Bob (this one) extrapolated from data available...


>
> My other fave is his retelling of the Marco Polo story called "The
> Journeyer." He actually traveled the Silk Road to research it. Both
> out and back through some wild country and hostile cultures. Amazing
> guy. Looked like some mild-mannered reporter. Lived large.
>

I suspect that more than one author of grand and colorful historical
fiction, an avocation which requires a spectacular imagination as well as
(at least among the "I'm-not-one-of-the-not-quite-but-mostly-dry-as-dust-
research-assistant-aided-last-named-Michener set") an imperial capacity to
record and remember bits and pieces from pages read, even those from mis-
spent youth, are likely to have "lived large" in some aspects of
life...(and the dinner table or saloon bar offer especially easy access to
some large living). I met Jennings once at a book-signing and was
impressed by a certain largeness of life aura about him. I've enjoyed most
of his novels, great for business trips to less than exciting
destinations and airport waits - incidentally, a "less than exciting
destination" is one in which you carry the book you've been reading along
to dinner with you, expecting to see or experience little worth recording
in the restaurant.

TMO