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So, last week was my 40th birthday, as I noted at the time. Because of work schedules, we rarely celebrate birthdays on the dates on which they fall; instead we schedule some time off as near as we can, and celebrate then. It was a great week, though, it really was. Of course, it got off to the perfect start, with this happening: And the week really did stay about that good! I worked a short work week before taking a five-day weekend (which includes today, so I’m back to work tomorrow), and I wasn’t unproductive during that work week,Down the rabbit hole….

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When World War I broke out, the French military issued summonses to compulsory military service. One young man, a cellist named Roger Bricoux, did not report for duty, and was listed as a deserter. It turned out that he had a good excuse for not reporting. He had died two years earlier as one of the bandsmen on the doomed ocean liner RMS Titanic. I expect to see a lot of books and memorabilia over the next eight months or so as we approach the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, on April 15. I just read oneDown the rabbit hole….

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Just a few pop-cultural items knockin’ round my head…. :: I love this poster, for the upcoming film Red Tails, which tells the story of the Tuskegee Airmen and is backed by executive producer George Lucas: Of course, I look at that poster and I see that Lucas is only the executive producer. He’s not the actual producer, nor did he write the screenplay or the story on which the film is based, nor did he direct the movie. But anyone want to lay odds on whose name gets mentioned exclusively if the film flops? :: I think that theDown the rabbit hole….

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NPR has come up with a list of The Top 100 F&SF Books, although it’s not a list of 100 books per se, as it includes a number of entire series. But as usual…I’ll bold the ones I’ve read and italicize the ones I’d like to read at some point. And I’ll add occasional comment. Here’s the list: (Oh wait, complaint the first: there is no GGK on this list. WTF!!!) (And yes, I voted.) 1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien (Probably my single favorite book of all time. I re-read it this past spring.) 2.Down the rabbit hole….

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I never liked Charles Dickens. My first encounter with Dickens was in seventh grade, when we read A Christmas Carol. This was OK, as those things went. The story is very famous and everybody knows it and it’s not a long story, so reading it wasn’t terribly difficult. I was less than thrilled, however, two years later when another English teacher handed out copies of David Copperfield, which I hated. Hated hated hated it. I just couldn’t see the point of the book, I thought the characters were all a bunch of melodramatic dunderheads, and as soon as the teacherDown the rabbit hole….

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I don’t know what it is, but for some reason, in the warmer months my reading tastes gravitate strongly toward science fiction (and the occasional horror book). I associate fantasy with the cooler months. Why this is, I’ve never really figured out; I’ve read many a fantasy novel set in warm locales, so it’s not as if the cooling weather puts me in mind of the snowy journeys through the Misty Mountains in The Lord of the Rings. This isn’t to say that I won’t read any fantasy at all during the warm periods, but…well, summer is when I wantDown the rabbit hole….

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Page One: The Hobbit, originally uploaded by Jaquandor. I saw someone do this on Tumblr a couple weeks ago, and I fell in love with the idea, so I’m starting a whole new series of blog posts, which I will intend to do weekly but which, as with all such things, I will actually do whenever I think to do one. The idea is a simple one: the first page of books that mean a great deal to me. For my purposes, I will generally define “page one” as the first page of the actual story, whether that be aDown the rabbit hole….