The Literary Stack

A little over a year ago, I decided that I would no longer be on my phone in the bathroom, and went back to the old ways of taking a book with me instead!!!

The result, unsurprisingly, is that I've read a lot more books!!! Books I'd been given, books I'd picked up because they sounded interesting, books by favorite authors I hadn't gotten to, and in one case, a book that came with the house!!!

That book was “Storm”, published back in the 40's, and was the origin of the naming of storms. I've heard of, but never heard, the song, “They Call the Wind Maria”. It was from the high school my mom had attended, but she has no recollection of reading it.

Speaking of my mom, she loaned me one of the books from the Dean Koontz “Jane Hawk” series, the fourth in the series, “The Forbidden Door”. It was a good book, very readable, and Koontz does a good job of making it so you don't need to have read the previous books to be able to get on board.

That was a hardcover, and once I was started, I wanted to read the rest. I picked up the rest of the series in paperback, and burned through them. Then I gave them to my mom, who also likewise burned through them!!!

Speaking of burning through books, I found this in one of those little free libraries that was in my mom's neighborhood.

I'd heard of “Fahrenheit 451” since I was in school, but had never read it. It's a bit dated (a lot of the future-set Sci-Fi books are), but the idea holds up!!! It had several afterwords including some interviews with Bradbury, and he mentioned in part of it that the mechanical hound was an updating of Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles. I have a desire to read more Ray Bradbury now.

Another dated Sci-Fi book I picked up from a free library, this time in my neighborhood, was called “Tiger Tiger”. I enjoyed them both.

I think it was at the beginning of the year I picked up Stephen King's “The Outsider”, “Fairy Tale”, and “Holly”. “The Outsider” continues the story of Holly from Bill Hodges (from the Mr. Mercedes series) detective agency and was pretty good.

“Fairy Tale” was a great story, classic King fantasy sci-fi, and I enjoyed it the most of the three.

“Holly” further continues the story of Holly, but... the Wuhan Flu and Donald Trump have destroyed the once great Stephen King. It was practically unreadable. TDS is a powerful thing.

After I'd finished the Jane Hawk series, I had a hankering to read some John Irving again. I've heard him described as the dirty old man of literature, and I find that to be an apt description.

I remember as a teen having several of my friends over when “The World According to Garp” was airing on one of the cable channels. It had Robin Williams, it has to be funny, right??? Sure enough, it had some funny, but I think that we were more traumatized than amused.

The book was much better. Who knows, maybe I just happen to have aged into it!!!

I was reading “The World According to Garp” when we were on our Catalina vacation, and while we were there, we happened on yet another little free library. As always, I had to have a look through to see if there was anything of interest.

I saw the title of this one, “Down at Flathead”, and was intrigued. Of course, the flathead Ford V-8 was an early hot rod staple, a compact V-8 engine offering much improved performance over many of the smaller and bulkier engines of the day, and were often swapped into small, lightweight cars.

I pulled it out, and the cover artwork also got my attention, and the synopsis cemented it. The author lives in Avalon, and this copy happens to have been signed. I'm only about ¼ of the way through, but so far I'm liking it quite a lot!!! They've re-stolen the Lunar Rover from Apollo 17, then stole one of the Catalina Express jet catamarans, and are currently on a large orbiting spacecraft.

A lot of the books are stacked up on the end of the kitchen table, hence the Literary Stack!!! I've got to clear out the bookshelf, and probably distribute several of the books back to the little libraries!!!