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Here are some thoughts from the beach on the Outer Banks last week... 1. When reading and floating in the pool it is best to read advance reading copies. They are paperbacks in a size easy to hold. Hardcovers WILL get wet and manuscripts have too many free floating pages to be near water. Thus it's ARCs in the pool, hardbacks on the couch and manuscripts in the car (where the pages can get stuffed between the seats after you read them).

I love to read and I love to swim. Watching Michael Phelps this week I was thinking that the way he swims is like plotting a memorable book. He takes off from the wall like a great novel grips you and pulls you in. As he moves down the lane, he has his eye on the field the way a good writer watches over all of his characters --- and he stays one step ahead of them. He holds back when he needs to conserve energy as a writer holds back some action or revelation.

I realized that I failed to write about the last panel of the day on Saturday. It was moderated brilliantly by Donna Rifkind who clearly knew each author's work and was very articulate with her questions. The panelists --- Stuart Woods, Dan Fesperman, Eli Gottlieb and Christopher Rice thus were able to shine speaking about their work, and the art of their craft. Rice spoke about writing the books that he would like to read and spoke about growing up in a house where book reading was a mandatory assignment and he was not talking about his mom, Anne Rice's books, but rather Styron or Thomas.

Friday morning I was up, packed and on my way to the airport bright and early. I was completely ready to inhale books and authors for the weekend --- L.A. Style.

My older son loves ocean liners and lighthouses. I know, not the typical fare of most 18-year-old boys, but he definitely has ensured that we have taken some very different vacations over the past few years. While some kids long to get to Disneyland, he has seen more than 175 lighthouses, many of them with my husband or me in tow.

These past two weeks there have been some "interesting" revelations about politicians and sex. It got me to thinking about what kids have learned about sex from politicians by reading the newspaper, listening to the news and looking at even the home page of most news sites over the past decade or so: President Clinton --- oral sex.Governor Spitzer --- sex with prostitutes.Senator Larry Craig --- how to pick up men in bathrooms.Governor McGreevey (and his wife) --- threesomes.Governor Patterson (and his wife) --- both had affairs.

If you spent the $4,300 you were alleged to have spent on the night of February 13th on books, you could have bought 172 hardcover books at an average price of $25. If, as rumored, you spent $80,000 on escort services over the past decade, you could have bought 3,200 hardcover books at an average price of $25. If you bought the books in state, none would have had to cross state lines to get to you. If you bought them online, they may have crossed state lines and yes, you may not have paid tax, but it still would be legal.

I think going forward that Daylight Savings Time should commence on a Monday, not a Sunday. I do not need one less hour of any Sunday. I could use one less hour of most Mondays. Especially rainy Mondays. Yes, I know for business this would not be easy. I am thinking only of reading time. One less hour of reading time on a weekend is brutal. Even if I can be reading by daylight one hour longer today. I think readers of the world should unite behind this. Have a great Sunday...as you read double time.

As a longtime fan of mystery and thriller books I spend a fair time at mystery conferences. Among the things I have learned from authors in these genres is that if they do not get the gun right in a book they are going to get mail, lots of mail. Thus education on this topic is a must and research on this topic is important. There usually is at least one session on guns and weaponry at writer's conferences like Sleuthfest, which I attended last weekend in Florida.

I just finished reading the piece in The New York Times where Margaret B. Jones admits that her memoir, Love and Consequences, was fabricated. She was not "a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods." Okay, reading this I have a few questions for Jones: 1) Have you ever heard of James Frey? 2) WHERE were you when Frey did his "called on the carpet" appearance on Oprah?