Up on the Amazon book blog, I’ve got my latest summary, with rankings, of my reading over the last couple of weeks–only nine books since it doesn’t include this weekend, and the first week was half a week, given the break between sets.

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I almost bought the above book today, but instead bought the two books below. No books about or by Francis Bacon in the B&N, alas. (Which about seems to match my blog readers interest in him, alas.)

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(Jango, aka Bango aka Fango aka Wango, holding the Jackson finalist stone for “The Third Bear“)

Finally our cats serve a purpose, as in the above photo, where Jango is guarding the very cool token of appreciation the Shirley Jackson Awards gave to finalists last year (don’t know if it’s an annual thing, but hope so). Like the pins you get for being a Hugo or World Fantasy Award finalist, it’s a very nice idea. Right now, the Jackson Awards committee is raising additional funding. Go visit and make a donation to ensure we can all keep getting stoned.

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This blog post is part of my ongoing “60 Books in 60 Days” encounter with the Penguin Great Ideas series–the Guardian’s book site of the week and mentioned on the Penguin blog. (Their latest post comments on the first 20.) From mid-December to mid-February, I will read one book in the series each night and post a blog entry about it the next morning. For more on this beautifully designed series, visit Penguin’s page about the books.

Of Empire
by Francis Bacon (1561-1626

Memorable Line
1. “Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office.”

2. “An ant is a wise creature for itself, but it is a shrewd thing in an orchard or garden. And certainly men that are great lovers of themselves waste the public.”

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This post comes with the caveat that I think freelancers who live off of writing income hate some of these more, and that “hate” as used herein is not the white-hot hate of a million suns but closer to the disgusted or frustrated “oh I hate it when that happens.” Also, that this post was not created in reaction to any particular situation; it’s more in the nature of a few thoughts after twenty plus years of being a writer, and having been a publisher and editor. Note that this doesn’t address those things that publishers/editors/other entities “hate” about writers–that’s a post for next week (although I think you can see what those might be from the flip side of the points below).

(AND: What do YOU hate, writers out there?)

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This blog post is part of my ongoing “60 Books in 60 Days” encounter with the Penguin Great Ideas series–the Guardian’s book site of the week and mentioned on the Penguin blog. (Their latest post comments on the first 20.) From mid-December to mid-February, I will read one book in the series each night and post a blog entry about it the next morning. For more on this beautifully designed series, visit Penguin’s page about the books.

How to Achieve True Greatness
by Baldesar Castiglione (1478-1529)

Memorable Line
“But if [love grows] then in the knowledge that he has been captured the courtier should determine to eschew all the ugliness of vulgar passion and guided by reason set forth on the path of divine love. Then first he must reflect that the body in which beauty shines is not the source from which it springs, and on the contrary that beauty, being incorporeal and, as we have said, a ray of the supernatural, loses much of its nobility when fused with base and corruptible matter: for the more perfect it is, the less matter it contains, and it is most perfect when completely separated from matter.”

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Some really exciting news: Artist Eric Orchard and I are creating a graphic novel version of my novelette “The Situation,” (from PS Publishing and GeekDad/Wired in 2008) for publication on Tor.com over the summer. Thanks to Liz Gorinsky, the acquiring Tor.com editor. (You can find Eric’s online portfolio here and his new Meta Chronicles: A History of Anachronisms blog here.) Eric has published picture books or covers with Scholastic, Top Shelf, Biblioasis,Orca and Nimbus. Eric and I plan to collaborate on a couple of book-length projects as soon as we clear a few other deadlines.

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(Taken from Tor.com, by Jonathan Twingley.)

I am writing this sitting in the waterlogged lobby of a rotting, half-finished condominium complex. I am surrounded by cavorting freshwater seals and have two pearl-handled revolvers in my lap, a bottle of vodka in my right hand, a human body in the freezer in the kitchens behind me, and a rather large displaced rockhopper penguin staring me in the face. – from “The Errata”

Tor.com has just posted my novelette “Errata”. I refuse to tell you what is true and what is not. In lieu of truth, I offer you instead two squirrels, one podcasting the first couple paragraphs of the story (to contrast with my own podcast on Tor’s site) and the other reciting some famous tongue-twisters). Thus, you may enjoy the story and the squirrel, or hate the story and enjoy the squirrel, but in all cases still take pleasure from the experience. (If you do like the story, please do add a comment to the story thread.)

Thanks to Ekaterina Sedia for Russian pronunciations, but she is only responsible for the correct ones, as I had to record part of the story before I received her email. And a huge thank you and lots of love to all of the authors who let me excerpt their Argosy stories–and especially to James Owen, and also to Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Liz Gorinsky.

Now, without further ado, squirrels talking:

Squirrel reading from “Errata”

Squirrel reading tongue-twisters. (And a few answers to common questions.)

Entry #4

No one has talked about XXXXXXXX during our journey. It is as if he never existed in the first place. Is this how real spies deal with their losses? If they kill me, will I not even be an absence but a non-existence? No. This cannot happen, for this journal exists now. I take it out late at night when they rest are asleep and Bosun is prowling around the other side of the encampment.

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This blog post is part of my ongoing “60 Books in 60 Days” encounter with the Penguin Great Ideas series–the Guardian’s book site of the week and mentioned on the Penguin blog. (Their latest post comments on the first 20.) From mid-December to mid-February, I will read one book in the series each night and post a blog entry about it the next morning. For more on this beautifully designed series, visit Penguin’s page about the books.

The City of Ladies
by Christine de Pizan

Memorable Line
“My dear friend, as you yourself know, there are so many wives who lead a wretched existence bound in marriage to a brutish husband who makes them suffer greater penance than if they were enslaved by Saracens. Oh God, how many fine and decent women have been viciously beaten for no good reason, heaped with insults, obscenities and curses, and subjected to all manner of burdens and indignities, without uttering even a murmur of protest. Not to mention all of those wives who are laden down with lots of tiny mouths to feed and lie starving to death in penury whilst their husbands are either out visiting places of depravity or living it up in town or in taverns.”

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