One of the best things about telling everyone you’re a writer is reading without feeling like you should be doing something more productive… like writing.
When you’re a man of letters, like myself, reading is actually working. My onetime/sometime mentor Jamie Brisick gave me the green light when he said “The best thing you can do right now is read your ass off!”

So, right now I’m loosening the bolts that keep my ass in place with The Log from the Sea of Cortez co authored by John Steinbeck and his best buddy, marine biologist Ed Ricketts. It’s a six-week booze-cruise in the Gulf of California poorly dressed as a specimen-collecting expedition. That may sound like a harsh evaluation but the fact remains that Ed and John liked to drink, and drink they did. If the beer consumption documented in Cannery Row is anything to go by you can bet your sweet balls they were both completely shit-faced, stumbling about the deck with their pants round their ankles in this one.
Pick up a recent edition of The Log, but be sure to read the preface ‘About Ed Ricketts’ first. Oddly, it’s been moved to the back of the book. Also, you should read Cannery Row if you haven’t already… I’m just say’n.