Book Review/Muffins & Mayhem
Muffins & Mayhem
Recipes for a Happy, if disorderly, life
By SUZANNE BEECHER
A Touchstone Book
A division of Simon & Shuster
Hardbound $24.99
By BILL DUNCAN
The News-Review
Readers of The Senior Times section enfolded in the daily News-Review each first Monday of the month are familiar with the wit and wisdom of Suzanne Beecher. Those who subscribe to her on-line book club through the Douglas County Library get a daily dose of Suzanne Monday through Friday.
They are among 350,000 readers from 3,000 libraries in the U.S. and Canada who get their daily fix of Suzanne’s slices of life. Today, her Dear Reader.com has multiple genres, but when she started in 1999, she provided only two genres. One week was fiction, the next week was non-fiction. Also in the beginning her column was about books. Slowly that changed and she began sharing personal life experiences with her readers. That was an instant hit.
Like the column she wrote about the UPS man who delivers boxes of books to her door in Sarasota, Fla. It was one of her typical columns about ordinary people and how important they are to every day life. Surprisingly, she received an e-mail from 2nd Lt. Paul Guzman, serving in Mosul, Iraq, whose big brother is that UPS man.
She would also often share a favorite recipe and the feedback from readers was tremendous. The recipes detailed everything from how to boil the perfect egg to family secret recipes. Thus, at the urging of many readers. Suzanne decided to write a book, naturally it had to include recipes.
Thus came “Muffins & Mayhem, Recipes for a Happy (if disorderly) Life,” her first book.
Coming up with that title was the hardest part, she said, and several working titles were left on the cutting room floor. It was Stacy Creamer, the now publisher at Touchstone, that found the words muffins and mayhem deep inside the manuscript.
“Writing is an ongoing part of my life,” she said. “I carry a notepad and pen with me wherever I go.” But writing the book was harder than she had anticipated because it required a different discipline. Writing her columns usually occurred in the mornings so she devoted afternoons to her book.
“Once I was into a chapter, it was such a high that when the writing was flowing I would stay with it until the wee hours of the morning,” she said. “At times it was insane but when I finally embraced the finished, hardbound book, I knew it was worth every torturous moment.”
“Muffins and Mayhem” is a delightful story on how to live a happy, if disorderly life from one who lives it daily. When she takes time out, and goes on vacation once a year, Suzanne has a contest among readers to write her column during her absence. This year will be somewhat different. To celebrate her newly published book, Suzanne is seeking columns based on the reader’s own favorite recipe. To learn more about the contest go to suzanne@dearreader.com.
In addition to Dear Reader. Com, Suzanne does specialty book clubs for St. Martin’s Press, Zondervan and Penguin Classics. She also provides Author Buzz and Kids Buzz, in which readers are given the chance to meet authors and win books.
While she doesn’t have international clubs, Suzanne often gets e-mails from people around the world that have found Dear Reader.com on the internet.
(Bill Duncan can be reached at bduncan@nrtoday.com or by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470)