Mark Gilroy

Bringing Books to Life!

Is Jack Reacher the Most Unique Character in Commercial Fiction?

a quick glance at jack reacher

Reacher has a major attachment issue – he can’t commit to living in one place.

In Jack Reacher, Lee Child has created one of the most unique and interesting male characters in commercial fiction today.

Army brat, West Point grad, and decorated military veteran, Reacher never lived in one place more than a year or two growing up or in his military career, so why start now? He doesn’t.

When Reacher leaves the Army – as a matter of honor, of course, he begins a new life as a drifter, traveling by bus or as a hitchhiker with the clothes on his back, a toothbrush, and an ATM card. He always finds trouble – and he is always ready to fight for the underdog.

Oh, and when his clothes get dirty, he throws them away and buys new ones. He’s not real particular on brands. So he’s done the math and it makes perfect sense to him.

Reacher is pretty lucky. None of the bad guys shoot as well as he does. And whatever mess he gets in the middle of, there is always an extremely attractive, independent, and unattached woman for him to consider the possibility of settling down with.

Reacher hit the big screen in 2013 with Tom Cruise in lead role, which created a storm of controversy with fans of the 6′ 5″ literary character. Cruise is always great in an action role. He’s not great at being taller than most everyone else in the room.

As of this writing Child has written 18 full novels … the series might finally be losing steam (at least for me), but Child has pulled off no small feat.

Adapted from my Pinterest board, Spies, Detectives, Hit Men, and Vigilantes.

We Need Daily Grace

A Year of Devotions to Draw You Near to the Heart of God

The new Fall River edition of Daybook of Grace

I wrote and compiled most of A Daybook of Grace a couple years ago and “packaged” it for Fall River Press (an imprint of Sterling Publishing, owned by Barnes & Noble) as part of their exclusive in-store value line. After three years in the market, the publishing team at Falls River recently updated and upgraded it with an exquisite new cover for the trade. (Thanks Stefan and Betsy.)

This project will always be near and dear to my heart for a couple of reasons. Of course I like (and really need) a daily devotional book to help me focus spiritually and emotionally each morning. I also like the title and the theme of daily grace. There are certainly some mad-dash sprints in life, but overall it is a marathon that takes daily endurance.

But what really makes the project special to me is how many problems I had during the process of preparing it for publication. I can’t go into details, but one of my vendors had a personal crisis that spilled over into the development and timeline, which meant unplanned late night and early morning writing sessions, and a couple rounds of re-budgeting. (What I dealt with paled in comparison to what my friend had to go through.)

My wife likes to remind me that when strange, idiopathic challenges arise, “something good is about to happen.” And as Daybook went to press that was indeed the case. The new release is another good thing to happen. It is even better that it happened a couple years later – that means the book has done well.

Daybook of Grace is my lovely reminder that grace really is a daily need and blessing.

Daybook of Grace is available at all Barnes and Noble stores and B&N.com, Amazon.com, and other fine booksellers.

 

How to Make March Madness Even Madder

a fun play-in tournament to make march madness even madder

On “Selection Sunday” each year, a committee appointed by the NCAA selects and seeds the top 64 Division I men’s basketball programs to play in their championship tournament. Oh, in case you missed it, there is an Opening Round that started in 2001 where two teams played for the final spot in the tournament. Starting in 2010 there were four play-in games, so 68 teams get selected for the tournament. The winner of each play-in game would go to one of the four regions, except this year, when two went to one region. Go figure.

What most of us think of as the first round is actually the second round. But on to my point of how to make March Madness even madder.

Even with 68 teams making the tournament, there is angst and gnashing of teeth and cries of “no fair” for those “bubble teams” that don’t make the tournament. No matter where you draw the line this would be the case, of course. (Note: Just because the top four NCAA DI college football teams play a mini tournament starting this year, don’t believe for a second that there won’t be impassioned cries of “unfair” from the next few teams in the final BCS rankings or whatever rankings they use.)

Why not let more teams in? I counted 160 teams with winning records this year. If each region gets a play-in team, that would be 96 teams playing tournaments in four regions – four 24 team tournaments.

Wouldn’t that take forever? Not necessarily. Pick four venues where you can have multiple courts, probably domed stadiums or convention centers. Monday afternoon would be the four games that got the tourney to a sweet 16. That evening – eight games on four courts. And yes, four teams would play two games the first day. That’s half a typical summer day for most players and less than they played in a day growing up on AAU tournaments.

Tuesday morning would be the four Elite 8 games. Tuesday evening would be the Final 4. Wednesday morning or afternoon would be the “championship” game in each region. The winning team would get on an airplane or a bus and head for their first round NCAA game. Nice guy that I am, I suggest giving them Thursday off and scheduling them for the Friday game.

Would anyone show up? You bet. I lived in Kansas City for years and would spend at least one day at Kemper Arena (“the hump in the dump”) to watch three or four NAIA games pitting small colleges in tournament action, many that I had never heard of. The games were great. (And yes, being Kansas City, barbecue was involved.)

Keep the tickets reasonably priced and give basketball junkies a chance to watch a couple games of basketball.

Would this hurt the NIT Tournament? (The what?) Probably. But playing for a chance to compete in the NCAAs actually makes it a much more meaningful tournament.

Incidentally, no #16 seed has beat a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament – though top seeds have fallen to low seeds – Weber State beat North Carolina, George Mason beat Connecticut, and a host of other powerhouses like Indiana, Arizona, UCLA, Syracuse, and others have lost first round games to low seeds.

Sound crazy? Undoubtedly it is. Maybe that’s why it would work so well with March Madness.