Holy Crap! (And Two Other Piece of Business)

Me looking at my inbox.
Image description: Writer with a horrified look.

I'm headed to LA where I have a couple of things to do and a lot of time blocked off to sequester myself away for writing, but as I scramble to get out the door today, let me just say that my inbox has exploded because of yesterday's calls for Those Books No One Else Seems to Have Heard of.

And I mean EXPLODED.

I don't think I've seen this many nominations, seconds and comments on any poll before this for at least a year or two.

Yes, I understand the implicit irony in running books no one has heard of as an actual POLL ("How will anyone vote for it if no one has heard of it?). However, I have noticed that I've barely heard of any of those books before, but a lot of them are still getting seconds, so as counterintuitive as it is, it seems to be working.

It seems pretty clear that this poll is going to need to have some semifinal rounds and not be rushed, so it's going to run into December. I love it when I hit a topic that so many people are excited and passionate about, and if weird book recommendations is such a topic, let's pause for a moment to savor it. So please take a couple of extra days to get those nominations in and round up some friends who will toss down a second on the books you want to see go onto the poll. Put in a monocle. Sip your cognac. Let's do this thing.

We're still off schedule. This trip might help us get back on for good once I'm down there, locked into a hotel room, and ignoring the screams of housekeeping that checkout was five days ago, but right now it means I'm trying to pack and discovering that I need to wash socks and stuff.  (How did I get to the day of a trip without knowing that I was out of socks? Why do I fail at life?) I'm going to post a guest post tomorrow, the Mailbox on Friday, and something "meaty" on Saturday. So you'll get all the same posts, just kind of out of order.

I also need to warn anyone on any kind of feed or getting notifications (or who think that I'm just too damned spammy) that I am criminally behind on certain "business" type posts. Everything from a couple of guest bloggers who need their own menus to "Best of" posts to cleaning up from The Year of Unspeakable Horror™. There is going to be a glut of "brunch posts" coming.