My first spell of cyclo-literary hermitry

From now until the end of the summer I am going to be just maniacally dug into the academic-book-finishing mode, so I take this opportunity to say that (barring perhaps a few irresistible quotations from breeding-related sources, and an occasional link to anything especially stimulating that catches my eye online) posting over the next eight weeks is likely to be largely either frivolous or training-related.

Light reading for the weekend (very enjoyable, too): a highly readable trashy novel (a phrase I use altogether favorably--also, it's Australian, I don't think I've read any Australian vampire-shapeshifter fiction before!) by Keri Arthur, Embraced by Darkness (my favorite sentence, though there are a lot of other very funny ones--it's self-aware without being tongue-in-cheek, a good trick to pull off--"The featureless spirit lizard was not my idea of a good time"); and Tim Krabbe's The Rider. I seem to have ordered a slew of cycling-related books from Amazon, I am going to devour them when they arrive...

(If you are at all academically or historically inclined and have wondered how it came about, say, that there should be such a clearly defined subgenre of paranormal romance that Arthur's bio can include the quite delightful phrase "nominated for Best Shapeshifter," you should certainly consult my Columbia colleague Richard Bulliet's fascinating and lucidly written book Hunters, Herders and Hamburgers: The Past and Future of Human-Animal Relationships, which is rather illuminating on the topic.)