Reading AND Golf?

Reading is a love of mine. I like escaping into the pages and burying myself in the story/plot the author has penned. At one time I can be reading four or even five books. Like right now. I am trudging through Inventing English by Seth Lerer on the history of the English language, a great love of mine.

Bill Belleville of Sanford, Fla. has written the book River of Lakes about the St. John's River running from south Florida to Jacksonville. Growing up in central Florida, this draws my interest. Both these books are nonfiction.

A biography of John Adams by David McCullough (thank you Ann) I have been nursing for two years now. Took me so long to get through Ben Franklin by Walter Isaacson. I can't read enough about the people of our revolutionary period.

For fiction I have finally been able to start Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants. And with it I am enjoying a historical fiction/biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine by E.L. Konigsburg, A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver. Konigsburg has written several award winning young adult lit books.

With that said, I just finished Carl Hiaasen's nonfiction and latest issue The Downhill Lie. Yes, it is a golf saga, but uniquely written from a journal he kept over 18+ months. At 19 or 20 years of age, Carl gave up golf and didn't pick up the clubs again for 32 years. Having swung a few clubs myself, having a father, brother, husband and son that all played the game, I found "...a hacker's return to a ruinous sport" (subtitle) delightful.

"Ever wonder how to retrieve a sunken golf cart from a snake-infested lake?" And "...the third most distressing thing we witness on the course is a mangy seagull stripping a fish from the talons of a bald eagle--our majestic national bird, being mugged by the avian equivalent of a garbage rat."

Full belly laughs, chuckles and chortles come with every page turning. I even got the innuendos. I felt his pain.

Will those costly lessons shave a few strokes off the score? And how many special putters or drivers are needed to carry in your bag on the course? What about karma? Can expensive pills improve one's game? Tried any lucky hats, watches, amulet, shirts lately?

But the story Carl weaves is more than just golf. It is also about relationships, about father-son-son and husband/father-wife-son and mother-son.

What a wonderful escapade I've been on the past few days with Carl. My appetite is whetted, so I've picked up Skinny Dip, one of Carl's adult fiction books. One of these days soon I'll have to crack it's cover and delve in to more humor set in my Florida. Will my eyes hold on for a few more years? Here's hoping.


P.S. As I write this, Book TV has Joseph Wheelan, author of Mr. Adam's Last Crusade, talking about his new book. Guess I'll have to add it to my list.