It wasn't easy being an explorer's wife
1. New issue of Bookslut is up including my review of POLAR WIVES and my new column (#81!!) which is all about domestic dysfunction and basically, the tragedy of not getting to choose your family. (Not all tragic really; some definite humor in there as well, promise.)
2. Emailed three reviews to Booklist over the weekend which ends a remarkable run of eight (I think) books read/reviewed for them in the past six weeks. As these books covered everything from post-Katrina New Orleans to a Latina author's memoir to dog training it's really all quite head spinning. Sometimes I can't believe I really have professional gigs reading such remarkably different books.
3. Yesterday we planted flowers. It was a good day.
4. I have finally (!!!!) nailed down my columns for June and July. It's odd to be noting the new May column when I know I need to write the entire June column in the next week or so. (I want it done!) Most of the books are read and include birds, taking pictures and making art. I need to gather them all in one place so I can see if they really make as much sense on the table as they do in my head. (I wish this whole process sounded more impressive then it does but I swear, the column thing truly does get bashed into shape some months.)
5. I have two books read for July already, and I'm in the middle of a few others. I'm also reading books that have nothing to do with July's column which is probably not the best use of my time but it happens. (It actually happens a lot.)
6. Here are books I am currently reading for potential review in my column: So Shelly by Ty Roth, The Year of the Gadfly by Jennifer Miller (there is for sure a column on books set in schools in my future), Small Damages by Beth Kephart, Winged Wonders by Watkins & Stockland (for June column), At the Mouth of the River of Bees by Kij Johnson (July column maybe), The Book of Blood & Shadow by Robin Wasserman (July column), The Artist's Eye (and the two books in the "Learning to See" series) by Peter Jenny (June column), Ghost Wave by Chris Dixon (June column maybe) and Ichiro by Ryan Inzana (July column maybe).
7. That list is insane and don't I know it.
8. I'm also reading Inukshuk by Gregory Spatz (it's about a lost Arctic explorer - did you think I could resist this?) and Shipwrecked by Jon Wells (about Seattle Mariners' baseball because it is so awful). (The Mariners are awful not the book about the Mariners!)
9. And for personal books, I am reading The Town and the City by Jack Kerouac. This is his first book, written about growing up in Lowell, Massachusetts (he fictionalized it, but it's Lowell).
10. Kerouac is, by the way, the greatest French Canadian writer to ever come out of New England. The fact that few people seem to think of him as a French Canadian mill town author is very very sad for French Canadians everywhere but especially those of us with ties to New England.
11. I write tiny things, I plot many things, I hope for more writerly things. Summer is coming and today I have an appointment at the gym; I hope I'm still smiling when I get home. :)
This cover is a stunner, don't you think?
