Whoopsie!

Did I skip Monday? Not quite.

More to come, promise. But the household is a wreck, Emma the Dog is barking at Hemingway the Cat (don’t worry, in moments they’ll go racing through the house after each other, happily), lots and lots going on. I’m working on a 75 books update, but since I’ve got about 30 books or so to include, it’s taking awhile. WEIRD reading year so far. And more on that too.

Today’s mail brought a lovely copy of one Jonathan Lethem fans won’t want to miss — How We Got Insipid, a beautiful limited edition from Subterranean Press featuring two previously uncollected short stories, "How We Got in Town and Out Again" and "The Insipid Profession of Jonthan Hornebom," along with an author afterword about why these stories slipped through the cracks of his two short story collections. I might also say that this included quite possibly the best ARC pitch letter I have ever seen. More as soon as I read the stories.

And speaking of sure to be lovely books, Jeff VanderMeer (and happy birthday!) announced that he and wife Ann are going to be co-editing an anthology of original pirate fiction for Night Shade Books (and, related, Jeremy Lassen looks quite fetching as a Lolita in military garb: scroll down). A reading period will be announced at a later date. (Aside: I cleaned one of our cars out over the weekend and found a pirate eyepatch shoved into the seat.)

Elizabeth Bear has a beautiful fucking post about beauty/aesthetics in genre fiction that I’ll also try and muster a more organized response to than just, "Yeah! Well said!", but in the meantime let the record show…

Cynthia Leitich Smith’s indispensable Cynsations features Heidi E.Y. Stemple, another of the outrageously multitalented Yolen/Stemple brood.

Uncle Ray offers some very entertaining book recs (yay, Cruddy!) at Sara Gran’s digs.

Oh, and Ed has posted the superhuman Dan Wickett’s opening comments in a back and forth about T.C. Boyle’s Talk Talk that I lamely represented in along with several other fine readers. Coming all week. Check it.

See? Too tired even for bullets. Nightie night night.