Don Bruns is a novelist, songwriter, musician and advertising
executive who lives in South Florida. He is the author of Stuff to Spy For, Stuff Dreams Are Made Of,
Stuff to Die For, Bahama Burnout, St.
Barts Breakdown, South Beach
Shakedown, Barbados Heat and Jamaica
Blue. Bruns's newest book, Don't
Sweat the Small Stuff, was released on
December 6, 2010, by Oceanview Publishing.
On your nightstand now:
Vengeance Road by Rick Mofina, Worth Dying For by Lee Child, The Reversal by Michael Connelly. This will be my first Mofina book, but it comes highly recommended.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Any book about the Hardy Boys. I know so many mystery writers who started because of that series.
Your top five authors:
That's impossible. However, five that are in my top 100 or so favorites would be Dennis Lehane (what elegant prose and what stories!), Elmore Leonard (characters to die for), John D. MacDonald (trend setter and craftsman), Lee Child (modern king of the tough-guy genre) and Robert Lewis Stevenson (Kidnapped and Treasure Island remain two of my favorite books of all time).
Book you've faked reading:
Oh, I had Ulysses on my shelf for years. Just the connection with Shakespeare and Company in Paris intrigued me, but I've never been able to get it really started.
Book you're an evangelist for:
There are two books I've crusaded for. One is Dennis Lehane's The Given Day. One of the best books I've ever read. No one writes like Lehane.
The second book is nonfiction that reads like a thriller and is a real page turner: Les Standiford's Last Train to Paradise, the story of Henry Flagler's railroad to Key West.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Will Cook for Sex: A Guy's Guide to Cooking by Rocky Fino. How could you not be attracted to that cover?
Book that changed your life:
It didn't change my life, but Huck Finn changed the way I looked at life. At an early age the story, the narration, the style, introduced me to a different time in history, and I realized that well-written books had the ability to transport you and introduce new friends into your life.
Favorite first line from a book:
"It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen."--George Orwell, 1984.
A close second to that line is "Tom."--Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
I would love to read the James Bond books for the first time. I loved the literary Bond. And possibly Jim Kelly's The Water Clock. I was knocked out by the story.