Remembering the Man on the Wrong Side of the Fence

Columbia, Tenn.
Nov 25, 1864

Mrs Lucy Brown

Dear Wife
I am well and hearty and feel as well satisfied as I expected. We got here on the morning of the 23rd and got to our regiment the 24th in the morning. This is a nice place for camping, it is high and dry, and very hilly. We had some very cold weather while we was on our way here. The people at Nashville said that it was as cold here as it had been for several years. I think from the appearance here that we may stay here for some time, but we can't tell for certain one day what we will do the next. I am getting anxious to hear from you and the children. I want you to write to me as soon as you get this letter and tell all my friends to write to me.
...There has been some skirmishing with our cavalry and the Rebels for the last 4 or 5 days but all is quiet today. The weather is warm and nice. One man made a bet of $100 the other day that the war would end in 3 months and offered to bet $900 more that it would end in 5 months. The opinion of some is that we will know by the first of January how it will be but we can't tell yet. I want you to keep in good spirits till I come home for I feel as though I will come out all right.... Now we are called to get our arms.
I have got back and had dinner. We can hear some cannons, they appear to be 2 or 3 miles off.

The words above are from the last letter James Henry Brown (the man in the photo) wrote to his wife, Lucy Ann Sarah. Within ten days, he was dead-- killed in the Battle of Franklin. The Battle of Franklin saw some of the bloodiest fighting in the American Civil War. In places bodies lay as they fell in tall piles. You couldn't walk without stepping on the dead. The ground was soaked deep red with blood.

James Henry's wife (seen to the left) didn't understand about war. All she knew was that she wanted her husband back home where he belonged. She insisted that his body be brought home for burial.

She didn't know-- and from my reading I think it would be safe to say that she didn't care-- about just exactly what that demand meant. Men buried in mass graves. Men with very little, if any, identification. By the time her request went through all the necessary channels, months had passed. The poor souls assigned to looking for James Henry's body had little more to go on than approximate height, Union soldier, red hair, full red beard. I'm sure that the second they found a body in a blue uniform that had red hair and a red beard, they stopped looking. And let's be honest: under the same circumstances, wouldn't you?

James Henry's body arrived home (south of Vandalia, Illinois) in June of 1865. The war was over. The Battle of Franklin had been fought over six long months ago. People gathered to bury him in the family cemetery, but before the coffin could be lowered into the ground, Lucy Ann Sarah made one more demand: "Open the coffin. I want to see my husband."

Many folks tried their best to get Lucy Ann Sarah (she was always called by all three names) to change her mind. If you can tell anything about her from that photo above, I think you can see that DETERMINATION should have been her middle name. She would not be denied. The coffin was opened, and Lucy Ann Sarah took a good long look. Most of the other folks didn't look at all. After several minutes had passed, she said, "That is not my husband. That is not James Henry." Her will was so powerful that whoever was in the coffin was not buried in the family cemetery.

Over one hundred years later, as a teenager, I joined many other family members down in the hills and hollers of southern Illinois. I couldn't take you there today if my life depended on it because the route consisted of little-traveled country roads. My great-grandfather was in the car with me, my grandparents and my mother. We were depending on his directions to get us to the old church and cemetery. All I can remember is that we had to turn left onto a little road when we got to Frogtown. (Frogtown was all of one old weathered wooden building that looked as though a stiff breeze would blow it into the next state. Truth be told, that old building is probably standing today and will stand long past my own death.)


The Brown family had gathered because the family church, old Center Church, was a hazard and was going to be torn down. My grandfather collected bells and went to the trouble of getting the old church bell down from the tower to be taken home to Moweaqua. The old family cemetery, located on some land out in the middle of fields and pastures, was overgrown. While some folks tended to the bell and the church, the rest of us got our gloves, hoes and rakes and started tending to the cemetery.

In the photos above, you can see old Center Church to the right, and the cemetery to the left. The tallest gravestone just happens to be Lucy Ann Sarah's, and you can see a field and an old barn right behind the graves.

In 1968 when all this clean-up was occurring, I was thirteen years old. I pulled weeds, hoed and raked just like everybody else, and I didn't get too bored because the all the names on the tombstones represented people who were related to me. At that stage in my life, I'd been in many old cemeteries, but this was the first time that all those dead folk were kin.

My interest began to wane just as everyone was finishing up and deciding which farm to go to for lunch. It was a typical hot, muggy, bug-laden Illinois summer day, and I looked over to the woods, knowing that a creek ran through the trees. I squeezed through the gaps in the barbed wire fence and started to head over to the woods when I saw a weathered marker lying on the ground on the pasture side of the fence that ran around the cemetery. I went on over to take a look.

The old pieces of wood had originally been in the shape of a cross. With the tip of a forefinger, I traced shallow carving in the crosspiece until I deciphered the marks: UNK. For some reason I knew not to make a big production out of this find, and I went over to my mother on the sly and told her what I'd found. That's when Mom told me about James Henry and Lucy Ann Sarah declaring that the body they'd shipped from Tennessee wasn't her husband. "You've found where they buried the man she rejected," Mom said.

Mom's attention was almost immediately claimed by someone else. I picked up a rake and a hoe and climbed back through the fence. I put on my thick leather gloves and cleaned up the afterthought of a grave that Lucy Ann Sarah gave to "Unknown". I found some bits of wire and fixed the cross and set it straight in the ground where it should be. I looked into the cemetery proper, at all the graves decorated with stone markers and flowers. I looked down at this grave scratched out in the dirt of a pasture where any of the livestock could stand on it.

I sat down by the grave and put my hand on the cross and felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow. "I don't know who you are, mister, but you deserve respect just like anyone else who's buried here. My family didn't do right by you, and I apologize for that."

To this day when Memorial Day rolls around, the first person I think of is a lonely man buried on the wrong side of a fence that surrounds an old family cemetery. He fought and died for his country. He is deserving of respect.

Mailbox Monday-- Another Month Passes

Mailbox Monday is my favorite weekly meme. Hosted by the gracious Marcia on her blog, The Printed Page, I've been known to keep a pad of paper and a pen at hand as I roam from participating blog to participating blog. If you'd like to see all the books received by other bloggers, click on that redhead to the left. She'll take you right to the heart of the action!

I thought I was being a "good girl" when I sent 5 books to new Paperback Swap (PBS) foster homes last week, but then I hit the Wish List Jackpot. Seems like everyone had taken a look at my wish list and decided to send me goodies all at the same time. I received 8 books last week-- all from fellow PBS members. Here's the scoop:

1. Crazy Woman by Kate Horsley. "Sara Franklin is an outcast among her own white people. Her thirst for knowledge and spirituality is threatening to both her abusive father and her neurotic husband. When she is captured by the Apaches in New Mexico, they dub her Crazy Woman, and treat her like a slave. Yet, as she begins to learn the ways of her captors, she earns their respect as a strong, clever, even magical, woman."
2. Dead Write, A Forensic Handwriting Mystery by Sheila Lowe. "Handwriting expert Claudia Rose heads to the Big Apple at the behest of Grusha Olinetsky, the notorious founder of an elite dating service whose members are mysteriously dying. Drawn into the feckless lives of the rich and single, Claudia finds herself in a twisted world of love and lies fueled by desperation. But is one among them desperate enough to kill? Claudia must find clues in the suspects' handwriting before more victims are scribbled into the killer's black book.."
3. China Trade by S.J. Rozan. "Rozan's debut novel, focusing both on china, the porcelain, and on the homeland of many inhabitants of New York City's Chinatown, introduces likable Asian-American PI, Lydia Chin. Lydia, hired by the Chinatown Pride museum to recover stolen antique porcelains, confronts the leaders of rival Chinatown gangs in hopes of flushing out the robbers. With information gleaned from a meek scholar who habitually steals tiny porcelains from prominent collections, Lydia discovers an antiquities-laundering business that crosses all socioeconomic strata. Her sidekick, full-time sleuth Bill Smith, provides an element of sexual tension; the resolution hinges on a silly scheme in which Lydia sets herself up to be attacked by a hit man and rescued by her cooperative NYPD pals."
4. The Three Body Problem, A Cambridge Mystery by Catherine Shaw. "Cambridge, 1888. Miss Vanessa Duncan is a young schoolmistress recently arrived from the countryside. She loves teaching and finds the world of academia fascinating; everything is going so well. But everything changes when a Fellow of Mathematics, Mr. Akers, is found dead in his room from a violent blow to the head. Invited to dinner by the family of one of her charges, Vanessa meets many of the victim’s colleagues, including Mr. Arthur Weatherburn, who had dined with Mr. Akers the evening of his death and happens to be Vanessa’s upstairs neighbor. Discussing the murder, she learns of Sir Isaac Newton’s yet unsolved ‘n-body problem’, which Mr. Akers might have been trying to solve to win the prestigious prize. As the murder remains unsolved, Vanessa’s relationship with Arthur Weatherburn blossoms. Then another mathematician, Mr. Beddoes is murdered and Arthur is jailed. Convinced of his innocence and with a theory of her own, Vanessa decides to prove her case. But when a third mathematician dies, it becomes a race against time to solve the puzzle. . ."
5. The Penguin Pool Murder, A Hildegarde Withers Mystery by Stuart Palmer. "Hildegarde Withers is a schoolteacher shepherding her lively class of children round the New York Aquarium, where a gruesome murder is found to have been committed. Miss Withers finds herself getting involved with the investigation and clashing with the officer in charge, Inspector Piper. This is the first in a series of mysteries starring the strong-minded Miss Withers as amateur sleuth. Hildegarde Withers is an impressive lady who is always in command of the situation, dealing with a bunch of tough little children stands her in good stead when it comes to dealing with criminals or for that matter with the police."
6. The Inspector's Daughter by Alanna Knight. "In a desperate attempt to recover from the loss of her husband and her baby son, Rose McQuinn has returned home to Edinburgh from the American Wild West. It seems that everything has moved on in her absence, including her beloved stepbrother who has found favor at court and moved to London. But Rose has little time to ponder her loneliness before she unwittingly steps into the shoes of her father, the legendary Detective Inspector Faro, by agreeing to investigate the strange behavior of Matthew Bolton, husband to Rose s childhood friend Alice. Alice is convinced Matthew is having an affair but Rose suspects he may have been involved in something much more sinister - the brutal and still unsolved murder of a servant girl. If Rose continues her investigations surely she will break Alice s heart. But she is her father s daughter, and she cannot resist the urge to discover the truth. From her isolated home at the foot of Arthur's Seat and aided by a wild deerhound who has befriended her, Rose starts to piece things together, until she gets too near the truth and puts her own life in danger."
7. Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris. "For generations, privileged young men have attended St. Oswald's Grammar School for Boys, groomed for success by the likes of Roy Straitley, the eccentric Classics teacher who has been a fixture there for more than thirty years. This year, however, the wind of unwelcome change is blowing, and Straitley is finally, reluctantly, contemplating retirement. As the new term gets under way, a number of incidents befall students and faculty alike, beginning as small annoyances but soon escalating in both number and consequence. St. Oswald's is unraveling, and only Straitley stands in the way of its ruin. But he faces a formidable opponent with a bitter grudge and a master strategy that has been meticulously planned to the final, deadly move."


8. Kangaroo Dreaming, An Australian Wildlife Odyssey by Edward Kanze. "Caught up in both Homer's Odyssey and the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the author and his wife decided to spend nine months traversing Australia, communing with lotus-eaters in the form of wine-loving Australians and practicing Emerson's self-reliance while camping in the outback. Starting their journey in Melbourne, the couple made their way by bus, boat, train, but mostly by automobile around the entire continent, seeing each of the six states and two territories and all of the habitat types. As naturalists, their main goal was to see as many of Australia's unique animals as they could find. Kanze writes of encounters with a platypus diving for invertebrate prey and chewing it up on its return to the surface, of possums so tame that they climb into the soup, of chasing a wallaby to see how fast it can hop, and of campground wombats feeding on grassy fields in the dark. Mixed with the author's tales of the journey are quotations from Mark Twain, D. H. Lawrence, and Edward Abbey and a wealth of natural history, from descriptions of kangaroos from early English explorers to late-breaking discoveries from Australian scientists. An extremely satisfying look at a land most of us know little about."

Have you read any of these books? Which ones would you recommend? Did any of you just add a title or two from my pile to your own list? Which ones? Do tell!

Weekly Link Round-Up

Here's hoping that a wonderful time was had by all who were able to travel to New York City for BEA and BBC-- and that everyone who has a long weekend will have a blast. I'm working on a special Memorial Day post, so I'll just cut to the chase and serve up a batch of links for y'all!

Bookish News & Other Fun Stuff

• Why "Punishing the Publisher" usually doesn't.
• You Tube video: Mr. Bean in the Library.
• Another You Tube video: Signing in Waldenbooks by Parnell Hall.
• The century is up: Mark Twain's autobiography will now be published.
• The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson.
• Books in the home boost children's education. (Duh.)
• Shoplifting in bookshops.
• Abe Books has put together 50 Iconic Book Covers.
• Book dwellings.
• Get in bed with a book blogger!
  

Blogging Tips

• Write blog posts that get noticed.

Around the Water Cooler in the Book Blogosphere

• I discovered a meme that I'll be keeping my eye on: Character Connection, which asks bloggers to talk about a character they love. In particular, I enjoyed Becky's (The Bookette) post about a favorite of mine: Harper Connelly.
• An author asks you not to post a less-than-positive review of his book. Lurv a la Mode wants to know: To Post or Not to Post?
• I learned about this from Michele at Southern City Mysteries (Books Make a Difference). If you go to BlogHer and leave a comment about a book that changed your life, a book will be donated to a needy child. Comment as many times as you like, but hurry! This ends TODAY!!
• Kath wants to know what we think of literary mashups.
• Iris On Books talks about Blogging as a Global Phenomenon.
• Amanda, The Desert Book Chick, talks about why real book lovers read Science Fiction.

New to My Google Reader

• The Blue Bookcase
• The Bibliophilic Book Blog
• The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader
• Book Buddies
• Classics Rock!

That's all for this week. Hopefully you found one or two that expanded your mind or tickled your fancy. Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll have a whole new batch of links for your surfing pleasure!

bookfinds @ Kittling: Books

I think this is the first year in a long time that the resident Gila woodpeckers haven't tried to drill their own home into the side of ours. It's either because Denis hung large shiny wind spinners in their areas of choice, or because Mr. and Mrs. Greg Peck (as I've named the pair) don't want the citrus smorgasbord to disappear. I can sit in the family room to watch television, read, or needlepoint and look out the window to watch the adults fill their beaks with juicy pieces of orange to take to the nest to feed their young. I wonder how much longer it's going to be before we see the youngsters feeding themselves?

Anyway, I looked through one edition of Paperback Swap's Daily Wish List email and found all sorts of books to add to my own wish list. If you'd like more detailed information about any of the titles, click on the book cover. Let's take a look at the books that were added to my wish list this week:


The Cape Ann by Faith Sullivan
"The Cape Ann is the name on the plans of the house that Lark Ann Ehrhart and her mother plan to build some day. It is the place to which six-year-old Lark escapes in daydreams when her parents begin to argue, the home that her mother dreams of far from the rooms in the train depot where they live and Lark's father works. Ultimately it symbolizes escape from Harvester, Minn., and independence from the husband and father whose gambling repeatedly sabotages their dream. Lark narrates the adult events of Harvester's Catholic culture without always understanding them. Her point of view adds depth to the story, though occasionally it is more adult than a six year old's would be. Characters are fully colored; historical references firmly set the story in the Depression and beyond."


American Road: The Story of an Epic Transcontinental Journey at the Dawn of the Motor Age by Pete Davies
"In 1919, a military convoy of 81 vehicles set out to travel the Lincoln Highway--a line drawn on the map--from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco. Essentially a PR ploy to dramatize the need for good roads, the "First Transcontinental Motor Train" delivered. Trucks foundered in mud, crashed through wooden bridges, and got beaten to pieces on byways barely better than trails. Modern motorists will be surprised to learn just how bad things were back then, but the story behind the undertaking is equally interesting. Automobile and tire manufacturers, who stood to gain if newly car-crazy citizens had smooth roads to travel, managed to drive the government their way; the grueling journey captured the American imagination and spurred road building to a fervor."


Brought to Book by Anthea Fraser
"When successful biographer Rona Parish is asked to write the life-story of a bestselling author, recently deceased, she is intrigued - to say the least. After all, Theo Harvey led a very colorful life, and died in mysterious circumstances. But Rona's husband Max is wary and, it soon becomes apparent, with good reason...As Rona begins to delve into Theo Harvey's life and death, and to interview his friends and family - some more willing than others - she realizes that she has taken on a poisoned chalice."




Life List: A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds by Olivia Gentile
"Married, with four children, Phoebe was a frustrated 1950s housewife who began experiencing a depression that felt like she was inside a tomb. Her introduction to bird-watching by another shy, brainy housewife, seeing a warbler through binoculars, was a revelation; it was as if she'd seen a blinding white light. With the help of a local birding club, Phoebe began her life list of birds and gradually began traveling farther afield in search of new sightings. Diagnosed in her late 40s with incurable cancer and less than a year to live, she threw herself into birding, traveling worldwide, ignoring injury and danger to work on her life list for another 18 years, until killed in a bus accident in Madagascar at the age of 68. Gentile's ambivalence, celebrating Snetsinger's having lived so fully and with so much spirit but noting that she had lost the capacity to take into account her family, her health and her safety, adds a reflectiveness that Phoebe herself may have avoided in life."


Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
"Kalish's memoir of her Iowa childhood, set against the backdrop of the Depression, captures a vanished way of traditional living and a specific moment in American history in a story both illuminating and memorable. Kalish lived with her siblings, mother and grandparents-seven in all-both in a town home and, in warmer weather, out on a farm. The lifestyle was frugal in the extreme: "The only things my grandparents spent money on were tea, coffee, sugar, salt, white flour, cloth and kerosene." But in spite of the austere conditions, Kalish's memories are mostly happy ones: keeping the farm and home going, caring for animals, cooking elaborate multi-course meals and washing the large family's laundry once a week, by hand. Here, too, are stories of gossiping in the kitchen, digging a hole to China with the "Big Kids" and making head cheese at butchering time. Kalish skillfully rises above bitterness and sentiment, giving her memoir a clear-eyed narrative voice that puts to fine use a lifetime of careful observation: "Observing the abundance of life around us was just so naturally a part of our days on the farm that it became a habit." Simple, detailed and honest, this is a refreshing and informative read for anyone interested in the struggles of average Americans in the thick of the Great Depression."


Murder at the Universe by Daniel Edward Craig
"New York's Universe Hotel attracts celebrities, social climbers, tourists and controversy, and provides the ambitious Trevor Lambert, director of rooms, a reason to exist. Lambert's dedication to hotel owner Willard Godfrey and his Universal Promise: to provide an escape from the outside world leaves him devastated when he discovers Godfrey's body in the hotel garage the morning after the staff holiday party, apparently the victim of an inebriated hit-and-run driver. Making things astronomically worse, radical anti-booze crusader Brenda Rathberger is at the hotel for a Victims of Impaired Drivers conference, and sleazy TV journalist Honica Winters of Borderline News airs a critical segment about Godfrey's suspicious death. Lambert's wry turn as an accidental house detective puts Craig's erudite whodunit solidly on the map."


Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
"Tracy Waterhouse leads a quiet, ordered life as a retired police detective-a life that takes a surprising turn when she encounters Kelly Cross, a habitual offender, dragging a young child through town. Both appear miserable and better off without each other-or so decides Tracy, in a snap decision that surprises herself as much as Kelly. Suddenly burdened with a small child, Tracy soon learns her parental inexperience is actually the least of her problems, as much larger ones loom for her and her young charge.

Meanwhile, Jackson Brodie, the beloved detective of novels such as Case Histories, is embarking on a different sort of rescue-that of an abused dog. Dog in tow, Jackson is about to learn, along with Tracy, that no good deed goes unpunished."

After a bit of paring down, that's my wish list for this week. I think I'm most excited about Started Early, Took My Dog and American Road.

What about you? Have you read any of these books? Would you recommend them? Did you put any of these same titles on your own wish lists? Do tell!

Blacklands by Belinda Bauer

Title: Blacklands
Author: Belinda Bauer
ISBN: 9781439149447, Simon & Schuster, 2010
Genre: Thriller
Rating: B+
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: Exmoor dripped with dirty bracken, rough, colorless grass, prickly gorse, and last year's heather, so black it looked as if wet fire had swept across the landscape, taking the trees with it and leaving the moor cold and exposed to face the winter unprotected.

Twenty years ago, Stephen Lamb's Uncle Billy disappeared, never to return. Since Uncle Billy was eleven and serial killer/ pedophile Arnold Avery was trolling the moors at the time, it was assumed that Billy fell prey to Avery.

Twenty years later, Stephen Lamb's grandmother is still waiting at the window for her son to return. Twelve-year-old Stephen is sick to death of having to deal with the nasty tempers of his grandmother and mother; he's tired of being followed around by his five-year-old brother; he doesn't want to smell like mildew anymore; and if the school bullies left him alone, he would think he'd won the biggest lottery ever.

In his mind, everything went to pot when Uncle Billy disappeared. If he could only find Billy, his grandmother would stop waiting for his return, and maybe-- just maybe-- life might become more livable. With that in mind, Stephen takes a shovel out to the moor and digs hole after hole after hole. Uncle Billy has to be there somewhere. He finally comes to the conclusion that he needs help in finding Uncle Billy's remains, and who is the only person qualified to help? That's right: Arnold Avery. So begins a correspondence that's enough to make anyone's skin crawl.

This book does not read like a first novel. Bauer does an excellent job of portraying how tragedy has affected this family and to what lengths young Stephen will go to have even the slightest bit of normality in his life. Three quarters of the book is very quiet and very very powerful; however, the ending is a bit far-fetched and dilutes that intensity.

Regardless of the ending, I am still very impressed by this story. Young Stephen Lamb remains crystal clear in my mind, and I will keep an eye out for more books by Belinda Bauer. She has quite a talent.

[Note: Although the book does deal with pedophilia and the murder of children, these themes are handled in a straightforward, non-graphic manner-- which can be even more chilling because your mind is free to add all the details.]

Death By the Book by Lenny Bartulin

Title: Death By the Book
Author: Lenny Bartulin
ISBN: 9780312559724, Minotaur Books, 2010
Genre: Amateur Sleuth, #1 Jack Susko mystery
Rating: C+
Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.

First Line: It was perfectly clear to him now, dangling in the wet tussock cleavage of a broad hill that slid towards the headland cliffs.

Used book dealer Jack Susko thinks it's his lucky day: wealthy businessman Hammond Kasprowicz has offered him $50 for every copy he can locate of the works of little-known poet, Edward Kass. Jack needs the money, so he tries to keep a firm rein on his curiosity, although his libido certainly isn't held in check when Kasprowicz's daughter, Annabelle, walks onstage. Then dead bodies start cropping up.

I have to admit to being disappointed in this book. The action occurs in Sydney, Australia, but you'd never know it. It makes me wonder if the book was given the Strip Mall Treatment for American readers. You know... the Americans who won't be caught dead reading about someone who actually has the gall to live in another country? One of the reasons why I read books set in other countries is for the local ambiance. I want a real sense of place of which this book has none. The Aussie friends I have would never live in such a bland place.

Bartulin has a wonderful way with language, but it wasn't enough to carry the book above average for me. What was the biggest letdown? Jack Susko was a private eye in disguise, complete with snappy comebacks and the drop-dead gorgeous dame who stalks into his office and steals his heart-- and naturally Jack falls for every word that falls from her pouty lips, the idiot.

With a standard P.I. plot, there were no surprises for me in Death By the Book. I picked the book up expecting something more along the lines of John Dunning's bookseller, Cliff Janeway. What I got was well-written Gumshoe. Too bad I'm not a fan.

Scene of the Blog Featuring Jen of Jen's Book Thoughts!

You don't have to read my blog for very long to deduce that I have a decided preference for crime fiction. I even admit it in my header. Therefore, it should come as no shock that I enjoy reading other book blogs that feature the same genre.

The one thing that I enjoy the most about Book Blogger Appreciation Week is the chance it gives me to discover new blogs. Last year's celebration was no exception. When looking at the other nominees for Best... Mystery... Blog, I saw Jen's Book Thoughts and said to myself, "Who's that?" I immediately visited her blog and said, "How long have I been under this rock and can I get out now?"

Jen's blog is now one of my absolute favorites, and not just because we like the same type of books. This woman is one dedicated and extremely creative blogger! If forced to choose my favorite feature on her blog, it would be almost impossible to choose between Detectives Around the World, Six-Word Memoirs, and Crime Writers Caught Reading Crime. I wish I had just one-tenth of an ounce of her creativity. If you haven't visited Jen at Jen's Book Thoughts, please do-- and don't forget to say hi!

Now it's time for me to shut up and show y'all Jen's blogging space where she creates all those fun posts. She sent two shots that are basically the same, but I'm going to use both of them because you can see different things in each.

This is the desk where all the damage is done for Jen’s Book Thoughts. This is actually unusually clean for me. Normally there’s at least three or four additional books piled up, a can of diet soda and a cat lurking. But I recently replaced my desktop computer with the new laptop, so some cleaning was done to make the transition, and the cats must be off causing trouble somewhere else. In addition, I’m in the process of having my poster from this year’s L.A. Times Festival of Books framed so I can hang it over the desk. I had the poster signed by many of the authors I visited with at the festival.

When I work here, I’m most often flanked by one or both of my chocolate labs. They will sleep on either side of my chair while I work on the computer. That is until they need to go outside. Then they stick their noses under my elbow and try to convince me to get up and let them out.

There is window to the right of the desk and one directly behind the desk, so there’s usually plenty of light. Also behind the desk is a large papasan chair where the cats like to sleep while I’m working; that is if they aren’t trying to help me. It makes for close quarters, but that’s o.k., we’re a close family like that.

The paper you can see in front of the computer is one of my many calendars. I have a calendar for each project. While I typically keep a spreadsheet of information I need, I also keep a printed calendar with all my information in pencil so I can move things around as needed! As much as I like technology and rely on it, I still rely on paper calendars. I’m not sure if you can see it, but to the right of my mouse pad is my essential toy. I can’t be without my Slinky. When I’m pondering and concocting, I busy myself with my Slinky. Something about the sound is calming and soothing to me.

It’s nothing fancy, but it works! Thanks for investigating my scene!

I for one want to know if Jen is going to post a photo of her poster once she gets it framed and hung. That sounds like a very special piece of art. And you know what? I think I know the secret of Jen's creativity-- all those critters she has sleeping around her as she blogs. All those doggy and kitty zzzzz's being lofted into the air must keep Jen's brain cells hopping.

Jen? You're not alone. I may have spreadsheets of my own, but I've just gotta have things written out on paper calendars!

Thanks so much for sharing your space with us, Jen. We certainly do enjoy conducting these informal investigations.

Who's sharing a creative space with us next week? Stop by to find out. See you then!

Wordless Wednesday

Click to view full size. More Wordless Wednesday.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

Title: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Author: Stieg Larsson
Translated from the Swedish: Reg Keeland
ISBN: 9780307269997, Alfred A. Knopf, 2010
Genre: Thriller, #3 in the Millennium trilogy
Rating: A
Source: Amazon Vine

First Line: An estimated 600 women served during the American Civil War.

To those of you who aren't up to speed with Larsson's trilogy, I am going to try my best to avoid giving things away, but it's not going to be easy.

In the last book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Lisbeth Salander-- portrayed as being worse than the Devil himself by media and police-- confronted her very real, very human, demons. In this book, she realizes that confronting them is not enough. She is going to have to destroy them. What goes against her grain is that she is forced to trust journalist Mikael Blomkvist, even to the point of letting him run large sections of the show.

This book even more than the previous two relies on intricate plotting and the pieces fitting together exactly. This book, more than the other two, showed unevenness and sections that needed a much sterner hand at editing. Because the plot was intricate, Larsson spent pages explaining various government agencies, how they were set up, the people they reported to, and so on. These were the sections of the book that made my eyes glaze over.

Another subplot involving Erika Berger, the former editor of Millennium magazine, although illustrating what many women have to deal with in male-dominated sections of the workforce, was really unnecessary and moved the focus away from the most fascinating characters: Salander and Blomkvist. Even Salander's trip to Gibraltar could have been shortened.

Any time the action moved away from that two-character focus, the book began to drag, which is why I feel that it would have benefited from stricter pruning. But was I greatly disappointed in the book? No. I had to see the outcome of Lisbeth Salander's story. Was she going to succeed? How was she going to succeed?

Larsson has given me a wonderful offbeat Dulcinea and her Don Quixote. I may always wonder what the books would have become if Larsson had been allowed to work on them himself, but the characters will always remain: a young woman who refused to accept that everyone else was more important than she, and the man who believed her.

What Animal Print Are You?

You Are a Zebra Print

You are a very unique and special person, and you like to surround yourself with similarly unique people. It's hard for you to compromise with other people. You do things your own way, and you can be a bit stubborn at times. You are intelligent and perceptive. You have a very interesting take on the world, and you tend to see things a bit differently. You are always growing, changing, and learning. You question limits and always challenge yourself to do more.

What Animal Print Are You?

Mailbox Monday-- Dominated by P's

Mailbox Monday is my favorite meme. Hosted by Marcia on her blog, The Printed Page, following this weekly post has been known to lead to mail carriers with bulging discs and the purchase of floor jacks to hold up those towering stacks of books.

Now that you've been properly warned, I hope you'll join with us whether it's just to take a look at the books others are receiving or if it's to share your own booty with the rest of us.

All you have to do is click on that redhead to the left to be taken right to the heart of the action. Thanks, Marcia!

This past week, I sent 5 books to new Paperback Swap (PBS) foster homes and received 4 books. The four I received were all mailed to me from places with P's in their names. Here's the scoop:

1. The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee (PBS). "Buzbee is a book lover. When he describes walking into a bookstore, feasting his eyes on the walls lined with stock, gravitating to the tables stacked with new issues and then discovering some volume so irresistibly beautiful he just has to buy it, you realize that he just doesn't love books, he's besotted. Buzbee tells the story of his lifelong obsession, from his elementary school Weekly Reader orders to his first jobs clerking in bookstores and his short career as a publisher's rep. Woven into these personal essays is a tangential discourse on the history of bookmaking and bookselling, from the ancient Romans and Chinese to the modern era. He describes the scriptoriums in Roman bookshops where the wealthy could order a book copied, the stacks of unbound quires a customer would have chosen from in a 15th-century bookshop (proto-paperbacks) and everything one would want to know about the modern business of bookselling, from ISBNs to remainders."
2. Buried Strangers by Leighton Gage (The Poisoned Pen). I enjoyed the first book in this series so much that I just had to grab the second! "In the jungle on the outskirts of São Paulo, Mario Silva and his team find hundreds of unknown corpses, often buried in family groups, and they learn that many would-be travelers to North America who used a local tourist agency have never reached their destinations. The motive for these murders is completely contemporary and completely appalling."
3. Gunshot Road: An Emily Tempest Investigation by Adrian Hyland (The Poisoned Pen). I enjoyed the first book about Emily (Moonlight Downs) so much that I was thrilled to see that the second one was available! "Crisp, colorful prose distinguishes the outstanding second Emily Tempest investigation set in the Australian Outback from Ned Kelly Award–winner Hyland. Tempest, a half-Aboriginal, half-white police officer, clashes with her superior in the official inquiry into the murder of prospector Albert Ozolins. She doesn't think eccentric John Vincent Petherbridge (aka Wireless) struck Ozolins a fatal blow to the throat with a geological hammer, despite Wireless's admitting he argued with the victim about Xeno's Paradox shortly beforehand. Instead, Emily suspects that the scientist's research into the snowball Earth theory, the hypothesis that the earth's surface may once have been entirely frozen over, may have given someone a motive to kill. Hyland doesn't spare his independent heroine some rough knocks. Readers who like their mysteries in exotic locales will hope this series has a long run."

4. Quilt As Desired: A Harriet Truman/Loose Threads Mystery by Arlene Sachitano (PBS). "Harriet Truman returns to Foggy Point thinking she’s just going to see to her aunt Beth’s customers while the lady takes a European cruise. Instead, she discovers she now owns both business and house, whether she wanted to or not. Still, she’s stuck until Aunt Beth comes home, and she does enjoy being a part of creating beautiful quilts. But then Avanell Jalbert, her aunt’s best friend, is murdered on the same night someone breaks into Harriet’s studio and trashes the place. Something is coming unravelled in Foggy Point, and Harriet is caught in the tangle. The question is, can she figure out what’s going on before she ends up dead herself."

That was my haul last week. Hopefully some of these books interest you as well. Now comes the fun part: checking out everyone else's books! See you next Monday!

Weekly Link Round-Up

I'm a tree hugger and an animal lover, but right now I'm feeling less than charitable towards my neighborhood pet owners. I love dogs, but the neighbors next-door think it's quite all right to let their little dog out at night to roam the neighborhood yapping its head off. In addition those homeowners who have been blindsided by the economy and have decided to do a midnight flit-- which includes turning their cats loose to become feral-- would be beneath my contempt right now if I could hear myself think.

While I try to find my happy place, let's see what sort of links I managed to gather this week, shall we?

Bookish News & Other Fun Stuff

• 50 Cool Bookstore Blogs.
• How independent bookshops are fighting back in Wales.
• Take a look at Radio Shack's electronic book... circa 1986!
• A mental health study says that Internet use could make us happier. (I would agree; I discovered my husband online.)
• Amazon is constantly trying to stay ahead of the competition by adding new features to the Kindle. Some folks think it's just plain creepy. It all reminds me of why I'm not jumping to get any sort of e-reader. I don't want to buy a book and have it magically disappear from my reader, and I don't necessarily want someone tracking anything I highlight. It also reminds me that my friend took a couple of photos of my back garden with his Droid phone, and the blasted things came up labeled with my complete address. I DO NOT LIKE THIS. Okay, Cathy. Breathe in. Breathe out. Ignore Yappy outside.....
• After that last rant-ette, you probably think I believe Amazon is an ogre. Not so. Have you heard about Amazon Crossing? This could be really good.
• Have you seen this video of a bookmobile on the streets of Buenos Aires?
• According to those in the know in Hollywood, Jane Austen may have to move over and make room for the Brontes.

Blogging News & Tips

• Traditional blogging platforms still reign supreme.
• 10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling. Please!
• 20 Easy Ways to Ruin Your Blog.
• How to Use Non-Standard Fonts with Blogger.

Around the Water Cooler in the Book Blogosphere

• Sam of Book Chase talks about Bookstore Slobs, Part One and Part Two.
• Rhapsody in Books talks about Reducing Stress in the Blogosphere.
• Pam of Bookalicio.us wants us to turn in those links.
• Lauren Leto's Stereotyping People By Their Favorite Authors.

New to My Google Reader

• Reading Without Restraint
• Not the Baseball Pitcher
• The Broken Bullhorn

That's all for this week. Now I'm heading off to try to immerse myself in Colonial America and forget that there's a yapper wandering up and down the street. See you next week with a fresh batch of links for your surfing pleasure!

bookfinds @ Kittling: Books

Phoenix is playing around with its first 100°F. day, and Denis has been busy making sure the pool is ready for summer. Maybe once I'm ensconced in my summer reading spot my book consumption will rise. I'm not in a reading slump; I just seem to be very easily distracted by almost everything, including Denis's change of shift at work and in a big needlepoint project I have created for myself.

You know how I've said that I've purchased books and then not read them for more than a decade? Well, with this needlepoint project, I'm using yarn that I bought thirty years ago (and never touched). Looking at the price tags on the skeins, I would imagine that I'd be paying a tad more if I were to buy my supplies today!

Anyway, that's got nothing to do with the books I've found and added to my wish list within the past week. Wait a mo while I drag myself back on topic!

Here's what became part of my wish list this week. Do any of these titles tickle your fancy? Click on the book cover if you want more information.


At Home in France by Ann Barry.
"Not every writer who owns a house in France publishes a book about its pleasures and pains. Even among such owners, Barry, a food and travel writer and former editor at the New Yorker and the New York Times, is exceptional, because she does not actually live in her house in Carennac, a village in southwestern France near the Dordogne; she only visits it for two or three weeks a year. When she is there, she reads, jogs, cooks, hosts friends from home and explores the nearby regions. Because her visits are so short, her experiences in her village seem confined to finding a neighbor to keep her keys for her and someone to garage her car while she's away, and food shopping at wonderful country markets. She writes grippingly about her search for the best bread and vividly profiles familiar native types with whom she is acquainted."


Living Among Headstones: Life in a Country Cemetery by Shannon Applegate.
"In 1997, Shannon Applegate was bequeathed a small cemetery in western Oregon. The neglected five acres were not only the burial site for generations of her family but also the designated resting ground for many in the nearby, down-on-its-luck logging town. Living Among Headstones chronicles the author’s experiences as she takes charge of this sacred land and finds herself plotting graves, consoling families, and confronting the funeral industry.Filled with humor, singular events, pathos, and unexpected smiles, the pages offer historical asides and moving personal stories. For example, Shannon explores the language and customs of funerals as she agonizes over how to approach families who have covered graves with plastic flowers and inappropriate ornaments. In doing so, she contemplates the myriad ways cultures past and present approach the dead."


Wild Comfort: The Solace of Nature by Kathleen Dean Moore.
"In an effort to make sense of the deaths in quick succession of several loved ones, Kathleen Dean Moore turned to the comfort of the wild, making a series of solitary excursions into ancient forests, wild rivers, remote deserts, and windswept islands to learn what the environment could teach her in her time of pain. This book is the record of her experience. It’s a stunning collection of carefully observed accounts of her life—tracking otters on the beach, cooking breakfast in the desert, canoeing in a snow squall, wading among migrating salmon in the dark—but it is also a profound meditation on the healing power of nature. In the wonder of the rush of water over rocks, in the joy over the sight of a cougar in a cow field, Moore finds the solace that comes from connection to the natural world, and from that astonishingly intimate connection arise hope and courage, healing and gratitude."


The Almond Picker by Simonetta Agnello Hornby.
"A family saga, Sicilian style. The tale opens with the death of the woman Mennulara, whose name in Sicilian dialect means the almond picker. And so she was in her youth, trying to support an impoverished and sickly family. Before her death, Mennu, who had been in service to the matriarch of the Alfallipe family since she was 13, leaves cryptic instructions for the squabbling and disagreeable family. Hornby tells her story by spiraling back through Mennu's hard life. In the process, she emerges as a kind of secular saint, not only caring for her own family and the Alfallipes but also learning to read, overseeing the household accounts, managing investments, studying local archaeology and music, and even having secret ties to the Mafia and to the family."


Hildegarde Withers: Uncollected Riddles by Stuart Palmer.
"Hildegarde Withers, the creation of Stuart Palmer (1905-1968), is the original schoolmarm detective. After she first appeared in The Penguin Pool Murder in 1931, she was so popular that a series of movies starring Edna Mae Oliver and James Gleason followed, and Palmer wrote short stories about Miss Withers for Mystery, a slick-paper magazine sold only in Woolworth's stores between 1933 and 1935. These stories, filled with the sights and sounds of New York during the depression – museums, flea-circuses, burlesque shows, Latin gigolos – are genuine forgotten classics. The introduction is by Stuart Palmer's widow, Jennifer Venola."




Indian Country Noir edited by Sarah Cortez and Liz Martinez.
"Step into Indian Country. Enter the dark welter of troubled history throughout the Americas, where the heritage of violence meets the ferocity of intent. Features brand-new stories by: Mistina Bates, Jean Rae Baxter, Lawrence Block, Joseph Bruchac, David Cole, Reed Farrel Coleman, O'Neil De Noux, A.A. Hedge Coke, Gerard Houarner, Liz Martínez, R. Narvaez, Kimberly Roppolo, Leonard Schonberg, and Melissa Yi."

I have to admit that the cover of this one is what caught my eye. It makes me think of Monument Valley and the writing of Tony Hillerman.


What about you? Have you read any of these titles? Which ones? Which ones look good enough for your own wish lists? Do tell!

Effigies by Mary Anna Evans

Title: Effigies
Author: Mary Anna Evans
ISBN: 9781590584545, Poisoned Pen Press, 2007
Genre: Amateur Sleuth, #3 Faye Longchamp mystery
Rating: B+
Source: purchased at The Poisoned Pen

First Line: Faye Longchamp had work to do, but it would wait.

From her ramshackle ancestral home on an island off the coast of Florida, Faye Longchamp and her assistant Joe Wolf Mantooth have traveled to Mississippi to help excavate a site near the sacred mound where tradition says the Choctaw Nation was born. Carroll Calhoun refuses to allow the archaeologists on his farm to investigate an even larger mound, and they are disappointed, but Calhoun breaks their hearts when he tries to bulldoze the ancient site into oblivion. When the farmer later turns up dead, Faye finds herself trying to find the killer before Joe Wolf Mantooth is thrown in jail.

I love mysteries laced with a strong dose of archaeology, and in my opinion, Evans' series featuring Faye Longchamp is the best of the bunch. She's got a fine cast of characters; she uses her settings to advantage; and she always seems able to include more history and archaeology into her stories than many other writers. Effigies is no exception. Ever since I visited Cahokia as a child, I've been fascinated with the Mound Builders. Evans added to my knowledge in an entertaining way. She also threw me right in the middle of the heat and humidity of Mississippi amongst rednecks, scholars, law enforcement, the Choctaw and handed me a mystery to sort out. The only weakness in the whole thing was the identity of the bad guy. I figured it out early on, but I didn't much care because I still had to deduce the Why. Well, that and the fact that I was enjoying playing around in the dirt with Faye again.

If you're in the mood for mysteries with interesting, multi-faceted characters, an excellent sense of place, and a good dose of history and archaeology, you can't go wrong with Mary Anna Evans' series. Go ahead. Pick up a trowel and work in a trench with Faye. You'll be glad you did.

Miles to Go by Amy Dawson Robertson

Title: Miles to Go, A Rennie Vogel Intrigue
Author: Amy Dawson Robertson
ISBN: 9781594931741, Bella Books, 2010
Genre: Thriller, Lesbian Fiction
Rating: B-
Source: the author

First Line: John MacPherson pushed through the doors of the Academy fitness center and drew the crisp morning air deeply into his lungs.

In order to get funding for an international counterterrorism tactical team, it is ruled that women have to be allowed to train for it and to become members. Rennie Vogel wins her spot fair and square, but when a mission in Iran goes horribly wrong, Rennie must find the strength to battle her way out alone.

When the author contacted me about this book, I came very close to saying no. I tend to avoid books that involve spies, terrorism and the like. To each his own, eh? The reason I agreed to read this book is because of the main character. Rennie sounded like such a strong, interesting woman that I felt compelled to say yes. I'm glad I did.

Rennie Vogel is just the sort of female character I like. She has to earn everything she gets; nothing is handed to her; and she can think on her feet. When the team lands in Iran, everything goes wrong. Rennie finds herself faced with the decision of trying to complete the mission and making it to the rendezvous, or forgetting the mission and just trying to save her own skin. The decisions she makes, the reasons behind them, and the ensuing action are, by far, the strongest part of the book. Robertson had my complete attention.

However, a few things didn't gel well for me. At the beginning of the book, the reader is told multiple times that the mission is being sabotaged in order to prove that women are not worthy of being members in elite operative groups. By book's end, little to nothing is said about this. I don't need every loose end tied off by the last page of a book, and I certainly don't need happy endings, but this one thread bothered me. I wonder how it would have worked to have the primary person who wanted the mission to fail snarl and think to himself, "She won't make it the next time!"

Another thing that didn't work for me was the addition of a love interest for Rennie when she's trying to complete a dangerous mission and make it back home alive. (I would have preferred more story about the woman back in the U.S.) This probably says a lot more about me than it does the book. I don't care much for fictional romance to begin with, and in the case of Miles to Go, I had myself deep in enemy territory trying to make my way out alive. If any sort of romance had reared its head at that point, I would have slapped it clean off. But that's me.

One last thing that I felt needed improvement was the length of the book. It needed to be longer. I hope you were sitting down when you read that. Normally if I make any sort of comment about a book's length, it's to complain about it being too long. In the case of Miles to Go, I think there needed to be a few chapters showing Rennie working with the newly chosen team and the actual day-to-day problems she had to face. Being told about them just wasn't enough. Rennie as a character and the book as a whole would be much stronger for it.

Would I read another book about Rennie Vogel? Yes, I would. She's a fascinating character!

Scene of the Blog Featuring Jackie of Farm Lane Books!

Jackie has one of my favorite book blogs. In this case, her blog isn't one of my favorites because we share the same taste in books or we've joined the same reading challenges or that we even live in the same country and have the same outlook on the larger scheme of things.

Why is Jackie's blog one of my favorites? Simply because she makes me think. Farm Lane Books has a clean, uncluttered look that makes the content very easy to find. It's a friendly and thoughtful place, and one that encourages stimulation of the grey matter. I always enjoy my frequent visits there. I like the insights she provides in her reviews, and I wish I had her talent for thought-provoking questions.

Not familiar with Jackie and Farm Lane Books? I sincerely hope that you'll make a point of stopping by and saying hello!

Let's take a look at Jackie's blogging space. Don't forget that you can click on each photo to view it full size.

I am lucky to have a nice big desk to blog from. The space means that it always ends up with piles of books on it. They quickly get out of control and I have to move them before they fall over!

The best thing about my desk is that my husband installed the screen from our old computer so I have the ability to see two screens at once. I thought it was a waste of time at first, but now I couldn't be without it. I generally have Tweetdeck open on the other screen so that I can see tweets coming in all day, but it is also useful for writing blog posts as I can write the post on one screen and have other sites open on the other for easy reference.

If I turn my chair around I can look out of the big patio windows and see my back garden. I have included a picture of it covered in snow. I'm not a fan of gardening, so it is lucky that the house already had a wonderfully mature garden when we moved in about 4 years ago. I do enjoy eating all the raspberries, apples, plums and other fruit from the garden though. I'm looking forward to the weather warming up a bit so I can spend more time outside.

I really like Jackie's blogging space, from the L-shaped desk to the two monitors to the wallpaper glowing softly on the walls. My husband switched me over to a two-monitor setup. I, too, thought it would be a waste of space and of time. Like Jackie, I have discovered just how useful two monitors are, and I would never willingly switch back to one!

I know that many of you are probably sick of snow, but to me it is a novelty. I love Jackie's view outside her window. There's something Zen-like about a garden in winter, and Jackie's garden is a prime example. Perhaps she'll humor us and post a photo of her view in spring? We can only ask and hope.

Editor's Note: IT WORKED! Here's Jackie's garden now. Ah, England in spring! Isn't it lovely?



Thank you so much for sharing your creative space with us, Jackie. We certainly appreciate it!

Who will be featured next week on Scene of the Blog? Stop by to find out!

Wordless Wednesday

Click to view full size. More Wordless Wednesday.

Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris

Title: Grave Secret
Author: Charlaine Harris
ISBN: 9780425230152, Berkley Prime Crime, 2009
Genre: Amateur Sleuth, #4 Harper Connelly mystery
Rating: B+
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: "All right," said the straw-haired woman in the denim jacket.

Harper Connelly was struck by lightning at the age of fifteen. She survived... with an extra "gift". She can locate dead bodies and deduce the cause of death. She and her stepbrother, Tolliver, make a living from this gift.

Harper is hired by the wealthy Joyce family to find some answers behind the death of their patriarch, Rich, but they're shocked at what Harper sees. When Harper's life is threatened, she realizes that the death of Rich Joyce may tie into her own family history. To further complicate matters, Tolliver's drug addict father is out of jail and wants a reunion. All this dredges up the pain of Harper's sister's disappearance eight years ago. Will she be able to find all the answers?

Perhaps because it has so much to do with tying up loose ends in her own past, Grave Secret is a rather somber book. Harper and Tolliver had horrible childhoods, and they've worked hard to overcome it all. Having Tolliver's father show up and bring back memories of her sister makes Harper determined to find the answers she's been looking for for over eight years.

Although I am trying to keep this review spoiler free for those who may want to read earlier books in the series, I like how Harris addresses the uneasiness readers may feel at the relationship between Harper and Tolliver by showing how other characters react.

The uneasiness I feel has nothing to do with Harper and Tolliver. It has everything to do with the continuation of the series. In another favorite series of mine written by Harris, once she said what she wanted to say about the main character, the series was finished after only five books. Harris tied up a lot of loose ends in Harper's story, but I'd still love to see a few more books about her. Let's hope Harris has more to say about this very interesting character.