Laurie R. King

I am firmly convinced that if you gave one of those high school test questions with the drawing of a shape on it, and ask which of the four answer drawings best matched the back side of the original shape, writers would fall into two categories with their answers. The writers who got it right,…

Alas, the Curse of the Brits has hit me again, and my beloved Poisoned Pen Press (UK) is closing up shop. Sigh. This means that, if you want live in the UK and want copies of their edition books, you’ll have to scurry. They still have copies of THE ART OF DETECTION (hardcover and paperback)…

This hilarious entry appeared yesterday on Jason Kottke’s eminently followable blog. I’ll paste the bulk of it below for those of you who might have trouble seeing the small font– The American Family Association automatically replaces words like “gay” with “homosexual” in the AP stories they display on their news site. When an American sprinter…

This from the Florida Times-Union of Jacksonville, with thanks to the sharp eyes of VBC member Jessara, who comments, “Somebody around here has been reading Night Work, and the difference between fiction and nonfiction has eluded them”: A Jacksonville man went to grab a beer and brought home a painful memento from his night out.…

So, having got my life, house, and correspondence more or less up to date (which is pretty good considering 3 weeks away generally leads to 3 weeks’ catch-up) I picked up The Language of Bees and began to read. I always begin this first-read process swearing I will do it without a pencil in hand,…

Blackwell’s Books has been the center of Oxford for as long as I have known the city–the center of MY Oxford, at least. At various times there have been as many as five separate Blackwell’s shops within the few hundred yards of Broad Street, but now the Traveller’s shop sells nicknacks and the children’s shop,…

After my pilgrimage to Calke Abbey, I headed for Oxford. We own a house in the city, near Folly Bridge, where one can still see (and punt beneath) the Saxon underpinnings on which everyone from the Norman Lord of Oxford, Robert D’Oilley, to the ever-busy 19th century Victorians built and re-built this bridge over the…

One of my favorite places in the UK is Calke Abbey. I stopped there on my way from Edinburgh to Oxford, having first seen the place in 1989, three or four years after the National Trust took it over. Every time I go, I wander the house and grounds in wonder (and have a great…

I came back to Edinburgh, picked up the rental car I’d left in the airport car park, and shortly thereafter was having a lovely cup of tea at the Elephant (haunted by J. K. Rowling’s ghost, scribbling away at a table in the back) with Chris, long-time Friend of LRK and member of the Virtual…

Last notes on Orkney:  In the restroom, the sign says that they endeavour to satisfy, but that if they have disappointed the user of the facilities in any fashion, please to notify the desk. The word “disappoint” has such a poignant touch, one simply knows that the cleaner would be personally crushed to find…