What Are You Reading the Week of 23 February 2013?

Peter De Vries (27 February 1910 – 28 September 1993) was an American editor and novelist known for his satiric wit. He has been described by the philosopher Daniel Dennett as "probably the funniest writer on religion ever."

De Vries was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was educated in Dutch Christian Reformed Church schools, graduating from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1931. He also studied at Northwestern University. He supported himself with a number of different jobs, including those of vending machine operator, toffee-apple salesman, radio actor in the 1930s, and editor for Poetry magazine from 1938 to 1944. During World War II, De Vries served in the U.S. Marines, attaining the rank of Captain and was seconded to the O.S.S. Very little is known about his time in the military or with that secret organization, the predecessor to the CIA.

He joined the staff of The New Yorker magazine at the insistence of James Thurber and worked there from 1944 to 1987, writing stories and touching up cartoon captions. A prolific writer, De Vries wrote short stories, reviews, poetry, essays, a play, novellas, and twenty-three novels. Films made from De Vries's novels include The Tunnel of Love (1958), which also was a successful Broadway play; How Do I Love Thee? (1970, based on Let Me Count the Ways); Pete 'n' Tillie (1972, based on Witch’s Milk); and Reuben, Reuben (1970), which also inspired a Broadway play, Spofford. Although he enjoyed success for five decades, all his novels were out of print by the time of his death.

James Bratt describes De Vries as "a secular Jeremiah, a renegade CRC missionary to the smart set."

His books include:

But Who Wakes the Bugler? (1940)
The Handsome Heart (1943)
Angels Can't Do Better (1944)
No But I Saw the Movie (1952)
The Tunnel of Love (1954)
Comfort Me with Apples (1956)
The Mackerel Plaza (1958)
The Tents of Wickedness (1959)
Through the Fields of Clover (1961)
The Blood of the Lamb (1961)
Reuben, Reuben (1964)
Let Me Count the Ways (1965)
The Vale of Laughter (1967)
The Cat's Pajamas (1968)
Witch's Milk (1968)
Mrs. Wallop (1971)
Into Your Tent I'll Creep (1971)
Without a Stitch in Time (1972)
Forever Panting (1973)
The Glory of the Hummingbird (1974)
I Hear America Swinging (1976)
Madder Music (1977)
Consenting Adults; or, The Duchess Will Be Furious (1980)
Sauce for the Goose (1981)
Slouching Towards Kalamazoo (1983)
The Prick of Noon (1985)
Peckham's Marbles (1986)

I've read most of his work, having imbibed the DeVries addiction with Mama's milk, and I must say that the pre-1961 books are a lot more jolly. His daughter died of leukemia in 1960, so it's no big surprise. Sad, what life does to us, isn't it?

I've never read any DeVries, but his stuff sounds fun. Thanks for getting us started well once again. Am working on The Real Charlotte by Somerville and Ross.

He was very popular among the middle brow back upon a time. I read a lot of recommendations of his books, I think, in the Saturday Review. I'm kinda middle brow with some high brow tastes, so I tried him once; I didn't enjoy the few pages I read. Nevertheless I've thought I should try him again one day.

Robert

Thanks for the great start, Richard! This author's name rings a bell, but I didn't know diddley about him. great struff, Richard!

I am still working on Life of Pi and am wondering what the big ta do was about regarding this book. It. Is OK but if I weren't reading it for my book discussion group I would have ended this and devoted my time to Barbie and Ruth which is turning out to be a great read. I went to the library in the middle of torrential rain and got Wallace Stegner off the shelf. Big Rock Candy Mountain will be up next and if it is any good I hope to convince the group to read it ass well. I can't help but wond if I should have done Angle of Repose instead, but I made my choice and will stick to it.

I'm in the middle of The Flamethrowers, my current Early Reviewers book. So far, I'm really enjoying Rachel Kushner's great images and prose.

I just finished The Snowman, which I thought was really well done and I am starting Gillespie and I.

Just started John Irving's In One Person... of his latest books I either love or end up tossing aside after 100 pages, so we shall see...

Still reading The Children's Hospital and Canberry Tales and The Three Sisters. Hoping to finish one or all of them soon!

I have been perusing several books on fashion: Tim Gunn's fashion bible and Stacy London's book on Fashion; as well as some books by Ellen Dugan: Garden Witchery and Autumnal Equinox. Ms. Dugan's books are more for those who practice or wish to learn magick; they are too much for me; I am not a practitioner nor want to be. My interest was to do with herbs and their usage.

All of the above mentioned books I wrongly selected since they were not what I had hoped for.

I trust this helps in answer. It is late and the mind is not coherent so titles may be incorrect a little bit. Sorry!

#8 I do hope that one turns out to be a goody - I'm waiting with baited breath for the p/b to come out. I still enjoy Irving's books but I do prefer some of the older ones.

Really enjoying Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer. Wesley Stace (aka musician John Wesley Harding) has turned out to be a terrific writer. One talent just isn't enough for some people.

Wow, great start and great reading going on here, as per usual. I am halfway through the final/fifth book/part of 2666 and it is getting to be a bit of a slog. His sarcasm is wearing on me a bit and the over-the-top sex stuff (complete with foot-long ... and evil Nazis) is well, bringing this last part down a notch or twenty. That is what I loved about book one. The "critics" had this degree of sexual tension and there were affair(s) and it was all handled so beautifully. Now we have plummeted into like a B (or porno) movie, but alas, he did have a deadline of sorts (he was dying), so I understand the latter part may suffer a bit here, due to some haste. Overall, a fascinating, educational, wild reading experience.

Encore, Richard, encore!

Still reading Babbitt and listening to The Round House.

I think that I'll finally be finishing up The Noble Revolt this weekend during the snow storm. It's interesting enough that I've added another book on The English Civil Wars to Mt. TBR. This is all in preparation for a reread of The Diary of Samuel Pepys. I wanted more background on the time period before and during the diaries before starting the reread.

>11 Booksloth: Interesting, I didn't know he had written more than one book (I don't keep up, obviously). I liked Misfortune when I read it.

I'm about halfway through Tarzan of the Apes and the audio of Washington: A Life. Enjoying both of them, although I cannot believe how long the latter is. I feel like I've actually fought the Revolutionary War by this point.

And I'm about 20% into Tristram Shandy, which is going slowly but not too badly overall.

I'm currently reading Pirate Freedom by Gene Wolfe. Wolfe is considered science-fiction most literate writer and I've been wanting to read him for years.

Pirate Freedom is the story of a young Catholic priest who returns to his past where he was a pirate. Pretty interesting so far.

#15 Apparently this is his third - I'd obviously missed one somewhere along the line as well. Coincidentally, Tristram Shandy features in Charles Jessold too!

Richard,

Thanks for posting about Peter De Vries. I had never heard about this author before.

I just ordered The Vale of Laughter from my local interlibrary loan here in San Antonio. I read some good reviews about this novel on Goodreads and will try it out.

Marion

So, I put aside Somebody Else's Daughter for the time being and picked up My Sister's Keeper just today! :)

>18 Kammbia1: Good news, Marion! I'm very hopeful you'll enjoy it.

I'm keeping it very light this week. I'm reading Further Tales of the City and The Tummy Trilogy.

Still muddling thru The Silmarillion and Wolverine's Daughter.

Thank you for sharing another left-wing author with us Richard!

I'm almost done with Everything's Eventual by Stephen King and The Midwife by Jennifer Worth. My book club met last night to discuss The Midwife and everyone liked it. Usually I'm finished with our books by the time we meet but I wasn't worried about the end being spoiled for me.

I'm about a fifth of the way into Naked to Mine Enemies: the Life of Cardinal Wolsey by Charles W. Ferguson. Surprisingly well written. I expected it to be interesting but gratified by how enjoyable it is, as well. Here's a sample:

"A violence of mind and weather swirled around the walls of Magdalen (College at Oxford). Men were on edge, their spirits either restless or defensive, for there came to be an awareness, in spite of walls, of what lay beyond the narrow Thames and even beyond the Channel and the North Seas. The whispers of distant lands came symbolically in a new language. Frowned upon as pagan and of devilish consequence, Greek had suffered for years exclusion from doughty England, where Latin held court and enjoyed obeisance in every school. Then came a man bearing the gift of Greek, William Grocyn by name and a native of Wiltshire, who had traveled in Italy and fallen there to the charms of an ancient literature encased in another language. Thus Greek made its way, smuggled in under the guise of respectability, to Magdalen, bringing with it scents of spices from other climes, as a summer wind carries memories and is laden with traces of treasure from some indefinable country far away."

I finished Yokohama Yankee. Rather than a memoir of 5 generations (which probably would have required a rendering in historical fiction), the book is a memoir focusing on the author's discovery of his past and adoption of his children. This places the reader at a slight distance from the story of the past generations of German, Japanese, and Americans ancestors but close to the author's own story. Sometimes it is difficult to keep the relationships straight but the family tree in the front of the book helps immensely. There are lots of great pictures and the book is interesting and enjoyable.

In the middle of What Alice Forgot which is an easy-to-read novel. Next up: The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe.

18 -- Wolfe is a real mind bender. I've read 21 of his books and I'm not sure I understood any of them.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Ten Years of the Claremont Review of Books ed. by Charles Kesler

About halfway through a reread of Tigana; enjoying it maybe even more than the first time, maybe because I seem to be getting more out of it, not having to rush through it to "see what happens next." Also getting a head start on Mystery March with another Jack Reacher audiobook, A Wanted Man.

Thanks for the interesting profile, Richard. I was able to get a free copy of Without a Stitch in Time on Nook. By the way, I hope your joints are getting jauntier.

For once I'm enjoying everthing I'm reading.
On Audio I'm listening to the last of my family saga novels:
Inside - Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang I'm just into The Great Leap Forward and am reminded of what Jared Diamond said about China - that the reason it lost so many of the gains it had made in ancient times was the perfect functioning of its hierarchy which made it too responsive to the whims of a single leader. When your leader thinks by force of will he can deny reality (kind of like Oprah), what could follow but disaster?
Outside - The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton about the mystery surrounding a British foundling in Australia and her family and descendants.
Nook: Ape House by Sara Gruen who includes a female character reminiscent of her friend Vanessa Woods and a male character who reminds me of Woods's husband. I guess she's had enough exposure to the torments of Hollywood from selling Water for Elephants to the movies that she can speak knowledgeably and, of course, scathingly about the players there.
Paper: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. It's fascinating the way she shows that those supporting racial hierarchy are able to continue discrimination and oppression by changing the means as old oppressions are overcome.

Just picked up Wrath of Angels by John Connolly. Love all of his books. He was recently on a local news program "207". Do love to hear him talk.. Can't wait to start his newest book!

I've reviewed 6. Fight Song: A Novel, a new book by a very interesting young author, in my thread...post #236.

I'm finally settled on Little Princes by Conor Grennanl. 50 pages in and I'm loving it! It's about the author's time volunteering in a Nepalese orphanage,and chiild trafficking.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour bookshop. It's interesting so far and I am intrigued.

I'm reading a book that's been sitting on my shelf for a long, long time---Geek Love. In a word: freaky!

Looking forward to it, Richard. I will post a review on my blog and attach a link here on LT when I finish it.

Thanks again for bringing attention to his work.

Marion

>33 clamato: Read that one a few months ago, and "intriguing" is a good word for it. I enjoyed it, hope you do too!

Geek Love is hands down one of the most unsettling, nightmare producing books I have ever read.

Reading Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel by John Guy.

Thanks for starting us off, Richard! (And filling in some gaps: I'd heard of de Vries somewhere...)

Reading Snow Child and loving it. Also on the go : The Storyteller's Daughter and polishing off The Book of Awesome. (And still going on Lucretius of course... so much for that being my January poetry read...)

Just started The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson.
Very entertaining story so far.

Finished Life of Pi and learned there was a reason I had been putting it off for so many years. It was OK but I just don't understand all the hyperbolic sentiments about it. Good enough book but not great, in my opinion.

Closing known the end of Barbie and Ruth. This has been a surprising read. Ruth Handler lived a fascinating life. I can see a movie of this ladies life. I started Omnivore's Dilemma for my book discussion group.

Besides last week's two vulumes of short stories, I'm 1/2 way through The talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith. Great story... a complex but sympathetic psychopath. You almost feel bad for Ripley... selfish and cold and brutal and cunning, but somehow innocent and lonely. Really think he loves Dickey before he...

And Dickey... a tease or just dense?

And a deep blue sea of denial.

Geek Love is one of the 10 books I'd want if stranded on a desert isle. I've read it twice and always think about climbing into it again.

I just finished Resolve which was an Early Reviewer book. It is a murder mystery set during the Pittsburgh Marathon and is very well written.

I am about to start Dark Places by Gillian Flynn.

Heir of Novron by Michael J. Sullivan
Final installment of the "Riyria Revelations" trilogy

Finished:
Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Dark and Light by Mort Rosenblum

I started Gillespie and I but wasn't really in the mood for it...I am halfway through Faceless Killers. I think I preferred The Snowman...

Been reading Alfred Hitchcock: A life in darkness and light by Patrick McGilligan. It's taking me a bit longer than usual to read this, mostly because I have to stop and watch a Hitchcock film periodically to remind myself of the films that are described.

I have actually lived my whole life in Chicago. There is a DeVries Junior College. I assumed it was named after someone "famous", but did not know that he was an author. I am going to begin reading one of his books.

Reading Defending Jacob by William Landay.

What a great selection of books here! I've only been away from LT for a few days but it seems like a lifetime.

Work and home both crazy busy, but I am listening to Miracle Cure by Harlen Coban - love his stand alone books, and reading Getting There the autobiography of Barbara Anderson a NZ author.
A lovely read about the author's childhood in Hawkes Bay NZ very close to my own home town, and a lovely find - she played with a young girl from the Herrick family who lived at a homestead called Lindisfarne - which is now a prestigious boys school, for which we haved scrimped and saved, with the added help of a small scholarship, for our son to attend.
The family had 4 sons and the 1 daughter, 3 of the sons were killed in WW2, the family then donated the homestead and surrounding land to become a boys school.

After six months of bedtime only reading, I've finished The Silmarillion. My new bedtime read is Phantom by Jo Nesbø.

>51 seitherin:: Hats off to you for finishing The Silmarillion! :)

Yesterday I foolishly decided that The Poisoner's Handbook, by Deborah Blum, would make excellent bedtime reading. Nearly had nightmares thanks to the all-too-vivid description of cyanide poisoning.
My other bedtime book is The Two Towers, which I'm determined to finally finish (this is my third attempt).

I have decided to start in on my large holding of short stories, at the moment I am enjoying a collection by one of my favorite authors Rose Tremain , eight stories in all The Garden of the Villa Mollini.

Frances Winwar's Wingless Victory:A Biography of Gabriele D'Annunzio and Eleanora Duse. An interesting if overly purple prose look into the lives of two fascinating artists. The side trips are worth the prose.

#50 It always makes reading so much more interesting when you know the places and / or the people being written about!

I finished The Children's Hospital and thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I have started Chasing the Light by Jesse Blackadder which is very good so far.

>52 rabbitprincess: I'm reading The Poisoner's Handbook too, but I'm immune to it giving me nightmares unless it starts talking about a clown dispensing poison.

I finished two books yesterday and today. Being sick leaves you plenty of time to read. I finished listening to Ghost Knight and enjoyed it. It was a recorded book and won the Odyssey Prize for best children's and YA recorded book last year. It deserves the prize. This is a good book for listening to in the car. It is long enough to carry you through a medium length trip and the story won't bore the adults in the car to tears.

I also finished Barbie and Ruth. This is a biography of Ruth Handler, the woman who conceived the Barbie doll and built Mattel into the company we know today. The book was well written and not too long, but I have to say that with a woman as interesting as Ruth Handler it would have been hard to writes bad book about her.

I will start Big Rock Candy Mountain tonight.

I finished and REVIEWED Katherine Dunn's shocking yet somehow thoughtful novel Geek Love. Wow!

Now I'm reading my ER book How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid.

I, too, read Life of Pi for a book group, otherwise I would have never finished it. So unbelievable, and it just goes on and on - like the ocean.

If you want a cool piece of information on the book, google the name of the tiger and see what you find out. That was better than the book, for me.

I just finished Never let me go and will be starting Story of A Marriage

#59: What did you think of Never Let Me Go? I wish I could read it for the first time again.

I finished 2666 and am still letting it sort of sink in. We spent a lot of time together, it is hard to sum up!

I am now reading ER book The Abundance by Amit Majmudar and am loving it. He is a beautiful, poetic, spare writer - BIG switch from Roberto Bolano's paragraph long, multi-themed paragraph/sentences! I have reader's whiplash, I think. I also won his book Partitions to review a few years ago and it was wonderful (although WAY different than this one).

Brenzi and Richard ~ great reviews of Geek Love.

Finished Show Red for Danger, an old-fashioned 1960 mystery, and now am returning to David McCullough's The Greater Journey. Rebel Heart, the second in a YA dystopia series, is next up.

I've now finally settled on and am enjoying Death at St. Asprey's School by Leo Bruce. It's exactly as the title suggests, a murder mystery at an Englsh prep school. It was wrtten in the 1960's, I believe. This is part of the Carolus Deene series. I intend to seek out more, if I can find them.

Never let me go was amazing. As always, Ishiguro has a quite, gentle voice, and the story unfolds, just as it did for the friends. I was thinking that the last letter of the names actually determined when they got their letters.

#64: I agree. That was absolutely my favorite book of his by far.

Ditto!!!

#65/66 Not my favourite but it's a close run thing with any of his books - the guy is pretty near faultless.

Ha! I was settled on and very much enjoying Death at St. Asprey's School by Leo Bruce until UPS showed up with the book I won from the Member Giveaway, The Kashmir Shawl by Rosie Thomas. It seems right up my alley, so I couldn't resist.

On the death of her grandfather, Mair comes across a beautiful Kashmir shawl that had belonged to the grandmother she'd never known who was a missionary in India. With it she also finds an envelope with a lock of hair that does not seem to have belonged to her grandfather, nor anyone in the family. She is intrigued enough to go to India to search for clues to her grandmother's life.

I'm not far in at all, but am enjoying it so far.

Finished Wolverine's Daughter by Doranna Durgin and started Feast of Souls by C. S. Friedman.

Cruising along with Red Storm Rising: page 530 out of 725...

Page 580...

I'm into book 3 of Tristram Shandy and it's still going well. I only read about 50 pages of it a day, though. Getting close to halfway through The Poisoner's Handbook, and I forget what chapter in the audio of Washington: A Life I got to on my run today, but I'm around 2/3 of the way through the book.

I've just put up my review of Under the Hill: Bomber's Moon, a gay urban fantasy that I actually liked, over in my thread...post #302.

I finished and REVIEWED my latest ER book How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid. It was quite good but not quite as powerful and his The Reluctant Fundamentalist.

Now I'm reading Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain.

>61 CarolynSchroeder: Thanks Carolyn.

I just finished ER book The Abundance by Amit Majmudar and loved it. I'm going to put up a review now!

Not sure what is next, but it will be a short story collection to kick off our March group. I have to sift around Mount TBR and also, my Paperwhite!

Anxious to hear what you think of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk brenzi ... I have that one on the Kindle and want to read it. Hope it's as good as most people say it is!

I am now reading A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler ... my (first) March short story collection.

Still working on The Name of the Rose. So far there are multiple heretics, 4 bodies, 2 inquisitioners, a library with hidden rooms, one witch, but no partridge in a pear tree. This is a really good mystery.

Also reading The Brothers Karamosov. It's not nearly that exciting.

But I feel like I am surrounded by monks on every side!

Almost done with my February challenge book, Red Storm Rising: page 662 of 725!

I think I'm gonna make it!!!

#78. Good luck fuzzi!

I'm starting Derby Day.

I started the last volume in the wimpy kid series The Third Wheel last night

Wow! I just finished Defending Jacob a prerty amazing novel about what happens to a family whose son is accused of murder. I won't forget that one for a while!

Am working on three books and hoping I can finish one. I've been reading The Green Hat by Michael Arlen which is a hoot. (I'm sure that Arlen didn't intend it to be.)

So, I finished reading My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult last night - incredibly poignant and I think that I may have enjoyed this particular book only slightly more than Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult which was an extremely thought-provoking book in its own right, in my opinion. Anyway, I immediately picked up Heartbreak Hotel by Anne Rivers Siddons and began reading it today (February 28, 2013). After a bit of a rocky start - I wasn't too crazy about how this book started off - I'm persevering with it and it seems to be getting better as I go along! :)

On this final day of the month I am still reading:

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor. This is a memoir. For those outside the US, she is the Associate Justice of the Surpreme Court of the United States. This is a bid deal as she is the first Latina to hold this position. And I'm loving it, because she grew up in the same neighborhood as I did.

My other read is Me Before You by Jojo Moyes.

I'm about 1/2 through both books. I hope to be done my early next week.

Halfway through The End of Your Life Book Club. I think all the hype surrounding new books builds it up too much, for me, and leaves me feeling let down. It's a good book so far, but like Behind the Beautiful Forevers, just doesn't live up to the expectations (so far).

I read Geek Love when it came out and loved it! However, I let one of my customers borrow it and he no longer returns my phone calls! There's a lesson here.

Okay, I lauged out loud at that #87 ... Friends don't let friends read Geek Love? I cannot think of a single person I'd even recommend that one to in real/3D life (the reason being that even after a decade +, I cannot completely purge the ick parts from that one out of my head - and I keep thinking from time to time, like who could EVEN come up with that?), yet so many of my buddies here loved it! I think we all have developed some thick skins from reading mountains of books!

I've started the March Short Stories community thread! Wander over and let us know if there are any story collections or anthologies in your future.

Finished Tigana and am emotionally wrung out. What an amazing fantasy novel, one of the best I've ever read. Can't even think about what to read next, it effected me so strongly.

I am reading A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler for our March Short Story Read Along and so far, it is great. Very different!

I finished Elmore Leonard's Fire in the Hole -- Leonard's stories are always fun -- and now I'm reading Small Change by Elizabeth Hay.

I started Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and her daughter Samantha Van Leer last night. I was unsure of it at first but I found that after a couple chapters that it had drawn me in. I like most of Jodi Picoults books and think this one will be no exception. :) Have a great weekend all!

>mollygrace: let us know how it turned out; I loved late nights on air.
Reading 100 Thing Challenge, Grace Coddington's memoir, & Lost & Forgotten Languages of Shanghai.

Now reading The Chemistry of Death.

91> absolutely loved that book......enjoy!

I set aside Derby Day - just wasn't getting onto it. Started The Winner Stands Alone

Hope it's OK for me to post this link to the article our local newspaper, the Ukiah Daily Journal, ran today on my bookstore on the occasion of our 2-year anniversary as owners. If this counts an an inappropriate post, somebody please let me know and I will delete forthwith.

http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/community/ci_22690146/new-proprietor-village-bo...

#94 - Heduanna - I loved that one, too -- also Garbo Laughs and Alone in the Classroom. Small Change is from 1997 -- I believe it was her first work of fiction -- a series of linked short stories. I'm reading rather slowly these days but I promise I'll report back when I finish.

>98 rocketjk: Congratulations, Jerry! A nice write-up.

Congratulations Jerry! What an awesome article and story about your store ... and I don't mind saying, handsome guy with big yellow dog, surrounded by books, um, yes, very nice images :) Should I find myself in your neck of the woods, I will pop in and buy a book or two! Keep doing what you do. I dream of that as well and the thought of losing my shirt scares me more than a bit. You are a lighthouse, my friend.

#98. Very nice !

My congratulations, too, Jerry! That's not easy to do these days. Very positive article.

>98 rocketjk:: I can't think of anything more appropriate on these boards than an article about an independent bookstore! Congratulations Jerry. It sounds like you're a very happy owner.

Congratulations Jerry! Nicely done.

>88 CarolynSchroeder: even after a decade +, I cannot completely purge the ick parts from that one out of my head - and I keep thinking from time to time, like who could EVEN come up with that?)

What!!! Is it going to take that long for the images that are now seared into my brain to go away? Gah! I wouldn't say I loved it but I did give her points for sick originality and producing a book I am not likely to forget which you have just confirmed Carolyn.

and congratulations from me too Jerry :o)

There is always the work and worry of owning your own business, but it you decide to do that what better choice than a bookshop!

Loved the article. Congratulations!

Thanks for sharing Jerry. Nice work!!

Thanks, everybody! I've already gotten some good response in town from the article, too.