I like big books (and I cannot lie)

Some books I've enjoyed this summer (in English and in no particular order):

Przewalski’s Horse by Maja Lunde

The History of Magic: From Alchemy to Witchcraft, From the Ice Age to the Present by Chris Gosden

Figuring by Maria Popova

Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi

The Seven Sisters series by Lucinda Riley

Upheaval How Nations Cope with Crisis and Change by Jared Diamond

The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power

But what have you been reading, sweetie darlings? I’d love to exchange recommendations! Doesn’t have to be a big book. A thought-provoking essay or article? ✔️ A beautifully illustrated children's book? ✔️ Something that made your brain sprain? ✔️

Happy International Literacy Day!

Hindsight 2020

Temperature: a windy but sunny 5/41 degrees

Eating: in a minute

Drinking: Can't. Working. Maybe later? A Guinness to ring in the weekend? Hadn’t had one in ages, then had one on St. Patrick’s, and goodness is was gooood.

Watching: my TBR lists grow at an alarming pace. (The problem? A) I read in more than one language, B) I only have one brain, and C) 24 hours a day to spare.) This isn’t working. I need a year off. A year to go off and read.

Listening: to new music from Dido

Reading: As fast as I can. But it’s an epidemic! A cornucopia of fantastic fiction and non-fiction sprouting all over the planet. Could you please give me some time to catch up? Sit on it for a bit? Postpone publication, maybe? I might not get to you if you don’t, you know, and I know you want to be read. This isn’t working. Not for me, and not in your favor.

Thinking: Why don’t we all take 2020 off to read and reflect, and start 2021 in a new and improved state of mind. No? Why not? Because the world doesn’t stop for anyone? Who said anything about stopping?! Your brain doesn’t stop until it shuts down for good. And we have months to plan this, so what’s the problem?

Feeling: I may have gone overboard with the exclamation marks. Totally exceeded my quota for 2019, actually. Like three posts ago. Sorry about that. Can’t promise it won’t happen again.

A midsummer night's dream

I dreamed I wrote a rather long and rambling essay on the economy, ecology and equality. Long because of the amounts of cause and effect and problems and solutions I managed to cram into that one piece, rambling because of the myriad associations, the links and bridges I managed to build. Full of pathos, I went from global warming to refugees to immigration, from nationalism to fascism to racism, from global trade to global warming and back to refugees again. My theory of everything.

Too bad I don't remember half of it but I do remember feeling a strange but strong sort of relief getting it all down in writing, as if I hadn't quite known what I thought on the subject before I wrote about it and had now laid down a burden, the anxiety that comes with the feeling you don't understand the world around you, the hows and whys, the implications, the consequences. In my dream I had managed to collect my thoughts, observations and opinions, arrange them in a well-structured manner and lay them out coherently and elegantly. (One can dream, right?)

He built this garden for us, they were called, my nocturnal notes, a slight but quite deliberate misquote of a Lenny Kravitz song, I presume, since I opened with a picture of our garden, a garden I gladly work on but one my husband has had a heavy hand in creating. So he doesn't bring me flowers every day. He built me a garden. I realized this is the longest I've stayed put, and not the least because of the garden that grows around me, a house that's like the tropics in the arctic, the peace and happiness I feel in both.

Who has the right to peace and happiness, or prosperity? On what terms? On whose terms? Who promised life would be easy, fair or happy, a man once asked when the question came up, a man who'd never suffered or struggled, who'd never been and never would be any type of minority, an outcast, disenfranchised, displaced, the underdog. No one had ever denied him, crossed him, belittled him, stomped on him or stood up to him. I understood his question. I just don't think he did. I don't think he gave a second thought to where his wealth came from, to whom or what he owed it to.

Taking a close, critical, honest look at most anything usually makes you focus on the flaws and the problems in something, then promptly sign up for a transcendental meditation class, learn mindfulness, go buy one of those adult coloring books, whatever takes your mind off the fact the world is a pretty fucked up place getting worse by the second, now that you really look at it and think about it, so better not look too closely, better concentrate on things closer to home such as you, yourself and, well, you, Jon Lajoie was right: Fuck Everything. Wait, what?

One of my university professors believed cultures evolved in cycles, all cultures following the same cycle but at a different pace. All clashes between nations, cultures, creeds and even individuals stemmed from our conflicting values and views, our place on the cycle, and our need to impose those values and views, our will, on others. I've seen such forces in action, determinism, relativism and entitlement at its worst. I've seen evidence to the contrary, kindness and compassion and selflessness at its best.

Maybe authors and artists can't change the world but they show us what it's like to live in it, what it feels like to be human, living under the same sun and moon but very different stars.

Final destination

I spent my childhood abroad. Or rather the country and continent of my birth was just a place my family visited every summer and the exotic faraway place friends and relatives visited in the winter was home. Travel has always been a central theme in my life. We traveled extensively then and travel is the number one reason I'll probably die with nothing to my name. What money I manage to save up, airlines and B&Bs gobble up with greed. My kids have traveled since birth and I'm afraid I've infected them with my wanderlust. Which is just as well.

Some travel to get away from, some in search of themselves. Some travel to broaden their horizons, some to reinforce national and cultural stereotypes. There's a fine line between patriotism and nationalism, between loving your country and being suspicious of all others. If there's one thing I want to teach my children on our journeys is that the world is not black or white or some skin shade in between, it's not English, Portuguese, Swedish or Spanish speaking, it's not Christian, Catholic or Muslim, it's all of that.

Not many things in this life you get to experience for the first time, but when you travel, you can get in touch with that sense of wonder, that sense of seeing and smelling and tasting and touching and hearing for the first time. (You can achieve the same at home, of course, but too often the daily grind makes us blind to things around us that have no bearing on the tasks at hand.) It's the thrill of adventure. Searching, finding, getting lost and surviving.

St. Augustine said, “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” What of those who do not read a single page, literally, ever? They're confined to very close quarters indeed, the insides of their head, a very narrow strait through which very few ideas pass and when they outgrow their prison and escape out into the world, they wield the sword of single, simple truth because they never came in touch with some other thought or someone else's truth.

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts," Mark Twain said. But maybe you don't have money to travel. You don't need money to travel. You don't have to leave home at all. You can always, you should always, read. I wrote a post that relates, kind of, if you want to have a look. No, you should definitely have a look because be you reader or writer, I want to ask you something. And there's a new snippet from Perpetual Pleasure!

I've liked that book all along. A good thing, liking what you do and the end product. But more often than not, there comes a time in the life of every manuscript when the author curses the day they got it into their heads it would be a great idea to write that book. I never felt that way with this one. I felt for my heroine. I rooted for my hero, hoped he wouldn't give up on her even when she gave him every reason and excuse to do just that.

I also got a kick out of writing the dialogue, and with the exception of a few surplus endearments, my editor didn't touch it. Sooo hard, writing decent dialogue, and if that's one thing I got right, that's what I want to offer you on the days leading to release. What do you say? Tiny teaser trailers, a tasty countdown.

Check in daily! Know someone who loves paranormal but is tired of vamps and shifters? Bring them along!! Starting tomorrow!!!

See you then, dearest denizens. 

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
– Henry Miller

Once upon a time in Al-Àndalus

The dragon is about to devour the princess. Enter St. George, who slays the dragon. From the beast's spilled blood a rose bush rises, prompting our knight in shining armor to pluck the most beautiful stem and present it to the princess.

Patronages of St. George include various cities, counties, countries, crafts, clubs and causes around the world. In England, St. George's Day is also Shakespeare Day. In world literature, this 23rd of April is a symbolic date, the date of birth or death of several prominent authors, most notably Cervantes, Shakespeare and El Inca who, incidentally, all died in 1616.

Catalonia has celebrated St. George since 1436, and roses have been a part and a symbol of this day since medieval times. Inspired by the legend and in memory of Cervantes, in 1923 a business-savvy bookseller started the custom of a man offering a woman a rose in exchange for a book. In Barcelona, La Diada de Sant Jordi is a love fest, flower fest and book fair all in one. Hundreds of flower stands and bookstalls pop up for the occasion all over the city. It's a popular release day and a good day for promoting your work, so authors hold book readings in cafés and book stores. And of course there's a marathon reading of Don Quixote. But you don't have to have a date or a passion for reading to enjoy the day. You can go see the sardana dancers in the Plaça Sant Juane, the rose displays in the Palau do Generalitat, or enjoy the performances of street musicians on just about every plaça in town.

Poor inundated 23rd of April, in 1995 this Catalan tradition officially became a worldwide one. UNESCO chose the date to pay tribute to books and authors and created the World Book and Copyright Day. Since 2012 also marks the 80th anniversary of the Index Translationum (an international bibliography of translation), this year's theme is Books and Translation.

I'm all for encouraging people to read, promoting love, literacy and literature, furthering cultural exchange and progress, and good translations. So I'm sorry, the 23rd of April, but you will just have to grin and bear it. St. George, Shakespeare, Cervantes, books, authors, roses, the UN, literature, copyrights...I know it's a lot. But we're here to share your burden, and have some fun while at it.

When the night comes

It's Banned Books Week, sweetie darlings. This year's slogan: "Think for yourself and let others do the same." I've been going around reading some pretty witty reviews on books on lists such as this, and I'm not the only one whose personal library looks like the Disreputable Books Depository, it seems, or the only one shaking their head in disbelief all the while thinking, "Why is this book on the list?"

Why are any of them? Words still carry immense power, why else would individuals and governments alike go to extremes to ensure some words never get out? Because the messages they convey are subversive? Disturbing? True?

That list, it troubles me. It terrifies me, really. Denying children, teens and young adults the chance to get their hands on books such as What's Happening to My Body, The Facts Speak for Themselves or Fat Kid Rules the World, is leaving them in the dark alone with the feeling there might be something wrong with them, their thoughts, their impulses. "Did I deserve what they said/did? Is it my fault? Has anyone, anywhere, ever gone through anything like this?"

Rob them of the chance to talk about it, to find someone who has gone through the same, to find out that everyone, everywhere, has at some point harbored those same fears, hurts, doubts, and set them out into the night with nowhere else to go but their heads guilt-tripping ad infinitum. Feeling strange, alone, stupid.

Tell them they can't and just see if they don't. Don't do as I did, do as I say. We all know how well that works. Take sex education. It's not what kids know that gets them into trouble, it's everything they don't. And kids will explore, be it books, movies, gaming, boys and girls, alcohol and other substances, and the ever popular dark side of our human condition, the evil that men do. It will rain down on them eventually no matter what we do, and with the way we live now, the technology some or rather most kids are far more competent in than their elders, they come face-to-face with it faster than ever before.

Our naïveté doesn't help our children retain their innocence. Ignorance, theirs, ours, isn't bliss, it's dangerous, hurtful, irresponsible. It's leaving kids to their own devices, leaving them to figure it all out by themselves, forcing them to make decisions and form opinions based not on facts and open dialogue but our own fears, hang-ups and prejudices.

Think for yourself? Yes, please do, much appreciated. Let others do the same? Yes, please, much obliged. But stand by the wee ones when they're only learning how. Don't send them off into the night without so much as a matchbook, the hope that it's going to be all right, whatever it is, and the promise you will be there for them, whenever they need you.

Spice up your life

To celebrate 10 years of refusing to behave, Ellora's Cave asked readers how EC books have improved their sex lives. The entries were so imaginative and fun, The Readers' Choice portion of the write-in contest will take seven weeks to settle.

The first round is on at Sex Talk for Wicked Women, with six more batches to come. The winner of each round wins a free eBook of her choice and becomes a semifinalist with the chance to win a netbook computer.

Romantica authors' working hours are as long and lonely as any other writers', so it's a rarer pleasure than you might believe to hear and learn that not only do readers find erotic romance fun and entertaining, it can be a sex lifesaver.

I'm happy to hear and proud to relate that these field reports and empirical findings corroborate and extend the scientifically proven health benefits of sex. Not a bad by-product of another day at the office. Not bad at all.

The darling buds of mayo

Fresh out of something to read? I know, I know; I'm writing as fast as I can. Read in any other language? Spanish? Sorry, I don't write in Spanish, but no, don't go, help is on the way!

Not only is it Get Caught Reading Month, it's Latino Books Month, so there is no need to panic, you can go Hispanic with this selection, the Recommended Reading List for 2010.

Want to have some fun brushing up on your Spanish and expanding your vocabulary? Ellora's Cave has a selection of erotica en Español. Muy caliente...

Hooray for May!