The many faces of April, from April Fool's Day to Easter to "April showers bring May flowers." Claude Shafer   (The Tacoma Times), Public Domain   As we close in on the end of April, I figure we can't turn our backs on the month without a quick look at what books might be out there with an April Fool's theme. Let's start with mysteries. (After all, mysteries are basically designed to mess with readers' minds, and then jump out, shouting "Fooled you!" at the end.) We have this handful from the Cozy Mystery List . Hurray for Janet Rudolph, whose Mystery Fanfare blog always comes through for holiday/special day reads. April's Fool's is no exception .  Moving away from murder and mayhem... The blog Borrow.Read.Repeat. offers " Laugh-out-loud reads " for April Fool's Day. Listopia has Hoover Library's Insatiable Reads' April Fools (It's Always Good to Laugh) list, including Howl: A collection of the ...

Contemplating my mortality and being obsessively organized, I have given considerable thought to what happens when I die. Having dealt with our parents’ deaths has reinforced the need to think about the logistics of dismantling the detritus of a lifetime. There are special matters that must be addressed upon a writer’s death. If you are a traditionally published writer, you have a contract with a publisher and an agent. In the digital age and with self-publishing, the list is a little longer. 1) How will your outstanding royalties be paid? Are they paid into a business account or a personal account? Will that account be closed? If the payments are direct deposited, the executor of your will must change the bank account information for payments. If the account belongs to a corporation that will remain intact, the payments can continue as is. 2) Who will you give access? If you self-publish, make certain you leave instructions as well as your sign-on and passwords fo...