I was reading this really good piece in Slate by Joshua Glenn about The Amabassadors and toothpicks, which made me go to his blog for The Boston Globe called Brainiac, which talked about this brilliant translation of The Wasteland into that wonderful, silly LOLcat talk… “april hates u, makes lilacs, u no can has…”
Go read all these things!

I think this is the Polish cover for She is Me. I have never actually seen the edition, but during some masochistic/narcissistic late night self-googling a year or so ago, I found this and saved it in an obscure folder that, in a procrastination extravaganza, I just opened tonight. So…I’m sorry, but, is that a tutu?!?

This soulful creature is Brando, Ken Foster’s dog. I’m dying to read this book!

Today, The New Yorkers came out in Italy. So if anyone from Italy should wander onto this site,
WELCOME!
Voglio scrivere in Italiano, ma no posso!
Mi dispiace, tutti.

And…here are some pictures I’ve been meaning to post from a canine cocktail party–a benefit for AnimalHaven in Soho. It was pretty wild.

Cin cin!

TINY DOGS IN CLOTHES

HECTOR AT THE H'ORDEUVRES TABLE

SNICKERS, ONE OF THE GRACIOUS HOSTS

I was just talking to someone about what a great book Kim is–have you ever read it? you have to–when I saw on my friend ndozo’s blog that she had visited Rudyard Kipling’s house,Naulakha, in Vermont…
A spaniel on a camel, an elephant ash tray, a radiator, Rudyard Kipling’s actual toilet!!…I never even knew Rudyard Kipling had a house in Vermont. I knew that Dickens based Miss Haversham on a lady from upstate New York (go upstate! I read it in a biography of Melville) but I had no idea that Kipling wrote Captains Courageous in the Green Mountain State. Thank you, Nancy!

I just finished The Wedding Group, which I found in the bookcase in Venice, CA (thank you, Janet for having so many good books I have never read), and it was such an amazing portrait of a mother and her grown son, a sensitive but brilliantly controlling, independent but quietly needy, utterly indulgent mother. Hmm. A blueprint for Cathy? Or should I stick to the mother on Absolutely Fabulous? So hard to choose one’s role models sometimes.
I have no idea what this cover art has to do with the book.
It really is a beautiful, surprising, emotionally discerning book. I had read Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont ( a wonderful editor gave it to me years ago), and now I will have to read it again. And all her other books! Lucky me!

I recently read this amazing, surprising book. It is the 18th-century memoir of a remarkable man taken from Africa as a boy and sold into slavery. Africa and the family he lost, the nightmare of the passage and of plantation work, the differences in status for a slave in the West Indies, in England and Georgia and Philadelphia–and then a kind of sea faring adventure story, too. I had never heard of it, but I gather it is something of a classic, and I see why. It is so idiosyncratic, so beautifully written, so horrifying, and so exciting all at the same time.
The black and white is him. The color picture is probably not him, though it was used on the copy of the book I read. I included it because it’s so beautiful.

One…you can’t get the story below from that link because it’s been archived. It’s in the Houston Chronicle. It’s by Gregory Katz. Look it up!
Two…IF MIRANDA JULY’S NEW BOOK IS EVEN HALF AS GOOD AS ITS WEBSITE, IT IS A THING OF BEAUTY. GO TO Noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com (click here)TO SEE WHAT I MEAN. (Thanks, Betsy!)

My friend Greg wrote this piece about every writer’s dream: to get paid to stay at The Savoy Hotel in London and just…write! And drink tea. And eat. And lie in bed. And…write…and lie in bed…and drink coffee…and eat dainty tea sandwiches…and lie in bed…

“LONDON — How’s this for a job description: Michael Morpurgo wakes up daily in a luxurious hotel suite, takes in the view of the River Thames, has a sumptuous breakfast in the dining room downstairs, then goes up to his suite and climbs back into bed.

He doesn’t go back to sleep, of course. Propped up by overstuffed pillows, reclining on whisper soft, high-thread-count cotton sheets, he takes out a pad and writes longhand, scratching out novels in tortured penmanship only his wife Clare can grasp…” continued

If you haven’t read this wonderful novel yet, do. click to buy
I picked it up because I liked the title and vaguely remembered some review, and I was completely, joyously surprised: It’s one of the best novels I’ve read in a long, long time. I haven’t read anything else by Jane Gardam. I actually had never heard of her before, but she’s written a lot. If anyone out there has another of her books to recommend, let me know. Otherwise I’ll just start randomly making my way through them. The happiness of discovering a whole new author! With an oeuvre!

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