Got my divorce papers in the mail this week & need to sign them and mail them back. Well, not the official divorce papers, but whatever stuff they send to start with. A summons to appear in court May 31. And the thing I have to sign is a Notice of Receipt. They are sitting on top of the dog kennel. I will mail it real soon.
I also rec'd an advance copy of Joshua James Keels' anthology, Such a Pretty Face, a collection of short stories for young adults about beauty and its various postmodern ramifications. I really enjoyed reading it, and here are a few comments which will hopefully illustrate why:
1. I am so stoked that my close personal friend JJ Keels is on the road to the fame and fortune he so richly deserves. OK, the anthology might not actually be defined by the general public as being "his," but to me it is. His story is titled "Ape," and you should all go buy the book if you want to find out more. Or borrow it from me, but you have to put down a hefty cash deposit and turn the pages with tongs because hello, it's a signed advance copy of a first edition.
2. Youth these days need to understand that beauty is not only skin-deep, it's in the media, too. I mean to say that the stories are complex, rooted in a variety of realities, and not subject to simplistic problem/solution formats with annoyingly obvious morals that make you want to shoot up a bunch of heroin now.
3. Variety of authors and styles, all of them interesting & well-written, not a dud in the bunch.
4. BTW, I recently discovered that a chapbook that Shua wrote and I helped illustrate way back in December of 1990 is ensconced in the Cal Poly library. Don't believe me? It is called My fear of food and other delicacies.
Other things I am reading right now:
The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett who is very funny and has a lot of t's in his last name.
I Like You, by Amy Sedaris-a full color book on hospitality and party-throwing for people under the influence. I am laughing like a water buffalo the whole time I read. I keep having to put it down for fear of permanent hysteria.
I just finished Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon, which I thought I had already read, and I picked it up for a friend at the Salvation Army, and then I realized that I had never read it, or if I did I was drunk because I have no memory of anything from that novel. Which is like having a new lease on life, as I adore her books and thought I had read everything in print except for the romances from her early writing days, re-published now that she is famous.
4 comments:
Hey, we should start a group blog to talk about books we like/don't like/are currently reading/etc. What do you think?
That would be fun! I'm constantly reading something, and it would be fun to share...would you like to set up the blog? What should we call it?
I think you are better than me in the naming department, and more experienced than me in the blog-setting-up department. Or we can do it together on Thursday. BTW, Andreea thinks she'll be able to make it this Thursday.
This is great info to know.
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