Boniatos Are Not Boring

Some misguided souls think that boniatos -- the tropical sweet potatoes beloved in South Florida -- are boring. Not Richard Grayson, author of BONIATOS ARE NOT BORING, who appreciates this Latin Caribbean tuber in all its morning glory. Out of boniatos and other supposedly ordinary things - the French game of Mille Bornes, a system for transmitting business data, a junior high production of "The King and I," out-of-the-way Vietnamese shopping malls in Silicon Valley, the display advertising department of the Village Voice and sunbathing in the middle of San Francisco - can be made magically inventive short stories, slices of American life as filling and satisfying as, well, boniatos themselves.