Just muttering
Um, like, you know?
I love NPR. But sometimes, it puts my teeth on edge. I don’t listen to a lot of radio, mostly when I’m driving somewhere, but my local station (KAZU, 90.3 FM, at CSUMB) keeps me company whenever I’m on the road in Santa Cruz county. However, I have a complaint–not aimed at KAZU, mind you, but…
Read MoreDrought’s toll
Here in California, we watch the skies as if the collective pressure of our gazes could press moisture from the thin clouds. Four years of drought are taking their toll: This live oak came down a few days ago, just crashed to the ground without a breath of wind. Five trees have come down on…
Read MoreLuRKing on the Web
Like podcasts? Like a bunch of LRK podcasts? Conversations with Marcia Muller or Ruth Dudley Edwards, a panel on Higher Mysteries, a chat with a Baker Street Babe, and a whole lot more. Podcasts on the LRK site, here.
Read MoreLuRKing on the Web
The Laurie R. King web site has dozens of corners and byways that, if you haven’t gone exploring there in a while, you may not have seen. For example: If Watson were a Woman—not by Laurie King, but by guest author Fred Erisman, who explores an assertion made in 1941 by Rex Stout, that Watson was…
Read MoreThrowback Thursday Twofer
Today’s Throwback Thursday post serves as proof that some authors do their research long in advance. Long, long in advance, like this picture, taken in 1982, a good twenty years before this particular writer set pen to paper to write The Game. And here, said author contemplating the possibilities of alternate universes, wherein she and…
Read MoreHow about a Throwback Thursday?
Going through some files the other day, I came across a few unexpected voices from the past—so I thought, hey kids, let’s have a couple of Throwback Thursdays here on Mutterings! So, how about some old covers that didn’t quite make it into the real world? I’ve talked before about the original proposed cover of…
Read MoreThe author’s bedside reading
No, really, it’s the author’s…bedside reading. These two books were tucked at the bottom of the bedside table of the motel in Corte Madera where I’m staying during the Book Passage crime writing conference: I have stayed in upscale hotels where the management appears at your door with flowers and a copy of your book to…
Read MoreFlowering welcome
It’s no secret that I have a weakness for odd plants. And a while ago I posted images of my front entrance, the thing that sold me on the house from my first step in the front door. But the house still manages to surprise me. When I got back from a trip to England…
Read MoreLetting in the day
In the Dick Francis novel Decider, the protagonist is an architect with many sons and a difficult marriage. At one point he reflects on the unlikely things that make people buy one house over another—in his case, a large tree that he can envision his boys climbing. I bought a house last year. My decider…
Read MoreThe English conundrum
When I travel, I prefer actually settling down in a place for a week or six rather than camping out in hotels. Yes, hotels are nice for providing services like hot and cold running meal delivery, after which one heaves the tray into the hallway rather than dealing with dirty dishes, but one misses so…
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