Dear Reader

Dear Reader Column 11-30-07

Join my email book club. Over 350,000 people read 5-minutes a day. To see what books I'm featuring this week, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/

Dear Reader,

Thanks for taking the time to write. I know you're busy, especially this time of year!

From my Email Bag:

"Hi Suzanne, I have to thank you for sharing Janice's Corn Casserole recipe. Every year we have a very traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the exact same recipes. Some dishes have disappeared from the feast, because my parents and grandparents have all passed away and the young people don't eat turnips or mincemeat pie. This year I wanted to add a vegetable and try something new, so I added the Corn Casserole (you featured in your column). Well, it was the hit of our dinner. This new recipe is now going to be part of our traditional Thanksgiving dinner."--Lynn

"Suzanne, I just wanted to thank you for the wonderful recipes you share. We've enjoyed the crock pot stuffing the last two Thanksgivings and Neighbor John's sweet potatoes were the hit of this year's feast. So, my daughter says we owe you our favorite fall recipe, Pumpkin Chicken Chowder. We start having this soup sometime before Halloween and make it for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. If each book club reader sent in one recipe, think of the cookbook you could compile!"--Arlissa

* To see Arlissa's Pumpkin Chicken Chowder and Janice's Corn Casserole (by the way, I made Janice's Corn Casserole this Thanksgiving and everyone loved it) go to: http://tinyurl.com/2vr85s

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com 
http://www.DearReader.com

P.S. Poetry Speaks Extended--it was just released and it's the book that made me fall in love with poetry again. You can read the poetry or listen and you can sample it for yourself right now, go to: http://tinyurl.com/yobn64. It would make a memorable holiday gift and you just might win a copy for yourself. Enter the drawing. I have five copies to give away to readers.

READ THE CLASSICS: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2saoxq

Dear Reader Column 11-29-07

Join my email book club. Over 350,000 people read 5-minutes a day. To see what books I'm featuring this week, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/

Dear Reader,

I try to choose my words carefully when I write and I've been noticing that I should edit myself a little bit more when I'm saying words out loud, too. Especially now, around the holidays, because yesterday I was mumbling a "to-do" list and it went something like this:

I have to write out Christmas cards.

I have to buy my Granddaughter's birthday present.

I have to put the tree up in the living room and decorate it.

I have to go Christmas shopping.

I have to start baking my Christmas cookies.

The list went on-and-on and at the end of it I let out a huge sigh, because I felt tired and overwhelmed, but I hadn't even done anything yet, except think about the things I wanted to do. And that's the difference. I "want" to do these things, so why am I telling myself I "have" to do them?

I enjoy writing notes in Christmas cards. I even enjoy choosing a holiday stamp. (Though this year my choices are slim. So I think I'll use the James Stewart stamp--my favorite holiday movie is It's a Wonderful Life.) Decorating the tree, baking, buying gifts for people--I love doing these things. It's fun. And you know what? It will be a pleasure to do them--because I "want" to.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com 
http://www.DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: Win signed copies of books you'll read and never forget from these terrific authors: Tim Maleeny, Beating the Babushka; Richard Paul Evans, The Gift; Carla Neggers, The Widow; Frederick Smith, Right Side of the Wrong Bed; and David Blixt, The Master of Verona. Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

READ THE CLASSICS: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2saoxq

Dear Reader Column 11-28-07

Join my email book club. Over 350,000 people read 5-minutes a day. To see what books I'm featuring this week, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/

Dear Reader,

Hungry for chocolate chip cookies?

I'm ready to bake. Are you ready to dunk some chocolate chip cookies? Enter the November Chocolate Chip Cookie giveaway today.

The cookies are good, but don't take my word for it, Bob Pendall, one of last month's winners, will tell you all about them. To see Bob's rendition of eating and sharing my chocolate chip cookies with friends, and to enter this month's giveaway, go to:

http://tinyurl.com/2thnwu

Thanks, Bob, for sending the photos. I really appreciate it!

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Warmest regards,
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com 
http://www.DearReader.com

P.S. Poetry Speaks Extended--it was just released and it's the book that made me fall in love with poetry again. You can read the poetry or listen and you can sample it for yourself right now, go to: http://tinyurl.com/yobn64. It would make a memorable holiday gift and you just might win a copy for yourself. Enter the drawing. I have five copies to give away to readers.

READ THE CLASSICS: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2saoxq

Dear Reader Column 11-27-07

Join my email book club. Over 350,000 people read 5-minutes a day. To see what books I'm featuring this week, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/

Dear Reader,

I have no idea where my husband hid all of our junk--the stuff that normally sits on our tables and counters, but he found an out-of-sight place for each and every single thing before company arrived for Thanksgiving dinner. By the time our first guest rang the doorbell, around noon, my house looked as close to a photo layout in a magazine as it's ever going to get.

My husband and I are a cleaning and cooking team when we're getting our house ready for company. Through the years, (it'll be thirty this December) we've developed a seamless routine. My husband magically makes the junk disappear, I do the cooking. My husband vacuums the house, I do the cooking. My husband touches up the bathroom, I do the cooking. (Can you sense a familiar rhythm going here?)

And this year my husband even cleaned the linen closet and the car and I did the cooking. Why did we need to clean the linen closet and car before company arrived for Thanksgiving Dinner? Well, we didn't. But I noticed that the linen closet and the car both needed cleaning and since my husband didn't question those entries, when I added them to our "company-coming checklist," we now have an orderly linen closet and a shiny clean car.

We're having guests for Christmas dinner this year, too, so I plan on recycling our "company-coming" list. However, I did notice the other day that the kitchen cupboards really need to be relined and then we can't forget those five boxes of photos that I've been meaning to paste into a photo album...maybe it's time to make a couple of additions to our "company-coming" list.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com 
http://www.DearReader.com

P.S. Poetry Speaks Extended--it was just released and it's the book that made me fall in love with poetry again. You can read the poetry or listen and you can sample it for yourself right now, go to: http://tinyurl.com/yobn64. It would make a memorable holiday gift and you just might win a copy for yourself. Enter the drawing. I have five copies to give away to readers.

READ THE CLASSICS: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2saoxq

Dear Reader Column 11-26-07

Join my email book club. Over 350,000 people read 5-minutes a day. To see what books I'm featuring this week, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/

Dear Reader,

One of my email rules is that if I get up in the middle of the night, I don't check my email.

Good news, bad news, either way whatever I read it will probably interfere with me getting back to sleep. So when I woke up a little before three the other night--couldn't sleep because I was feeling anxious--the first thing I did was check my email. (I'm a willpower wimp in the middle of the night.)

But this time I was glad I wimped out and broke my rule, because when I was staring at my computer screen, an email from a friend popped into my box. Once a month my friend Sully sends out a newsletter. He's an author and it's one of those emails that I like to save for when I have time to sit and savor it, because he's an unusual character (a bit strange, like me) and the stories he spins, make you dig deep into your soul. And this newsletter didn't disappoint. But before my friend signed off, he mentioned that he'd just finished writing his latest book. So I jotted a quick, "Congrats--want to hear all about it--will call you in the morning" email and hit the SEND key.

A minute later my phone rang. I don't know what you do when your phone rings at three in the morning, but I immediately looked down to see what I was wearing (is this one of my good nightgowns?) because I figured I was heading to the Emergency Room. Why else do you get a call at three in the morning? But it was Sully, "Hey, figured you hadn't went to bed yet either."

"Well not exactly," I replied. "I was feeling anxious, couldn't sleep, so I was up wandering around the house. But now since my phone rang at three in the morning, my anxiety has completely subsided."

It's a different kind of conversation at three in the morning. No hurry, nowhere to go, (not interrupted by phone calls from normal people). So what do crazy writers talk about at three in the morning? Books and writing. Paragraphs that drive you crazy. Sentences that should take a few minutes to write, but instead they take an hour--because you're searching for just the right word. We commiserated on how lazy writers can be sometimes--looking for any diversion so we don't have to sit down and start writing.

And then we moved on to the subject of naps. Sully takes a lot of naps, which is why he was wide awake at four in the morning (we'd been talking for an hour). Me, I don't take naps, which is why I was starting to nod off, finally free from anxiety, with the help of my 3 a.m. friend.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com 
http://www.DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: Win signed copies of books you'll read and never forget from these terrific authors: Tim Maleeny, Beating the Babushka; Richard Paul Evans, The Gift; Carla Neggers, The Widow; Frederick Smith, Right Side of the Wrong Bed; and David Blixt, The Master of Verona. Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

READ THE CLASSICS: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2saoxq

Poetry Speaks Extended--it was just released and it's the book that made me fall in love with poetry again. You can read the poetry or listen and you can sample it for yourself right now, go to: http://tinyurl.com/yobn64 It would make a memorable holiday gift and you just might win a copy for yourself. Enter the drawing. I have five copies to give away to readers.

Dear Reader Column 11-23-07

Join my email book club. Over 350,000 people read 5-minutes a day. To see what books I'm featuring this week, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/

Dear Reader,

I ate way too much turkey and pumpkin pie. I'm on holiday today so today I'm featuring one of my favorite columns.

Dear Reader,

Never say never.

For years I raised my right hand and took the oath: "I'll never, ever have an artificial Christmas tree!" and I believed every word of it. But when my husband and I were out shopping today and we walked by the almost real Christmas trees on display, there was that moment--when in unison we looked at each other and that's when I faltered, "This tree looks real." And we bought it.

I blush when I confess, the tree already has lights on it, too. When I fall, I fall hard.

My new 8 foot artificial tree came in three easy to assemble pieces, and all I had to do was style it. Imagine that, I'm now a pine tree stylist! Pull this branch to the right, move that one a little over to the left, this one needs a little lift to cover up the open space and in only 20 minutes, my tree looked just the way it did last year. Only no need to water and this one doesn't shed needles all over the floor. All I'll need to worry about is how I'm going to get the tree back into the little box it came in.

There's a lot of stigma concerning Christmas tree etiquette--seems to be some unwritten law that if you put your tree up before Thanksgiving, you might as well be wearing white shoes in January. The tree sinners, they're very hush, hush about it and walk around carrying some pretty heavy pine tree guilt. But for others, the misdeed is just too much to bear and they feel the need to confess.

Kelly, my manicurist, whispered to me three weeks before Thanksgiving, "I've had three Christmas trees up in my house for a week already, and they're decorated, too. What do you think about that?"

"Not to worry," I assured her, "I won't tell a soul, and if you keep your drapes drawn until the day after Thanksgiving, probably no one else will discover your transgression."

Yesterday I raised my right hand and took the oath, "I'll never, ever have a real Christmas tree again." Well, maybe...Never say never, Suzanne.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com 
http://www.DearReader.com

READ THE CLASSICS: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2saoxq

Dear Reader Column 11-22-07

Join my email book club. Over 350,000 people read 5-minutes a day. To see what books I'm featuring this week, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/

Dear Reader,

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who live in the United States.

My family and I are having a big turkey dinner today. I live in Florida and it's warm here in November, so we usually go for a family walk after the big feast. Then as soon as we've walked off a little bit of our dinner, we sit back down at the table and eat some more--homemade pumpkin pie with whipped cream.

Thanks for reading with me. It is truly a blessing for me to be able to read with friends like you every day.

Warm regards,
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com 
http://www.DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: With so many new books out every week, we promise these are five that deserve your attention: Shaun Von Dragen, Moon Age Daydream; DiAnn Mills, When the Nile Runs Red; Robert Liparulo, Deadfall; Deborah Smith, A Gentle Rain; and Angela Benson, The Amen Sisters. Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

READ THE CLASSICS: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2saoxq

Dear Reader Column 11-21-07

Join my email book club. Over 350,000 people read 5-minutes a day. To see what books I'm featuring this week, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/

Dear Reader,

Holidays are wonderful because they bring family together. Unfortunately, at every holiday, some of our loved ones aren't with us any longer, but isn't it funny how they always seem to show up in spirit?

Every Thanksgiving when our family sits down to eat dinner, someone--usually my son--retells the story about the year my mother cooked her now-famous Turkey Drumstick Thanksgiving Dinner..

In memory of my mother...

Some people want the white meat, some will only eat the dark, and for years our family members used to argue over who was going to get the turkey drumsticks on Thanksgiving. Every year it was the same routine. My mother would ring her china bell, "Dinner is ready. Come to the table," and we'd all start calling "dibs" on a turkey leg.

When there are only two turkey legs, but ten people want one...well, it used to be a huge problem until the year my mother made her famous Turkey Drumstick Thanksgiving Dinner.

It seemed like a normal enough Thanksgiving meal, until my mother announced, "I've got a surprise. No one will be disappointed this year. Everybody gets a drumstick, because that's all that I cooked." And Mom plopped down a serving platter, piled high with 20 turkey legs, in the middle of the table. "Dig in."

This felt a little strange. What, no bird this year? Only drumsticks?

Mom was smiling, so proud she'd finally found a solution for the annual turkey leg squabble. Apparently she'd begun working on this year's Thanksgiving surprise the day after our last Thanksgiving dinner. Clipping coupons and always keeping an eye out for a turkey leg sale, my mother had been buying up turkey legs for the past year. It sounded okay in theory, but either Mom didn't wrap the legs in freezer paper, or the turkey legs were on sale because they were near their expiration dates, or it was just a bad year for turkeys--because when we tried to stick a fork into our drumsticks--we couldn't!

I'm not exaggerating here, the turkey legs were nowhere near fork-tender. The tines of our forks actually bounced off of our drumsticks when we tried to pierce them. A table knife wouldn't even saw through the sinewy--who knows how old--freezer burnt, turkey legs. My son suggested we fire-up the chain saw.

Sometimes when you try to solve a problem, it merely shows up in another form. Those were some tough birds. We ended up dueling with our turkey drumsticks instead of eating them. And the next year--nobody in our family fought over drumsticks. Nobody even wanted to look at a drumstick, the memories were still too fresh in our minds.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com 
http://www.DearReader.com

READ THE CLASSICS: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2saoxq

Dear Reader Column 11-20-07

Join my email book club. Over 350,000 people read 5-minutes a day. To see what books I'm featuring this week, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/

Dear Reader,

I love it when a reader sends me a recipe and I'm going to try this one this Thanksgiving.

Janice has over 200 cookbooks and Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday. This year she'll be cooking for 15--she's my kind of woman because she says she cooks "big, as we love the leftovers and everyone always likes to take some home," and that's my Thanksgiving motto, too.

Janice wrote, "I enjoy the book club so very much and I especially enjoy your columns. I truly feel like I know you and that we are good friends. I can see that you love being a grandma. I have seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

I would like to wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. I've included a recipe for one of our family's Thanksgiving favorites, Corn Casserole. It is always a hit."

(Suzanne replies) Thanks for the recipe. Coincidentally I was looking for a new vegetable dish to try this year, so Janice's Corn Casserole will be on my Thanksgiving table.

If you would like to see a photo of Janice and get the recipe for her Corn Casserole go to:
http://www.emailbookclub.com/photo/corncasserole.html

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com 
http://www.DearReader.com

READ THE CLASSICS: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://www.supportlibrary.com/nl/users/master3/web/nl_22.html

Dear Reader Column 11-19-07

Join my email book club. Over 330,000 people read 5-minutes a day. To see what books I'm featuring this week, go to: http://www.dearreader.com/

Dear Reader,

This month's Penguin Classic is The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It had been a long time since I'd read this--maybe high school. And knowing me then, I probably didn't read the entire book. But I did this time and I really enjoyed it. Start reading this month's Penguin Classic, click to keep reading and after you've finished the sample, let me know what you thought. When you send me an email, you're automatically entered in this month's drawing.

Chapter One:

The Prison Door A throng of bearded men, in sad-colored garments and gray, steeple-crowned hats, intermixed with women, some wearing hoods, and others bareheaded, was assembled in front of a wooden edifice, the door of which was heavily timbered with oak, and studded with iron spikes.

The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison. In accordance with this rule, it may safely be assumed that the forefathers of Boston had built the first prison-house, somewhere in the vicinity of Cornhill, almost as seasonably as they marked out the first burial-ground, on Isaac Johnson's lot, and round about his grave, which subsequently became the nucleus of all the congregated sepulchres in the old churchyard of King's Chapel. Certain it is, that, some fifteen or twenty years after the settlement of the town, the wooden jail was already marked with weather-stains and other indications of age, which gave a yet darker aspect to its beetle-browed and gloomy front. The rust on the ponderous ironwork of its oaken door looked more antique than any thing else in the new world. Like all that pertains to crime, it seemed never to have known a youthful era. Before this ugly edifice, and between it and the wheel-track of the street, was a grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation, which evidently found something congenial in the soil that had so early borne the black flower of civilized society, a prison. But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June, with its delicate gems, which might be imagined to offer their fragrance and fragile beauty to the prisoner as he went in, and to the condemned criminal as he came forth to his doom, in token that the deep heart of Nature could pity and be kind to him.

To keep reading:

http://tinyurl.com/2saoxq

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com 
http://www.DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: With so many new books out every week, we promise these are five that deserve your attention: Shaun Von Dragen, Moon Age Daydream; DiAnn Mills, When the Nile Runs Red; Robert Liparulo, Deadfall; Deborah Smith, A Gentle Rain; and Angela Benson, The Amen Sisters. Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader