Lilian Jackson Braun – Another author gone.

For years I’ve bought a book series, I read them first back in the 1960s, and still have an ex-library book of one of the earliest in the series from then. They were quirky, funny, witty, and had cats and mysteries, What more could you ask for? And for a number of years I also got the newsletter about the books and author from a nice lady named Helen Mccarthy – until she retired and no one could take over the newsletter, so it too retired.
In the mid-1990s I edited a book of cat poetry written by a friend of mine and asked the author of this series if she’d read it and give me a cover quote. She did in a handwritten letter – sent for a mere limited edition chapbook being published by a VERY small press on the other side of the world. Most of her series that I have are signed not only by the author but also by ‘Koko’. And, wondering casually the other day why I hadn’t seen a new book recently (I’ve been hugely busy with my own writing this past 3-4 years) I googled her to find out that she’d died. In June, with a final book – it would have been the 30th in the series – unfinished.
I was very sorry to hear it. She was generous, kind, hard working, and wrote good books, now there won’t be any more and I’ll miss The Cat Who books by Lilian Jackson Braun (Bettinger) and her adventures of reporter Jim Qwilleran, and his Siamese, KoKo and Yum Yum. She wrote the series for forty years, and I can only wish that she’d lived longer and written a lot more.