books, Business, Media, Mysteries

How Cozy

28 Comments

Normally I don’t pick up the BookPage supplement that the library sets out every month.  More ideas about what to read are NOT necessary in my life.  I have lists and lists.  People suggest books to me all the time.  This isn’t a problem, it just means I don’t need to go looking. 

Last week, while the kitchen project was happening, I spend all day every day sitting on the sofa, so that I could be available if needed.  I wrote blogs for the trail, looked at Facebook, read a lot.  When I picked up a couple of books from the library, I grabbed not just the regular supplement but also a “Looking Forward to 2023” special edition as well.  Seemed like a good project for a week of sofa-surfing.

It was surprising to come across a page devoted to “Cozy Mysteries”.  Believe it or not, I have never heard this phrase before, although in reading through the blurbs, I knew immediately what they were talking about. Protagonist (99.9% women), mostly small town settings, a murder that only the protagonist can solve. I spent over a year reading tons and tons of cozy mysteries; I couldn’t get enough.  I’m not sure what was driving this but after about a year, the desire to read more of them simply vanished.  But I never realized that these stories had garnered a genre all to themselves.

When I was in the bookstore, it was pretty straightforward.  Fiction, nonfiction, children’s.  Fiction was split into fiction, science fiction, romance and mystery.  Non-fiction was historical, self-help, cooking, biography/memoir.

Now we have debut fiction, historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy, dystopian fiction, mystery, cozy mystery, horror, thriller, literary fiction (this one slays me), young adult, graphic novels, biography, autobiography, memoir, true crime.  I could actually keep going but….

I guess all this micro-categorization can be helpful to folks when they are looking for something to read but since I tend to read across a lot of genres, it doesn’t matter so much to me.  I do still read an occasional cozy mystery; I can’t stay away from Susan Wittig Albert.  Knowing that this kind of work now has a name of its own name seems charming.

Anything in your life that you like to micro-manage?

28 thoughts on “How Cozy”

  2. All of the fiction in our public library is organized alphabetically by author, not genre. This compels a person to browse.

    The college library is organized by the Library of Congress system, so every book has a two letter prefix. The fiction is organized by country and time period.

    We micromanage our dog because he is a young terrier, and constant vigilance is nessary.

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  3. Although we have more non-fiction books than fiction and the non-fiction tends to be organized in clumps or specific bookshelves based on subject or category, along with any fiction that also deals with that subject, our books follow no specific arrangement plan. I simply carry a mental image of where any given book is located.

    The same is true for our foodstuffs. Since I do the bulk of the shopping and cooking (for dinner at least), I carry a mental image of what we have in the refrigerator, the freezer, and the pantry and where it can be located.

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  4. Rise and Tend to the Details, Baboons,

    I am usually a big picture person who requires others to micromanage things, such as the medical billing at work, which is nothing but details which must be accurately managed. If I did my own billing I would be poor as a church mouse. The exception to this in my life are several things:

    My kitchen—I want my stuff where I want my stuff, and no one should move it. I also want my food managed without much waste. I learned this from Grandma who was masterful at this.

    Parts of my garden—The cold frame and the vegetable plants I start there, where I plant them (one must rotate crops!), where and when I fertilize, how I manage pests (limited chemicals). The flowers, which I love, get less micromanagement. The veggies get a lot.

    OT, my mother, now in hospice care, is getting the full palliative care treatment which is good. She gets her own nurse’s aide one hour per day, a massage therapist who eases her back pain, and she has a new,comfy padded and reclining wheelchair.

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  5. I have the fridge organized to my liking – dairy (except milk) on lower left, an additional veggies tray that’s long and narrow front to back, and a spinner thingy on back of middle shelf…
    I try to use plastic containers in the freezer to keep things visible and available.

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  6. I guess I micromanage my finances. I use Quicken to keep track of our money to the dollar. Don’t laugh! Back in the days when gas was a buck a gallon, a decent house cost $25,000, and I remember thinking my U of M parking lot attendant gig paid me pretty darn well at $3.65/hour, I kept track of expenses to the penny.

    Side note: just cam across some old papers I’d saved (for some weird reason) of notes I’d made for planning vacations in the 70s and 80s. Guess what our 3-week camping trip honeymoon from Mpls to Boston and Cape Cod and back–via Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City–cost?

    . . . *drum roll. please*

    *brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrap!*

    $550 (included one night in a motel when the campground we’d planned to stay at hadn’t been fully constructed so their was no water, toilets, or even a site for us to pitch a tent!)

    Chris in Owatonna

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    1. yep
      my 6 week vw van trip in 71 was 400

      i don’t manage let alone micro manage very well

      i do stuff that leads to more stuff

      i don’t really have to micromanage just try to keep up and plug important stuff in

      see you at blevins now that vikes are out

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      1. whoops sunday is wife’s bd and wednesday is moms so we’ll be doing a double up celebration sunday complete with grand children and grand parents and great grandparents so blevins in march will be here in no time see you then

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      3. She’s fine with it. Relieves her of having to deal with our money at all–much to my chagrin because if I die before she does, she’s going to be totally unfamiliar with the finances. I used to get her to write the checks and balance the accounts for one month per year (February, of course), but she won’t even do that now.

        We do a monthly financial review where she sees where we spend our money and how our investments are doing, but that’s all she really wants to do. But I’ve had to write down detailed instructions for her on basic tasks like how to access our online accounts, download monthly statements, what bills are due and when, etc.

        Chris

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    3. There is a Japanese term for the sort of money management I think you’re describing, Chris. It’s Kakeibo. I did this pretty religiously when I was about 25 to 45 or so. I’ve slacked off a bit now.

      I can still tell you how much I spent on gas and groceries in 1998 – still have the spreadsheets.

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  8. You didn’t mention “urban fiction” – my libraries and bookstores have tonsof it these days.

    The thing I find strange is walking into a bookstore, and along with the traditional categories there’s a huge section of Manga and Anime. It always makes me feel as if I have wandered into some unfamiliar alternate universe.

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  9. I’ll present this as a micromanagement.
    I’m watching the movie Hamlet from 1996. It is excellent although very long; fully 4 hours. I knew this going in, so followed the script with my book, William Shakespeare: The Complete Works.
    Few discrepancies from the text. Excellent.

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