Book Wrangler

November 7, 2005

By Bob Patterson

[Clicking on the underlined type will take you to another web page with more information relevant to the phrase that has the underscore.]

My friend from high school days, Jersey Bill, has an unusual name, William Hitzel, and has always made it a point of seeking out other people with that last name.  When he arrives in a town that he has never visited before he will consult the phone book to see if there are any people in that town with that name.

Recently, I ran a quick Google to see if I had used his name in one of the columns.  Usually I just call him Jersey Bill, but he has had photo credits in past issues of Just Above Sunset online magazine.  My search turned up a reference to a book, Marketing Software Measurement Work, in a library at the Bahria University, that had been written by a fellow named Bill Hitzel.

Now, I have to try to locate a copy of that 1993 book to give to Jersey Bill as a Christmas present, and he is trying to locate the author just for fun.

A search of amazon.com web site produced a list of several other books written by other Hitzels, but not the one published in 1993, in the US, by a QED Publishing.

(If the author of that book happens to read this column please contact Jersey Bill by e-mailing to bhitzel@cs.com .  He'd love to know your biography.)

A few years ago, I came across a book by Owl Goingback  that had a leading character named Robert Patterson.  I just had to buy the book.

Last week, I wrote about people who had been in the military and had written books.  Unfortunately, I missed a great opportunity to use that column to drop my brother's name and a plug the four books he has written into that column.  Before he began to write the books, he was an Army officer who was stationed at Fort Bliss in Texas.

While searching for a topic for a weekly installment of the Book Wrangler column, I got the bright idea of doing a column all about books written by folks who share my brother's name and found several including a famous mystery writer.  Some other idea came up and I have yet to write that column.

Just Above Sunset's editor and publisher has reminded me that one of the aspects of this weekly feature in the online magazine is to inform our regular readers about books that they might (if they share my preferences) be interested in knowing about and perhaps buying.  [If any of the authors of any of the books do a Google search, they will very likely discover our online magazine for chasing the zeitgeist of our times.  Clever way of (possibly) building a literary audience, eh?]

So here are some new books that caught this columnist's attention.

Are Men Necessary? When Sexes Collide by Maureen Dowd - If Hunter S. Thompson were reincarnated as a woman, wouldn't he become another Maureen Dowd?

Breach of Trust: How the Warren Commission Failed the Nation and Why by Gearld D. McKinght.  - Did Chalabi somehow doctor the evidence?

Campus Sexpot: A Memoir by David Carkeet

Hammerhead 84: A Memoir of Persistence by Brett Harman 

The Highly Civilized Man: Richard Burton and the Victorian World by Dane Kennedy - This book is about a writer-explorer and not the actor with the same name.

How the Indians Lost Their Land: Law and Power on the Frontier by Sturart Bannet 

Jazz Anecdotes: Second Time 'Round by Bill Crow 

Mencken: The American Iconoclast by Marion Elizabeth Rodgers - Does the Baltimore Sun pick great writers or what?

The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University edited by Kimerly Rorschach with photos by Brad Feinknopf and Jerry Blow.

Poe by James M. Hutchison - What is it with Baltimore and great writers?

Tugboats of New York: An Illustrated History by George Matteson

Vigilante Newspapers: A Tale of Sex, Religion, and Murder in the Northwest by Gerald J. Baldasty

What Happened Here by Earl Weinberger - The author maintains that Dubya is "the least qualified person ever to become President."

Madonna has said: "I sometimes think I was born to live up to my name.  How could I be anything else but what I am having been named Madonna?  I would either have ended up a nun or this."

Now, if the disk jockey will play Shirley Ellis' hit song, Name Game, (Come on, sing along!) we'll go to a place where the bartender asks us to "name your poison."  We plan to be back again next week.  Until then play the name it and claim it game as often as possible and have an "anna anna bo-banna" type week.

Copyright © 2005 - Robert Patterson

Email the author at worldslaziestjournalist@yahoo.com