saturday hangovers (dirk benedict edition)

I didn't mean to flatline there but things went a little crazy. Long week.

Ron has a dispatch from Karen Spears Zacharias at the Southern Kentucky Festival of Books (we have book festivals all over!) in Bowling Green, where she hangs out with Silas House (who is in fact Hott and has a marvelous reading voice -- great accent).

The New York Times picks up the AP story on the litblog co-op, which includes some excellent comments from Richard Nash.

The Happy Booker notes another change in the google graphic. (Someone give this woman a horoscope column.)

Transition to Benedict

Earlier in the week, Mark scoffed at CNN's inclusion of Dirk Benedict's reading taste in a CNN story headlined "Celebrities Go For 'Esoteric' Books."

As some of you may know, there are those among us who have had more than a few glasses of wine while listening to the A-Team soundtrack and pretending to weld. (The welding music is very distinctive.) We have purchased Mr. T punching dolls and bobble-heads and rubber duckies. We have recounted the possibly apocryphal story about how someone we knew once knew went to Thanksgiving at Mr. T's house and discovered that his toilet was made of bright red porcelain. We have purchased the A-Team boardgame off e-bay and played it by the pool in Florida, never quite understanding why there were two Faces provided. Which brings me back to Dirk Benedict. Mr. Benedict's memoir Confessions of a Kamikaze Cowboy: A True Story of Discovery, Acting, Health, Illness, Recovery, and Life (I link to the Amazon page so you can read the "reader reactions") was the top prize in one of the very first ... Oscar Party contests. I won and the book came in the mail. The book, of course, chronicles Benedict's battle with testicular cancer. (I would be remiss if I didn't also point you to this site, where you can read excerpts!)

I'm not going to inflict actual sections of the book on you myself, but to buttress Mark's point I will just tell you that it has a Foreword, a Preface, something called Seven Principles and Twelve Theorems, and an Introduction -- all before the book even starts. Surely, a book with so much front matter must be one of the great classics of our time, no? Well, no. Though apparently it is one of the great classics of the macrobiotic diet people.

But, what does Mr. Benedict read, you ask? According to CNN: Actor-author Dirk Benedict, who reads two books a week, said it wasn't easy to pick a favorite. But he said "West With the Night" by Beryl Markham "defies categories. Adventure, Autobiography, Inspiration, Romance, Travel, History, Feminism ... all of these and much, much more."

I was halfway interested, in truth, before I saw the answer.

Today, Christopher is using our shiny new lawnmower to tame the wild grasses of the yards, front and back, and then we will be gardening with nowhere near the prowess of Ms. Welty. But we do have cute little gloves.

Enjoy your sunshine.