I have the honour of my question being used this week on Booking Through Thursday’s blog:

This week’s question is suggested by Island Editions:

Do you have a favourite book, now out of print, that you would like to see become available again? (I have several…)

When I first submitted this question for consideration, I had a particular book in mind that had long been a favourite. I thought the publisher, Clark City Press in Livingston, MT, had closed. But a quick search on the internet proved me wrong, and I’m very happy to know that the company is still alive, and well, and that the book Querencia by Stephen Bodio is in print and available. I’ve written about it on my new blog, You Really Must Read… where I plan to post re-views of good backlist books that readers may not have heard of when they were first published. I’m asking that readers participate by writing their own re-views of favourite books. Please visit the site.

So now I was presented with a new problem - which book to write about for this week’s BTT post…

I remembered two books I’d read and enjoyed that were written by the author Michael Petracca. Doctor Syntax and Captain Zzyzx are well-written (Petracca teaches in the Writing Program at UC Santa Barbara), hilarious, and related in their story lines, although they may be read independently. I foolishly gave away my copy of Captain Zxyzx, but still have the first book. I checked Capra Press, the original publisher that is still listed on Petracca’s website, and, when checking their backlist, was infuriatingly redirected to a German site that had absolutely nothing to do with books. So I can’t report whether the books are actually still in print or not. I don’t have access to Books In Print. Amazon lists them as being available in new or used copies, but only from other sources. I’d like to reread both books again because I think they’d be like taking a mini-writing course and, now that I’m doing some creative writing of my own, it would be interesting to study how Petracca tells these stories. The first time I read them was for pure enjoyment.