Shelf Life — Scott Dickensheets: In the end, Shelf Life answers own questions

Friday, Aug. 11, 2000 | 8:59 a.m.

Scott Dickensheets' books and magazines column appeared Fridays until now, after which it will appear no more. He can still be reached at dickens@ vegas.com or 990-2446.

Time for another mildly exciting installment of "Ask the Shelf Life-Writing Guy"!

Q: Hey, Shelf Life-Writing Guy, can I borrow $10?

A: Catch me next column. Anyone else?

Q: Hey, Shelf Life-Writing Guy, a few columns back, you mentioned that the great Barbara Kingsolver will have a new novel out this fall, but -- and this was disappointing for a books columnist of your caliber -- you didn't have any more info. Do you now?

A: In fact, I do, which is surprising for a book columnist of my caliber. The novel is "Prodigal Summer," due from HarperCollins in October. According to Kingsolver's official website (kingsolver.com), the book is "a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself."

OK.

In a rather more helpful vein, Kingsolver's official website adds that "Prodigal Summer" is set in southern Appalachia and weaves together "three stories of human love" (the best kind, if you're human, anyway). "Over the course of one humid summer, as the urge to procreate overtakes a green and profligate countryside," it says (note to editor: can we say "urge to procreate" in a family books column?), "these characters find connections to one another and the flora and fauna ..."

OK.

To say any more about the book would be to know more about the book, which I don't, so let's just leave it at "urge to procreate" and keep our fingers crossed.

Q: Hey, Shelf Life-Writing Guy, what's that nutty Hunter S. Thompson up to?

A: Glad you asked, bub. Hunter Thompson, the light in his attic mostly burned out by years of substance abuse (kids, let this be a warning: just say no!), is living out the old adage -- if this isn't really an old adage, it should be -- that if you can't write something new, ransack the filing cabinet until you find something old you can sell.

First up: book two in his projected three-volume series of collected letters, this one called "Fear and Loathing in America," and scheduled for a November release from Simon and Schuster. This volume is of particular interest in these parts because it will cover the early '70s, easily Thompson's most productive period, when he wrote "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail."

Next: Simon and Schuster will release a companion volume, "Screwjack and Other Stories" (also in November), a slim volume containing a few bent pieces of Thompson's fiction. It's an expanded reprint of a hard-to-find limited edition published some years ago.

Q: Hey, Shelf Life-Writing Guy, I'm a sports fan.

A: That's not a question. Nonetheless, I have the answer. October. That's when a pair of worthy sports books will hit the shelves.

One is Richard Ben Cramer's "Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life," to be published by Simon and Schuster. Cramer is an exciting and exacting writer, the farthest thing from a DiMaggio hagiographer you can imagine. His will almost certainly be a meticulously reported account of the man behind the myth. At least it should be; it was supposed to have been published last year. One imagines the delay only adding quality heft to the book.

For sportswriting that is about all those human qualities sports supposedly embodies -- courage, regret, desire, heart, guts, spleen -- you can't beat Sports Illustrated scribe Gary Smith. His stories have left tears in the eyes of many a Shelf-Life-like book columnist. The best of them have been gathered into "Beyond the Game: The Collected Sportswriting of Gary Smith," out in October from Atlantic Monthly Press. Even those of you who profess to hate sports (hi, honey!) should give it a try.

Q: Hey, Shelf Life-Writing Guy, I moved my hat here from Texas a few years ago and I'm homesick. Got anything for me?

A: Oddly enough, yes. Gary Cartwright, the gnomish, grizzled dean of Texas journalism, will publish a collection of essays about the Ten Gallon State (or whatever they call it) in November. It'll be titled "Turn Out the Lights: Chronicles of Texas During the '80s and '90s" (University of Texas Press). Having read most of these essays in their original Texas Monthly publication, I can attest to their quality and readability, even for non-Texans.

Q: You sure about that $10?

A: Like I said, catch me next column.

Housekeeping item

On a final note, this is my final final note. As of this installment of the column, I'm pink-slipping myself from Shelf Life. Stepping down. Bugging out. All of my bags are packed, I'm ready to go. Why, you ask, why would any right-thinking human cut himself loose from the free supply of books that was always the best part of this gig? Well, there's the short answer, and then the somewhat longer -- but by no means uncomfortably lengthy -- answer.

First: I'm sick of the sound of my own pontificating. Column-writing has turned me into a hot-air factory, a purveyor of sham authority. I'm tired of pretending I know what I'm talking about, so I can only imagine how you must feel (shudder).

Second: Time. I'm aching for it. I need time to enjoy the wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature itself, as our friend Barbara Kingsolver might put it. More precisely, I need time to read.

I have in my home office -- a small, blue room filled with books, magazines and a cat food dish -- a special stack of books. They're all old, liberated from used-book stores. I desperately want to read them. I can't read them. I have to read new books for Shelf Life, and because I'm an absurdly slow reader -- disappointing for a books columnist of my caliber, I know -- at the rate I'm going (a book a week), I'll never get to them.

Now I'm going to get to them.

So, to those of you who stuck with me this far, thanks for sticking with me this far. You are, as the kids say these days, "good eggs." Next time you see me I'll be reading a 20-year-old copy of some book Shelf Life readers couldn't care less about, and my face will be a mask of contentment. This is the end of the column as we know it, and I feel fine.