Join me and Edwin Battistella for our first animal themed happy hour! Ed is my former English professor and college advisor and also an extremely talented writer and published author. Ed shares how two small animals wreaked havoc in his life: a cockroach nearly got him shot by a pistol packing landlord and a goldfish brought up philosophical issues and nearly resulted in his firing. Stay away from small creatures, Ed!

Ed’s Boo Club

Slough House series by Mick Herron

Penguin Randomhouse’s description of Slow Horses, the first book in the series: “London, England: Slough House is where washed-up MI5 spies go to while away what’s left of their failed careers. The ‘slow horses,’ as they’re called, have all disgraced themselves in some way to get relegated there. Maybe they botched an Op so badly they can’t be trusted anymore. Maybe they got in the way of an ambitious colleague and had the rug yanked out from under them. Maybe they just got too dependent on the bottle—not unusual in this line of work. One thing they have in common, though, is they want to be back in the action. And most of them would do anything to get there─even if it means having to collaborate with one another.”

Pignon Scorbion & The Barbershop Detectives by Rick Bleiweiss

Description from Blackstone Publishing’s site: “For fans of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, author Rick Bleiweiss’s quirky new detective and ensemble cast of characters set against the backdrop of small-town England in the 1910s will feel both comfortingly familiar and thrillingly new.”

Ed’s Shares not Scares

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Oregon Cultural Trust is “as uniquely Oregonian as public beaches and the bottle bill, the Oregon Cultural Trust was established 21 years ago by the Oregon Legislature as an ongoing funding engine for arts and culture across the state.”