RESURRECTION

RESURRECTION OF MY LAST BLOG POST
For reasons unknown, my last blog post vanished. I mean poof! It was gone. “Error 403” or “Error 404”’was all I got. No trash, no delete, no “sysop [Charlie] forgot,” nothing. I figured, like taking away my curly hair, God smote me for the sin of pride because I had fun writing it. Charlie thinks the machines are paying me back for my mistreatment of them. I think it’s the Russians, and I told Charlie not to pay the ransom. So here is my resurrection re-write, sans final edit embellishments.

But first a note to my vanished post’s 8 commenters: you are my heroes. Okay, I failed to include the mysteries of William Kent Krueger. I like him a lot, and with his Cork O’Connor, WKK is to northern MN, as Paul Doiron is to ME, or as C.J. Box is to WY. Maybe most telling, WKK shared a writers’ group with two of my Metro State colleagues.

Now, finally, the vanished post is resurrected!                                                                                        x x x x x x x x x xxxx x x x x x x x x xx x x x x x x x x x x x x x  x x x x x x xx x xx

BOOKISH INCIDENTS REPORT                                                                                    [This is a bookish post, in the spirit of economist Paul Krugman’s wonkish NYT “posts”.]   

Democracy is bruised, but unbroken, and now, the healing can continue.  Thank you for voting.                                                                                                                                                  Today’s haiku:  My new bit of twit-speak is LNU for Last Name Unremembered.  which is useful for aging book recommenders.  Charlie argued that ”forgotten” is more accurate, more Twitter-ish, and asked, “Was “unremembered” even a word?”  Well, Google Editor knows it is, and, dictionaries say that “unremembered” can mean “unrecorded” or not available to be known and so, without further quibbling, and, recognizing that the oldie brain is a wondrous thing, LNU the Twit bit shall remain.  

 ONTO THE BOOKISH PART:                                                                                            Friend Sara, who reads a lot of mysteries and sci-fi, and who knows what else, [and who knows that I don’t read sci-fi because it is NOW with some differences inserted, e.g. power, technology, climate, and a hypothesized THEN described ad infinitum, and I usually quarrel with the inserts or their effects], wanted to exchange current good reads with which to face whatever is next.  I said, “Sure,” to mysteries. 

Read Andy Borowitz’ “Profiles in Ignorance”, watch boats, and sigh.

  SARA’S LIST with my comments:

Sinister Graves, by Marcie Rendon is set in 1970’s Minnesota on the White Earth Reservation. New to me, sounds good, so I 1-click ordered the first of her Cash Blackbear trilogy, Murder on the Red River.  I am, after all, a child of Wahpeton, ND, the “head of the Red” River.                                                                                                                                      Craig Johnson (Hell and Back) new- and everything else he has written.  I liked a lot the six seasons of Longmire, based on Craig Johnson’s mysteries, but his Wyoming-set books, not so much.  C.J. Box, with his 4 generation heritage,  is my go-to guy for Wyomig, especially with ranger Joe Pickett and wife, Marybeth, town LIBRARIAN!  Sara does not like the Netflix? video option.                                      The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd, is already on my partly-read list, and so far, it’s a finisher.  Mary Wagner recommended it to me, and she was an excellent recommender, but a mystery with maps would have caught my eye for at least a first thought.                                                                                                                                 Desolation Canyon, by PJ Tracy, is the second of the author’s works set in LA, a departure from the Minneapolis-based mysteries she co-wrote with her mom, who died recently.  I often choose books  for a location and its culture, and Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch and Joe Eid’s I.Q. are enough LA for me right now.                                  The Counterclockwise Heart, by Brian Farrey is fantasy.  I KNEW she’d try to slip one by me.  Too many other books I’d rather read more.                                                        Two Storm Wood, by Phillip Gray, treads the ground and some of the mysteries of post -WWI carnage.  For now, Charles Todd’s Inspector Ian Rutledge’s post-WW1 World is all I can stomach.                                                                                                      Shadows Reel, by C.J Box is fun, just to anticipate.  I’ve already 1-click pre-ordered it. I love this series for many reasons, but one big one is his even-handed treatment of environmental issues.  Only problem is that Lynne Cheney, past spoiler-Director of the NEH does, too. Noteworthy daughter, Liz, suggests she’s a good mother, though.

Ponder Maira Kalman’s “Women Holding Things”, love, love them, and be proud.

MY LIST of current mysteries is split:   ALREADY READ and WAITING:        ALREADY READ, waiting for next one–if there is a next one:      

Elsa Hart’s Li Du Trilogy, set in 18th Century, SW China.  Love the books, learned a lot, AND Li Du is a librarian.                                                                                                        Jane Harper’s Aaron Falk Trilogy, set in contemporary Australia.  Third volume due December, 2033.  Another good Australia read is Peter Temple’s Jack Irish mysteries, which are also a series on Acorn, which is inexpensive and home to other pertinent, beautifully filmed series. Paul Doiron’s Trooper Mike Bowditch mysteries, set all over interior and coastal Maine.                                                                                                    Elly Griffiths’ Archaeologist and Professor Ruth Galloway mysteries, set in Norfolk by the sea, in NE England.                                                                                                Val McDiarmid’s DS Karen Pirie mysteries, set in St. Andrews, Scotland.          Peter May’s Lewis Trilogy, set in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland.                         Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon, part of Israel’s Mossad’s very contemporary activities.        David Ignatius, my CIA and Middle Eastern go-to guy and a Washington Post columnist.

MYSTERIES WAITING, IMPATIENTLY

While Justice Sleeps, by Stacy Abrams. Likened by Scott Turow to John Grisham’s The Pelican Brief, which I liked, and Ms. Abrams will know the government’s ways of which she writes.

Saratoga Paycheck by Stephen Dobyns.  Herein,  Charlie Bradshaw  is retired, but not tired, and so am I.  Great series, set in upstate NY, as is the Clare Fergusson / Russ VanAlstyne series, by Julia Spencer-Fleming, which I also like. Stephen Dobyns is also a poet, which I like, because poets don’t waste words. 

My Darling Detective, by Howard Norman.  I loved Howard Norman’s earlier mystery, The Bird Artist, with its layers and setting, and this one also has layers and probing, and setting on the Canadian Maritime coast.     

Writ in Stone, by Cora Harrison.  Book 4 of The Burren Mysteries, set in 16thC West of Ireland, brings to mind the Sister Fidelma mysteries by Peter Tremayne, which I liked a lot and which give potential to my increasingly tonsured head. 

CODA                                                                                                                                                I can’t remember what I said after this listing in the vanished post, except to acknowledge that I had gotten carried away AGAIN, that I had more BOOKISH INCIDENTS to report, and that I had to get reading-ready for Poetry Club.  Hint: I love Wislawa Szymborsrka.   More to come. 

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