(image: Yin and Yang Koi Fish)
Sorry for my lackadaisical posting of late even by my standards. Football season started, I had home and car repairs, my family has been passing around viruses like a science experiment gone wrong, and I have been preparing to teach a Sunday School class, so not a lot of time for book reviews or blog posts.
Sadly, today I learned of the passing of two authors that have been featured here on CM and motivated to post. Probably the most well-known, and most recently featured, is Graham Joyce who passed on Tuesday after a fight with cancer.
I had most recently read Some Kind of Fairy Tale and enjoyed it (even if I did have a few nits to pick). Sad to lose such a creative and interesting author at such a relatively young age (Joyce was 59). R.I.P.
I also learned this week of the passing of Dr. W. Wesley McDonald. McDonald was the author of Russell Kirk and the Age of Ideology. A book which was the subject of the first review I had published in a magazine. I also had the chance to interview Dr. McDonald (Part I and Part II).
I had something of a more personal connection to Dr. McDonald (besides the fact that both of us received our Master’s from Bowling Green State University) as we belonged to some of the same list serves centered on Russell Kirk and traditionalist conservatism, and I had actually connected with him on Facebook. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.
Rather than ending on this sad note, allow me offer some good news. A couple of authors who I have regularly enjoyed have books coming out:
Rock star writer, and “Friend of the Blog”, Gwenda Bond is coming out with Girl On A Wire which is a Kindle First September Pick. As result of the Kindle First deal, I am reading it now. Plus, she is coming out with a YA novel starring Lois Lane in 2015.
One time fellow lit blogger Laila Lalami has just had her second novel, The Moor’s Account, released. I grabbed a copy from the library and it is in the TBR soon pile. I did a Q&A with Lalami in 2009 after the publication of her novel Secret Son.
And today I found out that Brock Clarke has a new novel coming out in November called The Happiest People in the World. I am scheming even as we speak to get my hand on an ARC. I was able to do Q&As and interviews with Clarke in the early to mid 2000s when he was at the University of Cincinnati. Maybe I will try to catch up with him and discuss his last couple of novels …
