Since nobody's brought it up yet, I figured I'd better mention this: Jasper's next book will be delayed a year and released in 2009.

Apparently he has this crazy idea that a new baby might take up all his time, and also that another year might make Shades of Grey even better.

Okay, in all seriousness, I'm okay with this. He's managed to make some pretty darn excellent books at a rate of one per year, but I'm all for taking more time to ensure that he doesn't get himself into a rut or rush things too much. And besides, he and Mari will be pretty busy for a while and I wish them the best of luck!

It will be a long wait until July 2009, but it will be all the sweeter when it comes.

Maybe it'll be early next year? Or will the world end if it isn't released on a July date

That would be up to the publisher I think. Still, it'll give me some time to catch up on my Rankin. I'm about only about 40 books behind!

I'm not sure I can manage that many of those! Some are a little full on ^_^

This doesn't bother me as much, as I still need to finish "First Among Sequels" and have the entire "Nursery Crime" series to read. By the time I'm done, I can get crackin' on "Shades of Grey" (...but isn't there another book called SOG? About the American civil war? Because I think someone made me read it at school once. It was a nightmare of boredom, by the way. Maybe Jasper will change the title by then)

It rather begs the question of what new books we will read in the meantime. Any one have any ideas? I can think of lots of old books to read for the first time, but is there anything new to fill the void?

Perhaps John Crowley's Little, Big. I'm still not sure about that one!

How about Neil Gaiman, there are free, authorised, pdf versions available of some of them. They may not be "new", but at that price worth a look.

Really? Why are they free? I sense intrigue...

Must read the Anansi Boys..

Neil seems like one of those open source sort of guys, like Cory Doctorow (son of ee) over at boingboing.net. Link to article here: [www.boingboing.net]