Some new used books I bought:

Mary J. Holmes: Tempest and Sunshine

Thomas Nelson Page: The Old Gentleman of the Black Stock

Mrs. Humphry Ward: Marcella

Eric Ambler: Passage of Arms

Two books I have read and particularly enjoyed this year

I have read a good number of books this year. Most of them have been in Italian, but a few have been in English also. Of those, the following two have stood out:

Paul Leppin, Blaugast. A brilliant little novel. Very decadent. The translation offered by Twisted Spoon press, while not perfect, is very good. Highly recommended.

Georges Rodenbach, The Bells of Bruges: Rodenbach is a very interesting author and Dedalus deserves a lot of credit for putting out this book which is full of the same sort of imagery used by Huysmans, though not firmly in the decadent school. The translation, by Mike Mitchell, is excellent.

 

Another Fast Ships Review

A review of Fast Ships, Black Sails over at Joe Sherry’s Adventures in Reading blog, with a positive reference to my story.

Fast Ships, Black Sails

This book, which contains my story We Sleep on a Thousand Waves Beneath the Stars, is now available for order here.

The official blurb and TOC are as follows:

Do you love the sound of a peg leg stomping across a quarterdeck? Or maybe you prefer a parrot on your arm, a strong wind at your back? Adventure, treasure, intrigue, humor, romance, danger–and, yes, plunder. Oh, the Devil does love a pirate–and so do readers everywhere.

Swashbuckling from the past into the future and space itself, Fast Ships, Black Sails, edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, presents an incredibly entertaining volume of original stories guaranteed to make you walk and talk like a pirate.

Come along for the voyage with bestselling authors Naomi Novik, Garth Nix, Carrie Vaughn, Dave Freer, Michael Moorcock, and Eric Flint, as well as such other stellar talents as Kage Baker, Sarah Monette, Elizabeth Bear, Steve Aylett, and Conrad Williams—all offering up a veritable treasure chest of piratical adventure, the likes of which has never been seen in the four corners of the Earth. Highlights include a brand-new Garth Nix Sir Hereward & Mr. Fitz novella, as the two clever ne’er-do-wells storm the sea-gates of the scholar-pirates of Sarkoe.

If ever you had a yearning for adventure on the high seas, now’s the time to indulge it, with Fast Ships, Black Sails. You’ll return with a sword shoved through your sash, booty in a safe harbor, and beer on your breath. We promise.

Contents:
Introduction: “Raising Anchor” – Ann & Jeff VanderMeer
“Boojum” – Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
“Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake” – Naomi Novik
“Avast, Abaft!” – Howard Waldrop
“I Begyn as I Mean to Go On” – Kage Baker
“Castor on Troubled Waters” – Rhys Hughes
“Elegy for Gabrielle, Patron Saint of Healers, Whores and Righteous Thieves” – Kelly Barnhill
“Skillet and Saber” – Justin Howe
“The Nymph’s Child” – Carrie Vaughn
“68˚06′N, 31˚40′W” – Conrad Williams
“Pirate Solutions” – Katherine Sparrow
“We Sleep on a Thousand Waves” – Brendan Connell
“Pirates of the Suara Sea” – David Freer & Eric Flint
“Voyage of the Iguana” – Steve Aylett
“Iron Face” – Michael Moorcock
“A Cold Day in Hell” – Paul Batteiger
“Captain Blackheart Wentworth” – Rachel Swirsky
“The Whale Below” – Jayme Lynn Blaschke
“Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarskoe” – Garth Nix

Some new books I bought while in California

Theophrastus: Characters

Edward Bulwer Lytton: Pelham, or The Adventures of a Gentleman

Edward Bulwer Lytton: Lucretia

Claude Farrère: Useless Hands

A Field Guide to Surreal Botany

In 1909 Arthème Fayard published Jules Renard’s Histoires Naturelles, a book of somewhat surreal descriptions and stories of animals, insects and plants.

Continuing this tradition, Two Cranes Press has just released its A Field Guide to Surreal Botany, a collection of pseudo-scientific descriptions of plants, edited by Janet Chui and Jason Erik Lundberg and provided with fabulous water-colour illustrations by the former.

As in any book with so many entries, by such a wide variety of writers (there are tons of contributors), the reader will be more impressed by some than others; fascinated by one, pondering over another, re-reading a third aloud to one’s family after dining on lamb with plum sauce and drinking tea. Some people prefer nectarines to peaches. I like melon most (if it’s ripe).

Some entries that stood out for me:

The Forget-me-bastard flower by Elaine Clift. The name alone is worth the price.

The cleverly done Kvetching Aspen, by H. F. Gibbard, which groan in unison in the Teton’s of Wyoming.   

The mysterious Cloud Anemone, rarely seen by the human eye, by James Trimarco.

The one I enjoyed the most was probably the Big Yellow Flower of Unnecessarily Obvious Information, by Elizabeth Langford, which really needs to be read and seen to be appreciated.

As good as many of the individual pieces are however, the book really needs to be taken in as a whole to be properly appreciated, as the design and accumulated strangeness are a big part of its appeal.

Click here for ordering information…