tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63271347022973798982024-03-27T02:36:05.547-04:00Audiobooks TodayAudiobook Reviews and InterviewsAudiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.comBlogger83125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-76615116262385593872024-02-15T09:01:00.006-05:002024-02-15T10:06:01.749-05:00Judge Jury Suspense stories<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDvjYK5CSo1ubbXsedgw6b9Vj3exE3q3WqmMF5n5zHX2bKp3Za2f1MHDlS1zXiXNhPzt7qinJihayGGxbmvphxOAqFJa_ayEoRHoSxPb0I4h87mlr4xZveL-Fs-EVUX9GV7P1Eh8_N9j7MoDFmIwBm5qHOIse2TQ9u5mz3ztLukHSHe9qQns_pMQBs_6U/s1331/B769D5DE-FA6D-4B0A-92BF-BF075485CDBA.jpeg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; "><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1224" data-original-width="1331" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDvjYK5CSo1ubbXsedgw6b9Vj3exE3q3WqmMF5n5zHX2bKp3Za2f1MHDlS1zXiXNhPzt7qinJihayGGxbmvphxOAqFJa_ayEoRHoSxPb0I4h87mlr4xZveL-Fs-EVUX9GV7P1Eh8_N9j7MoDFmIwBm5qHOIse2TQ9u5mz3ztLukHSHe9qQns_pMQBs_6U/s320/B769D5DE-FA6D-4B0A-92BF-BF075485CDBA.jpeg"/></a></div>
<b>The audiobook version of this is CAT ON A COLD TIN ROOF, at Audible iTunes.
Revenge can be sweet, or surprising. Here are tales of mystery and fantasy, science fiction and romance. The theme is revenge, but the twists are unexpected. First up, a hybrid that is both story and script, including artificial intelligence, beliefs, and fears. It begins with a drug unlike any other: a shocking disruption of the market. Next, a prequel to the Tom Cruise movie Collateral. Who was Vincent? Where did he come from? The Key to Vincent lies in the Florida Keys. Bonus tales will beguile and amuse, from the author of The Methuselah Gene and Lottery Island.</b>
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Jonathan Lowe is author of Posrmarked for Death, which Clive Cussler called "powerful and accomplished...mystery at its best."Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-60186453327495263392024-01-31T13:38:00.000-05:002024-01-31T13:38:02.284-05:00Cozy Up to Terror<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVLNXxplm25MGn1eB8KopJ_Ex2LyxUvnQvly2ahhXpVNtH-cRei03Z_7etxHIkemOrsKUUxlBh-Miwr-K3LqfHG3V1tcUH3IFvfwMq7QMj2vM02XhAL_LWCSiqNqoXfRejEkcilm5PfMRHFi46GZr4Pfqy5H6qjXGZH2QOyr9O6n769PKTznDZ26LJK_g/s3264/A49253DB-6A14-4E17-B633-A7E556238F72.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3264" data-original-width="2448" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVLNXxplm25MGn1eB8KopJ_Ex2LyxUvnQvly2ahhXpVNtH-cRei03Z_7etxHIkemOrsKUUxlBh-Miwr-K3LqfHG3V1tcUH3IFvfwMq7QMj2vM02XhAL_LWCSiqNqoXfRejEkcilm5PfMRHFi46GZr4Pfqy5H6qjXGZH2QOyr9O6n769PKTznDZ26LJK_g/s320/A49253DB-6A14-4E17-B633-A7E556238F72.jpeg" width="240" /></a></b></div><b><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b><p></p><p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The Lone Star Family Fun Time is an amusement park where the plot of COZY UP TO TERROR, (book seven of the Cozy Up Series), plays out. The Texas attraction hosts a Witness Protectioner in a smelly mascot costume being chased by gangsters out for revenge. Doyle Flanders works as a custodian sometimes wearing a Yeti costume to entertain the kiddies—who can be demanding for photographs. This eccentric cozy mystery by Colin Conway is ably narrated by Damon Abdallah in this new Books in Motion release. Abdallah has a mouthful of characters to interpret, from naughty eight year olds to jaded criminals and clueless staff. It’s difficult to wrangle one’s mind and mouth around such a distracting coterie of people, but Damon is up to the task of keeping the accents and mannerisms in line. He keeps the attention fixed on the circus atmosphere the story creates, and propels the narrative, such as it is, with offbeat but appropriate audio renderings.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></span></b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span>If you can imagine a theme park far enough out of the way that such antics can occur, join Doyle and crew in a golf cart ride into thrilling improbability. And keep your ears open for more in the series, which began with Cozy Up to Death.</span></b></span></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-71981373060622203582023-12-29T12:05:00.003-05:002024-01-08T12:20:19.294-05:00Interview with Mary Kubica<ol style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: georgia, serif;"><li style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="background-color: #f9f9f9;">In <i style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);">Just the Nicest Couple</i> a surgeon goes missing, and a friend of his wife holds a secret about the disappearance. What idea inspired the book, and why did the story of two couples (one happy, one not) resonate with you? </b></li></ol><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"></span><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b>As with most of my books, it starts with a tiny seed of an idea that grows during the writing process. With <i style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);">Just the Nicest Couple, </i>I was first drawn to the concept of writing about a missing man, because we hear so often on the news and in the media about women who go missing. I wanted to flip the script and see what would happen if the roles were reversed. My books are always domestic in nature, which was the draw for having two couples involved in this book. Not only was I diving into the lives of one couple, but the lives of friends and co-workers as well, asking that all important question: How well do we really know the people closest to us?<span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"> </span></b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><b><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><br /></b></p><ol start="2" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: georgia, serif;"><li style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b>You began writing as a young girl, but what led you to the suspense genre? Why do you like it so much, and what authors influenced you?</b></span></li></ol><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><b><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"></span><br /></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b>My debut novel, <i style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);">The Good Girl</i>, was the first manuscript I wrote that was in the suspense genre, though as a child, mysteries and suspense (such as books by Christopher Pike and Nancy Drew) were my favorites to read. Before <i style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);">The Good Girl, </i>I wrote women’s fiction, though my manuscripts were only ever works-in-progress because I would get partway into the manuscript and then lose interest. With <i style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);">The Good Girl, </i>I started adding suspense elements by accident and soon discovered how much I enjoyed writing in the genre. I knew I’d found my niche. I love watching a mystery develop over time and including things like unreliable narrators and red herrings. One of my favorite parts about the genre is slipping subtle clues into the text once I’ve discovered my twist. There are many talented authors in this genre, but a few who have set the bar incredibly high are Ruth Ware, Alice Feeney and Stacy Willingham.<span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"> </span></b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><br /></span></b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM6W3lgeI1SV8UEh72fGUCs-dACNkx9rFtfUlclfUc2RFObTnaolGQVMHxqrSLxZIYqJaMDnVATyBNFtfuwnqNvJztsBF5KnUUHXa5sQ5Y5cwgzWuWD16c6POJt2kcT8PL4cHWMgbKAy0HRlDoTCbBYpN6sMQF6RU4FxYxLN-k_tSL_qY3oVSt_0EsG7Q/s216/janet-evanovich.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="86" data-original-width="216" height="86" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM6W3lgeI1SV8UEh72fGUCs-dACNkx9rFtfUlclfUc2RFObTnaolGQVMHxqrSLxZIYqJaMDnVATyBNFtfuwnqNvJztsBF5KnUUHXa5sQ5Y5cwgzWuWD16c6POJt2kcT8PL4cHWMgbKAy0HRlDoTCbBYpN6sMQF6RU4FxYxLN-k_tSL_qY3oVSt_0EsG7Q/s1600/janet-evanovich.jpg" width="216" /></a></b></div><b><br /><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><br /></span></b><p></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><b><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><br /></b></p><ol start="3" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: georgia, serif;"><li style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b>I’ve heard you don’t work from an outline, but prefer to be surprised by character interactions. What are the best and worst parts about working this way?</b></span></li></ol><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; min-height: 14px;"><b><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"></span><br /></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b>Yes, I am definitely a panster, or the type of writer who prefers to fly by the seat of her pants, than a plotter. The best part for me is the spontaneity of it and not knowing on any given day when I sit down to write what will happen in the lives of my characters. I always learn something new about them and am just as surprised by the twist as I hope my readers will be. The worst part is that there are many times I write myself into a dead end and discover that an idea I was excited about simply doesn’t have legs and I have to delete pages. That can be frustrating, but it’s still an important part of my process!</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; min-height: 14px;"><b><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span><br /></b></p><ol start="4" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: georgia, serif;"><li style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b>Of the two narrators in <i style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);">Just the Nicest Couple</i>, which do you identify with, and why?</b></span></li></ol><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; min-height: 14px;"><b><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"></span><br /></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b>In <i style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);">Just the Nicest Couple, </i>we hear from Christian, a man whose wife was the last to see Jake Hayes before he went missing, and Nina, Jake’s wife. Though Nina and I have quite a bit in common (she is a woman, like me, and is a teacher; I was a high school teacher before I turned to writing full time), I identified more with Christian. He’s a man deeply devoted to his wife and unborn child, who will do anything to protect his family. I appreciated that about him and found it easy to understand his motivations even when his actions were sometimes questionable.<span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"> </span></b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b> </b></span></p><ol start="5" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: georgia, serif;"><li style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b>What is the most suspenseful thing that has happened to you? </b></span></li></ol><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><b><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"></span><br /></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: #f9f9f9; border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32); color: #332a20; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0px 36px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"><b>For someone who writes suspense novels, very few suspenseful things have happened to me, which is a good thing because I’m actually a scaredy cat in real life! That said, I’m always on the lookout for strange things that can work their way into my novels, like the time I stayed in a hotel, only to discover that mine was one of two rooms with the same room number, or when I stayed at a bed and breakfast with a crawl space door in the corner of the room, and spent the entire night wondering where it led and who might be on the other side of the door.<span style="border-color: rgb(51, 42, 32);"> </span></b></span></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-1627180567666716402023-11-22T18:26:00.001-05:002023-11-22T18:26:23.277-05:00Things that Go Bump in the Universe<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUPNRPRRIwJnytov-c-msShDozdI5T6WaCwpqvjCxs9aAWKyynR4pWHdEpkbPp3H9kVK6xX6gNmMVLYX_Zeh31T0OKNznXKhZUMcVdBHHO_wzilBf5VZlf8YVAFjm4tQO0a6ypdVjR-I2wQ_1ZYkx3KTB912gyELDarreAxcPJTW8pMQPnCqZX5cV1Njo/s1015/E554E236-AAE3-4D4F-91AE-EC736F645A3F.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="925" data-original-width="1015" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUPNRPRRIwJnytov-c-msShDozdI5T6WaCwpqvjCxs9aAWKyynR4pWHdEpkbPp3H9kVK6xX6gNmMVLYX_Zeh31T0OKNznXKhZUMcVdBHHO_wzilBf5VZlf8YVAFjm4tQO0a6ypdVjR-I2wQ_1ZYkx3KTB912gyELDarreAxcPJTW8pMQPnCqZX5cV1Njo/s320/E554E236-AAE3-4D4F-91AE-EC736F645A3F.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></div><b><div><b><br /></b></div>The subtitle of this long but not long winded audiobook is “How Astronomers Decode Cosmic Chaos” by C Renee James. It is read by Wendy Tremont King. The author takes listeners on a grand tour of our search for the reasons behind supernovas, neutron stars, Gamma Ray bursts, and pulsars. Lots of history finds its appropriate way into the narrative, lightening the load of so much information with an earthy, even humorous sprinkling of anecdotes. Would you like to be an astronomer? This book gives you a look at how astronomers work, and you can define for yourself how boredom is and can be eclipsed by discovery. The author manages to cover immense ground with the ease of someone very familiar with the drudgery of finding those moments of exhilaration amid all the math. Recommended for anyone looking for an audiobook with an outstanding comprehension of what it takes to be a trailblazer. Plus just the breath of the science told in a way that can only astonish.</b>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-33195579129077988592023-10-27T19:00:00.002-04:002024-01-08T12:19:30.694-05:00Interview with Boyd Morrison<div dir="auto" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white; font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><b><br /></b></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmOjNWnWOJnApbNW6fEhchr3fStyDXfqs6sp9bDQJ13Wh4yxGOImDQgdH7qG9hT89Z6BmX2rJ_EPT7pLMsjPJbR4NPnq-nhXlOc870T_emnUunn1taUufbsuYmp_aEwtPeCzF2HFXkOdJLPdpiHKEd7oQAMJbeor8-nbHyqC9Sgnx2890vq-B5FpR5H6I/s319/Brick.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="199" data-original-width="319" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmOjNWnWOJnApbNW6fEhchr3fStyDXfqs6sp9bDQJ13Wh4yxGOImDQgdH7qG9hT89Z6BmX2rJ_EPT7pLMsjPJbR4NPnq-nhXlOc870T_emnUunn1taUufbsuYmp_aEwtPeCzF2HFXkOdJLPdpiHKEd7oQAMJbeor8-nbHyqC9Sgnx2890vq-B5FpR5H6I/s1600/Brick.jpg" width="319" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white; font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><b>AT) You wrote The Noah’s Ark Quest, which became an indie bestseller, but your experience is in industrial engineering, sometimes for NASA. Then you worked on X-Box games for Microsoft. How did you discover writing</b></span></span><b style="color: black; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;">?</b></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white; font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><b><span style="border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49);"><span style="border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><span style="color: #313131;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213);">Boyd) I’ve always been a big reader, but I’d never considered writing until I took a science fiction writing class from Hugo- and Nebula-award winning author Nancy </span></span></span></span></span><span style="border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;">Kress. I wrote a terrible short story for class, but I thought I might have better luck writing a full-length novel. That’s when I got the idea for a chemistry grad student being chased by killers who are after a formula he created, which eventually became my thriller THE CATALYST.</span></span></b></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><b><span style="border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><br /></span></span></b></div><div class="quoted-text" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><b>AT) There are four novels in the Tyler Locke series, and you also have two stand alone novels. Then you transitioned into writing with Clive Cussler on the Oregon Files series. How did you meet him and come to working with him?</b></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;">Boyd) I </b><b style="caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;">didn’t even know I was in the running to write with Clive. He was looking for a new co-author for the Oregon Files and read a couple of my novels. He loved them and particularly enjoyed how I crafted my endings. He called me out of the blue one day and asked if I wanted to write with him. I’d been a big fan of his ever since I read RAISE THE TITANIC!, so of course I jumped at the chance. Two weeks later, I was sitting in his home office, where we brainstormed ideas that would turn into my first novel with him, PIRANHA.</b></div><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><br /></b></div></div><div class="quoted-text" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><b>AT) Did you ever see his car museum or the Confederate submarine museum in Charleston?</b></span></span></div></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><b>Boyd) Unfortunately, I haven’t yet been able to visit the Hunley in Charleston, but I’ve been lucky enough to see his car museum in Denver. The cars have been lovingly restored, and they’re all masterpieces of design and craftsmanship. I could see why Clive loved to include them in his stories, and I got to feature a few of them in our collaborations.</b></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div class="quoted-text" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><b>AT) What is Tales of a Lawless Land about?</b></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white;"><b style="caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;">Boyd) Tales of the Lawless Land is a historical adventure series written with my sister Beth Morrison, who is the head curator of medieval manuscripts at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and a world authority on the Middle Ages. We wanted to create a fun thriller series that captures the spirit of classic adventures like Robin Hood and The Three Musketeers. In the two stories we’ve written so far, THE LAWLESS LAND and THE LAST TRUE TEMPLAR, knight errant Gerard Fox has been unjustly ex-communicated, losing his land and his title, and is forced to journey through Europe in the aftermath of the Black Death and during the Hundred Years War. He is accompanied by a fierce and resourceful lady, and together they are on a search for justice, both for themselves and the downtrodden souls they come across.</b></div><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white;"><b style="caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><br /></b></div></div><div class="quoted-text" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><b>AT) You’ve had a diverse background with a lot of successes. What interests you most, and how has that changed over the years?</b></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><b>Boyd) </b></span></span><b style="caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;">I love storytelling in all its forms. It’s a way for us to learn about the world, what our place is in it, and how we can relate to others. I also enjoy how stories can give us a sense of justice and closure when the world around is often senseless, cruel, or random. I’ve been writing for a long time, and I plan to continue to do so, but now I’m also moving into acting to tell stories. I’ve performed in many plays, but I’d like to expand into screen work to reach a broader audience.</b></div><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white;"><b style="caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><br /></b></div></div><div class="quoted-text" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); color: #757575; font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><b>AT) Do you listen to audiobooks, and what do you think of your narrators?Boyd) </b></span></span><b style="caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;">Since I work at home, I don’t get to listen to audiobooks on a commute, but I do enjoy them. I’ve had a number of different narrators for my stories, and I love hearing their unique approaches to narration. Someday I may even narrate one of my own audiobooks!</b></div><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white;"><b style="caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><br /></b></div></div><div class="quoted-text" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; border-color: rgb(117, 117, 117); font-family: -apple-system, "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 16px; word-spacing: 1px;"><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: white;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span data-originalcomputedfontsize="17.40999984741211" data-originalfontsize="17.41px" style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;"><b>AT) What’s next for you?</b></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="border-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;">Boyd). </b><b style="caret-color: rgb(212, 212, 213); color: #313131; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 1.0881249904632568rem;">Beth and I are currently working on book three in Tales of the Lawless Land, which will take our characters to medieval Croatia, where many of the King’s Landing scenes in Game of Thrones were filmed. I’m also working on a contemporary thriller novel as well as a screenplay, in addition to my acting. So I’m not bored!</b></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-59088392226454952902023-10-01T12:23:00.003-04:002023-10-01T12:23:38.899-04:00Interview with Julie Garwood<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAY62KARPIyQUkblVUFMWK4x7B6kj-o7sE2_qtBwg18B0igQtgrcBInnCD9gCbJW02nz8LUnDfi0JuT-RlyUXeiDRYH-7yXFEBbIZoW5BMZrh6U7vyecx3tu5OLa4lwje-HOENPa968CFV3KLdmqEtvddwar6ifqMR80C6SDWVx2AxoNpLX_hNbA12xgY/s341/love.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="335" data-original-width="341" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAY62KARPIyQUkblVUFMWK4x7B6kj-o7sE2_qtBwg18B0igQtgrcBInnCD9gCbJW02nz8LUnDfi0JuT-RlyUXeiDRYH-7yXFEBbIZoW5BMZrh6U7vyecx3tu5OLa4lwje-HOENPa968CFV3KLdmqEtvddwar6ifqMR80C6SDWVx2AxoNpLX_hNbA12xgY/s320/love.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">With tens of millions of books in print and numerous New York Times bestsellers, Julie Garwood has clearly earned a position among America’s favorite fiction writers. Her reputation as a masterful storyteller is solidly founded in her ability to deliver stories with appealing characters, powerful emotions, and surprising plot twists. Readers claim that it’s the humor as well as the poignancy of her novels that keep them laughing, crying and thoroughly entertained. Her first novel, Gentle Warrior, was published by Pocket Books in 1985. There have been over 30 novels since then. Her name appears regularly on the bestseller lists of every major publication in the country, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and Publishers Weekly. The popularity of her books expands with each new publication, and she is now read and enjoyed in many languages around the world. Her website is at JulieGarwood.com. One of her new titles is Grace Under Fire.</strong><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JONATHAN LOWE: You come from a large Irish family, growing up in Kansas City. Any other storytellers among your siblings, and what are your earliest memories of reading or writing?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JULIE GARWOOD: Everyone in my family is a storyteller. When we get together, it’s always fun — and sometimes a little noisy from all the talking and laughing. My very earliest memories of reading aren’t pleasant ones. During second grade I was kept out of school for an extended period of time because of complications after a tonsilectomy. When I finally returned, I had fallen behind in reading. My mother eventually saw how much trouble I was having and got help. She took me to Sr. Elizabeth, a nun at our school and a wonderful woman who opened up a whole new world of books for me. It was because of her that I learned to love the written word.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: You have an interesting website. The backyard seems to have a gazebo and a castle in the distance. Mostly imagination, like Wizard of Oz, or does your backyard hold similar surprises?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">GARWOOD: My back yard isn’t quite like that. I do have a beautiful view of trees, but there isn’t a castle beyond them. That view is just in my imagination.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: How would you describe your latest book, and are you working on a new one now?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">GARWOOD: FIRE AND ICE is a romantic suspense novel about a reporter for a local Chicago newspaper who thinks she’s covering a routine and rather uninteresting story, but behind that story is a mystery that takes her all the way to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. The idea actually came to me after watching a Science Channel documentary about polar bears. Yes, I’m working on the next book now. Until I’ve got most of it down, I don’t give out too much information. I made the mistake several years ago of telling about the story I was working on, and then in midstream I changed my mind and wrote a completely different book. I’m still getting emails from people who are looking for the first story. As soon as I’ve written most of the current book, I’ll post some information about it on my web site.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Do you have a preference between contemporary and historical or regency, and do you find that your readers have preferences too, or is romance universal?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">GARWOOD: I love writing both historical and contemporary novels. The story usually dictates the setting. Most of the readers seem to have a definite preference. I’ve discovered from their comments that they tend to favor the type of book they read first.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: You’re not going to write a paranormal vampire romance one day, are you?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">GARWOOD: The paranormal genre certainly has become popular, but I don’t have plans to write about vampires. I’ve never really been drawn to the subject; however, I do understand the appeal. There’s something intriguing about that combination of danger and romance.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Literacy is one of your interests, which is important, I believe, in our current age of television and video games. What do you do to help the cause, and how can readers get involved?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">GARWOOD: I try to support literacy programs as much as I can. I’m especially sympathetic to local libraries who are struggling to stay alive. I used to visit schools often to talk to students about reading, but unfortunately my schedule lately hasn’t allowed as much time for that as I’d like. My recommendation to anyone who wants to help is to get involved with your local library. There are so many programs and fundraisers that could use volunteers.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: I sometimes review audiobooks for truckers, and was surprised to learn that many macho truck drivers–guys you’d think would be watching Steven Seagal movies while drinking beer–are actually fans of writers like Janet Evanovich or Nora Roberts. Have you encountered any wrestling fans at your signings, and what advice would you give men about reading romances so that they can learn to be more romantic by understanding their wives.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">GARWOOD: I don’t recall any wrestling fans at signings, but you’d be surprised by the number of men who write to me. They usually say they got turned on to my books by their wives. In fact, I received an email just yesterday from a man who said his wife reads my books to him when they take long car trips, and now he’s hooked. And for messages like that I say, “Thanks, ladies.” I definitely think men will understand women better if they read romances, and there’s a strong possibility that these same men will say thanks too.</strong></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-65189114993640502642023-09-30T11:26:00.001-04:002023-09-30T11:26:30.010-04:00Travels with Darley Newman<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0irptdKck27eRLOo8TxYrexRmDCbGK5DCPvz65lNnevter-GSXtbbV_amXB5oQXD-OLYfXZLgi5DkPxxIx6Xh4QsxWd5t_q1PRFaVMD-fOuz8zDDjjlsmA1ZeiNnCp7T6ChhSs5Okc-Id3M8p2J49iu26BIAEB5zVOaFl7B7L05rEVZ1gYxObSIH6P-A/s386/palm-island.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="269" data-original-width="386" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0irptdKck27eRLOo8TxYrexRmDCbGK5DCPvz65lNnevter-GSXtbbV_amXB5oQXD-OLYfXZLgi5DkPxxIx6Xh4QsxWd5t_q1PRFaVMD-fOuz8zDDjjlsmA1ZeiNnCp7T6ChhSs5Okc-Id3M8p2J49iu26BIAEB5zVOaFl7B7L05rEVZ1gYxObSIH6P-A/s320/palm-island.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px;"><br /></b><p></p><p><b style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px;">Darley Newman has been traveling the world for over a decade, using many adventurous means, ranging from horseback to surf board to skis. She hosts and produces “Travels with Darley” and “<a href="https://amzn.to/3eZkEAv" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Equitrekking</a>,” seen on PBS, Amazon Prime, AOL, MSN and on networks in over 85 countries. Recognized in Forbes for her PBS Travel Empire, she consistently innovates as a media entrepreneur, storyteller and adventurer. </b></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3Cchrql" rel="noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Jonathan Lowe</a>) Many people would consider a travel show on PBS and CreateTV the ideal job. You get to experience new cultures and ideas, food, all kinds of hotels, and more. Not everyone knows what happens behind the scenes with bookings, transfers, editing, writing, etc. What was your attraction to this, after working in other venues and shows, and what might readers most be surprised to hear about what you do?</b></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;">Darley Newman) I worked on a variety of shows before I started my own series, including 48 Hours on CBS and the documentary series FRONTLINE. I love that with my own series, both Equitrekking and Travels with Darley, I get to do a diverse array of creative work, including hosting, writing, producing and even editing. I especially enjoy travel, so traveling the world for my career has been a dream. As an entrepreneur, you always have to juggle lots of different tasks and I find that exciting and fulfilling. People may be surprised to learn that I’ve personally edited over 70 half hours of our series or that I’ve not only surfed in Ireland, but been charged by an elephant while I was horseback riding in Botswana, Africa. </b></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;">JL) Can you name a few places you most enjoyed visiting, and why?</b></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;">DN) Some of my favorite destinations have been France, Hong Kong and Botswana. All so different, but they all have great food, nature escapes, fascinating history and culture, and engaging locals who have guided me off the regular tourist path to discover authentic adventures that I enjoy sharing with our fans and friends. I love the food in Hong Kong, the cheese and wine in France and the amazing untouched nature and variety of wildlife in Botswana. We travel to film both in the USA and internationally for my series, which makes for lots of varied adventures and people. </b></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;">JL) The George Clooney movie “Up in the Air” described traveling light, both physically and emotionally. What do you put–or not put–in your baggage, and how might your travel differ from other travel journalists? </b></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;">DN) It’s hard to travel light when we’re filming, because we have a lot of gear. When I personally travel, I’m great at traveling light. I like to pack lots of layers, comfortable shoes and the essentials, like sunglasses, sunscreen and hats. Can you tell, I need sun protection? As a female traveler and travel host, I make sure to step out of my own comfort zone to show travelers of a variety of walks of life different adventures they can enjoy, no matter their age or skill level. I hear from lots of women who have been inspired to travel to new places and try adventures like mountain biking and horseback riding, after being inspired by Equitrekking and Travels with Darley. </b></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;">JL) That’s inspiring. Mountain biking and love of horses, too. Have you written articles, in addition to scripts, and do you have any favorite travel books or movies?</b></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;">DN) I write our TV show scripts, video short scripts and also have written a travel book about Equitrekking published by Chronicle Books and lots of articles for CNN, True West, Equitrekking and beyond. I love to write and share stories. I also like reading travel books and watching movies. I’ve been inspired by the movie “The Way” with Martin Sheen to hike the Camino del Santiago and really like the movies <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Lost in Translation, Under the Tuscan Sun,</span> and <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Eat Pray Love</span>. </b></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;">JL) Your show is on Amazon Prime, which also produces many other TV series in all genres. How has technology changed travel, and what’s next for you? </b></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b style="box-sizing: border-box;">DN) Technology has changed both travel and filmmaking in so many great ways. I definitely use my smart phone on the road. It’s helpful when mapping locations, finding restaurants on the fly or for google translate. I’ve had full conversations in Japan with google translate, which was handy. With social media, I’ve connected with lots of other great travelers and new friends and discovered new places to go through their dynamic photos and videos. I’m looking forward to seeing what technology comes next.</b></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-5285059664451117192023-09-30T11:10:00.001-04:002023-09-30T11:10:21.784-04:00The Locksmith Who Taught Zen by Jonathan Lowe<p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhSp05-uizKghdBdGcnImP2SU-6FgNd3FUqif4qPZmrMNCAsD9sZXat0TzFGvqxQVNNwbBVPMSoEuRwMALOtJyn9DjjXl5j44aj4Ep9KymrH6eKdilcugCxxa1XjHodn2kslStLeF3Vf7TSPc89fnsGgKjOeBf2I_7X5wy5VT2FkdBgzONQAP25h2feEk/s388/novelist.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhSp05-uizKghdBdGcnImP2SU-6FgNd3FUqif4qPZmrMNCAsD9sZXat0TzFGvqxQVNNwbBVPMSoEuRwMALOtJyn9DjjXl5j44aj4Ep9KymrH6eKdilcugCxxa1XjHodn2kslStLeF3Vf7TSPc89fnsGgKjOeBf2I_7X5wy5VT2FkdBgzONQAP25h2feEk/s320/novelist.JPG" width="247" /></a></div><br /><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br /></b><p></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">“Has he confessed or not?” I once asked Lieutenant Drake of the NYPD as he handed me the police report.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Yes and no, Mr. Moss,” Drake replied. “As his court appointed lawyer, you’ll have to sort that out on your own. He was caught red handed, but claims he’s not guilty. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have several more important—meaning violent—crimes to attend to.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> I remember I went to the room where Albert Noonan was presented to me. A short bald man in his forties, he seemed placid and almost disinterested, yet his blue eyes were alive and alert. I sat across from him, and opened the folder on the table between us. Then we shook hands. His fingers felt cool, and relaxed. “I’m Freddy Moss, Mr. Noonan,” I said. “I’ll be representing you in court.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Yes,” Noonan said.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Yes,” I repeated his flat, uninflected acknowledgment. “Well, it says here that you are suspected on nine occasions to have placed your own locks on other people’s various doors and gates. On the ninth and last occasion you were caught chaining shut the ticket office to a football stadium just before tickets to a rap concert and Dodgers game went on sale. The note in your pocket read ‘Resist nothing except the illusion of ego and its emotions and obsessions.’ Tell me, were you about to copy the man who the press is calling Sargon, or are you really him?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Do you really know who you are?” Noonan asked me, without a trace of sarcasm.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Excuse me?” I said, with some abstraction.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Names are merely signposts pointing to the reality beneath,” he declared, although his voice remained calm and even. “They are constructs of the ever compulsive mind, which can only label things and produce in you a fear of your own destruction.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> I smiled despite myself. “That’s nice, Albert, but we haven’t got time to discuss philosophy.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “It is not a philosophy, it is a simple fact. As for time, it is an illusion. Most people live in the past or the future, and yet the past and future do not exist, nor have they ever existed. Everything that happens, happens in the </b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://towerreview.com/eckhart-tolle.html&source=gmail&ust=1696172051939000&usg=AOvVaw0sE0DWxPd0eL65SX4031EZ" href="http://towerreview.com/eckhart-tolle.html" style="border-color: rgb(66, 133, 244); color: #4285f4; cursor: default; pointer-events: none;" target="_blank"><span style="border-color: rgb(4, 46, 238); color: #042eee;"><b style="border-color: rgb(4, 46, 238);">Now</b></span></a><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> I coughed and looked down at my notes again for a refresher. “So. . . may I call you Al, or do you prefer ‘Sargon the Enlightened One’?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> He continued to study me, his sharp blue eyes trying to delve beneath mine. “As I said, names are meaningless. It is the ego, the mind which needs to label things. But the ego or mind is not you. You are behind it. Only the real you can know another person, not your mind. Your mind can only know labels. It labels everything from a flower to a person, but cannot truly know anything.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Listen . . . Mr. Noonan? I’m about to lose my cookies here. If I’m to defend you, you’ll have to cooperate.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “If only that were true,” he said.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “What do you mean, if only that were true? You don’t think I’m here to help you?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “No, I mean if only you were losing your mind. You think too much. Everyone does. This is what is wrong with the world. The mind plays an endless game with you, and you identify with it. It hates the Now, and so you are never happy or at peace.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Please, Albert,” I pleaded. “Please just answer my question.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “I have answered your question, have I not?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “No, you have not. At least not legally, not technically. Are you this Sargon they talk about in the papers, or aren’t you?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> He sat back and folded his hands. After a moment he said, “It was around seven hundred BC, in the Assyrian capital of Khorsabad, that King Sargon the Second used a lock to secure the gate to his fortress. His lock was wooden, and utilized a wooden key which had notches on it matching the blocks or ‘wards’ inside the lock. Over twenty four hundred seventy years later, in 1778, Robert Barron invented the first lever tumbler lock, which consisted of a housing containing springs, metal tumblers, and a rotating inner core called a plug. Unlike all prior warded locks, these pin, disk, or lever tumbler locks were difficult to pick because a cam was involved. Now, of course, certain tumbler locks are secured inside housings of tempered magnesium alloy steel. And since we should live in the Now, this is what matters now, does it not?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Do I take that as a yes?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> He just sat there and stared at me.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> I sighed. “Let me try again. Are you the perpetrator, alias Sargon the Enlightened, a locksmith from Van Nuys by trade? Please enlighten me.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> He looked away. “The past is given as a reference, for your mind, which clings to such things. In the more recent past I used a special tool steel pin tumbler padlock combined with a nickel alloy hardened steel chain reinforced with molybdenum alloy studs. My chain resisted hacksaw blades, and required nothing less than an argon plasma torch to defeat.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Now that your most recent history is straight, at least,” I said, flourishing my pen, “would you mind telling me exactly why you did this thing, Al?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Is it not obvious?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “You mean by the notes left at the scene? What’d you do, anyway, read some Buddhist text, and decide to make your classroom as big as all outdoors?” I paused, and watched his face for reaction. There was none. He was at peace with himself, devoid of hostility or even worry over the consequences of his acts. “And by the way,” I added, hidden curiosity now stabbing me like a knife, “where did the sayings they found come from, again?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> He blinked at the ceiling. “They are from the Ten Grave Precepts attributed to Bodhidharma from the book Isshin Kaimon, The Precepts of One Mind.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Oh, of course.” I turned pages in my file, and read aloud. “Okay, the first here is ‘I take up the way of not killing.’ Supposedly you left that ‘precept,’ as you call it, not at an abortion clinic or death house, Al, but at a military drone contractor. . . right after you picked and replaced their front door’s mortise lock with a double dead bolt. Sound familiar?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> He gave me no reaction, so I continued.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Next was ‘I take up the way of not stealing,’ a note they say you left at Sterling Health Services, an HMO under investigation by a 60 Minutes crew, after you chained shut their administration building. Then it was ‘I take up the way of not abusing </b><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://soundcloud.com/tower-review/rage-of-the-hogs&source=gmail&ust=1696172051939000&usg=AOvVaw1ddIAv5xfhxiDzJ-en5tyT" href="https://soundcloud.com/tower-review/rage-of-the-hogs" style="border-color: rgb(66, 133, 244); color: #4285f4; cursor: default; pointer-events: none;" target="_blank"><span style="border-color: rgb(4, 46, 238); color: #042eee;"><b style="border-color: rgb(4, 46, 238);">animals</b></span></a><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">,’ which was found on a meat packing kingpin’s metal office door, next to his Hummer car dealership, after you clamped a titanium padlock onto the door’s built-in flange. Nice work there, Al. Easy enough for anybody to do, too, huh?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Obviously.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Then the next day the note, ‘I take up the way of not speaking falsely,’ appeared on the door to union local 393 of the Teamsters. And ‘I take up the way of not giving or taking drugs’ was found on the locked door to Liquor World off 42nd Street. Then ‘Sargon the Enlightened One’ apparently took a week off, because it was a week later the note ‘I take up the way of not supporting the lies of others’ was discovered on the chained door to BuzzFeed. And yet all this still didn’t get much press, did it, until ‘I take up the way of not praising myself while ignoring those who suffer’ appeared on the exit doors to the Dorothy Chandler pavilion during an awards ceremony two weeks after that. Did you go on vacation out to L.A. then, Al? And how did you accomplish that one without getting caught? I thought those Hollywood awards shows had high security.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Even security guards do not always live in the Now, unfortunately for them,” Noonan replied with cryptic ease.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “They’re unenlightened, is that what you’re saying? Like me?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> He nodded, but without any detectable trace of emotion. “Perhaps it explains to you how a person is able to slide five bicycle U-locks into the adjacent entrance door bars while passing outside.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Uh huh. . . Well, you certainly got everyone’s attention with that one. They had the fire department out front on live television. And while that was happening a. . . person . . . left ‘I take up the way of not being stingy’ in a note on the windshield of a Mercedes, right after he defeated the alarm and locked The Club onto the steering wheel. What was that about?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “The car belonged to a star who gave her time to charity, but not her money. The time she gave was for her own aggrandizement, and the charity parties she attended spent more on flowers and food than was given to the poor.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Why take the time and the risk right then, though?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> Noonan closed his eyes, then, and took in a slow, deep breath. Finally he opened his eyes, which I imagined were even bluer. “Time is an illusion,” he said.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> I laughed. “You won’t think so when you’re doing it,” I promised him. “You could get twenty years for this, even if you plead guilty and throw yourself on the mercy of the court!”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Have mercy,” he said, “on yourself. You are the court. Your own judge, jury, and executioner. May I tell you why you are so obsessed with guilt that you must return to it constantly?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “We haven’t got time for that, Al. We have to prepare your defense.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Resist nothing,” he instructed me.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Excuse me?”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “You heard me, but you are not listening. Your mind is creating a constant dialog, a background noise from which you cannot escape. You need to turn it off, and step out of time’s grip on you into the present. Then you can know your true self, and become alive instead of just labeling things around you. Then you will know there is no salvation in the future, and no resolution from the past. There is only the Now, and it is more than enough.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “Now, now,” I said, although the smile on my face felt forced.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> He leaned forward, looking directly into my eyes. “Yes, now is the time to awaken,” he said, “from your false identity.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> “My false identity,” I repeated, contemplating it for the first time, turning it in my mind in frustration. But my mind, with its old patterns, still animated my lips. “Now, of course,” I heard myself say, “the only thing they’ve really got on you is the stadium box office incident. That precept about taking up the way of not indulging in anger. And resistance. If you’re a copy cat, though, and you’re not this Sargon guy, I may be able to get you off with probation. After all, you’ve got no record up to now. Which means it’s your choice now, isn’t it? So tell me, what’s it gonna be? Not much time. Are you guilty or not guilty, Albert? Enlighten me!”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Some say that Time is an illusion of the mind. Of the ego. Ironically, over time, I’ve since learned that’s true. When my wife left me, taking with her our son Jimmy, she complained of my staying too long at the office, and of neglecting her. Going out the door, she was crying when she said maybe now I had all the time in the world. Which got me to thinking. Until, in my misery, I gave up thinking altogether, and lost my job too.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> I don’t know how much time has passed, since, but the one who is known as Albert Noonan goes on trial soon. I will not be defending him, nor does he require a defense. I can only complete his unfinished work, the tenth precept. And so I will take up the way of not defaming that which reflects true self-nature, in that subtle and mysterious realm of the One which does not hold dualistic concepts of ordinary beings and sages. The teisho of the actual body is the harbor and the weir. This is the most important thing in the world–the letting go of ego and of waiting and even of seeking. In the eternal present, its virtue finds its home in the ocean of essential nature, and it is beyond explanation. So let the court decide what it will, I know that Albert Noonan is not guilty. And when his jury has been sequestered–when they are locked away–they will see the Truth, too. -0-</b></span></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-27138965041947607042023-09-29T16:32:00.002-04:002023-09-29T16:32:15.089-04:00Change of Seasons by John Oates<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDEmuqb4U2hwFcCj2Znny_x_cH_BsjrrkdV230PuPMG3kzRucNICp_Q0YbSh3Z4BT19iuM0zTfwqUqbTqB9-2ajKF4PYx-mPgtlEhIYMfswtHHDmV1TpmidDkF0TF1wlZRoFkRnyIhlHHUoAX1kxQ0L3lcLKP3Idt_hAslzz6uUK6rBZEXkolukbceIEM/s300/Guitar-Zero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="300" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDEmuqb4U2hwFcCj2Znny_x_cH_BsjrrkdV230PuPMG3kzRucNICp_Q0YbSh3Z4BT19iuM0zTfwqUqbTqB9-2ajKF4PYx-mPgtlEhIYMfswtHHDmV1TpmidDkF0TF1wlZRoFkRnyIhlHHUoAX1kxQ0L3lcLKP3Idt_hAslzz6uUK6rBZEXkolukbceIEM/s1600/Guitar-Zero.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></strong><p></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">His title was inspired by Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. There is also the rock band. And of course weather itself is going viral, with the Weather Channel now doing dramatic plane crash and disaster programming. In <a href="https://amzn.to/3EWB4UE" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">CHANGE OF SEASONS</a>, John Oates shares his story for the first time, from his own motorcycle accident to meeting Andy Warhol at the Denver airport during a snowstorm. He takes listeners on a wild ride through all the eras, personalities, and music that has shaped him into what he is: the first true account of the band and his memories as half of a genius music duo, perfectly paired, whose iconic songs have universal appeal and will stand the test of time.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Not that either of them ever wanted to be considered half of anything. They are individuals who have sometimes collaborated, and through highs and lows they forged ahead, together or separately. Rebels and individualists, John was a journalism major in college when he met Darryl, who studied music education. A swirl of people and circumstances, including ever changing commitments, led them to collaboration. What happened next was both happy coincidence and the result of hard work and talent.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Narrated mostly by his co-writer Chris Epting, but also by John, the audiobook is a surprising and long-awaited peek into the lives of two who once sang the words “No Can Do,” recommended for anyone who loves the 80s era, how time changes people, and yet how friendships forged early grow stronger. Technology may have killed much of the old school, as lamented by Joe Walsh at Darryl’s House. (“It’s drum machines, and you can tell.”) Yet Darryl and John’s remain true to their long-standing belief that technology is something to embrace. And so, with innovative videos and tours sponsored for the first time ever by outside corporations, (including a highly publicized Lear jet race) they created whatever it took to “push the envelope,” and to “stay ahead of the curve,” with the ultimate desire to keep making music. Today “Hall & Oates” remain the biggest duo ever, unique, and possibly never repeated. Who knows? No one can predict where it’s all going.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Interestingly, when I showed my pre-release copy of the audiobook in downtown Greenville SC as a test, I discovered that some young people (18-25) didn’t know who they were. But then Clark Gable never heard of William Faulkner. When they met, Gable said, “what kind of work are you in, Mr. Faulkner?” Funny, because Nobel Prize winner Faulkner was writing Gable’s screenplay! (Gable’s narcissism is also recounted in the James Garner biography.) It was never just about the fame, with Darryl or John, as it is in much of the music business today. It’s about having fun doing new stuff, not flaunting what you have or who you know.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I heard from co-writer and narrator Chris Epting, who told me, “My experience recording the audiobook was really very special. It’s the first time I haven’t voiced a book alone, and so that in and of itself made it special. What really stood out, after having written the book with John, was realizing that when you have to read a book aloud it takes on a new meaning. You begin to notice things that you missed while writing it. There are nuances and tonalities in John’s writing that really fully blossom once read aloud. He has a very poetic way of crafting a narrative and I think it reads wonderfully on the page. But when read aloud, it has a deeper gravity and inner beauty. He does the intro to the book, along with a piece at the end, and so he is well represented in the story. But in the end it’s the words that matter, I think, more than the actual Voice speaking those words. Working with John gave me a tremendous insight to how he presents himself and what his thought processes. I think that helped me bring a certain context to the audio that a hired actor would not have been able to achieve. That’s what happens when you work with somebody on their story. You spent hundreds of hours together and really climb inside their brain. It’s a very intimate process and I’m very proud of the book that resulted from this collaboration. Again, John is a tremendous writer and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to experience the audio portion of this project because it gave me an entirely new perspective, working on it the last two years.”</strong></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-37843916447088513122023-09-29T16:19:00.003-04:002023-09-29T16:19:44.298-04:00One More for the Road by Jonathan Lowe<p><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkgFPdsPHFY3tdG-umc-GrU02PSXby3fy5vndF9sUIH0Sj94PDgWRkGh_33e289J-gm0CmG2WeOlLrS-EHcsfni8G8wGXoYy7MULRYnkKvM4lkoYd9zUPMWnEYO95UH3yweVzc7wEIqkXsN37N4QSPZ2G-6dzx_uAZp0lcL_NqMUOXlqTLRpLJzwlGS8M/s640/%E2%80%A2jonbanner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="640" height="85" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkgFPdsPHFY3tdG-umc-GrU02PSXby3fy5vndF9sUIH0Sj94PDgWRkGh_33e289J-gm0CmG2WeOlLrS-EHcsfni8G8wGXoYy7MULRYnkKvM4lkoYd9zUPMWnEYO95UH3yweVzc7wEIqkXsN37N4QSPZ2G-6dzx_uAZp0lcL_NqMUOXlqTLRpLJzwlGS8M/s320/%E2%80%A2jonbanner.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></div><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><br /> </b><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">It was one of those hot summer nights. Near a lonely stretch of highway, as Tom stood motionless behind the cash register at Lenox Liquors, he thought about opening a bottle of bourbon for a few swigs of the old stuff to keep awake, but no--he needed this job. His aging mother was dying. Doctors had called it "multiple myeloma." The plasma cells in her bone marrow had turned against her. As her only dependable son, Tom had to hold two jobs just to pay that part of the bill her insurance didn't cover.</b><p></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>At 10:15 a black Eldorado turned into the parking lot for the third time that night, its headlights sweeping past Tom's eyes. He looked up to see the driver wheel this time in a quick semi-circle, then back directly in front of the door. Next, both doors opened and two young men emerged. <span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>One with a gun.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Tom felt a rush of blood surge into his temples. He froze for a moment, and then slid down behind the counter, visualizing the bullet that might shortly enter his head. That single hot lump of lead which would burrow through all the intricately connected neurons of his brain, funneling away all his memories forever, now waited in the gun carried by the swarthy one. And he imagined again how the hammer would cock back until--</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Sudden blackness. Yes.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>A medic had once told him that a bullet in the brain would be less painful, because it meant instant death, not a long painful slide into oblivion. He liked that better. But what if he were hit in the stomach?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Then, he realized, it wouldn't end quite so easily, would it. . .<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The front door started to open, now. Behind the register, Tom focused on the third shelf below the cash register, seeing the handle of an automatic pistol in a shoe box at the back. The initials on it were "L.L."<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>for his boss, Larry Lenox.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"All rightie, then," one of the punks said as their shoes clicked onto the store’s tile floor.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Tom lifted his arm up and over the register. "Watch it!<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He's gotta gun!"</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Hoping to scare them off, Tom squeezed the trigger, and a big bottle of Rhine Wine burst and showered across some stacked six packs of Michelob. A returning shot caught the register, shattering the plastic corner away. Then more shots thundered, pierced the back wall.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The man with the gun muttered a curse. Instead of leaving, they were trapped now--cowering in the aisles and afraid to exit the same way they came in. To give them added incentive, Tom fired wildly again, catching two bottles of gin on a header, displayed like bottles on a fence post. Then a new fear replaced his other one.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>For an instant the heavy alcohol scent in the room reminded him of the smell of napalm. . . what if the room caught fire?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>When he could hear again, there was nothing to hear. Had they gone, as he hoped? He lifted his head to look. Once--quickly--then again. <span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>A sudden explosion from the side. Tom yelped in pain, glancing down at the flesh wound like a bayonet slash along his middle.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Drop it, man!" <span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The swarthy driver of the Eldorado appeared around a pyramid of silver Coors cases, beckoning his accomplice. Tom dropped the automatic, and the kid loped forward and kicked it away. The automatic skittered back into the dark stockroom as a .38 was shoved into Tom's ribs. <span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Easy," Tom implored, lifting his shirt despite the sharp stab of pain. "It hurts, see."</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Well, don’t ya cry on us now," said the driver with a laugh as the other kid got the money from the register. "Yer just nicked. Come inta the back, let’s see what we can do ‘bout the bleeding." Behind the driver the second punk stood grinning. He had a fat, white, rounded face scarred by acne. <span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>They turned on the stockroom light. After a moment of terror, Tom forced himself to say, "What's your . . . name?"<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Name?"<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The punk looked puzzled. As if he didn't know what name meant.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Mine's. . . Tom Russell. Been working here four months, ever since my mother went into the hospital."</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Oh yeah?" <span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The driver put one hand to his mouth and whispered something to his accomplice. Following orders, that one left the room, closing the door behind him. In the interim, Tom got a towel and dabbed at his wound.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Yer one big bruiser, ain't ya?" the driver noted. "Get many customers this late?"</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Tom shook his head as the gunman’s eyes scanned the stockroom floor. "Not until Friday."</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Tell me," the driver said. "Why'd ya open up on us? Think we'd kill ya?"</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Tom nodded. "Figured you'd think I saw your license plate. Hard to miss it the way you backed up to the door. I. . . didn't see it, though. What'd you plan to do--carry out some beer besides?"</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>This time the driver laughed, albeit nervously. "Yeah, ta celebrate. Third place we hit ta-day." He snickered. “One fer the road, eh?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>They were silent as a sound like crunching across glass was audible through the closed stockroom door.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Tell me about your childhood," said Tom, suddenly.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Wha--?"</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Your childhood. What was it like? Was it rough?"</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The driver stared at him, blankly. Then his ugly face wrinkled, his eyes narrowing above the tiny diamond nose stud. But still he said nothing.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Because mine was rough," Tom went on. "My dad died when I was eight, and when I turned fourteen I went to work in a laundry at a dollar an hour. Had to quit school to help my mother. We all lived in a duplex and rode the bus everywhere, then. Never had many friends until I got drafted. This one guy--I call him Harry--used to be my best friend. We got to be marksmen out on the range. Harry, he was like me. And that was the only really good time I remember, too--me and Harry, out on the range. You know?"<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Tom paused, staring down at the floor. The sound of a truck passing could be heard as a tear slid down his cheek, surprising even him. "But I bet you got lots of friends still around, and even a girl friend too."</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Yeah," said the driver, flexing his fingers around the revolver. "Big deal."</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"It would be, if you had my memories."</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"That right? How old are ya?"</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Lot older than you."<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"An’ ya still a mommas boy?"<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The driver laughed. “You--yer jus’ a fool, what you are.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Tom smiled smoothly like they do at the Taco Bell drive-through window, because he remembered his first months in the Army, so long ago. There were hecklers then, too. Saying things he'd preferred they didn't.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Things that made him do more pushups than he was asked, so he could stand up and fight back. Things about his mother that reminded him of his younger brother sticking him with her while he went off to become a fat cat lawyer in California. It had made him spend his free time out on the range until he was really good at something, so they couldn't talk behind his back.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"What's taking your friend so long?" Tom asked, changing the subject. "I don't hear him out there."</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Hey, he's jus’ lookin fer somethin," the driver replied.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"What?"</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Never you mind what. Okay?"</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>But it wasn't okay. Something was wrong, Tom sensed. Many had tried to fool him about things. Like the insurance representative who'd convinced him to drop partial coverage on his mother's policy because the rates were so high, and they 'probably won't need it anyway.’ And especially Barry, his black sheep brother, who’d stuck him here.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>So what could the driver's accomplice be looking for?</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Let's see, he thought. . . They came in, both of them, through the front door. When they came toward him, he fired once, and the driver fired back. First once, then twice more, into the wall. After a moment he fired into the stacks how many times? Four times. Two shots from the driver, then. Another two from him, into the stacks. And then? Then the driver came around, and shot again, grazing him in the side.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>It was a simple addition. Not hard, even for a man with only a GED. Six shots from the driver. Seven from his own gun. The driver's .38 had six chambers. He knew that. But the automatic--it had fired seven. That meant it held at least seven, and probably nine. It also told what the driver's accomplice was looking for.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Bullets.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>"Did I mention Afghanistan to you?" said Tom as he bent over, trying to decide where to place his next-to-final shot.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>-0-</b></p><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-63535493221119809152023-09-28T12:20:00.004-04:002023-09-28T12:20:59.356-04:00Peeping Tom by Jonathan Lowe<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5QQqmfm_eGSQ-D3yhq8U578Dmj9KU8oQ-trfHbh1L70ec_haOU-9pRSrkJVUnfKEYLwbpD-5qjwOR2N8LSNgIDY_D1889TVdq6D1Tb9mXmaKfxWlHAZxPBIj_WIL8lS1NlqwRcUGuCy2FVwIfxbHjK4klbBnPgzXaMbx8dAjdSShl8kxo_qLhMivyVrU/s240/jlowe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="240" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5QQqmfm_eGSQ-D3yhq8U578Dmj9KU8oQ-trfHbh1L70ec_haOU-9pRSrkJVUnfKEYLwbpD-5qjwOR2N8LSNgIDY_D1889TVdq6D1Tb9mXmaKfxWlHAZxPBIj_WIL8lS1NlqwRcUGuCy2FVwIfxbHjK4klbBnPgzXaMbx8dAjdSShl8kxo_qLhMivyVrU/s1600/jlowe.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;"><br /></b><p></p><p><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px;">PEEPING TOM</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” said Russell Anderson, 60 Minutes co-producer and bureau chief for CBS News.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“You’re saying that Thomas Sidon, a rancher from Naco, Arizona, captured the head of the Calli cartel on his property the day before yesterday, and has offered him to the Border Patrol in exchange for what, again?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>There was a momentary silence at the other end of the line, which was ghosted by background noise.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Then the White House press secretary replied evenly, “Anything he wants.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>And I mean anything.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Including what he did choose, which I will agree is highly unusual.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The President wants a victory in the drug war to sidestep other problems, and we believe Raoul Gasparta is the key.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Go over that part again, will you?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The part I’m not understanding.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>I understand about Gasparta. . . his full disclosure on Sidon’s interrogation transcript, the record of kickbacks and the reparations promised to avoid the death penalty.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>That’s obvious, and--may I speak frankly?--boring.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Tell me exactly what the President promised him again.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The press secretary sighed.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“I thought I made that clear.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Didn’t you hear me, Mr. Anderson?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Maybe you should wait for the press conference in one hour, and ask that question again.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Anderson coughed.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“I’m sorry, sir.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>I didn’t mean to imply that Gasparta is not important.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>But you can understand what it is people will be asking about, surely.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>So I have to ask you several things, just to be clear.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>One more moment, please, just to verify?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The press secretary sighed again.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Very well.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>As I said, a deal was struck with Sidon, whose ranch in Arizona is some five thousand acres.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Straddling the border?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“That’s right.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>On both sides.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“And the President has agreed to the terms of this agreement by signing an executive order into law?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“That is correct.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“When?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Two hours ago, in the Oval Office.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>In exchange for Mr. Sidon’s<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>cooperation in acting as agent for the U.S. government, he has been granted carte blanche for one year, effective immediately.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“And that means. . ?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“It means that as of today, Mr. Thomas Sidon has the legal right to enter any private home in America at any time he chooses.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He cannot remove anything, nor can he take photographs.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He may only enter and observe at his leisure.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>No U.S. citizen may refuse him entry, under penalty of law.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He is free to come and go as he wishes for the duration of one year.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“And this is specifically what he requested?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Yes.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Not a million dollars, a new red Porsche, or an ambassadorship to Mexico?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Yes, Mr. Anderson.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He didn’t want my job either, thank God.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Although it was offered to him.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“But. . . why?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>I mean, what’s his motive?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>What’s he hope to gain by--”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“There has been some speculation on that point here.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Perhaps the power or the novelty of it is attractive to him.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Or maybe he’s a voyeur?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Please don’t use that word, Mr. Anderson.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Why not?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Haven’t you walked down your own street at night, and looked at the windows of your neighbors’ homes?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Imagine being able to legally enter any home you want at any time, and the owner of that home can’t bar your entry.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>What I want to know is how?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>What about rights to privacy?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>How can the President do this?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Even this President.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Privacy rights are waived solely on behalf of Mr. Sidon, and only for one year.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He is exempt and immune from any violation, and Congress has been unable to prevent it as they are deadlocked in other matters as well.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>So for the duration of Executive Order 1482-421 no homeowner may prevent Mr. Sidon from coming into their home and observing, or searching.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Searching?”<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Anderson stood and circled his desk in awe.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Oh. . . now I get it!<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He’s going to be cooperating with you guys, isn’t he?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>If he finds drugs, they’ll be admissible in court because he has the sole right to enter without a warrant!<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>That’s it, isn’t it?” <span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The voice on the line tried to evoke calm.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“I have no comment on that point, Mr. Anderson, except to say that Mr. Sidon will have the full cooperation of the law enforcement, including an escort if he desires.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Police must remain outside, however.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>They do not possess his rights.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>And whether Mr. Sidon chooses to reveal what he finds is entirely up to him.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Anderson cleared his throat, and steadied himself with his free hand on the chair.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Oh my God. . . he does want money.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Millions.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>People will pay him a fortune not to tell.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He’ll be as rich as Midas.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Won’t he?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Where’s he go first, Beverly Hills?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Again, that’s up to him.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“’Up to him,’” the 60 Minutes producer repeated in a daze.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Holy Hopscotch.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>This guy is smart.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Fame and fortune at the stroke of a pen!<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>What’s he gonna wear, though. . . Kevlar?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“He will be protected by both police and by the fame he achieves via executive order.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Oh my God.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>And. . . and if this is true, that’s who he is, right?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He’s God!”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“For one year.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>That is correct.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>If anyone refuses entry, they will be committing--”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“A sin?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“No, a felony.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“What’s the difference?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“With a sin, you pay later.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>With a felony, you pay now, Mr. Anderson.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Ten to twenty years in federal prison, based on the severity of the offense.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Severity of the offense?”<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Anderson laughed, albeit nervously.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Yet the smile on his face felt too good to be true.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Who decides the severity of the offense?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>No, don’t tell me.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He does?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“So you see how it works?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“I do, I do.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>But what if someone pretends not to be home?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“That would make Mr. Sidon very angry, would it not?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Ineffective as well, because he also has the right to force entry when he suspects he has been denied.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“How?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“With a SWAT team battering ram, should he request it.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Holy--”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Listen, Mr. Anderson?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>I really have to go now.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>I’ve given you too much time already.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Certainly, sir.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>I understand.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Thanks.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Thanks so much!<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>This is the story we’ve been waiting for. . . for over twenty years!”<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Anderson glanced at his watch.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Tell me, does anyone outside the press know about this yet?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“No, Mr. Anderson, and goodbye.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Thank you, sir.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Thank you and thank the President!”<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Anderson hung up, and then punched his intercom.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Julie, get me Steve Croft on the phone, now!”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Yes, sir,” his secretary’s voice chimed.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“What about the man who's been--”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Nevermind.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Julie, listen to me, this is important.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Cancel everything else today.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>No calls, no appointments.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>And I want the senior staff in my office in ten minutes.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Dan Rather included.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Got that?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“But sir--”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Do it, Julie!”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Yes, sir.”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Anderson sat and leaned back into his leather armchair.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He linked his fingers behind his head.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Then he smiled.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He imagined hiring Sidon to replace a retiring Mike Wallace.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>A one year exclusive contract, with bonuses based on ratings.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>As the CBS regulars gathered in his office, one by one, he felt a giddy sense of one-upsmanship coming, as though his career had been validated by fate’s whim, and that now--at long last--no one would be able to escape public scrutiny.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Not even Madonna.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He waited until it was standing room only to speak.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Gentlemen,” he announced, “and Leslie. . .”<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>The phone ringing interrupted him.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He snatched it up.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“What?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Mr. Anderson?” his secretary said.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“I’ve got Steve Croft on line two, but I think you should know. . .”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Know what?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Well, remember you told me to cancel all appointments?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“Yes. . .”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>“This is odd, sir, but. . . well, I sent that man who was here without an appointment away first, but he got very angry and said he was going to your home instead.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>He’s the one who’s been waiting about twenty minutes, remember?”</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><br /></b></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-22241804858211953252023-09-26T13:38:00.001-04:002023-09-26T13:38:30.080-04:00Race car driver Bobby Unser<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiguF0Un4eofqUygEmruxIhBENKJ7htHIp-7IT8DEj95JkZkjbnCV6P8HVofSpjeuPqHnAfTAyQCH2En3z-rjoiwN5tuqxTnXkB487PpbWTTpUU6gOSwZrJSocYTTfvGtXPnngv20m33GPHBpIj7FpPML_Fs6h7jn4fFHTQJGgoSfU_HwV4cY-wqu6gRHY/s235/Sports%20Books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="169" data-original-width="235" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiguF0Un4eofqUygEmruxIhBENKJ7htHIp-7IT8DEj95JkZkjbnCV6P8HVofSpjeuPqHnAfTAyQCH2En3z-rjoiwN5tuqxTnXkB487PpbWTTpUU6gOSwZrJSocYTTfvGtXPnngv20m33GPHBpIj7FpPML_Fs6h7jn4fFHTQJGgoSfU_HwV4cY-wqu6gRHY/s1600/Sports%20Books.jpg" width="235" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left; vertical-align: baseline;">From the vault: Racing legend Bobby Unser is three time winner of the Indy 500, and his new audiobook <a href="https://amzn.to/3T0vNjP" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">WINNERS ARE DRIVEN</a>, written with Paul Pease, features a forward by his friend and fellow racing legend Roger Penske. The book is narrated by Jim Bond for Brilliance Audio. I spoke to Bobby by phone at his home in Albuquerque.</strong></div><p></p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />JONATHAN LOWE: Winners Are Driven uses racing as a guide to business success. What gave you the idea to tell your own story this way?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />BOBBY UNSER: Well, they wanted me to write a book, and I wasn’t hot on writing another biography, then it dawned on me, since all my talks over the years had been motivational, of doing it this way.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: We seem to live in a win-at-all-cost era. Your book focuses on integrity, though, using examples from your past to illustrate various points. What is your favorite example of why integrity is important? The Goodyear vs. Firestone tire incident?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: That was a perfect example, and why we put it in the book. I turned down a tremendous amount of money at the time, over switching tire companies, because your word has to be your bond. People are used to older people saying that, but we should all have integrity, and unfortunately it doesn’t seem to prevail as it should.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Wouldn’t it be great if integrity was the rule of law for politicians?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Yeah, that would be such an asset. We’ve come to accept politicians openly and outwardly lying to us. But why do we? It shouldn’t be accepted. And they have become used to the fact that they can lie, and that nobody believes them, and it just flows out of their mouths.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Wasn’t meant to be that way, with career politicians forever in office.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: The career politician, what a terrible concept.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Internal politics was involved in the race win that they took away from you for a time in 1981, wasn’t it?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Yes, they created an infraction after the race was done. At a meeting I was never invited to they said the blending point–where you get back into the race from the pit–was going to be at the end of the pits, not coming off of turn two, which had been the rule. All the drivers that testified on my behalf didn’t remember that change, so it must have really been a deep secret. There was nothing in print, that’s for sure. When ABC does that race, though, you see, they have 25 cameras around the race track, and they all record all the time, so what we did was get hold of the tapes nobody ever sees. So when we saw those, darned if Mario (Andretti) and many other cars didn’t do exactly the same thing. So they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They’d wanted to start a war between teams Patrick and Penske, and it backfired on them. Indianapolis should be above that, though. Largest single sporting event on earth.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Earlier in your career, you used walnut shells in tire rubber. . .sounds like what Thomas Edison might have tried. What gave your team that idea?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Well, the idea was if you put walnut shells in the rubber, when you wear the tire down, the shells are going to flake out. So when that happens it becomes like a sponge, and gets hold of the coarse road a lot better. A gain of about forty percent. We also tried crushed batteries.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: What gave you the idea to even try that?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Because it was some rubber that was made for ice. So I put shells on one side of the car, and crushed batteries in the rubber on the other, and we found the shells got the best traction. That was a secret for us, and I took the concept to Goodyear. I did a lot of tire development for Goodyear, in fact, and after many years of trying to develop rain tires, we finally developed a compound tire that did better than the walnut shells.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Traction versus speed, then.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Yes, the biggest gain we found was in the turns, not just going faster down the straight away. Traction is most important.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: You talk about an eight-second pit stop at Indianapolis, which is an amazing time for changing four tires and refueling. Is there a most memorable pit stop for you?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: None most memorable, as I’ve done thousands. Often things will go wrong, for sure. Probably the worst was in 1981, in the Indy race, when because of the design of the fuel filler that year, there was a tendency of the sleeve to stick. Happened to Rick Mears car, which caught fire. He jumped out, got burned a little. Same thing happened to me, around the same time, but what I did was just take off out of the pits, gambling that the flames would blow out, which they did. It burned my left sleeve, but that could have cost me the race had I just jumped out.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: About the go-cart accident which laid you up for a year, did you really tell the doctor you needed to go race as soon as you woke from a coma of more than a week?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: When I woke up in the hospital I was close to dying, for sure, but you have to realize I didn’t even have a headache! Didn’t know where I was. I was like I’d just woke up from one night. So it’s time for me to go, time to be at Indianapolis for a sprint car race.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: That’s amazing. Did you know Dale Earnhardt?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Yes, I did.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: What is your thought on track safety today?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Safety has just steadily gotten better. Racing will never be totally safe, but it’s so much better than it used to be. Goodyear, for one, spent lots of money, not just on winning races, but on safety. Like fuel cells, break-away fittings, clothing. Bill Simpson was a tremendous help with safety. Simpson Safety Products really got technology going that way. My brother died from burns at Indianapolis, and there was just no safety back then. Helmets, clothing, cars, walls, all were just terrible. We used to accept the fact that about fifty percent of the drivers died while racing, and that wasn’t a good number.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Fifty percent?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Yeah, but it’s changed, now, and you hardly ever see a fire today. The uniforms are a thousand percent better. Drivers I remember used to race in tee shirts, back when there were no bladders in the fuel tanks. Now Indy cars have a lot of shock absorption qualities, whereas in Nascar the frame is rigid. Steel tubing.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: That’s not good.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Now this is turning out to be a negative, and Nascar is looking into remedies, because they’ve got to do something about shock absorbing. An Indy car, where the driver sits, is like a capsule, where everything else can shuck away. Nascar cars, like Dale’s. . .that’s a rigid frame, and one of the reasons why he died. I saw the report on Earnhardt. Best done investigation of an accident I’ve seen. Of course there were many reasons why Dale got killed. Problems that came together all at the same time.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Dale Jr. carries on. Do you have children, yourself?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Four kids. One daughter has a program to help teach driving safety in corporations, to get breaks in insurance. My other daughter is a real estate appraiser. And I have two boys. Bobby Jr. helps create TV car commercials. Stunt driving for those. He’s won some awards, like for the commercials on the Super Bowl. Then Robby was a race driver too, but he didn’t stay with it either. He was in Indianapolis twice.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Jim Bond reads your book on audio. Do you listen to audiobooks yourself, while driving, or recommend them?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Absolutely. I have some people who’ve gotten mine, and listen while going to work. Ironically, some are in L.A. with the bad freeways! But what a beautiful way to read a book. I think audiobooks are a fabulous idea.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Good way to relieve stress. Better than rock or rap, which only adds to stress.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: Exactly. A way to keep your mind working, for sure. Something other than being aggravated about the traffic problems. If my wife and I are going somewhere, she’ll listen to tapes and learn Spanish, since we own a home in old Mexico now. Same with my book. That’s how Lisa read it, listening to the tapes. Time on the freeway is wasted time, so why not turn a negative into a positive? That’s the bottom line.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: What’s next for you, and for your friend Roger Penske?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />UNSER: I do expert witness litigation work now. Roger, of course, will keep on racing. He’s got the best team, and he loves the sport. He isn’t slowing down. A good man, and good for racing.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: As are you. Thank you, sir. It was a pleasure and a privilege to talk to you.</strong>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-36179334475121059582023-09-26T13:16:00.002-04:002024-01-10T19:51:00.553-05:00With bestselling author Mark Bowden<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ4BT9_ZQGB_Wdn2_65uXPWGmBSPMM0Qjr-6Z3XZx08GeweB4HGpt4zwjnwh57gRSkXFfrnUaH1NNatjkpoj-ItXRZi4DR8AATUr-MU5MgqE7vDZHtT0rtupgTx7tAt1cBoOxk8X-NhEA8-LCv4lH0MpBM_6nt4oo4FrD08C8Ughgm8lTmBsyzCLxFgDo/s300/robots.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="262" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ4BT9_ZQGB_Wdn2_65uXPWGmBSPMM0Qjr-6Z3XZx08GeweB4HGpt4zwjnwh57gRSkXFfrnUaH1NNatjkpoj-ItXRZi4DR8AATUr-MU5MgqE7vDZHtT0rtupgTx7tAt1cBoOxk8X-NhEA8-LCv4lH0MpBM_6nt4oo4FrD08C8Ughgm8lTmBsyzCLxFgDo/s1600/robots.gif" width="262" /></a></div><br /><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></strong><p></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">from the vault: Mark Bowden is the author of four books— Bringing the Heat, Doctor Dealer, Black Hawk Down, and Killing Pablo. As a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer, he won many national awards for journalism, and he has since published in magazines such as Men’s Journal, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Rolling Stone, and Parade. His screenplay version of Black Hawk Down was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Films, and Killing Pablo has been optioned by “Gladiator” director Ridley Scott.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JONATHAN LOWE: In your early career as a journalist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, what types of stories did you cover?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">MARK BOWDEN: In my work for newspapers, which began in 1973 for The Baltimore News-American, I have covered just about everything imaginable. I have always preferred being a generalist, and have enjoyed moving into new territory. My first writing job was with a special section of the Baltimore paper called “Young World.” I wrote searching feature stories about acne and loneliness. I went on to cover cops, a suburban county, the state legislature, politics and even baseball. At the Inquirer I have been science writer, transportation reporter, football reporter and have done extensive national and international reporting.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Was it a natural progression for you from newspaper and magazine stories to books?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BOWDEN: Yes. When I was just getting started, a solid newspaper story was the best thing I could do. Then it was longer Sunday stories, magazine stories (I was staff writer for The Inquirer Sunday Magazine for five years), and then stories that had to run in a series. At this rate by the time I’m 60 I’ll be giving Will and Ariel Durant a run for their money.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: In BLACK HAWK DOWN you write about a tragic incident during the war in Somalia that was harrowing and galvanizing. When did you know this had to be told in a book–was it the famous photo of a dead American Special Forces soldier being dragged along the streets of Mogadishu?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BOWDEN: I was drawn to the story in Black Hawk Down by its inherent drama. I didn’t even realize when I started that the troops involved were Special Forces, or even, frankly, what Special Forces were.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: I saw the Frontline piece on drug lord Pablo Escobar’s life and death, and what fascinated me was how many people revered him, and continue to do so. Current drug lords in Mexico also purchase poor citizen’s allegiance, and buy politicians or threaten them. But none have been as blatant or cruel or rich as Escobar. What is your take on his mythic status? Was he really intelligent, generous, and sociopathic–like a Mafia don–or was he only a self-deluded street thug who attracted allegiance with his fearless audacity and by passing the buck?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BOWDEN: I think Escobar did have something of a social conscience, although only in a very selective and self-serving way. I suspect his efforts on behalf of the poor helped him rationalize the other things he did. It enabled him to see himself as a good man, even when he was ordering assassinations and setting off bombs in Bogota.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: His extravagant lifestyle seems to support the myth that crime pays, although his death explodes that notion. Was he a paranoid man, or did he really think he was innocent and untouchable, like a god? And exactly how far reaching was his control of the drug trade in the U.S.?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BOWDEN: At his height, Escobar was the most powerful drug dealer and most successful criminal in the world. About 80% of the cocaine that reached the U.S. came from his cartel. He certainly came to believe that he was too powerful and smart to be stopped, and no doubt felt that he was performing an important service. He was not paranoid. It’s like the old joke …people were actually trying to get him. His extravagance was the expression of a man who suddenly had more money than he could ever spend. So his imagination ran wild.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Why couldn’t the CIA take him out earlier? Why did it take so long to find him after he walked out of his agreed-upon self imposed “incarceration?”</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BOWDEN: The book makes a strong case that American military, drug enforcement and spy agencies were linked to the death squads that left Pablo isolated and vulnerable, but the final killing appears to have been done by the Colombian Search Bloc, with considerable American assistance. Escobar was not killed earlier because he was smart and fast on his feet. He was extremely difficult to find because he had many friends, he was rich, and where he was not beloved in Antioquia, he was feared.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: This really is an amazing story, involving competing spy forces, government corruption, revenge, and the ridiculous conceits of the criminal mind. But do you think Escobar would be alive today, were it not for the secret vigilante group “Los Pepes” which targeted his operatives in revenge?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BOWDEN: I think that without Los Pepes, Pablo would still be at large.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Are many people in Medellin, Colombia drug users? You say that the place is still dangerous today for American tourists. Are they so used to seeing brutal killings as a way of life that they might not help someone being attacked in the street?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BOWDEN: To my knowledge, Colombia has never had a drug problem anything like ours. Widespread drug abuse afflicts prosperous societies. In poor countries people are too busy trying to eat and find shelter to lay around stoned for long. The people of Colombia and a warm and generous folk, but Medellin in particular has long been plagued with violence, and in recent years guerrilla groups have targeted Americans and affluent Colombians for kidnapping.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Did you enjoy narrating the audiobook version of <a href="https://amzn.to/3UolQfL" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">KILLING PABLO</a>?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BOWDEN: I very much enjoyed reading the book for Simon & Schuster audio. I’ve been reading my work out loud to my wife for years, and she’s never offered to pay me. We writers fall in love with our words, so what could be better than an excuse to sit down and read the whole thing out loud?</strong></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-80587482315090736292023-09-26T12:34:00.003-04:002024-01-10T19:51:48.558-05:00Interview with Catherine Coulter<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaa2Am7DxhT1Lly9yASQyPNkPoJ61vczQMQbvuFlvExU1l8Tm3JRNfVptWe8ak5rusrw8lSWvVCkFdhsYbmuGukHvb-xFGTseP2rZ5J8CjDAh3Fi-rbgHbfz9HvczmNbk27QL8XobwI83BtbX2hN8j_cwk3hTfdgJ2X-fH4hzdr0T-SS7rCst_2WhmJZc/s191/Mystery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="138" data-original-width="191" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaa2Am7DxhT1Lly9yASQyPNkPoJ61vczQMQbvuFlvExU1l8Tm3JRNfVptWe8ak5rusrw8lSWvVCkFdhsYbmuGukHvb-xFGTseP2rZ5J8CjDAh3Fi-rbgHbfz9HvczmNbk27QL8XobwI83BtbX2hN8j_cwk3hTfdgJ2X-fH4hzdr0T-SS7rCst_2WhmJZc/s1600/Mystery.jpg" width="191" /></a></div><br /><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></strong><p></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">From the vault: Catherine Coulter is the bestselling author of The Edge, The Cove, Hemlock Bay, Riptide, Eleventh Hour, and many other suspense and romance titles. With 50 million + copies of her novels in print, Catherine Coulter lives in Mill Valley, California.</strong></p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />JONATHAN LOWE: You started writing Regency romances, and some historical romances. Then you started writing contemporary suspense novels. Now you write both. Why the switch, back and forth, and which interests you most?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />CATHERINE COULTER: Can you imagine two more disparate genres than historical romance and suspense thrillers? And that’s why I do both — I’ll never get burned out. I hope I can continue to do both forever. Well, I don’t want to get carried away here. How about for another fifty years?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Okay. Of course that’s not up to me! What is your background?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />COULTER: I think of background as what happened yesterday. To go way back, my background started when when I was riding quarter horses with no saddle and sometimes no bridle as well, which drove my mother mad. At twelve I was in love with Little Joe Cartwright and wrote my first novel — it was fourteen pages long and is, thankfully, in oblivion. After the horses and Little Joe, I got degrees in history, English lit and psychology. Yes, you might come to the conclusion that I was a professional student. When I decided to try my hand at a novel, I knew I’d come home. Oh yeah, I wrote funny speeches for the president of an actuarial company on Wall Street. What I wrote was really funny; unfortunately, he wasn’t.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Wall Street is definitely not funny these days. Did anyone influence you to become a writer?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />COULTER: No one influenced me to become a writer. I didn’t visit Tibet and meet with a beautifully-complexioned monk who laid his hands on me and intoned, “Write.” Nope, I read everything in sight, including cereal boxes, and the #writing came along with it. My very favorite writer growing up was Georgette Heyer, and she certainly influenced my first novel.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: When I interviewed Lincoln Child, he told me he prefers to do something new and different each time out, rather than a series utilizing series characters. It’s harder to sell books that way, these days, since you have no faithful readers of characters. What are your thoughts on series?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />COULTER: You know, I really like series for the simple reason that you get to know the people and want to know what happens to them. I’ve done both single books and the series — series are the most fun as well, in my own humble opinion. Maybe you could say that a single book is like coming out with a new kind of cereal every year and then it’s gone and there is no more. But what about all those folk who happened to love that cereal?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: You’ve got a point. I’m not crazy about serials, though, or cereal. With the exception of MacDonald’s Travis McGee series, or Cussler’s Dirk Pitt. Which novels have done best for you, sales wise? <br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />COULTER: The very best top-selling book for me is The Cove, which turned out to be the first book in the FBI series.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Do you go on book tours? Any surprises along the way, there? I know some writers who get a flood of people in one city, and hardly anyone in the next. <br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />COULTER: Book tours and surprises, both pleasant and unpleasant, go hand in hand, like having a stretch limo drive me from Dayton to Chicago in time for an early TV show and running into the most violent thunderstorm of twenty years. I’ve toured now for years, some years more intensive than others. This summer one of my stops will be in eastern Tennessee because Blindside is set there.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: What’s this about a writer’s retreat you’re attending?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />COULTER: I have three very dear friends: Iris Johansen, Linda Howard, and Kay Hooper. We met in Las Vegas. We call it a “retreat” — it makes the accountants happier.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />LOWE: Let’s hope the IRS isn’t listening. Describe your latest book, if you will.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />COULTER: I just finished Blindside, the next FBI thriller, set primarily in eastern Tennessee. Sherlock and Savich are in it big-time. The Sheriff, Katie Benedict, is remarkable. I have a feeling she’s going to be getting her own fan mail.</strong>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-36233588700977298812023-09-26T11:58:00.002-04:002024-01-08T12:30:51.437-05:00Interview with Lincoln Child<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyD-6JqfNNNTBFk2BD6sBCX5TL99j5_OD0AX5xgJdeK9F6agR7Pz0cclASKDkuJFxXrV5ja-X7I2Fm9LOJY3mItZotxJuTlg0Z9gzKBnQbccW0-yl54EaVInXHoos2UUvXCKMlaFC4bntSdPlG5OhCPgxyY8GaKKr65jfgyk5odEjSHYe8XgYs8vcbPNg/s669/coffee%20time.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="669" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyD-6JqfNNNTBFk2BD6sBCX5TL99j5_OD0AX5xgJdeK9F6agR7Pz0cclASKDkuJFxXrV5ja-X7I2Fm9LOJY3mItZotxJuTlg0Z9gzKBnQbccW0-yl54EaVInXHoos2UUvXCKMlaFC4bntSdPlG5OhCPgxyY8GaKKr65jfgyk5odEjSHYe8XgYs8vcbPNg/s320/coffee%20time.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>From the vault: <strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Lincoln Child is part of a collaborative writing team. Together with Douglas Preston, they have produced several #bestsellers, including RIPTIDE, THUNDERHEAD, RELIC (made into a movie starring Linda Hunt), MOUNT DRAGON, and RELIQUARY. One of theirs, THE ICE LIMIT, was about an unusual meteorite collected from an island off Chile. At the time of this interview their new title was THE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES. </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JONATHAN LOWE: Many bestselling authors are teaming with lesser known writers in order to produce more books these days. This includes Clancy, Cussler, Clarke, and even Ludlum before he passed away. You are an exception, as you write all of your novels together, as equals. How did your partnership come about? </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LINCOLN CHILD: We met in the mid-80s, when I was an editor at St. Martin’s Press in New York. I was fascinated by the American Museum of Natural History and was looking for someone to do an armchair tour / history of the place. I noticed that Doug Preston, who worked for the museum, wrote interesting historical columns for their magazine. So I took him to lunch at the Russian Tea Room and pitched the idea to him. He’d always wanted to write a full-length book and the project appealed to him. That was the beginning of a non-fiction title called DINOSAURS IN THE ATTIC, which he wrote and I edited. Over the course of the project, we became friends. Afterwards, he sent me an idea for a murder mystery, set in a museum. I responded that murder mysteries were hard to do well, and (in my opinion anyway) a dime a dozen. But why not a techno-thriller, set in a fictitious natural history museum? It seemed the ideal place for one. And why not write it with me? I was in the process of leaving the publishing industry by that time and my own nascent writing interests–which had more or less dried up while working so closely with other people’s manuscripts–had begun to reassert themselves. That was how RELIC got started. </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: How does the collaboration work in terms of outline, first draft, editing? </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CHILD: Although there are exceptions, the way we have generally collaborated is this: first, we brainstorm extensively, sometimes over the phone, sometimes in the form of letters faxed or emailed back and forth. Next, I put together a rough outline of an upcoming series of chapters, based on our discussions. Sometimes we toss this outline back and forth, adding things, removing things, posing questions, pointing out problem points. Then Doug writes a rough draft of those upcoming chapters, based on the outline. I then revise those chapters. Sometimes my revisions are relatively light; other times, they significantly rework Doug’s originals. At one time, I used to do a final pass over the entire manuscript–the literary equivalent of a Zamboni machine–to give the manuscript a uniform feel. But over time, I think our individual styles have really begun to approach each others–I’ve picked up traits from Doug, and Doug from me, and so when we’re working together on a book that last pass of mine is no longer necessary. We both look at the finished manuscript, add our individual bits of polish, and that’s it. </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Do you ever argue vigorously over which way to go? </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CHILD: Of course we do! As Doug once put it in an interview, “sometimes we argue like an old married couple.” In the early days, we were extremely diplomatic with each other. But now, we’ve worked together long enough that we can put forth our ideas, or critique what the other has done, in relatively blunt tones, without fearing (usually) for bruised egos. Our arguments and discussions are healthy things, however. With two minds at work, there are twice as many ideas to choose from. And with somebody else looking over your shoulder, you are less likely to slip unconsciously into self-indulgent writing, or to travel down some dead-end path in the story. </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: The dust jacket says your background is in story anthology editing. Who are some of the writers you’ve published, and have you written short stories for magazines yourself? </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CHILD: Actually, most of what I edited was novels, by both American and British authors. I edited several hundred books while an editor at St. Martin’s, primarily #mysteries, #thrillers, and historical novels, but also non-fiction books as diverse as the notation of Western music and a certain armchair tour of the American Museum of Natural History by one Douglas Preston. I’ve been involved with the work of such authors as James Herriot (ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL) and M. M. Kaye (THE FAR PAVILIONS). I wrote several short stories in my callow youth, and submitted one or two for publication, but they were never printed. Since high school, I really haven’t thought much about short story writing. I do have an idea for a really chilling short story, but I’ve been so involved with novels I haven’t had time to put it on paper! Some day, I do hope to publish another anthology of ghost and #horror stories. If that ever comes together, perhaps I’ll write that story of mine for inclusion. </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Describe you new novel, if you will. </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CHILD: Our seventh thriller, CABINET OF CURIOSITIES, has what we think is a great hook: a developer is razing a group of old tenements in lower Manhattan to make way for a new high-rise tower. They break into an old subterranean chamber, and a workman goes in to investigate. He finds what is basically a charnel: the walled-up remains of dozens of people, killed brutally. It appears to have been a New York Jack the Ripper, working unsuspected in the late nineteenth century. These ancient crimes become even more grisly when it turns out the murderer appears to have had the skill of a surgeon, and he was attempting in his fiendish work to find an elixir of life prolongation. And then, in modern-day Manhattan, similar killings begin to surface. Is it a lunatic, copycat murderer…or did the diabolical “surgeon,” in fact, succeed?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: An interesting twist on the old serial killer theme. Almost like a combo horror/suspense with a historical perspective. So, these cabinets referred to are like minature museums which used to be displayed, right? How did you research them?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CHILD: As you know, Doug Preston worked for several years at the American Museum of Natural History in NY. He did quite a bit of research on the old cabinets of curiosity for his first book, so we were able to tap into his expertise for our new novel. I believe that some of today’s natural history museums helped get their start by buying up the old cabinets, too.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Actor Rene Auberjonois does a great job with the narration. It sounds as though one is listening to a museum curator, with his delicate and precise diction. Of course he’s best remembered for #StarTrek: Deep Space Nine. But I wanted to ask you about sequels, considering that a sequel to your book, THE ICE LIMIT, might explain some things. Do you not plan on writing any more sequels, or is the ending to that novel a suggestion to the reader or listener to use his or her imagination for closure? Perhaps just a final chilling question mark? </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CHILD: We are not planning to write a sequel to THE ICE LIMIT. With each book we write, Doug and I try to bring something fresh and new to our readers. That’s what keeps things interesting for us, and hopefully for our readers as well. The one time we wrote a sequel — RELIQUARY, the sequel to RELIC — we found it very difficult. We refused to succumb to “sequelitis,” the kind of tired retread of an original story that neither Doug nor myself can bear to read. We had to make sure RELIQUARY was a unique and interesting book on its own, and that was challenging. There were lots of technical problems, too, such as balancing the needs of returning RELIC readers with those readers who had not read RELIC — how to bring them up to speed without boring the “old” readers? We also think, as you yourself suggest, the conclusion of THE ICE LIMIT is more effective if we leave that chilling question mark hanging for the reader/listener’s own imagination to answer. However, I will say that, in a rather interesting if subtle way, what ultimately happens in THE ICE LIMIT has an impact on Nora Kelly, the hero of both THUNDERHEAD and our new novel. </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Interesting, and I agree with you on sequels . . . I generally hate them too! Now, audiobooks are increasing in popularity as more people simply can’t find the time to read print books. Do you ever get fan mail from people who’ve heard your audiobooks as opposed to having read your books in print? </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CHILD: Yes, we get a lot of fan mail from listeners, as well as from readers. Personally, I think that audiobooks are a great way for people to enjoy “reading” — whether it’s popular fiction, literature, poetry, biography, or whatever. I have a friend who has listened to the complete works of Patrick O’Brien on tape, in unabridged form, while commuting to work. It makes so much sense: why just stare out the window of a train or car when you can be enjoying a book? But it goes far beyond commuting, of course. For someone who does not have the time to read, or for some other reason prefers tape to print, audiobooks are an invaluable resource. </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: You had a stand alone novel something along the lines of West World or Jurassic Park? </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CHILD: I’ve long been fascinated by today’s first-rank theme parks. The way they employ all sorts of subtle psychology to manipulate guests and keep them happy; the way they micro-manage all the various details of the experience of visiting a park; the way cutting-edge technology is used in everything from designing rides to tracking visitor flow. I wanted to write a thriller that would lift the curtain that’s been carefully placed between the park that guests see and the behind-the-scenes park they’re never allowed to see: the offices, labs, workshops, tunnels, security areas. The more a park becomes computerized, I thought, the more vulnerable it becomes to a sophisticated penetration. UTOPIA is about a group of high-tech hackers who hold an ultra-modern theme park hostage and demand an outrageous ransom. It’s also about the man who designed the park’s robotics… and who is the only man who can stop the villains. Stopping them is especially important to him because his only daughter is at the park that day, and as such is in grave danger.</strong></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-25096210749426914322023-09-26T11:11:00.005-04:002024-01-08T12:30:18.786-05:00The Golden Age of Radio Today<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaXfMJ8_f9KlyMMX1J0EXCvmwkolFUOO-kgYzh-k6InuIhrz1JRsM7zxokaetH3JBnhkZQnUAP_UF4KC3C54e5MLYQc8xKBsZwnqhCXv0ZqAqP0fqKiuZBpbYp7sgVnqy1o4xirPXbnAQM2Xh3sEYuuG_FcKvZGb4N05Sx4Xg8VeTihNmHjiYQfgo4QTw/s707/night.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="707" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaXfMJ8_f9KlyMMX1J0EXCvmwkolFUOO-kgYzh-k6InuIhrz1JRsM7zxokaetH3JBnhkZQnUAP_UF4KC3C54e5MLYQc8xKBsZwnqhCXv0ZqAqP0fqKiuZBpbYp7sgVnqy1o4xirPXbnAQM2Xh3sEYuuG_FcKvZGb4N05Sx4Xg8VeTihNmHjiYQfgo4QTw/s320/night.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></strong><p></p><p><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>On the day before Halloween, 1938, millions of Americans tuned in to a popular radio drama program hosted by Orson Welles. Unfortunately for listeners that day, Welles’ adaptation of “The War of the Worlds” presented the radio drama as if it were an actual news broadcast. Fake updates described a “huge flaming object” dropping from the sky near Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Actors read lines like “Good heavens, something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake They look like tentacles to me! This is the most extraordinary experience. I can’t find words. I’m pulling this microphone with me as I talk. I’ll have to stop the description until I’ve taken a new position. Hold on, will you please, I’ll be back in a minute!” While the beginning of this broadcast indicated its fictional nature, such an explanation wasn’t repeated until more than half an hour later. In the meantime, the panic that ensued would soon make legitimate news headlines, with stories of people hiding in cellars with loaded guns, or wrapping their heads in wet towels for protection from Martian poison gas. It all prompted New York Tribune columnist Dorothy Thompson to declare that, “All unwittingly, Mr. Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater of the Air have made one of the most fascinating and important demonstrations of all time. They have proved that a few effective voices, accompanied by sound effects, can convince masses of people of a totally unreasonable, completely fantastic proposition as to create a nation-wide panic. They have demonstrated the appalling dangers and enormous effectiveness of popular and theatrical demagoguery.”</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>This was the Golden Age of Radio, which didn’t fade until the newer technology of television took over in the 1950s. Oddly, the effectiveness of radio wasn’t diminished even by World War II, since news broadcasts spurred a need for escapist evening drama, particularly thriller drama. During a typical wartime season, then, radio networks offered 25 programmed hours each week of shows like “Suspense” and “The Shadow.” Even later, when television was young, many successful radio series were adapted for the small screen, like “Gunsmoke,” which could then be heard on radio and seen on TV simultaneously. In fact, only when the number of TV sets began to near the number of radio sets in American homes did the medium die as a popular addiction.</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But has it died completely? Not if you ask Steve Karesh, whose radio drama Sonic Theater channel was heard nationwide on the even newer technology known as XM Satellite radio. Beamed from space to strategic repeater stations nationwide, XM radio can be heard anywhere in America, fade free, with an offering of both old and new, including Bob & Ray, Imagination Theater, Alien Worlds, Twilight Zone, Radio Tales, and L.A. Theater Works productions. And what has listener feedback been like? “I’ve received hundreds of emails from people, half of whom are fans of the comedy plays and half the dramatic plays,” Karesh told me. “I believe we’re providing something that hasn’t been available for a long time, and I have no doubt that we’re influencing producers to format new works in lengths of thirty minutes to meet our needs, too.”</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For a deeper look at those producers, and the state of radio and audio drama production today, I interviewed Sue Zizza, and asked about her own history with the medium. As Executive Director of what has become the National Audio Theatre Festivals, Zizza also teaches a course on the subject of audio drama at New York University, and credits success to directors like Charlie Potter, Yuri Rasovsky and Tom Lopez, along with audio artists like Marjorie Van Haltern, David Ossman and others.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Back in 1979,” Zizza recalled, “when I was on staff at a community radio station in Missouri, we put feelers out across the country to other dramatists in the field. The intent was to see who was still doing what, and to form a new group of professionals, utilizing funds provided at the time by public radio, the NEA and CPB. Then when the suggestion was made to form a training event, the Midwest Radio Drama Workshop was born. Now, our week long workshops in Missouri introduce people at all skill levels to audio drama production.” As Zizza further explains it, “We believe that if you learn how to produce an audio play, where you’re blending voice and music and sound effects and silence, then you can take those skills and become a better documentary, film or music producer, because what you learn through telling your story as audio drama really hones your storytelling craft.”</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In addition to week long workshops, the NATF also sponsors weekend events around the country, focused on one particular skill, and at the end an actual performance is staged so that these learned skills can be practiced. “Take Lindsay Ellison, for example,” Zizza points out, “who added audio production and direction to her stage direction and acting skills. Now she’s working with Tom Lopez on the post production of her play. Others take classes in voice acting, writing, producing, directing and technology. After learning the fundamentals, they mount a live show as an effects artist or technical assistant, and also network with others at meals and social events.”</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In describing the unique challenges of audio drama, Zizza cites knowing how to make voices unique “because obviously there are no body types or hair colors as in stage acting,” and also knowing when and how often to utilize sound effects “because too much sound design only confuses the listener, and should only be used to support the action, identify locales, or move characters around a space.” In short, the listener must be clear at all moments about what is going on. And that rule has never changed.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But hasn’t the equipment changed since radio’s Golden Age? “Not really,” claims Zizza. “Many of the props I use today were inherited from my mentor Al Shaffer, who did sound effects for Bob & Ray, among others. He taught me how to do horses, walk down stairs, etc. The only thing that’s really changed is that the microphones are more sensitive now, so you can’t get away with using an old-time prop like cellophane to make fire. Although corn starch is still used for walking through snow.” Indeed, she is adamant that sound effects taken from CDs don’t work for the most part, even in our modern, high-tech era. “The acoustic space is not the same as the space where the actors record, and you can tell. With animals in a zoo, for example, there’s a reverb which can’t be corrected. So getting a sound effects artist to listen and add effects in real time actually saves time. Where the science has advanced is really in post production, with digital recording and editing. But if you don’t understand how the elements of writing and acting and sound design combine in the final product, it won’t matter if you’re producing it digitally, and Pro Tools won’t save you.”</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Zizza says that part of her funding today comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, and part from the local arts councils where the festivals are held, and from individual contributors. The audio drama community as it exists today consists of “about two hundred independent companies or individuals producing mostly new material, although maybe half will produce both old time and new scripts.” For her own part, she produces The Radio Works, (suemedia.com), a sampler series which is heard on 70 public radio stations, and features a different producer each time, with all new work. Other audio drama companies currently active include the Full Cast Audio company, founded by Bruce Coville, a producer/publisher of teen and young adult titles primarily in the fantasy genre; the Atlanta Radio Theater, Great Northern Audio Theatre, ZBS Foundation, Firesign Theatre, Shoestring Radio Theater (an amateur San Francisco company), and the Radio Repertory Company of America. Seeing Ear Theatre, associated with the Scifi channel, produces original plays for publishers like Harper Audio, like the excellent “Two Plays for Voices,” featuring actors Bebe Neuwirth and Brian Dennehy performing Neil Gaiman’s “Snow Glass Apples” and “Murder Mysteries.” And of course L.A. Theatre Works, perhaps the most highly regarded audio theatre company, employs talented professionals like Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason to record classic plays as audio dramas for distribution in bookstores, like Neil Simon’s “The Prisoner of Second Avenue.” More news about audio drama may be obtained from Audiofile magazine, whose editor, Robin Whitten, is a consultant for NATF, and maintains a website rich in material on the entire audiobook industry at AudiofileMagazine.com. To find more about what’s available in new audio drama, look to the Lodestone Catalog, now online at Lodestone-media.com. Or one may sample the productions of an individual pioneer like Yuri Rasovsky at BlackstoneAudio.com.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">What does the future hold by way of opportunities for actors, writers, directors and technicians in the full cast segment of the audiobook industry? Zizza is cautious, but optimistic. “Full cast audio is costly to produce, as you know, and so there are not as many titles available. This is also true for public radio stations, who find it more economical to produce news or talk shows. But I think the situation is improving over what it was just three years ago. Listeners are becoming more astute, and they enjoy hearing a story, and so after seeing something like Spider Man, which has an incredible sound track, you can’t expect them to listen to a dry audiobook with nothing but a voice. With all the webcasting and iPod downloading going on, and with the new Mp3 players that are starting to come standard in new cars, I think people will seek out audio drama, and already a new crop of directors and producers are studying the craft the same way as those who study stage acting. Our challenge is to produce better quality material, and take those interested to the next level of skills so that audio theater looks forward instead of backward.”</strong></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-85928804413048737362023-09-25T18:39:00.001-04:002023-09-25T18:39:38.145-04:00Satire in Real Life<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UnDsIYehuFVFSl9LLkArJC06lfG8L3jD43av0Wfz1GqQR-ZJ0QXlq8-PyxlDts9ytLqzoCoRUjqpn4_br3gFi8BWYjrXujtdengJ8WD4oZ0PUZp2_k_SHR2pT7lSzXLVRybbUdURawBF8cO8K6rgVyESXOVh9dTD9nZ-cyXDZuUIcV8hRrQQNuUy2BM/s1000/2001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="1000" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4UnDsIYehuFVFSl9LLkArJC06lfG8L3jD43av0Wfz1GqQR-ZJ0QXlq8-PyxlDts9ytLqzoCoRUjqpn4_br3gFi8BWYjrXujtdengJ8WD4oZ0PUZp2_k_SHR2pT7lSzXLVRybbUdURawBF8cO8K6rgVyESXOVh9dTD9nZ-cyXDZuUIcV8hRrQQNuUy2BM/s320/2001.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></strong><p></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In many ways, humorists are similar to–and yet the opposite of– rubbernecking journalists. They also point out freak accidents, murders, thefts, and just ordinary politicos caught with their pants down in public. Comics don’t take it so seriously, though. These things happen, they say, so don’t worry about it. For God’s sake, just go outside and breath some fresh air once in a while.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It was poet Dylan Thomas who once advised people to rage against the dying of the light, with Sylvia Plath as cue-card holder. But if he’d been a humorist, Thomas would have told people to wave a candle at the line of approaching super-storms between swigs of Coke Zero. No one rages anymore, except guys with AK 47s and three sheets to the wind. We’ve all decided that nothing will ever change, least of all our own addictions. My question? With Thomas gone, aren’t all the hack TV journalists out there (who focus on Hollywood award nominees and those walking jewelry stores known as rap stars and divas) REALLY saying that the life of the average Joe or Mary “Toe-Tag” Smith is pathetic and miserable by comparison, as well as meaningless and random? People sure seem to be getting the message by the way they drive in traffic.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And what about all the Chinese watching American TV in Beijing by satellite? What do they take away from it? According to Jared Diamond, they want what they see: our SUVs, camera cell phones, plasma TVs, Harleys, 20 oz. steaks and supersized steak-cut fries. Plus they want our central air and hot tubs, too, and our marble kitchens, and maybe a big hearth with a big roaring fire. Thing is, though, if they get what they want the world will become unlivable. Our solution? Combine rubbernecking news with Hollywood news, and broadcast it to Beijing, and quick. Because it’s already too late for us.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SATIRE– A tongue-in-cheek mockery, usually in literary format, and particularly with the rich or powerful as target. Examples:</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Yacht Race Massacres Fifty”</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fifty spectators to the Pre-Oscar Celebrity Yacht Race in Long Beach were accidentally killed last night when a Celebrity Cruise Line ship piloted by Tom Cruise grazed a Carnival Cruise Line ship piloted by Ted Cruz, and veered into the stands. “The two ships were supposed to pass in the night, but kissed off each other,” harbormaster Eric Ericson reported to the Long Beach Tattler after hours phone desk. “Please tell folks, if you must, that all the celebs involved in the incident are truly, truly safe, and that anybody who is anybody wishes to express their deepest condolences to those who are not.”</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ARCHEOLOGY– The science involving the excavation of old artifacts buried in the earth, and the interpretation thereof. Not to be attempted at home. Example: Jimbo “Jonesy” Jones, Newark, NJ:</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">June 24) While in search of fossils this afternoon in my back yard, have run across a jawbone similar to the one found by Dr. Alfred Zimmer in Ethiopia last summer, which HE claimed was 4 million years old. (Or 40 million–he wasn’t too sure about the decimal point). What this may mean, I have no idea except that perhaps college textbooks need to be rewritten so students can’t resell their old ones next year. Plan to take this jawbone home and reconstruct a skull from it, hopefully. On the way back must remember to stop at the library and check out GRAY’S ANATOMY and an unabridged copy of 100 SCIENCE PROJECTS YOU CAN BUILD WITHOUT LEAVING THE KITCHEN.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> June 26) Have encountered minor difficulties in my work with plaster molds and the posterior portion of the skull. My enthusiasm remains high, however, for in my zeal to unravel the mystery I inadvertently (but nonetheless brilliantly) substituted Red Band Flour for Plaster of Paris. Such accidents in the past, we are told, resulted in many inventions and breakthroughs in Science for such men as Edison, Goddard, and Herbert Bloom (who once constructed a Brontosaurus from one broken tooth, 900 bags of Quickrete, and–as accident would have it–19 bales of chicken wire.)</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Any day now I expect success.</strong></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-21543360551261391202023-09-16T11:47:00.000-04:002023-09-16T11:47:01.631-04:00The Truth is Still Out There: 30 Years of the X Files<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQPr9WQSftyNG0oGUTvC94nWyUIosmxlGtUtQS2S42tqbt_RWQ0tJUbH-gmO0vj7y6haviOmHS4aTccLLHfKxoxCy0xrLIZqShvfrXKvPtue6SB8pi1qPUpc-FRMJ0xy7CBSId4_G7lIuKIZ3Cc4BXNSNr332dM-MYFeCscEnBbTuuR0kRbyQUkZ1FQe0/s450/The%20Truth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="300" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQPr9WQSftyNG0oGUTvC94nWyUIosmxlGtUtQS2S42tqbt_RWQ0tJUbH-gmO0vj7y6haviOmHS4aTccLLHfKxoxCy0xrLIZqShvfrXKvPtue6SB8pi1qPUpc-FRMJ0xy7CBSId4_G7lIuKIZ3Cc4BXNSNr332dM-MYFeCscEnBbTuuR0kRbyQUkZ1FQe0/s320/The%20Truth.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px;"><br /></b><p></p><p><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px;">The Truth is Still Out There: Thirty Years of the X Files by Bethan Jones, read by Daniela Acitelli, is a political and social examination of the impact of a unique sci fi TV series on the Americans and others who became enamored of the groundbreaking show. Tantor Audio is producer of the audio, telling the story of a journalist who is one of the biggest fans of the series, which ran from 1993 to 2017 in a reboot. She has a PhD in fan fiction, and is a collector of memorabilia. The chemistry between the characters, a reversal of gender roles, and the moody sets and high production values were particularly memorable. The show drew on the distrust people had of the government and its spying and coverups. The FBI takes center stage against other government agencies and the shadow government itself. A deep throat character helps Mulder and Scully with tips and warnings, and the idea is that a certain number of government officials are keeping secrets from the public regarding aliens and other black ops conspiracies. In one episode an AI gets loose and enters the internet, from which it attacks any efforts to control it from its creator. Written partly by sci fi icon William Gibson, the episode is a paranoid story with a twist. Why do people keep coming back to the show? It’s because of the big questions it asks about what fake news is, how people believe or do not believe in the things they are told, and how the Cold War and other aspects of political events affects what people watch or don’t trust. The phrases “I Want to Believe” and “Trust No One” mingle to create quirky plots acted with aplomb by Muller and Scully. The audiobook is recommended not just for fans of the show, but anyone who wants to know how the paranoia and fears of people who turn to conspiracies is affected by television. </b></p><div><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px;"><br /></b></div>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-1145583798918156292023-08-26T15:18:00.004-04:002024-01-10T19:52:43.057-05:00Brad Thor on The Last Patriot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3mSziAnuS8tLDh6EFhwLwlNtnPnFt1CtjvdD6okW0tJEBS6YjfsaZTV552qyXbB-cFWcEhiqAKgskyEWBDaA4wDDmsn6xSjNotPyqiZBh6U_vxUbtPDeAWZ7kVAMoSrDnbZ1S8wnxxzpoyMEghpgkQsxFh2T2PY9PTAWGsGPHlilEkQQQ-Wf144FhrZ4/s200/BradThor.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="150" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3mSziAnuS8tLDh6EFhwLwlNtnPnFt1CtjvdD6okW0tJEBS6YjfsaZTV552qyXbB-cFWcEhiqAKgskyEWBDaA4wDDmsn6xSjNotPyqiZBh6U_vxUbtPDeAWZ7kVAMoSrDnbZ1S8wnxxzpoyMEghpgkQsxFh2T2PY9PTAWGsGPHlilEkQQQ-Wf144FhrZ4/s1600/BradThor.jpg" width="150" /></a></div><br /><p><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px;">from the vault: INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR BRAD THOR ABOUT DEATH THREATS RELATED TO HIS THRILLER THE LAST PATRIOT<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Brad Thor is not averse to taking risks. He does so with his thriller THE LAST PATRIOT, about a Homeland Security operative named Scot Harvath, who goes on the hunt for a secret final revelation made by the Prophet Mohammed just before his assassination. This revelation, if disclosed, will end radical Islam's violence against non-believers without another bullet or bomb required. Naturally, there are those intent on never leaking this secret, and who are prepared to kill in order to prevent that. In this fictional thriller, and in the tradition of Robert Ludlum, the target includes Harvath, who is also a former Navy SEAL. But in real life, one might ask if the target might include author Brad Thor himself, as a former Homeland Security operative. I asked Thor about this, just before his July book tour.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">JONATHAN LOWE: Your new novel is part covert ops political thriller and part "DaVinci Code" mystery. How did it click for you to combine the two?</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">BRAD THOR: My thrillers have always centered around covert/black ops and the domestic political landscape. They are subjects I love to write about. Through my writing, I have gotten to know lots of the players in these two arenas. The more time I spend shadowing them and seeing what their lives are like, the more I fall in love with this subject matter and the more I want to write about it.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">LOWE: Do you have any fears of becoming the next exiled Salman Rushdie for postulating such a volatile story line?</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">THOR: What a lot of people don’t know about me is that I have spent the last 20 years of my life learning about Islam. It is a fascinating subject, especially in how it promotes violence. What’s also fascinating is that whenever early copies of the Qur’an are discovered in Muslim nations, they are quickly secreted away. Researchers who have attempted to study them have wound up dying in very mysterious “accidents.” Now I have come out with a thriller that suggests the Qur’an is missing a very key text and I am being threatened with death. My book is fiction, but it is based on a handful of fascinating facts and the death threats only seem to support my theory that Islam is hiding a very big secret. Am I afraid of becoming the next Salman Rushdie? Honestly, I don’t relish the idea. Rushdie at one point had a $5 million bounty on his head and supposedly hundreds of Muslim assassins had traveled to London to kill him. Will I change what I have written or somehow recant and beg forgiveness for what is contained within The Last Patriot? Absolutely not. In fact, I find the hypocrisy here fascinating: Islam is a religion of peace and if you say that it isn’t, we’ll kill you.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">LOWE: What kind of research was involved in writing "The Last Patriot"?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">THOR: The idea for this novel was born in part from an Atlantic Monthly cover article by Toby Lester entitled “What is the Koran?”<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>I had discovered the piece, several years after its January 1999 publication, while doing research on another novel and had tucked it away for future use. Then I came across an article written by Gerard W. Gawalt, formerly of the Library of Congress, entitled “America and the Barbary Pirates: An International Battle Against an Unconventional Foe.” I started wondering if there was a way I could combine the historical relevance of the Quran and Thomas Jefferson’s experience with the Barbary pirates to create a thriller that would be relevant today.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">LOWE: Jefferson and Islam. There's a connection?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">THOR: Yes. Thomas Jefferson was the first American president to go to war against radical Islam. The problems Jefferson and America faced over two hundred years ago are incredibly similar to what we as a nation face today and there is much to be learned from them.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">LOWE: You once had a show on Public TV called "Traveling Lite." Obviously you're not doing that anymore.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">THOR: Traveling has provided me with incredible adventures like running with the bulls “French Style” in the Camargue, paragliding over Geneva, Switzerland, and caving in Austria. Even now, as research, I visit as many of the places I write about as possible. I also read untold numbers of books on the subjects I explore in my novels. I am constantly challenging myself to make my stories as accurate and true-to-life as possible.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">LOWE: I wrote a short story whose fictional premise was that someone in the Bush administration suggested bombing Mecca. Then I learned that someone actually had suggested it. Have you had any surprises in your research that affected plotting?<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">THOR: I have surprises like this happen to me all the time. There are certain suggestions and possibilities that just make sense.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>They key is in beating other writers to it. As I wrapped up the first draft of my manuscript, I received a call from my editor. She had just read a story in The Wall Street Journal about a mysterious archive of ancient Qur’anic texts in Germany that was believed to have been destroyed in 1944. It contained 450 rolls of films that supposedly chronicled the evolution of the Qur’an – the Muslim holy book which all Muslims believe was revealed complete, perfect, and inviolate to Islam’s founder Mohammed in the 7th century. The archive, and its subsequent study, had only been handled by three men. The first died in a strange climbing accident in 1933. The second died in a mysterious plane crash in 1941. The third man, wanting to be rid of the entire collection, pretended it had been destroyed and never spoke of it for over sixty years. He died recently at age 93. It seems there is much here worth investigating, and for which men are still willing, even in the case of The Last Patriot, to kill to keep secret.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">LOWE: You have an amazing website, and there's an enhanced CD on the audiobook version of "The Last Patriot" with a trailer for the book. Any thoughts on the technology of marketing books? Trailers are a relatively new phenomenon, and also make sense for audiobooks, which are now like audio movies. The one bright spot in publishing these days, with many new players entering the field. For example, I'd never even heard your reader Armand Schultz before.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span></b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">THOR: Thank you. I have worked hard to recreate the experience of my novels on the site and my web design team deserves much of the credit. The idea of doing a trailer for The Last Patriot really appealed to me. Trailers are one of my favorite things about watching movies. A trailer can make or break a film and I thought that it would be very interesting to try to market a book in the same fashion. I wrote the script, chose the narrator and then worked with my design team on the soundtrack and images.<span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> </span>Creating a trailer on the web with flash animation is a lot different than creating a film trailer as we had to create most of our images from scratch and we always had to keep in mind perspective by placing objects in the foreground, mid-ground and background. It took a long time, but I am very proud of the results. I also agree that audiobooks are a bright spot in publishing. It is good to see the industry embracing new ways of doing things. About Armand Schultz, I think he's fantastic. He's a Broadway-trained actor and really understands my characters, so he's able to craft different voices and vocal mannerisms for all of them.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>Note: The Last Patriot book tour went off without a hitch. His latest book is Deadfall.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b></p><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-37620356614770234402023-08-24T17:32:00.003-04:002023-08-24T17:32:50.176-04:00Taylor Jenkins Reid<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbOijReY-CdREQ9SWoutinscQ-QQsqPJVJtZu6U1NP8d2qTFAUu35DSuxKbzrdHRCpx56GRBXslgWRo0Ctfe5KUEgv5WdIp0EcygiyDwwJD33_4lhbOxu5y5GHi97YTcuvQ2fEQOguOPXhyinmPGmaOnE55tguGaedXqbJgSJi_cH9Jz7qrXbrySosBkI/s161/star.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="149" data-original-width="161" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbOijReY-CdREQ9SWoutinscQ-QQsqPJVJtZu6U1NP8d2qTFAUu35DSuxKbzrdHRCpx56GRBXslgWRo0Ctfe5KUEgv5WdIp0EcygiyDwwJD33_4lhbOxu5y5GHi97YTcuvQ2fEQOguOPXhyinmPGmaOnE55tguGaedXqbJgSJi_cH9Jz7qrXbrySosBkI/s1600/star.gif" width="161" /></a></div><br /><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px;"><br /></b><p></p><p><b style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px;">Determination and raw talent and rarely come into alignment, but when they do the results speak for themselves. Take the case of Taylor Jenkins Reid, the 39 year old author of eight novels, several making it to screen. Raised in Boston, Taylor attended Emerson College before moving to Los Angeles to become a casting assistant, where she married a screenwriter and began writing novels. With Alex Reid’s support, she steadily grew her audience as she found her voice, and the result can now be seen on the Amazon Prime show Daisy Jones and the Six, co-produced by Reese Witherspoon. Her latest book, CARRIE SOTO IS BACK, tells the story of a 37 year old tennis star coming out of retirement determined to establish her record against a formidable opponent.</b></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b></span><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Lowe) One doesn’t have to be a tennis fan to enjoy this book, but I wonder what inspired you to write such a thrilling tennis story? Do you play the game?</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black;"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">REID) </b></span><span style="border-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);"><b style="border-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">I have played tennis once or twice, but the real inspiration came from wanting to write about ambition and human excellence — to write about those few people in any given generation who stand above the rest. What does it mean to be the greatest in the world? And what does it feel like?</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b></span><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Lowe) The father-daughter relationship is strong here. Did your dad inspire you to excel?</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);"><b style="border-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">REID) Despite having never been an athlete myself, I was very drawn to the specifics of the father/daughter coach/player relationship. It's a complicated one for Carrie and Javier. And I wanted to render something that didn't gloss over the complexity of what can happen when your father is your coach, but also showed the beauty of their connection as father and daughter. </b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"></b></span><br /></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); caret-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><b style="border-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Lowe) You’ve said your own goals were “embarrassingly big.” What did you mean by that, and what famous women have inspired you to write about people like them in fiction?</b></span></p><p style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); border-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="border-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);"><b style="border-color: rgb(33, 33, 33);">REID) I think I've always found my belief in myself to be a little embarrassing. After all, when I was starting out, that's all it was. Belief with no real evidence. But I've read a lot of success stories over the years. Naturally, their themes find their way into my work. Whether it's an actress mid-century like Rita Hayworth, or a 70s rock star like Linda Rondstadt, or an 80s model like Brooke Shields, I'm always reading their stories and trying to glean what I can as both a writer and a person. For Carrie Soto, I looked to women like the Williams sisters and Steffi Graf and Naomi Osaka.</b></span></p><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;" />Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-10418796565141049292023-08-18T14:46:00.003-04:002024-01-08T12:27:57.440-05:00James Patterson on audiobooks<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx9Rl4UuNrNE_vR1yafLbURuSPeOfwcaqkazkorKIjHbZivVBXFm_2cmD_u5Fc8_89kiQnNn-Ck6LvWtMQyRdeY-bP-GQZbkK-pA4Klcwn7_M0Ppig3ETIiVdTSfPTzyW3Muo9BO-5ztkpOBwC5Z_J6xFJ-YUTvU7EEuGwweMJ9D1Z9-sypavLq_tOwrg/s640/%E2%80%A2jp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="96" data-original-width="640" height="48" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx9Rl4UuNrNE_vR1yafLbURuSPeOfwcaqkazkorKIjHbZivVBXFm_2cmD_u5Fc8_89kiQnNn-Ck6LvWtMQyRdeY-bP-GQZbkK-pA4Klcwn7_M0Ppig3ETIiVdTSfPTzyW3Muo9BO-5ztkpOBwC5Z_J6xFJ-YUTvU7EEuGwweMJ9D1Z9-sypavLq_tOwrg/s320/%E2%80%A2jp.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">From the vault: The name of <a href="https://amzn.to/3BdYBgX" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">James Patterson</a> is ubiquitous. Go to any hotel or cruise ship pool in summer, and you’ll see someone reading a Patterson thriller. A former ad man, he is now the reigning king of pop fiction superstars, and for a time lived in Palm Beach, Florida, where Maralago is. I once met Patterson at Book Expo America. One book, written with Bill Clinton, was <a href="https://amzn.to/3xoBLC9" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">THE PRESIDENT IS MISSING</a>. Narrator is actors Dennis Quaid, January LaVoy, Mozhan Marno, and Jeremy Davidson. </strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JONATHAN LOWE: What led you to writing? Were you a voracious reader?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JAMES PATTERSON: I was a good student in high school, but I didn’t like to read at all. I’m still not a big fan of Silas Marner. Just after I graduated from high school, I got a job working at a famous mental hospital. I had a lot of free time, and I started reading everything I could get my hands on. At this point, I was reading serious fiction, poetry, essays, plays. I still didn’t read any commercial fiction. When I was in my twenties I read two commercial novels that turned it all around for me–Day of the Jackal and The Exorcist. At that point, I decided that I wanted to write a novel that readers would find almost impossible to put down. </strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Q: What was your reaction to the success of “Along Came a Spider?” </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A: Long before I had a success with “Along Came A Spider,” I had learned to stop and smell the roses. Consequently, I savored every moment when Along Came A Spider hit the bestseller lists. That included every bookstore I visited on tour, every interview, every kind review. </strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Q: Was the Alex Cross character your first choice as protagonist? How and why did you develop him to be who he is? </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A: Actually, when I began “<a href="https://amzn.to/3xpSFjN" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Along Came A Spider</a>,” Alex Cross was a woman. I wrote about fifty pages, and decided to go in another direction. I’ve told the story about where the Cross family came from, but I’m happy to tell it again. When I was a kid growing up in Newburgh, New York, my grandparents owned a small restaurant. The cook was a black woman named Laura. When I was three or four, she was having trouble with her husband and my parents urged her to move in with us. Over the next four years, I spent incredible amounts of time with Laura and her family. I got an incredible feeling for the warmth and good humor that they shared. That certainly influenced my creating the Cross family. </strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Q: Did you begin by thinking of Alex as a series character? Coming up with nursery rhymes as titles is obviously good for name recognition, but how much did they influence the actual plotting? </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A: When I wrote “Along Came A Spider” I wasn’t thinking about creating a series. The publisher wanted to make a two-book deal, and the more I thought about writing about Alex again, the more I liked it. I don’t think the nursery rhymes have much to do with the plotting at all. </strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Q: Nor do I. One thing which strikes me about your books is your creative use of short chapters for dramatic effect. Knowing when and where to end a chapter which leaves the reader guessing or biting their nails or just staring at the page in shock. Two of your chapters in ROSES ARE RED, for example, are mere one liners, which explains a total of 125 chapters in a relatively short book. When your wife asks how much you’ve written today and you say “two chapters” doesn’t she just stare at you? </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A: The short chapters were kind of an accident. I had written about thirty chapters of <a href="https://amzn.to/3qChIwk" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Midnight Club</a> and I expected to flesh them out later. When I read them, however, I liked the pacing a lot. I eventually fleshed the chapters out, but not as much as I planned to. My wife and I never talk about the quantity of work I’ve done on any given day, just the quality.</strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Q: Please describe your new book. </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A: You get on a roller coaster, it goes on and on, you can’t believe how many twists and turns you’ve experienced, and when the ride finally stops you get off exhausted, shaken, but strangely satisfied. </strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Q: Do you listen to audiobooks on the road? </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A: Ever since I moved out of New York City, I’ve been addicted to audiobooks. I listen to one or two a week while I’m driving around town. Generally, I listen to the books that I used to buy, but never get around to reading.</strong></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-13439493065333860242023-08-10T17:11:00.002-04:002023-09-26T12:36:25.687-04:00Uneasy Lies the Crown by Tasha Alaxander<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgPz4fJybHylslaE4XYkAaaSTFBKbNN4d8wux9y98xt7dnqUWlxzgwuIG2XCKhlj20jGk3BS10PfmsJwDqUb3Op68llzGcQmfrCD-SAikAX-sPlB71iOCdOxS6DBHjSuoceZgnit1Hch4B1P8DVuZZcOpwzzif6J3v8nSG-P7COxv5C_hHdUvYk19lX8I/s235/Sports%20Books.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="169" data-original-width="235" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgPz4fJybHylslaE4XYkAaaSTFBKbNN4d8wux9y98xt7dnqUWlxzgwuIG2XCKhlj20jGk3BS10PfmsJwDqUb3Op68llzGcQmfrCD-SAikAX-sPlB71iOCdOxS6DBHjSuoceZgnit1Hch4B1P8DVuZZcOpwzzif6J3v8nSG-P7COxv5C_hHdUvYk19lX8I/s1600/Sports%20Books.jpg" width="235" /></a></div><br /><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></strong><p></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The year is 1901 and the death of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch has sent all of the Empire into mourning. But for Lady Emily and her dashing husband Colin, the grieving is cut short as another royal death takes center stage. A body has been found in the Tower of London, posed to look like the murdered medieval king Henry VI. Soon after a second dead man turns up in London’s exclusive Berkeley Square, his mutilated remains staged to evoke the violent demise of Edward II, it becomes evident that the individual behind the crimes plans to kill again and again. The race to find him takes Emily deep into the capital’s underbelly, with its secret gangs, street children, and sleazy brothels. But the clues aren’t adding up, and even more puzzling are the anonymous letters Colin has been receiving since Victoria’s death. Is someone threatening her successor, Edward VII?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://amzn.to/3EdIKjM" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Jonathan Lowe</a>) What is your background, and how did you turn to writing?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Tasha Alexander) I am the daughter of two philosophy professors, I grew up surrounded by books. I was convinced from an early age that I was born in the wrong century and spent much of my childhood under the dining room table pretending it was a covered wagon. Even there, I was never without a book in hand and loved reading and history more than anything. I studied English Literature and Medieval History at the University of Notre Dame. Writing is a natural offshoot of reading, and my first novel, And Only to Deceive, was published in 2005. I’m the author of the long-running Lady Emily Series as well as the novel Elizabeth: The Golden Age. One of the best parts of being an author is seeing your books translated, and I’m currently in love with the Japanese editions of the Emily books.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Q) You’re a travel buff, and love to pack light. Where have you lived and traveled?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A) I played nomad for a long time, living in Indiana, Amsterdam, London, Wyoming, Vermont, Connecticut, and Tennessee before settling down. My husband, the brilliant British novelist <a href="https://amzn.to/3hKygB6" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Andrew Grant</a>. I may be biased but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong! I live in southeastern Wyoming, but still don’t have a covered wagon, yet a log house goes a long way toward fulfilling my pioneer fantasies. Andrew makes sure I get my English characters right, and I make sure his American ones sound American.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Q) What do you like to read?<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />A) I’ll read pretty much anything I can get my hands on, but some of my favorite authors (in no particular order) are Jane Austen, David Mitchell, Leo Tolstoy, Vikram Seth, Meg Wolitzer, Haruki Murakami, Elizabeth Peters, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Anthony Trollope, William Thackeray, Naguib Mahfouz, Arthur Phillips, Pablo Neruda, Homer, Dorothy L. Sayers, Carol Shields, David Lodge, William Boyd, James Thurber, Margaret George, Pauline Gedge, Mika Waltari, Robert Harris, Jeannette Winterson, Henry James, Evelyn Waugh, Orhan Pamuk, Saki (H.H. Munro) <br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" />Q) In Uneasy Lies the Crown, a thrilling mystery in your bestselling series, Lady Emily and her husband Colin must stop a serial killer whose sights may be set on the new king, Edward VII. Anecdote?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A) On her deathbed, Queen Victoria asks to speak privately with trusted agent of the Crown Colin Hargreaves, slipping him a letter with her last, parting command: Une sanz pluis. Sapere aude. “One and no more. Dare to know.”</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Note: Scott Brick narrates the new Reacher novels which Andrew has taken over. What comes next for Tasha is <a href="https://amzn.to/3EaL2jP" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Dark Heart of Florence</a>. Since this interview she has done a short story <a href="https://amzn.to/3EvpOhX" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Upon the Midnight Clear</a>, and <a href="https://amzn.to/3V2YzRv" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">In the Shadow of Vesuvius</a>. She loves Italy, where I visited just once. She lives on a ranch in the beautiful backcountry of Wyoming where Lee Child is also building a ranch <a href="https://amzn.to/3UUt4cJ" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">TOO CLOSE TO HOME</a>.</strong></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-45386957585565486822023-07-30T12:51:00.002-04:002024-01-10T20:01:58.209-05:00Interview with aviation expert John Nance<p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig9vMYP4760HOzG2gwadMj-qI362cyNRWti2aH9c7AoYzKrrPGUz9QWwdp4D1driJtx2ae71_WZk324NxO1erEs6lFgImMXD3R2Wcj8JJCb7uYbhqh13F-ttcnhc8pylVw-RaeXlM8xY8weEaBbKiiYzTBe1xrfPPYa9EmafeRWeWHbgeK2MUMsEseKxA/s150/nance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="100" data-original-width="150" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig9vMYP4760HOzG2gwadMj-qI362cyNRWti2aH9c7AoYzKrrPGUz9QWwdp4D1driJtx2ae71_WZk324NxO1erEs6lFgImMXD3R2Wcj8JJCb7uYbhqh13F-ttcnhc8pylVw-RaeXlM8xY8weEaBbKiiYzTBe1xrfPPYa9EmafeRWeWHbgeK2MUMsEseKxA/w246-h164/nance.jpg" width="246" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">John J. Nance is the author of Pandora’s Clock, The Last Hostage, Medusa’s Child, and many other novels and non-fiction books. He is an aviation consultant for ABC, and an airline correspondent for Good Morning America. A licensed aerospace attorney, Nance was also a full-time working airline captain until his recent retirement, and now records his own novels for Brilliance Audio. I met him at the Audie Awards in L.A., and also talked to him via phone at his home in Tacoma, Washington. From the vault:</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JONATHAN LOWE: What is your background, and how did you get into writing about aviation?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JOHN NANCE: I have a varied background. In fact, the joke around my place was I couldn’t decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. I have a legal, a journalistic, and an aviation background. As a kid I was fascinated by books, by radio and television, and by planes, and so it’s amazing that all of those have areas have come together the way they have.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: What within aviation specifically is your background?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">NANCE: I’ve been a pilot for many years. Got my original pilot’s license in 1965 in Honolulu, and returned to the mainland to go to Southern Methodist University, where I got my undergraduate and law degrees. Was an Air Force pilot from ’70 to ’75 on active duty, and basically flew the C-141, the Lockheed Airlifter, for about 23 years, serving in Vietnam and Desert Storm. When I got out of active duty, I flew with Braniff International as an airline pilot until the company’s demise in ’82, then I began my writing career, and also joined Alaska Airlines in ’85 until my retirement.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: What made you want to write fiction about things going wrong on airline flights, and with terrorism?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">NANCE: My transition from non-fiction to fiction was the realization that you can do more with fiction. I had four non-fiction books in the ’80s, all of them successful, but the reality was that anytime you write a non-fiction book, you have a very specific audience, and that audience doesn’t build as well as with fiction. The opportunity in fiction is that you can say what you want to say in multi-dimensional layers, as well as to give everybody a rip-snorting good story, and they don’t have to be interested in all the background, which just makes colorful wallpaper.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Dale Brown and some others focus on military jets, but yours may generate more empathy from readers in that they focus on commercial airline flights. Let’s hope this never happens, but I love the one where the pilot locks himself in the cabin and flips the plane to prevent people from breaking into the cabin, while the authorities on the ground think there’s a bomb on board.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">NANCE: One of the things I’ve had fun with is the Mr. and Mrs. Anybody could be here. Any of us could climb on board one of those airliners. But I am branching out to show other elements of aviation, too. Things that are not only fascinating, but also serve humanity.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Which you incorporate into your fiction.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">NANCE: Absolutely. Grisham writes on the stage of southern law. Robin Cook writes on the stage of medicine. I write on the stage of aviation.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: You write a lot of books, too. What does your schedule look like?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">NANCE: It’s usually somewhat chaotic, but the more I can get uninterrupted time to concentrate on all the little details that make up a story, the faster it goes for me. I usually reserve about two months per book for the actual writing, once the research and plotting is done.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Did you ask to narrate your own books, and what was that experience like for you?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">NANCE: Since I was a radio broadcaster, and trained in voice, and had done a little acting in the past, I really didn’t want anyone else narrating my books, if I could cut it. The first one I did was “Pandora’s Clock,” but I remember the experience was great, and a director named Dan really helped me find the subtle nuances, and learn how to do the voices without overdoing them.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: I think you do a great job, while some authors don’t. I was thinking they should have an audiobooks channel on airline flights, since they have so many music and talk channels. Although I’m not sure how your books would play with skittish or paranoid first time flyers.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">NANCE: I know, that’s been a little consternating to me in the past, this idea that you wouldn’t want to read a John Nance book on an airplane. Before 9/11, I was seriously considering a campaign at the airports which would have said, “Are you brave enough to read a John Nance book?” When I’m not using an airliner as the foundation for the story, then it’s not a personal threat, and I think it’ll be more acceptable to people on flights.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: Could you describe your novel “Skyhook?”</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">NANCE: It’s a lot of fun, about two very smart young women, one a lawyer and one an executive for a shipping line. The executive’s father is a pilot, and one night the plane carrying both her parents disappears over the Gulf of Alaska. This leads to a rescue with the help of the lawyer getting help from the Coast Guard. The problem is that the Coast Guard pilot loses his airplane, an old WWII amphibian, and he’s almost sure he hit something, but he’s not sure what. He was at low altitude in a fogbank, at night, you understand, and unfortunately the FAA wants to take his license, and accuse him of drinking, although he believes he did nothing wrong. At the same time there’s a parallel story about an Air Force black project, as someone is fooling around with a code used by the top secret Skyhook project, and the software engineer involved doesn’t know why. The books deals with how these two stories interplay, and how Ben Cole, the young scientist, is presented with all sorts of scary dilemmas, and ends up finding out the connection.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">LOWE: An interesting and involving plot. What’s next for you?</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">NANCE: Next will be “Fireflight,” which I’m about to record. It has to do with the people with fight fires from the air, flying those big, lumbering ancient airplanes in the middle of what is very often a firestorm. It’s an incredible community, these people who use a dwindling number of available aircraft to fight fires. The story follows an air tanker pilot who is fighting to contain a forest fire near Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that is threatening Yellowstone National Park.</strong></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-45040419376747898652023-07-22T17:31:00.002-04:002024-01-08T12:28:32.183-05:00Night Gallery with Anne Serling<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTp-26q1Ng1ELM_cn2jJWK1d6t9YIY-HTM7kWo9Hl3hUxn9gkth4yfsDnaLu3a55VOMh8hOHHCr64QHlInzh8cX5XOW7vDL_MdKUCoTf1qnurfV34ueVByxquUohaA1a3eGO1cVmYIfJo9_w3wWSWZpJ1EPp6uDfe87sTh7yIjPuOSvLkNwCX6mJ8ZNU/s500/TV.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgTp-26q1Ng1ELM_cn2jJWK1d6t9YIY-HTM7kWo9Hl3hUxn9gkth4yfsDnaLu3a55VOMh8hOHHCr64QHlInzh8cX5XOW7vDL_MdKUCoTf1qnurfV34ueVByxquUohaA1a3eGO1cVmYIfJo9_w3wWSWZpJ1EPp6uDfe87sTh7yIjPuOSvLkNwCX6mJ8ZNU/s320/TV.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br /><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></strong><p></p><p><strong style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 15px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">ANNE SERLING is author of the memoir <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a aria-label="As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling (opens in a new tab)" href="https://amzn.to/32L08c9" rel="noreferrer noopener" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1376a4; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s ease-in-out 0s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling</a></span>. She is director of Rod Serling Books. A recent book from the University Press of Mississippi is Rod Serling: His Life, Work, and Imagination, by Nicholas Parisi. SCOTT SKELTON is a resident of Eugene, Oregon, and graduated with a bachelor of science degree in journalism from the University of Oregon, has written freelance articles for the Eugene Register-Guard and other local publications. Now focused on completing a fiction novel, his first book was <span style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Rod Serling’s Night Gallery: A Retrospective</span>. He is also currently working on a coffee-table book reproducing the artwork used on Night Gallery and chronicling its history.In addition, Scott and coauthor Jim Benson have recorded commentaries and provided special feature material for Universal Home Entertainment’s second and third season DVD releases of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery. They have, in addition, provided commentaries for Image Entertainment’s high-definition blu-ray releases for The Twilight Zone, seasons two through five. </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Jonathan Lowe) How did your books come about with Anne Serling in 2013, with Carol and Jodi sharing copyright, and what is it about these stories which resonates with you both today?</strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Scott Skelton) Anne got in touch with us when she was writing her memoir, and wanted to reproduce some of our commentary on her father’s work from our companion guide, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery: An After-Hours Tour. We established more of a friendship when she was working on creating the Rod Serling Books imprint and reprinting his old Bantam paperbacks Night Gallery and Night Gallery 2, for which she asked us to write the forewords.</strong><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">As for Serling’s stories, his writing attracted me from the first because of his innate storytelling skill—he spins a damned good yarn—but it has always resonated with me long past the point where I turn the final page or when the film fades to black because of his sympathetic, penetrating humanist viewpoint and his gift for language—in his dramas expressed as dialogue—that is both pithy and lyrical. It’s just a pleasure to listen to.</strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Anne Serling) We started Rod Serling Books with two goals in mind. To foster my father’s legacy by publishing the eight books he wrote that were then out of print, and to provide writers a platform to publish and gain recognition in a difficult market, something my father would have enthusiastically endorsed. Unfortunately the latter hit a rights issue that we are currently working to resolve as publishing anthologies of promising writers is something that we continue to support wholeheartedly.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JL) Love how you talk about the opening narration in reference to the script as introduction. Was particularly taken by Serling’s writing the story versions prior to the scripts. In Serling’s “The Season to be Wary” collection there’s my favorite of his, “Escape Route,” which has a hellish kind of “Pamela’s Voice” ending, but without the touch of dark humor. Starred Richard Kiley as a Nazi war criminal on the run in South America, who hopes for peace and finds the ultimate twist instead. Of course “Eyes” was the pilot, directed by newcomer Steven Spielberg. What is your favorite episode, outside of these, and why?</strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SS) Of the stories Serling recast from a script into prose, my favorite would have to be “They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar,” simply because it was obviously such a personal statement and reveals so much of the man he was. But I also love “Clean Kills and Other Trophies,” “Does the Name Grimsby Do Anything to You,” “The Messiah on Mott Street,” and “Lindemann’s Catch”—all prime Serling.</strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">AS) They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar. Like my dad, I am drawn to nostalgic pieces and also, like him, the propensity to want to return to the past.</strong><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </strong></p><p class="has-white-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JL) </strong><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The ocean survivor twist, hunting themes, the “first man” on the moon, the themes of ego overwhelming cultures like ours and others, the subtle asides and allusions to other literary works. It’s all applied in the stories with a touch of genius few who haven’t read these books, or the others story books related to The Twilight Zone, may not realize, true?</strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">AS) True. My father was quoted as saying he saw television as a means of bringing theater to everyone and I believe he saw juxtaposing the human condition against everyday events as the ultimate theater drama.</strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SS) Yes, that’s true. In drama, a writer depends a great deal on the actor to reflect something of the inner life of the character, especially since it’s not possible to tell the whole story, every facet, with dialogue or off-screen narration. But in his prose pieces, Serling reveals an extra dimension that he alone provides about the emotional depth of his characters’ psyches, and that may surprise those who are only used to his dramatic works.</strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JL) Talk about the Peekaboo Gallery show, as Anne was unable to attend. What has been visitor reaction? </strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SS) The show was a great success from what I’ve seen and from what Taylor White has told me. The response has been very positive, and we’ve met a lot of people who came a long way to see the gallery paintings and sculptures up close, to absorb in more intimate surroundings the craft of the painters and sculptors who worked on the series. Tom Wright had a great time seeing his paintings again, rubbing elbows with fans, answering questions, and even bringing some folks he works with now in his current role as a TV director to see what he did in a previous life. </strong></p><p style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">JL) Surprise guests?</strong></p><p class="has-light-gray-background-color has-background" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #eeeeee; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: "Roboto Slab", Georgia, Times, serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px 0px 27px; outline: 0px; padding: 1.25em 2.375em; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SS) Actor Mark Harmon, who works with Tom on NCIS, and his wife, actress Pam Dawber, visited to check out the paintings on display, and Tom’s daughters, both artists themselves now, showed up, too!</strong></p>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6327134702297379898.post-15565849026419566032023-06-21T19:19:00.000-04:002023-06-21T19:19:47.619-04:00A Conversation with J. A. Jance<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuNpamM5M-h_nvoOAX04eD-DSvsxhei_wf3B-cNUk8X1Zl_1FuKXx7EeLZ4HiEHS7sn9x_GNglA6iwwuoQEqT20UXhmXeHXp2NDYaSFheDujtIWH6Me_DJ8-YzcoVukrh8LEpbitIp2376lT7RgUzwZ_cKkq0AlAyQbZMO094x-Bnzn-pskDyEbbxWzTA/s200/jantz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="131" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuNpamM5M-h_nvoOAX04eD-DSvsxhei_wf3B-cNUk8X1Zl_1FuKXx7EeLZ4HiEHS7sn9x_GNglA6iwwuoQEqT20UXhmXeHXp2NDYaSFheDujtIWH6Me_DJ8-YzcoVukrh8LEpbitIp2376lT7RgUzwZ_cKkq0AlAyQbZMO094x-Bnzn-pskDyEbbxWzTA/s1600/jantz.jpg" width="131" /></a></div><br /><p></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>LOWE: Hi, Judy. You've had two series going for quite a while. The detective Beaumont series and the Sheriff Brady series. Obviously the first is more popular with men, and the second with women. Or am I wrong about that?</b></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b></b><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>JANCE: Actually, J. P Beaumont may be more popular with male truck drivers, but I find the people I talk to–men and women both–pretty much evenly divided when it comes to preferring Beaumont to Brady. And, as long as they read them both, I don't care which one they like better.</b></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b></b><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>LOWE: Gary Challender at Books in Motion, a mutual friend of ours, tells me that truckers are huge fans of Beaumont. Have you had any feedback from truckers or from people listening to the audiobook versions in their cars?</b></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b></b><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>JANCE: Yes, I have heard from truckers. Actually, whenever there's a blizzard on the east coast, I receive fan mail written on Motel 6 stationery from all up and down the eastern seaboard. And, from what I can tell, they like the reader, Gene Engene, almost as much as they like the books themselves. As for me, I think Gene Engene is pretty slick, too. When I heard him read the first few lines of Until Proven Guilty, I was covered with goosebumps because his voice was just so right.</b></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 21px;"><b></b><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>LOWE: I agree with that. Now, let's say you have an audience of men who like Beaumont so much that they're going to try Sheriff Joanna Brady for the first time, or vise versa. How do you get new readers up to speed on the characters in a series without boring readers already familiar with the characters?</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>JANCE: When it comes time to start a new book in either series, my job turns into a kind of tight-rope walk. Knowing that I'll be meeting some readers for the first time, I have to include enough of the background so new readers will feel as though they've had access to the information they need to understand the characters. The problem is, if I give too much background, my long-time readers will be bored and new readers won't feel compelled to go back and read the other books. I try to sprinkle the background into conversation and action rather than devoting a lot of expository writing to it.</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>LOWE: Brady and Beaumont get together in Partner in Crime, and are almost romantic. I was wondering if you did that to merge your readership.</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>JANCE: My readers have been suggesting a joint book for years while I resisted the idea. Then my editor suggested it was time to put them together, and so I did. It's usually best for writers if they listen to their editor's suggestions! But, you're right. It did merge my readership, and people who had read one series and not the other are now reading both. So it turns out my fans were right and so was my editor. I was the one who was wrong.</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>LOWE: I've heard that you like to surprise yourself in writing a mystery, and that you don't outline, and sometimes don't even know who the killer is until the end. Does this make it more fun for you to write, or is there another reason?</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>JANCE: Not knowing what's going to happen makes the process of writing a book more interesting to me. If I knew everything that was going to happen in a given book, I don't think I'd find energy enough or sufficient curiosity to finish it. And yes, you're right. I do hate outlines. I've hated them from the first time I met them in sixth grade geography. I wonder if there's a nice handy Greek word for someone who suffers from a phobia of Roman Numerals.</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>LOWE: How about Togaphobia? What do you think of the narrators of your audiobook versions, and do you ever listen to audiobooks yourself on the road?</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>JANCE: I like my narrators. As far as the listening public is concerned, the readers are the characters. As for listening to audio books, in October of 2001, in the aftermath of September 11, my husband and I had to drive from Seattle to Nashville and back by way of Tucson, Arizona. The news on the radio was still totally focused on the terrible happenings in New York. Finally, about the time we reached Dallas on our trip out, we went into a bookstore and purchased the first unabridged Harry Potter books. Harry and his friends were our constant companions from then on. We'd be in restaurants talking about the latest Quidditch match while the whole rest of the world was talking about Osama and his pals. We finished the last of the four books as we crossed back into Washington State on our way home.</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>LOWE: You grew up in Bisbee, which I've been to several times, as it's not far from Tucson. What do you most like about the place? And are you now what we call a "snow bird?" Or should I say "Snow Bird of Prey?"</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>JANCE: Snow Bird of Prey? That's incredibly cute and I think I WILL be one of those. Where can I get a license plate surround like that? I'll put one on the Arena Red Porsche Boxster as I charge around Tucson this winter because yes, I am now an official snowbird. I like Bisbee because it's a place apart. It's not exactly the same place it was as I was growing up there in the fifties and sixties, but it's not all that different. The Mule Mountains kept it out of the mainstream then and they do the same thing today.</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>LOWE: Unlike Tucson, and our growing traffic problem. Does the character Beaumont in Partner in Crime like Bisbee or not?</b></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><b>JANCE: Beaumont is from Seattle. More than that, he's from the Denny Regrade, which means he's uncomfortable once he gets out of reach of The Bon. He's not familiar with the desert, so of course Arizona makes him uncomfortable. His first impression of Bisbee is that it's terribly brown. My first impression of Seattle was that it was terribly green. I think we're both right.</b></p><div><b><br /></b></div>Audiobooks Todayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08459844011142828825noreply@blogger.com0