As you can tell, I am still working through my Jane Austen addiction. The full title of this book is Jane Austen Made Me Do It – Original Stories Inspired by Literature’s Most Astute Observer of the Human Heart, Edited by Laurel Ann Nattress.

This is a really good book of short stories – 22 of them, each different from the next, each totally immersive. When each tale is complete, for just a moment I was lost between the two worlds. There are surely a lot of good writers in the world today – and so many of them are writing in Jane Austen’s voice!

So one morning several weeks ago, I woke up with a title in my head, and sat down at the computer to write the rest of the piece: The Black, White, Blue and Gray of It All. It is about black men and police officers, and was written shortly after the Dallas tragedy – and also after Alton Sterling and
Philando Castile died at the hands of police officers.

I’ll copy it into this blog sometime in the next couple of days. In the meantime, though, I’m just going to talk about it. After I wrote it, instead of just sending it on to Cindi Andrews at the Enquirer, I ran it by son Brian. I wanted his comments on the tone and direction, because it was a very strong piece, and for some reason I was fussed about it. But I didn’t say that – so he did a copy edit. He also picked up a couple of statements that were not quite accurate from his memory and point of view.

Even after I made the changes I wanted to make, from the ones he suggested, I remained in a fussed condition. Most unusual for me – I usual write what needs to be said, very fast, and that’s it. And I never fuss. Even when I sent it in to Cindi, the editorial page editor, who used to be my editor at Women’s Business, a monthly newspaper of which she was part owner, I was still fussing. I told her to make any changes she wanted, and that would be fine. I have never said any such thing to an editor before.

A couple of days later, but before it was actually published, I realized there was a conflict in my own mind. I definitely wanted to be clear, wanted folk to see what I see, and wanted them to know the pain being caused. But I also was feeling compassion for the white folks who seem unable to see, and didn’t want them to turn away, didn’t want them to refuse to hear. Aaaahhh. That relieved my confusion.

After it was published on July 21, I expected to get nasty notes, perhaps a nasty letter to the editor – I’ve had that experience before. Published the next day, July 22 (so he must have sat right down at his computer), was a strong letter in rebuttal, but not particularly nasty. He did believe that my statements about Brian being hassled were ‘incredulous'(sic), and sarcastically said I seem ‘to be an expert on “racist” police-community relations’, and wondered how many police runs I had been on. Of course, having lived and working in inner city neighborhoods for 51 years, I have had a pretty considerable experience with policing and police officers, and have indeed ridden with officers. I have also had experience with my sons and many friends during protests against the war, against the World Trade Organization, against injustice. And I’ve worked with many great folk in and around City Hall, who work hard to listen and respond.

The main response to the column, though, was during my regular work day and regular life, when so many people – white and black, male and female, told me they appreciated my column, and were very glad I had written it. Proof for the Enquirer, I think, that readership is still holding and strong, at least among people involved in making Cincinnati a better and happier place.

This is the second last of a 5 book series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Supposedly for middle and high schoolers. But those of us who love mythology and the ancient gods and goddesses can also be enthralled.

And I have always loved the labyrinth, and have been so happy to see them beginning to show up at spiritual centers, and indeed – all over the place. (There is a beautiful and accessible one on the riverfront in Cincinnati!)

So I would have read this one, even if I wasn’t already in love with the series.

And this might be my favorite so far – even more of that breakneck pace, Percy (Perseus) and all his friends, all the appropriate bad guys – and starring the labyrinth itself, which apparently is / was under the entire United States at least.

Almost everyone is still alive at the ending – and Rachel Elizabeth Dare, a mortal, has joined the good guys. This time, for the first time, we get clues at the very end about the next and last book in the series. Which I already have in my bedside table, thanks to the public library. Aaaahhhh. But I have to finish and return a collection of short stories by afficionados of Jane Austen first – so I have two addictions going at one time now. Fun!

You know I’m still in the middle of my Jane Austen craze. And I haven’t even read all of Jane’s actual books yet. In the meantime, my mystery loving self has started on the whole shelf full of Jane Austen mysteries that Stephanie Barron has been writing since 1996. Her fictional basis is that, while visiting friends who are of old Baltimore stock, and who live in a Georgian period home in that area, she explored with them a box of old papers and journals that turned out to be manuscripts written by Jane herself – there is a distant family connection – which included experiences, unknown to Austen scholars, that were ‘personal records of mysteries Jane Austen encountered and solved in the course of her short life’.

Stephanie definitely writes with Jane’s voice – that of a keen observer of occurrences and of behaviors of those around her, who then mulls that information over until she understands what is going on. At that point, Jane acts. She is not able to pass by a chance to fix a situation once she is sure of her facts. Which makes these mysteries totally wonderful – history, psychology, cultural notes, fashion, transportation – it’s all here in Jane / Stephanie’s work.

Plus the occasional – and modest – love interest. What constraint and restraint existed among the upper classes in Jane’s time. These mystery and mysterious journals also follow Jane’s actual path during the particular time period, whether she was living in Bath with her parents, or visiting siblings and friends in other parts of England.

A lot of delight in these pages. I’m reading them in order, and have completed Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor, Being the First Jane Austen Mystery; Jane and the Man of the Cloth; Jane and the Wandering Eye, Being the Third Jane Austen Mystery; and Jane and the Genius of the Place, Being the Fourth Jane Austen Mystery.

I know I’m going to be disappointed when there are no more to read, and I have to come back to the real world once more. Sigh.

Book Two of Percy Jackson and the Olympians published in 2006 continues the breakneck pace of The Lightning Thief. Percy (Perseus) returns as do most of his wonderful in several senses of the word friends. Including a cyclops who turns out to be his half-brother, Tyson, another son of Poseidon. Plus Annabeth, daughter of Athena, from the first book. And Grover the son of Pan, who keeps his goat feet covered with fake shoes.

One of their major problems to solve in this book is the actual Cyclops, the one who wanted to kill Odysseus. Circe and the Sirens pop up, too. The real problem, though, is Luke, son of Hermes, who wants to wipe out Olympus, stone by stone.

This is good, fun, interesting, well-tangled writing. I know it says it’s a kids book. You don’t have to believe that. : >

This is a fun book, a re-thinking of all the Greek mythology we all ran into more or less as kids. I reveled in it, loving and more or less believing all the books in a set in out bookshelves at home – fairy tales, knights in shining armor, Greek god/desses and all.

The Titan’s Curse, third book in the series The Olympians by Rick Riordan, is supposedly a kids’ book. Fast paced and simple in the way that Westerns are, it has sympathetic characters – humans, demigods, satyrs, cyclops and all. Plus a magical sword called Riptide, disguised as a fountain pen. And settings in the stratosphere, on trains, in, above and under the sea, in cars, in ballrooms.

Listening in on the conversation between Percy (Perseus) Jackson, our hero, and goddess Aphrodite is quite a treat – and technically, a good trick on the part of the author, to keep to the truth of the ancient stories in such a correct way.

The gods who are parents of these demigod kids can be very capricious in bailing them out of trouble, and even of starting trouble. They may tip the scales one way or another, but they also let the stories play out in their own way. The prophecies in the stories do warn us when someone is going to be disappearing / killed / turned into a tree – much like the Harry Potter stories do.

Super fun. A friend of mine has nearly an entire collection of Riordan’s many series. I may just work my way through all those shelves.

I have just finished binging on this novel. Eligible is ?A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice? ? which I have never read, but have seen as a play, and of course knew the story long before that.

It is a luscious book ? grabbed me as only a few others ever have: Gone with the Wind and Mists of Avalon, both of which are longer, but both of which felt the same. I could only eat, drink, sleep and read. So much emotion, so much insight, so much to imbibe.

Even knowing the outcome ? that Darcy and Liz would be together ? didn?t help. It was agonizing to wait through all those misunderstandings and mix-ups, through all that interference by all those others, playing their assigned roles.

And after it was all over, I had to go back and re-read the singular scene where they finally get their love for each other figured out, before I could take a long breath.

Next, I?m going to order the original Jane Austen version from the library ? so next weekend, I can binge on that. I?m not sure how it can be as good!

May 2, 2016
p.s. I did not wait ? but just went on Sunday afternoon and evening and, binging, re-read the entire thing again. Still luscious! And the library has a waiting list for the original ancient novel ? I?m 8th on the list for one of the 28 copies, as they are returned! So I?m going to order P. D. James? Death Comes to Pemberley to tide me over. : >