The Writer's Life 10/23 - Comings & Goings

A new edition of Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls will include three rarely seen short stories: The Monument, Indian Country and the White Army, and A Room on the Garden Side. The latter was published during the summer in The Strand Magazine, which is a revival of a famous British publication that ran from 1891 to 1950. Based in Birmingham, Michigan, it began in 1998 as a quarterly. It has published the fiction of the likes of John Mortimer, Ray Bradbury, Alexander McCall Smith, Ruth Rendell, Colin Dexter, Edward Hoch, James Grippando, and Tennessee Williams. (Facts from Wiki) For Whom the Bell Tolls plays a large part in my novel Five Cents. The protagonist chooses it for his Masters explication. Not only is it a great book, it's a clinic on the corroboration of theme. Here's of a pic a first edition copy and its inscription, valued as follows according to modernfirsteditions.net: Very Good $500-$700, Fine $2000-$2500. Signed copies generally sell for between $5000 to $16000 depending on the importance of the inscription.

I couldn't resist this one from the NY Post's Weird But True column, reworded by yours truly. A Kansas man accused of car theft was released from a Topeka jail and proceeded to immediately swipe a car from its parking lot. The brazen act was caught on security cams. He was re-arrested hours later. Is it a lack of impulse control or a desire for months of free room and board? Who knows how some people think?

With the midterm election polls seemingly having turned against them, do you get the feeling the left is hoping there will be bloodshed at the border and that President Trump will be blamed for it? These are scary times.

My strategy of using Google Docs to edit the file of the novel I hope to self-publish in January has worked out for the most part. Only one problem has emerged so far. There is a space after each paragraph, which adds unnecessary length. It looks like I will have to close each manually. When I tried to do it as a whole, it didn't work, despite the simple instructions. It's always something.

My thanks to the gentleman who purchased Lucy & Desi: The Legendary Love Story of Television's Most Famous Couple by Warren G. Harris, and to Ira, who bought Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff, a book on healthy living, and a beautiful pictorial on the space program. I received donations on three fronts, at least 50 books. The inventory has reached another all-time high, and more is expected tomorrow. My constant benefactress showed up with about 20 works of non-fiction, each marketable; Marie dropped off seven just as good; and the guy facing eviction dropped off another big bag's worth, of which I left about ten in the lobby of the co-opp. His latest job feeler didn't pan out. Bummer.

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