I’ve had a bunch of pages bookmarked in the past week or two, and I figured since I was interested in these things, maybe you would be to. If not, oh well.

First, some books I’d love to get:

• Lucius Shepard’s Best of Lucius Shepard collection. This guy is amazing, and I love how he writes. His stuff from the ’80s blew me away, and it’s different in genre from the stuff he’s done recently. I really gotta get this book, for inspiration. A true literary stylist.
• A snazzy new version of Tim Powers’ The Stress of Her Regard – I’ve almost got all his books, and while it’s not a snazzy hard cover as I would’ve hoped, it’ll do. Of course, I still need to READ those other books of his I’ve got, too…
• Clyde Edgerton’s new novel, The Bible Salesman – he has the balls to slap two Flannery O’Connor characters from two different stories together into one book (the Misfit and the bible seller). I heard him read from this one on the radio recently, on The State of Things, and it was quite fun. I saw this in the book store, though, and the book is quite thin. Maybe I’ll wait for the paperback.

More thoughts about YA fiction as well as urban fantasy fiction:

• “Why is YA Booming?” (Though I personally think YA fantasy is starting to wane due to a glut of similar books in the genre. Must. Write. FASTER!)
• “What makes a book not YA?” (Still reading and thinking about this one.)
• “It’s so Magical to be Homeless! The Romance of Urban Fantasy” (yikes! I have a homeless character in my current novel. Must. Take. Notes!)

And some great minds come together to explore the genre(s) of fiction:

• Michael Chabon on “Writers who can dwell between worlds” (yeah, buddy!)
• Another great SF Signal Mind Meld: “If You Could Change Any Aspect of The Science Fiction Field, What Would it Be?“

Some inspirational stuff about writing and creativity:

• The secret to Ryan Adam’s succes (tip: hard work, maybe?)
• An inspirational rant by author Nicola Griffith at the end of a fascinating entry about the benefits of reading fiction

Okay. Now I can delete some bookmarks and feel like I’ve accomplished something! You can thank me later for the links… 😉