Lots of Fun Web Wanderings

While playing catch up on my blog surfing I found all kinds of fun stuff online. Book news, fun blogs, and a new addition to the blog roll.

Lots of new news on Neil Gaiman. Found this one the day before I left, but didn't get to post on it. Neil Gaiman appears to be working on a new book as is evidenced by this post. He started with a short story that is being worked into what looks like a novel that was inspired by his son riding his bike in a graveyard. Seems to be titled "The Graveyard Book". Or he may be talking about two different books there. Not really sure.

If you stop over at amazon, you find all kinds of great Neil Gaiman news by doing a search for his name. The first is a new edition of Stardust illustrated by Charles Vess that is due out May 2, 2007 and is published by Vertigo. This made me very happy as I never got a copy of the original with illustrations by Vess. Can't wait for this one. I love Charles Vess' work and his blog over at Greenman Press has been added to the blog roll.

Gaiman also has two other books forthcoming. The first is a collection of short stories called "M is for Magic". I believe that I heard about this awhile ago and it is supposed to be geared toward a younger reader. It's due out July 1, 2007. The second book is Interworld which is a collaboration with Michael Reaves. Also geared towards younger audiences with a release date of July 1, 2007. The cover for that one is great!

The next thing I stumbled across brightened my day tremendously. There is a wonderful blog out there called the Friends of English Magic. It's subject matter is everything Susanna Clarke, lots of Neil Gaiman stuff, Charles Vess stuff, and just all kinds of wonderful things that interest me. The title of the site is of course taken from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. The Friends of English Magic was the name of the scholarly magician society in that book who were not practical magicians, but just studied magic. I discovered this site because I was getting lots of referrals to this blog from it. After some investigating, I found that the author of the site had some very kind things to say about my review of The Ladies of Grace Adieu on this post. Always good to get a nod from a site as wonderful as that one. They've also been added to the blog roll.

I also stumbled across a wonderful post by Carl V. at Stainless Steel Droppings that made me smile in a nostalgic way. A post all about Star Trek! Carl is a wonderful reviewer and I always look forward to the things he has to say about books, art, movies, and culture in general. This post was about the History Channel's Star Trek anniversary special and a great homage to the beautiful thing that is called Star Trek.

Finally, I came home to find that I had won 4 incredible books off of ebay that I really didn't think I was going to win. The first book is Dustcovers, a book that Carl told me about. It is a collection of all of Dave McKean's covers for Neil Gaiman's Sandman comic. Can't wait for this one. The second is Subterranean Press' edition of The Road to Lisdoonvarna by Charles De Lint. It is a signed, first edition, numbered (#424/2000) book and I got it for $9.99! How awesome is that. Next is The Alchemy of Mirrormask. Mirrormask is the wonderful cinematic child of Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman, and I have mentioned it before here. This book collects some of Dave's original sketches for the movie as well as paintings and shows the process from original ideas to completion. And last, but certainly not least is the Trade Paperback version of Black Orchid. This is a graphic novel that was the first collaboration of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. Can't wait to read it.

This is all the news I have for now, but it seems to be enough to satisfy the palate for now.

Update: One more exciting piece of news. Just saw that Tori Amos will release her new album, American Doll Posse on May 1, 2007 to be followed by a world tour. yay!

The Long Day is Over

What a long day it was! I worked this morning on the unit, but it was a nice morning. The clients were having a collectively "good" day which made the therapeutic process much easier.

After that, I had my first day of counseling with my role played client. Since for some reason we can't get any real clients to take our offer of free counseling, the undergraduates are role playing clients for us counselors in training. I thought that mine went relatively well today. Today I basically just had to go over the HIPPA rules regarding privacy and then go into my practice and procedures. Next week I go into an intake. I don't like this role-played setting. We do this in front of the classroom in front of about 10 of our peers and 5 of our professors. Very intimidating, I feel like I'm defending my dissertation. Faculty members had some good things to say about me as well as a few things to correct. Mainly my language. I tend to say "um" alot and also ended a few sentences with "and other things like that". One teacher called this "diarrhea of the mouth". Not the most kind thing she could've said, but point taken. My main thing was nerves. Like I said, I felt like I was defending my dissertation at first and was very nervous, but as I continued I eventually got lost in the session and forgot that others were watching. I do so much better at my internship. I feel like I do a good job with clients when I'm not under scrutiny, and that's how the real world will be. I won't be doing a counseling session in front of 15 people in the real world. Which is why I'm not crazy about these role-played sessions. I could be doing this for real at my internship instead of being in class. But whatever, I'll make it work.

A few interesting things found in blog-land. "Why Do I Need a Title?" humorously describes the adventures of online dating in this post. Carl over at Stainless Steel Droppings gives a good fair review of Blood and Chocolate at this post. Literacy-chic has some good points to make about the recent HPV vaccine that is required of school aged girls in Texas at this post. Endicott Redux offers a link to the online Journal of Mythic Arts which is fascinating at this post. And in Orson Scott Card's latest column, he talks about the Harry Potter series and his take on Snape at the bottom of this post.

Hope everyone's day was good! I'm off to watch Heroes!