The book sounds pretty good. I'll probably read it.

I think so, too. The only issue is that it's not going to cross over to the kids' market. But then, Stieg Larsson did okay!

Neil Gaiman is interviewed in the NY Times about his reading habits.

Ginger, I think you'll appreciate this:

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If you could meet any writer, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you want to know? Have you ever written to an author?

As a teenager I wrote to R. A. Lafferty. And he responded, too, with letters that were like R. A. Lafferty short stories, filled with elliptical answers to straight questions and simple answers to complicated ones.

He was a sui generis writer, the oddest and most frustratingly delightful of American tall-tale tellers. Not a lot of people have read him, and even fewer like what he wrote, but those of us who like him like him all the way. We never met.

The last time I wrote to Lafferty, he had Alzheimer’s and was in a home in Oklahoma, shortly before his death, and I do not believe he read or understood the letter, but it made me feel like I was doing something right by writing it and sending it.

Jenny Lawson - The Bloggess - got some good news.

Yay, Bloggess. That book is totes going on my birthday list, if I don't manage to acquire it sooner.

There was a good review from Texas Monthly in the NY Times: [link] It's an excellent book, although I think some of the asides could have been handled better, and it's nice to see Victor as more than a comic foil. Her background does make it understandable that Victor might be concerned that her growing collection of taxidermied animals might lead to things like late-night squirrel puppets.

Ray Lafferty was a funny little man. He used to wander around at sf conventions in the '70s, drinking out of a bottle and making snarky remarks until he passed out.

I love Lafferty. I reread him on a regular basis.

Yay, Bloggess. That book is totes going on my birthday list, if I don't manage to acquire it sooner.

I have it on hold at the library, along with the newest (and last) of David Wellington's vampire books.

Oops. I posted this in Beep Me by accident.

Hec, great piece on Angela Carter. When I was packing all of my books they other day with thessaly she ended up borrowing one of my Angela Carters. I have only read Night Circus and The Bloodly Chamber, but I really want to read more of her stuff.

but I really want to read more of her stuff.

Check out The Magic Toyshop. It's so enjoyable, and I think a natural fit if you enjoyed The Bloody chamber.

I'd actually recommend getting into some of her non-fiction before you took a stab at Dr. Hoffman or New Eve. It helps to understand what she's wrestling with when she's using such unconventional structures.

You don't have to write a thesis on her book The Sadeian Woman, but it helps if you've glanced through it.

But definitely check out her other short stories too, like Fireworks. Some of the stories there are a bit half formed, but the three stories set in Japan and The Executioner's Daughter are amazing. Not like anybody else, and not like the rest of her work quite.