Dear Reader

Dear Reader Column - January 7, 2025

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author, Ellen Hendriksen is a clinical psychologist, anxiety specialist, and author of How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists. Her scientifically-based, zero-judgment approach has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC News, New York Magazine, and many other media outlets. She lives in the Boston area with her family. Find her on Substack or at ellenhendriksen.com.

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

Please welcome to the book club, author Ellen Hendrickson…

President Carter strode into the East Room in silence. Despite the White House ceremony about to take place, he had asked that the  bum-ba-da-dum-da-da-DUM! of "Hail to the Chief" not be played. Attendees shifted from foot to foot, the lack of majesty making everyone feel awkward.

Carter was undaunted. He carried his own luggage on official trips. At the first Democratic leadership breakfast, Carter requested that rolls and coffee be served. Tip O'Neill, the Speaker of the House who did not share Carter's high-minded thriftiness, roared, "Mr. President, I have waited eight years to have a Democrat in the White House, and at the next meeting, I expect to have a proper breakfast!" Carter got the message. Bacon and eggs actually meant hospitality, respect, and the foundation of a coalition.

Carter’s unpretentiousness meant that doing The Right Thing entailed taking the most modest path. But the Presidency isn't supposed to be modest. In rejecting the symbols of power, he inadvertently lessened the dignity of the office, and by extension, the nation.

As President, Carter aligned himself with the common man, renounced pretense, and did The Right Thing. But this same conscientiousness made him unable to carry out the necessary finessing and mudslinging sometimes required by the office. Popular opinion was that he was a good man, but not a very good president.

Fast forward forty years. It’s 2017, a couple of months before his 93rd birthday. Jimmy Carter dons a hard hat and safety glasses for a day of construction work under the summer sun. For three decades, he has pounded nails and installed siding right alongside volunteers for Habitat for Humanity.

Through The Carter Center, his conscientious nature drove programs supporting peace, mental health, and human rights. Sweating the details led to eradicating guinea worm infection in central Africa. Ultimately, he was recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Indeed, Carter never changed; he simply found callings better suited to his instinct to put himself to use rather than put himself first.

For the rest of us, the same lesson applies. Our shortcomings--the exact tendencies that trip us up--become our greatest strengths given the right context. Our inhibition makes us good listeners. Our bluntness keeps us honest. Our impulsivity makes us fully experience the world.

Our optimization-focused culture says we must eliminate our weaknesses: be our best self, not simply our self. But maybe that’s not true. Maybe we are fine as we are. Like the snap of the last puzzle piece, like the hardwiring of Jimmy Carter, maybe we just need to find our best fit.

--Ellen Hendriksen

ellenhendriksen.com

You could win one of three copies of How to Be Enough. 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] 

Dear Reader Column - December 17, 2024

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author, Eliot Stein is a senior journalist at the BBC and the author of Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive. The book is a vivid look at 10 people maintaining some of the world's rarest and most astonishing cultural rites against all odds. His work has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, Wired, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.

You could win one of three copies of Custodians of Wonder. Simply send an email with CUSTODIANS on the subject line and your preferred shipping address (in case you're a winner) to: [email protected]

Reach out to Eliot at: [email protected] He'd love to hear from you.

Please welcome to the book club Eliot Stein...

 

“Officially," I told my three-year-old son, Oliver, "Mama Vilma, lives on Avenida Noroeste in Managua."

“So, what are all these letters?" Oliver asked, staring at my painfully small handwriting that was now spilling onto a third row of the envelope. “This says: ‘From The Little Tree, go down two

streets, turn left where the man sells fruit, and it's the yellow house,'" I responded.

Without understanding that “down" means west or knowing that “The Little Tree" grew into a big tree before being chopped down back in 1973, you might not find Mama Vilma--but postal workers do, so long as the letters addressed to her are written correctly.

Navigating any new city can be confusing, but Nicaragua's sprawling capital may be the most inscrutable of them all. While major roads have names and a few buildings have numbers, no one uses them. Instead, Managua's 1.1 million residents have woven together a whimsical map of hundreds of man-made and natural landmarks to make sense of their world.

Want to go south? That's “a la montaña” (toward the mountain). Need to head north? That's “al lago" (toward the lake). Even gravity is turned on its head: “up," in the local parlance, is where the sun rises (east), while “down" is where it sets (west). Therefore, depending on where you are, “up" may actually mean downhill.

Many of these landmarks, like The Little Tree, disappeared decades ago. Near Mama Wilma's house, the pasture where “The Brown Horse" once grazed is now a gas station. The driveway where “The Green Car" was always parked is now empty. And the house where “The Hairy Hands," lived for 50 years is now home to a woman with decidedly less-whiskered fingers.

In an age when GPS and Google have mapped nearly every inch of the planet, I find it rather lovely that Managuans with long memories have clung to their own vision of home. These gorgeous, irrational, gentle customs are what make the world so stunningly diverse and fascinating. They're also a reminder that culture is born slowly through a million tiny, personal moments, and that each of these unique local traditions reflects a sense of who we are and where we came from.

There may come a time when Managua standardizes its street names and addresses, just like everywhere else. But I hope not quite yet.

“What's in the letter," Oliver asked me.

“I'm telling Mama Vilma that we just bought tickets to Managua," I said, “so you can see the yellow house, and meet your great-grandmother for the first time."

-- Eliot Stein

You could win one of three copies of Custodians of Wonder. Send an email with CUSTODIANS on the subject line and 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] 

Dear Reader Column - December 10, 2024

Dear Reader,

Please welcome today's guest author, PJ Nelson; which is a pseudonym of an award-winning actor, dramatist, professor, and novelist (among many other professions), who has done just about everything except run a bookstore. PJ lives in Decatur, Georgia. 

PJ's new title, Booked for Murder is an atmospheric southern cozy debut. Madeline Brimley returns to the bookstore she inherited, discovering that small towns hold deadly secrets.

You could win one of three copies of Booked for Murder Send an email with BOOKED FOR MURDER on the subject line and your preferred shipping address (in case you're a winner) to: [email protected]

Please welcome PJ to our book club!

CHENILLE

When I was nine, our family went to Florida for the first vacation I can remember. We were in a 1959 Chevy two-tone, green and white. There was a ledge in the back seat underneath the rear window. Because we'd left at 4 in the morning, I could climb up onto the ledge and lie on my back and look up at the night and the stars until I fell asleep. It was the best sleep I ever had, rumbled in a Chevy in the middle of the night. And when the sun came up, we were in Florida.

I stood up in the back seat and watched the palm trees and the palmettos, and thought I was in another world. I wanted to stop at Stuckey's and get candy, but we were on some sort of important mission, apparently, and couldn't stop. For anything.

Around noon I saw a very ominous sign. "Last Stop For Chenille!" I didn't know what chenille was, but it seemed important, because there was an exclamation point involved. I pointed this out to my mother. She seemed unconcerned. I said, "But what if we need it?" She didn't turn around. "We don't." When I asked her what chenille was, she said, "Your grandmother has a bedspread made out of chenille. Hey look: another Stuckey's. You still want a pecan log?" I did, and my father was convinced that a pecan log would keep me quiet for the rest of our drive. We stopped, and the pecan log was the most delicious thing I'd ever tasted.

When we got back in the car, my dad announced that we would not be stopping again until we got to the motel. For anything. Right after that, we zoomed past another roadside stand. I watched it go, and there, on an A-frame, was a sign that said, "Last Stop For Chenille!" in red letters with stars around it. My mother turned around and gave me the eye. "See, kid? There's always more chenille." After that we saw, maybe, ten more signs just like that.

From then on, until she died early in the 21st century, my mother always reminded me--when I got a rejection slip or lost a gig or broke up with someone--that there was no such thing as a last chance. There was always going to be more chenille.

-- PJ Nelson

Enter the drawing to win one of three copies of Booked for Murder Send an email with BOOKED FOR MURDER on the subject line and 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] 

Dear Reader Column - December 3, 2024

Dear Reader,

Joe Pappalardo, today's guest author, is a freelance journalist and former associate editor of Air & Space Smithsonian magazine, and a writing contributor to National Geographic magazine. Pappalardo is the author of the critically acclaimed books:

Red Sky Morning: The Epic True Story of Texas Ranger Company F

Inferno: The True Story of a B-17 Gunner's Heroism and the Bloodiest Military Campaign in Aviation History

Sunflowers: The Secret History

And Spaceport Earth: The Reinvention of Spaceflight.

Pappalardo's new book is, Four Against the West: The True Saga of a Frontier Family that Reshaped the Nation-and Created a Legend It's a thrilling true saga of legendary Texas figure Judge Roy Bean and his brothers--and their violent adventures in Wild West America.

You could win one of three copies of Four Against the West. Send an email with FOUR AGAINST THE WEST on the subject line, and your preferred shipping address (in case you're a winner) to: [email protected]

Reach out to Joe via: https://www.joe-pappalardo.com/about

Wayside Shrines

I'll admit that I jumped at the chance to visit the ghost train tracks of San Antonio. It would certainly spice up an otherwise humdrum trip to drop my father off at the airport. What was an extra few minutes on a two-hour trip home to Corpus Christi, compared to the opportunity to scope out one of the most famous haunted places in Texas?

The backstory would be tragic, if it could be proven. The legend goes that a busload of children were struck and killed by a train along a curved intersection at Villamain and Shane streets, and cars that park on the tracks there today will be pushed away by their ghosts. I looked in local historic newspaper archives before I left and, like other researchers, found no report of the incident. Yet, this urban legend is so entrenched that the location is marked on Google Maps.

The tracks themselves showed no ghosts to me when I parked my Altima on them and left it in neutral. The vehicle rocked subtly when parked on the uneven tracks, but stayed still otherwise. I slathered baby powder on the trunk and bumper to detect little fingerprints, as the legend instructs. Although the powder only showed my prints, the Altima's digital odometer display shorted out while on the tracks and has not worked since.

The lackluster supernatural results were no surprise. But what I didn't expect from the tracks was the collection of accident debris piled up nearby. The collection was arranged near a tree festooned with fake flowers, religious cards, stuffed animals and photos of young people. These offerings were being made to more than just the ghostly children--the wishes, memorials and prayers were contemporary.

The ghost tracks have turned into a shrine. The Oxford English dictionary defines it "a place where people come to worship because it is connected with a holy person or event." So what that the event didn't happen? The shrine--and emotions behind it--is now real.

What I found at the train tracks is a form of what's called a "wayside shrine." It's an old concept that combined religious veneration with the need for road signage and property lines. In modern America, they have become a heartbreakingly common way to commemorate fatal accidents, and some of the photos and cards support the idea that the ghost tracks have similarly become a shared memorial to any youth lost that way.

But the twisted bumpers and broken rear windows speak to other close calls with death. Traditional wayside shrines are known more for expressions of gratitude for those spared than memorials for the dead. It didn't matter if no one died here. The power of their beliefs has created a communal spot where people can give thanks, express grief and--above all--face their mortality.

Why else did I bother pulling off the highway and parking on those tracks? I wanted mysterious prints to manifest, to demystify the eventual trauma of dying. In that, I was just another hopeful seeker, heading off trail to a wayside shrine looking for meaning to life's journey. Although I left nothing but baby powder behind, but I was no different a pilgrim.

And now every time I look into the blank screen on my dashboard, it makes me wonder.

-- Joe Pappalardo

https://www.joe-pappalardo.com/about

To see a video of Joe's visit to the Ghost Tracks of San Antonio, go to: https://www.facebook.com/100010859686405/videos/749432213653649

Enter the drawing to win one of three copies of Four Against the West. Send an email with FOUR AGAINST THE WEST on the subject line and 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] 

Dear Reader Column - November 26, 2024

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author, Carole Bumpus began writing about food and travel after stumbling upon the amazing stories of women and war in France. She has written an historical novel, A Cup of Redemption, followed by her unique companion cookbook, Recipes for Redemption, as well as the Savoring the Olde Ways Series: Searching for Family and Traditions at the French Table Books One & Two, A September to Remember: Searching for Culinary Pleasures at the Italian Table. Carole is a retired family therapist and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Carole's new book is, Adventures on Land and Sea: Searching for Culinary Pleasures and Along the Côte d'Azur. Readers will enjoy this exploration of medieval villages, cultures, and recipes of France's Provence. This travelogue is Book 4 in the author's best-selling Savoring the Olde Ways series, which has won the IPPY gold medal for Best Culinary Travel Series.

Carole is giving away advanced reader copies of Adventures on Land and Sea: Searching for Culinary Pleasures and Along the Côte d'Azur to three readers. 

To enter the drawing, drop Carole an email at: [email protected]

A LESSON IN PATIENCE

One day, while standing in line at the pharmacy, I felt my impatience grow. The line was short, but the time I had waited long. I stood on one foot and then the other, breathing deeply with my and on my hip. Suddenly, I recalled a lesson I had learned while traveling in Provance.

It was a hot July afternoon in 2022 in the village of St. Remy when my husband and I realized we needed a few items from the local pharmacy. We both zipped in, as if in a race, obviously running on our American timeclock. Once our few items were selected, we turned to face a...yes, a lengthy line to check out with, yes, the only pharmacist who was holding court at the counter.

I began to fidget, as it seemed like it would take an eternity. I confess I have difficulty standing in one place, and this line gave the appearance of no forward movement. Again, I stood shifting from one foot, then the other.

I peeked around to the head of the line, and it was then I realized there was something special happening at the counter. Could one consider this 'a theatre of life'? It was a simple conversation between the pharmacist and a young woman, whose four-year-old daughter clung to her skirt. The pharmacist leaned forward as the young mother spoke. He then came from behind the counter and stooped down to greet the child. Their heads bent close, the discussion continued, with ohs, and ahs, chin rubs, and a bit of hair fluffing followed by laughter from all three. Smiles flowed down the line to us.

But then the pharmacist continued to chat with the young mother about her daughter, and then asked her about her mother. And, perhaps, her mother-in-law. Time, care, thought and...yes, love...were extended to these customers, young and old. I was certain that everyone who had known this pharmacist as a family friend, was willing to patiently embrace this ritual as the gift in which it was given. As it turns out, time stood still for me too, as it became clear that these interactions were what made life in a village so precious.

Back at home, I recalled this memory as I saw my own pharmacist in a different light. Gratefully, I embraced the importance of patience as an attribute I need every day, and I struck up a conversation with a fellow 'lineman'.

-- Carole Bumpus

Carole is giving away advanced reader copies of "Adventures on Land and Sea: Searching for Culinary Pleasures and Along the Côte d'Azur" to three readers. To enter the drawing, drop Carole an email at: [email protected]

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - November 19, 2024

Dear Reader,

Please welcome today's guest author, Shana Feste, part of a successful duo with Jen Besser. Jen and Shana met as eleven-year-olds in California and have been collaborating ever since, beginning with writing, directing, producing and starring in many regrettable middle-school talent shows. Dirty Diana first launched as a podcast starring Demi Moore, debuted at #1 on Apple, was nominated for Podcast of the Year and won the Ambie for Best Fiction, Screenwriting. Shana is the award-winning screenwriter and director of several feature films, including Country Strong and Run Sweetheart Run. Jen is a fiction editor and publisher. They now live thousands of miles apart and talk every day.

Their debut novel is Dirty Diana A deliciously provocative novel about a woman caught between the comfortable stability of her marriage and her memories of a more sensual past--the first book in a three-part series based on the #1 fiction podcast.

Shana is giving away a copy of "Dirty Diana" to three winners. To enter the giveaway, click here. 

Welcome to the book club, Shana...

How a game of Hide and Go Get It led to a lifelong friendship

Jen and I met in the sixth grade, our friendship cemented on the night of our first boy-girl party. We were at the height of our pre-teen awkwardness. I had clear braces that were never "clear" but more of a "dirty blonde," and Jen was overdressed for the party in Mary Janes with ruffled socks. We arrived early to find the birthday girl wearing a denim mini skirt with Doc Martens and smoking a menthol cigarette in the alley behind her apartment.

As partygoers trickled in, we divided ourselves into two clumps by gender. Hormones raging, the boys suggested we play a game called Hide and Go Get It. It's exactly what you think it is. The girls hide and the boys make out with the first girl they find. Consent was not big in the late '80s.

Jen and I didn't know each other well. I was new to town and we'd barely exchanged a word at school, but as soon as Trevon, the hottest guy in sixth grade, yelled GO!, our eyes locked. In a sea of kids, we found each other. Somehow we knew we were the only girls who planned to find a good hiding spot. As everyone scattered, Jen and I linked arms and ran.

As we tripped our way down the alley, Jen turned to me and made a joke I remember to this day. "If I knew it was going to be this kind of party," she huffed, "I would have worn my running shoes!" Little did we know, not a single boy would be out looking for us. Or maybe we did know, but our shared sting made it that much more bearable. We crammed our small bodies behind the biggest, grossest Dumpster we could find and we talked about our animals and our favorite teachers and how disgusting every single boy was at the party and how in actuality it was a gift 'not' to be found. We talked for so long that we didn't realize the party had moved on to the cake. When we finally crawled out from behind the Dumpster, I knew I had found something better than my first kiss with a boy who didn't know my name. I had found my best friend.

-- Shana Feste

Shana is giving away a copy of "Dirty Diana" to three winners. To enter the giveaway, click here. 

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - November 12, 2024

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, The Wizard of Oz And Other Wonderful Books of Oz: The Emerald City of Oz and Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum..

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

(From the Publisher)

A Penguin Hardcover Classic

This stunning collectible hardcover edition of L. Frank Baum's classic features gorgeous printed and sprayed edges and colored endpapers designed with an Ex Libris bookplate

This fully annotated volume collects three of Baum's fourteen Oz novels in which he developed his utopian vision and which garnered an immense and loyal following. 'The Wizard of Oz' (1900) introduces Dorothy, who arrives from Kansas and meets the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, and a host of other characters. 'The Emerald City of Oz' (1910) finds Dorothy, Aunt Em, and Uncle Henry coming to Oz just as the wicked Nome King is plotting to conquer its people. In Baum's final novel,' Glinda of Oz' (1920), Dorothy and Princess Ozma try to prevent a battle between the Skeezers and the Flatheads. 

Tapping into a deeply rooted desire in himself and his loyal readers to live in a peaceful country which values the sharing of talents and gifts, Baum's imaginative creation, like all great utopian literature, holds out the possibility for change. Baum's classics spawned many adaptations, including the 1939 Judy Garland-starring classic film 'The Wizard of Oz' and Gregory McGuire's novel 1995, 'Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West' which was adapted into the second-highest grossing Broadway musical of all time 'Wicked' (with a film version forthcoming in 2024 starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande).

 Also included is a selection of the original illustrations by W. W. Denslow and John R. Neill, a jacketed hardcover, and colored and printed endpapers.

* 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.

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - November 5, 2024

Dear Reader, 

Our guest author today, Aaron Mahnke began his career in 2015 with the launch of Lore, which has racked up nearly half a billion downloads so far, been adapted for two seasons of television on Amazon Prime, and published as a three-book set from Penguin Random House. Beyond Lore, Aaron has produced a number of wildly popular shows, including his chart-topping hit, Cabinet of Curiosities, and his 2021 award-winning supernatural drama, Bridgewater. He lives in the historical North Shore area of Massachusetts with his family.

You could win one of three copies of his new book, Cabinet of Curiosities: A Historical Tour of the Unbelievable, the Unsettling, and the Bizarre. The book is full of titillating tidbits and mind-boggling stories you never knew you needed to know. Send an email to: [email protected]

Reach out to Aaron via, https://www.aaronmahnke.com/about

Welcome to the book club Aaron...

I love being delighted. You know that feeling, I'm sure. Maybe it was a particular episode of your favorite tv show, or a surprise discount from a popular retailer. You were expecting one thing, and then something better popped up.

And that's probably why I'm such a lover of history. No, not that boring sort of history that you remember from high school or college, with all those names and dates that you had to memorize. I'm talking about real stories from history that somehow defy logic. Sure, they might teach you something, but they also leave you with an unexpected gift: delight.

Let me show you what I mean.

Roughly two centuries ago, a young man in the Midwest found himself with quite an honor bestowed upon him. Out of all the athletes in his rural Illinois county, he was crowned the wresting champion. Now, maybe the long hours of hard labor on his family farm had honed his skills, or perhaps his unusual height allowed him to get the better of his opponents.

Whatever the reason might have been, over the course of about a dozen years, he squared off against 300 opponents, and only lost one single match.

Not too shabby, right? And this is probably why he was eventually inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame--although long after he had passed away.

It's a nice accomplishment to have on one's resumé, for sure, but this man is better known today for much bigger things. Like leading the Union to victory over the Confederacy, delivering the Gettysburg Address, and falling to an assassin's bullet in Ford's Theatre.

That's right: our wrestling hero was none other than Abraham Lincoln. You see? There's that feeling of delight again. And you have history to thank for it.

Examples of these little curveballs are scattered all across the pages of history. Some of them relate to the origin stories of common items that we take for granted today, like the fact that the croissant is not an invention of the French. Others involve wild coincidences, like the first man to die during the construction of the Hoover Dam being the father of the last man to die on the project.

History is curious. Which means that if you're on the hunt for more delight in your life, there's no better place to begin your search than deep in the past.

-- Aaron Mahnke

You could win one of three copies of Cabinet of Curiosities: A Historical Tour of the Unbelievable, the Unsettling, and the Bizarre. Send an email to: [email protected][email protected]

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected] 

Dear Reader Column - November 1, 2024

Dear Reader

Today I am pleased to welcome guest author, P.J. Tracy, which is the pseudonym of mother-daughter writing duo P.J. and Traci Lambrecht, winners of the Anthony, Barry, Gumshoe, and Minnesota Book Awards. Their ten novels in the Monkeewrench thriller series were national and international bestsellers and have been translated into more than twenty languages. After P.J.'s passing in 2016, Traci created the critically acclaimed Detective Margaret Nolan series set in Los Angeles, where Traci lived for many years. City of Secrets is the fourth and latest novel in the series, preceded by Deep Into The Dark, Desolation Canyon, and The Devil You Know. Traci now lives just outside Minneapolis.

In City of Secrets Los Angeles Police Detective Margaret Nolan and her partner have worked a lot of different cases, ones where things aren't always as they appear. When they're called to the scene of what looks like a fatal car-jacking, Nolan soon realizes her victim was a founder of a company about to sell for millions, and within a day of his death, his partner's wife is abducted.

You could win one of three copies of City of Secrets. Send an email to: [email protected]

Reach out to Traci via https://pjtracy.com/contact-us/

Why Crime Fiction Will Never Die

There are a lot of great things about being an author, like working on your own schedule, sleeping in when you want to, and making up stuff for a living. But these little luxuries are nothing compared to the joy of launching a new book. That's when I'm allowed out of my garret to spread the word and engage with readers and journalists--real live people, oh boy! Okay, I'm being slightly hyperbolic, but writing is a solitary endeavor out of necessity, and I crave opportunities to get out into the real world and share my perspective on the craft that consumes my life. The questions I'm asked make me think about writing beyond the fiction I create, and  those questions continue to make me better.

In a recent interview, I was asked about the continuing popularity of crime fiction. It was a seemingly simple question with an obvious answer. Who doesn't want to decipher a puzzle? Assess evidence and follow it through to a logical conclusion? Whether you're reading a mystery novel, doing the Sunday crossword, or trying to figure out why your cat or dog is eating grass, you are responding to a biological mandate to solve problems. It's a genetically hard-wired skill that has kept our species successful for millennia. Without it, the human race would have died off long ago.

But the more I considered the question, the more multidimensional it became. Yes, we want to solve external puzzles, but we have to solve our own just to get through a single day. Sometimes, we just want to read about somebody else's struggles, ones that are far worse than ours. And since it's fiction, it feels safe. We like the thrill of a good scare, especially when we know we won't find ourselves in such dire peril. Who among us will ever confront a homicidal maniac? The odds that we won't are overwhelmingly in our favor. (But keep your doors locked anyway.)

And there's another component to the popularity of mysteries: secrets. Large or small, everybody has them, and the voyeuristic aspect of our psyche yearns to know about other people's, even if those people only exist in the pages of a novel.

Crime fiction satisfies our natural curiosity and instincts, which makes it timeless, even in this fickle world of trends. It will forever endure, not just because it feeds our nature, but because crime has always been with us and always will be, just like death. The subject matter is very human and very personal. And in the end, any good book, however you categorize it, is about people navigating life and all the good and bad that comes with it.

-- P.J. Tracy

https://pjtracy.com/contact-us/

You could win one of three copies of "City of Secrets." Send an email to: [email protected]

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

Dear Reader Column - October 28, 2024

Dear Reader,

Today's guest author, Nicole Bokat has published four novels: Redeeming Eve (nominated for both the Hemingway Foundation/PEN award and the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction) What Matters Most, The Happiness Thief, and her new book, Will End in Fire...a heart-racing domestic thriller about an alienated young woman who must find an arsonist before her own life goes up in smoke.

Bokat is also the author of a book on novelist Margaret Drabble and has written essays for several publications, including The New York Times, Parents, and The Forward. She lives in New Jersey, with her husband and dog, Ruby, and has two adult sons.

Reach out to Nicole via: https://www.nicolebokat.com/aboutnicole/

Nicole, welcome to the book club!

The first time we put our house on the market was in March of 2020. Or, rather, it was scheduled to go on the market: the flyers had been printed, the house "staged" to resemble a glossy West Elm catalogue, the floors polished to a gleam, reflecting whatever light the sun afforded through our oversized windows. It felt like mounting a Broadway show--one that we canceled two days before the audience was due to fill the theater.

My son, a journalist, warned us, this virus from China had already arrived on the West Coast. Which meant it would be everywhere in the country within weeks; it had even infiltrated our area near New York City. No one knew exactly how it was transmitted. Did we want people pouring in from the city to touch our kitchen counter, to open our refrigerator, to breathe their germy breath in our home? Our realtor was dumbfounded. She'd be careful. She'd wear gloves. What good would that do, our son asked us. The virus could be airborne. Later, the realtor remarked how we were her only clients with such foresight. N.Y.C. closed down within a week.

The pandemic had arrived.

Four years later, we sold our house in one weekend. What I hadn't anticipated was the grief that I'd feel this time around. That place, the one I'd lived in for 24 year years and raised my boys in, had become my refuge through the hardest time in my life, through a recent serious illness and the onslaught of other physical woes, of lost friendships and even worse ordeals too painful and private to mention. But the grief hit me after the whirlwind of packing, re-staging, striking the set pieces of my existence--books and mementos and pictures of my children's childhood--from what was, after all, just a physical structure. No one had died, I reprimanded myself. My sons were thriving adults, with great jobs, partners and city-busy lives of their own.

My husband was "disoriented" but not devastated. We'd made a good sum from the sale. We'd leased an apartment in our town and planned to take our time looking for condos that weren't shamefully overpriced (a tough feat, but that's another tale). Only I was crushed. The day we left, the house bare, I lay on the living room floor and wept. It never occurred to me that one could say, as we Jews do about the dead, "Let her memory be a blessing."

Yet, I said it, just the same.

-- Nicole Bokat

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

Suzanne Beecher
[email protected]