Sun The life of an author is full of ups and downs, like the Amazon rankings on hiser (my gender-neutral pronoun) books. One becomes addicted to checking those rankings, even while knowing the Amazon algorithm is a mystery, and the rankings aren’t always commensurate with sales. For example, my book Murder in Palm Beach: The […]
Yul Brynner, The King and I Hello, young readers, whoever you are, Or if you’re old, or almost. All my good pages go with you tonight, Just click this link I host. http://bit.ly/2Q1RBvm John Grisham I don’t claim to be the King of Siam, much less of Mysteries, and neither do any of […]
It’s been a long time since The Grammar Grouch has groaned and moaned, and he’s getting testy. Time for him to purge those damned, damned-up, obsessive-compulsive feelings. Why they call to mind the 1975 song by that name crooned by Brazilian singer Morris Albert, I have no idea. Feelings is a melancholy melody with sappy, […]
The Book Cellar At a downtown Lake Worth, Florida, store Tuesday night, a group of at least a dozen musicians stood just inside the door and posed for a photo. This wasn’t a music store. It was The Book Cellar, a bookstore that has blossomed into a community gathering place. In fact, when I walked […]
Everybody knows about Key West, where the primary industry is celebration of life. But a similar enclave exists well up the Sunshine State’s east coast. It’s a town called New Smyrna Beach, 20 miles south of Daytona Beach. The Intracoastal Waterway, a wide expanse of shimmering blue water, divides the town into two parts connected […]
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins Dear Senator Collins, A good many people who waited with bated breath for your decision on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation for a Supreme Court seat are aware that you are up for re-election in 2020 as a senator from Maine. And a good many are going to do whatever they can […]
In many parts of the country, the leaves have turned to radiant hues of gold, red, orange and yellow, the prelude to their demise. The air already is nippy, as witness the jackets worn by folks in the stands at Major League playoff games. Soon, it will be too cold to play baseball – and […]
A few days ago — Oct. 17 or 18, I think it was — I sent this book giveaway offer to you. If you tried to access the deal, you might have found that you couldn’t. That wasn’t your fault, but the fault of the promoter, whose website had a glitch. He says it’s fixed, […]
After a long period of newsletter inaction, your not-so-faithful scribe is back in the business of the written word. The drought was precipitated (that seems like a paradox; I actually saw a pair o’ docks where the water line was quite low) by a lengthy, exasperating effort to find an email management service that I, […]
Garry Moore Remember that 1970s TV show To Tell the Truth, hosted by Garry Moore? He would recite a biography, and a panel questioned three contestants, two of them impostors and one the owner of the biography. The panelists would guess which of the three was authentic. Then Moore would intone, “Will the real Joe […]