In case, you think I have not been reading, o 'lo, I have, just not as much, and less small fictions. The last magazine I finished was Interzone, the Anniversary Issue in which I was mightily impressed. Yes, I liked it. I liked it better than the 30th Anniversary Issue of Asimov's which had more stories and big name authors and everything, well, everything except the ability to please me greatly.

I have gone on YA novel reading trips:

Ysabeau S. Wilce's Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishpas of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms and a Red Dog, which was all adventurous although it made me puzzled, the punish-the-heroine-for-her-faults aspect of the novel and the knowledge that those faults are the faults of most teenage girls, but bravo for the journey.

Martine Leavitt's Keturah and Lord Death which read like I was in an orchard, beneath the ancient apple trees, and the breeze in the evening caused a cascade of blossoms to fall upon my upturned face. Yes, that gentle.

Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It which I paused during the reading of, for I wondered why I was reading something so dismal when all about me was dismal, and decided the narrator's voice was so captivating that I would journey with her to the end, whatever the end might be, and was therefore glad that I did.

M. T. Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1. I'd read a number of good things about this novel and I was all set to be wowed, but it wasn't a wow book for me. I'm very sorry that I wasn't wowed, even if I'm not sorry I read it. Because, well, if books had a flavor this book would be anise, and I like to taste anise every once in a while, because, you never know, some day I may discover it has become what I never thought it would be, a new source of delight.

Currently, I am reading Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box aloud to Dale. Dale stopped reading novels about the time of his first heart surgery and with the extra time we share in the evenings, and his past enjoyment of horror stories, I thought reading aloud would be enjoyable for both of us. It is. I rather hate the stopping of the read at the end of our visit, because, you know I devour things I enjoy.

And, then, there is Text: UR edited by Forrest Aguire, which is a challenge to read. Because some stories are written to challenge their readers and sometimes, this reader has a love of fiction that keeps me working at its comprehension. The effort sometimes proves to be rewarding. And that is what I'm finding in these stories.

Lastly, I have Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing, edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss. Which I paid for. But which I may review anyway. Besides I got a postcard in the mail about its release. Postcards about books make me happy.