Dear Reader

Dear Reader Column - June 15, 2022

Dear Reader,

Someone always wins when I offer a giveaway (be sure to enter the next one). Barbara E., won the crab hats recycled from our last family birthday party. They were a hit!

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! 

I just received the Crab Party hats (and bunny ears) earlier this week. You would not believe how timely it was. My niece will be leaving next week for Kodiak, Alaska. She will be a summer volunteer at a youth mission up there. I spent 5 years up there year-round, and my sister (her mom) worked there for 5 summers, so it’s a family thing. The big thing in Kodiak besides fishing (all five species of salmon are around the island) and bear watching (Kodiak bears are the largest brown bears in the world) is the town festival every Memorial Day Weekend. The town festival is.you guessed it Crab Fest!  

My niece, Allie, sent me pictures of the crab hats. Allie's the one, wearing the 'Alaska' sweatshirt. The others are some of her housemates. Apparently the hats are a big hit! Thanks again for the giveaway!!" -- Barbara E.

Book club reader Marlys W., has "caught" my bubble fever...

"Hi Suzanne, I enclosed a photo that was taken today at my job. My birthday was Saturday. They had a bubble machine. I hope you can see the bubbles."

To see photos, go to: http://www.emailbookclub.com/photo/Crab-Hat.html

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

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

Dear Reader Column - June 9, 2022

Dear Reader,

Some people are afraid of blank pages, a big room to fill, or new opportunities. Anxiety sets in.

What if I can't? What if I try and it doesn't work out?

But blank pages, new opportunities, or wide open spaces, they only need to be filled one word, one idea, or one flower at a time. 'No need to hurry. Take your time, Suzanne.' That's what I tell myself every time I'm trying to get up the courage to work in my flower gardens.

Courage may sound like a strange word to use when I'm talking about pulling weeds or planting flowers, but there are seven huge flower gardens surrounding my home and I do all of my own gardening. It's not totally by choice. I've tried to find some neighborhood kids who are interested in earning money, but apparently their piggy banks are full, because nobody wants to work. I really don't mind pulling weeds and I love planting flowers, but getting started is always a real struggle for me. It's a huge amount of space that needs tending to and it can be intimidating. Seven huge flower gardens up against one single person--where do I begin?

Intimidation usually wins the first couple of rounds; I wrestle with the "getting started" part in my mind for a couple of weeks and then finally one day, when I'm walking by the flower gardens, I stoop down and pull a weed. Okay, that wasn't so hard. In fact it felt pretty good, and an hour later, there's a huge pile of weeds beside me.

A few months ago, I pulled out a long line of plants alongside my house. They were looking ragged and just had to go. I'd been avoiding the task, because every time I thought about what I'd replace them with, I couldn't come up with any ideas. It's such a big space, where would I begin? I had no idea how I was going to fill the area. But after I yanked those old plants out and surveyed the wide open space that was in front of me, then I could see all kinds of new possibilities.

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

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

Dear Reader Column - May 18, 2022

Dear Reader,

 

Congratulations to the winners of the May Chocolate Chip Cookie Giveaway: Maryann C., Jefferson Parish Public Library, Bonnie M. Indian River County Main Library, Sally S., Contra Costa County Library.

 

And the winner of the Angled Measuring Cup Giveaway is Jennifer G. Thanks to everyone who sent in recipes. I’m going to have fun trying them out this summer.

 

Last week I shared a photo of baby birds in their nest and asked you to name the bird and share some of your bird stories with me. The baby birds were blue birds.

 

Emails from readers:

 

“I work at the beach at Spring Lake, New Jersey. It's $10.00 for a badge. Children are free. We have a strict no food policy on the beach. Our beach remains in pristine condition. A woman came with a dozen children. I told her no food on the beach. She told me ‘I spent $10.00 on a badge, I'm bringing my food down.’ After working at the beach for numerous years I have learned to not argue with people. She took her food down and the kids opened a bag of chips. A huge Sea Gull swooped down and grabbed the entire bag and flew away. The kids chased the Sea Gull but obviously couldn't catch it. Karma.” – All the best, Mary Ann C.

 

“Suzanne, One morning, a number of years ago, I looked out the window and found a tiny bird sitting on our front porch. Immediately I thought something was wrong with it but left it alone. All morning long I would check on the bird who had not moved. As the morning progressed it had left little deposits on the porch, but not moved. By lunchtime I began to really be concerned about it not being fed or watered. But not long after, it was gone. Mom must have come by to check and her baby followed her and was released from solitary. Nature knows its own and we concerned humans need to trust them.” – Barbara N.

 

“Suzanne, I think that there’s nothing like nature to lift our spirits. On one of the hot days I found two baby deer sheltering in the shade of our trees. They looked so content! And yesterday we spotted a bunny who hopped right up to one of our stone bunnies and sniffed it. So cute! Hope that you continue to enjoy the great outdoors!” –Linda F.

 

“We have a Holly tree up against our dining room window and because of it being so dense, birds usually make a nest every spring in its branches. We have a front row seat and no binoculars needed.

 

One spring we noticed that a nest was being made and when we checked the nest the next day, the mama bird had found colorful balloon ribbons (we assumed they were from helium balloons)  and wove them into the nest. What a colorful nest that was!  Bright blue, green and pink ribbons decorated her ‘baby's room’ that year!” – Julia T.

 

“Hi Suzanne, we had a bird build a nest in one of our window boxes. It was great, because we could sit inside at the window and see the babies up close. I did take some great photos, but they are the old-fashioned kind so I can't send any to you! Thanks for your daily words of wisdom and insight!” – Diane R.

 

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

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

* This month's Penguin Classics book is People from Bloomington by Budi Darma. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win.

Dear Reader Column - May 12, 2022

Dear Reader,  

Can you solve the puzzle? Be sure to look at the photos I’ve posted today. 

A friend of mine sent me pictures of what she discovered in her backyard. Guess what kind of baby birds are pictured and you’ll be entered in one of this week’s giveaways, click here to see the photos and enter. 

If you have a personal bird story encounter, please share it with me. There are two, fun Blue Bird Pop-up Cards to be delivered to (two) lucky book club readers. 

There’s magic happening right now in my backyard. I’ve been fortunate to have numerous birds visit me this year. It’s amazing to watch them build their nests, their houses are small, yet there’s plenty of room. After a little courting, soon I’m hearing soft “I’m hungry chirps” that always make me smile. I’ve been watching Mama close up, with my binoculars as she tends to her young and I was even fortunate to see a small baby bird taking flight for the first time. What a miracle.

Yes indeed, I’m one lucky woman--there’s life and love and magic, right in my own backyard.

Have fun solving this week’s puzzle, click here.

Share a bird story with me. Email: Suzanne@DearReader.com

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

Chirp, chirp,

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

* This month's Penguin Classics book is People from Bloomington by Budi Darma. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win.

 

 

 

* This month's Penguin Classics book is People from Bloomington by Budi Darma. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win.

 

 

* This month's Penguin Classics book is People from Bloomington by Budi Darma. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win.

Dear Reader Column - May 9, 2022

Dear Reader,   

“Bloom where you are planted.” It’s a well-known idiom offered by the Bishop of Geneva, Saint Francis de Sales. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t referring to gardening, but it’s one of the rules I live by when I’m deciding what stays in my garden and what needs to go.

When I first moved to Florida (after living in Wisconsin for 30 some years), it was quite a shock when I looked at the plants growing in my yard. I only recognized ferns, rose bushes, and a loner, pink impatiens plant with spindling, spent stems. My new home had been vacant and unattended for a few months and all the other plants looked like jungle vegetation, because they were extremely overgrown.

So with a book about how to identify Florida plants propped up in front of me, I had to be the judge: what was a weed, what had to go, and what could stay. I yanked, pruned, planted and fertilized, but I didn’t always follow the author’s recommendations. Because If you looked around my garden today, you’d find a few weeds amongst the "real" flowers. I’ve decided, some “weeds” are just too pretty to get rid of. (Who knows, maybe they were labeled weeds incorrectly years ago?) And if a flower has decided to grow where it shouldn’t, through the crack in the bricks of my front steps, I marvel and I let it be. Because despite all odds, that plant has taken the Bishop's words of wisdom to heart: “Bloom where you are planted.”

To see some of my plants that are growing in unexpected places (pretty soon I’ll have to stop using the front steps to my house), click here. 

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

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: Discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win.

THE MASTERMIND: A Rivers Wilde Novella (FICTION) by Dylan Allen

Welcome to Rivers Wilde! The master planned enclave's popularity has never been higher. The old guard still have the run of the place.
But there are plenty of new arrivals--few as notorious as the Royales. Our heroine, Jules, is a stranger to the family at the
start of the story. She and Omar's unpredictable path toward happily-ever-after has moments of doubt and plenty of drama. But
take heart, dear reader! Because this is Rivers Wilde. The drama may rule, but love always wins.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on THE MASTERMIND to read more and to email author Dylan Allen, you'll get a reply.

* This month's Penguin Classics book is People from Bloomington by Budi Darma. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win.

Dear Reader Column - May 3, 2022

Dear Reader,

It’s my pleasure to introduce today’s guest author Lorenzo Carcaterra, a #1 New York Times bestselling author of many titles including: Sleepers, Chasers, Midnight Angels, The Wolf, and more. Lorenzo is also a former writer/producer for Law & Order and has written for National Geographic Traveler, and The New York Times Magazine. He lives in New York City with Gus, his Olde English Bulldogge.

Welcome Lorenzo to the book club and enter to win one of five copies of his newly released novel, Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride. The story is set on the island of Ischia, in the Gulf of Naples, where Lorenzo spent summers as a youth. 

To enter, simply send an email with your shipping address to: AtRandom@randomhouse.com

 

ISCHIA: ISLAND OF MEMORIES

I was 14 the first time I saw Ischia. It was 1969 and my parents thought I should spend a summer with relatives and friends, on an island 18 miles off the coast of Naples.

I had never talked to these friends or relatives other than the times their names were mentioned around the table or when I would glimpse at black and white photos in an album.

I traveled alone on a trip that seemed to take forever. But, there, in the final minutes of the journey, on the back of a boat, glimpsing the mouth of the harbor, I knew I found my place.

During that first summer and others that followed, I grew to love the faces I had seen in the pages of that album. Many have long since died, but their memory lives in my mind and heart. None stronger than that of my grandmother, Nonna Maria.

I spent seven summers in her company and she watched me grow from unruly teenager into a young man filled with hope and ambition. She paved the way to a happier life.

I got to know the island of Ischia.

Mornings filled with the aroma of baked bread and pastries and smell of the sea; walking before sun-up with my aunts, heading to the port, waiting as fisherman tossed their catch on the pier and listened to the bartering that began. Above me, women sang Neapolitan ballads as they hung fresh-washed clothes. I would join friends and cousins and swim for hours, then sit under the shade of an umbrella and talk about a future we envisioned. Those friendships have lasted decades and that first hint of love, looking in the eyes of a young girl and losing my heart, has stayed with me to this day.

Evenings were filled with laughter as we went to movies, shared pizza, took walks along the Lido, the Bay of Naples close enough to touch.

There was magic to the island. Stunning beaches, thermal spas, fresh fruits, vegetables and fish made into unforgettable meals, the first taste of cold mountain-made wine. The beauty of Ischia grows stronger with time.

I go back every year and visit favorite places--Bar Calise to listen to the music of Aldo Poli; sit on the stone bench in front of Saint Peter's, where I spent evenings alongside Nonna Maria, soak in her words of wisdom; take a boat tour around the island; visit the D'Ambra Vineyard with friend and co-owner, Sara, standing on the top of the island, in front of us the majestic vista of the bay.

I belong to Ischia. Have since that afternoon on a crowded boat when I first laid eyes on the island. I feel now, at 67, same as I felt at 14.

Forever in love.

-- Lorenzo Carcaterra

To enter the book drawing,, simply send an email with your shipping address to: AtRandom@randomhouse.com

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

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

 

* This month's Penguin Classics book is People from Bloomington by Budi Darma. I have a copy of the book to share with a lucky reader, so start reading and enter for your chance to win.

Dear Reader Column - April 26, 2022

Dear Reader,

Today’s guest, Riley Black, is the author of The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Skeleton Keys, and many other books about fossils. She is also a regular contributor to National Geographic, Scientific American, Slate, and other publications covering the latest and greatest fossil news. And when Riley isn’t writing about fossils, she volunteers with museum and university field crews on digs all around the American Southwest, as they search for traces of ancient life. Her new book, The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, is all about what happened in the second, the day, the week, the month, the year, and the million years after the asteroid impact that ended the Age of Dinosaurs--a story of the loss and recovery that shaped the world as we know it today.

You can reach out to Riley via, http://rileyblack.net/contact

Loving layers

"The Naming of Cats," T.S. Eliot once reminded us, "is a difficult matter." I should know. I've fostered more than 70 over the years, many of which required temporary titles before their adoption day. There was Beatrice and June, Eliza and Maddie, Tilde and Umlaut and Ampersand, and more. I always hoped that I picked something they liked, even if, as Eliot knew, I couldn't possibly guess their real name.

But it's one thing to offer a name to a squeaking little foster who might go home with a new family next weekend. It's another to name a purring kitten crouched in a crate on the way home from the county shelter.

She'd been dubbed Clover by the people who found her in a dumpster with her mother and a new litter of siblings. I admit, Clover wasn't a bad name--especially for a cat lucky enough to survive nearly a year in the city. But that moniker didn't quite feel comfortable in my mouth as I tried to reassure her that the drive would soon be over and she'd receive a warm welcome to a new forever home.

I tossed a few suggestions back and forth with Splash, my girlfriend. None were bad names--how can a name even be bad?--but none quite fit. I had hoped that there would be something about our kitten that would give me some direction, something about her personality that would offer some guidance. But I barely knew her.

Only a half hour before I had walked into the room where she had been kept to find that those shy eyes hiding behind a scratching post belonged to a warm ball of almost inexhaustible affection who purred, nuzzled, and cheek-rubbed as she crawled all over me. 

She had a beautiful coat, marked on the form as "tabby" but not quite like a classic tabby cat. She had fiery orange flecks along her back, a cream-colored stripe at the tip of her tail, and tortoiseshell toes, some combination of tabby, tortie, and calico that created soft stripes from behind her little pink nose to her tail. "Her markings remind me of rock layers...what are they called?" my girlfriend said as we approached a stop light. 

"Strata," I said, thinking of the great bands of colorful rock I had spent so much time stomping around every summer as I looked for tooth and claw of fossil creatures. There was something about that word...

"Strata," Splash echoed, turning the word over in her mouth like a pebble. "You know, I think I like that," I said. Splash agreed. We said we'd think on it a little more and offer up anything else that came to mind, but nothing did. Strata felt right. 

Of course, Strata is only one of her names. I call her "Little one," "baby," "small fry," and a half dozen other nicknames so often that I temporarily worried she'd get a little confused. But a month later, whether it's with a hint of annoyance over a misplaced claw or an affectionate coo, she perks her ears and meows back when I say "Strata," the name for a loving little fuzzball whose layers I'm only just beginning to uncover.

-- Riley Black

You can reach out to Riley via, http://rileyblack.net/contact

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

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

AUTHORBUZZ: Discover new books, "meet" the authors and enter to win.

DEAR DANA (NONFICTION) by Amy Weinland Daughters

Do you ever get the sinking feeling that we really are living in a culture of divisiveness that's beyond repair? If so--have you ever considered that the hope we all so desperately need may be sitting right next to us, or waiting across town, or even at the other end of a screen? This is a story of connecting, relationships, unity,
grief, and love--most of which was conducted via the U.S. Mail. Are you ready for an infusion of hope?

Click here to enter to win one of 5 FREE signed copies! Click on the link to Authorbuzz and the book jacket to enter.

Go to: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader click on DEAR DANA to read more and to email authors Amy Weinland Daughters, you'll get a reply.

Dear Reader Column - April 19, 2022

Dear Reader,

“The Fool Dies Last” is the first title in author Carol Miller’s new series, Fortune Telling Mysteries. Carol’s Murder and Moonshine from her Moonshine Mysteries, was named an Amazon Best Book of the Month and a Library Journal Starred Debut of the Month. Carol is an attorney, who lives in Virginia and she is today’s guest author. Please welcome her.

Email: hello@carolmillerauthor.com

 

Was It a Ghost?

Jack sensed her first. It must have been the part beagle in him. He stopped short and gave a pronounced sniff. The neighbors were away for the weekend, and I had cheerfully agreed to walk their two dogs. Having purchased the property only a few months earlier, I enjoyed exploring the densely wooded acreage. Jill, the part terrier, added a sharp yip, and that was when I saw the woman. She was standing in an overgrown clearing a short distance away, with long brown hair and a flowing blue dress. In her enthusiasm, Jill tangled herself around my legs. By the time I unwrapped the lead and looked up again, the woman had vanished.

When we reached the clearing, there was no sign of anyone having been there--no footprints or evidence of a path. I wondered if my eyes and the shadowy light through the trees had played a trick on me, until Jack lay down next to the gravestone. It was less than a foot in height, almost entirely covered by weeds. The top and sides were chipped, and the face was a weather-beaten gray that was too worn to make out more than a few letters of the inscription. I found several other stones nearby. They were flatter and wider, and based on their spacing, they appeared to be the foundation stones from what had once been a small building.

Curiosity preyed on me. Had it been a little house? A hunting cabin? And who was buried beside it? None of the long-settled neighbors had ever heard of a structure on the land. The county property maps and records showed nothing. Finally I visited the historical society. A

volunteer in his mid-nineties with a wry smile that belied his age pulled out a well-organized box of old photographs. And there it was in faded sepia: A single-room schoolhouse with its schoolmarm.

The discovery has sparked great local interest, and everyone has been eager to help with the research. So far we’ve learned that the schoolmarm’s name was Hannah (her surname is less certain), and she taught at the schoolhouse for several decades in the nineteenth century. By all accounts, Hannah never married or had children. Is it her gravestone? And who was the woman I saw there? A distant relative? A relative of a favorite pupil? The spirit of Hannah herself? While we wait to learn more, Jack and Jill and I have been taking many long walks in the woods, hoping to see her again. 

-- Carol Miller

Welcome Carol to the book club, email, Email: hello@carolmillerauthor.com

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

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

Dear Reader Column - April 15, 2022

Dear Reader,

(Suzanne is on vacation today. This is one of her favorite Easter holiday columns.)

My husband bought me fresh tulips last week. It wasn't a romantic purchase, more of a rescue. We were at the market and after we picked out some strawberries, we walked through the flower section and that's when I got a case of the "remember when" blues. Looking at the spring flowers made me think about my father and our Easter tradition.

Every year, the day before Easter, my father would walk down to the florist and when he came back home he was carrying two small white boxes. Inside one was an orchid corsage for my mother and in the other box, a pretty pink and white carnation corsage for me.

My father wasn't a sentimental man, far from it. He never said "I love you" but once a year, when the tulips and daffodils of spring were peeking up through the ground--signaling a change in season--briefly there'd be a change in my father, too. I'm not sure how or where my dad got the idea, but buying a corsage for my mom and me, it became an Easter tradition. 

"Look at what my dad bought me." I wore my corsage all day long, even after I came home from church and changed into my play clothes and I fell asleep with it on my pillow.

When I was older and moved out on my own, my father stopped buying me an Easter corsage. I missed it. Not just the flowers, but the feelings I used to get every year when he'd hand me the box from the florist.

And now here I was standing in the middle of the market, tears in my eyes and my husband knew why. "I think you need some fresh flowers for Easter, Suzanne. Don't these tulips look like spring?" And he handed me a pink and yellow bouquet of tulips--a new beginning and a new tradition of love.

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

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com

Dear Reader Column - April 12, 2022

Dear Reader,

I’m pleased to introduce today’s guest author, Samantha Jayne Allen, author of Pay Dirt Road, and winner of the 2019 Tony Hillerman Prize for Best First Mystery Set in the Southwest. 

Samantha has an MFA in fiction from Texas State University, and her writing has been published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, The Common, and Electric Literature. Raised in small  towns in Texas and California, she now lives with her husband in Atlanta. "Pay Dirt Road," her debut novel, is a small-town mystery about an unlikely private investigator searching for a missing waitress.

Write and say “Hello”. Samantha would love to hear from you. You can reach her at: samallenwrites@gmail.com

Thanks for visiting our book club, Samantha…

The Mojave doesn't love you back. I used to ride to the cement plant in my dad's pickup, stare out the window at the hardpan dirt, wondering, if you stood in the middle of that wide-open, empty desert and screamed, would there be an echo, or without anything to bounce off of, would your call fade without refrain?

Every summer the plant hired employees' kids to work as laborers if they enrolled in college courses in the fall. Management encouraged us to stay in school by giving us jobs nobody wanted: stemming dynamite, shoveling coal, repainting the trucker bathrooms, scraping

gunk out of oil pits with a putty knife. The program doesn't exist anymore, but before it was canceled, before I left my hometown, before its sister plants closed and most of its employees were laid off, I spent my summers waiting for the place to grow kinder to me, to give me a reason to stay.

I didn't. But I often go back to the Mojave and its stark beauty, revisiting it in my mind with the kind of fondness only achieved with distance. I never fit in at work--for starters, I was one of only two women in the labor gang--but I clung tightly to the plant and its rhythms because I was scared of going to college, another place where I wasn't sure if I belonged. It was an impressionable time, but I also go back to those summers because in many ways, they taught me how to write. You can't write a story without conflict, without your characters experiencing competing desires. The ambivalence I felt suffused my ideas about where I was going and where I had been, and in turn, fueled my fiction.

Whenever I'm struggling to write, I remember the unique torture of sweeping dust into piles under an industrial-sized kiln when it was 115 degrees out, the hot wind like a hair dryer blowing the dust right back in my face. I got so dirty I'd line my car seat with trash bags, and strip at the door when I got home. There's something freeing, though, about working up a sweat, about being so dirty you lose any self-consciousness. I learned to submit to the work, and I didn't quit. You can't write if you're afraid of messy drafts, of mistakes, of rejection. I know now that I'm up to the task, and that to write you have to love the work, even if it doesn't always love you back.

-- Samantha Jayne Allen

Email: samallenwrites@gmail.com

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

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com