Steve Slosberg got roped into these pages because of the invitation from Chip Hauss,
but judging from his thoughtful enthusiasm, he's become an active and willing participant.
Here are his responses to some of the last issue's comments.

quote

Dear Ken,

Don't despair, and certainly don't shun Longitude because of the gnarly going in Galileo's Daughter. Longitude has what Daughter lacks ã a story. Longitude tells a most compelling story, full of palace intrigue and royal backstabbing, grand stuff on a global stage and a puzzle that even the lofty Galileo could not overcome the moons of Jupiter to solve. Dava Sobel just gave lectures at Connecticut College and the Coast Guard Academy here in New London. Her next book looks even less engaging than "Daughter" -- the planets.

I forget whether you've made the rewarding hike to Cold Mountain, but this novel should bolster your spirits. It is a novel, you know, gorgeous, taking its time wherever it chooses to detail the human condition, savagely alluring characters, wild herbs, weather, the nature of matter and faith and war and death, and goat meat, the usual spoils of plot and talent.

Rick Bragg revisits his kinfolk in Ava's Man, a portrait of his mother's father, a man Bragg never know. You'd never know it. Bragg is the best.

Trying to generate interest in our community -- a dozen or so towns -- for one of these "One Book, One City" reading projects. It all began with the Washington Center for the Book in Seattle a couple of years ago. A handful of cities and several states have done it since. People say they are keen on it, but choosing the book and ensuring enough copies and appropriate translations are out there (Chicago needed To Kill a Mockingbird in Polish as well as English) may take some time. Worth checking the Web about the project, though.

• The Web Page for Galileo's Daughter
• A review of Longitude from CurledUp.com
• Charles Frazier on writing Cold Mountain from Salon.com
The publisher's Web Site for Ava's Man
• Another review of Ava's Man from the Mountain Area Information Network
• Jonathan Shipley's review of Ava's Man from Rain Taxi
• Owatonna, MN's One City One Book
• The Center for the Book at the Library of Congress' Web Page on One Book projects
• Dennis Loy Johnson's contrary opinion on One Book projects from Moby Lives