Whew! For A Minute There...

As the "real" school year ends, and my load of textbooks to read drops precipitously, I turn, generally, to my pleasure reading for the summer months. Having almost finished a couple of historical fiction series concerning ancient Rome, I perused the aper today to see what others were reading in hopes of gaining some inspiration. My tack is usually to find something, then go to the public library website and put a hold on it for later pickup. Today, I started with some romance fiction.
Lest you arch an eyebrow quizzically, those titles were for my sweetie and not for me. I noted a couple of authors I had noticed lying about and thought to reserve copies of their latest efforts...but being number 65 in queue? Holy crap! That many people read romance? I was stunned, to say the least. Granted these were new releases, but there were 45 people in line for the LARGE PRINT copies! I won't even begin to surmise what the popularity of fictitious romance means. I doubt I'd really want to know!
A bit of non-fiction concerning the Little Big Horn battle caught my eye since Custer is one of the few real people that I find fascinating...imagine my surprise when, standing in the house at Appomattox Courthouse where the truce between the North and South was signed to see a painting commemorating the event...and finding George Custer immortalized thereon! Who knew? Not me, but I have followed his career closely since then. But that find was of minimal importance when I thought I saw my entire life and crimes flash before my eyes shortly thereafter. For a split second, I thought he'd done what I had urged him to do for years: write a book.
One of my sons is the most literate person I have ever known. He is a world traveller and insatiable reader and discoverer, but one who has been loathe to actually sit down and write a book. He tells me there is no real money in being a published author: the real money rolls in when someone makes a screenplay of the written word and turns it into a movie. He is a book critic for Bookgasm, an online book review site. he's even had articles reprinted in published books, but he's never taken that next step. And yet, today, I was fearful that he had. There is was: #9 on the non-fiction bestseller list published by the Associated Press. Sh t My Dad Says struck me with real horror, thinking he'd finally written a book that would lay bare all he'd endured from me for years (according to him, and just in time for Father's Day). Of course, I cannot remember everything I've ever said to the man, but, as I said, he's gifted, and he remembers it all.
As my heart began thrusting blood to my brain so I didn't pass out, it occurred to me to check the author...it was not my progeny...it was someone named Justin Halpern who was ratting out HIS father...Just in time for Father's Day. And, just to make sure that he was not writing under some fancy nom de plume, I included that in my list of books on reserve at the library...and I'm first in line to get it.
Go figure.