Ann’s Cottage Blog

Author Ann McAllister Clark - muses about books, authors and St. Augustine, Florida

Sue Grafton

I was saddened to hear of the passing of American mystery writer, Sue Grafton just after Christmas, December 28, 2017.  Her Alphabet books have been so well received over the years and several of them were inspiration for movies.  Ms Grafton’s books began with A is for Alibi and ended with Y is for Yesterday.

A bookstore owner friend of mine here in St. Augustine formed a friendship with Sue Grafton over the years and when he traveled to California to visit family, he often arranged to meet Ms Grafton at one of her book signings to have his growing collection of her books signed.  She was always friendly and approachable and he enjoyed this friendship until his death a few years ago.

I know her family knows how she afforded so many of us mystery lovers hours of pleasure as we became friends with her characters, her main character private investigator Kinsey Millhone, enjoyed her fictional town of Santa Teresa and rode the ribbons of her story telling.

Her books will live on for decades of readers enjoyment.

Many of her witty quotes can be found on Google and elsewhere but I find these three bring a smile.

“Ideas are easy. It’s the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.”

“I focus on the writing and let the rest of the process take care of itself. I’ve learned to trust my own instincts and I’ve also learned to take risks.”

And finally, “If high heels were so wonderful, men would be wearing them.”

Thank you, Sue Grafton for many hours of fun, interest and escape.

The New Dressmaker, 1921

The New Dressmaker, 1921

A book review of sorts

By Ann McAllister Clark

Did you know that thousands of books are being uploaded to the Internet by university libraries?  That is how people that own an electronic reader like the Kindle can have so many free books to read.  But even if you don’t have a reader you can find these books easily accessible right on your home computer.

I have in my collection, The New Dressmaker – copyright 1921 by the Butterick Publishing Company.  I found the entire book including the table of contents, drawings and illustrations on the University of Wisconsin’s digital library site

I have included the address below.

If you ‘copy and paste’ the address below into your address/browser line you can go right to the book.  Some of you may have programs that allow you to just click on the blue address.

There are some easy directions on the left side of the site’s page.  Just click on one of the blank little pages to enlarge the writing so it is easier to read the books print.  If you click on the ‘gallery’ on the side it will show you lots of pages to see. When you click on a page, at the bottom of that you will find arrows to take you to the next or the previous page.  If you don’t want to read the whole thing just save it into your ‘favorites list’ and you can come back anytime.

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/HumanEcol/HumanEcol-idx?id=HumanEcol.MBNewDressmaker

1921 Edward Hopper’s Girl at Sewing Machine

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