You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and... Oh, wait. Wrong season. Silly Mom. Never fear. For I, Kimber the Magnificent, shall get us back on track with our latest stroke of blogging brilliance. Hey. It’s what I do! (Well. Mom helped. A little.)

Anyway, you know Austen, C.S. Lewis, Hugo, Dickens and Dostoevsky. You know Dr. Seuss. E B. White. Charles Schultz (Some of Mom’s faves. Go figure).

The Biggies.

But guess what, Cookie? These big names aren’t the only hoomans who can fill a book with something worth reading. Or engage. Entertain. Inspire and elucidate. (Kimmi: No idea what that last one means. Mom’s idea. And you know She Who Must Be Obeyed, right?)

Favorites

Well. These “big” hoomans are all good reads. But guess what again? Some of our favorite authors are indie authors. They may not be :biggies” or household names. Yet. But Her Momness and I decided to highlight some indie authors. Cuz even though their names may not rhyme with Suzanne Collins or J.K. Rowling, they are still uber talented. And worth reading. (The Kimster: I wanted to give them all a one year subscription to the Steak of the Month Club. But I kinda got over-ruled on that one. Nobody’s perfect.)

You’ll want to keep an eye on all of these authors. Several have new books out or are working on new titles. So here, in no particular order, are 12 indie authors you really oughtta get to know. Cuz we say so again:

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Greetings Lovable Bookwormish Buds!Kimber the Magnificent here. Saying yepster, we hear ya. That is, we hear the hoomans who are scratching their heads over a phrase we sometimes deploy referring to Her Momness: She Who Must Be Obeyed. Ever heard that? Wondered where it came from?

‘I am too a lap dog! Am too! Am TOO! AM TOO!’
Kimber Explains
Not to fret or fluff, friend. Cuz The All Knowing Kimster is here to ‘splain everything. Kind of.
First thing ya may want to know about She Who Must Be Obeyed is yes, it’s bookish in origin. Second, it’s not original with us. See, we kinda like stole the phrase from British barrister and author John Mortimer.
Name doesn’t ring a bell? Not to worry. Cuz I, The All Knowing Kimster, shall ‘splain. Like this:
Rumpole!
John Mortimer passed away in 2009. But he was one cool cat… er… canine! Mortimer was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author. He’s best known for short stories about a barrister named Horace Rumpole. Which we like, Totally Love. The books were adapted for the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey, also written by Mortimer. Leo McKern stars as the cunning and witty Rumpole.

Broadcast on ITV between 3 April 1978 and 3 December 1992, ‘Rumpole Of The Bailey’ is a thoroughly entertaining British series about Horace Rumpole, a middle-aged London barrister who defends a broad variety of clients, often underdogs. (We love underdogs, too. Go figure.)
The ‘Bailey’ is a reference to the Central Criminal Court Of England And Wales. It’s commonly referred to as the ‘Old Bailey’, after the street on which it stands, a criminal court building in central London.
Betcha didn’t know that.

Hilda
So, what does this Rumpole dude have to do with She Who Must Be Obeyed? you ask. Well. If you’ve read the book(s) or seen the TV series, you already know the answer to that: Hilda Rumpole. Aka: Mrs. Rumpole. She Who Must Be Obeyed is Horace’s humorous nickname for Hilda.
Yea, verily. Hilda Rumpole is not to be trifled with. Cranky and curmudgeonly, she’s a veritable force of nature. Underneath her crusty exterior beats a soft little bunny heart. Just don’t tell anyone, okay?
You gonna eat that? What?
***
Have you seen or read Rumpole?


Are you a book lover? Do you skip meals in order to “finish the next chapter”? Do you await your favorite author’s next release like a kid counting down to Christmas? Is a trip to the library a grand adventure?
Me and She Who Must Be Obeyed? We’re rarely as content as when we’re neck-deep in a good story. Or even a mediocre one. Or chomping on a nice, thick juicy…

Wait. Where was I? Oh yeah. Reading.
We don’t read “competitively” or to win prizes. We just love books. And love to read.
A Bonus
But every once in awhile it’s nice to get a little perk. Call it a reading bonus.

We were delighted to get a phone call from the local book place the other day. Mom and I won not one but two prizes in conjunction with this year’s Adult Winter Reading Program: An Amazon gift card and a book bag filled with goodies. We ambled over to the library recently to pick up our prizes, pictured above. (Not the gorgeous, brilliant and totally pawesome canine pictured above. Cuz I’m a ‘prize’ all day every day, okay? – Love, Kimber.)

The book bag is sturdy and zippered. We can use it to haul checkouts and returns to and from the library, which we usually walk to. The bag was filled with some pretty cool stuff, including note cards, chocolate, a mini metallic notebook, and a giant coffee mug (for curling up with a good book). And who can resist Ghirardelli’s Intense Dark? Also four brand new hard book backs we haven’t yet read! The $25 gift card arrives next week.

We don’t read for prizes. We read because we love books! But getting these “perks”? It still feels like Christmas.
Now. About that nice, thick, juicy…

“This book taught me, once and for all, how easily you can escape this world with the help of words! You can find friends between the pages of a book, wonderful friends.” ―Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

It’s true, isn’t it? says I, Kimber the Magnificent. Mom says we’ve met some of our best friends through a book or books. (I personally think a double cheeseburger would help. But who’s counting?)

So Mom and I? We put head and paws together to come up with our list of Characters We’d Love An Update On Now That The Book is Over. Several of their book stories have been made into movies. How many do you recognize? (The jury’s still out on that cheeseburger. But it never hurts to ask, right?)

11-ish Characters We’d Love An Update On (in no particular order):

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