You just gotta say wow and wow.  There is so much going on.

First of all, there’s a book explosion.  So many many books– collections of poems, novels, memoirs.  There’s word the book industry as in real published books is in big trouble, yet what a plethora on every site from Amazon to Publisher’s Weekly to the best summer picks from NPR.

I’ve just started writing reviews again, and I’m excited.  See reviews page of this blog.  I’m digging into Alan Cheuse’s Song of the Slaves of the Desert— Professor Cheuse is NPR’s book critic and it will undoubtedly be a pleasure and a challenge to read his book.

I really had fun reviewing Erica Jong’s anthology a few weeks ago– and she posted a thank you on Facebook!  Out of that experience have come new “friendships” with Meghan O’Rourke, a critic I greatly admire– and several other fascinating women.

Triggered Muse, the group I started on She Writes awhile back, now has five members in it on Facebook; we’re posting work for comment.

Meanwhile… the trial.  And the future of one incomprehensibly self-damned mother hanging in the balance.  Closing arguments begin in the a.m.– stay tuned.

BTW don’t Kate and William look lovely.

And also by the way–my onetime love Ramon I Esparolini died last weekend at the age of 81.  He was loved by many.  I met him when I was twenty-five or so and he was in his forties.  He was a Puerto Rican/Italian lawyer in St. Paul and bought a beautiful farm north of the Twin Cities where I spent many wonderful hours and some not so wonderful.  I posted an elegy at La Parola Vivace.

 

Stay tuned…xj