The Land of Painted Caves

That's the title of the latest offering by Jean M. Auel, one of my favorite writers.

Ye socks who may not recognize her name may be peripherally aware of the series of books she began some three decades ago with The Clan of the Cave Bear.

I had planned to buy the book last week when I first heard it was hitting the major book outlets, but held off til the latest gadget arrived from our friends at Apple.

After downloading it late last night from iBooks, I'm pleased to report that I've made it thru 8 chapters already. Some of these were done lakeside from the comfort of a folding chair I posted beneath a cypress tree full of jays and mockingbirds. The occasional breeze actually made it a little chilly in the shade, but I wasn't complaining . . . especially since the heat and humidity of the Florida summer is just around the corner.

Hoping ye socks are enjoying an equally blissful weekend!

Have you read any of these books?

I'm sure a large number of ye socks will be relieved by today's item of a non-political nature! It was forwarded to me as a sort of slam-post:

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read an excerpt. Post your results on your blog or FB page and tag a few other bibliophiles.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma -Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albon
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Book site suggestion

After my recent posting about excess books, another bibliophile (who shall remain anonymous at their request!) shot me an email to suggest I check out this site:

www.goodreads.com

Enjoying it so far, thought I'd pass it along!

Don't touch the books on THAT shelf!

Warning: If you ever get labeled as a bibliophile, books will automatically begin congregating around your humble abode. And, they'll multiply like rabbits.

And, a surprising number of said rabbit-like tomes will be of no interest to you whatsoever.

You'll NEVER read them. NEVER!

At the same time, your appreciation for the printed word will prevent you from tossing them. Instead, you'll expend a lot of fruitless effort trying to find them a proper home because, let's be frank, no one you know would EVER read them, either. EVER!

Another book-nut suggested I take all the books I have around here that fall in that unreadable category and list them on amazon.com.

Don't know why that thought had never occurred to me before.

But, that's exactly what I spent about an hour doing this afternoon.

Now, apparently, I just have to sit back and wait for the perfect match for each of these oddballs to magically appear out of cyberspace.

In the mean time, ye socks, the rest of the lending library is open per regular lending terms. But, hands off the bottom shelf. Those are on consignment!

To honor "Movie Quotes Week"

The first of ye socks to email me the list of films (in correct order) where these lines were spoken wins an autographed copy of my book "Like the Cats of Kilkenny." (Make sure to put "MOVIE LINES" in the reference of your email.)

1. Aim small, miss small.

2. May I ask what you are doing sitting at my table? I'm eating your chocolate cake!

3. Every man dies. Not every man really lives.

4. Don't mind him. He used to be an Irishman . . .

5. Their bravery is worthy of a better cause.

6. It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage!

7. Ah, dessert! Chilled monkey brains!

8. I'm like a bad penny, I always turn up.

9. Nice try, kid, but it looks like you brought a knife to a gunfight . . .

10. I am what I am . . . someone has to be!

Compiling ye olde reading list

Yes, ye socks, it's that time of year. Yours truly is crafting his reading list for the next 365 days.

One of the tools I use for this is the New York Times best seller list. (IMHO the only reason to peruse said "newspaper.")

A whopping 36 books topped the list last year, which doesn't say much for their staying-power and tells me there's a lot of pulp fiction out there that probably wouldn't appeal to me.

In fact, more than half the books were just the latest in a series.

And, the overwhelming majority seem to fall into one category of crime story or another.

All in all, this is a pretty stinging indictment of our country's literary taste, no?

Anyway, getting back to my own list, I decided only to add the "outliers," those books that didn't fall into the crime series formula . . . or, if they did, only those who topped the list for more than just one week. This is what I came up with, in no particular order:

1. Handle With Care, by Jodi Picoult. The tale of a child with a peculiar disability.

2. South of Broad, by Pat Conroy. A family drama set in Charleston, South Carolina.

3. The Last Song, by Nicholas Sparks. A teenager moves to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, after parents divorce.

4. The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown. Symbologists shift their focus from the Vatican to DC.

5. Ford County, by John Grisham. A collection of short stories about a fictional Mississippi town.

6. Under the Dome, by Stephen King. A glass dome descends on yet another fictional town, this one in Maine.

7. U is for Undertow, by Sue Grafton. The 21st, yes 21st, in a murder mystery series. I only added it because it managed to stay atop the list for 5 whole weeks.

Plenty of spots still availble on the list if ye socks have any suggestions . . .

Next on the reading agenda . . .

After yesterday's post, some of ye socks asked what book was next on ye olde reading list.

Well, it just so happens to be Diane Setterfield's novel The Thirteenth Tale.

I started reading it tonight.

Found it a bit pretentious and contrived in the beginning.

But, after making it thru about 20 pages, have deemed it worthy of continued perusal.

A more complete report to follow.

Feel free to find a copy of your own to read in tandem.

Autographed stocking stuffers, anyone?

OK, for "Cyber Monday," yours truly is offering an "inventory blow-out" on paperback copies of my book, Like the Cats of Kilkenny: A True Story of the Civil War.

Any of ye faithful socks in the dryer who are interested in a copy for Yuletide purposes, shoot an email to: wsmorganv@aol.com

I'm offering free shipping, and will be glad to add a personalized message before signing. Just mention that you read about the offer in this blog.

RIP Frank McCourt (1930-2009)

Yours truly would be remiss if an entire week was allowed to go by without mentioning the passing of one of my favorite contemporary authors: Frank McCourt

Ye socks are probably, at least peripherally, aware of his 1997 Pulitzer Prize winner: Angela's Ashes.

If not, check it out of your local library. Or, if ye must, rent the movie adaptation.

McCourt's masterpiece recounts his own Irish American childhood, which began in Brooklyn, New York. At the height of the Great Depression, with no work to be had, his parents decide to move back to Ireland. But, there they sank in to even deeper poverty.

The resilience of the McCourts is inspiring, Frank most particularly.

He picked up the family narrative in two more books: 'Tis (1999) and Teacher Man (2005). Then, a couple of Christmas seasons ago, he released a children's book: Angela and the Baby Jesus. Unfortunately, none of them achieved the broad popularity of his first work.

Perhaps, McCourt's works play on my Irish heart strings. But, I'd like to think his insights into human frailties, strengths, and faith transcend mere ethnic pride . . .

15 Books

OK, after getting tagged yesterday, my fellow FHS alum Michelle got me with this one today:

List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you -- list the first 15 you can recall in 15 minutes. Don't take too long to think about it. Here are mine, in no particular order:

1. The Bible. (kinda obvious, but this one gets cracked on a daily basis)

2. Like the Cats of Kilkenny: A True Story of the Civil War. (can't remember the name of the author, but he is a brilliant writer)

3. Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson. (deserved its Pulitzer prize)

4. Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth and World Without End.

5. The Bastard, and the rest of the books in that series, by John Jakes.

6. Clan of the Cave Bear, and the rest of the books in that series, by Jean M. Auel.

7. The Great Brain, and the rest of the books in that series, by J.D. FitzGerald.

8. Undaunted Courage, by Stephen E. Ambrose.

9. Gotham, by Burrows & Wallace. (history of NYC)

10. The Hobbit, and the rest of the books in that series, by J.R.R. Tolkien. (better than the movies)

11. Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell.

12. The Forgotten Man, by Amity Shlaes. (everyone should read this one if they want to understand what really happened during The Great Depression, and how dangerously close we are to going down that road again . . .)

13. Here be Dragons, and the rest of the books in the series by Sharon Kay Penman.

14. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. (dark, but worth it)

15. Personal Reminiscences, by William H. Morgan. (memoirs of my great-uncle)

Ford should give Emerson a rest

Well, ye socks, yours truly has finally finished reading Richard Ford's prize-winning novel Independence Day.

Kinda appropriate given the recent holiday, no?

Well, as alluded to in a previous post, it took a lot of effort on my part to get thru this one.

Ford's writing is often disjointed. The best dialogues . . . even monologues . . . are delivered over the phone or answering machines.

It's very hard to like any of these characters.

What's harder to like is Ford's fawning over Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). But, I suppose any apologist for the "great" Transcendentalist is doomed to pratfalls.

Ultimately, Ford suffers the same assessment as his hero, in that he was quite appealing in his youth. But, with age, he became a godless curmudgeon.

I remember thinking a lot of Emerson as a young conservative college student, for a couple of reasons. First, he had a personal connection to Florida, spending his winters in St. Augustine socializing with exiled members of the French imperial family. More importantly, his writings encouraged self-reliance, championed individualism, and dared to see opportunities in adverse situations. He inspired an entire generation of Americans, who deemed his 1837 speech "The American Scholar" to be an "Intellectual Declaration of Independence."

I suppose that's where Ford got the title for this tedious novel, moreso than its actual setting.

Ford was much less-contrived in the prequel The Sportswriter, which somehow managed to speak to me using the same protagonist but with less Transcendentalist clap-trap.

Self-reliance can indeed be a virtue, unless it is taken to extremes. Emerson was an extremist in that he saw no higher power than the individual, and ultimately rejected God. Henry Ware, Jr., pegged him (quite appropriately) for "taking away the father of the Universe" and leaving "but a company of children in an orphan asylum."

This older, bitter, godless Emerson is the figure Ford emulates and celebrates in Independence Day. If ye socks would believe the Pulitzer committee, he evidently succeeded in the former. But, the latter seems more than a bit contrary . . .

Bottom line: skip it.

Happy 101st, Louis!

In keeping with yesterday's literary theme (and to avoid all things related to politics and our collective economic woes), I decided to dedicate today's post in the dryer to one of my favorite writers: Louis L'Amour.

He was born on this date way back in 1908--in Jamestown, North Dakota, to be more precise.

More importantly, he grew up hearing stories about the Wild West from some of the people who had tamed it. And, he used those tales as inspiration for more than 100 books.

Snooty literary types never took him seriously, I'm afraid. Yet, his books have sold over 200 million copies--not to mention how many were made into some of the most iconic western movies ever produced. (Ever seen John Wayne in "Hondo"?)

Anyway, Mr. L'Amour road into the proverbial sunset way back in 1988. But, he remains one of my favorite writers to this day. If you haven't read one of his books lately, pick one up to mark his birthday today!

What a tangled web!

Yep, still reading the book about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.

Hope ye socks aren't getting bored with these posts on the subject, but it's been a good read and I've been learning a lot.

Today's little genealogical tidbit concerns Jefferson's wife. I never knew anything about her before. Her name was Martha Wayles, and it turns out she was the half-sister of Hemings!

On a personal note, I also discovered that Jefferson was her SECOND husband. And, her first husband was a fellow by the name of Bathurst Skelton.

Well, the Richard Stith that I mentioned in previous postings was a grandson of a lady named Susanna Bathurst. A peculiar name, not like Jones or Smith. So, I'm sure there's a connection somewhere. Need to do a little sleuthing on this one . . .

Back to the book . . .

Just what I needed around here . . .

More books!

Well, more like more magazines, I guess.

Today was the Friends of the Library annual winter book sale downtown. So, of course, yours truly was there all bright eyed and bushy tailed as soon as they opened the doors.

But, this year, I was on a budget. So, none of the wild and crazy antics that have typified past book sales.

I did, however, luck into a stack of old "Orlando" magazines. At 25-cents a pop, who could resist?

Guess it's a good thing I came across those extra bookshelves recently . . . looks like I may need them.

Hope ye socks are enjoying an equally geeky weekend!

Books, CDs, and magazines for CHEAP

It's that time of year again.

The Friends of the Library have announced their annual winter sale at the main downtown branch on Central Boulevard at ROSALIND Avenue.

It runs from January 23rd thru the 25th, with 50% off EVERYTHING in the 4th floor shop.

And, if you're a member of FOL, you not only get another 10% discount but also a preview day on January 22nd.

Check it out, you may just find a bargain!

Patrick Smith: A living legend

Several months ago, I was talking to one of ye socks offline about the classic Florida novel A Land Remembered, and was asked if the author Patrick Smith was still living.

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Smith many years ago at a book signing at the OLD Orange County History Museum at Loch Haven. If he was still living, I guessed he'd be in his 80s. But, I hadn't heard anything about him in a while, so who knew?!

Well, today I am pleased to report that Smith is doing well and will be the featured guest on a local radio broadcast.

Ye Smith afficionados in this little corner of heaven should tune your radio dials to 90.7 (WMFE) at 6:30 pm this Thursday to hear him on the "Florida Frontier" program.

I'll be listening, too!

And the winner is . . .

Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris.



Not the title I would have chosen from Monday's list myself, but that's why I threw the options into the dryer.


(Runner-up was The Shack.)


So, I ordered a copy from http://www.ocls.info/ this afternoon.


The description there says this is the first of eight books in the Sookie Stackhouse Series, mysteries featuring vampires and a telepathic Louisiana barmaid protagonist.


I don't know. I'll give it a shot, and let you know the verdict when I'm done.


Have a good weekend, ye socks!

Calling all bibliophiles!

What should I read next?!

I just finished Mike Huckabee's new book Do the Right Thing. (An excellent--if bittersweet--rehash of his recent run for the presidency . . . he should've been the GOP nominee, but that's another story . . .)

Anyway, I now find myself bookless and decided to let ye socks choose what I should read next. Let me know either by posting here or by private email or otherwise by Friday.

Here's the list of candidates:

* Cover her Face, by P.D. James (1962) first in a series of British mysteries.
* The Camel Club, by David Baldacci, first in a series of political thrillers.
* Too Fat to Fish, by Artie Lange from the Howard Stern Show.
* American Lion, by Jon Meacham, historical work about Andrew Jackson.
* The Shack, by William P. Young, a self-published Christian novel that became a bestseller.
* The Appeal, by John Grisham, his first lawyer fiction book in years.
* The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, almost deleted this one for getting Oprah's nod.
* The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho (1988), Portuguese story translated into 60+ languages.
* Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris, first in a series of Southern vampire stories.

Let me know what you think!

Pre-Labor Day laboring

Well, ye socks, I am pleased to report that I have FINALLY gotten all the stacks and stacks of books up off the floor and onto some recently-acquired bookshelves!

This feat was not accomplished without a significant amount of elbow grease on the part of yours truly.

I suppose I could have purchased something pre-assembled, but we are watching our pennies around this little corner of heaven.

So, I spent most of the day trying to deduce the meaning of the "instructions" manual, which consisted not of words but a collection of rather obtuse drawings.

Anyway, mission accomplished . . . finally!

But, I wouldn't sit on any of those shelves unless you want to end up on the floor . . . for some reason, post assembly found me with 4 loose screws.

No comments required from the peanut gallery on the loose screws!

First "wild release"

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OK, ye socks, I have officially released a book into the wild.

I left a Carlos Castaneda novel in my shopping cart after getting groceries this afternoon.

So, if you find yourself in the vicinity of SR436 and Wekiva Springs Road, join the bookcrossing adventure!

But, make it quick. It looks like rain is headed our way . . . maybe, I should have released the book in a Ziploc bag?!