GEN: Summer reading

[Vona Genelle Van Cleef <vona@TENET.EDU>]

Just in case the mystery fans out there haven't discovered the Amanda
Cross novels yet, here's a brief intro: I saw Death in a Tenured Position
on the paperback rack at a high school library a few years ago, was
intrigued by the title, and after discovering that "Amanda Cross" was the
pen name for Carolyn G. Heilbrun, a humanities professor at Columbia
University and the author of Writing a Woman's Life, I went back and read
the novel. The detective is Kate Fansler, a college English prof who
finds herself freelancing as a detective case after case. Teachers and
other academics will especially enjoy the literary allusions and comments
on campus politics!  (I'm not really a mystery fan, but the Amanda Cross
novels are one exception.  The other is Tony Hillerman, because we have
lived in the Four Corners area that he writes about and I always learn
more about the various Indian cultures when reading one of his books.
Another of his books, The Great Taos Bank Robbery, is a collection of
feature articles from Hillerman's newspapering days and one of them,
maybe titled "We all fall down," is one of the most haunting pieces I've
ever read [it's about the bubonic plague, still--and
unfortunately--"alive and well" in New Mexico].

In another matter: as a journalism major and an English minor in a
previous life, it troubles me to not underline book titles on e-mail.  Or
do we?  Or do we use *stars* thusly?  Don't quite have all the fine
points of internet grammar and style down yet!

Vona Van Cleef, librarian, LBJ Elementary, El Paso, Texas 79902
G'night y'all!