Update–Link fixed. (Thank, Ted!)

One of America’s best and clearest thinkers talks about books that had a significant impact on him here:

Four weeks and 50,000 words later, I have emerged from the fortress of solitude.

So . . .How’ve you been?

We sent the manuscript for Paul Harvey’s America off to the publisher yesterday. I must confess, that’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time–especially the research part. If a guy could make a good living doing research, I’d be all over it. I love trolling through the archives of old newspapers and magazines in search of hidden gems. I found a treasure chest full of them on this project.

Back in college, I would spend hours at the library spinning through microfiche reels of the New York Times and LIFE magazine from the ’20s and ’30s. (instead of studying something related to a class I was actually enrolled in.)

You gotta love this internet thing, though. I gathered research online in 5 days that would have required 12 months and lots of travel just 15 years ago.

Regular ranting, linking and musing will now resume. Same over at Chris Matthews’ Leg. Oh, and I’ll be launching a Paul Harvey’s America site very soon, too. There I’ll post wonderful PH quotes I’ve discovered that relate to current events and news.

How very grateful I am that you stop by from time to time to see what my fevered brain is finding interesting. I’ll try to make it worth your while.

As we push toward the finish line on the book Paul Harvey’s America (see previous post), I was struck by some remarkable photos I saw today of efforts to stem the flood tide up in Fargo/Moorehead.

I couldn’t help but think: “This is Paul Harvey’s America right here, captured in a slice of time. . .

More incredible pics here.

I now have clearance to talk about the mystery book deal I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. It’s this:

Stephen is a friend who also happens to have a couple of New York Times best-sellers under his belt. A few weeks ago, when Tyndale House approached him about a Paul Harvey biography that could be rushed to market, he briefly took leave of his senses and recommended me to co-write the work with him.

The book that is emerging isn’t so much a pure biography–although the man’s life is wildly interesting–but also an exploration of his middle-American conservative values and how they were reflected and expressed through the major events of the 20th Century. And how we need them today. (Oh, how we need them!)

Having started on radio in Tulsa in 1933 at the age of 14, Paul Harvey was an observer and a commentator on almost every major event and movement of the last century, right up to and through the election of Barack Obama in this one.

That’s why the title of the book is Paul Harvey’s America: The Life, Art and Faith of Man Who Transformed Radio and Inspired a Nation.

Stephen has even lined up some old timer news guy to write the forward, a man who, as a young journalist just starting out had done a little news gathering work for Paul Harvey back in the 50s. I think he said his name was Dan Rather.

Anyway, Stephen and I still have a couple more weeks of writing to do, but in the meantime, you could do me a small favor. BUY THE BOOK!

It is scheduled to publish on July 4 but pre-sales on Amazon are a super important factor in a book’s chances for success these days.

Oh, how grateful I would be if you would be so kind as to pre-purchase a copy through Amazon and throw a link to this blog post to your friends and neighbors with an exhortation to do the same.

Update: You get free shipping if you order two!

Todd Bensman is curious. And why is the media ignoring this? (Nevermind, I know the answer to that one.)

A couple of months ago I mentioned that 18 months worth of blather blogging history had possibly been lost in a technical server mishap thingy.

Well, I’m pleased to announce that friend-of-blather Brenton has successfully restored the blog database and thus all those incisive pearls are cast once more before angels like you, dear reader, and the greater unwashed swine of the internets.

Many thanks, Brenton!

I sure wish I had time to stop and tell you where I think this guy is wrong, where he’s right, and why. In the meantime, what do you think?

First the good news:

I have a book deal. After writing several dozen books for other, more-famous people over the last 15 years, I will be co-writing one with a friend for a real-deal publisher.

Now the bad news:

It has to be finished one month from today. And I haven’t started yet.

The timeline is being driven by events and is critical to the success (hopefully) of the book.

Of course I’ll still need to keep things going with the day job. Thus blogging here and elsewhere is going to be mighty sparse for the next four weeks. I’ll try to post a link here and there if I come across an interesting tidbit. And I’ll Twitter some nonsense regularly.  But otherwise, I’m about to go under the cone of silence inside the fortress of solitude.

See you in 30 days.

From a Scientific American article titled:

Does Eating Fewer Calories Improve the Brain?

At the end of three months, the reduced-calorie diet group showed a small reduction in body weight (by 2.4 kilograms), whereas the other two diet groups showed a slight increase in weight (by about one kilogram). There was, however, a highly significant (about 20 percent above baseline) improvement in the CR group’s ability to recall words they had on a list (called delayed recall), and they also made fewer errors. Their memory improvement tended to be correlated with reductions in blood insulin and markers of inflammation (C-reactive protein and TNF-alpha). Memory did not change in the other two diet groups.

So, if eating fewer calories is good for the brain, I suspect that there is an inverse corollary in there somewhere. . . One that explains my occasional inability to retain a list of three items for which my wife sent me to the store beyond the five minute drive to get there.

Friend-of-Blather Virgil just created a couple of items for his CafePress stores:

Available in various styles and colors here and here.