Well, I know I have written several times about how important it is to me to read a series in the correct chronological order.  Having said that, I must admit that I have had to read some series out of order….. not really on purpose, but …. sort of.

Susan Rogers Cooper is one of my favorite cozy mystery authors. She has three series, and I have read all three. That’s a lot of books! The only one I haven’t read is The Man in the Green Chevy, which is the first Milt Kovak cozy. I tried desperately to buy a copy of that book, but was unable to find it. At one time, I was eagerly waiting for my library to pull off an inter library loan, but that fell through. Boy! Was I having a difficult time finding that book!

Cooper’s three series are based on main characters who come from very different backgrounds. The E. J. Pugh series is about a romance novelist who lives in Texas.  The Kimmey Kruse series is about a stand-up comedian, and Milt Kovak is a sheriff from Oklahoma. I think that "Milt’s series" is my favorite……. which is a good thing, since it looks like Susan is continuing to write those books. (There hasn’t been a Kimmey Kruse books since 1994.) Vegas Nerve is set for a 2007 publication…. and I can’t wait to read it….. after I finally read The Man in the Green Chevy, since (after several years of searching) I have finally gotten a copy of it!

I know that I have talked about this before on my site….  I have gotten many suggestions regarding new authors who I should add to my site. When I first put this website together, I pretty much included only authors I had personally read. There were a few authors who I hadn’t read, but since my cozy mystery reader friends had recommended them, I felt that they could be  added to my list. I tried to add a small note on the site that explained I hadn’t read any of that particular author’s books…. yet.

At first, I thought that I wouldn’t add new authors unless I tried them first, or one of my personal friends endorsed them. Now, with all of the new suggested authors, I have changed my mind. As I have stated before, I am not an unusually fast reader. If I tried every suggested author before I posted his/her chronological list of cozy mysteries, I wouldn’t be adding very many of those authors each year. I have many cozy mystery authors who I follow, who take up most of my reading time already.

Once I have an author’s name, I then go about looking up information about that author. I try to run down the author’s website, which, if I can, makes my chronological list of books a lot easier to get together. Unfortunately, many authors don’t have a website, which then means that I have to do web searches for the author, and then try to piece together what I can. (I remember… years ago……. how I found out the chronological order of an author’s books: I would go to the library, pull out all of a particular author’s books, and then check each copyright date. As I said…….. "years ago!">>>> and oh, I would then return the books to the correct library shelf location…)

Anyway, right now I am in the midst of adding several new authors to the site. (By "new," I mean "new" to me.) I know that a lot of the site’s users follow these  cozy mystery authors………. and eventually, I probably will too!

I know I haven’t written for a long time. I am pretty sure that the reason I haven’t wanted to write in my blog is that it was becoming (sort of) a chore. Rather than just talk about the mystery (and other types of) DVDs/movies that we enjoy watching, I felt like I had to put the links to Amazon so that anyone who might read the blog could find out what the movie/show was really all about. So, for now, I think that I will take a break from that…………….

I just started reading an author who I had never tried before………….Patricia Wentworth. She has an older woman sleuth (Miss Maud Silver) and I am enjoying the first book (Grey Mask) immensely.  I think that I would recommend the book to other cozy mystery readers, but since I am only half way done with it, I probably should wait and see how I like the second half. 

The Grey Mask was published in 1928, so as you can imagine, it is a classic, and doesn’t rely on gratuitous sex or language. I have found that recently, I have been craving the older "classics" which have withstood the hands of time. I am sure that I will get back into reading the newer cozy mysteries, but  right now, I am trying some new (for me!) "older" authors……… by which I mean books that were published a long time ago.

I am, however, listening to a delightful book on tape right now. I listen to it in the car and while I do my house hold chores. I must admit, I get more listening done while driving than while cleaning! I will write more about that book in another blog.

Gee whiz! I have missed just typing about the cozy mystery books that I read!

I previously wrote about one friend of mine who has almost the same/exact taste for cozy mystery books that I have. I have yet another friend who has a somewhat different taste for cozy mystery books, with her preference sometimes going for the more "hard-boiled" mysteries, but at the same time, she likes one particular "funny" author who I just don’t like at all. This author is a huge best seller, so there are obviously many other readers who think she is tops in the cozy mystery book field. I, on the other hand, find that the particular author "tries too hard" to be funny. I am not going to name the author, and, since there are so many authors who really and truly are funny, it will probably be difficult to guess who I am referring to…

This friend of mine, with the somewhat different taste in cozy mystery books, has "turned me on to" some authors who I never would have tried. And, I have added many of those authors to my "favorite author" list. I never would have guessed that I would like Jeffery Deaver, Michael Connelly, Harlan Coben, but, I DO!

I guess that the moral of this blogging story is that sometimes you have to go outside the box (or should I say "book"?) and try different authors. Who knows, you may surprise yourself and enjoy someone who you had absolutely no intention of ever trying.