Before tackling the first adult novel I remember reading, John Irving’s The World According to Garp (Modern Library) (affiliate link), the first adult fiction of any kind I remember reading was James Thurber’s short stories,  “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” and “The Catbird Seat.”

I read them because they were available, and they were short.

Also in the bookcase was a collection of John Cheever short stories. I didn’t read them all, but I wanted to read the books my mom, sister, and stepfather read that were in the bookcases in our house. The shorter introduction to more serious fiction was the perfect segue to bigger things (which consisted of John Irving, Stephen King, Richard Adams, and Robert Pirsig at the time).

I love reading short stories, and I love writing them.

I recently saw Cal Morgan of Fifty-Two Stories (among many other things), speak at the Writers’ League of Texas Agents Conference. Since then, I’ve been catching up on short stories on the site.

Some of my other favorite places for very short writing (some of which aren’t short stories, but still…they tell a story, sometimes, better than something much longer):

@veryshortstory – One of my favorite writers online.

@hellobigfoot – Not necessarily stories, but Bigfoot’s Twitter feed puts some funny stories in my head!

Six Sentences Blog – Stories told in six sentences.

Unhappy Hipsters Blog – You may not agree with me, but one of the best writers online!

Ballard Street – Some of Amerongen’s strips say so much with so little.

I believe Haruki Murakami when he says in his book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running(affiliate link):

“Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running everyday.”

The parallels of running any kind of distance and writing are very similar.

There’s a sense of monotony, a feeling of “when the hell will this end?” There’s a certain kind of mental pain involved in both actions. Running and writing don’t require too much gear: for running, shorts and shoes; writing, a pen and paper.

You can run or write anywhere.

There is something else running and writing have in common: a quiet sense of huge accomplishment when a novel or big run is done.

*          *          *

I haven’t read too much by Haruki Murakami. My first exposure to his writing came when a friend loaned me a copy of Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World: A Novel (Vintage International) (affiliate link). I liked the dreamy quality and duality of the storyline. I’ve read some Murakami short fiction, but that was it.

One evening while knocking around a bookstore, I was surprised to see What I Talk About When I Talk About Running in the athletics/running section of the store. I knew Murakami liked to run, but I didn’t know he wrote a book about running. Thumbing through the book, I noticed he also talks about writing in the book.

I’ve done a lot more writing than running in my life, but in recent years, I’ve started running here and there–it’s something I enjoy. So of course, I had to read the book.

*          *          *

This is definitely a book for runners, but if you like Murakami’s writing, or if you write and want to read a different kind of writing book, it’s worth reading. While I’ve never run a marathon (and don’t see a time in my life that I ever will), I agree with statements like:

“…writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike.”

It’s not a ground-breaking statement; I’ve heard writing compared to many hard things, including several female writers saying writing a novel is worse than childbirth. (I don’t see a time in my life that I ever give birth, either!)

Early on, Murakami tells readers that he’s not out to write pretty prose or do anything more than put down his thoughts about running and writing for himself. And that’s what I like about the book.

It’s simple.

When he describes running the reverse course of the first Marathon run, the feelings he describes are similar to the ups and downs experienced when writing a novel. When he talks about those perfect runs when the weather is just right, it is a reminder of those times when all the words come together, like a cool breeze coming down a mountain when you’re starting to overheat.

Murakami does devote a couple chapters of the book to writing. Even if you’re a writer who hates the thought of running, it’s worth reading the sections he devotes to writing and what it takes to sit alone in a room for hours and hours, isolated from loved ones–even if it’s just for reassurance that you’re not alone in feeling like this:

“No matter how much I write, though, I never reach a conclusion. And no matter how much I rewrite, I never reach a destination. Even after decades of writing, the same holds true.”

It’s always nice when you hear writers you look up to dealing with the same nagging feelings as the rest of us. That’s nothing new to me, but I find it comforting–not because it means Haruki Murakami struggles with rewrites and a sense of perfection, but in knowing that if that feeling is always there, I should begin treating writing more like a race.

We can only do the best we can do in an allotted amount of time or distance (word count), but we can’t go back and rerun a race we just finished.

The best we can do is learn from each race and do better the next time we sit down to write.

*          *          *

From the morning I started running a couple years ago after playing tennis with a friend from work, I’ve noticed my writing has improved. When I walk, I think about writing; when I run, I think about nothing.

It’s an act of mobile meditation. I don’t feel a thing until I stop, but somewhere deep in my mind, I’m working on things I don’t seem to resolve when I walk and actively think about them.

Murakami is a writer who views becoming a novelist as a not-so-healthy profession. The sitting, the isolation, the inability to never stop working in his head…he sees it as a toxic act. I wouldn’t go that far, but I know what he means when he says:

“For me, the main goal of exercising is to maintain, and improve, my physical condition in order to keep on writing novels.”

“To deal with something unhealthy, a person needs to be as healthy as possible.”

*          *          *

Whether you run or not, I think every writer can find something worthwhile in What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

Murakami’s rise from becoming the owner of a jazz club to becoming a revered writer in Japan and around the world is inspiring, and it’s all there in the book, step by step on the pavement as he runs along creating a life where he–

“…placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing.”

That’s something we should all be doing if we really want to make it writing.

In Murakami’s world, there are no excuses. If you are “too busy” to write, you are simply not a writer.

“Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essense of running, and a metaphor for life–and for me, for writing as well.”

I recently watched Richard Nash’s talk about the future of books and publishing. (I found it here, on Booklife.)

There are some great points made in the presentation, but there were two that really stuck out:

1. The reminder that the long form narrative is a feature, not a bug.
2. Most writers — whether they know it or not — want a connection.

Feature, Not a Bug

Some writers and publishers are thinking short and gimmicky these days.

They see a report saying books sales are a little down and they think people don’t have time to read, so they must go with shorter content, or make enhanced e-books that can compete with video games and the Web. (At the same time, many people miss the line in that linked report stating that adult long form fiction saw an almost 7% increase in sales in 2009.)

Nash talks about the strength of the long form narrative, how the medium is a feature, not a bug.

I’ve seen a lot of buzz about this video for an enhanced e-book version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland the past couple weeks. If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know I’m in favor of e-books. But this enhanced e-book demo leaves me flat. There’s nothing I see in the demo that enhances the reading experience. It looks very distracting and gimmicky.

More than that, it seems to treat the long form narrative as a bug — not a feature, like something in need of repair.

There’s strength in the time it takes to read a book.

Nash talks about this and the importance of connections for writers and readers.

The Connection

Nash has seen many writers who thought being published would make them happy. He’s seen writers who seemed let down when they finally got a book on the shelves and was left with a feeling of is that all there is?

More than being published, Nash speculates, most writers really want a connection.

Nash talks about the investment of time, and what readers and writers get from the time it takes to read a book. (By treating the long form narrative as a feature, not a bug.)

Nash talks about how when you buy a book the author is “…inside a person’s head for 15 hours and you own that proxy object, that cultural proxy object that connects two people to one another in a deeper, deeper way than any other medium.”

Books connect people.

Deeply.

When I’ve heard people talk about TV shows at jobs, the talk is rarely deep. But when I’ve heard people talk about novels, there’s a much deeper connection. They don’t just talk about what happened like TV talkers — they talk about how what happened affects the world around us. They often talk about symbolism and social issues, not just who kissed whom in a grab for TV ratings.

The writer, Seth Godin, is big on Tribes. He sees importance in being the person who connects people to other people, even if that connection doesn’t directly benefit you as the leader of a group. It’s about sharing and connecting people; it’s about being altruistic and hopeful.

Writers have the ability to connect people like this in big ways.

Even if you never hear from the fans reading your writing, if you have a following that’s stuck around or grown, it’s a safe bet that it’s at least in large part because you connect people.

Readers invest more hours with one story or idea than any other medium out there. To stick with it, whether they contact the author or not, the author’s made a connection with the reader. And when a reader has invested so much time in something and they find somebody else who invested that much time, they connect and talk, sharing the experience and the ideas that came with the experience.

The act of writing is the act of creating tribes.

If you’re looking forward to having time away from your day job this weekend to write, think about how readers will connect with you and how you will connect readers when you sit down to write.

Writing can be a very powerful thing.

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If you have some time to kill, here’s Richard Nash’s presentation:

I recently finished Haruki Murakami’s memoir about running and writing, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

While it’s much more about running than writing — even if you don’t like running — it’s worth reading if you write. The parallels between distance running and writing a novel are obvious even if you don’t run, but in Murakami’s hands, the parallels carry even more meaning.

There are so many great lines in the book, but this line when Murakami discusses his decision to become a writer stuck out for me:

“I placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing.”

It seems obvious: if we want to be writers, we need to make writing a priority.

But I know people — some of them with the potential to be great writers — who always mean to get to writing, but never do.

It’s a lonely profession that seems attractive to many people, but because it’s not easy and it takes time to build up to the point you can finish even a weak novel, it’s easy to put it off and say you’ll get to things another day.

I’ve been guilty of this at times; it’s an easy thing to do.

At the same time, I’ve placed a high priority on creating the sort of life that allows me to make writing a priority most days. Obviously, for a writer juggling a day job, writing, and life, there are times other things take priority.

The important thing is making writing a priority on some level, and letting that priority grow.

For me, it’s meant passing by promotions that would have required overtime, taking away from time to write, exercise, and spend time with loved ones. I’ve spent vacation time writing, instead of taking vacation. (That’s something I’ve fixed in recent years — getting away from work and writing even for a couple days is important.) I’ve passed up some social events in order to write…and I’m pretty social and enjoy getting out.

Maybe for you it means waking up a little earlier and writing, or getting away from your desk and other people on lunch break and writing for an hour in the middle of the day. Maybe it means occasionally going to a library all day or even checking into a hotel overnight to dedicate a block of time to writing and remind yourself that it’s worth making writing a priority every day.

Murakami was a busy man when he really began focusing on writing. He owned a jazz club working long hours, booking musicians, working behind the bar, and running the business.

Somewhere in it all, he made time to run and write.

At the risk of losing other things that made more sense to him and the people around him, he placed the highest priority on creating a life that allowed him time to write.

Have you?

Yesterday, The New York Times ran a story about book covers and e-books.

I know we’ve all heard that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but covers do matter.

I’ve judged more than a few books by their covers in my time (found my favorite book that way), and in almost every case the art director and cover artist tapped into the heart of the book better than the jacket copy.

Images are powerful things.

The New York Times article discusses something we lose with e-books: if everybody is reading e-books on the subway or in other public places, we don’t see the covers. Publishers lose out on free advertising, and conversations about books slide a little.

There’s no doubt that moving toward e-books comes with some huge changes to how publishers will do things. One of the biggest changes I’ve thought about, even before a good friend sent me the link to this article, is how e-books will affect cover artists.

I started out writing independent comic books. More than working in a scripting format I liked, I loved working with artists. I met one of the nicest people and best artists I know through those early days of independent comic books.

I rarely read genre fiction, but I will eventually read the book below based solely on the cover.

Covers matter to me.

The couple times I’ve bought an e-book that didn’t have the cover image from the book, I’ve felt a little ripped off. Even on my iPhone screen, I want to see cover art. The weak graphics for the Kindle are one of the reasons I never bought one. Call me shallow, but I like seeing color covers. (Fortunately, the iPad and what follows will support large, full-cover colors.)

While good artists will always find work, it is unfortunate that the work of Chip Kidd, John Picacio, and other artists and designers won’t leap out like they do when people hold physical books in their hands.

I’ve been meaning to write a review about Allison Hoover Bartlett’s The Man Who Loved Books Too Much for awhile, now.

The book was given to me as a Christmas gift; it was one of my favorite gifts received last December.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is the true story of John Gilkey, a thief of rare books, and Ken Sanders, a rare bookseller turned detective out to stop Gilkey and his obsession. The reporting is honest and thorough; the author presents the facts and leaves the reader to decide just how bad a man John Gilkey is.

For me, this is where the book gets very interesting. I would never steal a rare book, but I think there is a little bit of Gilkey in many book lovers. Put me near first edition Vonneguts, first editions of the books that made me want to write, or first editions of the books read to me as a child and and I’d feel their pull.

John Gilkey is your average guy who believes he was destined for greater things. You know that guy who says life didn’t deal him a fair hand? That’s John Gilkey.

Unable to attain those greater things, he begins stealing books. While Gilkey’s main reason for stealing books stems from a love of reading and obsessive character qualities, he has other reasons for becoming a thief. Gilkey hopes to amass a collection that will brand him as an erudite individual with social standing–because, obviously, to have such a wonderful collection, one must have things going for him!

On his trail is Ken Sanders, a quiet man who sells rare books. While my initial description of the book may have you thinking it’s a cat-and-mouse chase story like Catch Me if You Can, The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is never hurried, yet I couldn’t stop turning the pages.

“Some pay for their success with soaring blood pressure or dissolved marriages. He paid with jail time.”
- Allison Hoover Bartlett, from The Man Who Loved Books Too Much

What I loved most: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much is a book about what makes obsessive people tick. Allison Hoover Bartlett opens the back of John Gilkey’s pocket watch and shows us the mechanism that keeps him ticking along, seemingly unable to stop himself from stealing books. Even after serving repeated prison time, Gilkey keeps at it.

It’s that focus on obsessive psychology readers will find fascinating while reading this book. I find John Gilkey to be an extremely annoying and odious individual. I would never pretend that he is justified in what he does (Gilkey’s justifications for stealing all fall flat with me). But for as wrong as he is, I feel for him. I believe that Gilkey believes he’s protecting rare books from many of the wealthy collectors who buy them just because they can. He is a quirky, unlikeable person with a likeable trait: a love of books.

I would love to have a first edition of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Few times while reading have I ever felt for a character as much as a scene in the book when a list of resolutions to improve Gatsby’s life is found written in the back of a Hopalong Cassidy book. Like Gatsby, Gilkey struggles with who he is and what he wishes he were. The difference: Gatsby did it, while Gilkey seems destined to repeated failure. Desperation, sadness, and the easy way out replaces drive in Gilkey’s world.

Near the end of The Man Who Loved Books Too Much, Allison Hoover Bartlett breaks away from the story of Gilkey and Sanders and talks about the future of books. She briefly ponders the fate of physical books when e-books become widely accepted. She mentions her teenage children, and touches on their relationship with reading:

“They will have no objection to reading e-books. At the same time, though, I think that may strengthen their attachment to the physical books they do keep.”
- Allison Hoover Bartlett

I know this is true for me.

Even when e-books become the norm, there will always be people who love physical books too much. In some way, perhaps more than ever.

If you feel a need to defend physical books in a world that’s going electronic, there’s a little bit of John Gilkey inside you.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much examines this trait in many of us who love books, while doing an excellent job giving the reader an inside look at the world of rare books and literary obsession.

J.D. Salinger is dead.

I’m not going to talk about what an influence he was on my writing because it was just last year that I finally got off my lazy goddamn ass and read that stinking book he wrote–you know, that one everybody talks about and stuff; the really famous one with the rambling narrator who whined and cried a lot, like the lousy goddamn kids he hated back at school.

Okay, so I wasn’t a fan of The Catcher in the Rye, but like many things that have been written over the centuries, I understand its importance.

I’m not here to knock Salinger’s writing or seem disrespectful. In fact, I think in his passing that authors lose something big.

While we still have good ol’, reclusive Thomas Pynchon somewhere out there, the days of an author writing novels and living life outside the public eye if they desired are gone. This week at Digital Book World, some agents talked about how they can’t promote an author who doesn’t have a strong online presence. Others have said the personality and willingness of authors to sell themselves is more important than the books they write.

If I were an agent, I suppose I may even have some of the same feelings. But there was always something about the reclusive authors I loved; there was something about them we all loved.

They became legendary for their words first, and their self-imposed isolations next.

Now authors are expected to become known first for their “platform,” then their willingness to hustle and talk about themselves, and then…the actual writing they do.

How does a writer become legendary, like Salinger, if they are the one touting how legendary they are?

“Legendary” is fast becoming how many people listen when a writer opens their mouth, not what goes on over hundreds of pages when a reader opens a book.

At what point does a writer shut up and write?

*            *            *

I’m lucky: I’ve always liked sharing things with people, so I’m fine having a blog and promoting myself. When my wife and I self published a comic book, I liked the business side of what we did just as much as I liked writing scripts. We spent a lot of time documenting how we did things–we updated our old Web site several times a week with tips and thoughts about publishing (In 1994, before there were blogs).

But what about writers who are brilliant, but uncomfortable promoting themselves? Or, at the very least, writers who would rather spend more time refining their writing skills than their speaking skills? While I’m open to many of the changes in publishing, one thing I’m not crazy about is making every author a personality.

There have always been celebrity authors and reclusive authors. Salinger first became noticed because of the words he wrote, and then he became known for decades because of his reclusiveness.

His silence was his platform.

And that’s why I like Salinger. Instead of putting all his quirks and strangeness out there for all to judge, he holed up and did what he did best: wrote!

*          *          *

There are times I spend more time on blog entries than on fiction and articles. I enjoy The Juggling Writer for many reasons; I’m not knocking it. There are times, though, that I want to be like Salinger–times I want to hole up and not be seen or heard from for a long time.

There are times I want to close all the blinds and slide away into little worlds that only exist in my head, until I make them real by writing. Lately, it’s a small town in northern Wisconsin full of strange and broken people trying to put everything back together even though the bottom keeps falling out. Next, it will either be a female magician on the run, or an old man in  a nursing home promising something special to a 22-year-old guy working in the kitchen if he’ll help the old man break out of the home so he can die free.

There are times I want to disappear into these worlds for weeks or months, separating myself from the real world around me like a method actor taking a role very seriously. That kind of dedication, I believe, makes for richer stories. While I do all I can to work on stories everyday, I don’t have as much time to dedicate to the craft of writing as I’d like.

There are real-world things to take care of, jobs to work, so many interruptions.

Now, on top of it all, writers are expected to spend even more time dealing in interruptions: blogging, tweeting, creating Facebook pages, making videos, speaking.

While I enjoy that, I know many talented writers who deserve to be read who don’t.

Yesterday, J.D. Salinger died.

I wonder how many other Salingers we’ll never know, all because we’re expected to be fast and loud in a slow and quiet profession…

People love to laugh.

It doesn’t matter if what you write is serious or humorous, making people laugh is giving them what they want.

Here are 5 tips for writing funny, even if you aren’t:

1. Be Universal

If you don’t think you have it in you to be funny, you’re not paying enough attention to your surroundings.

How many times have you laughed at a story, stand up comedian, or movie because it touched on some universal truth?

We see the humor in a pet eating a special dinner right before guests arrive, the car breaking down on the way to a wedding, or children putting food into expensive electronics because we can all relate to those situations.

Humor isn’t about getting a knee-slapping guffaw with every line; humor is about getting a smile, a chuckle, or even just a nod of agreement.

Leave the obscure and riotous comedy to those who do it well.

All you have to do is write something light and get your readers to relate to it.

It’s not as hard as it sounds.

For study: Anything by Erma Bombeck, Dave Barry, or David Sedaris.

2. Juxtaposition

Adding humor into a serious scene is an easy way to be funny…and real.

When my father died in 1991, his service was very casual. My sister and I – who threw the service together at the last minute – asked people to get up and tell stories about my father. The service was definitely not without its share of very serious stories, but it was also not without its share of humor. The humorous stories all followed something serious.

When we hurt, we want out, and a good way out is through laughter.

It wasn’t surprising to hear the story about my father setting himself on fire and running around like a cartoon character after a touching story told my his sister because everybody needed to laugh at that moment.

When using this tip, don’t use too much funny. When sprinkling humor into a serious scene, a little goes a long way.

For study: John Irving’s The World According to Garp or A Prayer for Owen Meany.

3. Study Funny People

There’s a common misperception about funny people: that they are inherently funny.

Just like writing well, being funny takes practice.

If you find it hard to be funny, join an improv group, or read a book about comedy writing.

Watch a wide range of stand up comedy, finding comics who focus on the kinds of things you write about. When and how do the laughs come?

Not all comedians rely on jokes and loud personalities; in fact, the best comics are storytellers, just like you!

For Study: Watch your favorite funny movie and really think about why you laugh. Can you bring some of those triggers to your writing? Go to YouTube and watch any of your favorite comics. I’m betting you’ll find the bulk of their humor comes from mastering the first two tips of this entry…and the next one.

4. Build on the Situation

When you know you’re writing funny, don’t stop — keep going!

And going…

And going…

When the funny is flowing, take it as far as you can, even if it seems beyond ridiculous. You can always cut back what doesn’t work, or use it someplace else.

I learned this bit of writing advice at a comedy writing workshop at a juggling convention the year after I graduated high school, and it’s served me well over the years.

Small laughs grow into bigger laughs when you stack humor; it doesn’t take too much stacking to get a reader howling and sharing passages with friends and loved ones.

For study: Anything by Jonathan Tropper. (There are many scenes in How to Talk to a Widower that illustrate this tip.)

5. Not Too Much

Even books known for being funny rarely go overboard with humor. Readers need to take a breath now and then. Like any good writing, passages should build and retreat.

Humor works best when we wait for it. How many times have you laughed at something even harder because you anticipated something funny coming your way?

You don’t have to be funny with every sentence you write. If you’re striving for funny, keep enough humor in what you’re writing so the reader is always waiting for the next laugh, but don’t pack your story with so much funny that it’s clear you’re trying too hard.

More than anything, humor is about honesty, and people can tell you’re not being honest when you try to hard to convince them otherwise.

For Study: It may seem strange to illustrate the “Not Too Much” point with a book widely regarded as one of the funniest books ever written, but John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces is a good book to read for this point. Sure, there are many humorous and awkward passages, but even in Confederacy of Dunces, it’s not too much; there are still sections that make the reader wait for the next laugh.

Bonus Tip: The Farting Dog.

I don’t care what you’re writing — every story can benefit from a farting dog!

*          *           *

Photo credit: LA writer and comic, Erik Lundy. Follow Erik on Facebook, Twitter, or check out his business site.

My wife and I saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie today.

We loved it!

I haven’t read all of the Sherlock Holmes stories and novels like my wife has, but I’ve read enough to have cringed when the movie was first announced.

Guy Ritchie? I thought.

Oh, sure, the boxing scenes he directed in Snatch are wonderful, but I envisioned Holmes with explosions and plenty of fisticuffs.

And that’s definitely what movie goers get in this movie.

But they also get an analytical Holmes whose brain drives him mad when he’s not on a case…just like in the stories.

Holmes’ addictions aren’t spotlighted, but they don’t need to be; most fans know about his addictions, and they are definitely alluded to.

Granted, Doyle didn’t write Holmes and Watson as back-to-back battlers, but Holmes is a practitioner of martial arts in the stories, so it’s not too much of a stretch to make him a good fighter. (And even during the fights in the movie, his analytic side rules over knuckles and brawn. The Dubliners’ “Rocky Road to Dublin” during the fight didn’t hurt, either!)

Watson isn’t a bumbling idiot like he’s often portrayed in film and TV adaptations of Doyle’s stories; the tension over Watson’s fiancée is there, too.

So many of the quirks and traits in the stories and novels are there.

I enjoyed the movie more than I’ve enjoyed the Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett portrayals of Holmes (although Brett, physically, is Holmes!). I even enjoyed the movie more than I enjoyed PBS’s Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking.

So far, almost everybody I’ve heard from about the movie — including those on a LiveJournal Holmes group — have enjoyed the movie, too.

This is why I think that’s cool:

Driving home after the movie, my wife and I chatted about how great it would be if the Sherlock Holmes movie gets people reading and rereading the stories.

Even if the movie were horrible, if it gets kids, teens, and adults reading Doyle’s cherished stories, how bad is that?

*          *          *

When a book is made into a TV show or movie, there’s always the fear that it’s not going to live up to the book. When it’s a classic, like the Sherlock Holmes stories, fans become even more worried.

Hollywood has definitely ruined a lot of great books and characters, but Sherlock Holmes holds its own and and pays respect to one of the most loved characters in fiction.

Yesterday, I wrote about giving the gift of reading.

In yesterday’s blog entry, I wrote about how my mom is one of the people who made me love reading.

We had a very rare white Christmas in north Texas. (I haven’t seen a white Christmas in 25 years, when I used to live north of Chicago.)

The snow started falling before my wife and I drove over to my mom’s apartment.

By the time we would have left my mom’s place after the festivities, the roads were icy. We decided to spend the night. (There’s no snow or ice removal in Texas, and the roads tend to be filled with Texans in big pickup trucks and people from up north all trying to prove they can drive on ice at 60 mph, so even if you can make it, why risk it?)

One of my Christmas gifts was Allison Hoover Bartlett’s The Man Who Loved Books Too Much.

The book (non fiction) is about a book thief and a bookseller of rare books who becomes a private investigator to track the thief down.

I’ve written about books surviving in a world of ebooks. It is clear that books will always be loved by some people — so much so that some people are willing to go to prison for the rare books they steal.

I’ve never stolen books, but I know the appeal of having special copies of the books that mean the world to us. The copy of Rootabaga Stories my mother read to me as a child? I have it in my possession. The signed first edition of Carl Sandburg’s The Sandburg Range that I found in a box of books my mom had stored away? It’s on a shelf nearby.

I have a tattered copy of Doris Burns’s Andrew Henry’s Meadow. Some pages are a bit moldy and torn; the dirt on the cover and some pages is the dirt from my backyard of the house where I grew up. I kept the book in the rag-tag clubhouse that my mom and some friends built as a surprise for me when I returned from visiting my father in Kansas the summer before starting fifth grade.

While it’s not the copy of Munro Leaf’s The Story of Ferdinand my mom read to me as a child, my wife and I bought a copy of the book one day so we had it. (She loved the book as a child, too.)

Were money no object, I could easily see myself traveling the world and buying books.

I would never steal them, but I can definitely see the appeal.

(Were I to steal a rare book or manuscript, I think I’d go for something by Shakespeare. What book or manuscript would you risk prison for?)

*          *          *

One of the big surprise gifts last night was a book.

Robert Olmstead’s A Trail of Heart’s Blood Wherever We Go is my favorite book.

There’s just something about it that I love; it’s so different than the books that followed from him.

I bought the first printing when it went to paperback on a whim. There was something about the blue cover of that edition that caught my eye, and the description of the book dragged me in.

My mom bought me a first edition of the hardback for Christmas.

I’ve meant to buy it in the past; I know it’s not a hard or expensive find, but that she thought about it and bought it means so much to me.

It seems fitting; she is, after all, the person who introduced me to books.

I’m a very lucky son.

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