The wait is almost over. Number fourteen on the Stephanie Plum hit parade is set to drop June 17^th. The problem is, what do you do while you wait? We have some suggestions.

First, did you know that starting a couple of months before the publishing date of her newest book, you can go to Janet Evanovich’s web site (www.evanovich.com), where she will have posted the beginning of the book? Get a jump on all your friends!

Second, we just received a book called Perfectly Plum: Unauthorized Essays On the Life, Loves, and Other Disasters of Stephanie Plum, Trenton Bounty Hunter. It’s a book of essays, written by authors who are also Plum fans, which addresses such burning questions as, Morelli or Ranger? Could Lula possibly be considered a role model? and, something we’ve all wondered at some point or another, How does this woman get car insurance!?

I know, having read the beginning of Fearless Fourteen online, that Steph has made it through the first ten pages or so without having a single car blow up, catch on fire, or get smushed by a burning garbage truck. If you’ve read the whole series, you know that’s a situation that’s unlikely to last. Just to get you ready for the inevitable mayhem, we’ve assembled a list of the most memorable automotive crashes, smashes, and burns in the Stephanie Plum series. Your challenge is to match the crash to the book. There’s one accident per book, and we’ve included the holiday novellas. Read each description, print out the entry form, fill it out with the title of the book in which each crash appears, and drop the completed form in the contest box at the Fairborn Library. You may win your own copy of Fearless Fourteen! Contest will end on June 17th, so make sure you get your entry form to the library before then. Happy hunting!

Download the Entry Form. (It’s a .pdf)

Click the link below to read the quotes.

P.S. There is another Fearless Fourteen contest at the library. When you bring in your form, make sure to check it out. You could win a Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpet like Stephanie always eats!

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We had a proper English High Tea at the library Monday, May 19. Representatives and members of the book clubs that meet here at the library attended and spoke about the books they have been reading and future selections.

Of course the highlight of the tea was the food. Along with plentiful pots of piping hot tea (must remember decaf next time) open face cucumber, olive, pecan cream cheese, and turkey, cranberry, cornbread sandwiches were served buffet style. Also fresh baked scones, fresh lemon curd and Devonshire cream were in enjoyed. Fresh strawberries dipped in confectioners sugar, banana and raisin bread, and pound cake and fairy cakes gave us something more to put our Devonshire cream on.

Folks that were at this gathering seemed to really enjoy it and asked for the recipes of the food served so please find below links to some of the recipes used. This event was sponsored by the Friends of the Fairborn Library and was open to all who wished to attend.

Lemon Curd

Devonshire or Devon Cream

Cream Scones

Pound Cake

Fairy Cakes

Turkey and Cranberry Corn Muffins

Lynn’s Awesome Open Face Cucumber Sandwiches

Cream together 2 softened 8 ounce packages of light cream cheese, 1/2 cup light mayonnaise, and 1 envelope Good Seasons Italian Dressing mix.  This will cover 2 loaves of Pepperidge Farm’s  Party Rye.  Top with slice of cucumber and sprig of dill.  Enjoy!
Because of the success of this event please look for more High Teas to be occurring at the library in the future. You’ll have time to get your hats ready!

How can you not be excited about a new Indiana Jones movie? How many archaeologists, do you suppose, entered the field because Indy made it look so…cool. Yes, a professional archaeologist will tell you that most of what they do involves painstakingly digging holes to retrieve broken pots and other stuff that ancient people threw out; that they’re not treasure hunters but highly trained professionals trying to shed light on our common human heritage. Yeah, yeah, but how many of them wish they had a little Jones in them? Maybe have the hat in their closet?

For the next generation of Indy-inspired budding archaeologists we offer the following titles:

Gods, Graves, and Scholars: the Story of Archaeology by C.W. Ceram is a classic history of the field. He covers all the great early digs: Pompeii, Troy, Mycenae, Crete, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Sumer, and Central America.

Stones, Bones, and Ancient Cities: Great Discoveries in Archaeology and the Search For Human Origins by Lawrence H. Robbins covers some of the same ground, but adds finds from paleontology, as well as underwater archaeology, and early astronomy.

Eyewitness To Discovery: First-Person Accounts Of More Than Fifty Of the World’s Greatest Archaeological Discoveries, edited by Brian M. Fagan gathers together 55 vivid accounts of great discoveries by the people who found them.

Vanished Civilizations: The Hidden Secrets Of Lost Cities and Forgotten Peoples and Lost Cities: 50 Discoveries In World Archaeology both offer glimpses into cultures and civilizations from every continent, and from Stone Age Turkey to Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.

One thing about ruins is that they tend to all look alike. What’s cool about Virtual Archaeology: Re-creating Ancient Worlds is that it gives computer reconstructions of ancient sites, using archaeologists’ best guesses about how places like the Temple of Karnak, the Acropolis, Teotihuacan, or Pompeii once looked.

The new Indiana Jones movie is set in a lost city in the Amazon jungle; the closest thing in real life is probably the long-gone civilization of the Maya, in Central America. To learn more about them, A Forest Of Kings: The Untold Story Of The Ancient Maya by Linda Schele and David Freidel, is a good place to start.

And yes, there are such things as crystal skulls scattered in museums around the world, and yes, we actually have a book about at least one of them. It’s called The Crystal Skull: The Story Of the Mystery, Myth, and Magic Of the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull Discovered In a Lost Mayan City During a Search For Atlantis by Richard Garvin. Truth can be stranger than fiction.

Diet books always say that you shouldn’t read while you eat; authors of diet books are no fun. Eating while reading (or reading while eating) is a hallowed tradition; I’m sure the ancient Egyptians dribbled honeycake crumbs on their papyri. How else can you explain the number of literature-inspired cookbooks?

Take The Book Lover’s Cookbook: Recipes Inspired By Celebrated Works Of Literature And The Passages That Feature Them by Shaunda Kennedy Wenger and Janet Kay Jensen. Before each recipe there is an excerpt from the book that inspired it, ranging from Henry James to Bridget Jones.

Beloved author Jan Karon’s Mitford series was the inspiration for Jan Karon’s Mitford Cookbook & Kitchen Reader, edited by Martha McIntosh. Brief passages from her books are paired with recipes inspired by them.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, there’s I’m In the Mood For Food: In The Kitchen With Garfield by Jim Davis. Yes, it’s a cookbook from everyone’s favorite lasagna-loving cat, peppered with cartoons and full of kid-friendly recipes.

There must be an even stronger connection between food and mysteries, because there are quite a few mystery-themed cookbooks.

For their book A Taste Of Murder: Diabolically Delicious Recipes From Contemporary Mystery Writers, authors Jo Grossman and Robert Weibezahl solicited recipes from such diverse mystery writers as Robert B. Parker, Anne Perry, Tony Hillerman, Sue Grafton, and Richard North Patterson.

Lilian Jackson Braun contributed a recipe, which is pretty sporting of her considering that she has not one but two cookbooks based on her popular Cat Who series. You can hardly read her books without getting hungry—there’s so much good eating going on–and The Cat Who… Cookbook: Over 200 Recipes and Menus Inspired by Lilian Jackson Braun’s Beloved Bestselling Mysteries and The Cat Who…Reunion Cookbook: Over 200 Recipes To Share will give you that recipe for chocolate pound cake from The Cat Who Saw Stars or thimbleberry pie from The Cat Who Went Underground so you can eat right along with the characters. After all, fictional calories don’t count.

Two other mystery writers who have their own cookbooks are Patricia Cornwell’s Food To Die For: Secrets From Kay Scarpetta’s Kitchen and Sneaky Pie’s Cookbook For Mystery Lovers: Favorite Recipes And Anecdotes From The Co-author Of The Mrs. Murphy Mysteries by Sneaky Pie Brown, aka Rita Mae Brown.

Finally, when you have a lot of people who like to read and eat, and who like to share books and food, what you end up with are Book Clubs that serve refreshments. For those folks there is Read It And Eat: A Month-By-Month Guide to Scintillating Book Club Selections And Mouthwatering Menus by Sarah Gardner. It’s organized by month, each highlighting a different literary theme, with recipes inspired by that month’s books.

When we read a book we want to feel a connection to the characters; if we can’t, chances are we won’t finish the book. But for books we really like and are totally immersed in, eating food based on those books is a way to have a deeper connection with the world of that book.

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”

–Henry James

It’s unfortunate that afternoon tea never really caught on in America; it’s so much more civilized—and probably healthier—than grabbing a soft drink and a candy bar from a vending machine, and, since tea and scones are hard to eat on the run, it allows you time for a proper break from your daily routine.

The Fairborn Library is hosting a High Tea on Monday, May 19^th, from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. (which is quite late for tea, but we wanted to allow as many people as possible to come). Members of the various Library book clubs will be present to answer questions and sign up new members. Please call to register at 878-9383, ext.4312.

In case you are not able to come, but are inspired to add a little tea time to your life, here are some books on the subject:

Loving Tea: A Tea Lover’s Guide to Types of Tea, Brewing & Preparation, Herbal Teas & Health, Ceremonies & Parties, by Jane Resnick
The Book of Tea & Coffee, by Sarah Jane Evans and Giles Hilton

If you want to know more about tea as ceremony, you might want to read:

The London Ritz Book of Afternoon Tea: The Art & Pleasures of Taking Tea, by Helen Simpson

The Afternoon Tea Book, by Michael Smith. Rock Cakes with rose petal jam, anyone?

If rock cakes aren’t your cup of tea (sorry, couldn’t resist), we have lots of books with recipes for biscuits, muffins, quick breads, etc.Two you might consider are:
Scones, Muffins & Teacakes: Breakfast Breads and Teatime Spread

Totally Teabreads: Quick and Easy Recipes for More Than 60 Delicious Quick Breads and Spreads, by Barbara Albright and Leslie Weiner

There are those who love tea so much that they enjoy collecting teapots. If you are among that number, you might take a look at
Collectible Teapots: A Reference & Price Guide, by Tina M. Carter

Many of us had our first tea party as little girls. If you know a little person who would love to have a tea party, perhaps inviting some friends, perhaps only a few stuffed animals, here are some books:

Teatime with Emma Buttersnap, by Lindsey Tate

Winnie the Pooh’s Teatime Cookbook, inspired by A.A. Milne

Let’s Have a Tea Party: Special Celebrations for Little Girls, by Emilie Barnes