Tales From the Used Book Store

Barbara, the esteemed owner of Otter Creek Used Books, discovered some fantastic children's books in the store recently. One of them in particular caught my attention because the artwork immediately reminded me of Charles Vess.I think it's the style of the hand drawn letters that really caught my eye and reminded me of Vess. That and the stars. And I love that they both refer to the stories as "romances." Here's a shot of my (fabulously gorgeous and much-loved) hardcover copy of Stardust for comparison.I'm a huge fan of Charles Vess and his work. I like to imagine that a young Vess stumbled on this same illustrated copy of The Magic Fishbone in a used book store and that it has inspired his work ever since. I mean, you never know!

In other news, I realized today that I wish I'd been born about twenty years earlier simply so that I could have been a member of the group of friends, artists, and writers that includes Vess, Neil Gaiman, Terri Windling, Charles de Lint, Ellen Kushner, Emma Bull, etc. all of whom appear to be not only wonderfully talented but very good, kind people.

However, for me to have been a part of that, I would have had to be around during the 1970's, and I was just telling Husband last night that I would have HATED living through the 70's. I'm basing this almost entirely on the fact that I couldn't get through Annie Hall the other night. I started making rude comments to Woody Allen whenever he addressed the audience and finally I just turned it off.
I think this post has gone far enough off the rails that it can be blatantly referred to as a tangent and--I think I can be honest with you, Reader--a way for me to avoid working on my NaNo novel. And for those of you wondering, it seems unlikely I will make the NaNo deadline, seeing as I'm barely at 16,000 words and I need to be at 50,000 by the end of the month. So now that I've dealt you that devastating blow of a revelation, I bid you good night!