The 2007 Writer’s Market because I’m trying to find a publisher for my collection of humor columns. I figure that witht he death of newspapers I’ll be out of a job soon. I think being a columnist is like being a shepherd with not much call for it anymore. About reading, my favorite thing is to go into a used book store and just buy whatever catches my interest, pile them by my bed and sift through them. Our three year old grandson lives with us so there’s not much chance to book drift away. But I have noticed he picks them up and tries to read them himself. I must say that my favorite at the moment is The Cat in the Hat because that’s the one he wants to read to go to sleep. I love it when he sleeps, he’s like a baby cobra.

Currently I’m roaming between “Happiness is an Inside Job” by the ever amazing Sylvia Boorstein; “Conversation: A History of a Declining Art” by Stephen Miller, a book that much of the WOWOWOW community would enjoy as it traces the art of conversation from the Greeks through the French salons to the English coffee houses to its current state of decline (except on this site); and M.C. Richards’ classic “Centering: In Pottery, Poetry and the Person.” Plus two classics I regard as true touchstones that I revisit over and over again: “Gift From the Sea,” by Anne Morrow Lindbergh and “The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume II.”

Well, I was one minute too late to be first to reply, but I was the first guy (beat ya, Frank!) I just picked up the MacBook Pro after going without my daily wowOwow fix for over 24 hours!! I really got a rush when I found the Question of the Day and Poll Question still in a “virgin” state. So, if midnight EST is the standard time for the questions to go up on the site, I should find it easy to be the first guy to despoil them every evening. It’s the perfect hour for such a tryst —you’ll find me here every evening. Here in Honolulu I’ll be finishing dinner and half way through Lehrer’s Newshour. Not to worry ladies; I don’t plan to make a habit of such behavior; sometimes on wowOwow I feel like I did at the baby shower for my son. I was 40 and his mom was 38 and half the guests were grandmas. Anyway, we’ve seen how easy it is for a man to wear out his welcome with some of the more territorial gals who visit the site, and the last thing I want is to be identified with is the sort who delights in depositing ignorant, chauvinist rants here as much as my dog does when compulsively lifting his hind leg every few yards to leave his mark on the landscaping. OK — now I’ll address the topic!! I just started a book that my son recommended when he came back from NYU at Christmas: Robert D. Putnam’s BOWLING ALONE. It’s a hard book to love, but after reading the first and last chapters twice, I’m working my way through the rest and enjoying the challenge.

Frank, you are correct. Maybe I’ll just stick my columns on youtube. I could read them while a video plays a tribute to Erma Bombeck, may she cavort in heaven for eternity. I also like to read Jonathan Kellerman, Steven White, James Patterson, and any autopsy procedural anybody writes. There, I admitted it. Oh yeah, Frank McCourt. May he live forever with or without quote marks.

Although it sounds suspiciously like a plug, I started reading Leslie Stahl’s book ‘Reporting Live’ - am on page 72. David Sheff ‘Beautiful Boy’ already a tear jerker at page 88. Phil Donahue (no plug intended) ‘The Human Animal’ - Liked the pictures. Lisa Alther ‘Kinfolks, Falling off the Family Tree’ about relatives with 2 thumbs in Virginia. Synopsis helpful? Lucy Grealy ‘Autobiography of a Face’ Living with a distorted self-image/disfigured face in our beauty obsessed society. All checked out at a green library tonight. Have checkout receipt and late fee receipt for $8.40. The library can be incredibly expensive, at least for unorganized people.

After owning a full set of Charles Dickens for ten years I finally started to read and reread his work. He had me laughing out loud with his account of his trip to the United States in 1842. I had forgotten how funny he could be and how current his writing. Now I’m reading Sketches by Boz which are the first pieces he wrote for his newspaper during the time he was working as a reporter. These pieces are descriptions of his friends, family, neighbors, and the areas around London. Some are hilarious. Also over the last months I’ve worked my way to Volume 111 of A History Of Private Life. This volume covers the Renaissance. I have one volume to go before I have to look for a second hand copy of Volume five that was written about five or six years after these four were published. I think what is so fascinating is how little we have learned as human beings.