A Fleabit Peanut Monkey

Bad Monkey
Carl Hiaasen

I used to be a serious person. Or at least I thought of myself that way. Nowadays, I’m not so sure.

Some clarification may be in order. I was never a grind, at least the way I understand that term. Grinds, if I’ve got it right, care about things like grades, and credentials and

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Give ’em the Old Double Whammy

Double Whammy
Carl Hiaasen

A holiday week calls for a holiday sort of book. So it’s appropriate that I’ve finally finished what was supposed to be my vacation reading this past August.

It’s even sadder that half way through I realized the book, which I’d checked out of the local library,  was already sitting on my shelf. Pitiful. And also instructive because as

Two-fer: What I Read on my Summer Vacation

Michael Masterson, the direct marketing entrepreneur, has suggested that beach books are, like television, mental junk food. While I have some sympathy for that position, like everyone else I sometimes need a break. Better a best-selling novel than sitcoms (although I do those, too). My justification is that I can’t dissociate completely from the broader culture .

This year I actually didn’t get a summer vacation and I’ve taken to saying that July was the longest 3 months of my life. Still, there was the occasional few hours a week at the town pool. That was enough to get in a couple of books by popular authors Carl Hiaasen and Nelson DeMille.

Carl Hiaasen’s Skinny Dip is a typically silly romp through modern-day Florida. A newspaperman and native of the state, Hiaasen is