"One, two! One, two! And through and through, The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead and with its head he went galumphing back." *

I have just requested the following three books from the library:

1) Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon - Leonard Marcus. Inspired by this new-to-me blog I found, Crooked House, via...via Bookslut, I think, and Jessa’s post on Steph’s post on Beckett for Babies which made me cry laughing and be shiveringly delighted by her genius. I mean, seriously, how awesome is it? Think about it. It’s BRILLIANT.

And in reading Steph's archives, I found another clever and oh-so-smart post on Goodnight Moon, which I too have come to appreciate in the past year, and now I am hooked and am requesting her book recommendations.
It’s a slippery slope, my friends.

2) I also had to request Jess Walter’s Citizen Vince again. Because I am a dork and didn’t pick it up in time, and it was sent back from whence it came. But in ascertaining this fact, I called my local branch library and the librarian-whom-Gina-and-I-love answered the phone and recognized my voice and well, SWOON. I know, you have to be a pretty big dork to be thrilled that your librarian recognizes your voice, but that’s just the kind of dork I am.
And don’t pretend to be surprised, you knew it, too.

3) And last but not least, Josh Swiller’s The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa. H spent two years in the Peace Corps, and I am actually sort of fascinated, in a car-wreck sort of way, by the Peace Corps. And what could be more interesting than a deaf person’s take on life in a foreign country, working for the Peace Corps? Rife with possibility, that. Apparently he’s a good writer – it was the reviews on Amazon that actually sucked me in.

And last but not least – wait, I said that already – oh frabjous day! Richard Russo has a new book coming out on September 25. I will hie to the bookstore that day to purchase it. Even with his weak outing last book (Empire Falls) and his redundant short story collection, however brilliantly titled The Whore’s Child, I still think he’s a terrific writer who excels in the slice-of-life style that I tend to fall in love with. Nobody’s Fool is one of my favorite books, and his other novels are no slouches, either. (Oh, and wait: did you know – I did NOT – that Ann Patchett has a new novel, Run, coming out on September 25 also? Calloo callay!)

And in a lovely email this morning, Nutmeg gave me a list of other books I might find interesting. I must stop all this silly eating and breathing and showering and school-dropping-off and school-picking-up and grocery-shopping and working fliff-flaff - I must READ!

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* "Jabberwocky," Lewis Carroll