Today’s prompt is “What could you give a speech about without notice”, which makes me laugh because going off on spontaneous history lectures is a specialty of mine. History is my passion, and it’s partially connected to my profession: I do local history at my library, and often engage in research when things are slow on the floor. (This rarely happens, and even when I retreat to the archives to ponder my books and photos in peace, people come hunting me. Alas.) My ability to suddenly explode into a lecture got me invited onto a ghost-hunt inside a building I really wanted to document, so it’s not just a party trick.

WWW Wednesday

WHAT have you finished reading recently? Ike and Dick, as well as Being Nixon. I’m so deep into Nixonland that I had a dream that I went into a back-country drive bar and stumbled into him inside, enjoying a brew and some music. We talked about Ike and Dick and he nodded ruefully.

WHAT are you reading? I’m giving Killing Kennedy a shot because I watched three Kennedy movies last week, two of which were connected to the assassination. So far it’s a lot of gossip about JFK’s sex life. I’m also listening to In the Arena, read by RN himself, and to The Midwest Survival Guide, read by Charlie Berens, whose comedy I love. (Keep er movin’!)

WHAT are you reading next? Oh, lord. So, this past weekend I received three books — Lee in the Shadow of Washington, Lincoln by Gore Vidal, and Maverick by Jason Riley. The latter is a biography of Thomas Sowell. On order, I have Kennedy and Nixon, by Chris Matthews; The Declaration of Independence by Brad Birzer; and A Time to Heal by Gerald Ford. The latter was the first or second presidential biography I ever read, back in high school, and I remember it fondly. Freya India’s Girls was just released, so I’m waiting to start my ebook version of that.

I need a vacation just to read my books, and now I’m eying a George H.W. Bush biography with interest. In the words of Jim Carrey in The Mask, sssomebody stop me!