Cold Days

Today, here in Wisconsin, it’s so cold that the schools are closed. Our high is predicted to be a balmy 2° F, but right now at 10 AM, it’s —7° with a wind-chill factor that makes it feel like —25°. The hair in my nostrils, which is about the only part of me that’s exposed when I go out outside, starts to freeze within seconds.

I don’t suppose it’s any coincidence that the two latest novels I bought are The Crook Factoryby Dan Simmons and A Salty Piece of Landby Jimmy Buffett, as both are set in tropical climes. I haven’t been to such places in years, although I have plans for this spring. It can’t come soon enough.

Thanks to my pal Rich Dansky for alerting me to the existence of the first. Dan Simmons writing a novel about Hemingway chasing Nazis around Cuba during WWII? How did I miss that? Hemingway’s one of my favorite writers, and Simmons writes the way I want to when I grow up–should that ever happen.