Being Particular About Coffee and Books

Finding a good book is like finding a good cup of coffee. Regarding coffee, I’ve come to realize I have to make it myself. It does not have to be high-end coffee. At work, we have a Members Mark Colombian medium roast pre-ground in a can, but if I make it and drink it before the burner turns the flavor, it’s really quite good. It’s a grade above Folger’s, as it’s Arabica — even if not high-end Arabica.

I like medium to dark roasts. I like some light roasts, too, but they are tricky because they often are very mild-flavored and if you try to make them strong for more flavor, they end up so acidic they will take the enamel off your teeth. Roasts like French or Italian are often so dark they taste like ashes, but at least they have flavor. French presses will give almost all varieties a robust flavor, but you have to take the silt and grounds and oiliness along with it. Keurigs are all right if you use high-quality coffee and stick to eight or ten oz cups; otherwise, they produce an unsatisfactory, watery brew.

I avoid local coffeeshops because without exception, their brewed coffee tastes like water. However, I also avoid Starbucks because they no longer keep their brewed coffee fresh. Here’s a clue: if the lights are flashing on the machines, the coffee is no longer fresh. They don’t use burners to avoid burning the coffee; this means when the coffee is old and loses its piping hot temperature, the lights on the machine will flash. I can’t remember the last time I went in a Starbucks anywhere at any time of the day and didn’t see flashing lights. Yesterday, I was traveling and went through the drive thru in the morning; I couldn’t see the machines, but disappointingly, the coffee was barely clinging to a concept known as hot. I’m not sure when or why Starbucks let down its brewed coffee crowd for the diabetic frou-frou crowd, but it has.

I know this will trigger the “Starbucks burns their beans” crowd, but let’s just ward away such ignorance. Starbucks offers an array of roasts from the tasteless light breakfast blends all the way to the Italian roasts, which are meant to be roasted until they are black and sticky with oil. This crowd is under a delusion that Starbucks only has one roast. The truth is, they have many nicely roasted medium beans, but they will not make fresh coffee in house. Not do they serve medium roasts on tap, old or fresh. They do a light roast, a dark roast, and a medium-dark every day in their shops. But good luck with the timing on getting any of it when it’s fresh.

That is my rant on coffee. I’m not a snob. I’ve met coffee snobs, and I’m not one. Plus, it’s difficult to find good coffee in my cowtown. Nobody is a coffee snob in Roswell. The people here don’t want coffee; they want a sugar bomb. This is a growing American fad, I’ve heard. Even though I’m not a snob, I want robust flavor and gone are the days when I’d add a dash of salt to the Farmers Bros coffee at the diner to make it palatable. Therefore, I must always make my own coffee or suffer disappointment.

This do-it-yourself mentality does not work with books, on the other hand. Yes, I write books, but I don’t want to read my own labors. I want something new and different, which is odd because my tastes have dwindled from reading almost all genres (literary, comedy, mystery, sci fi, biography, history, religion/apologetics) to only reading mysteries, gothic romances, and comedies. I still buy religious works, and I start them and lose my patience and don’t finish them.

Mysteries are hit and miss, too, though. Romance is fine, if it’s a side plot. But imagine my distaste when a plethora of mysteries have a focus on romance or sex. No, just no. Cozy can be far too cozy, but at least it doesn’t come with explicit sex or old ladies finding youthful exotic lovers who just fall madly in love with their personalities…or something. I don’t know about other women, but as someone close to fifty, I find it a repellent thought to have a younger mate. The weird thing is, it actually happens more than people like to think. Two of my close friends went that route when they were forty, both dating men in their twenties; one eventually tossed out her boy toy. The other married him and is still married ten years later. So, I guess it worked for her…? But I still find it hackneyed and unbelievable in books.

All that being said, I tend towards cozies from British authors, or at the very least, mysteries where the extent of the sex is a closed door. I like intrigue and investigations. I like justice. I like everything resolved neatly in the end. I prefer unlikely detectives, such as Miss Marple, who simply understand the nature of people. And I also like to see even the most discerning detective get it wrong because humans will always have lapses in judgment.

One series I love is the Slim Hardy mysteries by Jack Benton. They have everything: supernatural and gothic elements, an unlikely hero, and justice done in the end. These aren’t really cozies, but there isn’t a lot of romance and sex is behind closed doors (that is, fade to next morning and spare us the details). And honestly, these books are just weird in a good way. Highly recommend. I will be sad to reach the end of the series.

Another is the Bea Abbot series by Veronica Heley. Bea Abbot is a widow who gets embroiled in murders through the domestic agency she takes over after her husband passed away. These are definitely cozies with a lot of good comedy and plenty of unlikeable characters. They are also very Christian, but in a good rather than preachy way. I love Bea, as she’s her own person. She’s a bit introspective and will often let chaos swirl around her before she tackles it, but she always snaps awake to deal with it. The most important part: she is her own independent person who doesn’t let people push her around. I’m also quite sexist and find this kind of commentary funny: “‘What a day! Suppose you choose something light for me to eat?’ [Bea says this to placate the man she’s eating with after she was late for their date.] Men liked to feel superior that way.” Or: “Men always think you’re intelligent if you get them to talk about themselves.” That last bit is true of women, too. Most people who ask questions and let others talk are perceived as having high intelligence.

Along the lines of a cozy series with a widow, one that I’ve chosen to abandon is the Mrs. Pargeter series by Simon Brett. The first two books were intriguing enough re their plots and mysteries. Like Bea Abbot, Mrs. Pargeter is a widow. Mr. Pargeter seems to have been some kind of Robin Hood of justice, using underworld contacts to bring justice about when it couldn’t be done by ordinary means. Mrs. Pargeter still has all her husband’s contacts and makes use of them, which makes the series interesting. However, I lost interest when Amazon recommended the eighth book in the series to me (which I bought by accident). The books are their own plots; they don’t have to be read in order necessarily. On the other hand, I realized that there will never be any true character development if there wasn’t from book one to book eight. The clue is in the character’s name. In the Bea Abbot series, the widow is her own person and is called by her first name. In this series, the woman goes by her husband’s name, Mrs. Pargeter. She clearly had a domineering, larger than life husband, and the widow has no discernible personality in her own right. At least I can’t detect one. She dresses the way her husband wanted her to dress, uses her husband’s proverbs as life guides because she apparently has no moral compass of her own, and everything she knows about the world was taught to her by her husband. There is a sad bit in this last book I read, where the widow waxes on about how her husband had taught her to have an art aesthetic. She, therefore, decides that a gift of a porcelain cat figure from a man who likes her needs to be hidden away or destroyed because it doesn’t fit her dead husband’s snooty art aesthetic. Near the end, she uses it to smash a bad guy over the head. All that would be fine, if it was her own art aesthetic and she didn’t like the man who gave the cat to her. But it’s not couched that way. I find it exceedingly depressing for a widow with a domineering husband to still lack a personality years after he has passed. I want to see her grow and find out who she is outside her husband. But some people are like that — moldable shells who live through others. I don’t think they make good heroines, though.

There are some men out there — not all or most of them I realize — who believe God created women to live and breathe their life goals. The funny thing is Mrs. Pargeter doesn’t believe in God, but Bea Abbot prays regularly. Because of this, the strange irony is that Bea believes in her own value, but Mrs. Pargeter clings to her husband’s ghost because she doesn’t have anything else, except the loads of money he left her and all his contacts who help solve crimes for her. You know who helps Bea? The two young people she helped, who are loyal to her and not her dead husband.

So sorry about that. I haven’t had a decent cup of coffee in a while, and I have become very particular about my books and my coffee. When it really comes down to it, I like the Jack Benton books the best because of their weirdness. Also, the detective is a divorced alcoholic with PTSD. He doesn’t have pleasant thoughts about his long-gone wife. He’s obsessed with solving mysteries and doesn’t live vicariously through anyone. A true independent. Except dependent on alcohol when he falls off the wagon. Oh, dear. And then he becomes dependent on coffee (which he’s very particular about!)