The Midges of Bradison County
This is the riveting story of a well-endowed female entomologist, Roberta, who travels to Bradison County in the wilds of Wisconsin to take pictures of midges for a journal article she is writing. In a completely uncontrived way, she runs into Francis, a Wisconsin bachelor farmer, but he suffers only minor injuries. When she discovers that Francis not only has a few cows but also raises sorghum, she falls in love with him because she is writing her article on Cecidomylidae, the gall midges that infect sorghum. Over a period of four days, in between taking pictures of midges, Roberta does her best to seduce Francis. To fill out the middle of the book, Roberta spends several chapters wearing not-appropriate-for-work clothes trying to pique Francis’ interest, but her revealing cleavage only reminds him that he needs to milk the cows. Just before the book is about to end, Roberta throws herself at Francis and misses. When she stands up, she promises to explain how to eliminate his midges, and Francis takes Roberta to a Friday night fish fry. Roberta leaves town sadder but wiser; Francis doesn’t.
Fifty Shades of Grayscale
Oddly, this is another riveting story, but this time it is about an insanely rich female photographer, Christina, who eschews color photography because she likes the word “eschews” and thinks it’s way cooler than “avoids” or “shuns.” In a somewhat contrived way, a young man from Ace Hardware shows up at her mansion to interview her for his blog. He has a photo blog, and it just so happens that he is into black and white photography too! It takes Christiana a few chapters before she asks Andy, the blogger/clerk, to be her assistant in her dark room, with the emphasis on “dark.” As their relationship develops, he discovers she has a bandage fetish. Christina introduces Andy to the various kinds of bandages, showing him how to apply the four main kinds: strip, roller, tubular, and triangular. First she gets him to wear an Ace bandage, which he finds somewhat binding, but then makes a link to his former job at the hardware store: a “hard-wear” Ace bandage. Somehow this makes it okay. He moves onto wearing a bunch of strip bandages and experimenting with tubular bandages. A lot of the chapters are about how things get weirder. One day in the dark room, Andy realizes they just don’t have the right chemistry; he put the wrong chemical in the pan. After he cleans up, Andy leaves the dark room sadder but wiser; Christina doesn’t.
Midge photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
year-struck 
OMG! FIRST! LOL
Thanks for reading so fast.
Can’t wait to hear about Blown with the Wind!
Since I am an almost writer, I’ve almost written quite a few books.
When I grow up I want to be almost like you with some great titles almost under my belt!
6:10 coffee…and I open to this! What a way to start the day! Thank you!
So glad you liked it.
I hope you can get Mr. Spooner to review The Midges of Brandison County…although as a minister he might object to some of the racier milking scenes….
Maybe I can get Spooner to write a guest/ghost post.
Ever consider writing the book, “The Well-Fed Games”? 😉 There could be sorghum.
It’s a book I could almost write.
Wonderful! I love your versions! I haven’t read the other versions, but I’m so sure your’s are better 🙂
Don’t tell anyone, but I haven’t read them either.
You’ve done it. Best sellers, all. And, just think, I know you on Twitter!!
If you know me on Twitter, it must be an almost me. This me can’t tweet. 🙂
Francis and Christina ‘doesn’t’…udder than that, I like the short versions! Dan
That’s what comes from not reading the originals.
Oh boy, I’m awake now! More, please!
I am full of things I almost did, wrote, and thought.
Gosh, that sounds like the first line of a novel, YS!
Can I get these on my Kindle?
Almost.
You should get a job at Random House condensing all of the middle-of-the-book filler to one sentence. I’d read a lot more contemporary fiction if you did.
That would be really Random.
The say laughter is the best medicine – this post worked a treat as I am now officially cheered up after a not so good day.
You being cheered cheers me up.
So glad to visit you again and get that very deep belly laugh that always happens when I do 🙂
I am happy that it brought you a laugh. Thanks for reading.
O how our biases predispose our thinking! Because I studied entomology in college, I read your synopsis of the first book thinking about mosquitoes in the upper peninsula of Michigan. Then my artist’s brain just couldn’t fathom Christina’s dark room as I was distracted, wondering what ball game can be played while wearing boots and a cape. Thanks for the Blogger’s Digest condensed versions.
This gave me a very interesting tour of your thinking pattern. I was intrigued by ending up at a ball game with the players in boots and capes. Could you paint that?
Almost.
I loved your two almost books, though I take a bit of exception to the first one because my nickname is Midge… maybe you could almost rewrite the ending so that Roberta doesn’t talk about eliminating midges…
I promise to have her eliminate only those with lower-case “m.”
haha, you’re the one, ms. yearstricken… now, i really have to read that 50 shades and see if it is as bad as people say, haha. your version of the two books is something i’d like to see on the book racks, as in… hope you are writing much. regards… 😉
Some books are best read in the condensed versions found on book review sites.