A couple of things

Lucky me, I've gotten some wonderful books of late.

I'm smack in the middle of Jedediah Berry's marvelous debut, The Manual of Detection. Clever and wry, funny and smart, it's reminds me of Jasper Fforde (LOVE Jasper! Plus he answers his own emails) though not as sci-fi. It's only been out a week so I encourage you to get it. If you don't already trust my recommendations, the fine folks at Penguin have provided the first chapter online: http://tinyurl.com/d2487a. Can't wait to finish it and write something here.

In today's mail, I received new sandals in preparation for my upcoming cruise. However, upon opening the box, not only did I find I was the recipient of two LEFT sandals but they were of different sizes. Alas. It was the doldrums for me.

Fortunately, Tom, the handsome FedEx guy, arrived an hour or so later and lifted my spirits with an uncorrected manuscript from the good people at Riverhead (Lord, I feel like I'm on the Penguin teat at the moment!). Enclosed was a copy of It Feels So Good When I Stop by Joe Pernice with a lovely note from Joe on a card with Wonder Woman on it.

If you're not familiar with Joe as a novelist (his first book was part of the 33 1/3 series a few years back; a novella based on the Smiths album Meat Is Murder; ring a bell?), you might know him as a musician as he is the driving force, singer, songwriter, guitarist of The Pernice Brothers, and for my money is among the most literate songwriters around. He's one of those guys to whose music you listen to and say, "Man, that guy has a novel in him". Well, not only does he but it'll be published this Fall.

So forgive me if I'm a little giddy as I write this and know that once I finish The Manual of Detection, I plan on diving head-first into It Feels So Good When I Stop.