Dear Reader

Dear Reader Column - November 28, 2023

Dear Reader,

Today’s guest author, Celeste Connally is an Agatha Award nominee, and a former freelance writer and editor. A lifelong devotee of historical novels and adaptations fueled by her passion for history--plus weekly doses of PBS Masterpiece--Celeste loves reading and writing about women who don't always do as they are told. As such, it was only natural that her first Regency-era mystery, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord, features a heroine who feels that a true lady accomplishes her goals by following her instincts, never the rules.

Reach out to Celeste, welcome her to the book club, and you'll be entered to win one of three copies of "Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord." Email: [email protected]

Welcome Celeste...

My No-Name Northern Cardinal

Throughout my life, I've been known for naming any living thing that chooses to be near me--and, in my youth, even some things without a heartbeat.

Let's just say that to this day, my parents still call the robotic pool cleaner that chugs around their pool "Charlie." When I name things, it sticks forever.

I've been lucky enough to have many animals in my life, all of which I've loved fiercely, and all but one I've named myself. (My pony, Peter Pumpkin, came named and it fit him like an orange-hued glove.)

While currently I am without a pet of my own, I have been adopted by a feral cat I've named Tristan, after my favorite character of the same name in James Herriot's 'All Creatures Great and Small.' He's as cute and mischievous as the literary Tristan Farnon, and just as charming, too...when he wants to be, at least.

But for the past three-plus years, I've also had a Northern cardinal who comes to visit me, chattering up a storm and letting me know when I haven't refreshed his birdseed.

Yet here's the thing. My cardinal has defied a name. I've tried a thousand times to give him a moniker, but nothing sticks. Thus, I simply call him my buddy--lowercase; as in the term of endearment for a friend.

"Hi, buddy," I call out when I hear him nearby. He'll fly over to my climbing rosebush and chirp at me, to which I respond with things like, "Really? You don't say!" and, "I know, right?"

Why? Well, because when I don't give his thoughts their due, he is not happy, let me tell you. I get fussed at, with his chirps getting sharper and louder, only subsiding into mollified levels when I talk to him as he digs into his birdseed.

There are many who believe that when a cardinal comes to visit you, that it brings the love of someone you lost with them. That seeing a cardinal represents a loved one watching out for you. I've always found this to be the most lovely sentiment, and the part of me that allows for belief in such beautiful, mystical things sometimes makes me wonder if this is the reason my cardinal defies a name. Because he brings with him the love of all my grandparents and other special people I have lost, and he thus may have many names.

And if that might be the case, I'm very happy not to live up to my name-giving fame.

-- Celeste Connally

Reach out to Celeste and welcome her to the book club (or tell her your opinion on cardinals) and you'll be entered to win one of three copies of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord.

Email: [email protected]

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - November 21, 2023

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author, Gregory Wallace is a lawyer and writer in New York City. He is the author of Papa's Game, about the theft of the French Connection heroin, which received a nonfiction nomination for an Edgar Allan Poe Award; America's Soul in the Balance, The Woman Who Fought an Empire, and the historical novel Two Men Before the Storm. He has written op eds for The New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal, has appeared as a commentator on CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, and The Today Show. 

Gregory’s brand new title is, Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia:

Into Siberia is the untold story of how an American investigative journalist exposed the barbaric Siberian exile system that sent a million Russians into a vast prison without a roof. Kennan traveled eight thousand miles, mostly in horse-drawn carriages, sleighs or on horseback, through suffocating summer sandstorms and fierce winter blizzards. His interviews with convicts and political exiles revealed that Russia ran on the fuel of inflicted pain and fear.

Reach out to Gregory via https://www.gregorywallance.com/contact

Welcome to the book club Gregory Wallace...

The Hard Work of Writing Craftsmanship

The notion "write drunk, edit sober" is often attributed to Ernest Hemingway because it sounds like something the hard drinking author could have said (he rejected the credit, saying he never drank while writing).

Here are three lodestars for writing craftsmanship that, instead of a hangover, offer substantial rewards to a writer.

Mark Twain once wrote to a friend that, "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. 'Tis the difference between the lightning bug and lightning."

"The Elements of Style," by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White, succinctly advises writers to be succinct: "Vigorous writing is concise." In other words, less is more.

Finally, "organize, organize, organize." I don't know where I picked this up, but the way the parts fit together is as important as the parts themselves.

All three lodestars require endless trial and error. But it's worth the effort, for example, when the right word finally snaps into place. Once, after a thorough but unsuccessful search for the "right" word, I restructured the sentence to eliminate the "almost" right word rather than accept it.

Concise writing can require ruthlessness. Writers tend to fall in love with their first draft, which makes it difficult to cut. Sentences, paragraphs, and even chapters sometimes simply need to go. If the same information can be conveyed in two sentences instead of three, then why do you need the extra sentence? I use a rule, with few exceptions, that any sentence longer than five manuscript lines is too long, which forces me to be concise.

To reread a draft with a fresh eye, I build in "breaks" in a writing project where I stop writing for a while and then review the draft. Or, if I lack time, I change the font and type-size, or convert a draft in word to pdf format, and then re-read. Both techniques allow for a fresh read that makes it easier to spot the "almost" right words or the need for re-organization.

Hard work, for sure, but that's the craftsmanship of writing.

-- Gregory J. Wallace

https://www.gregorywallance.com/contact

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - November 14, 2023

Dear Reader,

It's a Classics day!  

Today you can sample this month's Penguin Classic, and enter the drawing to win your own copy. This month's Penguin Classic is, Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather.

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

(From the Publisher)

In 1848, following the US's recent acquisition of the American Southwest from Mexico, the young bishop Father Jean Marie Latour receives instruction from the Vatican to oversee a newly created diocese in New Mexico. With his good friend Father Joseph Vaillant in tow, the pair travel through the unforgiving and seemingly-endless desert on mules in attempt to reclaim the region from corrupt priests who have taken mistresses, exhibited greed, and inflicted abuse and genocide on the Mexican and Indigenous residents. But as Father Latour spends more time in New Mexico with the people who have inhabited and influenced it for centuries, he begins to realize that the task he was sent to do is more complicated than anticipated. Rather than leave, though, Father Latour decides to stay and uphold his commitment to the Church and his faith, and gains an eye-opening perspective along the way. Written in 1927 at a time when Cather herself was expanding her own ideas of race, religion, and gender, Death Comes for the Archbishop remains a moving account of one man's physical and spiritual journey of understanding in naturalistic prose as sparse as the desert plains.

Start reading this month’s Penguin Classic and enter to win your own copy.

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

Dear Reader Column - November 7, 2023

Dear Reader,

Today's guest at the book club is James Fell, author of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down. It's a hilarious, irreverent guide to world history you never knew you needed, featuring 366 profanity-filled tales of triumph and terror, science and stupidity, courage and cowardice.

James holds a master's degree in history and has written for the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Time, NPR, The Guardian, Men's Health, and Women's Health. The author of four books, he continues to post sweary history stories on Facebook and on Substack, reaching several million readers each month.

Contact James via https://jamesfell.com/contact/

The Axe on My Bookshelf

"A baby can show up any time in a new marriage," my father said. "The ones that follow usually take nine months." And he would know.

My older sister miraculously appeared full-term six months after my parents exchanged vows.

The baby girl wasn't the only thing he created when he was twenty-one years old. In fairness, my mom did most of the creating, but in 1966 he also made a small, exquisite carving of a block of firewood with an axe stuck into it.

"Covet" means "yearn to possess." I did not covet the carving, I adored it. My father carved it, and it was his. I only ever expected to be able to admire it.

My parents split when I was six and went in opposite directions. Mom moved us to the city and became a business juggernaut. Dad moved further into the middle of nowhere of Northwest British Columbia, building his own house that he heats with wood and still has no cell coverage.

Growing up, I spent most Christmases and much of each summer in that house, reading books and pulling rainbow trout out of the nearby river with such frequency my dad said I needed to take a break because he was sick of eating fish.

The house is small, and every space occupied. The living room is filled with books and knickknacks and vinyl purchased when that was the only music medium. The axe carving sat on the windowsill, and every time I visited, I would take it down and hold it, gingerly tracing the lines on the tiny block of wood. Dad could see how carefully I treated it, never worrying I might break it.

I enjoy adventurous vacations, but visiting my father is different. It is a place that I can just...'be.' There are no schedules or expectations or social media. The carving represented that sense of calm I experience in truly embracing my own self. It's as close to Zen as I ever get, which ain't easy for a guy with ADHD and anxiety.

For my fiftieth birthday party, we had a bash, and my father came into town for the event. As the party wound down and I was a few whisky deep, he gave me a small box containing the axe carving. Tears welled, because I never told him what it meant to me. In that moment, I felt like my father truly understood me.

The carving has a shelf all its own, near my computer. Whenever I feel the need to be transported back to my father's house, I only need turn my head slightly to the left.

-- James Fell

https://jamesfell.com/contact/

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - October 31, 2023

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author, Lisa M. Matlin was a guitarist in a rock band before switching from songwriting to story writing. She lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her husband, pug, and golden retriever. She's probably rewatching The Walking Dead right now and trying not to laugh at her own jokes. Lisa is a passionate mental health advocate and your dog's number one fan.

Lisa's debut novel, The Stranger Upstairs, follows Sarah Slade, an influencer and therapist, who buys a murder house to renovate, build her online following, and hopefully make a profit.

But things quickly go south--there's a series of bizarre accidents, threatening notes, and footsteps in the attic. Her life and sense of reality start to spiral out of control because it seems that the more she renovates the house, the angrier it becomes.

And as she peels back the curling wallpaper and discovers the house's secrets, she realizes that the deadly legacy of the murder house has only just begun.

Follow her via Instagram: @lisa_m_matlin

The First Story:

It was winter, I was six years old, and my house was stinging cold. In the late afternoons, my Mum made me sit me in our parked car in the front yard. She said, "Look out the window. What can you see?"

"I see our yard," I shrugged.

"No," she said. "Look again. Now what can you see?"

I squinted, thinking. "I see...a giraffe!"

"Good!" She put her hands on the steering wheel and pretended to drive, "Now what can you see?"

"I see the Queen! She's having a picnic!"

"Excellent! Now what's she doing?"

We played this game most winter afternoons and I loved it. I saw the whole world out the window of that parked car.

I didn't know that the house was cold because we couldn't afford firewood. I didn't know that my Dad refused to pay child support, and we couldn't afford to leave the house. All I knew was that the car was warm, and the entire world was waiting for me out the window.

Eventually, I saw stories everywhere. Soon enough, I was filling notebook after notebook. Empty pages are just windows after all.

Last week, my Mum and I were driving home from grocery shopping. I'd come up with a new story in the supermarket, and I was working through the plot holes while she drove us home. At one point, she smiled at me and said, "You love this, don't you?"

"Love what?"

"Coming up with new stories."

"Of course," I said, surprised. "You taught me."

I reminded her about those winter afternoons in the parked car, and her face went tight and sad. "Wow," she said, "I'd forgotten about that. They were hard days."

Strange. For me they weren't.

As if to change the subject, my Mum asked, "What's your favourite story?"

And I said, "Ours."

The Last and Best Story:

Once upon a time, a wicked king banished his queen and princess to the dark and the merciless cold.

But the queen was clever and brave. She taught the princess to look beyond the darkness, to see beyond the cold. She taught her that a good imagination is armour.

As the princess grew, she looked beyond her circumstances, envisioning what wasn't there as if it was. She lived in her stories, and they saved her from her worst days over and over again.

One day, she sold her stories to Penguin Random House in a 6-figure auction.

With her story money, the princess bought a kingdom for herself and the queen. A kingdom where no cold or darkness could ever truly touch them. A kingdom where the greedy king would never, ever be welcome.

A kingdom built brick by brick from every story she had ever told. And it was freaking awesome.

The End.

-- Lisa M. Matlin

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - October 24, 2023

Dear Reader,

Céline Keating, today’s guest author, is an award-winning writer formerly of New York City and now living in Bristol, Rhode Island. She is the author of two novels, Layla, a Huffington Post featured title, and the award- winning Play for Me. Céline is also the co-editor of On Montauk, A Literary Celebration. Céline's short fiction has been published in many literary magazines. Her story Home received the first-place 2014 Hackney Award for Short Fiction, and an excerpt from her new novel, In the Stark Beauty of Last Things, received the 2021 First Place award in fiction at the Tucson Festival of Books. Céline grew up in Queens, New York. She earned a Masters in Creative Writing from City College, CUNY. For many years a resident of Montauk, New York, she serves on the board of environmental organization Concerned Citizens of Montauk.

In the Stark Beauty of Last Things a small web of people wrestle over the fate of the last undeveloped stretch of wild land in Montauk, a town on the far reaches of Long Island at risk from climate change.

Five lucky readers will win a two-pack of Celine's novels: In the Stark Beauty of Last Things and Play for Me. To enter the drawing drop Celine and email [email protected] Be sure to include your preferred shipping address in case you're a winner.

A Literary Pilgrimage

When I was nine years old I was given a birthday gift of the novel Fair Bay, with black and white drawings, by Eleanor Frances Lattimore. This was the book that changed my life. I loved stories

and being read to, but I didn't enjoy reading on my own. With "Fair Bay" I was plunged into a world of sand and wild horses, my imagination on fire. I crossed the divide between reading words on a page and becoming a reader, experiencing for the first time the magic that occurs when a novel is total immersion and you are transported across time and space.

The novel told the story of a young girl who goes to stay with her great aunt in South Carolina near the ocean. I can still see the palmetto trees and the dune grass and hear the roar of the hurricane that is pivotal in the novel. All my life, when I visited a coastal area, I searched for "Fair Bay."

Then my husband was invited to lecture at the College of Charleston and I joined him for the trip. Something about the area--the palmettos!--brought me back. Perhaps Lattimore had lived in the area and I could locate the beachy area that inspired "Fair Bay." It took some research into the archives at the local library to learn my hunch was correct: Lattimore had lived for a time south of Charleston, in a place called Edisto Island.

Cue the literary pilgrimage! On Edisto (more peninsula than island) we came upon a tiny library. Although Lattimore had published dozens of successful children's books, not a single one was on the shelves. Curiosity aroused, I questioned the librarian. Lucky for me, she had heard of Lattimore. She happened to know a man who had been friends with her half a century before. The library called him and, although he was now quite elderly and unwell, he willingly filled me in. Lattimore had lived on Edisto during World War II. She had been an anti-nuclear and labor activist, a supporter of the causes of the local blacks. He suggested her work was blackballed locally because of these political stances.

Filing this away for future research, my husband and I then made our way along the local roads and to the beach. Heart pounding, I stood in amazement, thrilled beyond words. The sandy shore was lined with modest houses and palmetto trees swaying in the breeze, exactly like the drawings in the book, and my imagination. Here was "Fair Bay."

Here are photos of Edisto Island, which inspired the story.

-- Celine Keating

Be sure to enter Celine's book giveaway. Five lucky readers will win a two-pack of Celine's novels: In the Stark Beauty of Last Things and Play for Me. To enter the drawing drop Celine and email [email protected] Be sure to include your preferred shipping address in case you're a winner.

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - October 17, 2023

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author, Tessa Afshar is an award-winning author of biblical and inspirational historical fiction. She holds a Master of Divinity from Yale University, where she served as co-chair of the Evangelical Fellowship at the Divinity School. After working in women's ministry for nearly twenty years, Tessa became a full-time writer and speaker. Tessa and her husband live in New England, where they proudly tend their mediocre garden.

Tessa's new book is The Peasant King: When her mother, the Persian king's famous senior scribe, is kidnapped, Jemmah and her sister must sneak undetected into enemy territory to rescue her. But infiltrating their adversary's lands proves easier than escaping them. Fleeing through dangerous mountain passes, their survival depends on the skills of a stranger they free from prison: a mysterious prince named Asher.

Reach out to Tessa via https://tessaafshar.com/contact/

What I learned while writing The Peasant King

Over two thousand six hundred years ago, the Jewish prophet Isaiah made an astounding prediction. Speaking to captive Israel, he prophesied that a Persian king would one day rebuild the war-torn city of Jerusalem and restore its ruined Temple. (Isa.44:28-45:1)

This is a shocking prophecy on many levels. For one, the deliverer of God's people would be a Gentile. He is the only Gentile to whom God refers as his anointed one. (Isaiah 45:1-3) Also, at the time of this prophecy, Persia was a minor nation, itself under the rule of the Medes. There was no way it had the power to rescue anyone. It would be a little like the United States sitting out WWII, and asking Barbados to come to the aid of the Allies instead. It just wouldn't have the same impact. The Persians did not possess the power needed to defeat Babylon or set Jewish captives free at the time Isaiah made these prophecies.

In a later prophecy, Jeremiah predicted that the kings of Media would be the ones to destroy Babylon. (Jer. 51:11) In other words, the Gentile king named by Isaiah would one day rule the Medes. Cyrus had to first defeat the powerful nation of Media before he could even set his sights on Babylon.

As I studied historical sources, I realized God had wrought many miracles in Persia's journey as a nation in order for this minor part of the prophecy to be fulfilled. It gave me a deeper appreciation for God's influence, power, and protection over nations as well as individuals throughout time.

My research reminded me that the plans of God for us will always meet with resistance. Every heavenly promise has an obstruction. But our Father is the God of the impossible. In studying secular history alongside biblical promise, I was astounded by the way God broke through every barrier to fulfill his plan. And he is still doing that today!

Although The Peasant King is an adventure story with a fast-paced plot and a slow-burn romance, the narrative is built around the bones of this central reality. The characters learn that every sacrifice, every hardship undertaken, ultimately orbits around the reality of God's faithfulness.

-- Tessa Afshar
https://tessaafshar.com/contact/

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - October 10, 2023

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author Ocieanna Fleiss has written several books including her memoir, Love Like There's No Tomorrow and her new title Awaiting the Manger. She invites you to join her on her website, ocieanna.com, as well as on Facebook and Instagram. Ocieanna and her husband have four kids and make their home in the Pacific Northwest and are parents of four kids, two still at home.

About Ocieanna's new book, Awaiting the Manger: Whispers of Advent in the Old Testament: Celebrate the hope of Christmas! Ocieanna journeys with you through the Advent season, illuminating how God used the lives of ordinary people to foreshadow Christ's coming during the centuries and even millennia before his birth.

Ocieanna is giving away five copies of her new book to five lucky readers. Drop her a note to be entered in the drawing. Please be sure to include your shipping address in case you're a winner. Email: [email protected]

WHALES, B-52 BOMBERS, A NEW FRIEND, AND LETTING GO

"Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go." - Unknown

Last fall, my high school daughter began attending a new-to-us school, a half-hour drive away. I had homeschooled her until then, and the transition felt a step closer to the day that loomed in the not-too-distant future when she would fly away into adulthood. I planned to use my new-found free time to write while she pursued scholarly endeavors without me.

After I turned in a big project, I decided to take the day off. So instead of heading to my favorite coffee shop, I drove to a beach park overlooking the Puget Sound. Walking from my car, I took in the crisp blue sky, the deeper blue waves, and the islands in the distance.

Bright orange-, yellow-, and red-leaved trees were dotted between cedars, firs, and pines, creating a bouquet of color. My footsteps crunched on the pebbled beach as I ambled along, keeping my gaze on the water. A seal or two bobbed their black heads as they fished, and a few photographers were peppered along the shoreline, intently surveying the gentle waves.

One particular guy was sitting on a log with his camera perched on a tripod. I walked up to him. "What are you looking for?" I asked. Honestly, I had an inkling of what it might be, and my heart fluttered in hopeful anticipation. Orcas, humpbacks, and gray whales sometimes make appearances at that place, and everyone longs to catch a glimpse, including me! Sure enough, he said the humpback named Malachite (yes, we know their names) had been sighted.

I sat next to him on the log, and with our eyes still focused on the water, our conversation slowly deepened. He had been a successful sports photographer, but he wanted to let go of that world. He and his wife decided to move to Washington so he could photograph nature. Also, before he was a photographer, he had been a test pilot for the B-52 bomber and had also tested the fastest airplane in the world at the time. I was sitting next to a remarkable man who had chosen to let big accomplishments fall away like autumn leaves. 

After a while, somebody around us spotted the whale. And there, way out in the distance, Malachite arched his back then moved out of sight, as one day my daughter would too. And my heart would learn the beauty of letting go.

-- Ocieanna Fleiss

Ocieanna is giving away five copies of her new book, Awaiting the Manger, to five lucky readers. Drop her a note to be entered in the drawing. Please be sure to include your shipping address in case you're a winner. Email: [email protected]

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - October 3, 2023

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author, Robert McKean says...

Populating my novels and stories are some five hundred characters, steelworkers and bankers, doctors and jewelers, teachers and librarians, lawyers and yardage clerks, salesmen and ballet instructors--all residents of Ganaego, a small mill town in Western Pennsylvania. I didn't set off to write solely about life in mill towns, but once I started I never seemed to finish.

Mending What Is Broken is Robert's latest title. In this bittersweet story about the families we make and we lose, about working class towns and fading dreams, Robert McKean gives us a subtle riff on The Merchant of Venice, as well as the touching and often funny story of a man creating his own second chances in life.

His short story collection I'll Be Here for You: Diary of a Town was awarded first-prize in the Tartts First Fiction competition, and my first novel was, The Catalog of Crooked Thoughts. For additional information about me and my Ganaego Project, please see www.robmckean.com.

Robert is offering five readers the chance to win a copy of Mending What Is Broken. Email [email protected].

Welcome to the book club Robert...

Chocolate Mice

Novel writing can be a foolish business. In pursuit of a character's life, writers seldom know where they may end up. In a bout of lunacy I decided that The Catalog of Crooked Thoughts, my first novel, would be partially set in a chocolate shop in a blue-collar mill town, and not just a chocolate shop but a connoisseur-level shop. What did I know of making chocolate? I'm not even that much of chocolate fancier. And so, when I noticed an announcement in a catalog from L. A. Burdick for a four-day intensive chocolate making workshop to be held inside their factory, I approached my wife.

"How would you like to spend a week making chocolate?"

"You're nuts," she said. "You've always been nuts. Sure."

Burdick manufactures exquisite handmade chocolates. The first morning, the ten of us, the majority of whom already owned shops or aspired to, were outfitted in sturdy canvas aprons and escorted into the factory, where we commenced our study of chocolate by sampling the world's renowned dark chocolates, Manjari, Grenada, Bolivian, Dominicaine, Guanaja, Caraïbe. That week we made lush ganache fillings, Poire Williams, orange-lemongrass pistachio, cherry kirsch; we learned how to temper the finicky chocolate in the heated Felchlin pots; and we tried--futilely, in my case--to hand-pipe and decorate the chocolate mice for which Burdick's is cherished, mouse ears, mouse noses, tiny beady mouse eyes. My mice looked like a genetic engineering experiment gone awry. Afternoons, as we peeled off our stained aprons, the fragrances rising from our hands were enough to induce swooning. Of everything we learned, what we learned most indelibly was, to produce gourmet chocolates, how rigorously time, temperature, and humidity must be observed, how unwaveringly one's concentration must remain.

We designed our own signature pieces. My wife's was a hand-dipped coffee bourbon truffle, a ganache of 74% cacao-content Dominicaine, crushed coffee beans, honey, cardamom, hazelnuts, Maker's Mark, finished with a garnish of salt. My piece, also hand-dipped, was a fig and cognac truffle, a ganache of 64% Manjari, dried figs marinated in port wine, cream, cognac, and garnished with golden raisins marinated in more cognac.

Commencement Day we were each presented with a five-pound box of our creations. Home, distributing our misbegotten mice and weirdly shaped truffles to friends, my wife and I arrived at two resolutions: One, given chocolate's persnicketiness and the labor-intensive process required to create each piece, we would never complain about the prices in a chocolate shop; and two, we would never try to make our own chocolates.

-- Robert McKean

Enter to win a copy of Mending What Is Broken. Email [email protected]. Be sure to include your shipping address in case you're a winner.

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - September 26, 2023

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author is Alexandra Hudson, writer, popular speaker, and the founder of Civic Renaissance, a publication and intellectual community dedicated to beauty, goodness and truth.

She earned a master's degree in public policy at the London School of Economics as a Rotary Scholar, and is an adjunct professor at the Indiana University Lilly School of Philanthropy. She is also the creator of a series for The Teaching Company called Storytelling and The Human Condition, available for streaming as of May 2023. She lives in Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband and two children restoring their historic Italian renaissance style home, enjoying classic films, putting a new spin on old recipes in the kitchen, dabbling in water color, or reading a Platonic dialogue.

Alexandra’s new book is The Soul of Civility.  As the daughter of the "Manners Lady," Alexandra was raised to respect others. But as she grew up, Hudson discovered a difference between politeness―a superficial appearance of good manners―and true civility. In this timely book, Hudson sheds light on how civility can help bridge our political divide.

You can win one of three copies of The Soul of Civility. Send an email to: sarabeth.haring@stmartins.com Be sure to include your preferred shipping address, in case you're a winner.

For more information visit https://alexandraohudson.com/

Welcome to the book club Alexandra...

Did you know that the oldest book in the world is a civility book?

And the advice given in The Teachings of Ptahhotep from Ancient Egypt--where he distilled his advice on how to live well with others--is as relevant and practical today as when the book was written nearly forty-five hundred years ago.

In his book, Ptahhotep explores the most important question of our day--the question that I also explore in my forthcoming book, The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principle to Heal Society and Ourselves.

Twenty-four hundred years before Christ, there lived a wealthy and powerful statesman named Ptahhotep. Ptahhotep was an adviser to Pharaoh, the leader of ancient Egypt--the most sophisticated civilization in the world. Ptahhotep had made it to the pinnacle of earthly success. He had spent his career in the room where it happens--where big, world-altering decisions are made. He had helped shape the course of the world's most advanced society. He had tasted the best and finest things that money and power could buy.

After all of his worldly success, Ptahhotep realized that what truly mattered were the sacrifices one made in order to live in community with others. He wrote a letter to Pharaoh's son distilling his insights into joyful living, in hopes that the son might take the lessons to heart and lead Egypt with wisdom and grace. 

And in writing down his pithy thirty-seven maxims on civility as the building block of human community, he was penning what is today the oldest book in the world.

"Do not be proud and arrogant with your knowledge," Teachings begins, condemning human vanity. The second teaching advises restraint for the sake of community: "If you meet a disputant in the heat of action...pay no attention to his evil speech....Your selfcontrol will be the match for his evil utterances."

Teaching four relates to our duty to do kindness to those who can do nothing for us in return, the hallmark of true civility: "Wretched is he who injures a poor man." Kindness toward others--including the stranger and those who cannot do anything for us in return--allows us to flourish.

The maxims condemn slander. For instance, teaching eight instructs, "Do not malign anyone, great or small," and teaching twenty-two advises, "Don't repeat slander nor should you even listen to it.

Notwithstanding the diversity of human cultures and practices, there are certain unchanging truths about the human experience, many of which Teachings encapsulates.

Ptahhotep would not have had to write down his precepts if everyone in his era had been following them already.

He derived them by observing human behavior and documenting what conduct brought misery, and what led to personal and societal harmony.

We can be thankful that Ptahhotep stood at the beginning of a long tradition of thoughtful people reflecting on the stuff of human flourishing who can continue to teach us--and also remind us of the fragility of society, but also the high rewards on offer to those who maintain commitment to the joint partnership of good living with others.

-- Alexandra Hudson

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]