I keep thinking about some books I should write about here, but I'm also reviewing them for elsewhere and so I keep putting off the short reviews.

Oddly it seems too hard. I have no idea why - but right now all I want to say is London Calling, Let Me Finish, Ophelia - all good, good, good. But nothing - nothing - in common between the three! I'll just point you in the direction of my reviews when they are up and you can see what I think then.

I did read this brief article in The Guardian about sorting your personal library and thought the comments were even better than the article. Everyone has such an opinion on this subject - although I have to say ordering your books alphabetically or by last read is a bit beyond me. I highly recommend Anne Fadiman's book which has a lovely essay or two on the subject (and many other essays on the reading life) but as for me, it is all by subject for nonfic or genre by fic. And the fiction is then alphabetized. I have all sorts of unusual subjects - Polar Writings, Aviation Literature, Wars by location (Afghanistan, Africa, etc.) or major US wars by name (WWI, WWII, Vietnam, etc.). And there are gardening books and dragon books, and biographies, etc. I think everyone with nonfiction goes with their own subject classifications - it should work the way you need it to work. And the fiction is Lit/Fic, Mys, SFF, YA, Horror and then the stack of Hemingway and the Persephone Books which look too good together to be split up.

And the graphic novel shelf of course - love that shelf!

I could read a whole book about how people arrange their libraries and use them. I wish someone would collect those essays - it would be lovely.

In the midst of birthday and seeing doctors and slowly losing my mind on I-5, I've also been thinking about a problem of sorts with the YA Urban Fantasy (how about "The Sound of One Wing Flapping"?). I rely on the discovery of a diary/journal in the very beginning - something that happens in lots of books in one manner or another. But one of my cousins (Amee) pointed out to me how annoying it is when the protagonist gets a message from the past and reads it, but then doesn't need that info for many chapters - so the current timeline gets too separated from the old timeline. I've always been annoyed though when something is found but not read or analyzed for several chapters - I mean if you found some cool family thing you would pop it open within hours and read it - anyone would. But if my chick reads the whole thing, then it would be too long. So...what to do?

Happily, Scarlett Thomas has a book in My Y. that her protagonist has been hunting for and miraculoulsy finds in a used bookstore. She goes right home and starts reading and although she can't finish it that first night, she puts a big dent in....but Thomas does a cool thing by including a few pages directly from the found book in the text but having her protag think about the other chapters - in other words, she reads it, but the reader doesn't have to. This seems like a really obvious solution to my problem but it's been eluding me. So that is cool. Now I have the journal idea, my chick will read it all, but my readers won't need to - she will just tell another character what she discovers. The important part will be in the text (the major revelations) but not everything. Now I can zip along with that and not dwell on it anymore. Which is lovely.

Funny how these writing problems just kick you in the butt sometimes, right?

Finally, Mishima's Sword: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend sounds really cool. Christopher Ross goes looking for the sword used by Yukio Mishima, one of Japan's best-selling novelists, who committed sepuku after an unsuccessful 1970 coup attempt. Along the way according to Booklist, he shares "part travelogue, part biography, part history lesson and part philosphical treatise." I'm quite intrigued and more importantly, I think my brother would love it.