Button, button, who's got the button? Read this for the answer, and learn about 3 readable books

‘Tis the season in which folks often focus on family and friends.
 

The Roving I, a mostly light-hearted book that was just released, does just that — focus on family and friends. But its 70 first-person columns also include some that feature serious stuff, and numerous humorous others that showcase overheard conversational tidbits and one-liners.
 
Sounds like a perfect holiday gift to me, and it’s not too late to order one (or two, or more). I have a vested interest, of course, since I cherry-picked the essays from an archive of many more that I, Woody Weingarten, wrote over more than a dozen years.
 
Highlights, among other recollections in the collection, are an amusing tale about my pre-wife earning a slot in my Little Black Book, an upbeat story of a friend turning Parkinson’s Disease into an asset, an awesome family drama about a woman carrying her sister’s “miracle baby” inside her for five months, an inspirational adventure about a Cambodian slave-labor camp escapee becoming a successful U.S. entrepreneur, and a peek at legendary comic Robin Williams transforming himself into a talking vagina.
 
Button, button, who’s got the button? That’s a refrain from my childhood (not mentioned in the book), but it certainly resonates today. Chanukah’s not over yet, and Christmas is in the offing. So, check out my website — http://woodyweingarten.com — and push the appropriate buy-button to purchase The Roving I.
 

Or push one for Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates, a whimsical fantasy co-written by my 8-year-old granddaughter and aimed at 6- to 10-year-olds. Or Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner’s breast cancer, which details how my partner and I learned to cope, and which can benefit anyone who knows someone with any life-threatening disease.
 

It's easy to find what my website labels fantasy, facts, and florilegium (an opaque, unfamiliar word meaning collection). Just go to http://woodyweingarten.com  and select your favorite book outlet.

Children's four-part tale of wizard, fairies due

Publication date set for kids' book, 'Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates' 

Hooray! A tentative publication date, Jan. 1, has been established for 'Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates.'

The 50-page children's book, a true collaboration of me, Woody Weingarten, and my granddaughter, Hannah Schifrin, has been — as Hollywood publicists often shout — "five years in the making."

Surprisingly, perhaps, recent delays weren't caused by Covid-19 but by our desire to make the book the best possible available for readers between the ages of 6 and 10. 

A four-part fantasy, 'Grampy and His Fairyzona Playmates' focuses on how a sorcerer, Grandpa Graybeard, repeatedly gets his granddaughter, Lily, and her best friend, Penny, out of trouble after they mess up their magic spells. It also shows how the girls learn from their misadventures.

Hannah was only eight years old when she co-wrote the book, which is colorfully illustrated by Joe Marciniak.

While you're waiting, for anybody who wants to see first-hand that I can put one word after another, why not check out your local bookstore or Amazon and get a copy of "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress volume I aimed at male caregivers (one, admittedly, that I'm considering updating). 

And look, probably in mid-2021, for "The Roving I," a compilation of columns I'd written for a group of weekly newspapers over an 11-year period.