A busy October awaits

October is going to be busy. My first personal essay (in quite a while) is getting published and should be coming to a news stand near you. The inaugural issue of Catamaran is coming out. Also, we're starting to practice for our event at SJSU on October 10th. More news soon.

More books I love (or am in the process of loving). P.S. -- would someone help me design my website?

Ben Lerner: Leaving the Atocha Station. Funny, mordant look at an artist who develops in spite of himself during a hash-fueled poetry scholarship year in Madrid. Even his narrator's musings about boredom are fascinating. Thanks to Elizabeth for recommending this one. I don't think I would have come across it on my own. By the way, this book deserves to be republished with a much better cover. Just saying. Normally I don't care about such things but it looks like something somebody printed up in a basement.

Josh Garrett Davis: Ghost dances: proving up in the Great Plains: A lovely, witty memoir about a Midwestern childhood, with seamlessly incorporated research. Not quite done but I'm hooked.

Henry Adams: The Education of Henry Adams. My oh my did I despise this book in high school, but I picked it up again the other month, mostly because it appears at the very top of a revered Wesleyan writer-in-residence's coveted  "lifetime reading list."  I was hooked from the very first page. Mr. Adams could write like crazy. Modern-day reviewers would attack him for his decision not to write about a  personal tragedy that must have been a defining moment in his life (wouldn't that qualify as part of his 'education,' according to his own, broad definition of the term?)  but I love the style, the thinking, and the way he avoids shoe-gazing memoir by suggesting the wider world around him.

If you have reading recommendations, that would be nice. If you are up for designing an author's website for me at a reasonable rate so I can leave behind this cheesy blog interface once and for all, that would be even nicer. Let me know. I know some of you Cactuseaters readers are high-tech wizards. I could use your expertise. If this ever happens, I would like the website to have a name other than "Cactuseaters," which is kind of misleading.

Matthew Parker's Larceny in my Blood -- and the Cactus Eaters! -- featured in The Millions website

Now get a load of this.  This eye-opening interview appears this week in my very favorite web-based literary magazine, and this interview just happens to include a mention of The Cactus Eaters. Anyhow, I thoroughly enjoyed Matthew Parker's hard-hitting, honest and funny book, which was published this month.Oh, and there's one more thing I want you to see: Wolf Larsen's beautiful song, "If I Be Wrong," featured recently on NPR. Here's the link to the song and video. Anyhow, I am glad to report that I am following up my recent TC Boyle interview with a Wolf Larsen Q and A. Stay tuned! By the way, I almost forgot to mention that the TC Boyle interview will appear, in print version, in the upcoming debut issue of Catamaran, which will also include a very brief essay I wrote about Boyle's work.