Book plug
Mood:  lucky
It's spring, again.

To mark the occasion, I bought a daffodil-scented candle. Then I took a shovel and beat the living tar out of the snow and ice on the front steps.

If any of you enjoyed the Shane Maloney series, and are looking for another laugh-out-loud read in a similar vein, I can enthusiastically recommend "Straight Man", by Richard Russo. Its protagonist, William Henry Devereaux Jr., a disheveled English professor at an obscure college in Western Pennsylvania, is Murray Whelan's academic soul mate. Within the first few pages, Devereaux gets his nose mangled by a spiral-bound notebook, is seduced by a curvaceous adjunct armed with peach pits, and threatens to execute a goose on local television. Just about every sentence in the book causes the messy flight of whatever beverage you happen to be drinking at the time.

There is a faint connection to David Wenham here...Richard Russo also wrote Empire Falls, directed by Fred Schepisi, who (rumor has it) is hoping to cast David for his next movie, Last Man Standing.

If "Straight Man" is ever filmed, David should seriously be considered for the lead role.