Cozy: Not a Book Genre by Definition, But a Possible Feeling After Reading

There is no memory of having heard the word cozy used as the genre of a book before signing up some years ago to be a part of DorothyL, an on-line discussion group about mysteries. Curiosity at the time led me to read several books described as such by both the authors and readers.

That reading did nothing to satisfy my curiosity. Comparatively speaking, the books read were more cheese and chalk than peas in a pod. The subject had been dropped from personal thought until another round of on-line discussion arose about what makes a book cozy. The latest comments struck me saying what a cozy book isn’t rather than what it is.

The book being read when this latest round of discussion started was Anne Rivers Siddons’ BURNT MOUNTAIN. She writes scenes that could win a majority vote on being cozy, but no one would use the word to describe her complete books. “Why not?” That was the question lingering in the back of my mind as reading the book continued.

The exercise left me with the following thoughts—intended to be nothing more than what the word cozy means to one reader as it relates to books. That the word can used to describe a book has not so much to do with the subject matter, but how the subject is approached.

Cozy is the feeling created by reading the book, like a perfect trip to the beach. It was a sunny day. The temperature was neither too hot, nor too cold. The sea breeze, gentle and soothing, was never so strong as to make blowing sand a concern, or ruffle the pages of a book being read. The water, when going for a swim, felt perfect, like a second skin, with a gentle rolling surf, no need to keep a lookout for rogue waves.

The trip to the beach is remembered only with the feeling that it was a very enjoyable time. Nothing specific happened that burrowed into the brain and left its mark in such a way that in the days and weeks afterwards, it could be recalled separately from the overall enjoyment of the day.

The “cozies” read a few years ago are remembered in this manner. The feeling that they were enjoyable still exists. But, with the implied threat of a gun being held to my head, not a single character or scene from any of them can be recalled. And that is not a bad thing from my perspective.

The idea that every book read should be a story where events became emotional weevils borrowing into the psyche of the book’s characters, creating—for them and vicariously for me—moments that remain a haunting memory days or weeks later is not an appealing one. Every book need not give some great insight into human nature, or reveal some universal truth.

This is not to say that such books are never read. But sometimes, certain authors are bypassed for the moment when the goal is to simply pick up a book and, hopefully, have the experience of reading for its inherent enjoyment. And afterwards, like that perfect day at the beach, remember nothing more than it was worth the investment of time.

There is a fear, for me at least, that it would be a terrible situation should every novel read remained a conscious memory, competing later with the reality of the moment. Life, I think, might become so discombobulated that remembering what to do when Mother Nature called could be a problem.

Knowing that a book will be a cozy read beforehand is somewhat of a gamble, but knowing it was one after the last page is never a question. Which, to my way of thinking, is the problem. Cozy cannot be defined as an abstract truth, such as: sunrises and sunsets occur only once in each twenty-four hour period. Cozy is not a genre. It is a word that describes a writer’s desire/hope/goal while creating the story and/or a reader’s feelings after reading it.

John Dunning Five-Book Series Gives Unique View into Rare Book World

John Dunning is a name that may not be known to that many folks in today’s books-of-the-week world, but finding his five-book series buried deep in a corner of the local library was for me like finding five pieces of pure gold. Unfortunately, there is an element of sadness involved in this discovery.

Dunning, the owner of a bookstore in Denver, Colorado, was an award-winning author, but had not been published in ten years when he began the series featuring the character, Cliff Janeway, a Denver police detective turned bookstore owner specializing in rare and collectable books. People who know more about genres than do I use the word bibliomystery to describe the books in the series.

Each of the five books contains a whodunit story line that will satisfy the most devoted plot hounds. At the same time, they give readers a view of the world of rare and signed books that may surprise those who are as ignorant as I found myself about the trade.

The series was an instant success. The initial printing (6,500 copies) for BOOKED TO DIE (1992), sold out over night. Winner of the Nero Wolfe Award for the year, the book went through four more hardback and nineteen paperback printings over the next eight years.

The next four books, THE BOOKMAN’S WAKE (1995), THE BOOKMAN’S PROMISE (2004), THE SIGN OF THE BOOK (2005), and THE BOOKWOMAN’S LAST FLING (2006), continued the series’ success.

The sad part of the story is that the author has not been able to continue the series since undergoing surgery for the partial removal of a large benign brain tumor in 2006. He and his wife Helen have closed Old Algonquin Books in Denver as a storefront business, but continue to operate it as an as an Internet venture dealing in rare books.   http://www.oldalgonquin.com 

First printings of the hardbacks in the series have become collectable editions. The asking price on Internet sites for a signed, first edition of BOOKED TO DIE is in the neighborhood of $2,500, depending on condition. However, the good news for the average reader is that it appears all five books are still available in paperback and in audio format.

What's the Number of Words Needed When Writing a 65,000-word Novel?

This is not a trick question. But it’s one that would have once been answered differently. That is, if thought had even been given to the question some years ago before succumbing to the addiction of creative writing.

My ignorance was buried in what Robert Lewis Stevenson is quoted as calling, “The swiftly done work of the journalist, and the cheap finish and ready-made methods to which it leads.”

Many a night during a career as a reporter, my arrival back in the newsroom after covering an event was greeted with the announcement from the editor that he needed twenty column-inches to fill the allotted space. The lead was needed in five minutes so that the headline could be written. The deadline for the entire piece was thirty minutes away.

In the modern world of computers, column inches have been shoved aside by word count. There is no set formula that converts one to the other because of present-day variances among newspapers on column width and type-size. But per the rule of thumb back in the 1960s, a column inch equaled thirty-five to forty words.

So a seven to eight hundred-word story was written in those thirty minutes without a moment’s pause. It helped in those days that the norm for vocabulary was geared to a sixth-grade reading level. It was a time when effort was not spent thinking of big words, or descriptive adjectives, or adverbs.

Rewriting? The word did not exist in the newsroom during the course of daily events. There was a “rewrite” desk to handle wire service stories from the AP or UPI. But the process was ninety-nine percent cutting rather than rewriting existing text.

That was the mindset when the jump into creative writing was made. A quote on “rewriting,” one attributed to Dorothy Parker, was the only one with which there was any degree of familiarity. “I can't write five words but that I can change seven.” The quote reads “can” rather than “must.” It was once viewed as another attempt to demonstrate her wit. Its true meaning and importance were learned later.

 Over recent years, many quotes on rewriting have been read. All hold an inherent truth, but one struck me as the true goal of a creative writer and the effort it takes. The following comes from an interview with Ernest Hemingway in The Paris Review in 1956.

 Interviewer: How much rewriting do you do?

Hemingway: It depends. I rewrote the ending of Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, 39 times before I was satisfied.

Interviewer: Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?

Hemingway: Getting the words right.

So how many words does it take to write a 65,000-word novel? As many as needed if one’s goal is: “Getting the words right.”