Belles-Lettres: Brilliant, Blue-Ribbon Books 2013

Biggest Surprise of the Year -  I Loved This Book! 

So Big by Edna Ferber; published in 1924

Top Three Non-Fiction Books That Were Entire Educations in Themselves: 

At Home by Bill Bryson; How to Live, Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell; The Island of Lost Maps by Miles Harvey

Top Three Fiction Books (not mysteries): 

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster; Equilateral by Ken Kalfus; Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.

Author Most Read: 

Donald Westlake - Six of his Dortmunder capers

Most Delightful Reread: 

Counting My Chickens... by The Duchess of Devonshire

Brothers I Would Most Like to Meet: 

Reggie and Nigel Heath of The Baker Street Letters, The Brothers of Baker Street, and The Baker Street Translation by Michael Robertson

Best Foreign Location: 

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen and West With the Night by Beryl Markham

Most Laugh-Out-Loud Dysfunctional Family: 

The Spellman Files and The Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz

Dreamiest Tale: 

The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys

Best Road Trip: 

The Lost Continent - Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson

Mystery Writer I Am So Glad I Found: 

Peter Lovesey - The Last Detective, Diamond Solitaire, The Summons, and Bloodhounds. 

As If I Needed More Reasons Not To Go On A Cruise: 

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace.

Proof That The South Shall Rise Again: 

Mama Makes Up Her Mind by Bailey White.

Authors I Have Met and Their Books I Read This Year: 

Duffy Brown (Killer in Crinolines), William Zinsser (The Writer Who Stayed), and George S. McGovern (Abraham Lincoln)

Faces at the Kentucky Book Fair

The ever-popular Sue Grafton. Fans lined up all day to get her autograph in her latest Kinsey Millhone mystery, W is for Wasted.

Poet, essayist, and novelist Wendell Berry has a faithful following. He was kept busy all day long signing many of his books. I met him at last year's Book Fair. This year I just waved as I walked by.

Mystery writer Duffy Brown looked great in her 'Crime Scene Do Not Cross' scarf. She was signing her entertaining puzzlers set in Savannah, Iced Chiffon and Killer in Crinolines. Her next mystery starring amateur sleuth Reagan Summerside, owner of the consignment shop, The Prissy Fox, is due out in March. This time Reagan will be investigating a crime involving Pearls and Poison. Ms. Brown is very friendly and genuine. I met her last year and have become a fan.

Alecia Whitaker is the author of Queen of Kentucky which I wrote about here. I was delighted and surprised to meet her as she was not listed in the online brochure of authors who would be attending. She was so gracious and like 14-year-old Ricki Jo, the girl on the cover, she had on her cowboy boots. Her new book is Wildflower, a story of a young songwriter/singer's experiences with fame.

Alison Atlee is the author of The Typewriter Girl, the story of Betsey Dobson who is trying to make her way as an independent woman in Victorian England. I wrote a bit about the book here. I spoke with Ms. Atlee about the clever chapter headings in her book concerning the rules of typewriting that she culled from an 1890's book How to Become an Expert in Typewriting. I found the advice to be applicable in life as well as when sitting in front of the typewriter.

 Deidre A. Scaggs is author of The Historic Kentucky Kitchen: Traditional Recipes for Today's Cook. I will be seeing her and her taste-testing co-author, chef Andrew W. McGraw, at another book event tonight. She highly recommended the Parrish Family's Lemon Custard Pie, circa 1850s, and assured me it is a recipe that even I - a non-cook - could follow. "It's super easy!"  Sure enough, the recipe has only five ingredients. I may have to dig out my apron!

This dapper fellow is Dan Andriacco, writer of the Sebastian McCabe-Jeff Cody series. His latest, The Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore takes place in London, a favorite location of mine. Mr. Andriacco has been a Sherlock Holmes fan since he was nine and incorporates some of that famous detective's methods in his mysteries. 

Bryan S. Bush is a local historian and lecturer on The Civil War. His book, Louisville and The Civil War, takes a look at the role of my hometown in that conflict. Mr. Bush partipates in reenactment events as a Confederate artillery soldier and leads tours through the portion of historic Cave Hill Cemetery where Union and Confederate soldiers are buried. He told me the fascinating story of accused Confederate spy Elizabeth Temms who died in a Union prison in Louisville. She is the only woman buried with the Confederate soldiers in Cave Hill.

Two Days - Two Book Events

Two literary events on tap for this weekend.

On Saturday, I will be at the Kentucky Book Fair in Frankfort. Last year I had a blast mingling with the authors and the readers in attendance. For the first time, Kentucky-native Sue Grafton will be there autographing her latest Kinsey Millhone mystery, W is for Wasted. Coincidentally, the book, which has been on my library request list for months, has just now become available for me. 

Also in attendance will be Duffy Brown, whom I met last year and whose Savannah-based mysteries Iced Chiffon and Killer in Crinolines I have very much enjoyed. 

The fair's website lists over 200 authors who will be present including poet, essayist, and novelist Wendell Berry, political reporter Eleanor Clift, and Bobbie Ann Mason. 

My plan, which worked so well last year, is to study the program that is online and choose beforehand the authors I want to meet. The aisles get crowded and it is best to have a strategy so I don't miss anyone. A great day!

Here are links to my posts on last year's Book Fair: here and here.

On Sunday, the award-winning, independent documentary film "Out of Print", produced and directed by Vivienne Roumani, will be shown, for free, at a theater right in my neighborhood.  It asks and debates the question Is the Book Really Dead? I am very much looking forward to seeing this. Here is how the film is described on its website:

Out of Print, narrated by Meryl Streep, draws us into the topsy-turvy world of words, illuminating the turbulent and exciting journey from the book through the digital revolution. Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of Amazon.com), Ray Bradbury, Scott Turow, Jeffery Toobin, parents, students, educators, scientists - all highlight how this revolution is changing everything about the printed world - and changing us.

Kentucky Book Fair on My Calendar

The Kentucky Book Fair in Frankfort, which I have often attended, is coming up in a couple of weeks. This year I see that some of the regular favorites will be in attendance at this one-day event: Wendell Berry; Bobbie Ann Mason; and, the state's former and only female governor Martha Layne Collins (whom I have had the pleasure of interviewing). Sue Grafton, Louisville native and author of the alphabet mysteries featuring Kinsey Millhone, is scheduled to be there to sign her newest, W is for Wasted.

Also on the list is Duffy Brown who writes the fun mysteries set in Savannah (where I will be next week!). I met her last year, bought her first book, Iced Chiffon, and now, after reading her second, Killer in Crinolines, consider myself to be a fan of hers. 

Here is a link to author photos I took at last year's event.

Even though I am in the midst of getting ready for my Grand Southern Literary Tour 2013, I am definitely going to put this book fair on my calendar. It makes for a fun, literary day. And one that is always full of surprises.

Killer in Crinolines by Duffy Brown and The Seventh Sinner by Elizabeth Peters

I am in the middle of trying to solve two mysteries - one concerning a murder that takes place in Savannah and involves wedding cake and another that takes place in Rome and involves many cups of espresso. Much fun...except, of course, for the dead bodies.

In Killer in Crinolines, Reagan Summerside is still trying to make a go of her consignment shop, the Prissy Fox, located in her Victorian house - the only asset she received in the messy divorce from her philandering husband. Along with her Beemer-driving Aunt KiKi, she is investigating the murder of Simon, the groom, whose body was found face-down in the wedding cake. 

Turns out Simon was working his way up the money chain as far as women were concerned. He had finally reached the pinnacle with the very wealthy Waynetta Waverly when a knife in his back put an end to any hope of wedded bliss. There are enough suspects to fill a Savannah tourist trolley with the most likely one being Chantilly, Reagan's friend, and broken-hearted ex-fiance of the money-grubbing Simon.  

This is not a book to read when you are hungry as the characters spend a lot of time eating donuts with sprinkles, pork chop sandwiches, peach pies, and other Southern fare...and, of course, the wedding cake with its butter cream icing. 

Author Duffy Brown has a great time, in this her second in the series, writing Reagan in and out of scrapes and she has a flair for capturing the eccentricities of Southern life.

Across the Atlantic Ocean in Rome, visiting librarian Jacqueline Kirby has found herself involved with a group of art and archaeology students. When an unpopular hanger-on of the group ends up dead in the ruin beneath the ruin beneath a church, all sorts of nasty things start happening to Jean, the student who found the body. 

Ms. Kirby is the creation of Elizabeth Peters and The Seventh Sinner is the first adventure featuring the middle-aged librarian with her caustic wit and no-nonsense attitude. The best part about this mystery introducing Ms. Kirby is just getting to know her and her odd little quirks. There are bits of Roman history and archaeological tidbits thrown in for good measure. 

Oddly enough, both Reagan and Jacqueline carry huge purses. Reagan refers to hers as Old Yeller and it is a monstrous pleather thing she picked up at Target. Jacqueline hasn't named hers (to her credit) but in the first few chapters we find that she carries, among other things, smelling salts, a policeman's whistle, a man's large handkerchief, Band Aids and Mercurochrome, along with pens, postcards and a lipstick. She is ready for anything!

I have great hopes that both women will discover the identity of the respective killers on both sides of the Atlantic. Along with my help, of course.