Books At Work (5)

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And so having finished part four of our five-part series, we'll now commence with part five, which will soon be followed by the bonus part five a (again, not to be confused with seven a).

21} Dad, Me and Muhammad Ali by Felix M. Rodriguez. This book was written by a co-worker of mine and is a great example of somebody who self published a good book and had a marketing plan to go with it. For more details in my honest opinion about this book, please click on the link above.

22} Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, Once Upon A More Enlightened Time, Politically Correct Holiday Stories by Jame Finn Garner. I originally found Mr. Garner through an audio tape of selected stories from his first volume listed. I liked it so much that I bought the entire series in book form. The short version of these books is that they are all familiar bedtime stories re-written to become politically correct. Mr. Garner has a website and a blog and a Facebook page, and you can find his books domestically used on Amazon as apparently they are out of print. However, according to his Facebook page and his website, they are available for the Kindle. Please click on the blog link for further details and further clarification.

23} Un-Shelter by Page Hill Starzinger. This was a poetry chapbook that I received for entering a contest back in 2009. For a non-flattering book review, please click on the link.

24} The Last Full Service Crocodile Ranch In Quintano Roo by Richard Hofheimen; The Wisconsin Avenue Waltz by Ray Horney; Benediction by Bient DeLancy; Along The Highway by Barry N. North. These were various chapbooks that I'd acquired in the past five years from White Eagle Coffee Store Press. All of these were contest winners, of which the first two listed were ones that I bought to see what this publisher was like before I decided to enter the contest, and the remaining two were winners from contests that I'd entered. Only the last one listed was one that I'd reviewed here on the blog. Please click on the title for my unflattering opinion about it. As for the other three, I highly recommend those for reading.

If you need a quick synopsis for the first three, they are as follows: the first is about a couple visiting a crocodile ranch in Mexico; the second is about a man who hooks up with a woman suffering from mental illness, and the third is about a man traveling with his family to deliver a eulogy for his father.

25} The Inside----Looking Out: Prose and Poetry by Steven A. Molski. I came about this one in a most unusual fashion. One Saturday afternoon I was sitting in the eye doctor's office waiting for my wife to get her eyes examined, when I struck up a conversation with the writer in question. We got to talking about writing and in the process he told me that he self-pubbed a small chapbook. I told him I would be most interesting in acquiring a copy and I asked him if it would be alright if I did a book review on my blog. He gave me permission to do so, so about a week or so later, I spent some down time at work reading his book.

By the time I got done reading it, I was put into a conundrum on what I should do. As most of you know, I'm not a big fan of poetry. It's not that I don't like it, but it's more like I simply don't get it. Also as most of you know, I make it a point of not trying to put down somebody's honest effort at writing a story or a poem, simply because I don't like it or don't get it.

I spent the next couple of days thinking about my two options. Option 1 was to write an unflattering review of this person's book and possibly put this person in a bad light. Option 2 was to do nothing. In the end, I chose option 2, in which I did nothing and I sent him a polite letter stating that I couldn't do a proper review of his book because I found that poetry wasn't my cup of tea (50% true) and it's something that I don't quite get (95% true). I also thanked him for allowing me the opportunity to buy his book.

So there you have it folks, what I used to keep in my cabinets at work (long story that I may bore everyone with eventually) for reading material. Someday they may reappear in my work area, but for now, they are home, sitting in two boxes less than two feet away from me and my computer.