First, the new site is coming along and after some bizarre glitches in posting over there it seems to be all worked out now. So I just have to build the archives for all my interviews and that junk and it will be up next week - hopefully. Just watch the blog and I'll let you know when we are ready for visitors!

Second - Art Slade sent me an email after reading my post yesterday and mentioned his new book that is due out this Fall - on WWI in Palestine. I am all over that and will certainly be getting a copy. The only books I've read about WWI in the Middle East are all by or about TE Lawrence; I'm interested to see what another author does with that place and time.

Third - I contacted a few authors about my desire to review their upcoming books from Harper and the note in the catalog that says I can't request specific books and I heard back from one who had immediately contacted an editorial assistant over there. The assistant let me know that of course I could fax a list of review requests and they would consider sending me some. Really - no problem!

Yeah right.

I will send off a fax, but it's a blind fax, not like you're emailing someone direct who might actually respond to you. It's just not the sort of system that has ever worked that well for me in the past. But I do have two of the books coming via the authors and hopefully will receive a couple of others. I still think this system isn't a very good one and as an author myself it has become very clear that there is a big difference between what some publishers do for their authors versus what other publishers do (For the record: Harcourt, Houghton Mifflin, Candlewick and FSG all rock! Plus Front Street, Annick Press and Serpent's Tail!! I'm sure there's more -)

Fourth - Congrats to Leila over at Moorish Girl who is going to Casablanca next year! How cool is that? She's going to run my review of Princes Amongst Men in the next week or so, the awesome book I read last month about the Roma people and music.

Fifth - Got the new Random House kid catalogs and will post on them shortly.

Sixth - You must buy the new issue of Vanity Fair - the green issue. Amazing articles on global warming, spectacular pictures and did you know that Patagonia makes jackets from recycled plastic bottles? We are buying our rain gear from Patagonia from now on! (And in the Pacific Northwest a good raincoat is essential.) There's a long story on coal mining and mountain top blasting in the magazine and it really depressed me. I have a book on coal mining coming to me from Houghton Mifflin and I'm hoping to interview the author.

Seventh - Reviewing a book for Booklist right now where the author is taking quotes out of context to support his message. I hate when authors do that - I hate when anyone does that. The book is still going to be reviewed by me and I can certainly recommend it but now I have to find a way to explain (in less than 200 words) that some of his message is tempered by his refusal to present a balanced view. Why do authors think they get their point across better when they only scream their side of the story? It sells to the people who already believe them but leaves everyone in the middle doubting if its all true.

Of course that seems to work fine for Ann Coulter and Michael Moore so I guess I can't fault this guy for doing the same thing. But it's exhausting reading.

Eight - To reward myself for getting through some tough books lately I'm reading Scott Russell Sanders's Private History of Awe next. I'm really looking forward to it.