Sara Paretsky's Blog

Chanukah begins at sundown on December 11.  It's a child's holiday, with candles, songs, and, in the affluent west these days, presents.  For adults, at least for me, it's a bit more problematic–it's a holiday that celebrates confusing things, the triumph of religion over reason, the cleansing of the Temple, the start of a theocracy not unlike current-day Iran's.

Religion and politics in the Middle East in 167 BCE were just as complicated and deadly a combination as they've remained today...

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in Lake Woebegone, Garrison Keillor's home town, but not so much so in Chicago.  We started with a gang of housebreakers who targeted our area.  They would come to the front door; if anyone answered, they'd say they were looking for yard work.  If no one answered, they'd hustle around to the back and break in through the second story windows–they even carried ladders with them.  We haven't seen them for a few days and don't know if they were caught, or simply cleaned out our street and have m...

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I entertained myself today by writing a story for one of my honorary nieces, whose truelove just done her wrong.  In case it might amuse you, here it is:

<p align="center"><p align="center"><p align="center">For Maude Baggetto</p>

It was dusk when I finally drove into the city of W–.  A series of mishaps had dogged my journey, making me feel almost as though the Fates themselves were conspiring to keep me from my destination.  First, the cloak of fog that engulfed the airport and delayed our flight by nearly four hours,

Fog surrounds the Airport

and...

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I was a chubby kid.  When we lived in town, a couple of boys in my school used to stand on the sidewalk and chant a rude verse at me on the way home ("Fatty," it began.  I sometimes worry that as my brain disintegrates with age, that verse will be the last thing I retain.)  I was almost thirty when I lost weight, going to Weight WAtchers.  I don't know what WW is like now, but back then, you'd get on the scale, and, if you'd lost anything, the group would applaud; if you'd gained, they offer ...

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A violinist I know who's part of The New Millennium Orchestra told me they're working on a business plan these days.  Up to now, if they had money they paid the musicians; if they didn't, everyone played for free.  The musicians are all young, energetic, and very hard working.  They travel long distances to teach to make enough money to continue with their art.  Or their profession.

They grapple with making old music fresh.  When an orchestra looks bored, they lose connection with their...

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Earlier this year I was at a dinner for the Freedom to Read Foundation, and was privileged to be seated at the same table with a gifted Y/A writer, who is not only an outspoken supporter of freedom to read and write, but is also very popular.  Her publicist was at the table and mentioned that thousands of kids line up when this woman appears at events.

This remark sparked a hot argument among the rest of us: who would we wait in line for hours to meet?  I said, "No one." Not because there...

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Nien Cheng died on November 2.  She is one of my heroes.  She spent almost seven years in one of Mao's prisons for the crimes of having worked for Shell, studied abroad, and speaking fluent English.

Nien Cheng

While she was in prison, her only child was murdered by the Red Guards for refusing to denounce Cheng.  She survived horrifying conditions with wit and anger, and, according to her memoir, Life and Death in Shanghai, poetry.  She had memorized a great deal of classical Chinese poetry...

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I have a friend whose husband won the Nobel Prize.  We were all thrilled, but he didn't interpret it as success: he thought he needed two before the restless face in the mirror, the critical voice in the head, stopped saying, "You're basically a failure."

I cringed at the time, mostly because I really did feel his pain–I have a good career, I have good success, but I must not really be any good because Fred and Lily and Cindy outsell me, or are on op-ed pages more often, or have more friends t...

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I have a friend whose husband won the Nobel Prize.  We were all thrilled, but he didn't interpret it as success: he thought he needed two before the restless face in the mirror, the critical voice in the head, stopped saying, "You're basically a failure."

I cringed at the time, mostly because I really did feel his pain–I have a good career, I have good success, but I must not really be any good because Fred and Lily and Cindy outsell me, or are on op-ed pages more often, or have more friends t...

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Or, Testosterone Fights Back.  Publishers Weekly has published its list of the ten best books of 2009, and they are all by men.  Some, like Richard Holmes's Age of Wonder, are deeply thought and researched.  Others, like Geoff Dyer's Jeff in Venice, are tired old paeans to the Male Member–and I don't mean of Parliament.  Yes, doing lines under a Tintoretto ceiling in Venice after your well-humped lover has left you in the lurch, that is a worthy addition to the canon.

WILLA has started a Wiki...

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