Holiday Blogs 2010

Daniel Silva on Sharing a Book

Stephen — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 13:00:00 +0000

On this New Year’s Day, international bestseller Daniel Silva, the celebrated author of 13 novels --- including THE REMBRANDT AFFAIR, the latest installment of the highly acclaimed Gabriel Allon series --- shares the compelling story of one man who, with the help of a shared book, was able to turn a terrible tragedy into personal triumph.

Over the years, I have been especially touched by readers who tell me how they have shared my books with family members. How the stories have given them common ground. How children and parents or sisters and brothers have connected in a way they never had before. For a writer, there is no greater compliment. But of all the stories I have heard, nothing prepared me for this one.

A few years ago, I did a book tour event in Lexington, Kentucky for THE MESSENGER. I did not know him at the time, but one of the people who came to get a book signed that day was a well-known and respected attorney named Les Morris. He and his wife were planning a vacation to Alaska, and he planned to read the book on the trip. A few weeks later, there was a terrible tragedy. Comair Flight 5191 crashed on August 27, 2006, and Les Morris and 48 others died.

I heard about the crash, but had no idea that Les Morris was on the plane. Nor could I ever imagine what would happen next. It turns out that when his son, Wyn, went to his parents’ house to take care of their belongings, he found the dust jacket of THE MESSENGER and realized his father had taken the book with him. Then, months later, Wyn received an account of his father's personal effects, and was stunned to discover the signed book had miraculously survived the fire and devastation of the crash.

Wyn Morris told a reporter for WKYT television, "It just felt really good to bring it home, in a sense, this thing that I knew was special to my Dad, that he had had with him, and just to have it back felt like having a piece of him."

It turned out, having the book meant even more. Wyn Morris had always wanted to open a book store. So, inspired by his father, in 2008 he opened The Morris Book Shop in Lexington, Kentucky and told WKYT, "Every day could be your last day. Accidents happen, and they are kind of a wake-up call to stop screwing around and stop talking about what you want to do someday. Whether it is to travel, or get a motorcycle, or fly in a hot air balloon or, God forbid, open a bookstore."

I am so proud of the fact that if you visit the book shop you will see Les Morris's signed copy of THE MESSENGER.

So as I do every year, I want to thank those of you who share my books, and a special thanks to Les and to Wyn for loving books and for opening a bookstore!

And with this incredible story of hope, love and hidden opportunity, the Bookreporter.com Holiday Author Blogs draw to a close. A special thanks to the 50 authors who have made this series possible with their profound, heartfelt and often hilarious holiday pieces, and to all of you who have taken the time to read and enjoy these extraordinary memories along with us. We here at Bookreporter.com hope you have had a wonderful holiday season, and we wish you all the best for a safe and healthy 2011. Happy New Year, and see you next November --- the holidays will be here again before you know it!

Susan Henderson on the Best Thing About Books

Stephen — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Today, Susan Henderson --- two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, first-time novelist and the prolific author of UP FROM THE BLUE --- ushers in the start of a new year with the story of a childhood obsession that opened up a whole new world.

As a child, I liked everything about books --- from the wordplay of A.A. Milne and Rudyard Kipling, to the paintings of Ezra Jack Keats and Brian Wildsmith. I liked sounding out words I’d never seen before, and I liked being read to, even when I wasn’t quite listening. But one book changed everything for me. The Christmas I was in second grade, my mom gave me LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I didn’t just like this book; I was obsessed with it.

Suddenly I was sneaking it out of my desk during class, desperate to read a few more pages. Never mind its tame, pastel cover, LITTLE HOUSE showed a world full of the danger I both feared and longed for as a child.There were bears and yellowjackets, scorching hot bullets, and there was the wonderfully gruesome process of making headcheese.

And there was Laura, the first tomboy I discovered in literature. Later, I would find Pippi, Ramona and Scout. These were the feisty girls who took dares and told fibs and wouldn’t cry if they scraped their knees…but only Laura played with a balloon made from a pig’s bladder.

Until I read this book, I’d always felt like an outsider, and now suddenly I had company. It was this sense of belonging that spurred me to the library, where I checked out the rest of the books in the series. I then moved on to other authors, thrilled to see a bird’s eye view of the world and to feel the privilege and discomfort of getting inside a heart that was different from my own. The world was infinitely more glorious and wicked than I ever dreamed.

A few years ago, I read the entire Little House series to my two sons. I wanted them to see the world through the eyes of a brave and opinionated little girl who didn’t mind getting dirty and didn’t need to be rescued. Even today, they’ll mention details from the book --- the corncob Laura carried around as her doll, the plague of grasshoppers, the blizzard when Pa disappeared for days and came back missing part of his nose, and the train no one could dig out of the snow.

But this series didn’t send my boys into literary bliss the way it did me. And maybe that’s the best thing about books --- how they are filtered through each reader’s temperament, life experience and dreams so that we are, in essence, not even reading the same stories. What a thrill, then, it was to see my boys discover those first books that truly captured them --- sneaking the light back on after I’d tucked them in and entering the magic.

Tomorrow, the Bookreporter.com Holiday Author Blogs draw to a close, as Daniel Silva shares a profound story of books, tragedy and one man’s personal triumph.

Ann Pearlman on Receiving a Book for Christmas

Stephen — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

A painter, sculptor and psychotherapist, Ann Pearlman is the author of THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CLUB and its recently released companion, THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE COOKBOOK: All the Rules and Delicious Recipes to Start Your Own Holiday Cookie Club, as well as a riveting personal memoir. Below, she reflects on how a seemingly strange gift from her grandfather has helped her on her own remarkable march through life.

I was in the early years of high school when my grandfather gave me MARCH OF ARCHAEOLOGYby C.W. Ceram for Christmas. The book’s cover, the famous golden lid of the mummy of Tutankhamen, and the story inside of the discovery of his tomb galvanized me.

I don’t know why my grandfather gave me this book. Perhaps because I had been fascinated by the mummies in the basement cases of the Chicago Museum of Natural History. I had asked him questions about how the bodies had become so petrified. I had marveled at the skin, the hair, the wrappings turned to sandy webs of a person who had lived 4,000 years ago and could never have imagined ending up in a museum where a little girl stared into his face and wondered about his life. In any case, I devoured the chapters on the discovery of the tomb, the Rosetta Stone and culture of ancient Egypt, and then scoured the Carnegie Library for books about the creation of mummies, the religion that believed that the body returned life. There, too, I discovered a dusty book teaching hieroglyphics, and laboriously labored to translate the BOOK OF THE DEAD.

Unbelievably, with more chutzpah than I think I could muster now, I walked into the office of the director of the Carnegie Museum, my handwritten translation clutched in the crook of my arm, and announced that I was an Egyptologist and wanted a job. Wise man that he was, the director showed me an archive stacked with Native American artifacts: baskets, blankets, moccasins, beaded bands, feathered headdresses and shrunken heads. He needed someone to re-label these items. Alas, the tags were rotting away, and history would be lost. I could save relics of the great people who lived and flourished before Columbus wiped them out with disease and war. For the next two years, because neat penmanship was never my forte, I carefully wrote numbers with India ink on linen labels and tied them to the special artifacts, wondering at the people who had woven the basket, gathered the feathers, and shrunk the head. I skipped a lot of high school to sneak into the huge, locked room and complete my task --- an act that I’m sure my grandfather would not have censured.

From that book, my love of archaeology expanded to anthropology and psychology. It presented me with a career as a therapist and a writer, as I continued my curiosity to understand people within their culture; to uncover, to unwrap the commonality between that man turned into a mummy leaning against a wall behind a glass case in Chicago, and me, writing this today in my modern hieroglyphics with my laptop while a plane carries me across the United States.

My grandfather would be so pleased at the impact of that book. And maybe amazed. He could have no idea of the ripples that present would cause, or the changes that would take place in his granddaughter’s lifetime.

Be sure to check back tomorrow, as Susan Henderson helps bring in the New Year with the story of her Little House obsession.

Sally Gunning: My Favorite Book Received and Given

Stephen — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 21:00:00 +0000

This afternoon, Sally Gunning --- the critically acclaimed author of several historical novels, including the 2010 release THE REBELLION OF JANE CLARK --- remembers the unforeseen gift that gave her a sense of belonging.

Every December, between the ages of six and 16, I sat down with my red Magic Marker and wrote in large block letters on the top of my Christmas list a single word: HORSE. When I was quite small, my parents made the huge mistake of taking me for a pony ride at a local farm. Next came a few riding lessons, but no doubt my parents foresaw the slippery slope ahead; when the price of the lessons increased, my parents informed me they could no longer afford to pay for them. To me, the solution was simple --- if I owned my own horse, we wouldn’t have to pay to use someone else’s, but my parents’ financial acumen just wasn’t as advanced as mine.

Looking back, it’s easy enough to see that there was always little --- read no --- chance of Santa ever cramming a horse down our chimney, but I felt I was getting close the year I turned 11, when Norman Thelwell’s unassuming little book, A LEG AT EACH CORNER, appeared under the tree. The first chapter was titled “How to Get a Pony,” and there it was in black and white and tongue-in-cheek: Everything I needed to know to make my dream come true. Subsequent chapters gave advice on learning to ride, grooming, schooling and health; the illustrations showed a small child trying to catch a wild pony with a butterfly net, or saddle a dog, or pole-vault into the saddle of a creature that looked more like the shaggy dog than a pony. I caught on soon enough that this wasn’t the how-to book I’d hoped for --- say, the kind that might precede my being led into the garage to find a horse hidden behind the Chevy --- but as I opened the book and saw that I got the jokes in the comic sketches of the beribboned ponies and hard-hatted children of the horse world, I felt, for the first time, that I belonged to that world, too.

Many Christmases later, it finally sank in that I wasn’t ever going to catch a whiff of horse amongst the pine needles, but a few more Christmases and it no longer mattered; I had moved on to other things. A number of years ago, however, I discovered I had another horse nut on my hands in a beloved 10-year-old niece, and I hastened out in search of a copy of A LEG AT EACH CORNER for her. Incomprehensibly, it had been allowed to fall out of print, and the used copy I managed to track down cost me almost as much as a small horse, but my niece received the book with something very close to my old joy. She got the jokes. Later, she even got the horse. Today, she is a bona fide citizen of the horse world, and I’m only the occasional tourist there. But A LEG AT EACH CORNER still sits on my overflowing bookshelves, and every time I catch sight of it I smile, remembering those days when I only needed to step through those pages to belong, too.

Tomorrow, Ann Pearlman muses on an unusual gift from her grandfather that’s helped her on her own march through life.

Rachael Herron: The Gift of Words

Stephen — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Rachael Herron is a long-time knitter and a first-time author, whose gripping romance, HOW TO KNIT A LOVE SONG, hit stores last spring. Below, she remembers the heartbreakingly bookless Christmas that launched her career as a writer.

Books were the currency in my childhood home. They were our reward, our allowance and, if taken away, our punishment. My parents were rarely able to afford to buy books for us, but we were allowed to check out 10 books at a time from the library each week. It was never, ever enough. We three girls were voracious, as were our parents. We read at the breakfast table, after breakfast in our rooms, at the lunch table, and outside in the afternoon. We weren't allowed to read at the dinner table, which broke our hearts --- the exception to this rule was if Dad was traveling for work. Then --- and only then --- could we read at dinnertime, which was absolute heaven. Looking back, I think that we must have been a quiet family, but I don't remember it that way. Our books were our constant companions, full of noise and joy; and even better, books were the world my family shared.

Because of their short supply, books were in high demand. We read and reread our favorites until they were dog-eared and ragged, the covers limp with exhaustion. But every Christmas we each got at least one book. It was the gift I wanted most, the one I looked most forward to. One year, I got the bike I wanted with the yellow banana seat, and I was delirious with happiness. But I still saved the book-shaped package for last, because in my heart, a book was always the best gift of all.

Usually, we could expect one book from abroad, since my mother was a Kiwi and had librarian friends back at home. We'd also normally get one book from the local bookshop. I remember a few years during which none of us could get enough of James Herriot. We went through the entire collection of his tales about being a vet in Yorkshire, and we ended up knowing things about cows that were more interesting than useful. (I still remember his exact description of how to rotate a calf in utero, a skill that still hasn't come in handy for me.) And when I think of World War II, my mind immediately flashes to Herriot training for the Royal Air Force, his new wife, Helen, as pregnant as any expectant animal he'd ever treated. Those books took us away; we were transported. We knew Yorkshire; we knew those people.

One Christmas during my early 20s, Dad played Santa, distributing the gifts from under the tree. Then we all went around the circle, unwrapping them one by one. I watched my family open their presents, ogling their new books, but I kept my book-shaped package for last, as always.

It turned out to be a video cassette of Anne of Green Gables. Now, I loved the PBS drama almost as much as I'd loved the books, which I'd always been crazy about. But it was decidedly not a book. I hid my disappointment, as first my sisters and then my parents drifted away to read their new gifts. The house grew quiet, and I sat in front of the fireplace, feeling bereft.

And I remember this moment quite vividly --- I’d always said I wanted to be a writer, yes. But that was when I first understood how important writers were in my life. They created the space in which I lived. And I wanted to be one, a real writer --- I didn’t want to just scribble in my journal for the rest of my life.

I went to the bookshelf in my childhood room. Instead of pulling down a well-loved L.M. Montgomery or another one of James Herriot's books, I took down a blank book I'd received years before as a gift.

I started really writing.

Later that year, I switched my major in school. Then I went on to get an MFA in Creative Writing. And just last Christmas, I received the gift that came as a direct result of that bookless holiday: A galley of my first novel, HOW TO KNIT A LOVE SONG, was finally in my hands. I'm sure my face was brighter than the well-lit Christmas tree.

That book came out in March, and I'll have three more books coming out next year. Many years after that fateful Christmas, I can say that I really am a writer, and I hope with all my heart that, this year, someone will pull my book out from under a tree and unwrap it. Then, I hope that they find their own quiet place in which to curl up and read, living for a brief time in the world that I love. That, to me, would be a fine, fine Christmas.

Join the Bookreporter.com Holiday Author Blogs again this afternoon, as Sally Gunning remembers a gift that gave her a sense of belonging.

Karen Abbott: My Best Christmas

Stephen — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Ex-journalist Karen Abbott is the New York Times bestselling author of two fast-paced books about the glitz and glamour of early 20th-century America: SIN IN THE SECOND CITY: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America’s Soul and AMERICAN ROSE: A Nation Laid Bare, the Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee, available in stores today. Below, she recollects her best (and bloodiest) Christmas ever, and the book that made her holiday misadventures worthwhile.

I’ll admit it: I’m a Scrooge. I don’t much care for Christmas. As I kid, I leapt off Santa’s lap, ran screaming through the mall, and hid behind the sales rack at J.C. Penney’s, my mother in hot pursuit. I haven’t decorated a tree since entering adulthood. I like my chestnuts unroasted, thank you very much. Carolers make me homicidal. So does the forced cheer. I much prefer Halloween, when the masks are literal.

Christmas of 2006 loomed, promising greater stress than usual; I was on deadline to turn in my first book. I was living in Atlanta at the time, and my husband and I decided not to take our usual trip north to see family (mine in Philadelphia, his in New Jersey). Instead, we would go to a dinner party hosted by another couple in the city. This decision brought such an overwhelming sense of relief that, for the two weeks leading up to Christmas, a succession of tiny joys piled up in my brain, a mental stocking stuffed with the rarest of goodies. I would not have to drive 12 hours in a car with our two parrots screeching in the backseat. I would not have to watch my uncle open his traditional gift (from his octogenarian mother-in-law) of an extra long beef log and a subscription to Playboy. Perhaps best of all, I would not have to cross the border into the wilds of New Jersey. I even got into the spirit of the season, putting the Run-DMC classic “Christmas in Hollis” on repeat and draping a sprig of tinsel across the mantel.

At around 4pm on Christmas Day, we were ready to go. My husband bagged a bottle of wine and a cherry pie and went out to warm up the car. I was in charge of putting the parrots away. We have two African Greys, which are known for their intelligence (they are able to use entire sentences in proper context), mimicry skills and desire for constant attention. They’re incredibly neurotic and prone to depression; there is even a “birdie Prozac” you can slip in their water. Most of the time, they’re affectionate and playful companions, but they’re also only one or two generations removed from the wild, and so can be irascible and unpredictable. They’re like four-year-olds who never grow up, four-year-olds who can live to age 70. At the time, Poe (named for Edgar Allan) was nine, and Dexter (named for the author Pete Dexter) was six. We’d raised them both since they were six weeks old and scrawny, featherless clumps of squirming cartilage and tender bones. We syringe-fed them and swaddled them in blankets until they fell asleep, and waited for their first words.

I’d always had parakeets growing up, and back in 1998, I decided I wanted another bird, and I wanted to upgrade. My husband thought I was nuts. We were 24 years old, newly married, more than $100,000 in debt from student loans, and had just bought our first house. African Grey parrots cost $1500 a pop, not including food, cage and accessories. I went to the bird farm anyway, put a $500 non-refundable deposit on my credit card, and brought Poe home. My husband, who is the kindest, most even-tempered person I know --- to this day, I’ve never heard him raise his voice --- looked at me with a quiet, heartbreaking fury.

“He’s your bird,” he said, and walked away. My mother had to pay off the balance.

A few days later, I traveled to Los Angeles for work. When I returned, I found my husband watching football on the couch, cradling the bird in the crook of his arm. Poe has been his bird ever since. Three years later, Dexter became mine.

On that Christmas Day, Poe obediently stepped off my hand and into his cage. But Dexter was obstinate, curling his talons around my finger and staring at me with one quick and wily eye. With my other hand, I patted his back and told him we’d be home soon. He swiveled his neck and fixed me with his other eye. Then he seemed to sigh and settle his wings, sinking into himself. He is a zaftig creature --- the vet categorizes him as a large bird instead of medium and charges extra to groom him --- and this wing-settling always makes his neck disappear. It’s rather endearing. I felt guilty leaving him, and sought out a patch of neck to kiss.

He bit me. Hard. Through my upper lip.

After 10 minutes of howling and stifling an urge to bring Dexter as a side dish, I decided I still wanted to go to the dinner party. I pressed an icepack to my mouth, and my husband put the bird away. He was still standing on the floor where I’d dropped him, saying “Sorry, buddy” over and over in a soft and gentle voice. I didn’t respond.

We arrived, and my friend immediately plied me with painkillers and a glass of wine, which I tried to drink with a straw. Dumb idea --- pursing my lips around the plastic caused too much strain. The bleeding accelerated. I did a shot of whiskey instead, no mouth maneuvering involved, just a warm burn tunneling through the throat. It gave me hope. We sat down to dinner. The first course was a splendid pumpkin soup. Eating soup, of course, requires a pursing of the lips. I tried my best. I slurped loudly. A sliver of skin on my lip flapped open. Everyone was polite enough not to mention that I was now bleeding into my bowl. My husband stood and announced that I might needed stitches, and we should probably head over to Grady Hospital.

I’m pretty confident I was the only parrot-related casualty in the waiting room, which was doing swift business. I perused the other wounds: a knife fight, an alcohol-induced lump on the head, black eyes and broken arms and other domestic-related horrors. I forced myself to look at the TV. Rocky IV was playing. “We can’t change what we are,” Sylvester Stallone mumbled. “We can only hope to go with what we are.” I was having Christmas at home anyway, by proxy, only this time no one around me bothered to feign joy.

A half-hour passed with my face in cloud of tissues. My husband tapped my arm. My friend was there. “I wanted to give you your gift,” she said, “in case you couldn’t come back.” It was a first edition of PARIS TROUT, my favorite book of Pete Dexter’s, and one of my favorite books of all time. I tried to smile and the lip skin gaped. My friend winced. “At least that Dexter doesn’t bite --- that we know of,” she said. This time my mouth insisted and smiled wide, dropping a brilliant speck of blood on the cover. I didn’t wipe it off, and it settled and dried on the paper. Today I keep the book turned out on my shelf, where it reminds me of my best Christmas yet.

Tomorrow, check back for yet another double holiday treat, as Rachael Herron and Sally Gunning reflect on two unexpected gifts that meant the world to them.

Robert Barclay: An Unexpected Message from the Past, with Hope for the Future

Stephen — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:00:00 +0000

This afternoon, debut novelist Robert Barclay --- author of the forthcoming novel IF WISHES WERE HORSES --- shares the story of an unforeseen Christmas message that helped bring him hope in 2008, along with his wishes for another fortuitous year.

When I first picked up that carefully wrapped package on Christmas morning, 2008, it appeared much like the several others I had already opened. Nothing special here, it seemed. The label read, “To Rob, with Special Love, from Mom.” But when I opened it, I must admit that I was, at first, a bit confused. As I removed it from the box, however, I came to understand both the gift that my mother had sent to me, and the loving message of hope that it was meant to convey.

Because my parents live in upstate New York, and my wife, Joyce, and I are Floridians, we are not always able to see each other at Christmastime. My parents are in their 80s now, and travel has grown difficult for them. Their lovely home is large and quite full of the many and varied things one would associate with an aged couple that not only raised two rambunctious sons to manhood, but has also had very full times of their own. Their basement is especially crowded with such mementos --- some nostalgic, some quite needless.

Because of this, during recent years, my mother has taken to giving some of these family items to my brother and me in the form of Christmas gifts. Not exactly like the demented, old woman in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation who mistakenly wraps up her live cat as a well-meaning Christmas present, but you get the general idea. And like that movie character, my mother sometimes misses the mark. Some of these unexpected little blasts from the past are very much appreciated and make us recall wonderful memories. But there have been other times when she seems to have erred, and has sent Bill and me things that we have, in fact (and may God forbid that Mother ever discovers this), quite literally thrown away. She does not do this because of any lack of Christmas funds, or because she believes my brother and I have suddenly developed some urgent need to relive our rather shady pasts. Rather, I think, she does it out of love. (That, I suppose, combined with a pressing need to rid her basement of some of the many things she no longer wants lying around. A rather clever maneuver, now that I think about it, and I can only hope that if I also reach the revered status of octogenarian, I can still remember this technique, for I will shamelessly use it to its best advantage on my stepson. It oftentimes seems that the elderly can get away with anything.)

This time however, the basement gift she had selected for me not only hit the mark, but also tugged strongly on my heart, as well. It was an old book that I had never seen before. It was rather small, as hardcover novels go. The cover was a faded olive green. Its pages --- although still intact --- were quite dog-eared, deeply yellowed, and seemed as if the slightest human touch might easily destroy them. To my great delight, what I held in my hands was a very early (perhaps even a first edition) copy of THE LONE STAR RANGER by Zane Grey. My maternal grandfather Leon’s name was written inside, telling me that the book had once been his. It had been published in 1914, by Harper Brothers. Although I still do not know for sure, I assume that they were the precursors of HarperCollins, the same firm that is publishing my first novel, IF WISHES WERE HORSES, in February of 2011. Despite the many pleadings of my friends, I have resisted the urge to have the book appraised. For me, putting a monetary value on it would somehow cheapen its emotional reason for being, no matter how high its possible financial worth might be.

However, at the time my mother gave me this book, I had only just begun writing IF WISHES WERE HORSES. Mother knew of the premise, and she loved it. But so far, no one other than my wife had read it. Nor could we know that it would sell, much less eventually be bought by HarperCollins. And there was another, perhaps even more obvious reason that she sent it to me, I realized. Not only is THE LONE STAR RANGER a cowboy story; so too, in its own way, would be IF WISHES WERE HORSES.

Was her gift to me a hope for the future? Or perhaps a sign that I should keep on plugging away no matter what, because if a man called Zane Grey could do it, then so could I? Or, would it merely prove to be a touching gesture, should her eldest son fail in his chosen craft? Either way, I knew in my heart that her thoughts of the old book she gave me were inextricably meshed with her hopes for the new one that I was trying to write. And as it happened, she was right.

Two more years have gone by since that Christmas morning. I am now writing another book for HarperCollins, and yet another Christmas has recently passed. So Mom, if you’re listening, you can still send one more old book to me this year, if you want.

If it proves to be another good omen, that’s all I could ask for…

Tomorrow, ex-journalist Karen Abbott tells the story of her best (and bloodiest) Christmas ever.

Carolyn Hart: Sixth Grade Christmas

Stephen — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Carolyn Hart is an Oklahoma City native and the author of over 40 mysteries, including GHOST IN TROUBLE, which hit shelves in mid-October. On this memorable Monday morning, Carolyn muses on the merits of her chosen genre and the eclectic combination of classics that that first inspired her to become a writer.

As a child, Christmas meant books to me. I often asked for particular titles. My wonderful mother --- tall, slender, blue-eyed and fair --- loved beautiful clothes and jewelry and dishes. It was not until I was grown that I realized what a generous spirit she possessed, never indicating disappointment that I wasn’t interested in fashion or games. Instead, I always found brightly wrapped rectangular presents beneath the tree. Christmas morning, among a welter of paper, I seized my treasures, knowing that once again I was privileged to embark on a grand adventure, follow lives new to me, visit faraway places that I only glimpsed in old and tattered books about the world, and grapple with human hopes and fears.

Sixth grade was an especially memorable Christmas. My books were LITTLE WOMEN, THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, TREASURE ISLAND and A TALE OF TWO CITIES.

Those particular books exerted a profound influence on the course of my life. Although I only dimly understood the overarching intent of fiction, I devoured the books. LITTLE WOMEN afforded Jo, the kind of woman I wanted to be. THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO gave me the framework for suspense. TREASURE ISLAND served up adventure, making the flip of each page a joy. A TALE OF TWO CITIES honored courage and offered redemption.

Each of these elements reinforced my love affair with mysteries, which began with my first Nancy Drew. A classic mystery offers a protagonist who wants the world to be a better place, compelling suspense, adventure that draws forth the best and the worst of the human spirit, and redemption.

Those long-ago books and all the wonderful mysteries I’ve read since led me to become a mystery writer. My 45^th book, GHOST IN TROUBLE, has just been published. The late Bailey Ruth Raeburn, a light-hearted spirit, returns to earth to help someone in trouble. She is, as are all classic mystery protagonists, a force for good. And last year’s Bailey Ruth novel is now available in paperback; MERRY, MERRY GHOST welcomes the healing grace of Christmas despite loss and sorrow.

Readers might question a link between mysteries and Christmas. Christmas is the season when all of us, regardless of our faith or background, celebrate love and generosity and goodness. Mysteries reinforce a commitment to goodness. No one ever reads a mystery unless he or she wants the world to be a good place…

God Bless and Happy Holidays.

Check back again this afternoon as debut novelist Robert Barclay reflects on an unforeseen Christmas message and shares his hope for another fortuitous year.

Books and the Holidays: Linda Francis Lee on the Day After Christmas

Stephen — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Linda Francis Lee --- the Texas debutante turned bestselling author of 19 internationally published novels, including THE EX-DEBUTANTE, THE DEVIL IN THE JUNIOR LEAGUE and the forthcoming EMILY AND EINSTEIN --- reveals what books and the holidays really mean to her…and shares the touching story of why she’ll always remember the day after Christmas.

When people talk about books and the holidays, they talk about sugar plum fairies and Tiny Tim, not to mention a story about a pair of tortoiseshell combs and an infamous haircut that made the combs unusable. By the time I was 20, I had read them all, had even spent a lifetime making up stories in my head. But I had given no thought to writing a book of my own. In college, I wrote an article for a class, entitled “There Is No Finish Line” and inspired by a Nike poster of the same title, about the joys and dedication of running. I was thrilled when the article was published, but at the time, I was more interested in (Read: relieved by) the A I received than in the thought that this could lead to anything more.

After I graduated and got married, I moved back to west Texas with my husband and started seeing the land I had grown up in through the eyes of history books. Newly married, we didn't have a lot of extra spending money. As a result, I went to the library to read everything I could get my hands on that brought to life the men and women who came to the area, first in hopes of finding the Fountain of Youth, and then to carve out a hardscrabble existence in the river valley that had cut through the rugged, southernmost tip of the Rocky Mountains. Let me just say that west Texas in the early 1600s wasn't a land for lightweights. Reading the accounts of these people, I admired the men and women who risked so much to leave everything they knew behind and start a new life. I loved the idea of being fearless. And when a story of my own started brewing, it was my husband who told me to go for it. It was my husband who told me to be fearless --- whether it was about running my first marathon or writing a novel. And it was my husband who, for Christmas, gave me the very expensive gift of Paul Horgan's two-volume hardcover edition of GREAT RIVER: The Rio Grande in North American History.

So when I am asked about books and the holidays, I think of my husband, who I married the day after Christmas, a man who, a year later on Christmas Day, gave me books that helped me launch my own writing career --- books that, in their own way, gave me a foundation when we picked up a lifetime of roots in Texas and moved to the northeast and New York City. When I think of books and the holidays, I don't think of A CHRISTMAS CAROL or “The Gift of the Magi.” I think of Texas and perseverance and someone believing in me. Most of all, I think of the man I married, who all these years later has given me a gift that helps me to be fearless.

Because we know that you still haven’t had enough of it, the Bookreporter.com Holiday Author Blogs are offering readers another extra helping of holiday cheer again tomorrow, as Carolyn Hart and Robert Barclay each reflect on Christmas presents past --- and the places where these gifts have led them.

When You Can’t Come Home for Christmas: Nelson DeMille on The Once and Future King

Stephen — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Nelson DeMille is a decorated Vietnam veteran and the critically acclaimed author of 16 action/adventure novels and spine-tingling thrillers, including THE LION, the long-awaited sequel to THE LION’S GAME that hit stores this summer. On this Christmas Day, Nelson reflects on the year he had to spend the holidays in the scorching jungles of Bong Son --- and remembers the books that helped alleviate the hardships of a Vietnam Christmas.

I grew up on Long Island, New York, a nice setting for a traditional northern latitude Christmas: brisk weather, sometimes snow, lots of pine trees and even chestnuts roasting on an open fire. The houses in the suburban towns were outlined in colored lights, the stores sported holiday decorations, and every church had a crèche out front.

Inside the DeMille house, the halls, and other rooms, were decked with holly. We cooked and baked, we decorated the tree, wrapped presents, wrote Christmas cards, and we shopped a lot. Anyone over the age of about 16 who stopped by got a highball or a spiked egg nog. It was the 1950s, and all was right with the world.

In 1966, after three years of college, I joined the army and was stationed at Ft. Benning, Georgia, but I was lucky enough to get a Christmas leave to come home. The war in Asia was heating up, and there were a number of friends and relatives who were also home on leave, and the older of my three younger brothers was about to be drafted. Things were changing.

A night or two before Christmas, my mother said to me, “I remember when your father came home after the war ended.”

I nodded and said, “I remember it, too.”

She smiled and reminded me, “You were only two and a half.”

I insisted, “I remember when he came home.” And I did. We were living in a small apartment in Queens, a borough of New York City. I was an only child at that time, and my father was in the Navy, and I had no memory of him, though my mother would often point to a framed photograph of a man in uniform and say, “That’s your father.” She’d sometimes add, “He’s coming home soon.” But she didn’t always say that, so sometimes I’d say it. “He’s coming home soon,” though I didn’t know what soon meant.

Then, in what would have been the fall of 1945, the men started returning. My mother’s two brothers, Uncle Pat and Uncle Joe, would come by the apartment, still in uniform. Sometimes I would go to my grandmother’s house a few blocks away, or to neighbors’ houses and apartments to see the men who had come home. But none of these men looked like the man in the photograph.

Apparently the war was over, though I wasn’t entirely sure of what that meant. But everyone seemed happy about it.

And then one day, sometime in December, my father came home. I don’t remember the knock on the door, but I do remember my mother running to the door and opening it. And there stood a man in a Navy uniform. I’d never met this man, but I knew who he was. My mother started to cry, so I cried, too.

I also remember that Christmas in 1945, and I’m sure it was the happiest Christmas in America since World War One ended. The uniforms, which I had taken as normal, were gone, and I recall everyone talking about how much food was now in the stores. We had a big Christmas ham and trays of pastry from the Italian bakery, and everyone was happy that the sugar rationing had ended.

More importantly, the toy rationing and the wrapping paper rationing had ended, and there was a pile of wrapped presents for me under the tree, including Dr. Seuss’s AND TO THINK THAT I SAW IT ON MULBERRY STREET, which I still have, and which I’ve read to my three children.

By the early 1950s, we’d moved to a suburban Long Island neighborhood, and the memories of the old neighborhood and of the families who had lived there were dimming.

It’s now 1967, and it’s my turn. I’m in a place called Bong Son, Republic of Vietnam, and I’m an army lieutenant, leading a 40-man infantry platoon. This is my first Christmas away from home, and I’m sad and scared. I have almost a year left in this place, and I’m fairly certain I’m not getting home for next Christmas. I had a vision of my parents and my three younger brothers gathered around the Christmas tree.

On Christmas Eve, the entire company, about 150 men, gathered in an area called the White Sands, a sweltering expanse of scrub trees and mosquitoes. Not the worst place I’d been in, but not a great setting for Christmas Eve.

Dinner was C-rations, though there was a promise of a Christmas meal the next day. The enemy had agreed to a 24-hour truce, starting at midnight, so we weren’t entirely relaxed until then. But it was a nice clear night and you could see every star, and a pale crescent moon rose in the east. All is calm, all is bright.

We talked, mostly about home, and Christmases past, and I mentioned Christmas 1945. A few of the guys around my age also had some dim memory of that Christmas, when the world was at peace and 12 million heroes had returned home.

Midnight came, and we relaxed a little and experienced the Divine Miracle of the contraband liquor bottles, which appeared from a few dozen backpacks. We passed the bottles and got mellow, and even sang a few Christmas carols, ending with “Silent Night.” A lot of guys, battle-hardened soldiers who seemed to have lost the ability to show emotion, got choked up.

Christmas morning was clear, hot and humid, and I had a craving for sub-freezing weather and a breakfast of ham and eggs, but settled for a can of beans and franks.

We were still standing down, so we didn’t have to patrol and go looking for trouble. This was the best gift: a day we knew we’d live through. Spirits were high, but beneath the surface there was a subdued mood, and everyone, I was sure, was thinking of past Christmas mornings in better times and places.

Later in the morning, the battalion chaplain, who was making his rounds by helicopter, arrived in battle fatigues. He was a black guy, an Episcopalian, and well liked by everyone. Indeed, there are no atheists in foxholes, and everyone gathered in an open clearing, an uncommon occurrence in hostile territory, but the truce seemed to be holding.

The chaplain wished us all a Merry Christmas, then began the service, reading from the Gospel of Luke, “And the Angel said unto them, Fear not: for behold, I bring you tidings, of great joy…”

The chaplain flew off in the helicopter, and about an hour later, another helicopter arrived, this one carrying Santa Claus, and everyone cheered and laughed.

Santa was sweating beneath his heavy red outfit and white beard, and he had a Colt .45 strapped around his waist. He also had a few dozen mail bags that the battalion mail office had been holding for awhile to be delivered on Christmas Day, so there was a lot to distribute.

Santa called out names, and letters and parcels were passed along to the 150 assembled men. Santa called out the name of a man who’d been killed a few days before, and there was a silence, then the man’s sergeant said, “Killed in action.”

After the last mail bag was emptied, and Santa had flown off, we all wandered back to our dug-in positions to open mail and packages.

I had a few dozen letters and Christmas cards, mostly from friends and family, but also cards from strangers, people who, through various organizations, took the time to write to the men and women serving overseas, telling us that we were in their thoughts and prayers this Christmas. Very nice.

I left the packages unopened and read the cards and letters from home.

About midday, another helicopter arrived, this one carrying the promised Christmas meal, which consisted of thermal containers filled with turkey, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. I’ve had better Christmas dinners, but it was the mess sergeant’s thought that counted.

I opened a few of the packages, which were mostly food, but one of them was a book from my father.

It was THE SWORD IN THE STONE, the first book of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King, the story of King Arthur, beginning with his boyhood.

White is sometimes funny, often scholarly, always erudite, and a great storyteller. The four volumes of The Once and Future King had been on our bookshelves, and I’d started this one on my leave before shipping out. I think I’d left it in my room, with a bookmark where I’d stopped reading, and here it was now with a note from my father that said, “I don’t think you finished this. Let me know when you want the other three books.”

The subtext, I guess, was that I should plan to be around to read the entire four volumes.

So, I found where I’d left off and continued THE SWORD IN THE STONE, sitting there in the hot sand on Christmas Day, far from home and far in time and place from medieval England.

But great books, of course, have the ability to transport you to other worlds and times, and to make life, which is sometimes difficult, a little more pleasant. In fact, a book can blot out reality, and this book, a fantasy, was perfect for that. I was in Vietnam, but my head was in King Arthur’s England.

Even in a war zone there’s time to read, and by the end of January I’d finished THE SWORD IN THE STONE, sent it home, and received book two, THE WITCH IN THE WOOD. By June or July, I’d finished THE ILL-MADE KNIGHT and THE CANDLE IN THE WIND, which completed the quartet of The Once and Future King. White published a fifth volume posthumously, in 1977, titled MERLYN, and when I read it, I was reminded of where I’d read the other four books 10 years before, and I was happy I was reading MERLYN in my easy chair.

Suggestion: this Christmas, send some books to our men and women serving overseas. It shows you’re thinking of them, but more importantly, a good book is a magic carpet to places nicer than a combat zone.

Photo Credit: Sandy DeMille

To learn more about Nelson DeMille’s fascinating life and all of his critically acclaimed novels, visit www.NelsonDeMille.net. Happy Holidays and be sure to check in with us again tomorrow, as Linda Francis Lee reveals why she’ll always remember the day after Christmas.

Linda Lael Miller on Making Christmas Eve Memories

Stephen — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 21:00:00 +0000

“First Lady of the West” Linda Lael Miller is a self-described barn goddess and the New York Times bestselling author of over 80 western-themed novels, including the recently released holiday romance, THE CHRISTMAS BRIDES. On this incredibly special day, Linda recalls her favorite Christmas Eve memory --- and lets readers know what they can do to help others, while making more of their own.

One of my favorite memories is of hearing my mom read ’TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS aloud. For my brother and me, the reading of that story meant it was, at long last, Christmas Eve. I remember the book clearly --- it had beautiful illustrations and red, velvet-like paper on the Santa Claus figure. I can close my eyes and see the man in his nightcap, just awakened from his long winter's nap by all that clatter up on the roof! Just to let you know how long ago this was, I also recall the price on the book's cover --- 29 cents! In turn, I read the story to my daughter, Wendy, every Christmas Eve.

This year, I went to Hallmark and bought their recordable storybook, and Mom is going to read it aloud, so we'll always have it in her voice. Hallmark has a promotion going on right now: You can buy a recordable storybook (there are several choices) and have it sent to a soldier, so that his or her children will hear that special voice, too. You can make a donation, or just buy a book or books outright.

Go ahead, make a memory.

Tomorrow, the Bookreporter.com Holiday Author Blogs will be celebrating Christmas Day with Nelson DeMille, as he remembers a somber holiday season spent far away from home…and the simple gift from his father that brought him through it.

Carol Cassella: Time for Christmas

Stephen — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

On this Christmas Eve morning, Carol Cassella --- anesthesiologist, global health expert and the awarding-winning author of OXYGEN and HEALER --- spreads the joy of holiday gift-giving by reflecting on her life-long love of bestowing and receiving books…and on the one elusive gift she’ll never get.

I grew up in a family of readers. It was a given that every Christmas all five of us would be unwrapping books. My mother reliably gave me the latest Newbery medal winner, along with one or two of the classics she thought I was ready for. 45 years later, I’ve forgotten many of the titles and authors, but I still vividly remember the stories, the characters and the settings. They wove themselves into the fabric of my childhood as enduringly as memories of my tree fort and the field across the alley, where I buried my broken dolls, secret diaries and several dead gerbils. I remember these books so vividly because I read my favorites again and again. There were few children in my neighborhood, and my sisters were older, so my books became my only dependable playmates. One, a collection of fables from China, had a story about a young girl who grew up in a rainy climate, loathing her dreary, wet world, and she was determined to find an escape. Her father married her off to a prince who lived in a place of eternal summer sunshine, but soon she discovered how much she missed the rain. To placate his young bride, the prince forced his servants to pour water night and day outside her window and sew pink blossoms to the trees. I sat under a boiling Texas sun and smelled that cool, spring rain and heard it rustling the silk flowers.

As I got older, my mother chose books to match my ever-shifting interests. The year I was passionate about horses, I begged for only cash to put towards riding lessons, so she bought me two books on horsemanship and hid ten dollar bills in between the chapters. When I was a teenager and Erich Segal's LOVE STORY was practically required reading, I got multiple copies --- two from my family and several from friends. That was fine, though, as I read the book so many times I would’ve worn out a single paperback. The rest of the world may remember that book and movie for the line, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry,” a platitude surely only a teenager would swallow. But the line that stayed with me came from the scene where Ryan O’Neal surprises Ali MacGraw with tickets to Paris after discovering that she has leukemia. Ali, stubborn and wildly romantic, stares death in the face when she answers, “Screw Paris! What I want is time, and you can't give me that.” Sigh. I went straight home and read the book again.

Book-giving is still a huge tradition in our family. We’ve gotten to know each other’s tastes so well that my sisters and I have to screen out duplicates, a task stemming from the Christmas when my father unwrapped three copies of A DAY IN THE LIFE OF THE SOVIET UNION. I stood in my own library the other day and looked at the floor-to-ceiling shelves stuffed with books. I’ve read a few of them more than once, but I’m embarrassed by the number I have only skimmed --- and in the bookstore! That isn’t a reflection of any waning passion for books; it's a reflection of time. As my life has gotten busier, even if more entrenched in the publishing world, I have less time than ever to read. Worse yet, I sometimes worry that our lightening-blitz race into the digital age is eroding my ability to sit quietly with a book for three or four hours, to lose myself in its slow language. If I retired tomorrow and read 10 hours every day, I couldn’t finish all the books I currently own, much less reread the best over and over --- which is a loss because, much like a piece of music, it is easy to get caught up in the lyrics of a book that first time through and miss all the brilliant, more elusive bass notes and harmonies playing under the surface. My illogical way of coping with this disappointment is to buy another bookshelf and start filling it up.

Now I am certainly old enough, and a competent enough breadwinner, to buy my own presents for Christmas if they don’t land under the tree. So if I choose to fill my rooms with all the novels I lust for, everybody I live with can keep their traps shut (though they’re welcome to read them). Alas, there is still that gift I can’t buy for myself, and neither can anyone else: time. Time to read the books not just once, but over and over again until, 40 years from now, I can still see the pink silk blossoms sewn onto the tree, and smell the scent of the rain.

Celebrate Christmas Eve again this afternoon, as Linda Lael Miller muses on her favorite holiday memory…and urges readers to make more of their own.

Pamela Schoenewaldt: Rembering Dorian Road

Stephen — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 21:00:00 +0000

This afternoon, Pamela Schoenewaldt --- the critically acclaimed author of one play, several short stories and the forthcoming novel WHEN WE WERE STRANGERS --- remembers her childhood home in New Jersey…and shares the heartbreaking story of the best Christmas present her mother ever gave her.

Choosing Christmas presents for my mother was so easy when I was small: a painted ash tray from art class, a trinket bought with allowance, even a tube of preserved lychee nuts. “Wonderful!” she exclaimed, “I don’t have any.” Years later, of course the process grew more nuanced. Once, she bristled at the supposed sub-text when I gave a bottle of my then-favorite perfume: Opium. Other years were more successful. But nothing prepared me; I never imagined choosing her last gift. The lung cancer diagnosed in August was so rabid, that by fall we knew she could not last much beyond Christmas.

What to give? Not lychee nuts or Opium. I was living near Naples, Italy, and she in Austin, Texas. I considered various sickroom supplies: bathrobe, soft towels, scented candles and hand creams, all those things. In the end, I decided to write what I remembered of the house where we lived between my ages of four and nine in Metuchen, New Jersey. Surely I could manage a few pages. But in my spare, white study with white tile floors, or watching from our kitchen window as a crimson-violet sunset melted the azure strip of the Mediterranean to a glimmering silver ray, memories of Dorian Road came flooding back with such piercing intensity that I filled 10 pages, single-spaced.

I remembered my mother building my first snowman with me, and summertime, making baking soda plasters for yellow jacket stings. I saw again in avid detail the living room’s long window seat that easily became a stage behind the curtains that she made. I saw the russet-brown and felt the rough nubs of the carpet, where I built castles with my little brother and once overheard our mother on the phone speaking of a young couple “living on a shoestring.” My brother’s eyes widened, and I whispered knowingly how they managed: “The shoestring is very long. It’s strung in a web over the floor, and that’s how they live on it.”

I wrote about my mother’s Christmas decorations --- a hanging, jolly Santa in pajamas with pointy shoes, exquisitely carved wooden nativity figures from Germany, a candle made of dancing angels. My mother sewed masterfully. I passed through the tangle of our troubled years to the puffy, pink bathrobe I wanted and she made, dresses, doll clothes, a cape for our theatricals and a leopard costume I still have, appliquéd Christmas stockings and table cloths, fitted slip covers for our couch. I remembered the muted labyrinth pattern I traced in the feverish days when the living room was my sick room and she bought me applesauce, ice cream, bananas mashed with cream, new library books and an Etch-a-Sketch to play with while I was propped up with pillows. Later, I fed my new baby sister on that couch and helped my mother change her. I remembered how she dressed me for snow --- layers on layers --- and then, later, her kneeling on the carpet, warming my red fingers in her hands, blowing, blowing, without the wracking cough that fractured her speech in later years.

I had a severe, capricious fourth grade teacher, and I remember coming home in tears, being held, being brought hot chocolate. Yet this tyrant had us write a story every Friday, and my mother --- not a saving sort --- saved each one. Nestled in the window seat, I read and read, calling out new words to her. She explained them all. I remembered her curled in a chair, reading art history in the afternoon. None of my friends’ mothers did that.

I wrote and wrote, and then in mid-December, sent off my little tome. In the next days, the cancer leapt ahead. She couldn’t read or focus on what my father read to her. She thanked me vaguely and apologized for not having sent anything. “Never mind, Mom,” I said, “I’ll be there in few days.” Yet in the writing of those pages, in the floods of tiny memories they unleashed, I already had received her last and best Christmas present.

And on that incredibly profound note, the Bookreporter.com Holiday Author Blogs bid you a safe and pleasant evening. But you better watch out. And you better check twice, because in honor of Christmas Eve, we’re giving readers two times the cheer again tomorrow, as Carol Cassella and Linda Lael Miller share a few of their favorite book-related holiday memories…and reflect on the importance of taking the time to make more.

Judith Dupré: Amazing Grace

Stephen — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

This morning, author Judith Dupré recalls the grace that surrounded one book and how it inspired her writing in her latest work, FULL OF GRACE: Encountering Mary in Faith, Art and Life.

I grew up in Providence on Lennon Street. It was a street of families, each contributing four, five, six children to the tumble --- the backbone of the American dream, ’60s style. Ours were endless days of four-square, red rover and hide-and-go-seek. We swam in the summer, burned leaves in the fall, starred in Mr. Nickerson’s Halloween movies, and sang carols at the annual Christmas party at the Dionnes’ house --- all of us, every season, every year. Even our dogs played together.

52 kids lived on Lennon, and the undisputed god of that street was my next-door neighbor, Rick Caruolo. Rick would hold court on his front steps, playing the guitar. He always drew a crowd --- teenaged girls mesmerized by his movie-star good looks, his football buddies and old-timers, too. Little kids like me loved him because he’d read “Peanuts” to us, explaining the comic strip, frame by frame. “Do you get it now?” he’d ask. Sometimes, he’d break up a fight, and afterwards you’d see him, arm around the beaten kid, coaching and consoling. He was our paperboy. His peers called him Elvis, because he was cool --- cooler than the King, cooler even than James Dean. But not too cool to miss the neighborhood Christmas party. He never missed that.

In 1966, three weeks short of his 22nd birthday, Rick was killed in Vietnam, one of the first Rhode Islanders to die in that war. He died a hero, shot when he crawled out to help a fellow wounded Marine. Almost 40 years later, when I decided to tell Rick’s story in my book, MONUMENTS, the Caruolo family shared with me the most precious thing they owned --- the letter Rick’s soldier-brother Wayne Burwell wrote to them after Rick died in his arms. As those who have lost a beloved child to war know, not all monuments are made of stone.

As soon as MONUMENTS came out, I gave a copy to Rick’s sister. Seeing her cradle it in her arms tenderly, as though she was holding her brother himself, made me realize once more (as if I needed convincing!) that books are a most exquisite and irreplaceable art form. A few days later, a woman contacted me, introducing herself as Dale Burwell, Wayne’s wife. She wanted to surprise her husband with an inscribed copy. Although they lived in New Jersey, I urged them to make the trek to Rhode Island --- my sister was having a Christmas party to celebrate the book, and Rick’s family would be coming. “We’ll try,” she said.

What a party! It seemed everyone I had ever known was there, including dozens of the original Lennon Street gang. Gathering around the glistening Christmas tree, we talked, ate and laughed. With every carol we sang --- “Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore. Faithful friends who are dear to us, gather near to us once more” --- the years fell away.

Then the doorbell rang --- it was Dale and Wayne Burwell. The entire Caruolo family circled around Wayne. The hugs and tears lasted a long time. Until that moment, I hadn’t known that the Caruolos had never actually met Wayne. After the war, he disappeared, and they couldn’t find him. In one of those graced moments that life serves up unexpectedly, the story came full circle. Wayne --- who had loved Rick as much as we had loved him, who had held him last, giving back to Rick the love he had shared with so many --- was with us. And so was Rick. Christmas was as we remembered it: shining, hopeful, complete.

Epilogue: To this day, perfect strangers write to me, saying Rick’s story was the story of their brother, uncle, father, friend. They have shared their most intimate memories of those they loved and lost. So many people contacted me about that story that I was emboldened to take my own leap of faith and write from the heart in my new book, FULL OF GRACE: Encountering Mary in Faith, Art and Life. Rick’s spirit, the Christmas spirit, lives on in FULL OF GRACE, which tells stories about love, loss and hope --- and the invincible nature of the human heart.

--- Judith Dupré

Don’t forget to check in again this afternoon as forthcoming novelist Pamela Schoenewaldt remembers her own house on Dorian Road…and the best Christmas gift her mother ever gave her.

Chelsea Cain: The Snow Queen

Stephen — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Chelsea Cain is the New York Times bestselling author of several bone-chilling books and novels --- including the Archie and Gretchen series, which has a brand-new installment called THE NIGHT SEASON hitting stores this spring. To celebrate the fact that our days are now a little bit longer, Chelsea tells the story of a secret, book-giving goddess --- whose favorite holiday happens to be the Winter Solstice.

I don’t remember the first time that the Snow Queen came and left me books in a bag outside our front door, but I remember this: I am about five. My mom and I live in a second story apartment in an old house in Iowa City. My bedroom is the old pantry. The kitchen is an old bedroom. An exterior staircase angles up the side of the house to our front door. It’s night. I am in my bedroom, and I hear a knock. I wait for my mother to get it, but she doesn’t. There is another knock. I head into the kitchen. My mother is standing there, by the sink.

“Did you hear a knock?” she asks.

“Uh huh,” I say.

“You better get it,” she says.

I open the door. There’s a paper bag. Sometimes it’s a pillowcase. It is always filled with three or four books.

Santa didn’t bring me books. The Snow Queen did. She came every Winter Solstice, and at a few other times during the year. My nickname was “Snowbird,” so we had a certain wintery milieu in common. The first time she visited was in 1976, when I was four years old. I know this because I still have the book, WHAT DO YOU SAY, DEAR? with pictures by Maurice Sendak, and it’s inscribed and dated: “Winter Solstice, 1976. Snowbird --- on Earth, the planet you live on, people use good manners as a sign of respect and love. I hope that this book will help you to see how much fun good manners are. Love, the Snow Queen.”

Who was the Snow Queen, and why was she giving me books? What’s more, why was she so invested in my ability to be courteous? I didn’t question it. It was only later, when I learned about the Hans Christian Andersen, boy-stealing version of my benefactor, that I realized that the magical book goddess I had known was a tad off on her message.

In fact, I didn’t know much about her at all. What I did know, I’d pieced together from details divulged in inscriptions and on cards she’d written me. She lived on the moon. Her favorite holiday was the Winter Solstice. If I looked at the full moon and squinted, I might see her.

She stopped coming when I was about eight. My mom and I had left Iowa City and moved to the West Coast. My parents had been split up for four years by then, and I wasn’t as lonely. I don’t remember the last time she came. And it was only after several years had passed that I realized that she hadn’t been by in a while and probably wasn’t coming back. I asked my mom why the Snow Queen had forsaken me.

“I guess she knew you didn’t need her anymore,” my mom said.

My mom died long before my five-year-old daughter was born. But if you ask my daughter who lives on the moon, she’ll tell you about the Snow Queen. And those books, the ones left on my porch 30 some years ago? They’re up in my daughter’s bookcase. She reads them, and asks me to tell her more about the magic book-moon goddess. I tell her about the Snow Queen, and I tell her about my mom, and then we both squint out the bedroom window at the full moon, and sometimes we tell each other we can see her.

Tomorrow, the Bookreporter.com Holiday Author Blogs are offering up a double dose of seasonal spirit. So be sure to check in twice, as authors Judith Dupré and Pamela Schoenewaldt remind readers why the holidays are a time for family, friends and --- above all --- thanksgiving.