Dear Reader

Dear Reader Column - May 21, 2024

Dear Reader,

Please welcome today's guest author, Susan Elia MacNeal. 

Susan is the New York Times bestselling author of the Maggie Hope mysteries, Mother Daughter Traitor Spy and Mr. Churchill's Secretary, which is now in its 23rd printing. MacNeal won the Barry Award and an AudioFile Earphones award and has been nominated for the Edgar, Macavity, Agatha, Left Coast Crime, Dilys, ITW Thriller, and Nero awards. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and son.

Susan's new book is The Last Hope: All will be revealed in this no-holds-barred finale, the Maggie Hope series, as the intrepid spy teams up with fashion designer--and possible double agent--Coco Chanel to bring down the physicist behind Nazi Germany’s nuclear program.

Find out more at http://www.susaneliamacneal.com/

Please welcome Susan Elia MacNeal…

I'm writing this on the road, away from my home in New York City, traveling solo--one of my favorite things to do, even though I'm married and have a son (who's away at his freshman year of college!). I was lucky enough to be asked to speak to a mystery group in Portland, Oregon, one of the places long on my bucket list. On a whim, I extended my stay for a few days in Portland. I met up with friends, hiked, went to the Japanese, Rose, and Chinese gardens, ate oysters and Voodoo doughnuts (not together), and caught up with dear friends from all eras of my life.

Yesterday, instead of traveling home, I cancelled my flight and jumped on the train to Seattle.

While I do miss my husband and my cat (and my son, but that's a different piece), I'm relishing the chance to spread my wings and test myself. As a wife and a mom, I find I'm always on someone else's schedule. Traveling alone, I can choose for myself. There's also time to read, to think, to not think, to dream.

When you step out of your routine, there's a real chance for self-care. You're thrown out of your habits, negotiating and navigating new situations on your own. You learn to discern and provide for what you really need, instead of caring for everyone else. I find myself developing new ways of thinking, of looking at the world, of being capable, and with that, the reminder of the woman I am besides being a wife and mom. And, with that, a new-found confidence.

Traveling means meeting new people, strangers, of course, but also people from our past. Who are they now? And who are we now with them? There's the joy in reuniting-and there's also the view we have of our younger self. How far we've come and how different we are now. It's a new perspective I cherish.

Here in Seattle, I'm working and writing (with my trusty laptop, I'm good!), but I'm also exploring. Seeking. Searching. I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for, but I know on this trip, I'm finding it. And, when I'm ready, I'll be able to take everything home with me and share with those I love.

Thank you for reading and happy trails--

-- Susan Elia MacNeal

http://www.susaneliamacneal.com/

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - May 15, 2024

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author is Amanda Eyre Ward, The New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters (Reese's Book Club pick), The Lifeguards and her new book, Lovers and Liars.

Amanda publishes nonfiction in Travel + Leisure, The New York Times, Texas Monthly, and more, and publishes original work on Audible.com. Amanda's work has been optioned for film and television and translated into fifteen languages. She lives in Austin, TX with her family.

Lovers and Liars, is about a librarian in love: Three wildly different sisters reunite for a destination wedding at an English castle in this heartfelt and rollicking novel.

Send an email to [email protected] to tell me about your writing habits, favorite books, and to enter a sweepstakes for a free copy of Lovers and Liars! I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Please welcome Amanda Eyre Ward to the book club…

Recently, I heard a writer I admire (it was Ann Patchett) talk about her treadmill desk. While walking, she said, she finds herself able to slip deeply into her work. Since three of my favorite books in the world are written by Patchett (Tom Lake, Bel Canto, and The Dutch House), I went home from hearing her speak and opened my laptop. On Craigslist, I found a used treadmill desk. I bought it.

During the pandemic, when my three children and husband were all home all the time, I took my notebook and coffee mug to a dilapidated garden shed behind our house. I was filled with joy at being alone with the shovels and weed whacker.

Later, we drywalled and painted the shed and added AC and electricity. I told my next-door neighbor, Jorjanna, that I had made a "writing cottage" in the backyard.

Jorjanna said, "What, you mean the Cat House?"

Jorjanna explained that the woman we had bought our house from over a decade ago kept fifteen cats in the shed, hence the name. This knowledge definitely took the shine off my "writing cottage," but I persevered. Sometimes, I wonder what happened to those fifteen cats.

After I bought the treadmill desk, I hired four strong guys to pick it up and wrestle it into the Cat House. I plugged it in, perched my notebooks and computer on top, and began to stride and type. I hated every minute and misspelled every word. My two mini schnauzers glared at me: if I was walking, why weren't they on their leashes exploring the sights and smells of the neighborhood?

For a few weeks, I got back in bed after my family had left for the day, and wrote well, a schnauzer snuggled on either side of me, but eventually this hunched situation made my shoulders ache. I spent a month or so at my old desk, now crammed next to the treadmill desk in my cat cottage. 

Finally, feeling squished, I tried climbing aboard the treadmill again. I put on headphones and played Billy Joel loudly. (You can take the 90's girl out of New York, but you can't take the 90's New York out of the girl.)

I walked briskly and tried to type, at first losing my place as the treadmill pulled me this way and that. But even off-kilter, I was able to hear my characters. Eventually, I forgot that I was on a treadmill. I didn't know I was walking or what I was listening to. I saw only what my character, Chloe, saw, and I wrote what she thought and smelled and tasted and when she dove into an ocean far from Austin, TX, I felt the water on my skin.

I did not wake up from my writing dream until one of the schnauzers barked so loudly I had to give her a dental chew.

It does usually take me a cup of coffee to walk long enough that my novel takes over my mind. I often spill the coffee, and my pages are filled with misspellings. But I do feel as if the treadmill enables me to submerge more deeply into my story than when I used to sit at a desk.

So most mornings, you can find me walking and working in the ol' Cat House.

The schnauzers do not approve.

-- Amanda Eyre Ward

Send an email to [email protected] to tell me about your writing habits, favorite books, and to enter a sweepstakes for a free copy of Lovers and Liars! I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - May 14, 2024

Dear Reader,

It’s time for a Penguin Classic!

Today you can sample this month's Penguin Classic and enter the drawing to win your own copy. This month's Penguin Classic is, The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration edited by Frank Abe and Floyd Cheung. 

Start reading (below) and enter for your chance to win. 

(From the Publisher:)

The collective voice of Japanese Americans defined by a specific moment in time: the four years of World War II during which the US government expelled resident aliens and its own citizens from their homes and imprisoned 125,000 of them in American concentration camps, based solely upon the race they shared with a wartime enemy.

Today I'm sharing one of the recipes my daughter-in-law's mother used to make for her when she was growing up.

My Daughter-in-Law's Favorite Old Recipe--Chicken Salad

4 cups cubed, cooked boneless chicken meat
1 bunch celery, finely diced
10 ounces, weight package, carrot shreds
6 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
2 cups frozen peas, thawed
1/2 cup Miracle Whip, or just enough to moisten
1 tablespoon dill weed
garlic powder, salt and pepper to taste
7 ounces, French Fried Shoestring Potato Sticks

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl. Enjoy.

* Start reading this month’s Penguin Classic and enter to win your own copy, go to: http://www.supportlibrary.com/bc/v.cfm?L=drclassqqxqT1AFE3F33215&c=CLASSICS

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - May 7, 2024

Dear Reader,

My star is HIP 88976. If you want to know your star, read on…

Today's Guest Author, Lisa Kaltenegger, is the Director of the Carl Sagan Institute to Search for Life in the Cosmos at Cornell, and Associate Professor in Astronomy. Lisa is a pioneer and world-leading expert in modeling potential habitable worlds and their detectable spectral fingerprint.

Lisa serves on the National Science Foundation's Astronomy and Astrophysics Advisory Committee (AAAC), and on NASA senior review of operating missions. She is a Science Team Member of NASA's TESS Mission as well as the NIRISS instrument on James Webb Space Telescope. Named one of America's Young Innovators by Smithsonian Magazine, and an Innovator to Watch by TIME Magazine. She appears in the IMAX 3D movie "The Search for Life in Space" and speaks frequently, including at Aspen Ideas Festival, TED Youth, World Science Festival and the Kavli Foundation lecture at the Adler Planetarium which was live-streamed to six continents.

With multiple starred reviews, Lisa's new book Alien Earths: The New Science of Planet Hunting in the Cosmos is a riveting and timely look at the research that is transforming our understanding of the cosmos, in the quest to discover whether we are alone.

You could win one of three copies of Alien Earths. Send an email with your preferred shipping address (in case you're a winner) to: [email protected]

Please welcome Lisa Kaltenegger to the book club and find your birthday star...

Birthday Star

Did you know you have a birthday star? Yes, your star. You can spot on the sky tonight. All you need is an internet connection to find it. Let's say you are 40 years old--or this is for a friend that just turned 40. Then just type "star 40 lightyears away" in the browser. That gives you a list of stars that are 40 lightyears away from the Earth. And depending where you are--Northern or Southern Hemisphere, just add that to find one you can spot tonight on the nightsky.

Your star. It does not carry your name of course, but it is your special, personal connection to the cosmos. Because light, like a car, needs time to travel. It has a speed limit. So, depending on how far away a star is, the light you see tonight was sent out a while ago. If a star is 40 lightyears away from us, then you see it tonight like it was 40 years old. So the light you see tonight was sent out the year you were born: for me that makes it your star.

Looking up at the sky you see the history of the cosmos written in light, the past unfolding before our eyes. If light did not need time to travel, we would be blind to the past and would never be able to figure out how the cosmos started.

But space and time are interwoven, so what you see on this black tapestry is "now" only here on Earth. Other places in the cosmos will have to wait thousands of years to see what you see tonight, and yet other places have already seen what we will see in our future. To me, this makes every night special. Because only you and I and our fellow Earthlings get this "now"--only here in our specific place in the cosmos.

When I look up at night, I see an incredible black tapestry dotted with bright stars. But an understanding of the cosmos makes this picture breathtaking because the black tapestry gains depth and meaning when you grasp some of its mysteries.

Go out and look at the sky tonight. Find your star that might just shine a little bit brighter because it connects you to the amazing cosmos around us.

-- Lisa Kaltenegger

Enter-to-win one of three copies of Alien Earths. Send an email with your preferred shipping address (in case you're a winner) to: [email protected]

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]