A night semi-off
I need a night off.* Which is also to say I’ve been working late.** So I thought I’d leave you with two really excellent articles . . . and four books recommended for reading while lying on the sofa with hellhounds. Or equivalent. A hammock in the garden on a day like today was here would also be good. Supposing you have a large enough garden to hang a hammock in.
I keep thinking, as I have my regular fits of I-spend-too-much-time-on-the-blog anguish and head-clutching***, that one of the things I should do is instate round-up blogs of my favourite links/titles/sillinesses of the week. The main drawback to this is that it requires prior planning. I tend to fall into the blog head-first, last-thing†, and have to clutch at any straw immediately available. As it happens in my hastily-hitting-a-few-high-spots belt through Twitter today I not only clicked through to but read two equally fascinating but otherwise utterly dissimilar articles. Anyone who didn’t catch them on my retweets—either because you are wise enough not to be on Twitter, or because in your hurrahing through your own feed you decided you didn’t have time—I recommend them now. The first is on the friendship between Robert Frost and Edward Thomas, which I knew nothing about—certainly not that it had been this important, crucially important to both of them. But as I also said on Twitter, while I realise this is an excerpt from an entire book, and it must have been a complete ratbag for the poor author to try and decide which sliver of his book to use for the article. . . . I would have liked a line about Frost’s wife, and possibly their children, and what they made of Frost’s executive decision to move to England—it’s a major undertaking, as I have cause to know. The only thing we hear is that she was doing the ironing while Frost flipped the coin that was to choose their future. Yeek.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/29/robert-frost-edward-thomas-poetry
The second one . . . I assume all of you know about the riots inLondon, and that they’ve spread to other cities. Here’s a link about it:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14436499
I’ve been listening to and reading the news with distress—and fear—and disbelief—this is England. Oh, I know the UK has a long history of social unrest, plenty of it violent—but the caricature of the reserved, self-deprecating ‘mustn’t complain,’ ‘keep calm and drink tea,’ Brit is also based on truth, and it’s the truth I’m more acquainted with. Most of the usual-suspect commentators and the media interviewers and so on are going with the ‘mindless violence’ and ‘criminal youth’ line. Here’s another view:
http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/panic-on-streets-of-london.html?spref=fb
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And now in the fine tradition of fiddling while other people burn, four cheerful page-turners:
MAGIC BELOW STAIRS by Caroline Stevermer is a younger-reader spin-off from the SORCERY AND CECELIA books. From the back flap: ‘This book takes place after events in THE GRAND TOUR and before THE MISLAID MAGICIAN.’ (Hint: Lady Schofield is pregnant.) And here’s a link to Stevermer’s web site, where you can read more about it: http://members2.authorsguild.net/carolinestev/ It’s just out in paper, but I’m not seeing any flags for a sequel. Everybody writes sequels these days. ††
PARANORMALCY by Kiersten White. I knew I had to read this one when Jodi told me—a long time ago now: you know by now I’m slow—about the heroine’s pink rhinestone-studded taser: ‘Tasers are a one-size fits-all paranormal butt-kicking option. Mine’s pink with rhinestones. Tasey and I have had a lot of good times together.’ You can read about the series here—the second one, SUPERNATURALLY, is out now, and the third one comes out next year: http://kierstenwhite.com/paranormalcy_series
KNIFE by R J Anderson. You can read an excerpt here: http://browseinside.harpercollins.ca/index.aspx?isbn13=9780061554742 From the front flap: ‘Deep inside the great Oak lies a dying faery realm, bursting with secrets instead of magic . . .’ And a few pages in: ‘ . . . The full-length mirror on its carved stand was the one lovely object in the room, a relic from the Days of Magic. It had belonged to the previous Seamstress, who was Bryony’s own egg-mother and namesake, and Bryony had spent many hours in front of it, whispering secrets to her own reflection. There were no other children in the Oak, so the white-haired girl in the mirror was the closest thing to a playmate she knew.’ I believe three of these are out, and a fourth one to come next year.
A MOST IMPROPER MAGICK, subtitled: The unLadylike Adventures of Kat Stephenson, by Stephanie Burgis, which is Regency England with magic, and a hoot. Here’s her web site: http://www.stephanieburgis.com/ The second one, advertised as out the first of this month, is, according to Book Depository, available, and you’ve got the first three chapters of both books plus a free short story on her web site.
So, what are you waiting for? Go slack off.
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* My iPAD 2 ARRIVES TOMORROW. You don’t seriously expect me to be able to think about anything else, do you?
** Hint: this is good.
***I finish the blog and think, hey, where did my evening go? Oh, never mind, I’ll just have it now. Don’t look at the clock.
† Last theoretical application of brain thing. I can still cruise yarn and ‘read an excerpt of this new exciting novel about zombie roses^/demonic computers^^/flame-eyed hellhounds^^^!’ sites. And I do. ^^^^
^ I have several of these.
^^ I have several of these too
^^^ Er . . .
^^^^ Plus Montezuma.
†† Groan
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