Reader TTS

My parents were intellectual snobs who refused to own a television. Growing up in the Fifties and Sixties, I missed every important cultural cue my friends talked about. I’m now watching

Perry Mason reruns. Despite a certain Mad Men sexual political undertone, I love the comfort of knowing Perry will always triumph and that justice will be served. I’m also watching White

Collar – a too-short-lived series. It’s like an updated Thin Man – it depends more on wit and repartee than special effects.

The BBC’s Radio 4 Extra. I got to this stream because I love early music and for years have listened to the Early Music Show and Early Music Now on BBC Radio 3 – and then I saw I could avoid

the news with Radio 4 Extra’s reruns of old quiz and comedy shows. One of my favourites is The Unbelievable Truth, where David Mitchell gave each of four panelists a separate topic (Cows!

The 1970s!) and they had to smuggle five barely believable truths past their co-panelists mixed in with a lot of lies. I learnt that American chocolate bars all contain a minimum of 23

insect parts.

I’m catching up with Ann Cleeves’s Vera series, great fun. Also reading Luis Urrea’s House of Broken Angels – the sardonic humour and pulsing anger that underlie it bring vividly to life

US-Mexican relations.

I wish I could say I’d taken up a hobby, but getting dressed in the morning and taking the dog for walks seem to tax my ingenuity. (My plan was to start learning Spanish. Ha, ha.)

I live in Chicago, where we are sheltering in place unless we work in an essential business. I live alone, which is psychically painful, but I do have a golden retriever, and I am a thousand

times more fortunate than many – I live in a house with a garden. We’re barred from the lakefront, which is also stressful, but essential (I have been thinking of risking a $500 fine by

sneaking across the eight-lane highway that separates me from Lake Michigan so my dog can swim). About a dozen people on my street go outside at 7pm every evening to sing together. We do a

new song every week, and try to keep it simple.

This week, we’re doing Whenever I Feel Afraid, from The King and I. I feel the spirit of Deborah Kerr descending on me – tonight, I plan to put on my most Victorian-looking frock so I can

channel her for my neighbours. One of my neighbours is a nurse practitioner who goes every day into the homes of people with HIV and Aids. She’s my heroine and I do this singalong for her –

it lifts all our spirits.

See people face to face. I plan to get on a plane and go to every city in the world where I have friends and hug, and laugh, and share a drink.

Sara Paretsky’s new crime novel, Dead Land, is out now (Hodder & Stoughton)