Programming note: If you missed Steyn's Song of the Week earlier today on Serenade Radio, it repeats on Monday at 5.30am UK time - that's 9.30pm Sunday North American Pacific time, or about three hours from now.
Meanwhile, welcome to Part Twenty-Nine of our current Tale for Our Time, a summer diversion by Jack London, with more than a touch of romance. If that's insufficiently grim for you in the hell of Covidstan without end, well, there's always my serialization of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Richard Woodruff, a First Week Founding Member from North Carolina, writes:
I'm enjoying this book a lot, Mark, have to admit I wasn't familiar with it.
Very few people are these days, Richard. But, as I mentioned in my introduction, this was the biggest-selling book of Jack London's lifetime, bigger than White Fang or Call of the North - and Burning Daylight was a popular character in multiple movie adaptations. Posterity's judgment would have surprised the author.
In tonight's episode of Burning Daylight, Daylight once again rides out to the Piedmont Hills and bumps into Dede:
This time her surprise at meeting him was tinctured with suspicion; or rather, her surprise was of another order. The previous Sunday had been quite accidental, but his appearing a second time among her favorite haunts hinted of more than the fortuitous. Daylight was made to feel that she suspected him, and he, remembering that he had seen a big rock quarry near Blair Park, stated offhand that he was thinking of buying it. His one-time investment in a brickyard had put the idea into his head—an idea that he decided was a good one, for it enabled him to suggest that she ride along with him to inspect the quarry.
Things have come to a pretty pass when a chap has to buy a rock quarry so the girl won't suspect he's stalking her. But there's no doubt who's the real quarry...
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me read Part Twenty-Nine of Burning Daylight simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
If you've yet to hear any of our Tales for Our Time, you can do so by joining The Mark Steyn Club - and don't forget our special Gift Membership. Oh, and please join me tomorrow for Part Thirty of Burning Daylight.
