{Photo by rocketlass.}
As I'm off to lovely Montreal this weekend for a conference, I have a question for the Canadian readers of this blog--from the comments and from the information Google analytics provides, I know you're there. Are there any novels set in or around Montreal that I really ought to read? Ed Park inadvertently offered up on on his blog today, Gordon Sheppard's Ha!--but it's nearly 900 pages, carries a subtitle of A Self-Murder Mystery, and seems a bit daunting for a four-day trip, much of which will be occupied by my efforts to fake my way through the leadership of a panel. So does anyone else have a suggestion?
Even as I ask for suggestions, I suppose I should probably confess: I'm probably not going to get around to acting on any of them in time for this trip. I've still got about half the boxes in Harry Stephen Keeler's The Box from Japan left to open, and I've also been weirdly anxious to read some Joseph Conrad the past couple of weeks, so Lord Jim will probably also accompany me. But I promise to gladly bank any good ideas for a future Montreal trip, which, given how much I enjoy that city, I promise will eventually happen..
A final note: this is my 501st post, enough to get me halfway to survival in the Sultan Shahryar's court. As even the best of my posts lack nearly all of Scheherazade's charms, however, I have trouble imagining that I would have lasted even through 501 nights.
No, somewhere along the way the sultan, frustrated at my lack of invention--the fact, for example, that I must needs consult a new book before every post--would surely have sent my head bouncing down the stairs, smiling goodbye to my toppling shoulders.
Still, a blogger can try, right? Thanks for reading.
