Stacking Books in Piles

It seemed like a slightly manic goal when I set it back in July of last year, but my question to read 104 books in the space of a year may actually work out. I finished Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own this morning, which brought my reading total up to 74 books, then put together the final thirty books I’m planning on finishing between now and July 31st. They now live on my bedside table, a pile of words that can be beaten down day by day until I finally clear the whole damn thing.

To make the goal I need to clear three books off this pile a week, which is a little less daunting than it should be because of my bad habit of reading half a book and getting distracted (and cherry picking stories out of anthologies and collections). There’s a lot of bookmarks already in that pile, which should cut the reading time down a little.

Course, after I finish this pile, I have to tackle the to-read bookshelf I’ve set aside for the next eighteen months.

I really do need to declare a moratorium on new books at some point, especially since there’s a whole ‘nother bookshelf of unread books in the back of my wardrobe (right about the point where Narnia should be). Admittedly, *that* shelf is stuffed to the gills with stuff that’ll probably go in the next book cull, but it seems like cheating to take things off the list by throwing them out.

Puttin on the Pimp Hat

1) Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet has announced the Table of Contents of its next issue due, which will contain work by two of my favourite peeps, Ben Francisco (a man oft-mentioned in this blog for his general awesomeness) and Dan Braum (a man of equal in awesomeness, although somewhat quieter on the internets and thus name-checked around these parts far less than he should be). If I didn’t already adore LCRW and subscribe, this would be the kind of one-two punch that’d convince me I need to pick up an issue.

2) Ellen Datlow’s released the honorable mention’s lists for her Best Horror of the Year anthologies and it includes Horn and the work of a bunch of folks such as Jason Fischer, Angela Slatter, Lee Battersby, Lyn Battersby, Chris Green, Paul Haines, and presumably a couple of other friends whose names I’ve missed in the quick skim I just did. This allows me to tick off yet another thing on my list-of-writer-goals-that-I-shouldn’t-really-keep-because-I-have-no-real-control-over-whether-they-happen-or-not (an unwieldy title, I know, but it’s still far less unwieldy that the list it accompanies; I’ll be chasing entries on said list when I’m eighty).

3) Speaking of Jason Fischer, he’s just put up a sneak preview of a comic he scripted. And speaking of Angela Slatter, she’s holding forth on the subject of her favourite cross-genre works over as part of SF Signal’s Mind-Meld. The peeps are going crazy with the cool stuff this week, so make with the checking-out and such.

Unlikely Musical Obsessions

There is a rumour that Ratt is going to release a new album through Roadrunner Records later this year.

Against all odds, this brings me joy.  And it will continue to do so until I realise it has the potential to be an ever bigger debacle than Chinese Democracy.

Oh hair metal, I miss you so.

Just, you know, don’t bring back the hair and tight pants when you slink in through the back door of teenage nostalgia.