Hello. It's been more than a month since my last post, which means I'm either A) really lazy, B) really busy, C) extremely forgetful or D) all of the above. (The correct answer: D.)

Recently I had to write something about book clubs for my publisher and I had the genius idea to recycle it here until I could come up with something more substantive. But, first, please allow me to offer a few excuses for my blog neglect. In fact, one of these days I should do a whole post on excuses, because I really like them.

Excuse #1: I've been living out of a suitcase for a month on a speedy house-hunt. Excuse #2: I'm trying to finish a book by a March 1st deadline. Excuse #3: Did I mention I'm writing a whole book? Excuse #4: I think I need reading glasses and it's slowing me down.

Back to book clubs. If you've perused my site, you might notice that, schedule permitting, I'm happy to phone into book clubs and answer whatever questions you might have (details here)—or just to eavesdrop on some trash talk. But I should confess that I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of a book club.

If I were, I would probably be that person who never read the book and showed up just for the food and drink. If you're like me, might I recommend the book How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard. That will give you some smart ways to navigate the book club experience.

Until you have a chance to read that book, I've assembled some handy phrases to get the unprepared member of a book club through her next meeting:

"I wasn't feeling the ending."
"What's-her-name kind of annoyed me."
"It was a masterpiece, I thought."
"Pass the chips."
"The dip is amazing."
"I agree with what Suzie¹ said."
"[insert name of book] will stay with me a long time. "
"Word."
"The first rule of book club is that there is no book club."

Remember, there's nothing worse than a book club meeting without drinks. Here's my recipe for Magic Punch:

1 part vodka
1 part soda water
1 part limeade
1 package Lifesavers (red/green are excellent for the holidays)

Footnote:

1. Make sure someone named Suzie is in book club.

Welcome to my new website. I've been swamped with a deadline and other nonsense, but I wanted to set a precedent for regular blogs posts. So, against my better judgment, I asked my previous co-author, David Hayward to write the opening blog. It would seem that Dave is still bitter about our previous collaboration and maybe the fact that I managed to finish a whole book in the interim (and hard at work on my next) while he's still toiling away on The Mellman Files.

I hope to maintain consistency with this new blog and may at times invite guest bloggers to do so. But, rest assured, this is the last passive-aggressive nonsense we'll see from Dave.

Yours truly,
Lisa Lutz

Lisa's busy disciplining her staff of servants, so she paid me to write the first blog post on this site, which I guess is supposed to promote her side project The Spilton Files, a series of comedic mystery novels about a family of private investigators. I hear the books are all set in Hawaii. Real original, Lisa. Hello, Magnum P.I.?

If you're the kind of person who likes to spend time on book websites, and you apparently are, I have one question for you: Why this one? Why not a site about a book whose authors cared enough to post their own content, rather than farm it out to other writers? The Heads You Lose website is one such example, chosen at random. It also features lively debate and even a disturbing morning-TV video. Also, the book itself actually has a mystery in it, which I'm told is a real plus for some mystery fans.

Unfortunately, the paperback of Heads You Lose won't be out until April 2012. To kill time before then, I guess you could do worse than to check out the Spingmans and their zany exploits. Aloha means hilarity!

David Hayward