So between the Winter Blog Blast Tour, finishing up my December column and a feature on NF for teens and a rush read/review job for Booklist (5 day turnaround), I feel like my life has been spinning around me while I stood in the middle with a glazed over look in my eyes and acute inability to focus. I have more notes on Thoreau to dump into my western book file, along with a few on Stegner and some on getting lost in Alaska a hundred years ago. The first chapter has shaped up to be McCandless and Stegner and from there it goes back to Thoreau but I'm not totally ready to start that next. I need to read over a few passages from Walden and get the exact wording right in my head on a thing or two. But it's coming along - it's starting anyway. (I might pick up The Journal 1837-1861 and immerse myself even more in Thoreau's thoughts.)

And that is that.

In far more exciting literary news, via Jenny D. I discovered io9's list of anticipated SF books next year and very nearly squealed with glee. Connie Willis is due out with Blackout, from her time travel universe which involves a return to WWII and other concerns: "For there they face air raids, blackouts, unexploded bombs, dive-bombing Stukas, rationing, shrapnel, V-1s, and two of the most incorrigible children in all of history-to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control." Jo Walton has Among Others, "a change of pace for her, a semi-autobiographical tale of growing up nerdy. Of course the book contains fantastical subplots, and characters who are heartbreakingly real - especially for people who grew up with their noses buried in fantasy novels." And Scarlett Thomas has Death of the Author which apparently little is known about other that "the title is borrowed from an essay by Roland Barthes about how a truly good critic shouldn't care what the author's intent was in writing a story."

All of these are must reads.

From Booklist I discovered that Laura Ruby has a new one out, Bad Apple. This return to the mean halls of high school (captured so effectively in Good Girls) involves artist Tola and unfounded rumors spread about her and her art teacher. A bit of the review: "Tola and her family are fascinating, quirky-yet-believable, and wholly likable. Ruby works in traditional fairy-tale elements (an evil stepmother, abandonment, Tola's name that references the Italian version of Cinderella) with wry humor."

Of course it's from Harper Collins which explains why I've heard nothing of it until now. (sigh.)

Donna Seaman gave a starred review to the Laura van den Berg collection What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us from Dzanc Books (go Dan Wickett!). I am not that good at reviewing adult collections (I can never fit everything in that I want to) but this one is totally on my holiday wish list: "As compelling as her characters and their predicaments are, it’s van den Berg’s startling insights into the alliance between the human psyche and the mysteries of nature in a time of environmental mayhem that give these short stories their glimmering power."

I don't know how I missed The Vinyl Princess by Yvonne Prinz (oh yes I do - IT'S FROM HARPER COLLINS) but I really think I need to put together some kind of indy/artsy teens column because these kids are being celebrated left and right lately and I say, more power to them. A bit of that Booklist review: "Over a single summer, Allie starts a music blog that attracts international readers, falls for a dreamy stranger with a seriously shady past, watches her parents awkwardly navigate new relationships, and finally discovers true romance with a music-loving soul mate." Love music, love blogging, love zines (also in the plot) and love that there is not a single sparkly vampire in sight. Thank you God.

Finally, Margaret Willey has a nice piece in the current Horn Book on writing her novel about a teen naturalist, A Summer of Silk Moths. (This one is from Flux - didn't hear about it either.) (Ah - now I know why...the cover art is really really not good. I probably never even got past that.) A bit from Booklist: "This is a quiet slice-of-life story with an interesting natural-science frame, good character development, and solid supporting characters." And I think I need to plan an naturalist type column down the line as well, what with this one and Calpurnia Tate (loved it) and Susan Paltrow's Lucky books. Darwin is cool again - and isn't that fabulous?

I'm reading essays on Wallace Stegner, Eula Biss's devastating and incredibly good essay collection Notes From No Man's Land, Caitlin Kiernan's brutally honest novel The Red Tree (which also suffers from a really bad cover but thank goodness my aunt bought it for me anyway!), four books for Booklist (including one on the Tuskegee Airmen that I'm quite excited about), Paul Collins' Book of William on the Shakespeare folios and a host of MG/YA stuff for Jan and Feb including The Firefly Letters and Lady MacBeth's Daughter. Just finished Geert Spillebeen's Age 14 about a young soldier in WWI (intense, abrupt, and very much a book that boys will enjoy I think) which will fit in January I hope.

And that's it. Hope you have found good books to read and look forward to as well!