I wrote this piece years ago, when Donald Westlake was my favorite author. (Today, he is one of my favorites.) I admit that reposting it now carries a whiff of nostalgia—COVID has changed my shopping habits. I shop less, and go during off hours so as to spend the least time with the most social distance. That protects my health, of course. But it sacrifices the fun of eavesdropping. I miss that.

Enjoy this brief hop back to a COVID-free holiday season, and the excerpt from one of Westlake’s best, Bad News, featuring Dortmunder, and the regulars at the OJ.

This is one of the best books I’ve read, ever. It’s simply beautiful, a work of art that transcends its genre. The author’s journey exemplifies cartoonist and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Lynda Barry’s contention that “We don’t create a fantasy world to escape reality. We create it to be able to stay.”

How does the author keep going when she loses everything that makes her life meaningful and worth living?

I look at this iconic painting of the iconic white American family sitting at table celebrating that most American of holidays, Thanksgiving—Ma at the head, eye drawn to the huge roasted turkey on an oval platter that she’s bending to place on the table; Pa, black-suited, standing behind, not helping her—and think to myself: only a man could have painted this image, a man who never once hosted a large gathering; or roasted, carved and served a whole turkey.

How do I know? I have roasted, carved and served many whole turkeys over the years—the largest, a twenty-one pounder— and let me tell you: it’s not possible to quickly and neatly slice that baby at table surrounded by impatient, salivating loved ones.

Storage. That’s my problem with Hubby’s shoes. They pile up. They drift. They wander into places where they shouldn’t be. How many times have I tripped over one?

This surprisingly moving narrative set in Victorian England braids together three histories. First, the making of the great Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which took seventy years to complete. Second, the life of the professor, Dr. James Murray, the OED’s third and justly most famous editor, who worked on it for the last forty years of his life. And third, the life of the madman, Dr. William Chester Minor, major contributor to the OED, an American, Yale educated physician, whose illustrious career as a Union officer and surgeon during the Civil War ended due to mental illness that rendered him “unfit for duty” and led to tragedy.

Intriguing title! I thought. What does the back cover say? My reader taste buds tingling, I plucked the book off the shelf of the wall book display. (Is there anything better than browsing a curated indie bookstore?) I flipped it over.

“ A tale so mind-blowing as to be the stuff of legend.” –The Denver Post

Isolated by Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons, the blissful Tarahumara Indians have honed the ability to run hundreds of miles without rest or injury.

What?! As a physician and failed jogger (all pain, no gain), these words stopped me short. Deadly? Blissful? Ability to run hundreds of miles? Without rest or injury?

In a riveting narrative, award-winning journalist and often-injured runner Christopher McDougall sets out to discover their secrets.

I bought the book.