B.C. by Mastroianni and Hart for July 30, 2014

Actually most celebrity books are written by “ghost writers”.

You say the words, I’ll turn them into a book and hide the fact you’re clueless in the process."

I love to read. Always have. As a kid I would develop “tummy aches” so I could read instead of cleaning. I didn’t mind cleaning, (I’m a bit OCD), but I was usually in the middle of a book when mom decided it was time to clean whichever thing had finally got gross enough to warrant cleaning. My sister & I always had the cleanest rooms in the house. I prefaced so much in order to show JUST how bad “A Tale of Two Cities” was for me. 9th grade English. It took me 2 weeks just to get through the first 60 pages. By then we’d thankfully moved on to something else. I haven’t touched it since.

19th century readers obviously wanted their books to last. Also, the writers were paid by the word.

I read the unabridged Les Miserables about ten years ago. Took me about a year to get through the 800-900 pages. It was quite interesting but Hugo did like to wander off on digressions that did nothing to advance the story. Remember one chapter that discussed at length the life of the order of nuns that took in Fantine. Interesting stuff but had nothing to do with the actual story. Same thing about some of the descriptions of the battlefields after a battle. The only thing I got from that was that the man who later became the pub Landlord was a real jerk. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it immensely and it is great literature unlike some much of what is coming out today.

Mickey Spillane with his deck of Luckys…

Currently, I try to read a new book about every week. Also, when I purchase a book, it is a real book; not an electronic “iPad” version! Not that there is a problem with “eBooks”, I just prefer the feel of real pages in my hands!.Besides, there are still a lot of folks in the printing industry who need the work! Just trying to do my part to keep them employed…

Let’s see…..loved “A Tale of Two Cities”, finally read (and enjoyed!) all ten thousand pages of “War and Peace”, read “The Odyssey” numerous times in different translations, and thought “Silas Marner” had a few moments. Never read anything at all by Hugo, though, and I’ve heard “Moby Dick” has long chapters of excruciating minutiae which is why I’ve never tried it. My favorite two books all time: “Huck Finn” and “Catch 22.”

It can be hard to get a good ghost writer these days.

" still can’t believe i made it through the whole thing…".Or did you just DREAM that you made it all the way through????

Now HOMER was a story-teller! And he wasn’t really blind — he just liked to keep his eyes closed when he was narrating a story.

raymond, per XENA