Over the weekend I finished White Apples in preparation for Jonathan Carroll's reading last night at Powell's but he ended up not reading from it. Instead he read the short story, as yet unpublished, which will appear in Conjunctions 39 (which I have on order from amazon already since besides Carroll it will also have stories by Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and more).

Carroll is a good reader yet said he didn't really like doing them. He didn't seem to be just going through the motions though like some of the authors I've seen do readings. His years of teaching probably help him with that. I took all of my books up to get signed and he seemed pleased to see the entire stack of them (minus The Heidelberg Cylinder because I haven't tracked down a copy yet) in one place and even made a comment about how strange it was to think that in my totebag was his entire life's work (to date).

The Panic Hand and Kissing the Beehive are the remaining two Carroll books that I own but haven't read. I'm sure I'll read them soon. I actually started The Panic Hand (a book of short stories) while I was waiting for the reading to start, which lead to a conversation with another fan who was very amazed that I found a copy within the last year for less than $150.
posted by Kristin Buxton at 10:55 AM