Reading List

Just Finished:
Pirate Freedom by Gene Wolfe

By 'just finished' I mean I read the last page less than two hours ago. This book was my first Gene Wolfe experience, and while I wasn't exactly overwhelmed, I was intrigued enough that I think I'll pick up one of his more renowned books before too long.

Reading at Work:
The Involuntary Human by David Gerrold

This is my lunch-break book, partially because it's a collection of shorter works ranging from Star Trek screenplays, novel excerpts, short stories, and quotes from the character Solomon Short. It's been great fun!

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

Is there anything about this book I can say that hasn't already been said? I'm reading a third printing of the first edition, priced at $100, which means I can only read it when I'm sitting with a customer back in our locked collectibles room, where it's located. I am in love.

About to Start:
The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant

This is a collection including Jeffrey Ford, Margaret Muirhead, Kelly Link, and a large number of other writers all previously published in the lit magazine Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet.

The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne M. Valente

First off, Valente gets a gold star for being mentioned in three blogs in a row. Secondly, this is the sequel to The Orphan's Tale: In the Night Garden, and if it's anything like the first, I'm in for a hell of a ride!

Impatiently Awaiting:
Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories edited by John Kilma

This anthology contains works by Jay Lake, Hal Duncan, Michael Moorcock, Marly Youmans and Jeff Vandermeer, among a number of other great writers (it's just that the ones listed are the reasons I ordered the book).

Interview with Valente and a Gaiman Essay

I've been playing around on the internet this afternoon instead of writing like I told myself I would do (or even reading...that half-read copy of Gene Wolfe's Pirate Freedom is giving me heartbroken puppy-dog eyes from my bedside table...), but I suppose something good came of it- I found a Bat Segundo Show podcast interviewing Catherynne M. Valente, the author of The Orphan's Tales and Palimpsest (I've read the first volume of the first and can't wait to get my hands on the others). It's 45 minutes long, but she's extraordinarily well-spoken and engaging and the interview is totally worth sitting down for. I found myself nodding in assent with most of her points, and her descriptions of her new book Palimpsest have me positively drooling with excitement. If her uncanny ability to structure her stories in fascinating, captivating ways holds true (and by all accounts, it does) then her new book is going to be absolutely amazing. I don't know how long I'll be able to hold out before I order one...maybe after I'm finished with Wolfe.

Valente's interview isn't the only treasure I dug up today, either. Neil Gaiman offers a collection of essays on his website, and I found one- on the 'genders' of various books and the development of his very 'male' novel American Gods- to be particularly interesting.

It must be a Gene Wolfe kind of day, because Gaiman closes out his essay with a quote from Wolfe on how writers really write- "You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing."