Reviewing the Mail: Week of 12/1

Some weeks, the pile is very small, and so a long introduction would be silly. This is one of those weeks -- what I have in hand is one book and a folder. I haven't read the book, but I could easily read everything in the folder in ten minutes. But here's what they are:

Ash is the new novel by British horror writer James Herbert, coming from Tor (US) on December 11th. This one is a haunted-castle thriller -- said castle being situated on a remote Scottish promontory facing the sea, to make it more traditional and ominous -- starring Herbert's series character, paranormal investigator David Ash, who is hired to (naturally) investigate hauntings in said castle. The flap copy mumbles something about "what is fact and what is fiction," so this may be based on an actual legend, or that may be a reference to some Scooby-Dooism going on around the actual supernatural beasties.

The folder is an announcement, which will only be a surprise to people who have been living under a rock for the past few months. The final book in Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series -- completed, like the prior two books in the series, by Brandon Sanderson from Jordan's notes and under the collaboration of Jordan's editor/wife -- will be A Memory of Light, and that book is on press right now. (It'll be on press for a while; these books are big, and it take a lot of copies to fill up the market.) Memory will be officially published on January 8. Now, I haven't read the first thirteen books in this series, so I don't know if jumping into the end would make any sense. But I'm sure many of you out there have read in this series before, and will be happy to know that it's finally coming to the big climax after nearly twenty-five years. So don't ear-mark your Christmas money for anything else -- that's what I'm saying.

A Book? Is It NOTABLE?

The New York Times published their annual year-end list of "Notable Books" last week -- the free-standing Book Review comes out one week, and then appears in the next Sunday's paper (well, Saturday, these days), for reasons that I'm sure someone at the Times could explain if you took the time to track down that person.

And I spent a little time today looking through that list, because other people's rankings of art always have that tar-baby appeal; they're always wrong in one way or another, which is endless fascinating like an itchy scab. (Although, this year, there was an introduction that went out of its way to emphasize that these are not the best books of the year, or the only books of the year, or, really, anything other than one list of a hundred books that a group of Times editors happened to agree on one particular day. Timidity is not an attractive feature in a book review, though.)

The whole list is available here; this year, the Times ditched all of the smaller categories (they may have officially done this some years ago) and simply gave us fifty works of fiction and fifty things that are supposed to be true.

Of interest to genre audiences are:

•  Alif the Unseen, the first novel by comics writer G. Willow Wilson
• Arcadia by Lauren Groff, which includes a future dystopia
• Building Stories, the box of comics from Chris Ware
• City of Bohane by Kevin Barry, set in 2053 Ireland (though I'm sure that its author, publisher, et al. have made repeated ritual denunciations of the mere idea of it being "sci-fi")
• Pure by Julianna Baggott, yet another literary dystopia
• Are You My Mother?, the second major comics memoir from Alison Bechdel
• Saul Steinberg, a biography of the sublime New Yorker cartoonist/cover artist by Deirdre Blair

There is also a list of Notable Children's Books, which is much shorter -- pre-adults only get a total of 25 notable titles (roughly eight each in Young Adult, Middle Grade, and Picture Books). Amazingly, there seems to be only one dystopia on the list. Congrats to sometime SFF writer Elizabeth Wein, whose historical thriller Code Name Verity is in the Young Adult section.

The two books I've read on the Children's list -- by Jasper Fforde and "Lemony Snicket" -- both deserve to be there, which is more than I can say for the one similar book on the adult list, Ian McEwan's Sweet Tooth.

Bad Sex! Bad, Naughty Sex!

It's time once again for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award, one of those wonderful literary awards that only the Brits could create and administer with anything like a straight face. I'm late announcing the nominees -- the news came out on November 20 in the UK -- but I did manage to get in ahead of the gala unveiling of the winner, which will take place on December 4.

Despite many nominations, J.K. Rowling's first adult novel The Casual Vacancy did not make the list, which is full of names unfamiliar to me and prior winner Tom Wolfe.

That full, shameful list:

• The Yips by Nicola Barker
• The Adventuress by Nicholas Coleridge
• Infrared by Nancy Huston
• Rare Earth by Paul Mason
• Noughties by Ben Masters
• The Quiddity of Will Self by Sam Mills
• The Divine Comedy by Craig Raine
• Back to Bloodby Tom Wolfe.

 Bad luck to all of the nominees -- go forth and cease to write horribly about sex!

Tid att vara i nuet

Paper Aeroplanes - Time To Be EP

Livet handlar mycket om att vara på rätt plats vid rätt tillfälle. Och att inte vara där vid fel tillfälle! Somliga kallar det slump, andra ödet, det handlar väl mest om flyt och oflyt... Jag är glad att jag råkade hamna på legendariska musik-puben "Half Moon" i Putney våren 2009.
Al Lewis och Sarah Howells var med på en Unplugged-kväll med flera unga förmågor. Båda har funnits i mitt musikliv sen dess, Al solo och som duo med Sarah, och Sarah i sin grupp Paper Aeroplanes.

Paper Aeroplanes är inte obekanta för läsare av den här bloggen och det glädjer mig att de har gått stadigt framåt och får idag mycket mer uppmärksamhet och säljer nu ofta ut sina konserter. Någon som har smak nog att ta hit dem till Sverige snart?

Sarah Howells och Richard Llewellyn har nu släppt ännu en flerspårs-EP. Sex låtar av högsta klass och åter är det ganska lågmält och djupa reflektioner. Titellåten "Time To Be" kan bli en riktig klassiker i sin enkelhet om det som hela mänskligheten tycks jaga: Förmågan att vara den vi vill vara, här och nu! Min favorit är nog ändå "This Land Won't Shake", men det kan variera snabbt. Skulle jag önska något så vore det någon lite snabbare medryckande låt, men det kommer säkert framöver.

Sarah sjunger som vanligt helt gudomligt. Richard bidrar mer än det först kan verka, med fint gitarrspel, kompositioner och arrangemang, samt nu även med riktigt bra sång-harmonier.

Musiklaliskt finns nu ett litet band med trummor och fiol i ryggen och det är välarrangerat med känsla och stil.

Som bonus finns förra årets jullåt "In The Bleak Midwinter" med. Så vacker att även en "jul-agnostiker" som jag får julkänslor som jag inte trodde var möjligt...

Jag har sagt det förr och säger det igen: Paper Aeroplanes kan nå hur långt som helst!

Länkar:
Paper Aeroplanes hemsida - med alla nyheter och massvis med länkar.
Paper Aeroplanes på Bandcamp - här kan du lyssna och beställa ditt eget exemplar.

A Backwards Glance

The "Read in November" post has just been updated, with capsule reviews of American Vampire Vol. 3 and New York Mon Amour. Further updates should follow. (For that matter, the similar post for October needs updating, too, but I make no promises.)