The Dog Doesn’t Die

For the first time since I started this blog in December, I visited WordPress’s spam trap. And I found several legitimate posts there, which I just marked as “not spam.”

Unfortunately, the spam trap clears itself every 15 days, so there may have been some legitmate posts before January 15 that I didn’t find in time to clear. Therefore, please accept my apologies if you tried to post and it didn’t show up. I will be more vigilant henceforth.

Jennifer Crusie is a hoot — I love her books, which are snarky, clever romances. And while I read across many genres, I don’t read that many romances. But I’ll never pass up anything with Crusie’s name on it. Bob Mayer, on the other hand, is new to me. He is a former Green Beret who appears to write thrillers. So the collaboration was a bit puzzling at first. But it works — boy, does it work! I want these two to write together forever. They’re like Carl Hiasson-lite, only better.

As for the animals … Crusie often has her heroines adopt ugly mutts that no one else wants. Not this time, however. Although Lucy Armstrong directs dog food commercials for a living, we don’t actually see any pets. Instead, we see an alligator named Moot patrolling her territory. Moot does okay for herself, we’ll leave it at that. However, as recounted in 2 sentences, one of the several bad guys shoots a wild pig for no good reason. Poor pitiful pig aside, I am declaring this book Safe for animal lovers. As for the people, see the first comment below.

This book is one of those magical mysteries, as I call them, in which complicated, seemingly unrelated activities take place in multiple countries and across time, with a present-day sleuth fitting all the disparate pieces together. In The Geographer’s Library, rookie newspaper reporter Paul Tomm is writing an obituary of a reclusive college professor. The corpse was not just an eccentric academic, however: he once pointed a gun out a window and shot a cat. This is bad, but it’s merely alluded to — we don’t see the incident – and everybody takes it as an indisputable sign that the guy was despicable. So poor, dead kitty notwithstanding, I am declaring this book Safe for animal lovers. More below.

We read this for my book group, which met last night. It’s set in Tudor England and is an engaging, historically INaccurate account of the life of Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne Boleyn. There are no animal characters, although there are a few passing mentions of animal cruelty such as cockfighting. Since none of this is described at any length, however, I will go ahead and declare this book SAFE for animal lovers.

See the first comment for more.

This book was featured in the Washington Post, in the Thursday Home section, I believe. It wasn’t a regular book review. And it’s one of those catalogues of miscellaneous facts and stories. There are instances of animal cruelty recounted, but since this is a compendium, you can skip them. So I am going to call this Safe If You Skip Sections, and unlike a novel, the book’s format allows you to hop over things.

I am not done with this book, but at page 122 out of 389, I am neither thrilled nor bored by it. It’s on my nightstand, and I read a bit each night. I’ll weigh in again after I’ve finished with it.

I just added the link for WEAA radio, which I listen to online a fair amount. WEAA is a public radio station sponsored by Morgan State University in Baltimore, which I knew nothing about prior to discovering the station. But I love the jazz they play, and they’ve broadened my horizons considerably.

For the wine and food part of this entry, see the first comment.

When I buy a piece of furniture that requires some assembly, I want instructions I can understand. So I was quite pleased with the instructions for assembling my new bed frame. However — and of course there is a “however” — the person charged with writing those instructions must have been so absorbed in his or her mission of ensuring clarity that spelling fell by the wayside. How else would one explain the consistent use of “appart”?

Just for the record, I am amused, not outraged.

I think all meat eaters should know what goes on in the lives of the animals they consume, from birth to death. I grew up in a rural community with lots of small farms nearby, but now that I live in a city, most of my meat comes from large farms. And Ruth Ozeki’s excellent novel shows the ugly side of factory farms, making it Unsafe for animal lovers. But like I said, I think if you eat meat, this is a truth you need to confront. You may think differently. And the book is otherwise excellent, so I’m going to recommend it anyway, despite deeming it unsafe. More below.

This week I plowed through a stack of magazines (Cooking Light, several New Yorkers, Vanity Fair, Outside, a few others) and read Cast Iron Cooking for Dummies (guess who got some cast iron cookware for Christmas). So I have no reviews.

However, I did have a brief e-mail discussion with a commenter who alerted me to the fact that Margaret Drabble’s new book, Sea Lady, is Not Safe for cat lovers. And that led to a discussion of guest reviews, which I will continue in the first comment.

Because I am a writer and one never knows where things might lead, I’m not going to name the magazine that included the bad recipe. Suffice it to say that if you see a recipe calling for ground turkey, a cup of scallions, and rotini pasta, you have likely come across something that I recommend against. (I think those three ingredients should offer sufficient clues.) The scallions did not save it from being too bland, IMHO.

 As for the good books, see below.