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Dammit, Martha, I hate it the way you make a book I really don't want to read sound so good.

Mellow, I've already put it on my "to read" list......Martha, got a copy to loan or shall I "queue" Amazon?

This is the reason Martha is so good at whatever she does, she influences opinion!


Kathy

There was something so 'off-putting' about Crazy in Alabama that I had to put it down.
Martha, you occasionally mention mistakes by authors, my favorite author Charles deLint, has on several occasions mentioned someone "sitting on the first riser of the stairs" or a cat "sleeping on the stair riser" This drives me totally bonkers being a stair builder and knowing that the riser is the vertical part, a cat may sleep on the tread but never on the riser.

Sometimes wallowing in trash can be downright enjoyable. Kathy lent me If I Did It and I ploughed through it last night and this afternoon. Of course OJ didn't do it. He spent 17 years trying to make Nicole happy and then she went crazy. He was so misunderstood, trying to make other people happy and then having his efforts turn around and bite him in the ass. How sad no one ever understood.

Kathy, it'll be on the foyer table the next time you stop by. Thanks. It was fun.

Kathy,
I have a copy to loan. And I did have real misgivings after Crazy. One Mississippi is much better but he's definitely an author I select by subject AND I wait for the paperback.

And you guys make things sound good, too--one reason the unread shelf stays full. The End of Alice went on it today. And, yes, I read reviews before I ordered it.

Now that school is out for the semester, I can actually read books that I WANT to read. So today we went to the library and I picked out The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer and Once in a Promised Land by Laila Halaby. The first seems to take place in Iran mostly and is Sofer's first novel. She is Iranian and received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence. Halaby is Lebanese-American -- this is her second novel. I also checked out Jesus Out to Sea, short stories by one of my favorites, James Lee Burke.

Off to read now.

EmmaG

This is a bit of thread drift but I just had to add a coda to the OJ saga. D. L. Hugley was on The View a few weeks ago. He said that white people really love their dogs. Look at how upset Ellen got when "Iggy" was taken from her hairdresser (Ellen has a hairdresser? What does she do?) and the fact that Michael Vick is serving years in prison.

D. L. said, "It's a good thing O.J. left the dog alone."

Kathy

I'm in the middle of "T is for Trespass." It is a lot darker than Sue Grafton's other books. You know I am one who craves to escape into books, not face issues.

Kathy

T is on my Christmas list.

NO NEED FOR WARNING, THIS REVIEW IS NOT A SPOILER!

What started as a quick post has expanded to the point that I’ve moved into “Word” to have spell-check capability. You see, I am only on page 378 of the 387 pages of Sue Grafton's “T” IS FOR TRESPASS.

Reading this book, for me, could be compared to going from zero to 80 in the five-speed electric blue Mustang Kinsey Millhone has traded up from her VW bug. I started off in first gear, sort of slow, saying to myself, "I just don't know if I'm going to like reading this book.*"

The story began to branch in several directions, thus my comparison at this juncture to having the choice of going straight for gear three/four, or pausing for some time at "two." (I have been known to read from front to back --to front to less back --to less front and so forth. Grisham does that to me. Grafton didn’t.)

By the time the story pace really heated up, I was reading so fast I was only reading the first sentences of several pages of paragraphs of action sequence, such was the intensity of my involvement in the plot. This speed reading went on for about three pages and then I smoothed out the “ride.”

Right this minute, I’m reading and pausing so I’m not just certain if I have come down from over-drive or am on cruise control. I stopped to write the review because I came upon a sentence that I'd like Martha to dissect:

Kinsey writes, "I had more at stake than she did, but she had nothing to lose." (Page 378) I'm curious about Grafton's use of the word "but."

I can't wait for Martha to read and review this book because I was somewhat surprised at what might be the final, final outcome. I think I was given some false direction early on, but to discuss that would be to destroy this good read for those who enjoy Grafton's alphabet series and want to read, this her 20th (?) book.

I’ll pause here to add a little history of the author and the series which I have gleaned this from seeing Sue Grafton interviewed over the years and I have such an amazing memory for seemingly insignificant details. Grafton wrote initially for TV. At some point one of her characters was made into a movie or placed on the tube. She swore, according to an interview I saw her do with Joe Garriagola years ago on the Today Show, that she would never cooperate in such visualization again.

While I can see Kinsey’s neighbor Henry Pitts in my mind as sharply as if he were sitting here in my study, I can’t imagine Kinsey’s hair that she used to cut herself with manicure scissors.

The books almost immediately were a big hit. I remember the enthusiasm of Joe Garrigola as he interviewed Grafton I was amazed that this “jock” of a guy would so love a book about a female PI heroine. Indeed Grafton may have been the first to introduce this somewhat new genre. (Nancy Drew being an early fore-runner.) Book shelves now are awash with female sleuths.

The first of the alphabet books, “A is for Alibi, B is for ....” were spit out furiously at a seemingly very fast pace. It seems Grafton as soon as she discovered that she had a 26-book contract, decided to age Millhone as the series progressed. Perhaps her decision to do that was made before she slowed down her writing and release of franchise pieces.

Grafton had pledged to age her main character but the writing wasn’t keeping up. The result is that the last few books, although published in the 21st century, have Kinsey still living in the 80s. "T IS FOR TRESPASS finds Kinsey Millhone experiences events in late 1987 and early 1988.

Grafton is true to writing as if it were the late 80s by having neither Kinsey nor those who inhabit St. Theresa utilize ubiquitous cell phones. To her credit, the only time I spotted a "Back to the Future" moment was while in a conversation with a nerd, Kinsey voices skepticism of the nerd’s insistence that in the future, ten year olds will be using computers and confounding adults with their technical savvy. (Kinsey still types her reports on her portable Smith-Corona typewriter.)

Again, I am waiting for Martha's review almost as much as I anticipated “T” because if Grafton and her editors messed up and got something out of time sequence, our friend and reviewer extraordinaire will spot it and inform us.

Martha, unless your wish list has reached Santa’s ear and said wish has already gone into his delivery bag, I can bring my copy by tomorrow, and I won’t get snow on your hardwoods. I know you. You have the discipline I lack and the book will, therefore, remain unread until it has reached its time.

Me? I put down A THOUSAND SILVER SUNS the moment “T” caught my eye on the book review page and I made a directly swoop and swipe at nearby Barnes and Noble.



*Grafton was born in 1940 which means she is somewhat my contemporary. I think the author’s age may have played a huge contributing factor in her selection and tackling of an issue that I find, because of MY age uncomfortable. It is the issue of the dependence of the elderly on the quality of care we will be given.