To Be or What: The Best Things I Ever Read

By Bennet Pomerantz

I was reminded I had to do this blog. Now I love doing blogs. I don’t know whether to be funny or serious. I don’t know if I should be biographical or just discuss a topic. So I fit it all in one column.

Let’s start at the beginning, I started my writing career as a stringer Of The PG Journal. I worked at other newspapers and magazines as well. One of the jobs I did during my newspaper career was paste up and layout as well . . . Today computers do that faster than I ever could.

Then, about almost 30 years ago (GAWD I AM GETTING THAT OLD!), some editor at a paper in Tampa said to me, “Pomerantz, you listen to those audio book things, don’t you?” I said, “Yes”, in agreement.  He continued, “I want a small column with three audio titles covered by this Friday” . . . and the rest is history. About six months later I had the weekly column AUDIOWORLD (which is still running today). From that small column, my career bloomed.

Nowadays, I am grateful to the breaks that have been given to me over the years. Such writing breaks as my three newspaper columns, my bimonthly columns in Truckers USA and Affaire De Couer, the essays regarding my late father in the collection Loving Hearts Live Forever (from MJR Publishing) and forwards for authors like Julia Becca, Joan Basile and Melody Ravert (whose fifth aniversary, revised edition of her book Silent Angel will be out April 2012).

I am grateful to have the gift of co-hosting two different internet radio shows ( Blog Talk Radio’s A Good Story is a Good Story with Marsha Casper Cook and Shark Radio’s the Eclectic Artist Cave with Joann H. Buchanan). I also cannot forget my “A Piece of My Mind” monthly column in Night Owl Magazine (it’s online and FREE).

However the one love and passion I have, after writing, is teaching. Whether it is in a review on Amazon.com, my Night Owl column, or one of the writer’s workshops I do . . . the magic is there. Education is an ongoing thing with me.

Recently I had gotten an email question from a reader. “What is the best thing you ever read?” This stumped me royally. I have read a lot of books since I was in school (that was a LONG, LONG time ago). Many books of all genres, shapes, and sizes left impressions on me. The list of what I love is truly endless. In my head, I could not fathom narrowing this list down . . . so I picked my top three. Note. I cheat when I select things!

Let’s start my list with Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s immortal Sherlock Holmes. To ask me to pick what Holmes’ 56 short stories or four novels I loved more than others are true madness. So I say all of them . . . I told you I cheat! Then there is also William Gillette’s play Sherlock Holmes, Nick Meyer’s the Seven Percent Solution & The West End Horror, William Baring-Gould’s Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, and many others. I even had a hand at writing Holmes myself with my short stories Night of the Shylock and The Case of The Retired American Agent, both of which appeared in Power Star and Red Circle magazines.

Don Quixote (The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha ) by Miguel de Cervantes is my second selection. It is one of the greatest pieces of literature to me and to many scholars of great literature. It is one of those books I love to read every few years. It is a story that left an impression on me.

Ray Bradbury is my third favorite author. I enjoy everything from Something Wicked this Way Comes, The Illustrated Man, Fahrenheit 451, the Martian Chronicles, to S is For Space, Green Shadows, and White Whale. His words are straight forward and simple for any reader to enjoy. It is like a Lays potato chip, I cannot just select one of his great books or short stories (one of my favorites stories is Usher II) from another. I did say I cheat, didn’t I?

There are so many more authors and books (like authors like Harlan Ellison, Ellery Queen, Robert B Parker, Ed McBain, Roald Dahl . . . Book series like Herge’s Adventures of Tintin, James Patterson’s Alex Cross, etc.). Maybe someone will ask me soon for my second set of the Best Things I Ever Read.

Food for Thought