Barry's Life in Napa Blog

It's more than a little bit sad that bookstores are going the way of the dodo. Not only are times hard for the independent booksellers, but even the big guys like Borders and Barnes & Noble are struggling. (Look for those two to merge and share the pain.) In little old Napa not that long ago there were at least three bookstores downtown. Now the total is zero. Their sales fell as rents rose. On our recent east coast trip I was on the lookout for one of those funky old book shops with stacks and stacks to poke through. Sorry to say after two weeks on the road I never saw a single one. You don't have to be a rocket surgeon to conclude that the ability to buy books online is making the brick and mortar bookstore weak. If I want some old book, chances are I can find it for pennies from some Amazon re-seller - and if it's a new book I'm after, what keeps me from buying it at Wal Mart or some other discounter where you get the same book for several dollars less? (Other ...

When summer approaches, I always think of a teacher I had in high school who rhapsodized about reading War and Peace . He said he loved it so much, as he approached the end he rationed the pages to a set number per day to make it last longer. Wouldn't it be great to have a week or two (or a month or two) to do nothing but read War and Peace , and love it that much? Truth is, I can't sit still for that long. The older I get the antsier I get. So I guess that's why I have a tendency to read several books at the same time. Well, not literally. That would be clumsy. What I mean is there are always three or four books around with dogears in them. Well, not literally. The dog would never go for that. At the moment, here's the lineup: The Wisdom of Crowds , James Surowiecki. This is my new Tipping Point book experience, the kind you look forward to at the end of the day, always some revelation, and you want to tell everybody about it. I, Claudius by Robert Graves. When th...

It never fails - once you're at the ballgame in SF you always wish you had worn one more layer. Or that you had a blanket, or a pair of electric socks. You wish the guy in front of you would spontaneously combust to generate a little heat. Last night at the game (Giants 5, Padres 3) I considering asking the hot chocolate vendor to how much he would charge to drench me in the stuff. Freezing is just part of the Phone Company Park baseball experience, along with the big Coke bottle, $8 beer, and loving/hating Bonds. And drunk people, of course. Always drunk people, somebody wants to fight, somebody gets tossed. All part of the experience, and mostly harmless. True as well with the NFL. Even Raiders fans, as scary as they may be, are a lot of bark and very little bite. But there's something extremely different going on across the pond. This week, more reports of outrageous fan violence and blood in the streets. It's becoming the norm that any major soccer match, whether betwe...

It's not some kind of best-kept secret or an insider tip, but Bill Bryson is great. Just started reading his latest, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (thanks to Tammy for the Christmas gift) and it is one of those "wish I had a cold so I could stay home and read it all day" books. He has a way of coming across warm and sentimental about growing up in Des Moines, while painting it a little demented like a chapter from A Christmas Story at the same time. You'll annoy others by reading funny stuff out loud to them over and over. I've also gotten a lot of pleasure from Bryson's books about walking the Appalachian Trail and traveling in Europe as a young man - both of these tales involve his strange friend Katz. (I had to jump over to Amazon to see which of his I had read and ended up ordering a couple more. Can't believe there are some I haven't read.) I think Bill Bryson just keeps getting better.