I read three books by Elizabeth Daly, a murder mystery writer from the 1940’s. Her setting is New York City around World War II. She is not writing about bustling immigrants but about gentry, decaying or otherwise, and a bit of society life. The books are described as English country house, only set in New York City, and that’s a reasonably accurate description. These days, Daly would be described as writing cozy mysteries, since her books have limited casts, a detective with hobbies, and whodunit puzzles that can be solved. She’s a very agreeable addition to the bookshelves.

I read book #1, Unexpected Night, which seems to have been published around 1947. Then I read Murders in Volume 2, actually book #3. and book #11, The Wrong Way Down. At that point, I kind of had indigestion, but I also went home and left the source of these books behind. If I had still had access, I would probably have read one or two more, just as quickly. As it is, if I find them again, I’ll definitely be doing some re-reading. The books have a complex flavor to them that my mind was describing as moldy, but that is not the correct connotation, at all. Think of them as blue cheese, rather than Cheddar. ?!? Elizabeth Daly was born in 1878, and the first book was published when she was about 60. I think that’s relevant knowledge, when she writes about old houses, and elderly people living in them. She really did know what she was talking about and her detective starts out in his thirties.

I don’t know the original publisher but Felony & Mayhem Press reprinted them and gave them a new look. The sepia, black, white and yellow covers are not my thing, but if you are looking for the books they will stand out! https://felonyandmayhem.com/collections/elizabeth-daly

I read the first four chapters of Decluttering at the Speed of Life by Dana K. White. Then I had to stop and try to absorb the idea she was getting across. There are limits! And when you reach those limits you must move some stuff out! Okay, unless you also are a cluttered up person you won’t understand, but this lady knows my language. I don’t yet quite see how to implement her thoughts, and it might help to read a little further in the book, and see more of what she says or if she has some hints for that, but so far, great stuff. She did make me understand that things that you love have to go. And it’s okay. I read some Marie Kondo a while back, and it was briefly helpful in my battle against clutter, but! Marie wants you to give away things that don’t ‘spark joy’. Some of us can be sparked by way too much stuff. Dana White gets this.

I started a book called Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It was a library book that I queued up on my Kindle and then forgot. Mysteriously, when I take books out of the library, they always stay on my Kindle forever… except this one. I started reading it when it was already a day overdue, and the library took it back as soon as I stopped reading that day. I think that Kahneman’s fast and slow thinking are similar constructs of the brain, to Daniel Willingham’s working brain and long-term memory from Why Don’t Students Like School. Not the same, but definitely similar.

Kahneman had a lot to say about unconscious bias that comes from fast thinking, and the book was gone before I finished, so I can’t comment fully about that. He wrote about a lot of ‘experiments’ that he and others had done, and I wondered about the replicability of some of them.

The big thing I got out of the book, as far as I actually read it, was very personal. I’ve struggled with walking recently due to an arthritis flare-up. If I walk very carefully I can stay out of pain. It makes me sound like a steam train because I breathe heavily. That is not from the physical stress of walking. It’s from the mental concentration necessary to think about every step I’m taking. Understanding this makes it simpler to reassure someone who gets concerned. I’m not anywhere near stroking out, I’m just thinking incredibly hard.

I read some staggeringly moralistic tales from the late 1800’s that had been uploaded to Project Gutenberg. Farmer Bluff’s Dog, Blazer or At the Eleventh Hour by Florence Burch, is a ‘good’ example. I mean a terrible example. I mean, a good example of a book that I think is so awful and preachy that I can’t even understand why someone would go to the trouble of uploading it. And, in case you are wondering, I didn’t read every word. I started it, and then started skipping, and then turned to the end where the low class boy dies because he did something bad, the middle-class boy learns his lesson from the same bad incident, and will be a true and proper tenant for the squire, and the squire will be the lame but plucky, and super good boy who went around doing something that I missed because I couldn’t read anymore. I don’t even know why the title of the book is the title but Farmer Bluff also dies, a repentant sinner who couldn’t give up his beer until he lost his job.

There you have it. I haven’t included all the re-reading I do when it’s late, and I want a few more words to cross in front of my eyes.