DROPPED THE MOON

 A fun book available here:  https://www.feedaread.com/books/Jolly-Christmas-Poems-Jokes.aspx

 The three most interesting books I have read so far in 2025 are: 1. When the Going Was Good: An Editor's Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines by Graydon Carter - former editor, over 25 years, of Vanity Fair.  A terrific memoir laden with anecdotes about the business and bitchiness of the glossy magazine world. Highly recommended. 2. Empire of the Elite: Inside Conde Nast, the Media Dynasty that Reshaped the World by Michael M. Grynbaum.  A compelling history of power, personalities, eye-watering expenses in and around the company that included Vanity Fair.  Highly recommended. The books are not intended to be companion pieces, but together they tell a helluva story. 3.The Bookseller of Hay: The Life and Times of Richard Booth byJames Hanning - a profile of an eccentric man obsessed with collecting second-hand books from all over the world and attempting to sell them in various building in the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye, the "town of books", location of t...

 Books I've read in 2024 (in no particular order): T he Sunday Times Investigates - Reporting That Made History (2021) Edited by Madeleine Spence A brilliant compilation of scandals over the years including The Tale of Kim Philby; The Thalidomide Scandal; Bloody Sunday; Colonel Gaddafi and the Miners' Strike; Cash for Questions Tracing the 9/11 Attackers; The FIFA Files; and Failures of State: The Covid-19 Pandemic. Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder (2024) by Salman Rushdie Extraordinary account of a near-fatal attack on his life, his slow recovery, his love for his family and friends, reflections on humanity, with occasional flashes of humour.  I wish he did not have to write it, but I'm glad he did. To the End of the Rhine (1987) by Bernard Levin Holiday reading on a cruise along the Rhine!  Useful for travelling anecdotes. Politics on the Edge (2024) by Rory Stewart At last, a book about a politician and politics that holds the interest from start to finish....

This is my attempt at a western novel.  If you like it or not, let me know. Contact: joecushnan@aol.com Seven Pouches   A Western   By   Joe Cushnan       Drifter Willard Gammon returns home to find his father dead and his mother grieving.  He embarks on a journey of revenge to track the seven men responsible, to deliver his own brand of justice and to retrieve the seven pouches used to divide up his family’s gold. Chapter 1 (of 22)   The ranch looked quieter than normal.  Any time he had visited before, there had always been movement.  Horses, chickens and just general lived-in activity.  But today nothing to catch the eye.  Nothing to catch the ear either.  Silence.  He carried on riding towards the house, looking left and right for anything, a sign, a threat.  Nothing.  He got off his horse slower than usual, looked at the house and then scanned to the left, to...