49th Annual Historic Home Tour

The 49th Annual Historic Home Tour of Marshall, Michigan will be offering exquisite private homes and businesses for public viewing and enjoyment. The tour will feature seven homes and will include seven historic museums covering diverse specialties such as unusual architecture, antique home furnishings, Civil War memorabilia, a restored antique post office, Michigan's largest collection of magic memorabilia as well as two art centers. To close out the tour's twenty structures will be one business from Marshall's well-maintained historic business district.

Marshall's tour has been called the Granddaddy of Midwest Home Tours and is famous all over the country for its traditions and heritage, and was voted the Best Home Tour by the readers of AAA's Michigan Living magazine

This year’s event takes place from Saturday, September 8 (9am-5pm) to Sunday, September 9 (10a-5pm). For more information, including cost, please contact the Marshall Historical Society.

Book News: Cuban Dagger

Brad Strickland announced via Twitter that the second Jim Dallas adventure – Cuban Dagger – is now available through your Kindle!

Review: House "Passes the Bechdel Test"

Book review: The House where Nobody Lived

What's What: Lapsang Souchong

We get an idea of how awkward Miss Eells is by how she prepares her hot plate and kettle for tea, including the ordeal of sweeping up sugar and trying to remove the lid off the Lapsang Souchong box [The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn; 15-6].

Dickens, Schuler & Bellairs IV

We’re celebrating the 200th anniversary of celebrated author Charles Dickens’s birth this year. Born February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsmouth, England, Dickens created a plethora of memorable characters with whimsical names across a dozen major novels and numerous short stories.

Reviewing Strickland: Atlanta Bones

Review: Atlanta Bones

Alert: New Titles from SF Gateway

We suppose we knew this was eventually going to happen, and it appears it did while we away last month. British publisher SF Gateway released the final four books in the Johnny Dixon series for those readers who a) live outside the United States and Canada and b) prefer electronic books. Much like American publisher eReads released the four Strickland-involved Dixon books earlier this year, SF Gateway has done the same – keeping with their traditional yellow covers, of course.  The first eight books were released by SF Gateway late last year.