Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

MariReads is hosting in April. Please stop by her blog for some great reviews and other fun bookish posts.

I only got one book last week, a hand-me-down from my mother. But she liked it and it looks .like it could be pretty good.



Too Easy by Phillip DePoy.  It is the second book in a series of five mysteries set in Georgia and featuring a "Zen private eye" named Flap Tucker.

DePoy moved on to another series that also sounds promising.  Also set in Georgia, but in the Appalachian Mountains instead of the gulf coast, the Fever Devilin series is up to seven volumes.  The named hero is a folklorist and former professor.

I am definitely going to look for more of DePoy's books.

Kitchen Remodel, Week Six: Green is the Color of Spring

In anticipation of the arrival of cupboards later this week, we got some color in the kitchen.  The walls were painted the same green as our old kitchen because I love that murky, yellowy green shade. The ceiling is the same pale khaki color as the ceilings in the rest of the house.

We also have a door to the new powder room. Tiny! Here's James Builder demonstrating its diminutive proportions. 

I've been reading food and cooking books during the kitchen remodel to buoy my spirits while cooking in a toaster oven.  But my current book is grim when it comes to food.  It sure makes me count my blessings!

Independent People secured Halldór Laxness his Nobel Prize, but his characters do not eat well.  Bjartur of Summerhouses and his family are early 20th Century "crofters" -- subsistence sheep farmers who live in a sod house in Iceland, with the sheep on the ground floor and the family huddled in the upper level.

With the cadences and vocabulary of Icelandic epic poetry, Independent People reads like a cross between J. R. R. Tolkien and Thomas Hardy.  The semi-literate characters starve through the winter and spring until they can grow a few meager vegetables in the home field and sell their scrawny sheep in the fall.


Other than a few batches of doughnuts or pancakes for celebrations, the only cooking described in the book was when the first wife -- about ready to give birth alone in the hut while her husband was lost in a blizzard -- killed and butchered a ewe, salted down the meat, and then gorged herself on a pot of offal stew.  The cognate, while false, is apt.




Independent People counts as one of my choices for the 2013 European Reading Challenge.  At just under 490 pages, it also counts as one of my Chunkster Challenge books.

WEEKEND COOKING

Hosted by Beth Fish Reads

Book Beginnings: Through a Yellow Wood

Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I also recently signed up for Google+ and have a button over there in the right-hand column to join my circles or whatever it is. I don't really understand yet how that one works.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING

Another April.

A year since I returned to Hemlock Lake in a vain attempt to disrupt the agenda of destruction and death set by a man once my friend.

-- Through a Yellow Wood by Carolyn J. Rose.  This mystery is the sequel to Hemlock Lake, both set in the Catskill Mountains and both featuring Dan Stone. The opening sentence makes me want to read the first one too, although this one does just fine as a stand-alone.

Rose is half of a prolific writing duo based in the Pacific Northwest.  Rose and Mike Nettleton have written a number of mysteries together, many set on the Oregon coast, some in the Catskill Mountains where Carolyn grew up.  They also blog together at Deadly Duo Duh.

Among her other writing adventures, Rose will be presenting a workshop on the elements of mystery at the Wordcatcher conference in Kalama, Washington on Saturday, April 20. Click the link for details or to sign up for the conference.

Teaser Tuesday: Independent People

It was an incredible blizzard. It was one of those peculiar gales when the mountain sang above the croft as if the trolls that inhabited it had gone demented and taken out their drums; the dog hung whining about the trapdoor, shivering in every limb.

-- Independent People by Halldór Laxness, first published in 1946, is the story of subsistence sheep farmer Bjartur of Summerhouses.  It is like a cross between J. R. R. Tolkien and Thomas Hardy.

Independent People counts as one of my choices for the 2013 European Reading Challenge.  At just under 470 pages, it also counts as one of my Chunkster Challenge books.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

Mailbox Monday

Thanks for joining me for Mailbox Monday! MM was created by Marcia, who graciously hosted it for a long, long time, before turning it into a touring event (details here).

MariReads is hosting in April. Please stop by her blog for some great reviews and other fun bookish posts.

I got two books last week from a prolific writing duo based in the Pacific Northwest.  Carolyn J. Rose and Mike Nettleton have written a number of mysteries together, many set on the Oregon coast, some in the Catskill Mountains where Carolyn grew up.  They also blog together at Deadly Duo Duh.



Through a Yellow Wood. This one is the sequel to Hemlock Lake, both set in the Catskill Mountains and both featuring Dan Stone.



Sea of Regret. This one is the sequel to An Uncertain Refuge, set on the Oregon coast and starring Kate Dalton.

Both books look great, as do the rest of the titles these two have written. Please visit their Deadly Duo Mystery website for more information about their fun collaboration and mystery novels.