Over the past two days I put together the second half of my Magazine Monday column for Fantasy Literature, which means I also finished reading the most recent issue of Bull Spec. That's about 1,200 words.

I also finished Louise Marley's Mozart's Blood when I was meant to be sleeping off a headache yesterday afternoon. Sometimes reading can accomplish precisely the same end of releasing sufficient tension that the headache goes away. Thank goodness! I'll be reviewing Mozart's Blood for Fantasy Literature.

Last night involved wining and dining and booking. We took eight bags of discards (we're trying to do some judicious pruning of the bookshelves in advance of our planned move this coming June) to BookBuyers in Mountain View in the hopes of reaping big rewards. Not much luck in the rewards department, given the number of books they took (more than half of them), but enough so that I could "purchase" a few new books with the resulting credit. I picked up copies of John Meaney's Paradox and Context, two of Pyr Publishing's first books when it began five years ago. I was so entranced by Meaney's Bone Song and Black Blood, which are highly imaginative dark fantasies, that I'm curious about his science fiction. I also picked up Holly Lisle's Hawkspar, which has been on my list for awhile.

Oh, and the wining and dining were good, too -- Shiva makes a great chicken tikka -- though I have to strongly question their decision to chill a good, hearty red zinfandel!

Next on the "read now" list is James Lovegrove's The Age of Odin. I've always liked Norse mythology, so this should be quite a romp.