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Grocery Store Books and My First Stuart Woods Novel
We’re all book nerds here, right? Do you know where all bookstores in your town are located? Do you frequent independent bookstores where the folks see you and greet you by name? When you travel, do you plan on visiting bookstores in other towns? Do you sign up for newsletters from your favorite authors? Do you know publication dates of books by your favorite authors and clear your reading schedule so you’ll be able to start reading the day that book is released? Do you max out your allowable checkouts at your local library? Do you have more books in your house than you’ll ever be able to read in…
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Another Visit to Patterson, New Jersey, with Andy Carpenter, Lawyer and Dog Lover
What is it with storms, power outages, and Andy Carpenter? Beryl: The Rest of the Story I wrote last week’s post during my Friday lunch hour and went home to a house without electricity. Last Saturday, I returned to Lowe’s to buy two more 5-gallon gas cans (daily gas runs were getting old) and had half a mind to buy a second generator. An older worker at Lowe’s said I didn’t need to because my 6,500-watt generator was more than enough to run all the fans, window AC, and the fridge. The wife and I cleaned the fridge and plugged it in. Within the hour, the thing was making ice.…
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Dispatches from Houston in the Aftermath of Hurricane Beryl
Who would have thought an approaching hurricane would have been the easy part? Hurricanes are scary things. Their approach can knife fear down your spine, give your stomach that funny feeling you get when you ride a roller coaster, and cause you to lose sleep. I experienced all those things last weekend as Beryl—which had already devastated Jamaica—opted to head north to Houston. The Hurricane Itself The wife and I plus our two dogs and a cat went to bed on Sunday night expecting Beryl to arrive in the wee small hours of the morning. Storms are always scarier at night. We had spent the day prepping the house, staging…
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Jaws the Book vs. Jaws the Movie: Which is Better?
I finally did something I’ve been wanting to do for many summers: read Peter Benchley’s Jaws. The original hardcover came out in February 1974 and the movie the following summer. I’ll admit that it took me quite a long time to see the movie. I can’t remember the first time I saw it, but it might’ve been on one of the network broadcasts. It wasn’t until the 1990s that I finally saw the whole thing. But what about the book? I remember my mom reading the paperback in the late 70s. This is one with the movie poster as its cover so you can imagine how much my pre-teen self…