Winter of Cagney: The Bride Came C.O.D.

February 26, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / Leave a comment

This Winter I’ve been watching James Cagney movies.

I’ve switched the movie I was going to write about last week with the one I was going to write this week because I was going to watch the DVD of Angels With Dirty Faces I picked up, but I’ve been waiting for a night to watch it with The Husband, and that hasn’t come.

In the end, I decided to wait to watch that movie with him because he would like to see it as well, and it will be fun to watch together.

Angels with Dirty Faces stars Cagney with Humphrey Bogart, and Bogie is one of my husband’s favorite actors.

The Bride Came C.O.D. with Cagney and Bette Davis was a perfect substitute for this week, though.

It was a delightfully fun movie, and I needed it this week, so I’m glad I made the trade.

I will be watching this movie again with him soon, though, because it was just too much fun and should be watched with others.

This is a slapstick comedy where Cagney and Davis were both trying their acting talents at something a little different.

First, the premise: Davis is playing Joan Winfield, an heiress who makes impulsive decisions, and her latest impulsive decision is marrying Alan Brice (Jack Carson), a famous singer and band leader. The marriage announcement comes at just the right time for gossip and entertainment broadcaster named Hinkle who needs a big story.

He talks Brice into marrying Joan right away because it will make a great story for his broadcast.

The only issue is that Joan is on the phone with her father when Alan announces his engagement to Joan to the audience at the club and she is trying to work up the courage to tell her father she’s engaged.

Their call is cut short and she never tells him, but Hinkle arranges for her and Alan to go to a small airport to be flown by a private plane to Las Vegas where they can be married.

Steve Collins, a notorious womanizer who pretends he is married with children so he doesn’t get roped into marriage by women who like to date married men, owns the airport and the main plane. He’s never paid for the plane though and the finance company now wants it back. Steve’s handy man, Pee Wee (George Tobias) tells him that Hinkle has arranged for their plane to take a famous couple to Las Vegas and Steve wonders if they will even have a plane to take them in.

Collins tries to think of a way to get the money and has no ideas until Joan’s father, oil tycoon Lucius K. Winfield (Eugene Pallette) calls the airport to try to reach his daughter and Collins strikes up a plan with Winfield to make sure his daughter doesn’t make it to Las Vegas to marry Alan Brice.

If Collins pulls off the delay, meeting Winfield with his daughter in tow in Texas instead, Winfield will pay Collins the money he needs to pay off the plane and keep the airport in business.

The first task at hand is to get rid of Hinkle and Alan which PeeWee helps Collins with. With them out of the way, Collins jumps in the plane and takes off with Joan, his plan to fly her to Texas. Unfortunately, Joan isn’t too happy with this arrangement and tries to escape, causing the plane to crash in the desert.

Here we will be introduced to Pop Tolliver (Harry Davenport), who I just loved.

I loved a lot about this movie.

It was very witty and fun, with some great lines.

Bette Davis was supposed to be 23 in the film which I found a little unbelievable but then again, Bette always looked older to me than she was.

She was actually 33 when this movie was made.

According to Frank Miller from TCM (yes, my go-to-source), Cagney made the movie on the heels of Strawberry Blonde because he wanted to break out of gangster roles.

Ann Sheridan, Ginger Rogers, and Rosalind Russell were considered for Davis’s role but when she expressed interest in trying out, Hal Willis, the producer of the movie, went to bat for her.

“In addition, she was eager to re-team with Cagney, who like her had a history of battles with the Warner Bros. management,” Miller wrote. “They had not worked together since 1934, when they teamed for the minor comedy Jimmy the Gent. Some biographers have suggested that the studio was punishing her with the film because of her notorious temperament, while others have suggested she may have wanted to emulate Katharine Hepburn, who had been equally successful in serious and comic roles. Also possible is that she was drawn to the film’s obvious similarities to It Happened One Night (1934), another tale of a runaway heiress saved from a bad marriage by the love of a simple working guy.”

There was a lot of trouble with the movie, including the writing and the fact Cagney wasn’t a fan of the sweltering heat at the shooting location of Death Valley.

Davis also wasn’t happy because while a stunt double was supposed to take the fall into a cactus for her, she had a fall of her own and ended up with 45 cactus quills having to be removed from her behind.

Neither actor was very fond of the movie years down the road and even critics bashed it with one saying, “Okay, Jimmie and Bette. You’ve had your fling. Now go back to work.”

As for me, I found the film a lot of fun and ended up snickering at the silliness and the exchanges between our main characters.

And as I said above, Harry Davenport really added some charm to the film for me.

Have you ever seen this one?

I found it for rent on Amazon Prime but it is also available on HBO Max, Hulu, YouTube, and AppleTV.

Next week I’ll wrap up my Winter of Cagney with Angels With Dirty Faces and two weeks after that I’ll start a bi-weekly movie watch of Bette Davis films.

If you want to catch up on the other Cagney films I’ve watched this winter you can do so here:

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Taxi

The Strawberry Blonde

If you want to find clips and thoughts about vintage movies and TV, you can visit me on Instagram on my Nostalgically Thinking Account (https://www.instagram.com/nostalgically_thinking/) or on my YouTube account Nostalgically and Bookishly Thinking here: https://www.youtube.com/@nostaglicandbookish

If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Book recommendation: The Tiger in the Smoke by Margery Allingham

February 25, 2026February 22, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 5 Comments

This was my first Margery Allingham book, and I was very impressed with her writing style and storytelling.

This book is called by Golden Age mystery enthusiasts one of her best. It is the fourteenth book in the Albert Campion series, but Campion isn’t really in this book as much as I expected him to be.

First, a little bit of a description that I pulled off Goodreads:

A fog is creeping through the weary streets of London—so too are whispers that the Tiger is back in town, undetected by the law, untroubled by morals. And the rumors are true: Jack Havoc, charismatic outlaw, knife-wielding killer, and ingenious jail-breaker, is on the loose once again.

As Havoc stalks the smog-cloaked alleyways of the city, it falls to Albert Campion to hunt down the fugitive and put a stop to his rampage—before it’s too late . . .

This one is more of a psychological thriller than a detective mystery with Allingham walking us through the story through action but also a lot of mental contemplations of four different characters, Campion being one but on a smaller scale.

Our characters are Havoc, Geoffrey Leavett, Canon Avril, Inspector Charlie Luke, Campion, and Meg Elgenbrodde.

Points of views are offered for most of them but not consistently, which sounds confusing, but it really isn’t.

If you have read detective or Golden Age mysteries from the 1930s to the 1960s, then you know there is a lot of what we writers call “head hopping.” The author hops in and out of various characters heads, telling us what each one is thinking in the same scene. These days we writers are told to never head hop. Stick to one character’s point of view per scene. If you want to show the thoughts of another character, then wait until a scene break of a new chapter.

Back in the old days, there were less rules, so authors just wrote whatever they wanted to and however they wanted to and readers just went with it. Sure, it could get confusing,s but if the story was strong enough no one cared.

I found myself nervous through a lot of this book as characters seemed to put themselves in the most precarious situations.

We start the book with Meg and George in a car together, talking about Meg preparing to go to a meeting with a man who insists he is her husband who died during World War II, which ended several years before. The man has been sending her letters. Meg and George are supposed to be married soon, so of course this development is unsettling to them both.

Meg takes her cousin, Campion, a private detective, and London Police Inspector Charlie Luke to meet with the man.

I won’t tell you if the man is really her husband or not, because I don’t want to give anything away, but I will say that there is a mystery involving her husband and a treasure and it is tied to Havoc, an evil man who has killed many, just escaped jail, and will kill again to get what he wants.

I loved opening this book up on my Kindle when I had time to read it and had a hard time putting it down. I hope to get a paperback copy at some point so I can reread it.

There are some really well-written lines and paragraphs in it.

Here are a few I enjoyed:

“He was watching her, trying to appraise her reaction. The face she turned to him was both disappointed and relieved. Hope died in it, but also hope appeared. She was saddened and yet made happy.”

The rumbling ceased abruptly and a clipped schoolmasterish voice remarked acidly: “Very tood of you to bother about my immortal soul, Chief Inspector. I’m afraid I’d ceased to concern myself about yours.”

“Then he dropped lightly to the ground and a smile split a wide thin-lipped cat’s mouth in which the teeth were regular and beautiful.

‘Dad’s back,’ he said, and his voice was smooth and careful. Only the shadow flitting like a frown across his forehead and his pallor, which was paper-like, betrayed his weariness. His spirit danced behind his shallow eyes, mocking everything.”

His beauty, and he possessed a great deal, lay in his hands and face and in the narrow neatness of his feet. His hands were like a conjurer’s, large, masculine, and shapely, the fingers longer than the palms, and the bones very apparent under the thin skin.”

He was a man who must have been a pretty boy, yet his face could never have been pleasant to look at. Its ruin lay in something quite peculiar, not in an expression only but something integral to the very structure. The man looked like a design for tragedy. Grief and torture and the furies were all there naked, and the eye was repelled even while it was violently attracted. He looked exactly what he was. Unsafe.”

When he came to the part which was most important of all to him that night, he paused and said it twice. ‘Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.’

That was it. That was what he meant. Lead us not into temptation, for of that we have already enough within us and must resist it as best we can in our own way. But deliver us, take us away, hide us from Evil. From that contamination of death, cover us up.”

I am looking forward to reading more of this series.

Have you read any of Allingham’s books?

Also, I just found out there was a movie based on this book made in the UK in 1956. You know that I am going to have to find it and watch it!

Top Ten Tuesday: Five quotes from books and five quotes about books

February 24, 2026February 23, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 11 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s prompt is: Quotes From/About Books (Share book quotes you love, quotes about being a reader, etc.)

So today I thought I’d share five quotes I enjoyed from books I read and five quotes about books and/or reading.

Five quotes I enjoyed from books I read

“When I first saw you—that day in Pont Street, I knew I was up against something that was going to hurt like fun.” ~ The Secret of Chimneys by Agatha Christie

“Christmas, I tell my wife, is not the time to hold back. It is the bold stroke, the song in the silence the red hat in a gray-suit world.” ~ Christmas in Harmony by Philip Gulley

“The public should enjoy what the experts have decided the public should enjoy. That’s the system we use in this country, and we’re going to stick with it.” ~ Dave Barry Isn’t Taking This Sitting Down by Dave Barry

‘”Isn’t it better to have your heart broken than to have it wither up?” queried Valancy. “Before it could be broken it must have felt something splendid. That would be worth the pain.”‘ ~ The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery

“She answered: “All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.” ~ Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

Quotes about reading/books:

“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.” – C.S. Lewis

“Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read.”

Mark Twain

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.” – Fernando Pessoa

“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.” — Arthur Conan Doyle

“Some books are so familiar that reading them is like being home again.” – Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.

If you would like to support my writing (and add to the fund for my daughter’s online art/science classes), you can do so here.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

How to read more classics and enjoy them while you’re doing it (if you don’t enjoy them already)

February 23, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 9 Comments

I recently saw a YouTube video where a booktuber suggested reading just 12 pages a day of a classic to make it feel less daunting for readers who don’t usually read classics.

There are a couple of reasons he suggested this tactic.

One: it gives you time to read slowly and truly immerse yourself in the story.

Two: it helps you pay attention to the writing, the words connected together, the style of that particular author.

Three: Gives you time to write notes about what you are reading or underline a quote that really stands out to you. This gives you time to really think about that quote or section that really stands out to you.

Four: It gets you off a device. Stops you scrolling on “the attention hog” that has trained you to keep scrolling through 30-second to 1-minute clips. Doing this mentally and physically fatigues us. The makers of social media know how to addict us but our mind biologically loves to dwell on things, to feel like it is learning something and this is done better at a slower pace. Reading instead of scrolling releases the brain from repeated dopamine hits.

Five: Creates a sense of patience, self-control, and a “stick-to-it” attitude. As humans we feel a sense of pride when we push through something and accomplish what we set out to do.

Six: It helps to quell comparison to other readers that we need to do; the fear-of-missing-out tendency, the desire to “have read” certain books. We want to be able to say “I have read…” but don’t want to sit and really read something well. Reading this way, we can focus on reading well — taking our time to really take it in and not worry about rushing on to the next book. Those books will be there when we are done with this one.

Extra tips: Doing this at night can help you feel like you don’t have to rush and “get through” your allotted pages before you have to do something else. You can do this with other books, not just classics.

What do you think of reading some books this way? Yay or Nay? What say you?

Source: Tristan Reads Classics. Video: The One Tip You Need More Classics and Enjoy Them.

If you want a fuller explanation of what Tristan was talking about, you can watch his video here:

Sunday Bookends: Kurt Browning commented on my Instagram! Oh and I read books. (Link parties too)

February 22, 2026February 22, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 13 Comments

It’s time for our Sunday morning chat. On Sundays, I ramble about what’s been going on, what the rest of the family and I have been reading and watching, and what I’ve been writing. Some weeks I share what I am listening to.

Once upon a time I said I wanted winter to come so I could curl up with a book under a blanket or watch an old movie…also under a blanket.

I still like curling up under a blanket but I’m over the gloominess of winter now. I would enjoy some green, but, alas, after warming temps this past week, Winter is reminding us it isn’t done yet as I just learned Friday night that another winter storm is headed our way today into tomorrow.

Blah.

Hopefully it will drop off the snow and go because I have plans this week to help my parents, possibly see my brother, and maybe even sneak off to a bookstore.

I started a nostalgic clip account on Instagram a few months ago (Nostalgically Thinking) and this past week I shared clips of Canadian Figure Skater Kurt Browning as I reflected on how entertaining he always was but never won and Olympic medal. I was thinking about that because of all that was going on with figure skating phenom Ilia Malinin. He didn’t win an individual gold but he’s already done so much to entertain and project the sport into astounding levels that I don’t think it matters at all. It certainly didn’t with Kurt who I always loved to watch and never even knew if he won an Olympic medal.

On Thursday, I shared Kurt skating in “leather” pants to Brick House — one of my favorite routines of his.

Last night, before bed, I noticed a comment on my reel from kb.on.ice.

“Pants and the song sold it. The pants were plastic actually.”

I knew it was really Kurt because I’d found his account a couple of days before and, yes, I was a bit giddy seeing that comment.

I was so excited but remained calm as I told my kids about it and I give them credit – they didn’t role their eyes. They told me how nice it was, after I explained to them who Kurt Browning is, of course.

When I was in high school, I was obsessed with watching figuring skating but especially Kurt, Brian Boitono, Elvis Stojko, and Scott Hamilton.

My brother bought me tickets to Stars on Ice for the 1996 tour when it came near where we lived, which was shocking because nothing exciting ever came near where we lived.

I am so old that I remember almost none of it! I wanted to dig out the program and an old journal to remember who was even there before I finished this post but I looked all afternoon and some of the boxes with old journals were way back in the back of our bedroom closet so I finally gave up.

I was very certain Kurt Browning was there so I texted my brother to ask if he remembered who was there and he didn’t even remember he took me! Haha! I remember he gave me the tickets as a Christmas gift and I was so excited.

I will write more on my blog later this week about the show and my love of ice skating, if I can find the journal, photos, and program.

What I/We’ve Been Reading

Just Finished

Last week I finished Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie. It is a Hercule Poirot book and I really enjoyed it. There was a lot of humor in it from Poirot and the mystery was very good.

In Progress

Right now, I am still making my way through Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien and The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. They are my slow reads.

I am also reading Murder, She Wrote: Bullets and Brandy by Donald Bain.

Up Soon

I can’t wait to start Murder on the Orient Express since I’ve seen the movies but have never read the book. I’m also looking forward to reading another P.G. Wodehouse and Miss Read this spring. I’ll be making my list of spring hopefuls this week. Spring….and I barely got through my Winter reads! It’s insane to think of spring already being here.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are enjoying The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy and are tying it into a history unit about World War I.

The Husband is reading the latest Robert Galbraith (Rowling) book.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

This past week I watched some of the figure skating at the Olympics, a new British mystery show called The Puzzle Lady, and All Creatures Great and Small.

I am watching my James Cagney movie – Angels With Dirty Faces — with The Husband tonight because he’s been too busy before this to watch it with me and wants to see it too. So my Winter of Cagney post is going up late this week.

I will be watching another Cagney movie — The Bride Arrived COD – later this week.

This afternoon I am watching East Side of Heaven (1939) with Bing Crosby.

What I’ve Been Writing

Last week on the blog I shared:

Some Housekeeping

Erin (Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs) and I host a monthly bookish link party called A Good Book and A Cup of Tea. This link-up is for book and reading posts or anything related to books and reading (even movies based on books!). Each link party will be open for a month. You can find that link up for this month here.

Each week, I host the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot with some great hosts. It goes live Thursday night but you can share any kind of blog posts (family-friendly) there until Tuesday of each week. You can check my recent posts on the sidebar to the right for the most recent link-party.

Erin and I also host a Drop-In Crafternoon once or twice a month. This is where we meet with other bloggers on Zoom and do some crafts while we chat.

We have two scheduled for March. The first is Saturday, March 7 at 1 p.m. and the second is Sunday, March 22 at 1 p.m. If you are interested in taking part you can learn a little bit more about it from Erin’s original post about our Crafternoons and by emailing her at crackercrumblife@gmail.com or me at lisahoweler@gmail.com or leave a comment below.

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

This post is linked up with The Sunday Post at Kimba at Caffeinated Reviewer, The Sunday Salon with Deb at Readerbuzz, and Book Date: It’s Monday! What are you reading hosted by Kathyrn at The Book Date. Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Reading Reality.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot February 20

February 19, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 10 Comments

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, where we offer a place for bloggers to link up and get a fresh set of eyes on their posts. We also feature one blog a week, letting our readers know about the blog and providing a link so readers can learn more about it. Please feel free to post new blog posts or old ones you want to bring attention to again.

Look for the post to go live about 9:30 PM EST on Thursdays.

Let’s introduce our current hosts for the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot:

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household – The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat’s Wire is a bookworm, movie fan, crazy cat lady, armed with beads, cabs, wire and a very jumpy brain which loves to go down rabbit holes!

Rena from Fine, Whatever writes about style, midlife, and the “fine whatever” moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she’s been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.

We would love to have additional Co-Hosts to share in the creativity and fun! If you think this would be a good fit for you and you like having fun (come on, who doesn’t!) while still being creative, drop one of us an email and someone will get back with you!

WTJR will be highlighting a different blogger each week this year! We invite you to stop by their blog, take a look around and say hello!

This week we are spotlighting Reviews From the Stacks

A little about Jana:

Hello there! I’m Jana, and Reviews From the Stacks is my blog. I started Reviews From the Stacks in 2018 as a place to share reviews of high quality books, especially lesser-known and potentially indie published ones, and to be a place for discussing all kinds of bookishness. I work in a library and have a BA and MLIS, so bookishness seems to follow me everywhere I go!

Outside of the literary world I enjoy peaceful hobbies such as knitting, music, and visiting every coffee shop I can find. I am a Christian, and I hold my beliefs and convictions seriously. Like any writer, my worldview permeates my writing. It also plays a substantial part in what I enjoy reading. I will never belittle or dismiss a book or person for presenting a different worldview, but I also won’t shy away from sharing what I believe and addressing (relevant) things that are problematic.

Thank you so much for joining us for our link-up!

And now some posts that were highlights for me this past week:

|| Asking for a Different Pace by Lisa’s Notes ||

|| Yellow Squash Soup Recipe (High Fiber & Delicious) by Gluten Free A to Z || ||

||Orange and Barley Salad by Happy Retiree’s Kitchen ||

|| Revamp Your Dining Room: The Power of Natural Light by Thrifting Wonderland ||||

|| Tips for Raising Silkie Chickens by Two Chicks and a Mom || ||

Important things to know about the link-up:

This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.

Please link only blog posts you created yourself.

Please link directly to the URL of your post and not the main address of your blog.

Please do not add links to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos or Shorts, Instagram or Facebook Reels, TikTok videos, or any other “social media” based content.

But do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment.

Notice: By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that content and photos are your own property. And you give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.

We welcome unlimited, family friendly content! This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more! Thank you for joining us!

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Armchair Traveler books I want to read and one I did read

February 17, 2026February 16, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 16 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This week’s prompt was: Books for Armchair Travelers (Submitted by Laurie C @ Bay State Reader’s Advisory)

I have not read a lot of travel or adventure or even non-fiction books, but I do have a list I want to read so I thought I’d share that list today.

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson

I actually had this book in my Libby at the end of last year, but ran out of time to read it. I’ll try again this year.

Description: The Appalachian Trail stretches from Georgia to Maine and covers some of the most breathtaking terrain in America—majestic mountains, silent forests, sparkling lakes. If you’re going to take a hike, it’s probably the place to go. And Bill Bryson is surely the most entertaining guide you’ll find. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way—and a couple of bears. Already a classic, A Walk in the Woods will make you long for the great outdoors (or at least a comfortable chair to sit and read in).

2. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

I will be reading this one in March for the Christie 2026 Challenge.

Description:

“The murderer is with us—on the train now . . .”

Just after midnight, the famous Orient Express is stopped in its tracks by a snowdrift. By morning, the millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett lies dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside. Without a shred of doubt, one of his fellow passengers is the murderer.

Isolated by the storm, detective Hercule Poirot must find the killer among a dozen of the dead man’s enemies, before the murderer decides to strike again.

3. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

A relative recommended this one.

Description:

The women at the center of The Enchanted April are alike only in their dissatisfaction with their everyday lives. They find each other—and the castle of their dreams—through a classified ad in a London newspaper one rainy February afternoon. The ladies expect a pleasant holiday, but they don’t anticipate that the month they spend in Portofino will reintroduce them to their true natures and reacquaint them with joy. Now, if the same transformation can be worked on their husbands and lovers, the enchantment will be complete.

4. Heidi by Johanna Spyri

I’ve always wanted to read this one but have never got around to it.

Description:

At the age of five, little orphan Heidi is sent to live with her grandfather in the Alps. Everyone in the village is afraid of him, but Heidi is fascinated by his long beard and bushy grey eyebrows. She loves her life in the mountains, playing in the sunshine and growing up amongst the goats and birds. But one terrible day, Heidi is collected by her aunt and is made to live with a new family in town. Heidi can’t bear to be away from her grandfather; can she find a way back up the mountain, where she belongs?

5. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mays.

I’ve seen this movie but have not read the book.

Description:

Frances Mayes entered a wondrous new world when she began restoring an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. There were unexpected treasures at every turn: faded frescos beneath the whitewash in her dining room, a vineyard under wildly overgrown brambles in the garden, and, in the nearby hill towns, vibrant markets and delightful people. In Under the Tuscan Sun, she brings the lyrical voice of a poet, the eye of a seasoned traveler, and the discerning palate of a cook and food writer to invite readers to explore the pleasures of Italian life and to feast at her table.

6. Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck

Description: To hear the speech of the real America, to smell the grass and the trees, to see the colors and the light—these were John Steinbeck’s goals as he set out, at the age of fifty-eight, to rediscover the country he had been writing about for so many years.

With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates and the country roads, dines with truckers, encounters bears at Yellowstone and old friends in San Francisco. Along the way he reflects on the American character, racial hostility, the particular form of American loneliness he finds almost everywhere, and the unexpected kindness of strangers.

7. My Life in France by Julia Child

Description: Here is the captivating story of Julia Child’s years in France, where she fell in love with French food and found “her true calling.” From the moment she and her husband Paul, who worked for the USIS, arrived in the fall of 1948, Julia had an awakening that changed her life. Soon this tall, outspoken gal from Pasadena, California, who didn’t speak a word of French and knew nothing about the country, was steeped in the language, chatting with purveyors in the local markets, and enrolled in the Cordon Bleu. She teamed up with two fellow gourmettes, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, to help them with a book on French cooking for Americans. Filled with her husband’s beautiful black-and-white photographs as well as family snapshots, this memoir is laced with wonderful stories about the French character, particularly in the world of food, and the way of life that Julia embraced so wholeheartedly. Bon appétit!-

8. All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes by Maya Angelou

In 1962 the poet, musician, and performer Maya Angelou claimed another piece of her identity by moving to Ghana, joining a community of “Revolutionist Returnees” inspired by the promise of pan-Africanism. All God’s Children Need Walking Shoes is her lyrical and acutely perceptive exploration of what it means to be an African American on the mother continent, where color no longer matters but where American-ness keeps asserting itself in ways both puzzling and heartbreaking. As it builds on the personal narrative of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Gather Together in My Name , this book confirms Maya Angelou’s stature as one of the most gifted autobiographers of our time.

9. A Room with a View by E.M. Forester

I have seen this movie but thought I should read the book some day.

Description:

“But you do,” he went on, not waiting for contradiction. “You love the boy body and soul, plainly, directly, as he loves you, and no other word expresses it …”

Lucy has her rigid, middle-class life mapped out for her, until she visits Florence with her uptight cousin Charlotte, and finds her neatly ordered existence thrown off balance. Her eyes are opened by the unconventional characters she meets at the Pension Bertolini: flamboyant romantic novelist Eleanor Lavish, the Cockney Signora, curious Mr Emerson and, most of all, his passionate son George.

Lucy finds herself torn between the intensity of life in Italy and the repressed morals of Edwardian England, personified in her terminally dull fiancé Cecil Vyse. Will she ever learn to follow her own heart?

10. Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie Mallowan

I have read this one and enjoyed it.

Description:

Over the course of her long, prolific career, Agatha Christie gave the world a wealth of ingenious whodunits and page-turning locked-room mysteries featuring Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and a host of other unforgettable characters. She also gave us Come, Tell Me How You Live, a charming, fascinating, and wonderfully witty nonfiction account of her days on an archaeological dig in Syria with her husband, renowned archeologist Max Mallowan. Something completely different from arguably the best-selling author of all time, Come, Tell Me How You Live is an evocative journey to the fascinating Middle East of the 1930s that is sure to delight Dame Agatha’s millions of fans, as well as aficionados of Elizabeth Peters’s Amelia Peabody mysteries and eager armchair travelers everywhere.

Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them, if you did?

If you write book reviews or book-related blog posts, don’t forget that Erin and I host the A Good Book and A Cup of Tea Monthly Bookish Blog Party. You can learn more about it here.

On Thursdays, I am part of the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot blog link party. You can find the latest one in the sidebar to the right under recent posts.

I also post a link-up on Sundays for weekly updates about what you are reading, watching, doing, listening to, etc.

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Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

Winter of Cagney: White Heat (with some spoilers)

February 16, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 7 Comments

I’m watching James Cagney movies this winter and last week I watched one of his most acclaimed movies — White Heat (1949).

The movie is considered by film critics to be one of the best gangster films of all time.

As I often do, I’ll start this post with an online description of the movie:

“Gang leader Cody Jarrett (James Cagney) lives for his mother, planning heists between horrible headaches. During a train robbery that goes wrong, Cody shoots an investigator. Realizing Cody will never be stopped if he knows he’s being pursued, authorities plant undercover agent Hank (Edmond O’Brien) in Cody’s cell.”

This description is wrong, though, because the investigator is shot after the robbery. But the conductor is shot by Cody.

All that aside, the robbery does go wrong, partially because a member of the gang is horribly burned. The gang has to hide out and we learn that Cody is very close to his mother, who helps him plan crimes. Closer than he is to his wife who is very lazy and sleeps a lot.

This isn’t an inappropriate relationship like Hamlet or Macbeth or whichever play that was, but Cody relies on Ma for a lot — including helping him when raging headaches hit him and practically debilitate him. The gang believes his headaches are the same mental illness his father had.

His mother doesn’t want him to let the gang see him that way because he will look weak.

It doesn’t matter if he looks week because his gang is ready to turn on him and take the money they stole from the train and cut him out of the deal no matter what.

He doesn’t know this, but he does know they have to split so the police don’t find them.

They have an injured gang member whom Cody orders one of his men to shoot. The man can’t do it, though, and leaves the burned man. The man still dies, and when he is found it is reported to the police, who eventually connect him to the gang.

A police officer sees Cody’s mom out by chance and they try to follow her back to the motel Cody, his mom and wife are staying at. She loses them but the police eventually find her car and corner Cody who shoots the investigator in the arm.

Cody is able to escape with his mom and wife, but finally decides if he really wants to shake the police, he will have to give himself up. He’s not going to admit to the big crime, though. He’s going to say he committed another crime that another criminal he knows pulled. He’ll only get about two years for that crime and it will be his alibi for the other crime. He couldn’t have robbed the train if he was committing a less serious robbery in another state, he says.

His wife and mom don’t like the idea, for different reasons.

His wife likes the idea a lot more when she realizes that her husband being in jail in another state will give her time with her husband’s second hand man, who she’s been having an affair with.

Cody’s plan works — sort of. The police figure out what he is trying to do, though, and still want to pin the first crime on him so they send an undercover cop into jail with him to try to make friends with him and find out where he hid the money from the train heist.

I’ll leave it there, so I don’t spoil what happens, but I am going to have to give a big spoiler here to discuss in the paragraph following this next one so if you don’t want to know, you need to stop here.

This movie was dark, intense, and while Cody Jarrett was a horrible man and easy to hate, I also couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him because he felt crime was the only way to make a living.

SPOILER ALERT!!

Also, the one person who loved him and he loved dies halfway through the movie. I won’t say how his mom dies but it is her death that leads to a much-talked-about scene where Cody absolutely flips out after he finds out she’s gone.

What is interesting about this scene is a couple hundred extras were used as the inmates inside the cafeteria and none of them were told what Cagney was going to do. Most of the shocked faces focused on during that scene were authentic because they were kept in the dark about Cagney’s plans. Some of them really thought Cagney had flipped out.

Another scene we need to talk about happens at the end. Throughout the movie Cody’s mom always ends their conversations by saying, “Top of the world, son! Top of the world!”

This is a line that has been used in pop culture references and parodies for years and I never knew what it was. Now I do and it’s honestly quite heartbreaking. There is so much Cody could have done with his life and not only did he choose crime but his own mother encouraged him to do so.

Cagney came back to Warner Brothers for this film after leaving for several years to start his own movie-making business with his brother. When that failed, he accepted an offer from Warner Brothers, even though Jack Warner really didn’t want him back, mainly because he needed the money.

Warner famously called Cagney, “that little b******.”

Cagney famously said of Warner in Rolling Stone Magazine, “I used to like to walk out on him, frankly, whenever my contract didn’t suit me. I’d cuss him out in Yiddish, which I had learned from Jewish friends in my days at Stuyvesant High School. Drove him wild. ‘What’d he say?!’ he’d yell. ‘What’d he just call me?!’”

Their arguments mainly started over Cagney’s contracts in the 30s.

Rob Nixon wrote for TCM.com that White Heat is considered Cagney’s last good gangster film.

“An exciting, dynamic film in its own right, White Heat also stands out as the flaming finale to the era of stark, fast-paced crime films made famous by Warner Brothers and James Cagney (among other stars) from the 1930s on films in which the focus was on the often violent but charismatic gangster rather than the law enforcement officials who hunt him,” Nixon wrote. “It was also the apotheosis of Cagney’s brilliant career, a kind of summing up of the memorable outlaw characters he had created. His projects that followed in the 1950s were mostly lackluster affairs, and the cocky, pugnacious star audiences had come to love was glimpsed infrequently in such films as Love Me or Leave Me and Mister Roberts (both 1955).”

The film was directed by Raoul Walsh and in addition to Cagney it starred Virginia Mayo, Edmond O’Brien, and Margaret Wycherly as Ma.

Many scenes, such as the one mentioned above were adlibbed by Cagney or Walsh.

One of those was when he got annoyed at Mayo (his wife) and he was supposed to just glare at her but instead Walsh told Cagney to kick her off the chair she was standing on. For me, this showed how nasty and heartless Cody really was – as if the opening scenes hadn’t already shown that.

The story for the movie was written by Virginia Kellogg and she was nominated for an Oscar for it, but didn’t win and no one else was nominated. Over the years, though, the film has been praised and named as the fourth best gangster movie by the American Film Institute, has been quoted or parodied too many times to count and in 2003, the American Film Institute named Cody Jarrett in its list of the best heroes and villains of the past 100 years.

I have to be honest and say that the end of the movie annoyed me. I don’t want to give it away but it was a typical movie from the 40s and 50s with the whole idea of the bad guy suffering and the “good guys/cops” being the heroes was very cliché.

In many ways there was nothing good that was going to come for Cagney’s character, though, so things ending badly for him was probably the only way for things to go.

Next week I will be watching Angels With Dirty Faces with Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. To end the event I will be watching The Bride Came C.O.D. (which will move me into my Spring of Bette Davis).

You can read about the other movies I watched by clicking the links below:

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Taxi

The Strawberry Blonde

Mister Roberts

The Public Enemy

Love Me or Leave Me

Sources:

https://www.tcm.com/articles/89404/the-essentials-white-heat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Heat

If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

Sunday Bookends: We missed a 100-year old tradition & more mysteries

February 15, 2026February 15, 2026 / Lisa R. Howeler / 23 Comments

Our family tried to go to a 120-year-old tradition of riding a homemade wooden sled down a hill on a track made of 13-inch blocks of ice yesterday but the wait was 3-hours.

We opted for food at an inn and tavern instead and left the waiting to others.

The Eagles Mere Toboggan Ride is held only if the Eagles Mere Lake freezes enough that the fire company can cut the blocks to build the slide.

It doesn’t happen every year so we have to take the chance when we can but it’s been so severely cold that we made the mistake of waiting.

Since the weather is warming up, this weekend was probably the last chance.

It was a nice day despite the kids and husband not being able to go down the historic slide. What? You didn’t think I was going down that thing, did you?

They walked around town on their way back and stopped by the little bookstore I love to visit. I was waiting in the car, though, and didn’t know they were visiting it and when we drove by later, finding a parking space was impossible. So I didn’t get to go to the bookstore, but Little Miss and The Husband picked up a couple books for me.

Then it was on to the tavern for an amazing lunch while taxidermy animals looked down on us.

If you would like to know more about the toboggan ride, you can watch this video:

What I/We’ve Been Reading

In Progress

I am reading Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie for the Read Christie 26 Challenge.

I am also reading The Blue Castle, Return of the King, and Murder, She Wrote: Bullets and Brandy by Donald Bain.

Up Soon

How To Seal Your Own Fate by Kristin Perrin.

What The Family is Reading

Little Miss and I are reading The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy together and listening to The Green Ember by S.D. Smith.

The Husband is reading The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith.

What I/We’ve Been Watching

I don’t know if I need a life or if my life is okay but my big thrill this week was when my Blu-ray of Angels With Dirty Faces — a movie with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart from the late 1930s — arrived in the mail. The icing on the cake was that The Husband was just as excited to see it and warned me I can’t watch it without him.

I am watching it for next week’s Winter of Cagney.

The husband and I watched an episode of Kate and Allie last night. I forgot about that show.

I watched White Heat for the Winter of Cagney and will write about it Monday.

I also watched All Creatures Great and Small.

What I’ve Been Writing

What I/We’ve Been Listening To

I am listening to Shakespeare. The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brenden O’Hea because I found it more interesting to listen to than read.

Some Housekeeping

Now It’s Your Turn

What have you been doing, watching, reading, listening to, or writing? Let me know in the comments or leave a blog post link if you also write a weekly update like this.

Hello! Welcome to my blog. I am a blogger, homeschool mom, and I write cozy mysteries.

You can find my Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find me on Instagram and YouTube.

If you enjoy the kind of content on my blog and all that goes into it, you can support my writing for $2.99 a month or a single donation. Learn more here: https://lisahoweler.com/support-my-writing/

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