Thank you. Reading mysteries is not a choice in my life, but a necessity...like eating and breathing.

Thanks for inviting me, Jeff

You do not have to subscribe to Harpers Magazine to read the wonderful Francine Prose article. Use your public library website. If your lucky and your public library hasn't had to unsubscribe from a full text magazine database, you can get it free online if your library provides remote access to their databases. I found it on Ebsco Host. Go to your library's website and check out anything that mentions "reference databases" or similar term. It should be free (okay, paid for by your taxes. Okay, no databases available, go to the library and check to see if they've kept back issues for that long. Space is a big problem with keeping back issues of so many periodicals. I think this bias begins when we are very young. Reading girls will pick up anything. We may have read Nancy Drew and Judy Bolton, but we also read the Hardy Boys. It is a rare boy who will read Nancy Drew or any book (or watch a movie)featuring a girl as the hero. I always told classes that came to the library that this explains why women understand men better than men understand women. I have had many grown men refuse to read books by women. That includes my father until I finally converted him by sneaking in non-gender specific authors...like Dell Shannon. He liked the books and told him that he had been enjoying a woman author. That's also why I'm a long-time member of Sisters in Crime. But I still read many male authors, but was thrilled when so many new female authors being published.

Well, I'm old and remember reading about the,"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" line from the GWTW movie which, according to my mother, I heard the first time while in the womb. (Loved the movie, but didn't care for the book. Found it boring and poorly written. (Understand why Mitchell only wrote one book and I thank the publishing gods for that). And yes, Rachel does rock. But then I always am rooting on the female contestants. I at least maintain my feminist credentials that way.