Ah! Rip, rip, rip, rip... tear. A new batch of unpublished books in lovely wrappers all for ME!

God, but I love being a book reviewer sometimes. I get all these packages in the mail. The people at the post office hate me and think I'm running a smuggling ring, but I don't care. PREZZIES!!

Current music: the sound of ripping packages.

Current t-shirt: Winnie the Pooh (willy nilly silly ol' bear)
http://stylinonline.stores.yahoo.net/winniepooh.html

A reasonable book menu for the fall:

Appetizer:
Percy Gloom, by Cathy Malakasian (Fantagraphics)
Think of it as one of those vastly strange, but rather tasty things cooked by El Bullie.

Soup:
An Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England, by Brock Clarke (Algonquin)
Revenge for all those New England writers assigned in school. (Why Southerners should have to read Nathanial Hawthorne is beyond me.) Nifty literary mystery about the picturesque homes of those yankee writers being burned to the ground.

First Course:
Sentences: The Life of M.F. Grimm, by Percy Carey (DC Comics)
Yes, it's a graphic novel. (If you're one of those people who don't think comics are real art, I don't want to know you, and please go visit my ex-friend Fred, who lives in the dust-bin of history along with Marx and the Edsel...) Sentences is one hell of a wonderful read. Sesame Street, the birth of Hip-Hop, brotherly love, loyalty, it's all there.

Palate Clearer:
My Lobotomy, by Howard Dully (Crown)
Bitter herbs to clean the tongue. An autobiography of a man who was erroneously sent to have a lobotomy by an evil stepmother.

Second Course:
Turpentine, by Spring Warren (Black Cat)
A truly fabulous debut about the Wild West. Beautiful, funny writing, none of that passé irony we've been hearing lately from beyond Wyoming. Curiously, it's not tragic-comic, either.

Desert:
Witches Trinity, by Erika Mailman (Crown)
Jealousy and witch trials in medieval Germany--because watching petty gossip rise to the level of tragedy is sweet, sweet, sweet.

I'm still working on my drinks list.

Love,

The Red Pooka!