Team LRK has a new video for you, based on a piece of prose you may recognize: “I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes…”
Read MoreIn these days of hate-mongering and rising tides of fear, a good sunset still manages to lift the spirits and calm the heart, whether looking towards the east (note furled pirate flag)… or the west…
Read MoreI love research. It’s addictive, in fact, and can threaten the actual writing of the book unless one develops a stern attitude towards the Siren call of the shelves—or, for those wired that way, of the Internet. In The Murder of Mary Russell, the past holds the answer to the present’s questions, which means I…
Read MoreWell, friends, we’re one step closer to this: To my great consternation, the 21st century is nipping at my heels. All these years, I’ve done copyedits on actual pieces of paper: I’ll finish a book and send my editor a lovely clean copy, spa she can take up her pencil and slash it to pieces, adding questions…
Read MoreI got married during a time when I had been deeply immersed in setting up a coffee store called Kaldi’s (see Monday’s post.) Our honeymoon was an academic journey into the South Pacific, eight months through Papua New Guinea, the Australian outback, and island-hopping across the ocean from Tonga to Easter Island. And in many of…
Read MoreSo, you have some freshly roasted, gorgeously brown beans, from Ethiopia or Costa Rica. What to do next? Mahmoud Hazr has one approach: Mahmoud set the mortar and pestle to one side and reached for the incongruously homely English saucepan of steaming water that Ali had set to boil, filled from a skin hanging off…
Read MoreOver the years, I’ve introduced any number of people to the contagion of excellent coffee: a pound of some excellent beans and a decent grinder, I’ve created an addict for life. Beans: what kind? Any beans you get in a coffee store is going to be Coffea arabica (the big, low-altitude robusta are only used…
Read MoreOur winner for the ARC of Jane Steele is…Alison Skier! Alison, I’m sending an email to let you know. Thanks everyone for showing interest, Lyndsay is happy to hear that people are eager! The book is out in April, which will just give you time to finish The Murder of Mary Russell first…
Read MoreIn the 1730s, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a sort of miniature comic opera about a young woman devoutly addicted to coffee, and her despairing father who would do anything to break her of her habit. Because coffee is certainly not a habit suited to a lady. I met this cantata in the seventies, when I…
Read MoreMy husband was a tea man. He drank proper tea, from a pot, and although he was a truly and creatively dreadful cook, Noel made a better pot of tea than I did. Coffee, though: that was all me. I have a long history with coffee. When I was putting myself through university, I worked in…
Read More