A combination today as I hit a couple of stores last night in search of some things and then the postman dropped off a couple of packages today.
First up, non-fiction as I found Michael Rosenberg's War As They Knew It available as I walked into the first store last night at a bargain price, while not remaindered. It's a nice hardcover book about Bo Schembechler, Woody Hayes, their rivalry when backed up against the social unrest in America at that time--a different means of looking at the big Michigan-Ohio State football rivalry, the ten year period from 1969 through 1978 is considered THE BEST segment of THE BEST sports rivalry of all time. Rosenberg's a columnist here in one of the two main Detroit area newspapers which means although he's probably right about 80-90% of the time, he's ridiculed for his opinions about 100% of the time.
Next was one of two reasons I had originally entered the store, Madison Smartt Bell's new novel, The Color of Night. While I still need to finish up the Haitian Trilogy that he penned (it's about 2300 hardcover pages long if I remember right), I've read everything else the man has written and consider him one of my favorites--one of those authors who I find myself in the stores THE day the book is due out. For a really interesting look at Madison's writing process, visit this article
from The New Yorker.
I also picked up a copy of Ecotone issue 10. How could I pass this issue up? Ron Rash, George Singleton, Andy Mozina, Thomas E. Kennedy, John Rybicki, Nick Flynn and James Salter, to name but a few pieces within (oh yeah, Benjamin Percy introduces the Salter story).
Today's mail brought a package that contained Scott McClanahan's short story collection Stories V! (the ! is part of the title, though I am also excited to have a copy in my hands now). I have met Scott in Ann Arbor (maybe even played poker with him), watched in give a reading I probably won't forget in Washington D.C., but have yet to own one of his collections and look forward to sitting down with this one soon.
The other package contained two issues of The Quarterly.
14, which contains work from Christine Schutt, Noy Holland, Patricia Lear, Terese Svoboda, Suzanne McNear, Walter Kirn, Ron Tanner, Tom Rayfiel, Greg Mulcahy, Rick Bass, Sam Michel, Diane Williams, John Rybicki, Cooper Esteban, and Paulette Jiles.
15, which contains work from Don Delillo, Patricia Lear, Sam Michel, Walter Kirn, Noy Holland, Gary Amdahl, Diane Williams, Greg Mulcahy, Philip Goureitch, Dawn Raffel, Michael Hickins, Cooper Esteban, John Rybicki, and Paulette Jiles. Note the list gets bigger almost every issue as I start recognizing and getting excited by more and more authors in the Tables of Contents.
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