A couple of contrasts at the YMCA, where I swim a couple of days a week: I was accosted in the lobby by a woman I vaguely recalled, but she recalled me enough to button-hole me and announce that I had sold her the first Round Barn book two years ago for her farmer father and told her if he didn’t like it she could have her money back. Now she wanted her money back, he hadn’t even read it. I said, “But you could read it. It’s a good book.” She replied, “I don’t like big books.” I returned her money — all of $15, she’d had a discount – and I refrained from any caustic comments. In contrast, the next day a retired judge who’d bought all three books at the Y was waiting for me with the money and with that big first book all thumbed and 5/6 read, telling me that this was the most fantastic book he’d ever read! Go figure.