Thursday's This and That

Wow! It's been a bit of a whirlwind week. I'm not even exactly sure how it got to be Thursday already. I guess time is distorted when one is up on Cloud 9!

Monday's author event with Craig Johnson was absolutely amazing! So, it definitely warrants it own post. That will be Saturday, so I hope you'll check back to hear about my visit to Mystery Lovers Bookshop hosting Craig. In the meantime, I would like to leave you with a few links that you can enjoy about Craig. I turned a colleague on to Craig's work and we've been talking about him a lot at work, so I shared the NY Times article with my colleague and he dug up this site that shows the original "kit" Craig bought to start his house - he built his home in Wyoming if you did not already know.

Someone asked Craig Monday if Walt Longmire looks like him. I said I wasn't sure if Walt looked like Craig but "he definitely sounds like George Guidall." George Guidall is to Walt Longmire what Mark Hammer is/was to Dave Robicheaux. In my humble opinion of course. But you can check out what Craig things about his books on audio here at this site.

And I would totally LOVE it if Penguin would make one of these for me with a Walt Longmire title! Actually, could I get a set? If anyone's looking for a gift for me...;)

So tonight I'll be thinking about my other favorite bookstore in the entire world, the Mystery Bookstore in LA. The super, wonderful folks on the Pacific Coast will be hosting Craig tonight. Lucky folks!

We had a pretty hefty line-up this week for the six-word memoirs. I don't know...maybe I shouldn't have stacked so many great authors in the first three weeks. Keepin' up this pace is gonna be a challenge. But, I'm up for it. Hope you'll keep checking back.

However, I do need to get caught up on reviews. Hopefully you'll get one or six of those in the very near future. June is just crazy on this blog! Isn't it? Well, crazy doesn't even begin to describe this blog post from the L.A. Times. They have a list of 60 new books to read this summer - have you seen this? THIS SUMMER? Now that's a lot of reading. Michael Connelly's SCARECROW made the list, and so did THE SILENT HOUR. THE ANGEL'S GAME is one I have and am hoping to get to. Donald Westlake's final Dortmunder made their list, as did Pat Conroy's SOUTH OF BROAD. If I was making the list these would all be there but so would THE DARK HORSE (Craig Johnson), THE SECOND DEATH OF GOODLUCK TINUBU (Michael Stanley), TRUST NO ONE (Gregg Hurwitz), MIND SCRAMBLER (Chris Grabenstein), and BREATHING WATER (Timothy Hallinan). But the most blatantly missing title? RAIN GODS? Really? It didn't make their list? Guess that's why no one asks ME to make those lists, huh?

O.k., so I don't want to forget to congratulate Lori from Kansas who won the signed copy of Lisa Unger's DIE FOR YOU. I will be getting that in the mail to Lori this week. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. And stay tuned. I have some more contests planned for this month!

I don't think I've mentioned here yet that I've been reading the May/June 2009 CRIMESPREE Magazine. Do you have a copy of this? There are some fabulous articles in this magazine! If you don't have a copy; you need to get one!

I still have to wrap up the read-a-thon. There was a final meme that I was supposed to answer and just simply didn't get to it because of my trip to PA on Monday. I had a wonderful time on Sunday reading, though. As you know if you followed my posts then I finished up BREATHING WATER, which I will be reviewing for you later this summer. I also finished THE WAY HOME, George Pelecanos' most recent novel. That review will be forthcoming. It was a beautiful day and I spent most of it on my front porch swing or the lawn chair in the back yard - so the dogs could be outside, too. It was a great time, but if I do something like that again, I need to make sure I don't have a day trip planned the NEXT day, too. Too crazy!

I hope you will check back tomorrow. As I mentioned on Tuesday, I'll be hosting an interview with the author of THE SECRET KEEPER, Paul Harris. I have a feeling we'll be hearing a lot more from Mr. Harris down the road!

Until then...Happy Reading!

***Update 6:36 EST - I have fixed my major, major botch, but if you happen to be coming back to this post, Gregg Hurwitz's book is called TRUST NO ONE. It's due out later this month. TELL NO ONE is the first stand alone that Harlan Coben wrote and that I recently finished listening to on audio book. My sincerest apologies to both authors. Too bad spell check can't catch idiot mistakes!