, interesting settings, and strong writing".

I enjoy reading this series because it takes place in my neck of the woods and is fun to read about local places and history. And who wouldn't want to leave their stressful job and have an herb shop and solve mysteries like China. Well, I guess I don't know anything about herbs, so I wouldn't have that but something fun...

Book #6 of the Darling Dahlias come out Sept 2015:
The Darling Dahlias and the Eleven O'Clock lady.
http://www.darlingdahlias.com/index.php

"The series is set in the 1930s, when times are tough, jobs are scarce, and people are worried about what lies ahead.
But the ladies of the fictional town of Darling, Alabama, are determined to keep their spirits up, their families fed, and their town beautiful. They belong to a garden club called "The Dahlias," which (next to Beulah's Beauty Bower, the Darling Diner, and the party line) is the most important of the town's social centers. The Dahlias have a clubhouse, a flag, an overgrown garden, and a weekly column in The Darling Dispatch, written by Miss Elizabeth Lacy. And like many other women of that era, they are experts in gardening, cooking, sewing, saving money, and making do, cheerfully. "

What I like about this series is the references to things, events, radio shows, music, food of that time that my grandparents would talk about. It is like hearing those stories again with a mystery thrown in. Also I am a big fan of the  " Greater Tuna" plays. The names of the characters make me think of the characters in the Greater Tuna.  :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Tuna