Xepherus Reads

Hello, Fellow Book Worms and Book Dragons !   A Christ mas S tory is one of my favorite Christmas films. I watch it multiple times a year. But I have never read the book. Sitting at the register in a local book shop was the original short st ories that inspired the movie. I could not pass up a chance to read this classic book . Taken from four , short autobiographical essays, Shepard published them in a book , entitled In God We T r ust, All Others Pay Ca sh . It was from these four stories, and another short work that the hilarious screenplay for the beloved movie was born. But this story is not entirely a Christmas one.     The late Jean Shepard's rollicking foray i nto the life of Ra lphie Parker was published in 1966. Recently Penguin Random House, under the ir Br oadway Books imprin t, released a new versio n of the classic tale, collecting five of Jean Shepard's short stories into one volume , r e-branded to gain more notoriety . F e aturing a phot...

  Hello, Book Worms and Book Dragons!   I had the privilege growing up to be able to sit in front of the television, and watch the Carol Burnett Show new every week. Although I was young in the late 1970s (around five years old) I knew that there was something special about this show. In my world of GI Joe, Sesame Street, and riding the swings at the playground, I stopped my kid brain to watch Carol and company. She was magic. She made me laugh harder than any other person on television had. And i f she could get the attention of a rambunctious five year old like I was, she must be magic.   As I grew older and moved on into adulthood, I would catch Carol Burnett Show reruns on television.  I even ordered the VHS cassette tape set of the show on CBS Video. In one way or another Carol Burnett has been a part of who I am at any age. When I recently began to work as a writer and book reviewer, I told myself (Self! I said) I will find a book on Carol Burnett's li...