25 Influential Books

Pat Browning, another mystery author and an email friend, recently posted a list of 25 books that had influenced her -- and, for better or worse, included my own Signs in the Blood. That got me to thinking about my own list -- I couldn't resist and here it is.

Taking it from the top, the language of the Bible, the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (the non-modernized one), Shakespeare, and many of the poets is responsible for my fascination with words. I have a pretty good memory and I'm fond of quoting, as many of you know. But in my books I have to restrain myself to the older, out of copyright works. So I'm fortunate to have all these beautiful words dodging about through the winding corridors of my mind.

As a high school student, I was a great reader of science-fiction. I loved Ray Bradbury for his rich poetic language and lovely descriptions, as well as his thoughtful take on important themes. Robert Heinlein was another favorite -- even then, I think I knew his writing was a tad clunky and but, oh my, could he tell a story!

Historical fiction was my next passion. The ability of an good author to transport the reader in time and space is typified by Mary Renault. (Thanks to her, I'm convinced that I know ancient Greece.) The subplots in my books are the dipping of my toe into the stream of historical fiction. One day, who knows, I may take the full plunge.

Douglas Adams is just one of the many Silly Brits I have read, delighting in their way with a word. P.G. Wodehouse is the master, Adams and Neil Gaiman are close behind. And Monty Python -- all of them. I can't aspire to write like these guys, being neither silly nor a Brit, but I suspect there's some carry over into what I do.

Rumer Godden's In this House of Brede is, I'm sure, the origin of my use of internal monologue and Lee Smith's Fair and Tender Ladies is at least the godmother of Little Sylvie.

Robertson Davies is someone I'd like to write as well as. Add John Fowles, Jane Austen, Ann Tyler, Barbara Kingsolver, Margaret Atwood . . .

My influences from the mystery world would be my early favorites -- Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, followed by P.D. James. For a long time I read only British mysteries, but then I discoved Sharyn McCrumb and Tony Hillerman. And when I was working on the rewrite of my first book, my editor sent me a copy of Elizabeth George's first book as an illustration of the sort of thing she was looking for in terms of plotting.

The Whole Earth Catalog, was, in large part responsible for our moving to the mountains and taking up the farming life. That's influential!

Last of all, when my friend Sheila Kay Adams just up and wrote Come Go Home With Me and it was published with a foreword by Lee Smith, something began to simmer and fizz in my mind. I can do that, I thought.

Is that twenty-five? Who's counting? (Math is so over-rated, as my younger son once told me.) -- and I know I've left out at least twenty-five more.

I'd love to hear what books have been important in your lives . . .

In Search of Color

After a series of gray days, yesterday morning I took my camera and went looking for color. Daffodils are beginning to open everywhere and the lovely coral branches of the Sango Kaku Japanese maple are a welcome sight -- the tree was hit by a freeze a few years ago and had to be severely pruned but it's coming back!

I want to paint the inside of my kitchen cabinets this delicious shade of red, just for the thrilling jolt of color I'd get whenever I opened a door to take down the jar of Herbes de Provence or to put away the dishes. I've been meaning to do this for ages -- maybe this will be the year.

Forsythia is at its peak -- such an obliging plant. This below is one I rooted from pruned branches a few years back. (Note to self -- root lots more! Spread forsythia up and down the mountain to brighten future Springs!)

As I was returning to the house to finish wrangling with our tax information, I saw that the lilac by the steps is covered with buds. I've had this shrub for years -- it was a gift from a friend's yard -- and it's always bloomed very sparingly. But now -- well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we don't have a freeze or anything else to destroy what seems to be a very promising crop of lilac blooms.

I don't want to count my buds before they open . . . but can you imagine how good it would smell?

Rain and Taxes

It's been beautifully rainy for several days now and, while I'm making real progress with the revision of Miss Birdie's book, I was forced to spend yesterday gathering and recording tax information, a task that I always manage to put off till the last minute.

I'm not talking about actually doing the taxes -- just getting things organized so the tax preparer doesn't seize up when she sees the stuff. Between the farm and depreciation schedules and a rental property and my alleged writing career with deductions for travel to conferences and printer ink and membership in professional organizations . . . well, it's way too much to expect of an English major.

I prepared for the ordeal with a hearty breakfast -- John made that gorgeous bread and I'll be sharing the recipe soon.

I didn't quite finish -- that will happen today. But once more I told myself that this year, I'll do better and have a tidy way of recording things -- better than a wad of cash register slips and illegible scribbled notes -- rnd trp Albemarle followed by an illegible number that may be mileage or amount spent on gas.

I'm better organized than in years past -- just look at all those envelopes with things like TAXES and CHARITY and FARM written on them. Unfortunately, I don't always put things in their proper places right away and part of this morning was spent catching up with the unsorted receipts from last October, November, and December.

And all the while I was toiling away, I was grinding my teeth, thinking of those %#$@% s at AIG and their millions in bonuses -- which I will have the privilege of helping to pay for, once all this gets sorted out.

One begin to feel like the French peasants, watching a useless aristocracy fritter away vast sums while ordinary people scratched for a living.

Enough whining! A Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all and here's a link to some fine pictures of Ireland's sacred sites, taken by a former writing student of mine. Slainte!

Could Somebody Explain, Why Is . . .

A.I.G. Planning Huge Bonuses After $170 Billion Bailout

Well??????

I almost had to look at the date to make sure it wasn't April Fools' Day.

Paying millions in bonuses to the same clowns who have put a company into the position of needing billions in bailout . . . and why? So that they can retain the services of said clowns.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

from The New York Times -March 15, 2009

A.I.G. Planning Huge Bonuses After $170 Billion Bailout

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON — The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses by Sunday to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.

Word of the bonuses last week stirred such deep consternation inside the Obama administration that Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the firm they were unacceptable and demanded they be renegotiated, a senior administration official said. But the bonuses will go forward because lawyers said the firm was contractually obligated to pay them.

The payments to A.I.G.’s financial products unit are in addition to $121 million in previously scheduled bonuses for the company’s senior executives and 6,400 employees across the sprawling corporation. Mr. Geithner last week pressured A.I.G. to cut the $9.6 million going to the top 50 executives in half and tie the rest to performance.

The payment of so much money at a company at the heart of the financial collapse that sent the broader economy into a tailspin almost certainly will fuel a popular backlash against the government’s efforts to prop up Wall Street. Past bonuses already have prompted President Obama and Congress to impose tough rules on corporate executive compensation at firms bailed out with taxpayer money.

A.I.G., nearly 80 percent of which is now owned by the government, defended its bonuses, arguing that they were promised last year before the crisis and cannot be legally canceled. In a letter to Mr. Geithner, Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., said at least some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives.

“We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the A.I.G. businesses — which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers — if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury,” he wrote Mr. Geithner on Saturday.

Still, Mr. Liddy seemed stung by his talk with Mr. Geithner, calling their conversation last Wednesday “a difficult one for me” and noting that he receives no bonus himself. “Needless to say, in the current circumstances,” Mr. Liddy wrote, “I do not like these arrangements and find it distasteful and difficult to recommend to you that we must proceed with them.”

An A.I.G. spokeswoman said Saturday that the company had no comment beyond the letter. The bonuses were first reported by The Washington Post.

The senior government official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said the administration was outraged. “It is unacceptable for Wall Street firms receiving government assistance to hand out million-dollar bonuses, while hard-working Americans bear the burden of this economic crisis,” the official said.

Of all the financial institutions that have been propped up by taxpayer dollars, none has received more money than A.I.G. and none has infuriated lawmakers more with practices that policy makers have called reckless.

The bonuses will be paid to executives at A.I.G.’s financial products division, the unit that wrote trillions of dollars’ worth of credit-default swaps that protected investors from defaults on bonds backed in many cases by subprime mortgages.

The bonus plan covers 400 employees, and the bonuses range from as little as $1,000 to as much as $6.5 million. Seven executives at the financial products unit were entitled to receive more than $3 million in bonuses.

Mr. Liddy, whom Federal Reserve and Treasury officials recruited after A.I.G. faltered last September and received its first round of bailout money, said the bonuses and “retention pay” had been agreed to in early 2008 and were for the most part legally required.

The company told the Treasury that there were two categories of bonus payments, with the first to be given to senior executives. The administration official said Mr. Geithner had told A.I.G. to revise them to protect taxpayer dollars and tie future payments to performance.

The second group of bonuses covers some 2008 retention payments from contracts entered into before government involvement in A.I.G. Indeed, in his letter to Mr. Geithner, Mr. Liddy wrote that he had shown the details of the $450 million bonus pool to outside lawyers and been told that A.I.G. had no choice but to follow through with the payment schedule.

The administration official said the Treasury Department did its own legal analysis and concluded that those contracts could not be broken. The official noted that even a provision recently pushed through Congress by Senator Christopher J. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, had an exemption for such bonus agreements already in place.

But the official said the administration will force A.I.G. to eventually repay the cost of the bonuses to the taxpayers as part of the agreement with the firm, which is being restructured.

A.I.G. did cut other bonuses, Mr. Liddy explained, but those were part of the compensation for people who dealt in other parts of the company and had no direct involvement with the derivatives.

Mr. Liddy wrote that A.I.G. hoped to reduce its retention bonuses for 2009 by 30 percent. He said the top 25 executives at the financial products division had also agreed to reduce their salary for the rest of 2009 to $1.

Ever since it was bailed out by the government last fall, A.I.G. has been defending itself against accusations that it was richly compensating people who caused one of the biggest financial crises in American history.

A.I.G.’s main business is insurance, but the financial products unit sold hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of derivatives, the notorious credit-default swaps that nearly toppled the entire company last fall.

A.I.G. had set up a special bonus pool for the financial products unit early in 2008, before the company’s near collapse, when problems stemming from the mortgage crisis were becoming clear and there were concerns that some of the best-informed derivatives specialists might leave. It locked in a total amount, $450 million, for the financial products unit and prepared to pay it in a series of installments, to encourage people to stay.

Only part of the payments had been made by last fall, when A.I.G. nearly collapsed. In documents provided to the Treasury, A.I.G. said it was required to pay about $165 million in bonuses on or before Sunday. That is in addition to $55 million in December.

Under a deal reached last week, A.I.G. agreed that the top 50 executives would get half of the $9.6 million they were supposed to get by March 15. The second half of their bonuses would be paid out in two installments in July and in September. To get those payments, Treasury officials said, A.I.G. would have to show that it had made progress toward its goal of selling off business units and repaying the government.

The financial products unit is now being painstakingly wound down.

Mary Williams Walsh contributed reporting.

Like a Good Deed . . .

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

from "The Merchant of Venice"





Springtime's yellows shine strongest on rainy gray days such as we had yesterday.

Daffodils gleam against wet stone and the forsythias, so recently unpromising straggles of bare brown stems, throw up their arms, suddenly festooned with yellow bells, and ring out the glad message of Spring's imminent arrival.

All around us, Springtime yellows are unfurling, shining out like candles in the gloom.

The Other Side of Darkness

. . . For my friend Sue (one of them), whose email yesterday set me thinking of of the two-sidedness of life, the good and the bad, the joyful and the tragic . . . and how light shines brightest when seen against the dark. . .

Morning

Illuminating
The pomelo's perfection --
Pink transparency.

Midday

A shaft of daylight
Beyond the dark-shadowed barn
Sings of Spring's return.

Evening

'Nothing gold can stay. . .'
But ah! the gilded needles
On that pine up there!

Fabulous Blog Award

I just received recognition from Stella at http://star-newblog.blogspot.com/ in the form of a "Fabulous Blog Award" for Vicki Lane Mysteries.

Even though the picture is so not me, I really appreciate this award and am paying it forward. Here are five picks -- some of the most frequent posters of the blogs I follow:



1.) Here, Where I Am
2.) Thatchwick Cottage
3.) Musings From Fairlight Farm
4. The Writers Porch
5. Meanderings and Muses


These five are invited to pass along the award. The rules (not mine, they came with the award): You must pass it on to 5 other Fabulous Bloggers in a post. You may find their email addresses on their Profile page or, if not available, post as a "Comment" to their latest post.

You must include the person that gave you the award, and link it back to them. You must list 5 of your Fabulous addictions in the post.

You must copy and paste these rules in the post.

Right click the award icon & save to your computer then post with your own awards.To my way of thinking, this is not only a nice tribute, it widens the reading audience.

5 of my Fabulous Addictions (not in any particular order): writing, reading, gardening, sunrises, digital camera

So, there we are. There are other equally worthy blogs that I check every day -- I just grabbed these for a variety of reasons -- poetry, South African flora and fauna, Shetland sheep, book talk, and more book talk -- mainly mysteries.

And thanks, Stella!

A Book And Its Cover

I'm a long-time fan of Elizabeth Goudges's novels. I own and have read and re-read most of them -- Green Dolphin Street, The Rosemary Tree, The Scent of Water, The White Witch, The Child from the Sea, to name a few. Some are historical; others were contemporary -- the Eliot family saga is set in the thirties and forties. I read them as much for the lush descriptions as for the stories -- which are fairly romantic -- though these are a long way from "romance novels," (said she, drawing her skirts aside.)

So imagine my chagrin when the paperback above showed up among the older books I'd requested for my birthday. I'd asked my husband to get me a copy of Goudge's first novel, written in 1934. I'd never read Island Magic and was thrilled at the thought of a new Elizabeth Goudge to read. (And having just typed that, I wonder if my choice of Elizabeth Goodweather as a name was influenced by my long-time admiration for another E. G.?)

I digress. The book is long out of print and a hardback copy costs eighty to ninety dollars. I'm not a Collector; I'm a reader, so what I got was a mass-market paperback reprint -- which originally sold for ninety-five cents but was available now -used -- for 11.95. Plus shipping and handling.

But the cover! Oh my goodness, the cover! If I'd been in a public place, I'd have had to hide it, it is so much Not the Sort of Book I read.

Except that Island Magic isn't at all like that. The cover portrays a single, never repeated moment -- the book is more about family and children and love and sacrifice than Romance. I suppose the cover was a marketing decision.

Also among my reading pleasures are the novels of Angela Thirkell -- who is a kind of Twentieth Century Jane Austen. Here's another example of marketing choosing covers without reading the book. This dramatic wench in blue bears no resemblance to anyone in the book, which is peopled by a lovely clutch of hard-working, somewhat shabby aristocrats and upper class Brits, as well as a smattering of the lower classes in all their cheerful variety.

Recently, thank goodness, the Thirkell books have all been reprinted in elegant trade paperbacks with covers taken from paintings -- much more suitable. And I don't have to hide the covers.

Now here is a perfect match of cover and book. This reprint of Stella Gibbons' hilarious spoof sports a cover by the incomparable Roz Chast. Only she could do justice to the quirky denizens of Cold Comfort Farm.

If ever you were made to suffer through Thomas Hardy's gloomier works of life and death and misery in the English countryside, this will take the nasty taste away! And if you remember the purpler part of D.H. Lawrence's prose, in which all of nature is tumescent and waxing and burgeoning, well, Cold Comfort Farm should give you a reminiscent giggle.

Digging in the Dirt

A beautiful sunrise yesterday ushered in a perfect day for digging in the dirt. In spite of the fact that winter's not over yet, I tilled and tidied and planted. It felt good to be back in the garden -- back where I belong.

I kept an eye on the black pussy willows and watched as, in the course of the day, they bloomed out pink and chartreuse (Nature isn't afraid of color) at the base of their black velvet catkins. By afternoon the catkins were a-hum with honey bees, their legs fat with yellow pollen.

The freshly tilled box beds are a magnet for the dogs -- "It's a bed, isn't it?" Maggie seems to say, in her most supercilious manner.

So to deter doggy wallowing, I lay fence posts across the newly planted Brussels sprouts, blanket freshly sown lettuce seed with row cover, set PVC hoops over the spinach and Chinese cabbage seeds.

At least the dogs keep the groundhogs away. A few days ago I was chatting with a neighbor who was out for a walk. We spoke of gardens and planting and he allowed as how he wasn't making a garden this year because in the past, as quick as his plants came up, the groundhogs would gobble the tender green sprouts.

"I told my wife," he said, "if the groundhogs want beans this year, by god, let them plant 'em!"

The Hummers Are Coming!

Or they may already be there, depending on your location. Here in the eastern US, we have only the Ruby-Throated variety, but they're a delight to behold. First the males appear and several weeks later, the females. And then they court and do their loopy little sky dance and squabble over the feeders and generally entertain us till Fall.

The reason I bring this up now is this nifty link, sent to me by Liz G. It will take you to a map where dots mark first sightings of returning hummers. (As of Sunday night there had been a sighting in northern Louisiana.) The sightings are emailed in -- reported by folks like you and me.

The map is only for the Ruby-Throated's range (online it extends into Canada.) But the site is full of pictures and lots of good information about humming birds in their many varieties.

Personally, I find it fascinating to watch the dots creep northward.

I don't really remember exactly when the hummers return to our area -- early to mid-April, I think. But I'll be waiting to add my dot to the map!

Full disclosure: These humming bird pictures aren't mine -- my friend Vic made them last year on our front porch with his super-duper camera.

Thanks, Liz, for the link!

Tabula Rasa

A blank slate -- that's what the garden is just now. Freshly tilled box beds that will eventually overflow (thinking positively here) with slim green trellised cucumbers, shiny deep purple eggplants, Brussels sprouts, collards, kale, rainbow chard, broccoli, peppers, sweet and hot -- no, that all won't fit in these few boxes -- but there are six more tiers in the garden . . .

The banties' chicken tractor has been moved to sit atop the asparagus bed for a few weeks -- just until the first green spears break through. We hope that the biddies will eat the eggs or larvae of the asparagus beetles that have plagued us the past few years. We know they'll fertilize the soil.

It's really fun, having the banties right there. They are curious and companionable little creatures and I enjoy watching them scratch around in the great piles of fresh green chickweed and henbit that I pulled out of the beds, preparatory to John's tilling them.

The spring time energy I spoke of in yesterday's post is flowing! Crocuses are blooming along with the earliest of daffodils and I planted a few red onion sets, along with some romaine lettuce -- seed left over from last year so it may or may not do. But rain is predicted and I just wanted something in the ground!

The unpromising looking stuff in the picture below is horseradish -- another welcome sign of coming Spring.

Springing

It's beginning to seem rather Spring-ish with sunshine and warm temperatures and green things pushing up out of the ground. Here at the farm things are Getting Done -- the barn roof gets a new tin patch, fences are being repaired, ground plowed for potatoes, trees cut for fire wood and more mushroom logs -- there's even talk of a milk cow and a couple of pigs -- though nothing definite yet.

Every spring is like this -- we burst with energy and the weather, no longer cold but not yet hot, makes everything seem possible. And this spring, with the dire state of the economy, getting the most out of the farm seems like an important priority.

With the best will in the world, it's still going to take time to turn things around and I think of our predecessor here -- Clifford -- who said of the Great Depression, "Hit didn't make much difference to us -- we went on doing what we always had done and eating what we always had et -- there was times, though, we had cornbread for breakfast for we couldn't afford biscuit flour."

We moved to the farm during the oil crisis of the seventies, always with the belief that if things got really bad, we'd be better off here than most anywhere else.

It still feels that way.