In which I have gurus

Well, shouldn't we all? I can't remember off the top of my head if it was Plato or some other ancient wheezy Greek who said the unexamined life was not worth living, but it's entirely true. What is the point if we don't occasionally check in with ourselves and figure out if we're better than we were the year before? Shouldn't we be evolving, climbing upward in a sort of spiral path taking us higher toward our goals and expectations? Certainly, but it's difficult to get there alone, and frankly, I will take help wherever I can find it.

For years I've read self-help--a genre name I despise, BTW. Personal growth is almost as unspeakable, but it is marginally better. We won't even breathe the words "personal empowerment"...Anyway, I've assembled a group of people who are much wiser than I am, and whose words have very often caused what I call a tectonic plate shift in my thinking, when I read something so meaningful and so powerful I can feel the earth shifting under me and I know I will never be quite the same again.

*Alexandra Stoddard. Her earlier books straddled the line between home decor and decorating the spirit, with some excellent advice about adding luxury into your daily life wherever you can. As her writing style and subject matter evolved, she has tackled some more serious issues, always with grace. She is the only writer to whom I have ever written a reader letter, and I received an astonishingly lovely handwritten letter from her husband by way of reply as she was on a deadline. I have also found innumerable other writers because of her habit of scattering her books with margin quotes.

*Florence Scovel Shinn. The single most empowering (euw, that word again) book I have ever read is Shinn's The Game of Life and How to Play It. I purchased it as part of a four-book, single volume set and devoured it. Shinn was an artist and metaphysician who wrote during the 1920s, preaching abundance thinking long before The Secret. I still don't quite know how to express the massive shift that occurred in my thinking when I read this book, but the phrase "What would Florence do?" has become a regular one in our house.

*SARK. For fun, for colorful inspiration, for feeling like a kid again.

*Isabel Allende. Conversations with Isabel Allende is one of the most riveting books I have ever read. It's a series of interviews with her, and because she never answers the same question the same way, it's extremely revealing. She has the soul of a storyteller, even when answering the most mundane queries about the writing life.

*Sarah Ban Breathnach. With that peculiar synchronicity that sometimes happens between books and readers, each of her books has come at a time when I needed to hear its message. When I reread passages, I am always struck by how vastly different they are. Romancing the Ordinary is by far my favorite, although Simple Abundance utterly changed my life. The latter was a road map for me, the former was a poem.

And you? Who have your gurus been?

In which I fear I am unwell

Not physically, but I suspect something in my psyche may be slightly askew. I am trying to sort out my travel books for my trip to Houston and am dithering as I usually do. Travel books are a serious subject for me, you understand. I need books that are diverting but not demanding. I want to be entertained, but not talked down to. I want something that is guaranteed to be enjoyable, which is why a new book by a favorite author is the best choice, although seldom a viable one.(Why Elizabeth Peters won't write a new book for me every time I have to travel is beyond me. Really.)

So I sort through old favorites I haven't read in a long time, hoping that I won't remember who the murderer is or whether there is a happy ending for the romantic pair. (I do and there is. Always.) It's maddening, and all the more so when you consider the fact that I will be gone for a little over 48 hours. It should not be this difficult, particularly after acquiring my Kindle.

And yet. The Kindle, it seems, has made the selection of travel books MORE difficult. Do I take the Kindle? Do I not? If I take it, what do I take for backup books? Because you MUST have a backup book or two. For all the potential horrors of travel, few can stand up to the wretchedness of having a few hundred books loaded onto your Kindle and no battery life left.

Luckily, my iphone has made all my other choices vastly easier. I no longer travel with a camera, a white-noise machine, ipod, or cell since the iphone does all of that and more. Oh, and the iphone also has the Kindle app on it, so everything I purchased for my Kindle is actually on my phone as well, an excellent backup should my books prove unsatisfactory.

Which brings me circling back to the question of WHAT BOOKS? I'm feeling very England-between-the-wars right now, which opens loads of possibilities--Nancy Mitford, Gerald Durrell, I Capture the Castle, Georgette Heyer's mysteries. The one thing I know for certain is that somewhere in my bags, there will always be a copy of Rebecca, my perfect fallback book for all occasions. And you? What do you look for in a travel book?

In which I am cheating on you

I'm blogging elsewhere--Fresh Fiction, to be precise! Head over there and check out how a book gets its title.

In which you can win books!

There is still time to head over to All About Romance and leave a comment on the interview I gave about The Dead Travel Fast to enter to win one of ten copies! Plus, Sandy from AAR asked some great questions, and you'll get some details on the book I haven't talked about anywhere else.

Also, if you're in the mood for a bit of nineteenth-century sleuthing, do check out Anna Dean's book, Bellfield Hall, first released in the UK as A Moment of Silence. It's the first in the Dido Kent mystery series, and just the thing for a chilly winter's afternoon with a pot of tea--and a scone!

In which we talk of cabbages and kings

Alright, not really. But it sounds nicer than "miscellaneous things", don't you think? First off, several days ago I flogged Alan Bradley's delightful book, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Now the second in the Flavia de Luce series is available for pre-order--on shelves March 9. The Weed That Strings The Hangman's Bag it is called, and the cover is a delicious pale violet with a dancing skeleton. My galpal Jomie alerted me to the fact that the book is about to come out, and I'm glad she did. I would have hated to have missed out on the further adventures of Flavia de Luce! (I should also point out that a few days ago I received a very charming email from the author himself thanking me for my support of his work. I dearly love to see nice people do well, so I think everyone who reads this should go out and buy two or perhaps seven copies of the book...)

On to matters perfumery....I've almost finished working my way through the samples I ordered from The Perfumed Court, and I sit in puzzlement. En Passant, I am absolutely enraptured with; Tea for Two had to be chucked out. But there are three that simple bewilder me because they just sort of hang about doing peculiar and inexplicable things. Stella McCartney's Rose Absolute is a pleasant enough rose when it goes on, but it dried down to smelling precisely like Comet. People asked me if I had been cleaning the bathtub--and anyone who knows me well should NEVER ask that question. Tom Ford's Black Orchid was another curiosity. Again, it went on well enough, but the drydown was vanilla. Just...vanilla. With a name like that, I was expecting something large and lush and dangerous, not a cookie. Hermes Hiris simply smelled like an old woman's laundry hamper. A very clean, well-to-do old woman with a very nice hamper, make no mistake. But I don't especially want to smell like geriatric laundry. Having said that, any of the three would very likely smell quite divine on someone else, but they are not right for me. My personal litmus test is whether or not I can keep my nose away from my arm when I'm testing a new fragrance. If the answer is no, then I buy it. Anything less than luscious is getting tossed away. (I also sampled YSL's Parisienne. Mistake--I should have opted for the last bottle of Paris at the counter. Parisienne is a lush rose, but later it smells like a rose that has been pickled in alcohol. Paris is a better bet for me.)

Speaking of perfume...one of the Kardashians has launched a fragrance, and I cannot understand for the life of me why she would want to flog it dressed as JLo. I would never in a month of Sundays looked at this ad and thought, "Ah, one of the K girls is frolicking in public again." Instead, I figured it was Jenny from the Block promoting Glow 2.0 or some such.

And finally, it is awards season--I watch the red carpet arrivals and usually ditch the rest of the evening unless it's Oscar night and I've watched three or more of the Best Picture nominees. Usually the gowns are deeply disappointing for various reasons. (If you have more money than a small principality and a team of people to dress, coif, shoe, and bejewel you, you ought not to end up looking like you just rolled out of Del Taco and into your limo. There was a short white bedsheet affair during the Golden Globes that I STILL have not recovered from.) But this season has been well worth watching because I have found my Holy Grail of evening gowns--beautiful drape, exquisite silhouette, perfectly fitted. I concede the color might be better, but at least she pulls it off. If it were me, I would have begged them to make it in dark, bottle green or a lush violet. And then I would never take it off.

In which it is burrowing weather

At least here it is. We keep swinging between gloomy rain and blustery cold, and both of those extremes are lovely reading weather, I think. I like something meaty and rich this time of year, both to eat and to read, and Nancy Goldstone's The Lady Queen fits both of those criteria. It is the biography of Joanna I, Queen of Naples--one of those distant, shadowy historical figures who often get short shrift by biographers and filmmakers. Thank goodness, Goldstone has stepped into the breach because Joanna is a wholly fascinating character. Queen in her own right, she struggled in each of her three marriages to maintain control over her own domain throughout a life that reads like a medieval soap opera. Poison, infidelity, strangling, papal politics--this story has it all and significantly more. And if the raw material weren't enough, Goldstone is a deft writer, avoiding the frequent biographical pitfall of pedantry. A perfect book for a winter's day.

Also, on the very good news front, my lovely blogger friend, Maryam in Marrakesh, has had her fabulous blog nominated for a 2010 Bloggie in the category of Best African Weblog! If you haven't read Maryam's blog, you are absolutely missing out. She's gorgeous, she shops, she travels to very dangerous places to write about human rights abuses, and she's building a guesthouse in Morocco with her adorable family. (Yes, I know. She seems like the effortlessly perfect person it would be so fun to hate--but Maryam is entirely lovable. She is whimsical and thoughtful, has splendid taste, and her posts from her travels regularly move me to tears. If you want to know how to move through life as an actor rather than a member of the audience, you can find no better example than Maryam.) Fingers crossed for a Bloggie win!

In which I don't do spring cleaning

I have never been able to wait for spring to overhaul the house. To me, the post-holiday doldrums offer the perfect time for pottering. It's too cold to go out and usually dreary to boot. It's the time of year when we feel bloated from too much holiday excess, both inside and out. Our cupboards and closets are groaning from holiday decorations, gifts, miscellanea. It's the absolute best opportunity to meander through the house, taking a drawer or shelf at a time to organize and purge. It feels virtuous to throw things out or fill up bags for donations. (And honestly, after the holidays, it is lovely to have something to feel virtuous about, don't you think?)

In my quest to declutter, I love to read about other people's systems and rules. I'm fascinated by folks who declare they will throw something out every time they bring something new in, and actually stick to it! I am more spontaneous in my purging. I never discard an item just because something new came in, but I will happily get rid of a drawer full of things a week later. (Now that I have started watching HOARDERS it's become even more satisfying to get rid of things.)

Earlier this week, I tore through Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear the Clutter, Find Your Life by Gail Blanke. It was superb. The principle is simple: throw away fifty things in two weeks. The catch is that like items count as ONE. (Which means if you decide to purge a magazine collection, good for you, but those hundreds of pounds of glossy pages that you hauled out to the recycling bin are still only one item.) The beauty of the system is that once you start weeding out the excess clutter, you weed out the bad thinking as well. It is just as much a self-help book as one about organization, and I found myself flagging page after page so I would go back and read certain passages over again. One of my favorites: There is no way it is. There is only the way you say it is. A beautifully succinct reminder that our reality is what we make it. Anyway, if one of your resolutions was to tidy up, this book is a must-have.

In which we love Emma

Granted, she may not be the most popular Austen heroine, but she has charms of her own. Meddlesome, snarky, and full of self-importance, Emma illustrates the importance--and relevance--of a flawed character. For all her flaws, she is nonetheless likable, perhaps because there is a touch of "there but for the grace of God go I" about her.

Happily, Masterpiece is airing a new adaptation beginning January 24 and running through February 7. Do check out the Masterpiece Emma page for a discussion guide, interviews, quizzes, slideshows, and perhaps best of all--links for an Emma Twitter party with prizes! (Have just decided Julia needs a Twitter party for the release of Dark Road to Darjeeling...she has a Twitter account, you know. You can follow her @LadyJuliaGrey. She has been very discreet on Twitter thus far, but I suspect she will tweet more often as the publication date nears.)

Anyway, very happy indeed to have a new Emma, and since I still haven't managed to watch the rest of "Cranford", I am full up with good things on the DVR queue.

In which the universe has been acting odd

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K, my friends, and all of it is good. There is definitely something in the air, whether it's the new year or some cosmic shift, I can't say. I have several friends who are noticing it too. They are embarking on love affairs or new careers or planning trips, and it's riveting to watch people bursting with enthusiasm. Anyway, my email has been buzzing like a...well, I'm tired and the metaphors aren't coming so let's play Mad Libs and say that my email has been buzzing like a (thing that buzzes a LOT) this week. There have been all kinds of lovely things waiting there including an invitation to come sign books on Long Island. If you're in New York, come see me! I'll be signing here at 3pm on Saturday, March 20:
Best Bargain Books
217 Centereach Mall
Centereach, NY 11720
631-737-7777
www.BestBargainBook.com

Now, let's play catch-up! It seems like loads of little things are stacking up on my desk and I thought a single post to clear several of them off would be just the thing. Yesterday, Moira Allen kindly directed me to her site, Mostly-Victorian.com, an excellent place for a lover of Victoriana to while away some time. (I actually have one of the Girls' Annuals featured on her bookshelf page. How or why I acquired it, I haven't the faintest idea, but it's been on my shelf for years.)

Also yesterday I turned in the final tweaks to Julia Grey #4, which is now titled Dark Road to Darjeeling. Titles are funny things and loads of people have input into them, and mine--contrary to rumor--is not the most important. Titles, like covers, are usually decided upon in the end by the Sales and Marketing folks because they have the keenest sense of what will appeal to buyers. The best praise for the new title is that a reader commented on Facebook that it "rang her bookseller's bell", so we are off to a great start! (Did I mention Brisbane's in the bathtub? Oh, yes, my friends...)

As to what I'm reading, I found Crimes of Paris at the library, and was vastly intrigued by the subject--murder and mayhem in turn of the century Paris, including the theft of the Mona Lisa. It's nonfiction, by the way, and written by the same Hooblers who wrote a book about the goings-on in the Villa Diodati during the summer of 1816--the houseparty that spawned Frankenstein, among other things. But no sooner had I cracked it open than I realized it REEKED of cigarette smoke. Here's another Mad Lib for you: People who contaminate library books with smoke should be (painful fate). And my local bookstore didn't have a copy, so I've put it on my Amazon wishlist and moved on to a book about Natalie Clifford Barney, an American socialite who kept a Parisian salon. It looks luscious, but I only seem to have time to read just before bed and it's so heavy I keep hitting myself with it.

What's new with YOU?

In which it is a VERY good day

I want to write something pithy and witty and quotable, but I cannot seem to manage anything other than the most tremendous YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY because my editor loves my new book--working title, Road to Darjeeling. The weeks between turning a manuscript in and getting your editor's thoughts are harrowing ones. You nibble your nails and pace your floor and try to be resolute in the face of all the sharp, pointy, prickly thoughts that needle you in the middle of the night. (These would be the thoughts about being a fluke, having lost all of your talent, and that this latest book is so foul that you would have done better using it for stuffing your mattress than pretending it was decent writing. Those are not very nice thoughts.)

But the other day, as I was trying to be very Zen and put those thoughts aside, I remembered that I had just finished reading the collected works of Florence Scovel Shinn, and the question popped into my head, "What would Florence do?" And the answer, quite obvious to anyone who has read Shinn, is that she would thank the benevolent universe for her book's unmitigated success and then go about her business, behaving as if her editor had already called and congratulated her.

So that is what I did. I took the lovely coat I bought myself for finishing the book out for a walk. I had a nice lunch out; I ran errands. I cranked up my ipod and danced with my dog. (I also learned that he prefers Lady GaGa to Beyonce, but his absolute favorite is vintage Annie Lennox.) And I behaved like a woman whose editor just said she loved her book.

And the very next day she did.

In which we talk books

Yesterday I was chatting with my agent--one of my very favorite people to chat with, I should point out. Anyway, the conversation meandered onto books we read and what we REALLY thought of them. (I ought to mention for clarity's sake that I will never be brutal here about any book simply because this is a public forum and every book, no matter how vile, is the culmination of somebody's hard work and cherished dreams, and I for one would rather kick kittens than slag someone's hopes. If I don't like a book--and I don't like a LOT of books--I simply won't discuss it in a public venue.)

So my agent and I exchanged a few recommendations with each other, and I told her the two novels I had most enjoyed this year were the Mary Doria Russell book I mentioned yesterday, and The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley. I also thoroughly enjoyed the research books I read for Julia Grey #4, particularly Amy Stewart's Wicked Plants, and Up the Country by Emily Eden. (If you are at all interested in colonial India, do hunt down a copy of Eden's book, along with Marian Fowler's Below the Peacock Fan, and Margaret MacMillan's Women of the Raj. And don't expect to get much done until you finish them.)

And now I want to know, what did you enjoy reading most in 2009? (I know there will be readers who are generous enough to mention my books, but let's leave those out of the discussion altogether since I'm looking to add to my to-be-read pile!)

In which I have books!

Look what arrived yesterday morning! Boxes of beautiful, BEAUTIFUL trade editions of Silent in the Grave! Trade is my absolute favorite format, so I'm very pleased that the first book is finally out in this edition in the US. It's available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Borders for shipping on January 1, so keep those links for spending your holiday gift cards if you always wanted a copy of SITG in trade! Or, if you'd prefer, give some holiday love to your local independent bookseller. You can find one via IndieBound.

In which we get ghoulish

My friend--and Official Stalker--Nicole sent me a link yesterday to the best wrapping paper ever. Not very Christmassy, to be sure, but I would swoon to have my presents tucked away in the "Nevermore" raven paper. Delish!

On a terribly unrelated note, yesterday brought a gloomy, rainy morning that demanded a quilt, a mug of Irish breakfast tea, and a book about art theft. I hunkered down with a copy of Stolen: The Gallery of Missing Masterpieces by Jonathan Webb, a great read and a good gift choice for the art lover on your holiday list.

In which I am revising

And goodness me, isn't this a turnabout? I used to loathe revising. It made me ill to have to go back and revisit something I had already written. But from experience I've learned to love revising. It's like the girl you met in school and were totally prepared to hate until you discovered you had eleventy million things in common and became BFFs. Revising is now my BFF. That doesn't mean I still don't have to talk myself down off the ledge every time I start, but it does mean I have come to appreciate how much SIMPLER it is to deliver a good scene when you have the bones in place and just have to tweak it as opposed to building a rocket ship from parts every time. And it's tremendously fulfilling to take the raw scene and shape it into something wonderful--it's like birth, only without the good drugs and messy bits.

Anyway, I am in the pleasant creative fog of revisions at present, and in my down time I'm baking, making holiday plans, and watching "Clatterford". I don't know how I didn't even realize this show existed, but it combines two of my favorite things, Britcoms and a Women's Institute type of organization called the Ladies' Guild. (I deeply lament the fact that I don't live in England for loads of reasons and the WI is one of them. I follow them on Twitter, and I have to say, it gave me NO END of delirium to find that a branch of the WI is following me back.)

The series chronicles the lives of the guild members, and a wonderfully dysfunctional group it is. If you are a fan of BBCAmerica, you will probably spend the first episode pointing at the television, hollering, "I know her!" because the cast is superb--Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley, and a host of fabulously talented women. (I did sound as if I had some sort of neurological disorder because I kept calling out, "It's Father Ted's housekeeper!" "I know that guy--he ran off with Bridget Jones' mother!" "And there's Bridget's friend Shazzer!" Be warned.) And it is no spoiler to tell you that my absolute favorite bit is the shot of the pew cozies in the church.

If you have a favorite Britcom I might have missed, do holler!

In which I'm flogging books

So today I'm sharing a few titles I've read recently that I've enjoyed. In Virginia we've been experiencing a spate of executions. I have no idea why they come in batches, but they do, and I am intrigued by the psychology of execution. I recently came across Geoffrey Abbott's What A Way To Go, a compendium of execution methods over the centuries. It is gruesome and horribly fascinating, but I would caution you not to read the section on the electric chair if you have a tender stomach and you've just tucked in to a nice snack...

In a completely different vein, I have finished Gail McMeekin's The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women, and it was divine. I have marked it up and made notes, and it is--as billed--a portable mentor. McMeekin interviewed a number of creative women including Clarissa Pinkola Estes (Women Who Run With The Wolves) and Sarah Ban Breathnach (Simple Abundance). For those of you who have enjoyed The Artist's Way, this is a similar type of book, meant to break down barriers to creativity and establish new patterns.

In which I am flogging a book!

Year before last, when my first book came out, I had the honor of being nominated for an Agatha Award against Charles Finch. We were both new kids on the block, both passionate about Victorian mysteries, and both of us with a female character named Lady J. Grey! (His is Jane to my Julia.) In any event, Charlie was a delight to meet and a superb writer to boot, and it was my pleasure to read his new book, The Fleet Street Murders, before anybody else. Anyway, the latest installment of his Charles Lenox series is now out, so if you're looking for some delicious Victorian skullduggery, go forth and buy!

On a completely unrelated note, I actually dreamed about my characters this week, something I have done maybe twice EVER. They were arranging the March family Christmas potluck--something we KNOW that Hoots would never permit. Julia was supposed to bring the dessert and her elder sister, Olivia, said something hurtful about how they ought to brace themselves for cheese and biscuits because whatever it was would certainly not turn out...

In which we love to read

but not everyone does, and some of them are terribly creative. Reader Elizabeth sent me a link to this entry from Offbeat Earth that features all sorts of interesting ideas of what to do with your unwanted books. Furniture, sculpture, art--whatever you like, although I have to think the book chair might be the slightest bit uncomfortable and perhaps better suited to viewing than sitting. But it's all impressive, and now I find I'm looking at my stack of books to be donated with different eyes. All I need is an X-acto knife and some glue...

In which we have book chat

Lately I have been on an Alexander McCall Smith kick. I read the first two Precious Ramotswe books when they first came out, and then somehow managed to get VERY behind in the series. I also managed to miss the series on television since I don't have HBO, but my local library purchased it on DVD, and OH MY. I spent the weekend watching the entire first season, and it is utterly charming. (I am particularly smitten with the moment in the first episode when a young Precious sits with a meerkat on her head. And I would really, really like a meerkat to sit on my head now.)

Anyway, the series was so well done, I pulled out my copy of The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency and re-read it. My daughter is now hooked, and I have the entire stack of books waiting to be read. (I am thiiiiiis close to ordering brochures on trips to Botswana as well.) The series is actually filmed in Botswana, and it is wonderful, escapist television of the very best kind. The books are similar in sensibility to Jan Karon's Mitford series, although there is a simple, rhythmic cadence to the language that is entirely unique. (I am also a fan of his Isabel Dalhousie series, a very different premise that still manages to be completely engaging.)

In which we talk books again

I know I mentioned Eric Ives' book--The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn--yesterday, but now that I've finished it, I can flog it properly. It is, quite simply, the best biography I have ever read on the subject, hands down. Until I read the Warnicke biography a few years back, I didn't realize how badly Anne Boleyn's reputation had been tarnished by history and that she had been a patroness of scholars and theologians. (She was, by many accounts, one of the best-educated queens in English history.)

Too many books try to paint her as either the semi-deformed whore who seduced Henry VIII with witchcraft and attempted to poison him or as the sainted martyr-mother of the Reformation. The truth, as it so often does, lies in between. Some surprising things that make this book compelling reading:

*Ives makes an excellent case--echoed in a few other books I've read recently--that Anne was not the catalyst for Henry's efforts to end his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. Based upon Katherine's checkered gynecological history and the fact that she had last conceived a child seven years previous, Henry hit upon the verse in Leviticus forbidding marriage with a brother's widow and began the preliminary moves to dissolve the marriage.

*According to Ives, Henry and Anne's relationship was a genuine love affair, begun as a piece of courtly love and then undertaken in earnest when Anne refused to consent to an illicit physical relationship. (This was not necessarily as calculated as it seems. By this time she had seen her elder sister--and Ives constructs an extremely plausible case for Mary being the elder Boleyn--cast aside when Henry's affections waned, leaving her with only marriage as an obscure courtier to show for it. Anne, by far the more ambitious of the two, had no incentive to agree to become Henry's mistress. Her initial reactions to his indecent proposals smack more of a girl trying to elude an importunate suitor than a schemer with her eyes fixed upon the throne.)

*Anne was eliminated by a palace coup led by Thomas Cromwell. They quarreled bitterly over what the king should do with the proceeds of the church property that fell under his control after the break with Rome. Anne, a generous patron and giver of alms, wanted the money for poor relief to aid the needy. Their quarrel came just when Cromwell had overstepped himself vastly in extending premature promises of amity to the Imperial ambassador. Mindful of the privy chamber cabal of Boleyns that had ousted Cardinal Wolsey, Cromwell struck before he could be stricken. He organised arrests and interrogations upon trumped-up charges and convinced the king that he had been duped and bewitched and was very lucky to escape with his life. (The strongest argument for a palace coup being at the heart of the attack upon Anne Boleyn is the result: by the time the bloody straw had been swept from the scaffold, the queen was dead, as were several members of the king's privy council who had occupied positions of power such as Groom of the Stool, and the rest of the Boleyn faction had been entirely neutralized. Brereton was the only one of the gentlemen--Smeaton excluded on the grounds that he was not a courtier--who did not have almost constant direct access to the king. But he had bested Cromwell some years previously, and the accusations against him smack of score-settling in the ugliest way.)

*The king himself told Jane Seymour her predecessor had been killed for meddling in state affairs--not for barrenness, adultery, witchcraft, or plotting against his life.

What struck me most about Ives' book is how real it all seemed. This is the first biography of Anne Boleyn--or Henry VIII for that matter--that depicted what felt like a real marriage. It was messy and human and fraught with emotion, all of the things that real life is. He makes no effort to whitewash the flaws of either Henry VIII or Anne Boleyn, and because of that, they are no longer the cardboard cutout, Tudor paperdolls of most biographies. They felt like people I could actually have known, which is a remarkable gift for a writer of nonfiction. (I should point out that Ives also manages to breathe life into his meticulous research without ever letting it become obtrusive. I was particularly impressed with how carefully he considers his sources, weighing motive against opinion.)

So, immensely readable and extremely worth your while is the verdict--particularly this time of year. For some reason the Tudors feel autumnal to me.

In which we celebrate banned books

It is Banned Book Week, the annual celebration of the freedom to read! Visit the official website and learn about events in your community, or pick up a banned book and shake hands with the likes of Harry Potter, Huck Finn, and Scout Finch.

I would like to say I am reading a banned book, but unfortunately I am not quite so organised. I've been on a tear of Tudor biographies recently, most of which have gotten hurled across the room. (You can only read so many times that someone "might" have been present or "might" have thought this before you become violent.) But I have settled in with Eric Ives' The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn and so far it's excellent. There is a great deal of discussion of Tudor faction politics and some deft probing into the psychology of the major players. Considering how much wrong information is out there--much of which is propagated by popular fiction and movies--it's refreshing to find some real scholarship on the subject that is meticulously researched and engagingly written.

In which we chat about Dan Brown

Yesterday Reader Dan asked if I would be reading The Lost Symbol. I'm on page 99, actually. I'm immensely curious as to how he's going to follow up The Da Vinci Code, and I have great respect for what Dan Brown has accomplished. Yes, I know. Intellectuals like to turn up their noses and get sniffy about "commercial fiction". Since I am contrary, perhaps I like him because I'm not supposed to? Anyway, I do like him. Are his books flawed? Yep, and guess what? So are mine. All books are flawed to some degree or other because we're only human and we do the best we can, but any artistic endeavor is going to be a combination of the sublime and the ridiculous. Whether we're painting or writing or composing, we will always give you something that might have been improved upon. Hopefully, we get better with each attempt, but there will always be something we could have done more proficiently. One of the most difficult parts of writing is knowing when to let go and move on--thank God for deadlines or most of us would never let our editors wrestle our books from us and send them off into the world.

But back to Dan Brown in particular. He writes quick, immensely readable books that knit up strands of logic and mysticism and art and adventure and sometimes that's precisely what I'm in the mood for. (After awhile too much Victoriana can be weighty and you need a change.) I give him tremendous credit for stirring readers up and getting them thinking and talking about questions of history and theology and ethics. People debated his last book ferociously; documentaries were filmed; tours are given around Paris and Rome detailing the exploits of his characters. Those are staggering accomplishments for a writer these days, particularly when we are constantly being told that reading is a lost pastime and books are over. (To which I say, "Piffle." Reading is the ultimate escapism and storytelling will always be around, even if we dress it up with e-readers and handhelds.)

So, yep. I'm reading Dan Brown, and I'm enjoying it. (I'm a sucker for secret societies and very interested in entanglement theory...)

If you're not in a Dan Brown mood yourself, but looking for something to peruse, I recently finished Frances Osborne's The Bolter and Alan Bradley's The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, both of which I enjoyed. And for something historical, Michelle Moran's newest, Cleopatra's Daughter, is just out this week and a superb choice.

In which we talk theme

Reader Meredith posted the following : I can tell that /Silent on the Moor/ is set in dialogue with /Wuthering Heights,/ and when I contrast the actions and comments of Julia and Nicholas with those of the protagonists in /Wuthering Heights/ (whom I have always had some issues with, I'll just be honest,) the themes that emerge are, I feel, central to the entire Julia Grey series. And then when you add in the relationships between the inhabitants of Grimsgrave--! Very interesting, indeed.

So my questions are, what led you to want to explore the territory of /Wuthering Heights/? And are there any other books that might have a similar relationship with the Julia Grey series? And I know this puts the writer on the spot, but what do /you/ think are the central themes of the books? What would you have the reader come away with?

No doubt I've been hugely influenced by the Brontes and Jane Austen, and a trifle by Dickens, although that was entirely against my will, I assure you. Wuthering Heights has long been one of my two favorites of the Bronte novels for a variety of reasons. I love the fact that it isn't an easy book, and I don't mean the syntax or vocabulary. The emotions are difficult. It is hard to read about the violence of the love that Cathy and Heathcliff have for one another. There is no happy ending for them, and at no point can a reader easily imagine one. Can you honestly see Cathy tying on an apron and churning butter while Heathcliff herds sheep? There is no gentleness in their love for each other. It's brutal and it is destructive. Both characters--well, let's be honest, MOST of the characters--are deeply flawed and it's those flaws that make them more interesting. (I keep pointing out that women always cite Heathcliff as one of their favorite tall, dark, and handsome heroes, but how many actually remember that he HANGED HIS WIFE'S DOG on their wedding day just to show her who was the boss?)

The central theme in SOTM--as well as one of the themes in Wuthering Heights--is that you cannot escape the past. Whatever you do, it will find you; it is part of you, as elemental as the moor itself.

In which reader Amanda asks about revenge

When I opened up the blog to reader questions, Amanda posed the following: I was reading an interview you gave a while back where you mentioned a manuscript that had been rejected and was sitting in a box somewhere. Do you think that now you're an award-winning author it has the potential to see the light of day and be published? Revenge is best served with scones, ya know.

Oh, not one, my dear. There are notes and/or completed manuscripts for at least seven books languishing in the attic. (I am vigilant about keeping everything related to the writing of every book, published or not.) Those books represent my education as a writer. I started when I was 23 with a Gothic, and that's the only book that might possibly see the light of day, albeit in a vastly altered state. I still quite like the premise of that book, but that seed of an idea is all I would take from it. The others are mine and mine alone and my daughter is under orders to destroy them when I die. (Doesn't that sound terribly "Falcon Crest"? We had our wills re-written last year and it was quite entertaining to listen to the attorney reading out clauses relating to my "literary estate".) Anyway, those books were an important--HUGELY important--part of my development as a writer, but they are not good enough to be published without extensive re-working, and I'm not interested in going backwards.

The one exception to that is a book that was never shopped. When I was waiting to find out if SITG was going to be published, I started the sequel. I got 50 or so pages into SITS before I lost heart and put it aside. I simply didn't want to carry on with the characters I loved if the first book wasn't going to be published. We had just moved to Virginia and were living in a townhouse we called--without irony, mind you--The Tenement. I was depressed about my professional prospects and all of my historical research was packed away. I didn't have the heart to keep digging into the Victorian era. I wanted something easy and accessible. So I sat down and wrote a contemporary novel saturated with magical realism. It's about a witch, and I dearly love parts of that book. Other parts need to be gutted, but I think it would be a delicious project. So I'm holding that one in reserve. Aside from my immediate family, only my agent has seen it, and she's convinced it's commercial enough to sell with the right tweaking, so we'll see.

In which we're talking Victoriana

Reader melscott wanted to know what I love about the Victorian era. Here's a response I gave to an interview with Sarah Johnson of the fabulous Reading the Past blog regarding Silent in the Grave:

Oddly enough, the book was initially conceived as a Regency piece. I wrote the first fifty pages or so with an 1816 setting before I decided it needed to be changed. The Regency was a frothy and sparkling time and dictated a different voice for Julia. Moving the action sixty or seventy years further into the nineteenth century changed that voice entirely. It brought in something darker and edgier, and I think the repression and shadowed sexuality of the Victorians is much more in keeping with the story than the vivacity and lightness of Regency manners. It also changed the domestic technology, so that necessitated a fresh batch of research. I gnashed my teeth for awhile over that, but ultimately it served the book much better to change the historical setting.

I think it's important to note as well that the Victorian London in my books is not the London of Dickens or Sherlock Holmes. Every author recreates an era with a particular slant, and mine is largely domestic. The great events of the late nineteenth century will occasionally touch upon the lives of my characters, but lightly. With a few possible exceptions, they are much more concerned with their own families and the minutiae of day-to-day life. They are privileged, and with that privilege comes a removal from the worst effects of poverty and disease. Aunt Hermia may operate a refuge for reformed prostitutes in Whitechapel, but at the end of the day, she retires in perfect comfort and luxury to her brother's exclusive townhouse. (And there will never be a scene with an earnest Brisbane chasing Jack the Ripper through Seven Dials.)

I love the era for all its contradictions; it was a period with a foot in the past and a foot in the future--an unsettling and vastly interesting time. Technology changed more in the years of Victoria's reign than in any other period in history. At her ascension to the throne, candles were the norm and the railway was just beginning to be seen as something more than a noisy novelty. By her death, telephones and motorcars and electric lights were coming into vogue, and the world had gotten a great deal smaller--or larger, depending upon your perspective. There is probably not a richer period of history to mine for details for a novel, and it's endlessly interesting.

How about you? What's your favorite period setting? Or are you a fan of all things contemporary?

In which we're talking reader questions

Celia commented that she re-reads Little Women every year and asked if there was a book I re-read regularly. Absolutely! The series I mentioned yesterday are all worth re-reading. For my own tranquility, I often go back to Sarah Ban Breathnach or Alexandra Stoddard. (If you haven't read Alexandra Stoddard, she's been one of my gurus for many years. I think I first read Living a Beautiful Life when I was in college, and it was one of those books that absolutely changed my life.) I also return to my favorite classics--the Brontes and Jane Austen--because I find that every time I read them, they are familiar, but so beautifully-written that they feel like new books.

I also read old favorites seasonally. Summer means Cathleen Schine's The Love Letter. Christmas finds me pulling out any novel that has a Christmas scene. I put them in a stack to dip into throughout December. (This includes cookbooks with fabulous holiday chapters. You cannot imagine how happy I was when Nigella came out with an entire Christmas book!)

And when I want comfort, I pull out my favorite Agatha Christies. When you need cossetting, a pot of tea and an English mystery are JUST the thing.

In which I am back to reader questions

On the fly! Things are at sixes and sevens at Maison Raybourn this morning. My darling husband threw out his back Sunday and we are in a haze of ibuprofen, stretching, and ice bags--really frozen corn from Trader Joe's. Anyway, several readers asked for suggestions on what to read, so I'm dashing off some ideas, divided by mood.

*If you're craving something historical and mysterious, try Kate Ross' Regency series. There are only four books in the series, but it was beautifully written and memorable.

*If you're in the mood for something English and erudite, Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar series may be just the ticket. Witty and fun.

*If you're feeling Gothic and have read all of Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart, give M.M. Kaye a try. She's best known for her memoirs and The Far Pavilions, but her mid-century Gothics are quite enjoyable.

*If you're a fan of Nancy Mitford, Dodie Smith, or Stella Gibbons, hunt down the Provincial Lady series by E.M. Delafield--perfect for fans of Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day.

*If you don't have much time, get your hands on a copy of Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. Short read, but spooky and ambiguous enough you will think about it for days afterward.

*If you want something readable but thick to keep you busy for quite awhile, you cannot beat Margaret George's The Autobiography of Henry VIII. Divine.

In which I'm pondering self-care

Lately I've been talking to lots of women who are in desperate need of some self-care. I don't know if it's a reflection of the economy or the planetary alignments or just general busyness, but there is a great deal of putting everybody else first and it needs to stop. I'm not saying we shouldn't care for the people and responsibilities in our lives. Far from it. I'm saying we have to care for ourselves first before we can manage caring for anybody else. (Remember your friendly flight attendant and the admonition to secure your OWN oxygen mask before you try to help someone else. If you fail to do this, you could lose consciousness before you are of use to anyone. Scary, no?)

More than once in the past few weeks I've talked to women who are burned out, burned down, and running on empty. They are taking themselves and all of their commitments so seriously they've neglected themselves and they've neglected FUN. And yes, I am prescribing a little frivolity, a little selfishness because I think frivolity is essential and a small amount of well-applied selfishness is an investment against depression and burn-out. If you give and give and give until the well is dry, what's left to nourish and nurture you? And the worst part is, it's insidious. We let our boundaries slip a little at a time--an extra e-mail here, a "yes" when we long to say "no" there--and pretty soon you are overbooked, overextended, overwhelmed. If anyone presented you a list of your commitments in toto, you'd think they were barking mad. "NO woman could possibly manage all of that," you'd say scornfully. And you'd be right.

But things trickle into our lives piecemeal, and taken by themselves, none of these extra responsibilities seem so weighty. But when mountaineers climb Everest, they clip off everything that is not essential. Every extra label, unnecessary lengths of bootlace, blank pages from paperback novels. Why? Because it all adds up and because weight matters. We can only carry so much, so we need to make sure that what we carry is essential. It's time to honor the wee small voice that says, "I need a rest," and give her time to take a nap, to read a book, to sit and BE. I know women who are very busy being wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, executives, artists--but so many of them are neglecting to be SELVES.

The commitment to take care of yourself is the most important one--if you are untended, you will rebel, I promise you. You will grow crabby and impatient. You'll eat for comfort. You'll shop irresponsibly. You will snatch solace wherever you can find it, but it will not last. It won't last until you make a permanent commitment to care for yourself properly.

We have all been there at some point. We have all neglected ourselves and overextended and resented it. The only cure is to withdraw, come back to ourselves, and take inventory of what is really important. And here are some resources to help; read one or two, read them all. Take what you can use and then put it to use, I beg you. Life is either far too short or far too long to be unhappy, don't you think?
(Also, I think comments are fixed now. I've removed the captcha box, and we'll see if that makes it easier for y'all to leave comments.)

Simple Abundance Sarah Ban Breathnach
Romancing the Ordinary Sarah Ban Breathnach
The Artist's Way Julia Cameron
Vein of Gold Julia Cameron
Living Artfully Sandra Magsamen
Living a Beautiful Life Alexandra Stoddard
On Becoming Fearless Arianna Huffington
A Year by the Sea Joan Anderson
The Joy of Doing Things Badly Veronica Chambers
Hip Tranquil Chick Kimberly Wilson
Wear More Cashmere Jennifer Sander
31 Words to Create a Guilt-Free Life ed. Karen Bouris
Succulent Wild Woman SARK
Eat Mangoes Naked SARK
The Comfort Queen's Guide to Life Jennifer Louden
The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women Gail McMeekin
Creating a Life Worth Living Carol Lloyd
Take Time for Your Life Cheryl Richardson

In which I have carpal tunnel syndrome

I am in Washington DC, kicking up my heels at the RWA national conference. Regular posting will resume on July 21. This entry was originally posted on the Blog A Go-Go March 14, 2008.



But it is totally worth it. I've been reading The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters and it is HEAVY. I just put it on my digital bathroom scale and this thing weighs THREE POUNDS. (That's half a pound less than the state crown the Queen wears to the opening of Parliament each year. And yes, I did put the book on my head to see how heavy that actually is. My neck nearly snapped from the strain, so all I can say is either I am totally unsuited to royal life or the Queen has the neck strength of a plow horse. Probably both.) Anyway, I'm really only comfortable reading this book while lying down, my knees bent to make a bookrest. Unfortunately, it's fabulous, which means I'm going to have to keep at it until I'm a broken woman.

Most books about the Mitford sisters are good, simply because the subject matter is endlessly fascinating. Six beautiful, talented, witty women with vastly different interests and no end of courage and determination, moving amongst the most intriguing figures of the 20th century--it's a recipe for good fiction, except nobody would believe the Mitfords could possibly exist if someone had invented them. (Any time someone questions the eccentricity and spirit of the Marches, I always think, "Yes, but clearly you're not familiar with the Mitfords. The Marches are TAME housecats by comparison." I mean, Unity Mitford was a debutante who curtseyed at the English court and then took tea with HITLER, for heaven's sake. And even Pamela, the least notorious of the sisters, was living independently and running her brother-in-law's home farm when she was barely out of the schoolroom.)

I've enjoyed the biographies I've read about them, but hearing them speak to one another in their own words is much more immediate and revealing. The collection was edited by Diana Mitford's daughter-in-law, Charlotte Mosley, and she did a divine job. Not only are the letters well-chosen, she has designated a symbol for each sister--a hammer and sickle for Jessica, a swastika for Unity, a quill for Nancy, etc. These symbols are bulleted at the top of each letter as a quick reminder of which sister the sender was. FABULOUS. Every editor of every collection of letters EVER should make note of this.

At eight hundred pages, the book is certainly not light reading, but it is compelling, and it is the perfect book to dip in and out of--if you can bear to put it down in the first place.

In which you might be into weapons and history

If so, you must go right out instantly and get a copy of Adrienne Mayor's Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World. Heavy stuff, no? But it's riveting, I promise. I was intrigued by the mention of Greek fire, but the rest of the topics are equally fascinating. It would be extremely easy to render the subject dry, but Mayor does a superb job of spinning tales from antiquity. (On the back is a blurb by Martin Van Creveld which brought my senior seminar SCREAMING back to me. I read a LOT of Martin Van Creveld when I was writing my senior paper on George S. Patton. Oy.)

In which I feel greedy

When I look at a stack of unread and much anticipated books, I feel greedy, like a small child with a whole pie to herself. It seems like just too much good stuff for one person. So I'm sharing the stack--glorious things that I've picked up to enjoy over the summer. There is a slender copy of Isabella Bird on the top, and the bottom is Murder of a Medici Princess, if you can't quite make it out. Yum!

In which I have been reading

Ah, summer. Something about hot, lazy days with the buzzing drone of bumblebees and the shimmer of butterfly wings that makes it impossible to do much except lie around, occasionally reaching out a hand to pluck something new from the to-be-read stack. Barbara Holland, in her delicious Endangered Pleasures, laments the loss of "spending the summer"--a philosophy I wholeheartedly endorse. The idea of going away for a month is beyond thrilling. Beyond possible, alas, but beyond thrilling. So in lieu of going away, I read instead and here is where my vicarious travels have taken me:

Sophie Dahl's Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights. If you love Nigella, this book is for you. It manages to be both crisply modern and wonderfully cozy.

Homemade by Ros Badger and Elspeth Thompson. Fabulously retro, with all sorts of suggestions for simple, handmade pleasures. An excellent handbook for days when you might have a little extra time to putter. (Fear not if your summer is hectic. There are suggestions for all four seasons.)

Gerald Durrell's family memoirs. An eccentric English family nesting on Corfu in the 1930s. What's not to love?

Travel Therapy by Karen Schaler. If you have the time and the means to go away but are lacking for inspiration, this is the book. There are little quizzes to help you focus your travel mojo, and loads of gorgeous photos that will have you running for the phone to make reservations.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Oh, my. I haven't read this one since high school, but it's on my daughter's summer reading list, and we always enjoy it when our reading choices overlap. Bradbury was the only sci-fi author whose work I liked, and I had vague memories of reading the book as a 14-year old and thinking it was interesting. What I hadn't realized on the first reading was how oddly, frighteningly prescient Bradbury was. For a book written in 1950, it is ASTONISHING how many things in Montag's world have come to pass. Not just the obvious, like atomic war, but the more subtle and insidious things--political correctness, cultural obsessions with sex, speed, and violence. Even the Seashell seems alarmingly reminiscent of Bluetooth. *shudder*

And every summer I reread either Cathleen Schine's The Love Letter or Raffaella Barker's Summertime. Both are luscious.

So what are YOU reading this summer?

In which I am assembling the research

for the next Julia Grey book. That entails books, music, scented candles, and tea to set the mood. Where, oh where, could I be sending her next?

In which I adore surprises

And surprise presents are the very best. Today I arrived home to find a box from AmazonUK on my doorstep--very mysterious as I haven't ordered from them for months. I ripped into it to find this, and a note from my darling English friend Sali that said, "Because I know what you like. Love, Sali." I sat right down and opened it up and SWOONED. The Virgin Gardener is a gorgeous book, and I knew I would love the author as soon as I spotted her picture on page six--she is wearing the most adorable dress and her manicure is perfect. Laetitia Maklouf is glamorous and fun and Sali describes her as the Nigella of the gardening set. I cannot WAIT to read the book. I never recommend anything before I've read it, but I had to make an exception as soon as I saw the table of contents and realized one of the chapters is a "Lust List". Huge thanks to the fabulous Sali!

In which I start my summer reading

One of my first stops when I arrived home from BookExpo was the bookstore to stock up on my summer reading. (Remember back in school when you got your summer reading list? I LOVED my summer reading list.) Anyway, I spent so much of the winter and spring working on my research reading that I read very little that was purely for pleasure and nothing that was frivolous. What I did do was compile a list of things I wanted to read when the weather was warm and I had a bit more free time: novels my daughter has to read for HER summer reading list so we can talk about them, a few biographies, some luscious new fiction, and a few classics I've never gotten around to reading before. (I also have a book I'm supposed to read for endorsement purposes, but I have no doubt it's going to be fabulous.) One of my most pleasant discoveries was the re-issue of Georgette Heyer's mysteries. How did I not know she wrote mysteries?! I snapped up both titles my local bookstore had in stock and am just finishing up An Unfinished Clue. If you enjoy Christie and Gladys Mitchell and Josephine Tey, they will be right up your garden path, I promise.

In which I have book news!

Lots of you out there prefer audiobooks to the paper variety, and I've heard from many of you how much you enjoyed the narrator for the audio version of Silent in the Grave. Unfortunately, many of you were less than impressed with the narrators of the subsequent version, and as a result, Audible is pulling the audiobooks of Silent in the Sanctuary and Silent on the Moor to have them re-recorded by the fabulous Ellen Archer! They should be ready to go some time in May, and they also tell me that they will make sure she narrates the rest of the series. YAY! (Now, what I've just told you is ALL that I know. For specifics of release dates, etc. you will need to contact Audible.com because they are completely in the know about this project. I got the happy news after all was arranged between the lovely digital team at my publisher and the wonderful peeps at Audible, and I have shared all that I'm able.)

For those of you who like to collect a single format for a series, I am SO HAPPY to tell you that Silent in the Grave will be released for the first time in trade format in January 2010! It has a brand new cover to fit with the rest of the repackaging, and I am VERY pleased with it. (Eagle-eyed readers will have already realized that the new covers are designed to depict a single, specific moment in each book rather than to convey a general mood. The moment they chose for SITG is one of my favorites!)

In which I am book purging

The very hardest kind of purging, don't you know? Parting with books is like parting with friends, or at least acquaintances, and shoving them into grocery bags for the trip to the library donation rack is like deliberately avoiding someone on the street to whom you really OUGHT to say hello. (I can't even tell you which books I purged because it feels like gossiping. That's not normal, right?) I'm purging from the "novels I love" shelves, from the "research" shelves, and sadly, from the "to be read" shelves. Some of those books I've had for years and honestly, if I haven't read them yet, I'm really not going to. Some were purchased when I planned to improve myself; some were given to me at trade shows, but all represent a moment when I thought I would commit the hours to read that particular book and cutting them loose feels a bit like shutting the door on a stray puppy. (I am going to the BookExpo this year with an iron resolve not to bring home ANYTHING unless it's something I would have happily paid enormous sums of money for retail. That should cut down my usual 30 pounds to something like 28...)

And speaking of BookExpo, I've been invited to sign in the ABA Lounge on Friday afternoon from 2-2:30 (May 29), so if you're in the Javits Center and the Saturday signings don't work for you, come by then! I have no idea what it takes to get into the ABA Lounge, but it sounds very exclusive, doesn't it? As if there would be bootleg cocktails and girls in fringed costumes selling cigarettes while Marlene Dietrich sings something sad. I suspect I may be romanticizing a tad. If this year is anything like 2007, we will all be gently melting into a pool of our own perspiration. I would not mind at ALL if it turns out to be 70 degrees and overcast in NYC this year!

In which we are SO ready for spring

Aren't we? In spite of not getting a proper snowfall until March, I am pretty much done with winter. I feel sluggish and dull and I need a nice dose of warm sunshine and some brisk breezes to blow out the cobwebs. It's time to dust off my spring books, some E.M. Delafield (the Provincial Lady series is FABULOUS) or Raphaella Barker (I would buy her books for the charming clip-art covers alone, but I happen to adore her Venetia books.)

And it's definitely time to shed the winter woolens and banish the tights to the back of the drawer. Last weekend I found this dress at Old Navy. It looks like nothing in the picture, but it is adorable on--even the color is infinitely nicer in person. (I don't know why much of the Old Navy website fails so spectacularly at providing accurate and flattering pictures of the clothes, but there it is.) The website also doesn't tell you that the dress is available in white or the most extraordinary flame orange, but it is. It FURTHER doesn't mention that in the store, it's only $25 dollars. My store was picked over in my size, but I did manage to snag the very last one in turquoise. Maybe you'll have better luck!

Finally, I'm hanging out all this week over at eHarlequin, answering questions about research, so come by and let's visit!

In which we talk literary role models

This entry was originally posted on the Blog A Go-Go on November 28, 2007.

One of the great pleasures of reading, particularly when you're a child, is the chance to find inspiration, role models who demonstrate how to live with courage and verve and style. Here are a few of my favorite heroines from literature:

*Jo March, Elizabeth Bennet, and Scout Finch. Little Women, Pride & Prejudice, and To Kill a Mockingbird. I'm grouping these three together because they are pretty much universal. I have never known a girl from the South who didn't want to be Scout, nor have I ever met a woman who wanted to be any other March or Bennet sister.

*Scarlett O'Hara and Amber St. Clair, Gone With the Wind and Forever Amber. Alright, I know these two are a little unconventional for role models, but hear me out. They both manage to give the impression of being much more beautiful than they really are. They both struggle to create lives during tumultuous times, parlaying their attractions into assets. They are bright, street smart, clever, and courageous, and they are above all, survivors. (It's no accident that at the end of both books, we don't know precisely what happens to either heroine. We don't have to. After all the twists and turns, we have perfect faith that they will land on their little cat feet.)

*Jane Eyre. She was not a role model the first time I read the book, or even the second. She was too mealy-mouthed and meek for my taste. But after years elapsed, I read the book again and was astonished to find that Jane Eyre is feisty. She stands up for herself and scraps with anyone who tries to put her down or make her less than she is. She holds tightly to her moral convictions, and yet when she realizes she has a chance at happiness, she seizes it with both hands in a bold move worthy of Scarlett herself.

*Cathy Earnshaw. Wuthering Heights. I concede, Cathy made a bad end. Haunting a cold, windy moor is not precisely how most of us would like to wind up, but I would like to make the point that Cathy is at all times herself. She is one of the most authentic and self-aware characters in literature. She is not nice, and she knows it. She advertises it in fact, and makes no apologies. (And her speech about loving Heathcliff because "he's more myself than I am" gets me every time.)

*Lucy Eyelesbarrow. 4:50 from Paddington. I know it seems odd to include an Agatha Christie character here, but I am smitten with the idea of Lucy Eyelesbarrow. She is the paragon who took a first in mathematics at Oxford, but decided to become an outrageously overpriced domestic. There is nothing she can't do, and her cool competence is unshaken even in the face of murder. And it drives me MAD that we don't know which marriage proposal she accepts in the end.

*Nancy Drew. Well, of course. She meddles and snoops remorselessly, but she has a convertible and a charge card and she travels a LOT.

*Cassandra Mortmain. I Capture the Castle. I love her for the same reasons I love Jo March. She is always scribbling and always trying to fix her family. Another nebulous ending, but somehow you know everything will come right for Cassandra because she deserves a happily ever after.

*Flora Poste. Cold Comfort Farm. Ah, Robert Poste's child! I adore Flora's sense of adventure, her absolute certainty that she knows best and ought to be allowed to get on with tidying everything up. She reminds me of Emma Woodhouse, but vastly less annoying.

*The nameless heroine of Rebecca. Yes, I despised her at first for her diffidence, but after the discovery of the sunken boat, when she discovers the truth about Maxim and Rebecca's relationship, she becomes assertive and cool, certain of herself in a way she could never have been had she continued to live in Rebecca's shadow.

In which we talk Edith Wharton again

A week or two ago, I flogged Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome as the perfect late winter read. (Don't forget--"Ghost Hunters" will be at The Mount next week.) A day or so later I was cleaning out some clippings and ran across this quote by Edith Wharton, which I absolutely love: If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time. And since I am a fervent advocate of doing LESS as often as possible, I heartily agree.

Also, a few frugal and fun reads I came across recently: The Thrift Book by India Knight and Kath Kelly's How I Lived On A Pound A Day. (She's not kidding. She actually lived on a pound a day for a year, and that includes everything but rent. I deeply admire the spirit behind her experiment, although I'm going to respectfully decline to undertake such a thing myself. For starters, hitchhiking in my neck of the woods would probably get you arrested before it would get you where you want to go...but I digress.) Knight's book has some great ideas for families on a budget and how to cut corners without cutting out the fun stuff. They are both British books and available on the UK version of Amazon.

And I have succumbed to the lure of the Twitter. If you want to follow, I'm deannaraybourn.

In which you might need an end of winter book

Spring is almost here--it will actually crack 80 degrees here this weekend!--but there was a lovely snowfall last week, and I know loads of you are still bundled up and waiting for the daffodils to make an appearance. That sort of weather calls for a cold, wintry book, but now is not the time to get bogged down in something set on the Russian steppes. We need something quick, to be savored on a snowy afternoon with a pot of tea or a hot apple cider. We need Ethan Frome. Seriously, if you have not read Edith Wharton, this is a great place to start. It's a slender novel, but beautifully written. I hadn't read it in years, but I picked it up again during our snowy weekend and was absolutely riveted by the perfect moments within it. The only drawback is that Wharton is one of those writers who will occasionally cause me to burn with envy and wonder why I even bother to write, but if you're not a writer, you're in for an afternoon of pure pleasure.

Also, I was delighted to find that the crew from "Ghost Hunters" will be investigating The Mount! Edith Wharton's beautiful estate has long been deemed haunted--appropriately so as she wrote some superb ghost stories--and on March 25, the TAPS team will check it out.

In which I celebrate the car book

The other day I was chatting with friends of mine when the subject of books came up, and it suddenly occurred to me that I may be weirder than I realized. One of my great fears in life is being stranded somewhere--anywhere--with nothing to read. I get chills just thinking about it. I never go anyplace I might have to wait without reading material. (I once tried substituting correspondence for reading, but the glitter from my Christmas cards went EVERYWHERE and I don't think the staff at the doctor's office appreciated it.) This is my secret motive for purchasing a Kindle. It isn't because I love technology and must have the latest gadget toot sweet, as we say in Texas. It's because it carries a real lot of books in a very tiny package.

Of course, my fear of running out of books dictates that my Kindle, which is loaded with back-up books, must ITSELF have a back-up, usually in the form of a mass market paperback I don't mind leaving behind somewhere. Another favorite back-up is the car book. And let me say right now, the car book is what separates the REAL readers from the poseurs. I have a teenage daughter which means I am occasionally called upon to drive her hither and yon with the understanding that I will return to hither and yon at the appointed time to pick her up. If the Kindle isn't charged or I simply lose my mind and forget to bring my present book, the car book is always waiting.

Now, the selection of a proper car book is a tricky thing. It cannot be fiction because a car book is often dipped into at random, then left alone for long periods of time. It has to be something you can pick up and put down without losing a narrative thread. (This is why biography or history are equally poor choices.) Short stories would seem to be good; they are not. Short stories never turn out to be quite short enough, and then you're left dangling, never a good thing with Dorothy Parker. No, a proper car book must be either essays or poetry, with the latter being my strong preference. (Essays must be reprints from newspaper columns to be the proper length for car book indulgence.) Poetry is PERFECT car book material. Poems are rich with metaphor and lush language; they are usually short but peopled with memorable characters.

Further, poems are perfect for setting a seasonal tone--there IS such a thing as winter or summer poetry. There is a poem for every mood. Poems celebrate the glorious and eulogize the deplorable. They are also the perfect medium in which to dabble with a different pleasure and taste a new flavor. If you usually eschew romance novels in favor of sci-fi, a few love poems are just the thing to balance you out. The best car book is one that gives a nod to your past and a nudge to a new horizon. I have made no secret of my love for Jane Austen, but my current car book is a volume of cowgirl poetry I bought in Arizona. I love it for the dusty bovine goodness, but also because it reminds me of the day I sat in the sunshine, eating fish tacos and drinking margaritas with two women I adore. I am very nearly finished with it, and for the next car book, I think I'll be feeling very Baudelaire...