In Honor Of Zig Ziglar’s Passing

 

Zig Ziglar passed away last week, at age 86. He was one of the best.

My first exposure to motivational books on tape was Zig Ziglar. At age 18, I applied to a want ad that said “Christians Wanted,” and ended up selling cookware across the state with a bunch of boys from one of the local Baptist colleges. While I sometimes doubted the level of their Christian devotion on the road, there was no questioning the quality of their listening material. I enjoyed Ziglar’s humor and humility, and what he said sounded good to me.

I have lots of favorites among Ziglar’s many stories, but there’s only one I shared with my students every semester. During the lesson on language and word choice, I’d run through this exercise, swiped from Ziglar. You take this simple sentence:

I did not say your wife was ugly.

Then you change the meaning of the sentence just by which word you emphasize. Try it yourself.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

I did not say your wife was ugly.

For speech students, it’s an effective illustration. What makes it memorable for me, though, is that as I would work through the list, changing the emphasis on each repeat of the sentence, I couldn’t help but assume a distinct southern accent, like Ziglar’s.

So Zig, now I guess we’ll see you at the top….

Great Book Idea, Yours For The Taking

 

I have this great idea for a book. You know how some books are about houses that are built over ancient grave yards, and the spirits rise to haunt the poor people who live there now? You know how some houses, like ours, are built on property that belonged to an orphanage that burned down 100 years ago and three children died, and they sometimes wander the attic and stairs at night?

Those kind of books seem to do well, especially when they are made into movies, and the author gets a check for half a million dollars. So here’s an idea you can take, straight to the bank.

A young couple moves into an old house that was built on an ancient golf course. Yeah, a golf course. And the house is haunted by two bad golfers who don’t get along and a caddy who died there long ago.

I would write the book, but I just don’t know enough about golf. I mean, I thought a Mulligan was when you put whiskey in your coffee, for Pete’s sake.

But if you know golf, maybe you’re the one to tell the story. Let me know how it turns out.

 

____

 

Photo swiped from here.

Scarfing Up The Hunger Games

 

I bought and downloaded Mockingjay: The Final Book of The Hunger Games, from Audible last night. If you knew me, you would be shocked. I am a slow shopper. I was the last person in America to buy a VCR. I was the next to last person to get a CD player, because I researched and compared for years. I still wouldn’t have an iPod had Kelly not given me her old one.

 

 

 

It took six months for me to decide to buy The Hunger Games, despite my daughter Grace telling me over and over that I would enjoy it. And sure enough, I liked it, and I mean a lot. It is a wonderful and compelling story, well told. I listened to it twice, in fact, and it is better the second time.

That doesn’t mean, however, that I rushed right out and bought Catching Fire, the second book in the trilogy. It took me 182 days to convince myself to do it, because it so often happens that sequels, those sloppy seconds, are inferior to the original. Grace assured me that was not the case, but still I waited. I didn’t see how the story could continue any other way than the obvious one, so I didn’t want to waste a credit on it.

 

 

 

Man, I’m sorry I waited. Catching Fire is fantastic, simply wonderful in every way. The progression from the first book is perfectly logical, once you see it, but totally unexpected. The character development continues, and we know them well enough to know what to expect, but also enough to accept the unexpected as believable. And once the big shock came, I was well and truly shocked, and stayed shocked right to the end. I still can’t believe it on one hand, but on the other hand  I say “of course, of course.” But, you know… wow! Kudos to author Suzanne Collins.

Once started, I had a hard time not listening to book two. I had the headphones on everywhere, all the time, even when I should have been sleeping. Catching Fire is completely satisfying. Except for the cliffhanger ending that demands that you rush out and buy Mockingjay.

Which I did yesterday. But you already knew that, didn’t you.

Move Over, Dickens, Seuss, And O’Henry, There’s A New Holiday Classic In Town

 

If they can put Christmas decorations in the stores in September, then surely it isn’t too early to recommend a Christmas book. Christopher Moore's The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror is an original, a great read, imaginative and funny.

 

The story begins in sunny, warm California, the traditional setting for Christmas action. A little boy, shortcutting home through a stand of pine trees, sees an unhappy wife smack her husband, dressed as Santa, in the head with a shovel. Afraid to tell anyone, and afraid that Christmas is ruined, the boy is visited by the Archangel Raziel, sent to Earth following a string of botched assignments.

 

That’s enough set up. You will want to read it straight through, it is that good. I guarantee you will laugh, too. Ho ho ho.


Note: I just learned that The Stupidest Angel is available as a Kindle book for $1.99. Now there's a deal.

Is It Sexist To Not Buy A Book About Mickey Mantle Just Because It Was Written By A Woman?

Audible is having one of their frequent sales, a BOGO from selected books. There were half a dozen I wanted, including a biography about Mickey Mantle – until I saw that The Last Boy was written by a woman.

As I continued my search, Kelly – a woman and sometimes baseball fan – walked in, so I asked her: am I being sexist? Somehow, I thought she would laugh it off, pass it off as just some other fleeting, nonsensical notion that I seem to have. You know, another joke.

Instead, she glared at me, gave me the one raised eyebrow look, and said “of course it is sexist” with much more passion than seemed necessary. She said more, but the details are fuzzy now, something about men writing about women and women’s issues and women’s points of view for centuries blah blah blah….

So I selected the one book I really wanted – written by two men – and deliberated over the others, and finally downloaded the Mantle book. I could say that my interest in baseball generally and Number 7 specifically won out, but I suspect I bought Jane Leavy’s book so Kelly would have a bit more respect for me. Either that, or just so I’d have something to blog about today.

The Last Boy: Mickey Mantle and the End of America's Childhood is 3^rd or 4^th on my reading queue, so I’ll let you know how it turns out. And I’ll let you know when Kelly starts speaking to me again.

Women....

I Owe Stephen King An Apology

Stephen King On Writing is one of my favorite books, and I read it every couple of years. Half memoir, half writing “how to,” it is absorbing and delightful. I recommend it to my students and suggest that they read it every year. If you haven't, you should read it, too.

However, that is the only one of King’s many books that I’ve been able to read. I’ve tried many times to read various books by Mr. King, but kept getting bogged down after 30 or 40 pages. The stories were okay, but couldn’t hold my interest because the writing seemed too heavy handed, too brutish, like he was typing with his fists.

So, after days of consideration, it was with great reluctance that I downloaded 11/22/63: A Novel on Audible.com. The reviews were good, glowing, in fact, and I’ve learned to trust the opinions of Audible listeners. Plus, the book is more than 30 hours long, which the bargain hunter in me always finds attractive.

I’m only 15 hours into it, but it is a wonderful and fascinating story, based loosely – so far – on an English teacher’s obsession with Lee Harvey Oswald and the possibility of going back in time to prevent the Kennedy killing.

The writing is wonderful, masterful, vivid, compelling. The characters are rich and deep, genuine, involved, and I find myself thinking about them and their lives often throughout the day. Life in small-town and big-town 1958 up to 1962 – so far – is mesmerizing, with the constant but subtle hint of mysterious dangers to come, and the mighty reluctance of the past to be changed. I believe obdurate is the word used.

You’ll get no more details from me, only a hearty endorsement. If you have a library card, use it. If you have access to a book store, buy it. It probably has been in print long enough that it is available in used book stores. Of course, it’s available on Amazon, and on Audible. In fact, you can download it for free by clicking the link in the right column above.

If you are already a Stephen King fan, perhaps you can recommend a title I should read? Thanks.

A Word In Your Ear

Like some of you, perhaps, I used to wish I had been born 10 years earlier, so I could have been part of the music scene I just missed, the rise of all my favorites: Elvis, the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, Ricky Nelson. But now, with the fantastic audio technology we have today, I'm happier than ever to be alive. The irony is that I rarely listen to music anymore.



I have 86 audio books, not counting the cassettes, 50 of which are in my iTunes library. I have apps on my iPhone that link me into many, many more - hundreds of titles, most for no charge. I can easily move from A Christmas Carol to Anne of Green Gables to As A Man Thinketh to The Psychology of Achievement to Ben Stein's How to Ruin Your Life.

I listen to them all the time when I'm alone: when I shave and shower, when I iron my shirts, when I clean the kitchen, when I drive by myself.

Every day I have those delightful moments of inspiration and motivation and education, when the best thoughts of others stick in my head and make me a better teacher, a better husband, a better man - all while doing other things.

Today I'm listening to Lonesome Dove , my favorite book, which at 36 hours is not enough. I just finished Made to Stick and Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action. A wonderful lecture on rhetoric was a recent favorite, plus a couple of Michael Crichton novels, and a used, 18-disc copy of All the King's Men, which I got for $4 at a flea market.

Our Audible.com credits restock in a couple of days. My wife recently finished Water for Elephants, The Help, and The Kitchen House, and is today listening to Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.

I have The Dream of Reason and Richest Man in Babylon queued up in my library, as well as a David Baldacci novel.

Maybe I did miss out on being nothing but a hound dog hanging out at the soda shoppe with Little Susie after school, but I sure enjoy the immediacy and convenience of audiobooks.

As Jim Rohn says, miss a meal if you have to, but don't miss a book.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

How about you? What are you listening to these days?