This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Bill Zarchy be awarding a $50 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
What is the favorite book you remember as a child?
I learned to read when I was three and began to devour books. Kids’ books at first, of course, but I did get into adult fiction before reaching adulthood. I don’t remember if there was a Young Adult category back then, but my interests straddled age groups.
One of my favorite books was called The Mysterious Caboose, by Mary Graham Bonner, a prolific children’s author at that time. The story centers around a couple of brothers who’ve been rewarded for their good citizenship with a long trip on a freight train across Canada. On the way, they observe a suspicious-looking guy carrying a gunnysack, lurking suspiciously near the caboose, and they worry that he has sabotaged the train in some way. A suspicion confirmed later when Gunnysack, their name for the suspicious character, shows up at the railroad yard at their next stop. It was a fun, suspenseful read that forced me to look up the meaning of “gunnysack” and the locations of Winnipeg and Manitoba.
Just a few years ago, during a nostalgic phase, I sought out and bought a used copy of The Mysterious Caboose on eBay. In researching the author, I noticed that she had also written a series of sports books but released them under the gender-neutral name M. G. Bonner, presumably because, at that time, women had less credibility talking about sports. That reminded me of my dad’s experience. He wrote and published over 30 books on crafts and hobbies and the outdoors under his own name, Harry Zarchy. But when he did a book on sewing, his publishers implored him to use my mom’s name … because who would read a book about sewing written by a man? So if you Google my mom, Jeanette Zarchy, you’ll see her lone book credit.
Tell us about your current book in 10 words.
Sci-fi blend, notes of alternate history, baseball saga, action thriller.
E-Reader or print? and why?
I love print books. Given the choice, I’ll nearly always opt to buy a book in paper. It’s portable, light, simple to operate, never has system failures, and can’t run out of battery. And it smells like knowledge. Having said that, though, I do love reading on my iPad, which can hold enough books for a long, long trip, plus movies for plane flights. It’s hard to beat the font controls, the ease of the electronic page flips, and the convenience of the “look up” function. And I prefer to use a lightweight device for reading books which on paper would be huge, heavy tomes. On the other hand, many long plane flights last longer than my iPad, so for travel, I’ll often bring books and movies on the device, plus a paper book or two. At home, I read almost exclusively print books.
When do you do most of your reading?
I do most of my reading in the afternoon, after lunch or brunch. This is often the best time of day for me to be able to sit still and concentrate on a book, but It’s a delicate balance. If I’m too restless, I might find myself re-reading pages over and over again. Sometimes my mind wanders, I decide to look up a word, phrase, name, or place I see in my book, and then plunge into a deep dive in my phone. If I’m too relaxed, that time after lunch becomes the best time of day for me to be able to sit still and nap. Still haven’t figured out how to read with my eyes closed, and audiobooks just put me to sleep.
Favorite place to read?
The brown leather recliner in our family room is my ideal spot for reading. It’s far enough from my wife’s office that I can keep out the sound by closing the connecting door. Comfy, cushy, feet up, good light (both natural and lamps), and situated in such a way that I can NOT see the TV screen, so I’m not tempted to stop reading and watch a ballgame, sitcom, anime, or romcom. When I sit there, I’m reading. If I want to subject myself to the current Golden Age of Television, I have to change seats. Somehow, this arbitrary logic works for me.
Do you loan your books?
A long time ago, I gave up trying to keep copies of all my favorite books, especially after I discovered many long series of novels by favorite writers in the mystery and sci-fi genres. I just can’t keep them all, especially when it’s highly unlikely I’ll ever read them again. Every few years, we purge through our bookcases and get rid of many of the deep-stacked, stuffed, and double-layered dust-catchers. We put them in bags and donate them to the local library, which sells them for a quarter a piece as a fundraiser. The last time we did this, shortly before the pandemic, we gave away over 300 books. Nevertheless, I do sometimes lend other favorite books to friends I feel I can trust, but I can be very obnoxious about it, writing my name in large red letters on the front cover and, with great ceremony,e pinning a dated reminder note to my bulletin board. If I had some kind of electronic tag I could attach to a loaned book that would make it beep incessantly after a few weeks, I would totally use it. All the time. And yes, I know that could be annoying.
How do you keep your books organized?
Most of our books are in floor-to-ceiling bookcases with glass fronts, to keep the dust down. My wife and I are both big readers, especially since we’ve both been retired, and of course more so since the start of the pandemic. In our many years together, we’ve always had tall bookcases and lots of books. For the longest time, the shelves were open, and the books became dusty, especially on the higher shelves. Over the past ten years or so, we’ve gotten rid of several old open bookcases and added new ones with glass doors. The books stay much cleaner that way, and we purge the collection regularly (see above).
Organization is a bit haphazard. There are no labels, but we seem to have an unspoken general agreement that mysteries go in one area, other novels below them, women’s stuff over to the right, travel books below that, some art and sports stuff further down. Books on religion and music go in her home office, travel and history and storytelling in mine. Not as sophisticated as the Dewey Decimal system, by any means, but it’s an effective, highly personalized, and (so far) long-lasting solution.
Re-reader or not?
No. Life is too short. When I was younger, I did re-read some epic works (like The Lord of the Rings and Gone With the Wind) several times. But now I read more slowly and almost never go back through a book a second time, given that so many thousands of new books come out every year! Two recent exceptions: Alexis Coe’s 2020 best-selling biography of George Washington, You Never Forget Your First, which I devoured twice as I prepped the final edit of my first novel, Finding George Washington: A Time Travel Tale. Also, in preparation for writing my next novel about FDR, I have read The Five Weeks of Giuseppe Zangara, by Blaise Picchi, several times. Aside from those rare exceptions, which usually involve research, I don’t re-read.
What would make you not finish a book?
I always finish the books I start. Almost always. But … around the beginning of the shelter in place, I started reading a book by Harlan Coben, an author I had heard of but never read before, and I posted a picture of the cover on Facebook. An old friend responded and cautioned me that this was an early Coben, and that he had “gotten much better” in his later works. I read a few chapters, then stalled out, put it aside, and started other books. But the Coben book sat on a side table and glared at me for months. Eventually my wife asked me why it was still there, and I told her I found the book and characters to be sexist, arrogant, even a bit racist. I didn’t like it but couldn’t bring myself to admit I didn’t want to finish it. She suggested gently that I really had no obligation to finish a book I didn’t enjoy. What a radical idea! The next day, I stealthily picked up the “early Coben,” dropped it into a donation bag heading for Goodwill, and felt not a shred of guilt. Case closed.
Washington befriends two Berkeley twenty-somethings who help him cope with the astonishing—and often comical—surprises of the twenty-first century.
Washington’s absence from Valley Forge, however, is not without serious consequences. As the world rapidly devolves around them—and their beloved Giants fight to salvage a disappointing season—George, Tim, and Matt are catapulted on a race across America to find a way to get George back to 1778.
Equal parts time travel tale, thriller, and baseball saga, Finding George Washington is a gripping, humorous, and entertaining look at what happens when past and present collide in the 9th inning, with the bases loaded and no one warming up in the bullpen.
Plumbing
The General sat back, bone-weary, enjoying the rest. He then examined his drink.
“Beer, you say?” he grinned tightly. “Very watery, isn’t it?”
We quickly ran out of things to say. He marveled at the cans.
“Such bright, beautiful metal! They appear to be made of gold and silver.”
“Not.”
After a while, inevitability reared its ugly head. “Young man?”
“Please call me Tim, General.”
“Timothy. Could you kindly direct me to the privy?”
“Sure. But I’d better show you how to use it. It’s all changed since your day.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Well, there are plumbing devices to learn.”
“Plumbing?”
I took him on a tour of the bathroom. I was sure that, even in wartime, the General had always washed from a basin filled with warm water by servants. He had probably never seen running water in a sink, much less a shower.
At the basin, he gleefully grasped the left lever and twisted, then stuck his hand under the tap.
“Oh my! It’s warm. No, it’s hot! Who heats this water and puts it into this pipe?”
“The water comes from a tank, where it’s kept hot by burning a fuel. Here’s where you sit, General.” I showed him how to lift the lid and the seat and mentioned the protocol of closing the seat after use. He eyed the toilet suspiciously.
“And this little magic lever on the side blows water through and makes it all go away,” I added.
“Where?”
“Where what?”
“Where does it go?”
“Just … away.”
“Is it magic, Timothy? Like the cold box?”
“No sir, just technology.”
“Eh?
“Invention. Science.”
He was curious, yet his shoulders slumped with each new revelation, his apparent displacement in time and space beginning to weigh on him. He needed help.
He looked at me with a tight smile. “I fear I must rest. I hate to impose, but is there somewhere I could lay my weary head?”
I smiled. “I know just the place.”
“And perhaps something to wear that is a bit less formal than my current attire?” He looked down at his high boots and filthy wartime clothing.
Bill’s career includes filming three former presidents for the Emmy-winning West Wing Documentary Special, the Grammy-winning Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em, feature films Conceiving Ada and Read You Like A Book, PBS science series Closer to Truth, musical performances as diverse as the Grateful Dead, Weird Al Yankovic, and Wagner’s Ring Cycle, and countless high-end projects for technology and medical companies.
His tales from the road, personal essays, and technical articles have appeared in Travelers’ Tales and Chicken Soup for the Soul anthologies, the San Francisco Chronicle and other newspapers, and American Cinematographer, Emmy, and other trade magazines.
Bill has a BA in Government from Dartmouth and an MA in Film from Stanford. He taught Advanced Cinematography at San Francisco State for twelve years. He is a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area and a graduate of the EPIC Storytelling Program at Stagebridge in Oakland. This is his first novel.
http://findinggeorgewashington.com
http://findinggeorgewashington.com/blog
http://billzarchy.com
https://www.facebook.com/Finding-George-Washington-A-Time-Travel-Tale-by-Bill-Zarchy-112403433952296
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984919120/
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NXXNLBB/
The book will be $0.99.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a good book.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a lot of fun. Check it out
DeleteI am so impressed by Bill Zarchy's bio. What a career he has had.
ReplyDeleteThank you! You might enjoy my first book, Showdown at Shinagawa: Tales of Filming from Bombay to Brazil. It’s a memoir of my shooting film and video projects on sux continents.
DeleteThat should say “on six continents.” Sorry about that!
DeleteThanks so much for hosting me today.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a very good book.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Check it out!
DeleteGreat post, thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. So glad you enjoyed it!
DeleteYou're welcome. So glad you enjoyed it!
ReplyDelete