Book News, In Brief

The Guardian UK does an author profile of Golden Compass author and current whipping boy of the religious right, Philip Pullman. In the article, Pullman is described as being "as happy woodworking as (he is) writing." What a co-inky-dink. So was that bloody guy from The Passion.

Just when it seemed like the whole world was finally starting to agree with me about Chris Ware's penchant for drawing only one mood -- misery, he goes and releases his second sketchbook collection. Apparently, Eeyore's not always the one-note, style-over-substance mope-aholic he makes himself out to be. So why doesn't Ware ever show this second dimension in his 'official' comics work? Branding and marketing, of course!

Kimberly Steele, author of the hit vampire novel, Forever Fifteen, gives a good interview with The Haunted Vampire blog. And if you're too cheap to buy her book, she offers up the whole thing as an audiobook on her website. (One complaint about the Haunted Vampire blog, though. A nit-pick, really. It's just that the proprietor -- purportedly a bloodsucker -- tops his webpage with a photo of himself. But doesn't that go directly against the whole 'vampires can't be photographed' thing? Or have today's goth bloggers evolved to such a point that the old rules -- lack of reflections, fear of sunlight and crosses, etc. -- no longer apply? Could the magnetic pull of the awkwardly angled webcam be their one remaining weakness? +++, just in case.)