Life of Book, Sound of Finch, Meer of Vander

Jeff VanderMeer has posted a picture of copies of the actual Booklife, which excites me very much, because it's a neat book (yes, I still say "neat"; deal with it) and includes a little essay-thing I wrote at the end (alongside various essay-things by more interesting and less conflicted writers than I). Full contents here. I'm planning to keep a stock of extra copies of Booklife always on hand to give to the various aspiring and aspired writers I encounter, because it really does get at some stuff that I haven't seen elsewhere, and, well, I kind of had an addiction to writers' guides for a decade or so, which makes me oddly and a bit ashamedly qualified to make a statement like that. (The thing is, most writing guides are really terrible. Really. But not all.) Booklife is one of the few books I've seen to really address the life part of it all, rather than just the craft, and it does so in a way that is generous and suggestive rather than prescriptive. (I think I'll make a bumper sticker: "Kill your guru. Get a Booklife.")

Also, Jeff's upcoming novel Finch has an instrumental soundtrack from the band Murder by Death. The website lets you stream it, or you can download the album or specific tracks and pay what you want for them. Some lovely, haunting stuff that I haven't had nearly enough time to listen to to really absorb, but the couple times I've had it on the background, I've been pleased. I also seem to have grown strange mold on my skin and developed a real craving for dark, damp places...

Finally, if you're in the Plymouth, New Hampshire area between October 15 and November 23, stop by the Lamson Library & Learning Commons at Plymouth State University, where the exhibit "Illustrating VanderMeer: A Glimpse Into the Collaborative Works of Author, Jeff VanderMeer and Illustrator, Eric Schaller" will be on display (contrary to what the site says, though the majority of the books included are from my collection, some of them are Eric's). The big event will be the evening of Monday, November 23, when Eric and Jeff will both be in attendance, and there will be a reading, as well as discussion. I expect we might even be able to rope David Beronä into the discussion, though he might not be willing to join us for the obligatory mud wrestling afterward.

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