Banned Books Week Is Coming Up

I was just at the Library putting up a display for Banned Books Week.  Be sure to visit your local library and see what they have going on....

It is always amazing to see some titles that people have challenged and had removed from shelves, especially at schools.

Titles such as:  Where's Waldo, Little Women, Fahrenheit 451 (that's irony if there ever was), the Merriam Webster Dictionary, and  Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? are among some of the most unexpected titles.

I have to admit that there are some books that make you wonder why they were ever printed in the first place.  Many are so repulsive.  BUT! The first time you  allow a book to be censored you have started down the slippery slope to tyranny.  The slogan of this year's week is "Think For Yourself and Let Others Do The Same."  To my mind it is the perfect slogan for the entire year.  If I am allowed to have a book removed from a library or bookstore shelf because of language, sex or violence my neighbor must be allowed to have a book removed because it speaks of God, of freedom, of democracy.  There is no stopping it once started.

 

Mystery Board Games - Part of the "Everything Else"

Books, Movies and Board Games...  you can never have too many.  And if you have them life can not be dull or boring.  And if you don't include them in your life, I am convinced, you leave yourself open to stress and all its side effects of ill health - physical and mental.

Since I have started putting the mystery column in I began thinking about all those mystery board games in my collection.  I have at least 30 (the ones I can see without too much moving stuff and not including the spy types) and after thinking it over I would have to say that CLUE is still our favorite. 

For the Holmes fans, I must say that I have 5 Sherlock Holmes games, made by different companies and including a card game.

Here's the list:
Sherlock Holmes (5)
Sleuth
Mr. Ree
Whodunit
Alfred Hitchcock's Why
Where There's A Will
Who Stole Ed's Pants
Mystery Express
Murder on the Orient Express
Philip Marlow Detective GAme
Outrage
Mystery on the Nile
Mystery in the Abbey
Mystery Rummy
Kojak the Stakeout Game
221B Baker Street (4 versions)
Clue (at least 7 versions)
Clue Master Detective
Clue Museum Caper
Kill Dr Lucky (a mystery in reverse)
Totort: Nactexpress
Crime Club
Crime Solvers
Murphy
Scotland Yard

There's the list - sometime it would be good to have a mystery marathon and play them all... While I said that CLUE is our favorite I would put Mystery of the Abbey, Kill Dr. Lucky, and Mystery Express as other favorites.

Policemen To Combat Wits With - more mysteries

These are strictly American policemen and women at work. These books are not "cozy", in fact some have quite graphic violence.

Suzanne Chazin - With a twist on regular police stories, her series stars Georgia Skeeham, a fire marshal in NYC.  I held my breath and turned the pages as fast as possible.  These are non-stop excitement.


Patricia Cornwell - When it comes to forensics any list worth its salt has to include Cornwell's Dr. Kay Scarpetta and also Kathy Reichs' Temperance Brennan.


Jeffery Deaver - Well known for his Lincoln Rhyme series he now has a new heroine, Kathryn Dance, a brilliant interrogator and body language expert with the California Bureau of Investigation.  She first appeared in the Lincoln Rhyme book, Cold Moon, and I was hoping we would see more of her.


Tony Hillerman - This Grand Master of mystery writing has 18 books (and they are all great) featuring his two characters Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, Navaho tribal police officers.  Some books feature one or the other and many feature both.


JA Jance - She has three different characters, but my favorites are JP Beaumont, a Seattle policeman and Joanna Brady, a sheriff in Arizona. In two of her books they even work together.


JA Konrath - The Jack Daniels series.  "Jack" is a female Lt. in the Chicago Violent Crimes Division.  She's hard-nosed, has gray in her hair and is a good read.  All the books have titles of drinks. The first in the series is Whisky Sour.  Start there.


Archer Mayor - If you live in Vermont and you like mysteries surely you are reading the Joe Gunther series already.  If you don't live in the Green Mountain State these books will make you want to visit.


Ed McBain - McBain started his 87th Precinct series in 1956 and the last was published just after his death in 2005.  They are considered THE definition of the "procedural" due to the accuracy of the police work described.  They are dead-pan and violent.


Colin Wilcox - Here is a very good "procedural" writer.  His character, Frank Hastings, is a co-commander of the SFPD Homicide division.  Wilcox is not as well known as many current "hot" authors, but his books are solid.


Stuart Woods - Woods has many non-series books that seldom disappoint and a series character Holly Barker, a former military police commander and now a police chief in a small Florida town.

By the way - did you know that September is the National Get A Library Card Month?  Your local library will have books by these authors, and if they don't they will get them for you on InterLibrary Loan.  Use your library!

"Cozy" Mysteries

Amid all the back-to-school rush who has time for a complicated mystery? It is the perfect time for a "cozy", one of those mysteries in which murder is considered an aberration, an accident, in a world that is basically benign. Here are ten good writers.

Nancy Atherton - The Aunt Dimity series with Lori Shepard, an American, and her unexpected benefactor, Aunt Dimity, who happens to be a ghost. Their association begins when Dimity bequeaths her cottage in England to Lori. They are light-weight mysteries, but very delightful.


Dorothy Cannell - Ellie is a great heroine (detective). The books are tongue-in-cheek, laugh-out-loud fun, English country manor type mysteries.


Dorothy Gilman - The Mrs. Pollifax series. Mrs. Pollifax is a lively grandmother and CIA agent.


Carolyn Hart - Her books feature a South Carolina mystery bookshop owner and a crazy supporting cast in the Death on Demand series.


Carol Anne O'Marie - The Sister Mary Ellen series. While Sister Mary Ellen, in San Francisco, and her friend are nuns of "retirement age" they are very modern, humorous and likable. Unfortunately they seem to attract dead bodies.


Elliot Roosevelt - Featuring his mother, Eleanor, the First Lady.


Ian Sansom - A fun series featuring a Jewish vegetarian from London who is a bookmobile librarian in Northern Ireland. If you would like to read a book that makes librarians laugh give this one a go.


Alexander McCall Smith - He writes two series, the Ladies No 1 Detective Agency about a lady of "traditional size" in Botswana, and the Sunday Philosophy Club series featuring Isabel Dalhousie in Scotland. In both of these series, the mystery is not the main point of the book, but rather the characters themselves.


Josephine Winspear - She writes the Masie Dobbs series which could also appear in a historical mystery list as they take place during the 1920 - 30's in London.


Patricia Wentworth - Her series features Miss Silver in London, who reminds one of Miss Marple (although she appeared before Miss Marple) or Ngaio Marsh's Roderick Allen. Wentworth wrote from the late 1920's to the 60's and the books reflect that style.

Time has really gone quickly!

I didn't realize how long it has been since I posted.   Will promise to do better from here on in. One thing that I have been asked to do is to include all my mystery lists.  I have done about a dozen so far and will begin to get them onto the site right away.