Maggie Pill Mysteries

(Thanks to reader Margaret who sent this darling pic of her cat Murphy with Sleuth Sisters Book #2)   I recently read a post where a woman said she re-reads books at bedtime because knowing what happened makes it unlikely she'll be kept awake by the story. A woman who bought my book at an author signing told me she reads the last chapter first, so she knows if the rest of the book is worth reading. In times of stress, my sister re-read favorite books as a way of comforting herself. They were usually romances, because one of the requirements is a "happily ever after" ending. Reading fiction serves many purposes in our lives. There's enlightenment, vicarious adventure, understanding of other times, places, and peoples, and, like the examples above, comfort, intellectual stimulation, and sleepiness.  Often I see lists of "MUST READ" books, and the implications of the NYT , Oprah, and other best-seller lists is "Here are the books you should be reading....

Readers are smart people. We know that. Reading almost anything makes you learn things, even if they're not massively important things. Non-fiction is the most reliable source for learning, although you have to be careful whose nonfiction it is. Recent studies showed that reading fiction make a person more empathetic, presumably because you frequently put yourself in the place--even inside the head--of others and see life from viewpoints other than your own. (I enjoy writing the Sleuth Sisters Mysteries for that very reason: I have to think like each sister in order to tell the story the way she would see it.) We develop habits over time with our reading, and that's both good and bad. If you always read one genre and even one sub-genre, sooner or later you're going to end up in a rut. I've gone through quite a few phases in my lifetime. For a while I read lots of biographies and autobiographies. Then I read almost exclusively historical fiction. Now I read mostly my...