July 25, 2011

Alas

I was expecting to have a brand new book review for your reading pleasure today, except that in the space of 36 hours this weekend, I gave up on three (3) books. One wasn’t a bad book, but it just wasn’t interesting for me, and you’d wonder why I was reviewing it; the second was a flawed first book that I might have stomached (it had worth) but it wasn’t up my alley; and the third was a very popular book whose author’s prose had me grimacing in the forward and it was only more of the same– I gave it until page 6. So no new book review, but now I am reading Kate Christensen’s The Astral, and I think it’s her best book yet. I hope I’m able to fit in one more book before we leave for vacation on Saturday (when I will disappear off the edge of the internet for a week, by the way).

And do check out what I’ve been cooking up over at Canadian Bookshelf lately: I wrote about the nonfiction writers event at Ben McNally’s last week with Sarah Leavitt and Andrew Westoll; a guide for short story reading novices; and this fabulous guide to 2011 Canadian literature festivals. See also great guest posts by Rebecca Rosenblum, Jessica Westhead and Robert J. Wiersema.