I have read some of Mr. Doyle's books before including The Barrytown Trilogy of The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van which were made into movies.. The Guts features the same working class family, the Rabbitte's maybe 20 years after the band fell apart (the Commitments). Jimmy Rabbitte Jr. has been diagnosed with colon cancer and is in a funk.

This book is written in the same Dublin working class Anglo/Irish slang with lots of scatological words as many of Doyle's other novels. It promises to be as humorous as the The Barrytown Trilogy was. I just started it and already I was made to laugh even though the subject is serious.

BTW- I just had a colonoscopy Friday where they removed and sent one polyp for biopsy. I don't know the results yet, but this book may be closer to home then is comfortable.

Both my brother and my wife had a polyp biopsied. Both turned out to be benign.

I have never even had a single polyp! That's in four colonoscopies.

My single biopsy was in the femoral head. My problem turned out to be a condition called osteonecrosis. Not good but better than the C word.

Walking was suddenly very painful and I didn't know why. It was all uphill to the truck.

I got the worst of the two hips replaced. It's the same thing that happened to Steve Perry vocalist of the band Journey. Steve was hiking in Hawaii.

I'm glad we live in a time when they could replace the hip.

I can walk. So I'm happy about that. But my limit is about 1/8 mile on level easy ground. My last deer hunting was 2001.

I was in a life threatening car accident in 1990. That probably accounts for it.

of his left him before he was 40, they tried rebuilding it and he went back to his truck driving job but only lasted three years, you could see the pain etched in his face.

He ended up with one re-build and 5 replacements on the left hip and the rt hip wore out taking the brunt of what the left couldn't do so he had that replaced back in 2008.

It just changed our life quite a bit.

I wish you both the very best.

I am reading Last Bus to Wisdom by Ivan Doig. I'm not very far into it yet. My reading has slowed down.

Earlier Mrs Enthusiast read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Now Mrs Enthusiast is reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver.

I hesitate to mention it but Mrs. Enthusiast was not at all enamored by To Kill a Mockingbird. I think the racism was very disturbing to her. She also felt, after reading The Poisonwood Bible that the writing in To Kill a Mockingbird suffered in comparison. I have never read To Kill a Mockingbird but I understand it is dear to many readers.

Started reading Thomas Maltman's Night Birds last night and thought how nice it is to be going into the reading season. During the spring and summer, there is so much going on that there isn't nearly as much time to read and I fall asleep so early. In winter, I can read during the day without getting so sleepy. There are so many books and so little time.