A collection of Maynards magazine column, many concerning the mythical bike shop run by a guy named Bob. Most of stories hit the mark, some falter, maybe I did not "get" them because I am not a racer. I highly recommend it to any "bicycle fancier".
Brad and his wife, Amy, travel the U.S. in a motor home searching for the meaning of Faith, Hope, Inspiration, etc., in towns of the same name. Took me a while to get into it, but it was pretty good.
Quote:
As we stopped at Big Spy Mountain Overlook, elevation thirty-two hundred feet, a group of exhausted bikers peddled to stop near us. Today was the end of their nine-day journey. They had started in the Great Smoky Mountains. "That's where we came from," Amy offered. "only we came on four wheels." "Oh," responded a breathless biker. "That seems like an easy way. Don't know why I didn't think of it." He rode off, leaving us to ponder the fine line between humor and sarcasm.
Claire Malloy gets a phone call from a dead person. More or less. Adventures in Mexico!
QUOTE:
Most of the deck chairs were occupied by inert, sunburned bodies clad in everything from terrycloth robes to string bikinis. A heartening number of them were reading fat paperback books.
Claire Malloy subs at her daughter's high school, in the Journalism dept.
QUOTE:
The bell rang once again, and shortly thereafter the room swelled with Photo B, a.k.a. the newspaper photographers. We exchanged the necessary courtesies and they managed to talk among themselves until the class was over. Ho hum. Teaching wasn't all that hard.
Arly is talked in accompanying a group of teens to church camp. A group of women with shaven heads live on the property. One turns up dead. Back in Maggody, the Marjorie the pig is lonely.
Arly Hanks deal with the results of a home town hero singer returning to give a concert.
Quote and Vocabulary Word Of The Day:
Onomatopoeically speaking, the sound was more like that of a balky outboard motor than the traditional storybook simplification of easily pronounceable phonemes, but it had been one helluva night in Maggody and nobody was in the mood to be picky.
Claire Malloy ends up with a baby on her doorstep.
QUOTE:
... "What's more, I have nothing to wear tomorrow. I have a pink sundress, but it's strapless." ... I assured her it would blend in well with customary dress at funerals in Farberville, in that I didn't care.
He tried to remember the polite things to say when a beautiful stranger struck up a conversation about oral sex. None of the obvious replies seemed appropriate for a funeral.