reading

I'll be reading from my collection, as well as signing copies, as part of the upcoming Dia del Libro over at the Instituto Cervantes on April 19th. My publisher, Anvil, will be there, as well as booksellers and booklovers. Huge discounts on all sorts of books - come on over.

On my personal reading list, a friend just added Greetings from Lake Wu by Jay Lake and Saffron and Brimstone: Strange Stories by Elizabeth Hand to my growing pile (seriously, I am a manic book buyer who has less time for reading) of anthos and collections. These days I'm a grazer, unable to commit to reading a novel - the last one I tried and abandoned was the abyssmal The Dragon's Nine Sons by Chris Roberson, an author who writes excellent short fiction (oh, and I am making progress on my guerilla reading of my Jose Saramagos).

It's short fiction that I consume the most, really.

The last non-fiction book I finished (overnight) was Discover's 20 Things You Didn't Know About Everything: Duct Tape, Airport Security, Your Body, Sex in Space...and More! - just the sort of thing that perks me up in the wee hours of the morning when stories refuse to cooperate (haha).

The latest story I listened to was Nikki reading from the kickass The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar, a hefty hardcover that can kill a man by sheer weight. Last night was "Bluebeard", the night before featured my personal favorite fairy tale "East of the Sun, West of the Moon".

Nikki consumes something like a novel every two days (she reads inhumanly fast). Sometime last week, I saw her with The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne Valente. Recently,she gave in the persistent movie trailers (even I am sold - it appeals to some of the things I enjoy most in a narrative) and is now reading a copy of The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory.