So you’re stuck in the house because you’re “socially isolated” due to this damned pandemic. You can’t spend your evenings in your usual pursuits, whether that means getting together with friends over coffee or “adult beverages,” or going out to your fave restaurants or night spots, hitting the cinema, or wandering the mall.

Our county (Palm Beach County, Florida) is larger than the entire state of Rhode Island in land mass (as well as in population, I’m sure). Yet in so large an area as that, there are only two indie bookstores—and one of them is about to close.

As is often the case with us writers, I have a number of publishers. One of them had decided some time ago that it would be a good promotional move to own and host a podcast. The show would primarily feature writers as interview guests, although businesspeople, entrepreneurs of all sorts, musicians, and other interesting guests were also welcome. In a truly democratic spirit, the owner of the company, who initially was the show’s host, decreed that writers were welcome regardless of whether her company was their publisher or not.

I am not in same camp as those who bemoan the lost art of handwritten letters. (And I am certainly not getting into here the question of script, or cursive, versus print.) For the record I see nothing wrong with using a computer (or, for that matter, a typewriter [!]) to write personal letters—even condolence notes and thank-you notes. Nor do I decry those who use email for such “touchy” subjects as condolences, thank-yous, or congratulations. Surely the fact that hand-writing a note is more laborious than typing it makes typing it more conducive to writing a longer letter. And...

Last week I wrote about poetry and suggested YOU try your hand at writing some. This week I want to tell you about two of my three aunts, who both wrote poetry—specifically, doggerel verse.

There’s an unintended pun in the silly old rhyme to which the title of this blogpost alludes. The rhyme, if you never have heard it or if more important infobits have edged it out of your consciousness, goes:

I’m sure you’re familiar in principle with “Meals on Wheels,” but what is brain food, or food for thought, on wheels? If you guessed “a bookmobile,” you’re right.

There were four libraries in my childhood. I loved them all. The first was a former private house that had been re-purposed into a public library to serve the town I grew up in and the next town over. The children’s department was a second-floor room filled with the magic of books that I borrowed and devoured regularly. No library card was more well-worn than mine, and I borrowed the limit every time, faithfully returning the books in good condition before their due date so I could borrow more.

If you’re fortunate, you hold in your hand a magic key that can unlock many portals. It can take you to far-away kingdoms, real or fanciful, or reveal deep truths to you, or challenge your thinking or augment it, or enlighten you on subjects quotidian or sublime. If you’re fortunate, you hold in your hand a book.

Of course I’ve been on TV before. As an author, I’ve guested on shows promoting various of my books. I was a contestant on JEOPARDY! in the pre-Alex Trebek era. (Who else reading this is old enough to remember when Art Fleming was the host?) Subsequent to my JEOPARDY! appearance, I was on two other game shows.