Passing Through

Some great things going on 'round the blogosphere, and I want to give you a quick heads up to check them out. First up, don't miss Colleen at Chasing Ray's first-Monday-of-the-month Wicked Cool Overlooked Books. She's started the ball rolling to talk about books some of us have really loved, but haven't heard much buzz about. I think its definitely a worthy topic, and eventually I plan to join in the fun... someday... when I get my life back from my novel.

Since high school I have cherished the work of Sylvia Plath, and 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast highlights a new poetry collection about her -- through her childhood, through her years at Smith, and her marriage. The prose poems are fictionalized, and told from the point of view of the people in her lives. It looks amazing, and the review is excellent. I especially love that this is a YA novel, and I can imagine many teens going to seek out her poetry after. Bravo! Here are the other Wicked Cool Overlooked Books that others are highlighting -- Jen Robinson reviews Behind the Eyes by Francisco X. Stork, and Kelly mentions The Unresolved by TK Welsh, which was a Cybils pick. Kelly Fineman also reviews Your Own, Sylvia, and now I really can't wait to pick it up!

A Chair, A(n empty) Fireplace (because it's too bloody hot), & A Tea Cozy is reporting on the third book in the well-loved Greenstone Grail trilogy, hurrah! From what she says, I almost want to read the series from the beginning for a refresher before I tackle the end. It is yet another book I am putting on my private list for the 48 Hour Reading Challenge, coming soon to a blog near you...

A Wrung Sponge tackles the Uncle Remus tales, and I feel pleased that a.) someone else struggled with the language in the originals, and b.) that someone else recognized the folktale aspect, and cherished it enough to make it readable.

There are some children's and YA books I never read because I was worried that they were racist - Uncle Remus was one of those, for a time. If there are others for you, Mitali reminds us of a great way to check our uneasy feelings about racism or sexism in children's lit. This list is a great resource.

Colleen has a new column for the May Bookslut, and I am really excited that two of the Murder in the Faerie Realm books are right next to my bed. I MUST find time to read -- and write reviews. I am woefully behind in everything, it seems.

I am blog-hopping, just not posting much myself these days as I am trying to talk a novel narrative roughly the size of The Queen Mary 2 into turning gracefully toward a conclusion.

Writing novel endings... bites. I'm hanging onto my sanity by my fingernails, here. Crafting a solid, satisfying conclusion is probably one of the hardest disciplines of writing overall. (For me, anyway. For some people, the weariness comes earlier. Like, in beginning a novel. AF seems to relish middles. Writers: we are all so weird.) I don't want to bore anyone with my lying around on the floor in my nuddy pants, plugging my ears and singing while I try to make all the loose ends tie together nicely without hanging me, but I shall return to the world of the living shortly.

Meanwhile, happy Spring...