Dear Reader

Dear Reader Column 06-29-07

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,

Boy, oh boy, did readers want cookies this month. Hundreds of people entered the Chocolate Chip Cookie Giveaway--so many that instead of just picking one winner--I picked four!

And so I've been busy baking for:

* Diane, who volunteers every summer, with a group of women, and together they built a house in the Twin Cities for Habitat for Humanity.

* Luann, who's going to celebrate her 29th wedding anniversary, "Now I do not know what the traditional gift is for 29 years, but I think it should be chocolate chip cookies. My husband and I would love them."

* Barbara, who wrote, "It seems like everyone who wins is a volunteer or a member of a club. I am neither. I am just a mom of four sons and a daughter (all grown now with families of their own). I baked lots of cookies when I was raising them and I would love to bake for the grandchildren, but I was diagnosed with a late onset of Muscular Dystrophy. That limits my ability to cook and bake. They are all coming for my birthday and it would be great to be able to offer them homemade cookies once again."

* Mel, who works at the Eldorado Library, "We are in the midst of a very busy summer reading program, complete with pirate ships, magicians and of course lots of books for the kids. With all of this work, we are pooped! Cookies would be just the thing to give us a pick-me-up!"

It was a pleasure to bake for all of you. Enjoy the cookies!

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

Have a wonderful weekend,
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 
http://www.DearReader.com

P.S. Don't miss this week's special Bonus book, Woman in Red by Eileen Goudge. Click on the link to sample the book and enter the giveaway. I have 20 copies of the book to give away. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/36ukye

READ THE CLASSICS: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2xdyfj

Dear Reader Column 06-28-07

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,

Thanks for taking the time to write. I know you're busy and I appreciate it.

From my Email Bag:

"Suzanne, thank you for your writing today on the 'hard part.' I learned so much about overcoming my procrastination when I read'Eat That Frog' by Brian Tracy. It took me weeks to get it from the library but it was definitely worth the wait. Thank you for recommending it to me."--Pat Kublin

"Well, Suzanne! You've done it again! You must stop reviewing such good books. The week of March 12, 2007 you reviewed 'Death and Judgment' by Donna Leon. Immediately I knew that I would love this book. Alas, when I went to buy it, I discovered this was the fourth book in a series of sixteen books! Yes! I said SIXTEEN books! How could you do this to your readers? Do you really think we want to sit in a comfortable chair all day, with a cup of coffee or tea, and read SIXTEEN books? Yes, we do!! Thank you for all the work you do in helping us experience new adventures and taking us new places.At the present time I'm in Venice (at least in my mind) enjoying Vice-Commissario of Police, Guido Brunetti, solve yet another mystery. It's so good to read with friends."--Shirley Reed

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

Warm regards,
Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 
http://www.DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: You won't want to miss these terrific books and a chance to win free signed copies: Brett Battles, The Cleaner; HelenKay Dimon, Your Mouth Drives Me Crazy; Linda Lael Miller, A Wanted Man; Eileen Goudge, Woman in Red; and Susan O'Doherty, Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued. Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

READ THE CLASSICS: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2xdyfj

Dear Reader Column 06-27-07

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,

My husband's out of town on business so I've been home alone for a week. I love my husband dearly, but I must admit I was kind of excited about the idea of being home alone. Two days before he left, I was daydreaming and mentally thumbing through the "home-alone" catalog, circling all of the neat things I'd be able to do when I had the house completely to myself.

But being home alone hasn't been the cool adventure I thought it would be. I think I should ask for my money back. Two people might be able to live as cheaply as one, but when two people usually do the household chores, and now there's only one--well you get the idea. (The guys on the garbage truck this morning were taking bets on whether the woman in her nightgown could get her big green trash container to the curb before they drove on by.)

Part of the problem with my home alone fantasy is that I'm not actually home alone. Rudy, Billee and Abby, our three indoor cats, are still here and they refuse to do any household chores. And Rudy had some minor surgery, the day before my husband left, so now twice a day I have to get a pill down Rudy's throat, and then wash the pill down with a vile of antibiotics, then wash out Rudy's right ear with a solution, wait 15 minutes, and add six drops of medicine. I don't look forward to our little doctoring sessions and neither does Rudy. He takes his medicine, but then Rudy retaliates--and he gets me good.

Rudy's discovered a secret weapon. He has to wear one of those plastic, Elizabethan cone collars so he can't pull the bandage off his ear--and he's turned the collar into a snow plow. Full speed ahead! Rudy walks around the house plowing down anything in his way. I swear that cat knows what he's doing. Books flying off my desk, pens falling on the floor, nothing stops him. Rudy just plows it down. At 5:30 the other morning, I heard a loud crash in the kitchen and Rudy had snow-plowed the plates right off the counter. Broken dishes everywhere--I'm yelling--and the "three-little-kittens" are peeking around the kitchen door watching me clean up the mess.

Ah, the fun of being home alone.

My husband's out of town on business--won't be home for two more days--and I have to say that suddenly I'm really, really, excited about the idea "not" being home alone. Yes, siree, I can't wait to get rid of this peace and quiet and do-whatever-I-want-routine.

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 
http://www.DearReader.com

P.S. Don't miss this week's special Bonus book, Woman in Red by Eileen Goudge. Click on the link to sample the book and enter the giveaway. I have 20 copies of the book to give away. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/36ukye

READ THE CLASSICS: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2xdyfj

Dear Reader Column 06-26-07

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,

When I'm writing a column inevitably there always comes a point when I hit the "hard part." I feel agitated. The words I need are on the screen in front of me, or in my thoughts, but I'm not quite sure what the lead should be, or how to attack it. When I start feeling that agitation, then I check my email. It gives me relief. But eventually I have to face the "hard part" otherwise in the morning there'll be an empty space in the book club read.

I've been doing this "checking-my-email-avoiding-the-hard-part" thing for years, but I never really analyzed it until the other day. I was furious with myself because I'd been working on a project for months and I couldn't understand why I couldn't seem to make any real progress. Usually if I want to do something, I always find the time to do it. So why couldn't I stay on task?

But then it dawned on me, that the reason I wasn't making any progress, was because whenever I'd hit the "hard part," whenever I'd feel that familiar agitation, instead of checking my email, I'd pull away and go work on other things. Granted, they were logical, worthwhile things, that needed to get done, but what I was really doing was running away from the "hard part." And since there wasn't a deadline, like there is with my column, nothing was forcing me to go back and plow my way through.

It was like Suzanne's own personal little shrink session. Finally I understood! Now I love working on the project and when I start feeling that dreadful agitation, I don't try to stop it, or run away. Instead I remind myself that those feelings are simply a signal that I'm working my way through the "hard part."

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 
http://www.DearReader.com

P.S. Don't miss this week's special Bonus book, Woman in Red by Eileen Goudge. Click on the link to sample the book and enter the giveaway. I have 20 copies of the book to give away. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/36ukye

READ THE CLASSICS: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2xdyfj

Dear Reader Column 06-25-07

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 week's special Bonus book is Woman in Red by Eileen Goudge. Start reading the Prologue and then click on the link (below) to finish the sample. Send an email and tell me what you think. Is it a keeper? Just have to finish the book?

When you send me an email you're automatically entered in the giveaway. I have 20 copies of the book to give to readers. Sample a great book, win your own copy. What a deal!

Enjoy...Woman in Red

PROLOGUE
NINE YEARS AGO

"All rise!"

A rustle of movement around her, the scrape of chairs and feet. Alice was slower to react, her senses dulled, as if by blunt instrument, by two days of testimony: dry, reasoned discourses on skid patterns, blood-alcohol levels, and degree of vehicular damage in relation to bodily injury, all of which seemed to have as much to do with her son, with David, as a chalk outline on pavement with the living, breathing person brought to such a cruel end.

With her palms flat against its surface as leverage, she pushed herself up from the table at which she sat. Her lawyer, Warren Brockman, shot her a look, his gray eyes kind and concerned, and she nodded almost imperceptibly to let him know she was okay. In fact, she was anything but. The blood was draining from her head, and she felt unsteady, a faint, persistent buzzing in her ears, the muscles in her legs quivering like after a mile run.

"Lies!" she had screamed silently as her son's killer sat up there on the stand, visibly remorseful, as only an innocent man would be--or one who was going out of his way to appear so--giving his distorted version of events. She'd listened and she'd screamed in her head, biting down on the inside of her cheek until it bled to keep her mouth from flying open, her outrage from spewing out into the courtroom.

Now the jury was back with a verdict.

To finish reading the sample and to enter the giveaway:

http://tinyurl.com/36ukye

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 
http://www.DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: You won't want to miss these terrific books and a chance to win free signed copies: Brett Battles, The Cleaner; HelenKay Dimon, Your Mouth Drives Me Crazy; Linda Lael Miller, A Wanted Man; Eileen Goudge, Woman in Red; and Susan O'Doherty, Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued. Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

READ THE CLASSICS: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2xdyfj

Dear Reader Column 06-22-07

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,

If I ever stumbled upon that magical genie's lamp and was granted three wishes, I'd only need to use one. I'd wish that every one of us would get a good healthy dose of self-esteem. And I think that's what Moksha would wish for, too. Because when a girl feels good about herself, she can do anything.

"Dear Suzanne,

I really enjoy being in your book club! I am a school student and every morning I read one of your stories and your Dear Reader note, and my day goes smoothly! I love reading books! I think a lot of people at my school don't believe in themselves and they don't know they are capable of doing anything, if they put their mind to it!

Thank you so much for sharing your experience [about the suits]. I enjoyed it. I am from New Zealand and I go to an all girls' school! Thanks. Have a good day!"--Moksha Shah

* If you missed the "itchy suit" column, you'll find it at:

http://tinyurl.com/ypmrgf

Have a wonderful weekend.

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
http://www.DearReader.com

P.S. Don't forget to enter this month's Chocolate Chip Cookie Giveaway. To enter, send an email telling me why you'd like some of my Chocolate Chip cookies. I'd love to bake for you. Send your email to: [email protected]

CONGRATULATIONS to the three winners of the Get Well Giveaway: Lisa J. who lives in Southeast Texas where the pollution and pine really keep her nose running; Julie S. who is suffering from a sinus infection; and Alice E. who is undergoing surgery this week and needs a little pick-me-up.

READ THE CLASSICS: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2xdyfj

Dear Reader Column 06-21-07

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,

Be sure to check out the AuthorBuzz link today. It's always right after my column on Monday and Thursday. Email an author, and you'll get a reply, and they might even send you a free book.

And today's the day to enter the June Chocolate Chip Cookie Giveaway. Every month I bake two dozen of my famous Chocolate Chip Cookies for a reader.

I'm supposed to pick one winner, but usually I end up picking two or three. Last month I baked for Sandy Youngblood, who shared the cookies with the teenage girls in her Girl Scout Troop; Misty Smith who shared the cookies with her softball team, The Dewey Decimators (we still haven't heard if they won); and finally Bev Weikel a cancer center volunteer who shared her cookies with the patients she visits every week.

To enter this month's drawing, send an email telling me why you'd like some of my Chocolate Chip cookies. I'd love to bake for you. Send your email to:

[email protected]

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 
http://www.DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: Books that you'll want to read, authors you'll want to meet and signed copies for winners: Manisha Thakor & Sharon Kedar, On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl's Guide to Personal Finance; Nikki Arana, As I Have Loved You; Tobias S. Buckell, Ragamuffin; Kate White, You on Top: Smart Sexy Skills Every Woman Needs to Set the World on Fire; and Christina Skye, Code Name: Bikini.  Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

READ THE CLASSICS: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2xdyfj

Dear Reader Column 06-20-07

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,

I write every day because I have a deadline. But even if I didn't write a daily column, I'd still have to write something every day. Because writing helps me figure out what's going on inside of me, and it helps me recognize what I'm feeling. And today--I'm feeling like I want to let the air out of the oven repairman's tires.

My new oven wasn't working right, so I called the repairman. First impression when I answered the door--the repairman looked like a nice enough guy. But I thought it was strange that a guy, who fixes appliances, wouldn't be carrying his "fix-it" bag. You know one of those bags filled with screwdrivers, widgets, a secret decoder--plug it into my oven and it would spit out the secret digital codes to tell him what the problem was--so he could fix it. But this repairman showed up at my door empty handed.

I invited the repairman into the kitchen to show him the patient, and our conversation went pretty much like this:

"What seems to be the problem?"

"The temperature isn't working properly. When my oven reads 375 degrees, it's really not that hot."

The repairman took a step back from the oven, folded his arms one over top of the other, stared at the oven, and then looked at me with a straight face and said, "The oven looks okay to me."

I thought this was oven repairman humor. It wasn't. He was serious.

"Well, aren't you going to test it with a thermometer?" Then I told him about my experiment, how I set the oven to 375 degrees, and put an oven thermometer inside, but the temperature only reached 350.

My experiment didn't impress the oven man. Instead, he told me the oven was working within the guidelines for new ovens, because new ovens only have to be 80 percent accurate.

So let me get this straight, "I just bought a new oven because my ten year old oven wouldn't keep the right temperature any longer, and now you're telling me that this brand new oven--that cost me a whole lot of money--doesn't keep the right temperature either, but that's okay because it's within new oven guidelines?"

Yes, that pretty much summed it up from his perspective.

I begged the guy to go get his fix-it bag and test the oven himself. His first reply was that he had a full schedule, "I've got a lot of other stops to make today, so I really have to get going."

I finally talked him into testing my oven's thermostat, and it wasn't working right, and he did fix it.

But it would still be a thrill to let the air out of the oven repairman's tires.

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 
http://www.DearReader.com

READ THE CLASSICS: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2xdyfj

Dear Reader Column 06-19-07

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,

Blowing your nose is a popular topic. My mailbox was overflowing after last Wednesday's nose-blowing column. If you've got a nose-blowing bug right now, or if you know someone who is sick, or if you're planning on being sick in the near future, be sure to enter today's Get Well Giveaway--a book, chicken soup, herbal tea and of course a big box of tissue!

All you have to do to enter the Get Well Giveaway is send an email to:

[email protected]

And if you missed last Wednesday's nose-blowing column, you'll find it at:

http://tinyurl.com/2j262j

From my "A-choo" Email Bag:

"This column has been printed to show my hubby. I can guarantee that he will be rolling in the aisles as I did and then will get that quizzical look on his face that says, 'So this is how you spend your early morning hours!' Such a joy to read you every day."--Marti

"I never fail to be amazed at the mundane things you can fashion into a column, but today's takes the cake. It was hilariously funny! Hope your nose-blowing days have ended--until the next time."--Ada

"Dear Suzanne, as far as cold viruses or allergies and the accompanying nose-blowing, I resorted long ago to one of those huge birds-eye cloth diapers. The kids go through a box of tissues too fast. No, give me a clean cloth diaper and that 'baby,' pardon the pun, is good to go for two or three days."--Sandy

"This is one of your funniest...and a keeper...for the next cold and hurricane... LOL!"--Merly

"I loved your Dear Reader! When I'm fighting those nose battles, around me are all of these 'used' tissues. My husband fondly refers to them as 'fallen soldiers'--kinda cute, I thought. It usually is a war!"--Beth

"Suzanne, here's something that might help, a Neti pot. It's a small teapot-looking thing, usually ceramic. You fill it with warm salt water, and pour it into one nostril. It actually drains out the other one, with the proper tip of the head. I thought it sounded a bit too--well, gross and disgusting is probably the right description. But it does work well to help clear out what's in there, and to keep it clear, too."--Ever-the-reader, Sheri

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 
http://www.DearReader.com

READ THE CLASSICS: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2xdyfj

Dear Reader Column 6-18-07

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 Classic is The Quiet American by Graham Greene. If you haven't sampled the monthly Classic yet, go ahead--give it a try. And to sweeten the invitation, I'm offering 20 Penguin Book Bags to readers.

Congratulations to last month's winners of the Sweet Deal Giveaway, Sean M. and Linda E.

Read the sample from The Quiet American then send an email and tell me what you thought of the book. That's all you have to do to enter the drawing.

The Quiet American by Graham Greene

Chapter One

After dinner I sat and waited for Pyle in my room over the rue Catinat; he had said, "I'll be with you at latest by ten," and when midnight struck I couldn't stay quiet any longer and went down into the street. A lot of old women in black trousers squatted on the landing: it was February and I suppose too hot for them in bed. One trishaw driver pedalled slowly by towards the river-front and I could see lamps burning where they had disembarked the new American planes. There was no sign of Pyle anywhere in the long street.

Of course, I told myself, he might have been detained for some reason at the American Legation, but surely in that case he would have telephoned to the restaurant--he was very meticulous about small courtesies. I turned to go indoors when I saw a girl waiting in the next doorway. I couldn't see her face, only the white silk trousers and the long flowered robe, but I knew her for all that. She had so often waited for me to come home at just this place and hour.

"Phuong," I said--which means Phoenix, but nothing nowadays is fabulous and nothing rises from its ashes. I knew before she had time to tell me that she was waiting for Pyle too. "He isn't here."

"'Je sais. Je t'ai vu seul a la fenetre.'"

"You may as well wait upstairs," I said. "He will be coming soon."

"I can wait here."

"Better not. The police might pick you up."

She followed me upstairs. I thought of several ironic and unpleasant jests I might make, but neither her English nor her French would have been good enough for her to understand the irony, and, strange to say, I had no desire to hurt her or even to hurt myself. When we reached the landing all the old women turned their heads, and as soon as we had passed their voices rose and fell as though they were singing together.

"What are they talking about?"

"They think I have come home."

Inside my room the tree I had set up weeks ago for the Chinese New Year had shed most of its yellow blossoms. They had fallen between the keys of my typewriter. I picked them out. " 'Tu es trouble,' " Phuong said.

"It's unlike him. He's such a punctual man."

I took off my tie and my shoes and lay down on the bed. Phuong lit the gas stove and began to boil the water for tea. It might have been six months ago. "He says you are going away soon now," she said.

"Perhaps."

"He is very fond of you."

Continue reading the sample and enter the book bag giveaway, go to: http://tinyurl.com/2xdyfj

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]
http://www.DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: Books that you'll want to read, authors you'll want to meet and signed copies for winners: Manisha Thakor & Sharon Kedar, On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl's Guide to Personal Finance; Nikki Arana, As I Have Loved You; Tobias S. Buckell, Ragamuffin; Kate White, You on Top: Smart Sexy Skills Every Woman Needs to Set the World on Fire; and Christina Skye, Code Name: Bikini.  Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

READ THE CLASSICS: The Quiet American by Graham Greene and enter the free Penguin Classic's Drawing. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/2xdyfj