1. In which I am Bartleby, that strange curled-up, non-reader
As I have written and then deleted three posts (forever, in ruthlessness and high boredom), I find that I must be a Melvillean Bartleby today, one who unaccountably
prefers not to--at least in the matter of posts. Because it might be dangerous to wander past that point of preferring-not.
2. Whatever
shall I write a post about, since I throw everything away? Requests and questions solicited. Am thinking of making some podcasts... Or perhaps I prefer not to. Perhaps I prefer something else. A little ragery or growlery or some skipping-about. Or not. Please relieve the agony of my not-preferring with a request that I might possibly prefer. That might make me wonderfully frisky and manic, outpouring nonsense and ideas and dancing with the Wild Things. Or not.
Hey, Muse of Blogs (MOB), over here!
3. Thaliad elsewhere--favorite public mentions from the last few days. You know, perhaps it's a splot of flapdoodle, and perhaps it's true. The only way to find out is by curling up to read. Please do.
- novelist Nathan Balligrud at facebook: I just finished reading Thaliad, by Marly Youmans: a story of group of children discovering how to live after an apocalypse, told in blank verse. It's brutal and gorgeous, and like nothing else out there.
"I want to go where ground is not a waste,
And where my life is not a ruined town."
- poet and writer William P. Baldwin at facebook: I finished Thaliad in the wee hours of the morning. An amazing read. Starts strong and gets better and better. You're something else, Marly. Again. Amazing.
- more Nathan: This joins Anna Tambour's Crandolin as a work that deserves to be on the World Fantasy ballot, but is probably published by too small a press to get sufficient attention. There's such wonderful work being done out of the spotlight.
4. Other comments were good but I especially liked these because:
- a. Who doesn't want the brand new book to be like nothing else?
- b. Who doesn't want it to get better and better?
- c. Ms. Bartleby needs some refreshing words now and then to encourage her to prefer.
- d. And I love book recommendations Crandolin looks wild!
by Anna Tambour
Publication Date: 14th Nov, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-907681-19-6
Paperback, 382 pages
In a medieval cookbook in a special-collections library, near-future London, jaded food and drink authority Nick Kippax finds an alluring stain next to a recipe for the mythical crandolin. He tastes it, ravishing the page. Then he disappears.
So begins an adwentour that quantum-leapfrogs time, place, singularities, and Quests – from the secrets of confectionery to the agonies of making a truly great moustache, from maidens in towers to tiffs between cosmic forces. Food, music, science, fruitloopery, superstition, railways, bladder-pipes and birth-marked Soviet statesmen; all are present in an extraordinary novel that is truly for the adwentoursomme.
