Late Christmas Shopping … No Worries

If you're behind in your Christmas shopping, I have a suggestion. Actually, it’s the same suggestion I make every year about this time … gives books for Christmas. You can shop from your dining room, match the taste of the recipient, and accommodate their preference for print, e-book, audio, or large print. You can even write a personal note on the flysheet that won’t get thrown out with the Christmas cards.

Everyone has special interests and most people enjoy a book that lets them delve into their hobby, sport, or another world while sitting in the den with their feet up. 

Match your recipient’s special interest with a unique book and your extra thought will show you cared. Here are a few book categories on Amazon.

Golf

Children's books

Cook books

Crafts & Hobbies

Action Adventure

Romance 

Westerns

Amazon Bestsellers

And this is just a sampling. You can find books on nearly any subject. This doesn't mean you need to buy online. You can shop in the comfort of your home and then support your local independent bookstore by buying or ordering there. That would be a neat flip on people who rifle through a bookstore and surreptitiously buy their books with a smartphone.

A book is better than an electronic gadget that will be obsolete before the next holiday season rolls around. It’s safer than clothing that may not fit your loved one’s taste. A book can be displayed on an open shelf, as opposed to a kitchen appliance that might end up behind a cupboard door to be forgotten. Best of all, a book is simple to have shipped across the country or the border.

Of course I have a bias for books … especially if you choose to give one of my books. You can make the recipient happy and me happy. What could be better than that?

11/22/63 by Stephen King

I haven't read a Stephen King book in a couple decades. 11/22/63 reminded me why I used to read King’s books as soon as they were published ... and why I quit reading them. King is a good writer, has a great imagination, knows how to pen an engrossing story, but is exhaustingly verbose. I wanted to make a little circling motion with my finger to tell him to hurry up, but of course he wasn't in the room to see it.

Fiction writers have the unique ability to bend time. We can do what we want because it’s our world. We make it up. The premise of 11/22/63 is that our intrepid hero discovers a time portal that takes him back to 1958. After a quick touristic holiday, he decides to go back to 1958 and wait until November 22, 1963 in order to save John F. Kennedy. King proceeds to tell us everything that happens in the intervening five years. Why? It was King’s decision to have the portal go to 1958. He could have chosen 1961 or 1962. I think he just loves to write.

That aside, this is a well told story. I like time travel because they are basically fish-out-of-water tales. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur'sCourt by Mark Twain is the apex of the genre. 11/22/63 may have been overly long (880 pages in paperback), but it was still a fun read with some creative twists on time travel. I didn't agree with his speculations about altered history, but they didn't interfere with the story. If you like to be immersed in Stephen King’s world, you can have an extended stay with 11/22/63.

Murder at Thumb Butte Available on Kindle and Nook

Murder at Thumb Butte is now available on the Kindle and the Nook. The print version is in the layout stage and should be available shortly.

From the back cover

In the spring of 1880, Steve Dancy travels to Prescott, Arizona to gain control of a remarkable invention. But on his first night in the territorial capital, his friend, Jeff Sharp is arrested for a midnight murder at Thumb Butte. Dancy launches a personal investigation to find the real murderer, only to discover the whole town wanted the victim dead. For help, he turns to another old friend and associate, Captain Joseph McAllen of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency.

Can Dancy discover the true killer before his friend stretches a rope on the courthouse square?

The Perfect Gift

Books are perfect gifts. They're already a great value, but with the speed the world is going to those nifty electronic readers, books will soon be valuable antiques. Heck, in the near future, you may only be able to gaze at books in those brick and mortar museums they call libraries.

My bet is that children's books won't go electronic anytime soon. We always search for autographed storybooks for our grandkids. A great find is when the author and the illustrator both sign the book. We've done this for several years, so now our grandkids' bedrooms have dedicated shelves for signed books. The icing on the cake is that we get to read them a story from one of these books when we visit


Several of our relatives have hobbies and special interests. Some people can be hard to buy for—unless you pick a book about their hobby. Whether your relatives or friends are interested in the Civil War, railroads, guns, cooking, or collecting old comic books, there's always a book around that will grab their interest.

Books are the best entertainment value around. They provide hour after hour of personal pleasure, and then they can be passed on to another person. I also like that when I give a book as a gift, I can write a personal note that won't get tossed out like last year's Christmas cards.

By the way, if you're thinking about a gift for me, I collect vintage Western books from the first half of the twentieth century. I especially like the ones with great illustrations on the dust cover. But if you give me one of these, do me a favor and write your personal note on a Post-It.

The Perfect Gift

Books are perfect gifts. They're already a great value, but with the speed the world is going to those nifty electronic readers, books will soon be valuable antiques. Heck, in the near future, you may only be able to gaze at books in those brick and mortar museums they call libraries.

My bet is that children's books won't go electronic anytime soon. We always search for autographed storybooks for our grandkids. A great find is when the author and the illustrator both sign the book. We've done this for several years, so now our grandkids' bedrooms have dedicated shelves for signed books. The icing on the cake is that we get to read them a story from one of these books when we visit.

Several of our relatives have hobbies and special interests. Some people can be hard to buy for—unless you pick a book about their hobby. Whether your relatives or friends are interested in the Civil War, railroads, guns, cooking, or collecting old comic books, there's always a book around that will grab their interest.


Books are the best entertainment value around. They provide hour after hour of personal pleasure, and then they can be passed on to another person. I also like that when I give a book as a gift, I can write a personal note that won't get tossed out like last year's Christmas cards.

By the way, if you're thinking about a gift for me, I collect vintage Western books from the first half of the twentieth century. I especially like the ones with great illustrations on the dust cover. But if you give me one of these, do me a favor and write your personal note on a Post-It.