oh frabjous day!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an open letter to the universe, wishing that some very intensely anticipated new books would fall from the sky into my lap. Normally, when I make general requests to the universe, the universe gives me the silent treatment; I chalk this up to either an old family curse, or possibly some kind of ancient relic that I picked up in my travels, a dusty old object that has been cursed by a mummy or zombie or ancient pharaoh or some such.

But this time, the universe responded, in the form of a wonderful woman who emailed me and said "I can send you those books."

Once I got done recovering from whooping with joy, I sent off my mailing address and hoped I wasn't being scammed by a fake sub-saharan prince.

Today, a large parcel was waiting for me by my mailbox, after I came home from a rather discouraging meeting. I was a bit puzzled, because it was a large parcel, and two books are fairly small.
I opened the envelope to a very beautiful (and generous) sight:

I may have danced around my kitchen. I may have actually jumped for joy. I may even have gotten a little teary. I will neither confirm nor deny these things. I feel as if I should handle them while wearing spotless white cotton gloves, the kind museums and libraries insist upon when handling things like the Magna Carta.

BEHOLD!!! the shiny glory of Lish McBride's books!  I have a copy of Hold me Closer, Necromancer, but it's a different edition than the new one - now, having matching covers is unbelievably exciting. They are very hard to photograph - so shiny, so reflecting and refracting all over the place. But I LOVE these covers - they suit the book(s) so well [I am assuming Necromancing the Stone has at least a few things in common with Hold me Closer]. I re-read Hold me Closer this past spring, and when I finished I was, once again, feeling almost physical anticipation and eagerness to find out what happens next. [Yes. I am a huge, huge nerd about books. Very enthusiastic, as my student evaluations often mention].

And then the possibly even more beautiful covers of Catherynne M. Valente's Fairyland books. The picture doesn't do justice to the gorgeous shade of violet on the cover of The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There. It's an exquisite cover; the artist for these books (Ana Juan) does wonderful work. Thinking about what could be in this second Fairyland book gives me shivers.

Not only did I receive the new book, I was also sent a paperback copy (newly in paperback) of the first Fairyland book. I am thrilled about this; I have a hardback copy from teaching, but I've handled it rather gingerly, to keep it tidy. I have to say that, the more I think about it, the more I realize that Fairyland #1 is one of the best books to teach that I've ever taught. I enjoyed the book enormously the first two times I read it, but when I read it with my brain tuned for teaching - and then in actually discussing it in class - the book became almost overwhelmingly amazing and interesting and provocative. There is so much going on in it. I have a conference paper-length idea percolating about the book; we'll see if the second Fairyland alters things.

 Anyway, I'm very fussy about writing in my books. I had to train myself to write in my school books, and it still always hurts a little. Because I only had the one copy of Fairyland #1, I didn't want to mark it up at all - instead, I used sticky flags.

Lots and lots of sticky flags. I supplemented the sticky flags with handwritten reminders on a sheet of paper and some index cards, but the ideas were flying while I prepped for teaching this; really, I should have just flagged every single page. I got quite carried away teaching this book; it set off so many ideas, and made me realize so many things about stories and reading and fantasy and time and memory and nostalgia (some of which are things my dissertation thinks about). I was super-gratified to discover that my students also really enjoyed the book; many of them ended up choosing to write up it for various papers, as well, which made grading a bit less painful than usual.

 And now I have these two much-longed for, much-anticipated books, carefully resting on the cabinet in my study (which I cleaned and polished before setting the books on it, because, as noted above, I am a huge nerd about books). I have class tomorrow & thursday, which means my mind needs to be geared up for Hunger Games, and which also means I need to sleep, so I have to wait until Thursday after class to begin reading these. I know right now I won't do anything else once I begin.

The big problem, of course, the big decision that now faces me:

Which book do I read first?!?!?

 

Open letter to the Universe, especially feiwel & friends and henry holt & co

Dear Universe (and especially the fine people at Feiwel&Friends and Henry Holt&Co publishing):

In a year that has been exceptionally filled with disappointment and not getting what I want, I make this plea, a true cri de coeur:

I want, I cryingly want, ARCs of The girl who fell beneath fairyland & led the revels there by Catherynne M. Valente and/or Necromancing the Stone by Lish McBride.

I loved the first book in each series, by each of these women who are fantastic storytellers, clever and witty word-players, and wonderful writers. I taught the first Fairyland book to my Introduction to literature classes, and they really liked it. I have every intention of teaching Hold Me Closer, Necromancer when I next get an opportunity. On my recommendation, a friend of mine read it and included it in her syllabus for The Gothic Imagination.

I do not have a megaphone or a large, well-attended platform from which to speak, but I do what I can to introduce as many people as possible to the books I really love - which include Valente's and McBride's.

I expect to have rather a grind of it this autumn, for a number of reasons, many having to do with the year filled with disappointment and not getting what I want. i understand these things happen to everyone, but they have been happening to me at a rather rapid rate in the last few years.

I am looking forward to the publication of both Valente's and McBride's books this fall (along with Lemony Snicket's newest!). Reading these books will be a very bright sunny spot in an overcast semester. And yet - I am seriously broke. I will be earning half of what I made last year, and that was below the poverty line. I make use of the library like a fiend, but these books I anticipate having to fight for - or rather, wait for. And being left out of the conversations, the blog posts, the interviews and articles (to protect myself from even the tiniest of spoilers) - well, that makes me deeply sad. It makes it harder for me to do my job of being informed, well-read, and engaged in my field (children's and YA literature).

I am trying to finish my dissertation this fall. It will be a slog. I am teaching more students for less money. I am having to take out more student loans than I have had to in quite a few years. None of this makes me special, of course; it just makes me unhappy (and broke). But books! oh books! Book people know how comforting and joyous new books are, especially ones by beloved authors or in beloved series. Reading a great new book is a relief of the spirit, the heart, and the mind.  Reading is not just what I do for pleasure or fun; it is also my job. My vocation, so to speak.

Thus the desire for ARCs.
Thus this pleading, probably desperate and pitiful, open letter.

I am willing to cast aside my pride and dignity in the cause of these books.

most sincerely,

K

Fairyland 2; ARC-fever and book excitement

Catherynne M. Valente has just posted pictures of the ARCs of the second volume in her Fairyland series, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There.


It's got an absolutely gorgeous cover in what look like melted-grape-popsicle shades of purple.

It has also inspired in me another outbreak of ARC-fever.  I lament that I am not important or influential enough to warrant ARCs. I don't so much want to be important for its own sake, but I wouldn't mind being book-influential; I have good taste in books.
But I'm sad about not being able to read advance copies.

As I've mentioned ad nauseum, I can't afford to buy new books very often, especially not hardcover new releases. I do my book buying from goodwill and library used book sales and yard sales. New books are rare, exquisite treats for me, and since my perilously small income is under threat of becoming nonexistent in the fall semester, new-book-buying needs to come to a halt.
Except!
There are a handful of books coming out that I am dying to read; they're in the category I maintain (mentally, anyway) of Books I Will Buy New.  Diana Wynne Jones lived in this category by herself for quite awhile, but I've had to make expansions.
So what's coming up that I can't live without?
Railsea by China Miéville, due out in May. It's his young adult novel, and it sounds dreamy, and since I love his books and have an intense book-crush on him, I NEED to own this one as soon as possible.

This is not a test by Courtney Summers. I really, really like her books; this one is a zombie novel, and I'm very curious about what she'll do.  This one should be out in mid-June; I can make do with a library copy, but the library doesn't always have new releases in a very timely fashion.


Who Could That Be At This Hour? by Lemony Snicket. It's the first book in his new series (All the wrong questions), coming out in October. I don't think I need to say much about how badly I need to have this one.


And of course, Catherynne Valente's second Fairyland book, out in October as well.

It's not just my excitement/love/curiosity that drives wanting ARCs; it's that I now know, at least online, quite a number of people who do receive ARCs regularly, and post about them. It's frustrating and sad to be left out of those conversations, even if they're just little bits and burbles on twitter. It puts me behind the times, conversationally speaking, sometimes by months. By the time I've read the new book, a number of the people with whom I want to talk about it have moved on to the next ARC. They've had weeks or months to mull the book over, or their memories aren't as sharp or emotions as fresh as when they just finished it.

Reading and talking about books with other people has been my primary life goal since forever. This is partly why teaching makes me so happy (provided students do the reading). Reading and talking about children's and YA books is what I most want to be doing, more than almost anything else, and to feel belated and excluded from the very conversations I most want to be in is not very enjoyable.

I suppose the instantaneous availability of ebooks makes a difference, or would if I had - or could afford - an ebook reader other than my laptop. I've had to read lengthy texts on my computer before, and it's very uncomfortable; I don't like reading on a screen and I don't retain information as well at all. So that's not much of an option, really.

I'm also still smarting from the unavailable-in-the-US-ness of the third Spud book by John van de Ruit, and of more books by Simmone Howell and Gabrielle Williams and probably a million Australian YA authors who I can't/won't discover because it's too bloody expensive to order them from over here in the states.

On occasion, something joyous will occur, as when I received the glorious Sea hearts from my amazing online friend in Australia.
But other than that extraordinary kind of event, I suppose I just have to accept my belatedness.

Doesn't that Fairyland cover look delicious?  I cannot wait to read it.

I Can't Stop Thinking About September

This summer I read Catherynne Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making.  (link to my very brief Goodreads review & Goodreads page for the novel)
I can't remember how or where I first heard of it, though I suspect it was from one of the always-on-top-of-things members of my listserv. I did hear a little bit of buzz about the book, though, so I put in a hold request at my public library and waited for the book to show up.
When I got it, I had more than a little trepidation. Whimsical fairyland stories are becoming a dime a dozen, and it's so easy to get it wrong. And a bad fairyland story is - really bad.  Lots of authors think they're either playing with, or paying homage to, old-school fairyland stories when really they're just copying them over, badly. It's not a form of flattery; it's a form of cheap failure.

Valente's book started off promisingly, and got better all along. The downright weirdness of her Fairyland appeals strongly to my own sense of weirdness, as well as my familiarity with the equally weird nineteenth-century fairy stories of writers like Jean Ingelow and Juliana Ewing. Valente knows her Fairyland(s) - she's got wyverns and witches and guardians and magical folk of all kinds populating the place. She also throws in twists and wrenches that both defamiliarize Fairyland and create it anew (the polygamous witches are just the start, really).
And it is in the defamiliarizing of Fairyland that I think this book makes its magic. We all already know fairylands of many kinds: we know Wonderland, Neverland, we know Oz, we know Faerie, we know the Back of the North Wind, the back of beyond, the Almost Anywheres, the nearly-generic Fairylands that crop up all over the place. We know Narnia, and Middle Earth, and the Magic City, and Nowhere and the North Pole. Even the most carefully crafted, intricately detailed fairylands have a family resemblance to each other, and many more contemporary fantasy lands seem to be simple variations on the same family face.
But Fairyland, circumnavigated by Valente (and September), manages to take what we know and feel comfortable with, and turn it that quarter- or half-rotation to make it startlingly, or just delightfully, new. The herds of migrating velocipedes. The town made entirely of fabrics. The magical university town. The sentient lamp and shoes. The hybrid Wyverary. The weird temporal twists and turns - because time, in Fairyland (as everywhere else, really) is a strange thing. The gorgeously-named Leopard of Little Breezes.
I admit to feeling confounded by questions of audience and address - Valente has written a quasi-19th-century children's book for grownups (her narrator at least once clearly indicates an adult audience). But in great 19th century fantasy form, Valente has also managed to make these kinds of questions practically irrelevant, interesting to the scholar of children's literature or narratology, but for the casual reader, essentially immaterial.
I need to read the book again; I was tempted to keep it longer from the library, for a second reading, but the waiting list was long, and I had another pile of new titles to work through, so I took this one back. In all likelihood, I will end up teaching it, or just buying it, within the next few months. I'm desperately eager for the second installment of the Fairyland books; September's adventures are not at a close, and my interest in Fairyland is only whetted by this first book.
The more time has passed since I read it, the more I realize what an intriguing and fantastic (in every sense of the word) read it was. I find myself thinking about the book, daydreaming sections of it, at odd moments, unexpectedly - this kind of unlooked-for afterthought usually signals, to me, that a text was more interesting or awesome than I initially realized. And then, a few days after having surgery on my shoulder, I lay in bed with nothing much to do except think of Fairyland, and a thought floated through my mind that has hugely changed my thinking about this novel, and makes me feel even better about giving it five stars on Goodreads. What crossed my mind was this: Catherynne Valente's book is the fantasy novel The Wizard of Oz was trying to be. L. Frank Baum's book, for all its popularity and sequels, for all that its film adaptation is fabulous, is still a remarkably unfanciful fantasy. Valente does Baum one better, and then laps him again, with this wonderful Fairyland of her own making.