Lit Bits & A Bit About FISA

• I'm now deep in Human Smoke land, which is not so different (strangely or no?) from Revolutionary Road land, at least as far as the examination of the human condition is concerned.  I want to talk and talk and talk about this book for hours and I'm only 1/3 of the way in.  I am kicking myself for not having been hip to this book when Ed had his Human Smoke Roundtable in March.
• More reasons to kick myself: Baker weighed in on the Human Smoke roundtable.
• Possible reason (if we were prone to kicking others, which we are not, certainly not esteemed bookish folk that live in our own city) to kick Silverblatt: He has interviewed Baker on Bookworm six times. The last interview was seven years ago and Baker doesn't appear on the schedule anytime soon to talk about Human Smoke. What's up with that?
• I have arrived at that precarious place in novel writing where you know enough to really dive in, but you are still tinkering with voice and nothing feels quite right. I am trying like all hell to resist re-writing it in every voice and from every angle. I fear this might be necessary, however, so I'm stalling. Big time.
• Pinky beats me to the punch on taking a look at some of AIGA's 50/50 book cover design winners.  As I live and breathe design all day, it is always nice when my work self and my book self can become one.  Go admire the beauty.
• I may still unearth a few of my favorites from the competition -- and a few other cover shenanigans I've uncovered recently.
• Barbara Ehrenreich read from This Land is Their Land last night at Skylight Books to a very full house and she tip-toed around Obama and FISA like a woman grappling with deep disappointment.  She also did something that I've never seen done before at a reading: She used her moment in the sun to not just talk about the importance of causes, but to actually shine a light on a specific local issue. 
• I've got my own specific issue to rant about: It's called FISA. It's called Obama. It's called, what the hell? I'd definitely like to kick someone involved in this mess.
  
• Now back to Human Smoke.