Charlie's Books

Charlie's Books
Buon Giorno, Amici!

Our motto ...

Leave the (political) party. Take the cannoli.

"It always seems impossible until it's done." Nelson Mandela

Right now 6 Stella crime novels are available on Kindle for just $.99 ... Eddie's World has been reprinted and is also available from Stark House Press (Gat Books).

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Sherry Meeks - A Georgia Peach ... The Last Kiss (L’ultimo Baccio) ... Fiat ... The Super Bowl ... Bradying & music to Brady by ...

Amici:


Continuing our recent Southern New Hampshire University MFA graduates feature, today is Sherry’s day (the doll on the boat above). This Georgia Peach is s sweetheart and one terrific writer. Sherry is someone everyone loves. Her last semester was my first in the program. We and a few others shared the same mentor, Mitch Wieland. Below is a brief bio of our Peach and the words of Mitch Wieland at Sherry’s graduation.

Sherry Meeks is a recent graduate of Southern New Hampshire University’s M.F.A. in Fiction program. Sherry is a native of Georgia and spends her time writing chapters of novels, short stories, and the occasional poem. She also reads books of friends and strangers, queries agents for her novel Reading Tambri, currently applies for teaching positions, spends time with her dogs, Abby and Skye, teaches group fitness to avoid the effects of the butt in chair syndrome that plagues writers, and braves her part of the south’s seven month-a-year heat.

Sherry has two pups and here they are:


Mitch’s words at Sherry’s graduation:

Reading Tambri is a haunting exploration of the aftermath of losing a child. Sherry’s stories have true emotional depth and staying power. Over the course of this fine book, our central protagonist emerges as a psychologically complex character, a woman who struggles to hold crushing grief at bay.

Sherry’s prose is strong and sharp. Her scene work is excellent and highly effective. Throughout the stories there is a keen intelligence at work, resulting in smart and subtle observations about the nature of relationships. Sherry is highly adept at examining the complicated bonds between parents and their children, wives and husbands, and lifelong friends.

Reading Tambri covers the arc of a woman’s grief, but also deals with our sense of getting older, of where we are in life and where we want to be. It ends on a breathtaking note of hope and possibility.

Mitch Wieland
Full Professor of English
Editor of the Idaho Review

Congrats to our Peach, Sherry Meeks!


L’Ultimo Bacio ... This one was hilarious. Netflix has the subtitles so don’t be afraid ... and definitely see this version before the American remake. Hilarious.

From IMDB: Carlo's life is thrown into a tailspin when his longtime girlfriend Giulia announces she's pregnant. As Carlo faces up to his anxieties about adulthood, his buddies Paolo, Adriano and Alberto reluctantly grapple with their own responsibilities.



Much has been said about the Fiat commercial during the Super Bowl ... let’s face it, the car was friggin’ beautiful. It left me feeling guilty for buying a friggin’ Honda the week before the game. All I could think about since seeing that commercial was Fiat, Fiat, Fiat ... and a few of yous (the Doc, of course) have offered “big money” to see me get inside a Fiat Abarth. The wife, once she saw the commercial, said, “I’ll stuff your ashes in a Fiat, how’s that?”

Momma mia ... what a car!




Like I said, what a friggin’ car!

Super Bowl Thoughts ... it was a good game that could’ve went any number of ways any number of times; the Giant’s holding penalty that killed a drive that might’ve triggered a blowout; the Giant fumbles they recovered; the non-pass interference call against the Cheatriots, and, last but not least, the Welker-Branch-Hernandez drops. I was happy when Hernandez dropped his pass because of that stupid TD celebration he did earlier in the game (that required Navy flagmen to figure out WTF he was doing). I hope he remembered that little show when he dropped his last pass (the highlight reel Lombardi would’ve shoved down this throat).

What I didn’t like about the game was the “let them score” play. I also didn’t appreciate Chris Collinsworth’s take on it: “That’s a misake.”

Really? You don’t score because you assume Tom Brady is going to drive the length of the field and score a TD with 1:25 on the clock? You don’t score a TD so you can take your shot on a much riskier field goal? They’re giving you 6 points (so you can practice a field goal for next season on the extra point) and will need a TD themselves to win, but you’re supposed to not score? Bullshit. You score (as the Giants did). It was then incumbent upon the Cheatriots to score a TD (not so easy, as we saw).

And it’s not like teams haven’t blown a game or two with fumbles.



Imagine playing defense until the game is ACTUALLY OVER ... well, it just goes to show you how much confidence Belichik had in his defense after all ... and wasn’t it wonderful to see that each and every statistic machine went down to teams with defenses. Rodgers and the high flying Packer offense, defeated by the Moonachie Blue team defense ... Drew Brees and his record setting season, knocked out by the 49’er excellent defense ... and then finally (after the best game of the playoffs, Moonachie Blue v. San Fran), we all got to watch Bradying as the Brady stat machine scored all of 17 points when it counted most.


And then there was Gisele ...

“Eli owns your husband!” the heckler yelled.

"You are supposed to catch the ball when you're supposed to catch the ball," Giselle said. "My husband cannot fucking throw the ball and catch the ball at the same time."

A super model standing by her man or a spoiled brat making excuses for her husband by throwing his teammates under the bus?  Yous make the decision. I just wonder if she meant the interception he threw or the couple of passes that were batted down at the line of scrimmage.

At least Tom gave us something new with his latest Super Bowl LOSS ... Bradying.



Think he’s upset because he didn’t deliver on “Nobody beats Belichik and Brady two, three times in a row" ... or was it because he didn’t marry the Fiat girl?

— Knucks

As Mr. Brady does his thing (Bradying) ... we thought this music appropriate for him to contemplate his mistakes in life ...



Some a’yous will remember this wonderful scene from Shawshank Redemption ... same music, different boids singing it ...