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Author Daniel Pink’s blog posted a YouTube link to this Cold Play cover by Young@Heart.

I’m not much of a pop fiction reader. I’ve been reading or listening to more history and business books than ever before, but my book wheel house is literary fiction.

On my last visit to Wal-Mart, I saw Michael Crichton and Thomas Harris (Hannibal novels) both released new books. And, Carl Hiaasen has as well, ‘Nature Girl.’ These guys are the only pop fiction writers I read now — I dropped the ‘Prey’ series from the must-have list.

Well, I grabbed Crichton and Harris. Finished both novels in a week. It wasn’t hard to blow through Harris’ book because the typeface was something like 14-point and was only 300 pages. That is one sloppy book, a boring book.

Crichton’s ‘Next’ held up for the first 300 pages or so, and then the weight of a hundred major characters doomed the ending. A seriously silly ending. To make it worse, we get a preachy Crichton essay at the end. Hell, no.

Here’s hoping Hiaasen won’t let me down. I need a good pop fiction book to flush away the crap I experienced this week.

No matter what, though, it will be the last pop fiction for awhile. Crichton gets another chance but not that Harris fellow.

It’s been so cold this week that Meg hasn’t been getting enough exercise, which means that poor Jack takes a little more beating than usual. Since we’ve realized that there is no way Jack is less than 7 years old and I sometimes wonder if he might be closer to 10 I’ve been trying to keep Meg off of him more. Of course, sometimes he really does start it. Meg always finishes it though. Anyway, Meg finally got to go out in the snow today and chase the ball for a while. It’s not quite as cold today as it has been.

Pretty darn cold.

Jack and Meg are rescued dogs. That would be true of our cats: George, Martha, Falco and C.C.

My friend, John McNally (go buy his novels), has a nice post on puppy mills and the like. And, a fine photo of his dogs.