Book Sense(s)

I'm as old school as they come, and I much prefer a book I can hold in my hands to anything I have to use an electronic device to read. Not only that, something tells me that reading a printed, bound book is better for my eyes, my neck, my health in general.

Today I was in #BooksandBooks, a south #Florida icon and easily the most successful independent bookstore in #Miami, if not Florida (and beyond?). There's nothing like being in a room with wall to wall--and ceiling--books, feeling them in your hands, and turning real pages. New books have a smell, a feel, and a look that I still find enticing. Perhaps it was my dad who taught me, inadvertently, a love of reading. Every evening, he could be found in the living room reading a novel, his glass of Scotch (Cutty Sark, what else?) at his side and smoke curling from his pipe. He extolled the virtues of the many ocean adventure stories he read, in particular C.S. Forester classic Horatio Hornblower series. Though we sailed all the time and I had taken on a love of the ocean, I never read any of the

Hornblower books (though it's never too late). As a kid I was drawn inexorably--and inexplicably--to #CivilWar books. It was a strange obsession, coming from nowhere that any of us could figure. Dad wasn't a history buff (unless it had to do with sailing ships), and no one close to us had any influence on me in that way. Nevertheless, I was at the school library in elementary school, checking out everything I could find about Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, the battle of Gettysburg, you name it. Later, as I got more interested in police work, I started reading police procedurals, particularly Joseph #Wambaugh novels. There were some great ones there, starting with The Choirboys,, The Glitter Dome, and my favorite, The Black Marble. How much impact did Wambaugh's writing have on the entertainment industry? Choirboys was one of the very few examples of "life imitating art." Most police patrol squads--mine included--would gather a couple of times a week after a shift, drink, and unwind. The uniform squad members in Wambaugh's classic novel called it "choir practice." That nickname was adopted by real cops well beyond Wambaugh's L.A., and stood the test of time. It wasn't uncommon for us in Miami to end a shift and hear someone say, "Are we having a CP tonight?" My next podcast episode talks about how many authors fall short in their efforts to make police writing authentic. Like many former law enforcement officers, I have a tough time getting through a TV show or a novel that is rife with inaccuracies and bad attempts at realism. It just ruins it. Wambaugh didn't have that problem. His police scenes were spot on, but so was the way he captured cops as people, the way he revealed their emotional side. Black Marble had me laughing hysterically on one page and fighting back sobs on another. It's masterful writing. And it's real.