I’m sure glad class is almost done for the summer quarter, I’ve got so much to read and so little time to read it before the fall quarter starts. That’s the problem with being such a part-time student and going to school year-round, not much in the way of a break and I still have two to two-and-a-half more years to go before I get that degree! But it has been a year since I began this school thing already and that flew by. The remainder will too I’m sure even though it doesn’t seem like it now. At the end of it I will be amazed at how fast it went.

Two books I am looking forward to digging into were generously sent to me by publishers. See if these don’t look interesting:

• Twenty Fragments of Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo. Farm girl moves to the big city only this big city is Bejing and the farm girl is from the Chinese countryside. It’s a slim novel by the author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers.
• The Journal of Jules Renard by Jules Renard. It covers the author’s life from 1887 to 1910. Renard was a French novelist and playwright and his journal is filled with descriptions not only of his personal life but also the 19th century French literary and art scene. I’m hoping for lots of juicy gossip.

I have one more book, a finished paperback of Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow. But this book is for one of you. A few days after I bought a copy of the book as a birthday present for my Bookman, I got an email from the publisher asking if I’d like a copy. I explained that I had just bought one but if they’d like to send a copy I could give away, that would be really nice. So they did. And now I am giving it away to one of you.

Here is a description of Sharp Teeth in case you don’t know about it:

An ancient race of lycantrhopes survives in modern L.A., and its numbers are growing as the pack converts the city’s downtrodden into their fold. Stuck in the middle are a local dog-catcher and the woman he loves, whose secret past haunts her as she fights a bloody one-woman battle to save their relationship.

A perfect book to add to your Rest in Peace Challenge reading list when Carl gets that going in a few weeks.

Oh, and did I mention this novel is written in verse? Here is the beginning to whet your appetite:

Let’s sing about the man there
at the breakfast table
his olive hand making endless circles
in the classifieds
‘wanted’ ‘wanted’ ‘wanted’
small jobs little money
but you have to start somewhere.
Here.
LA
East LA
a quarter-mile from where they pick up the mariachis
on warm summer nights
two miles from La Serenata de Garibaldi’s
where the panther-black cars pause on their haunches
while their blonde women eat inside
wiping the blood-red
mole from their quiet lips
‘wanted’ ‘wanted’ ‘wanted’ he circles the paper
then reaches for the phone
breathes deep, begins.

Not bad, eh? If you would like the book, leave a comment. Your name will go into a bowl to be drawn Friday morning by one of the cats.