A Handful of Books...and Rome.

Off to Rome in a couple days, putting together the luggage, I don’t have a Kindle or related e-reader, so a handful or more of books will make their way with me, stuffed in between the underwear and shirts. A few, not exactly the Desert Island collection, but stuff that seems essential right now.

For example: my favorite Lucius Shepard book is, A Handbook of American Prayer, but that one’s going in storage, in one of the double handful of boxes I have here--yes, that’s all I have, 9 file boxes of stuff, 1 box for the computer, a couple of pieces of art, that’s it! A life in so few boxes, perhaps because so much of what matters to me is via my words, in my head, interpretations of memories, extrapolations of future paths altered from the real; seems I'm always downsizing, though it's less by choice and more by necessity. When I left Oregon a few years ago, I took what I could fit in the car. The rest of the stuff? Goodbye!

Or perhaps I'm just not into material things...hmmm...

Anyway, my point is, perhaps not the Desert Island collection selections, but Shepard's still represented on my journey with The Best of…and Viator Plus (which I’ve yet to read).

What else?

A smattering of darkness: both of Laird Barron’s collections, Joe Pulver’s Blood Will Have Its Season, Matt Cardin’s Dark Awakenings, Ballard’s (almost) Complete Short Stories, Barker's completely complete--ahem--Stealth version of The Books of Blood.

A few more…

Strange busy times, looking forward to Words Words Words in Rome: reading and writing, the minor revision tweaks of my second novel (primarily condensing two chapters into one and some nips and tucks otherwise), as well as some short pieces in need of attention; there's also a bio of a famous poet that my girlfriend, Alessandra, and I will be writing. And my third novel, dealing with Percy Bysshe Shelley's most prized possession... And this blog! Oh, my...consistency, and lots of ellipses, eh? Gotta cut those out. Hmmm...
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So, this quickie, touching base, saying hello, hope your world is running smoothly, and back to situating everything and letting the words stew in my head, awaiting release in another time zone.

;-)

Books, clothes, and the...essentials...