NYC Book Expo: "Books are my only friends..."
Six years ago, my three-year-old granddaughter Mena was spending the
night with me. All evening long she had been wheezing, listless and
pale. Finally at around 2:00 am, she practically crawled into my
bedroom, coughing, choking and white as a sheet. "Gaia, I need to go to
the hospital -- now!" she said. I didn't waste any time.
We were still in our nightgowns when the doctor told us, "Worst case
of asthma I've ever seen. A few more minutes and she would have been
dead! You saved her life." No, I didn't. Mena saved her own life.
And since that day, I've always listened closely to everything she was
telling me, just in case.
Later that month, Mena also told me, "Toys are my only friends."
What could I say to that? I told her the truth. "Sometimes I think
that books are my only friends." So when I recently went off to
the Javits Center in New York City to attend the 2018 "Book Expo
America" being held there -- and walked into a whole giant building all
filled with nothing but books, I couldn't help but think that I had just
entered a building filled with hundreds and hundreds of my very best
friends.
Once the doors of the Book Expo opened, I immediately made my way
down to Soho Crime's exhibit booth and scored an advance-reader copy of
the hilarious new Colin Cotterill book, "Don't Eat Me" (and, yes, I did
feel rather strange reading a book with a title like that on the subway
-- but well worth every stare). https://sohopress.com/soho-crime/
I also gleefully swept up five other murder-mystery books by some of my
favorite Soho authors -- Martin Limon, Timothy Hallinan, Mick Herron,
Gina Apostol and James R. Benn. I love murder mysteries because, unlike
in real life, justice is always done by the time we reach the last
page. https://www.globalresearch.ca/drivers-behind-the-war-on-syria-and-the-impoverishment-of-us-all/5644381
The next evening Bernie Sanders spoke at the Book Expo. Gotta love
Bernie. Good grief, how I wish he was in the White House right now
instead of having to helplessly watch Trump's yard sale of everything
that is American. I voted for Bernie. The only thing that used to be
wrong with Bernie was his tolerant policy toward Israeli neo-colonialist
state-sponsored terrorism. But recently he has been wising up -- as
have the rest of Americans who actually keep up with the horrors happily inflicted onto the rest of the Middle East by neo-con
Zionists.
How does that joke go? "We should make America name Israel as its 51st state," someone recently suggested to Benjamin Netanyahu.
"Why should we do that?" answered Bibi. "Then we would only have two
Senators in Washington. Right now we already have 50." And yet people
talk about Russia buying our elections? Donnie the Mole and Crooked
Hilary could never have been bought off by Russia -- because Israeli
neo-cons already owned both of them body and soul. Humph.
While at the Book Expo, I also tried to get a few publishers interested
in re-publishing my book "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for
Touring Today's Middle East". https://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719
"But this book was written in 2007," one publisher exclaimed.
"So what," I replied. "It's still totally right up-to-date. In the
Middle East? Nothing has changed at all in the last decade. Americans,
Israeli neo-cons and Saudis are still brutally slaughtering anything
that moves." Except that now they are getting even better at it. http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/11/u-s-backed-catastrophe-brewing-in-yemen/
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