Fact is often better than fiction.  Have you ever looked at a brightly colored fish or flower and thought, “It is not possible that that just appeared in nature.  I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it.”

Fact is like that too.  Imagination is contained by our perceptions so it makes sense, but some plots are so wonderful you think they must have been monkeyed with.  “Little Chapel On The River” is true.  What a wonderful thing that Wendy Bounds is articulate enough to have captured such a true moment in the world.

After evacuating their apartment across from the World Trade Center on September 11, Wendy and her girlfriend have to move on.  Literally and figuratively, they must find safe ground from which to grow new roots.

Fatefully, Garrison, N.Y., is waiting.  Unbeknownst to Wendy, it will save her and transorm her life.  She, in turn, will return the favor.

Guinan’s General Store and Pub is a long standing bastion of comfort, safety and beer in a tough world.  The more things change the more they stay the same at Guinan’s and this is the gift.

Wendy befriends a wonderfully honest, grizzled, kind, amusing group of people.  All real, all amazingly human.  As she bartends, opens the store for the 5:07 a.m. commuters, listens to stories and winds her way into the hearts of the Pub, Wendy blossoms from a Wall Street Journal writer to a woman of many talents.

Each new door that opens bring her back to the gifts of her childhood and the joys of life she has been stepping over and around to get to work.  Her truest self is re-emerging and she and the town are delighted.

Her sense of belonging to something larger than her self was in dire need of Guinan’s.  We all are and through her book we find it.  Much like my thoughts on “World Made By Hand”, the things we need the most are seemingly small, often overlooked and right there for the taking if we simply open our eyes.  We all have the spirit of Guinan’s within reach if we know where to look.

Lots of people think that the book our Jen selected this week, “The Story of Edgar Sawtelle,” by David Wroblewski, is very good, including Stephen King who noted he doesn’t re-read many books, but will be doing so with this one. Yet again Jen’s review has tickled our fancy too and we think we’ll also be reading it very shortly.

I had dinner a few weeks ago with a gentleman who said this was his favorite book.  My step-mother liked it but thought the middle a tad long-winded.  Stephen King said he,” flat out loved it.”  How could I resist?
Ultimately, I agree with them all. OK – done.

Our Jen was—along with (in our unscientific opinion) approximately half the population of the Lymes—sick last week.  We’re so glad to learn that she’s now recovered and here she is back again for your delight with the revealing (and riveting) antithesis to her earlier column on why she reads.

Here is the companion piece to the ever-popular,” Why I Read.”  It is fair to say that many, many people ask me how I have the time and mental where-with-all to read two books a week and review them for your entertainment.  I say I don’t know.  It just fits in somehow.  Like extra piles into the washer.  It’s a mystery, but it works.

Until it doesn’t.  Sometimes, even your fearless book reviewer just can not bring herself to pick one up.  Sometimes she reads some she hates and doesn’t want to review them (sparing you loads of whining.)  Sometimes she lies in the tub and reads Danielle Steele and is embarrassed to review them.  When all these happenings converge you get a perfect vacuum of book reviews.  I know this is momentously hard to overcome for many of you and I apologize for selfishly sapping your will to live but it can not be helped.

To bring some small bit of happiness to you I will tell you the whole unadulterated truth.  I read Margaret Atwood’s newest book, “The Year of The Flood” and disliked it.  It was as depressing as “Oryx and Crake” and it sapped my will to live.  Then I read “House” by Danielle Steele.  That was OK.  Then I read “Kaleidoscope.”  That was too much Danielle Steele for me.  Back-to-back unreality, happy ending and endless cash is too depressing.

Then I started “Crow Planet,” which will be good but made feel bad about the planet going to hell in a hand-basket because I won’t drive a Prius.  So I read “Snow White and The Seven Dwarves,” the original, written and mesmerizingly illustrated by Wanda Ga’g in the 30s.  I also did many crossword puzzles from New York Magazine and read People. And “Clifford’s Halloween.”

I felt much better so I picked up “Swimming with Piranhas at Feeding Time; My Life Doing Dumb Stuff with Animals” by Richard Coniff.  I am only on chapter three and I love it.  He is clever, humorous and brave.  I will review this next week when I finish.

I have today off so I am going to read a new as yet unpublished book that the author handed me yesterday.  I can’t tell you who or what, but stick around … I will.

I thought it only fair to divulge all, so there you have it.

Old Lyme resident Richard Conniff lives the life of which most of us mere mortals can only dream.  He travels to exotic places, meets interesting people … and animals, writes or makes movies about them … and on top of all that, gets paid for doing it.  Jen Mann chose his most recent book as her review pick for this week.

This is very amusing.  I am a big fan of personal essay type books.  The collection of true accounts from Richard Coniff’s bag of tricks is excellent.

Always a fan of Dry Wit, I am thrilled to have found a sizable collection of writings from this intelligent, wildly experienced writer.  After this collection in particular I want to hunt down the rest.  Each chapter is an article slash essay slash short adventure recounting a particular escapade Coniff has had in the wild or with a certain species.

My favorite is without doubt the discussion of zoological identification with particular regard to naming of a species by its discoverer.  Much like Bill Lear (of the jet) naming his daughter Shanda; these men and women have had great fun with the English and Latin languages.  If you are fortunate enough to discover a new species you are allowed to name it.  Coniff’s research into the names chosen by overworked, overwhelmed or just over amusing scientists had me in stitches.

How about the 8,000th beetle you’ve discovered that needs a name?  Ohno.  Or with 1,500 to go?  Agra vation.  Agra phobia.  How about Phthira relativitae?  On the eve of one’s retirement why not throw caution to the winds and go with, Verae peculya, Heerz tooya or Heerz lukenatcha?  Boy have I missed my calling.

Can’t you see me doubled over laughing at my own jokes in a lab somewhere?  Another wonderful chapter is chock full of more things I never knew.  (One could argue that there are many, many such chapters and one would be correct.  (Rude, but correct.)  Why do humans and horseshoe crabs have different blood chemical bases?  Our blood runs red because hemoglobin is an iron-based molecule. Horseshoe crabs have blood that runs blue because hemocyanin is a copper-based molecule. Really, how cool is that? Mother Nature never ceases to totally amaze me.

What other metals are incorporated into varied cellularly similar creatures?  Have you heard of the Justin Schmidt Pain Index?  On a scale of one to four, it rates the pain of insect stings.  I usually use the JPM Index* but his has merit also.  Good to know that a fire ant will cause serious pain for about half an hour and that the Tarantula Hawk Wasp’s sting is best handled by lying down and screaming for the entire three agonizing minutes before it wears off.  A chapter on mosquitos and how many bites can be expected in a short time in various locales is eye-opening.  Some Canadian scientists sat still long enough to report 9,000 bites in a minute.  As Coniff says,” Those Canadians know how to have fun!”  So does Coniff!

*The JPM Pain Index rates the pain of stepping on small matchbox vehicles barefoot while running across the room to catch a glass of milk before it spills on the couch.  For example, a fire-truck with a vaulted metal ladder rates a perfect score when stepped on hard, directly in the arch, after tripping over a cat.

We felt Jen’s book review this week is suited for a Sunday. For those not familiar with Nobel Prize-winning French author Jean-Paul Sartre, his theme is existentialism, which preaches, in Jen’s concise words, “life is a done deal before you started, so what’s the point?”  Sartre is a hard sell, but Jen makes us want to try him one more time.

The Chips Are Down ( Les Jeux Sont Fait) is not as depressing as I remembered.  (Of course, in 10th grade French – everything is moderately depressing unless you get to read Tintin, which you don’t.)

I actually enjoyed it more this time.

It stands as a classic example of the existentialist movement in the last century.  Camus, Sartre, Ionesco and others were presenting the relatively novel opinion that life was a done deal before you started, so what is the point?