Another good book

Check out The Clearing by Tim Gautreaux (pronounced go-trow according to my dad who was born in the same city in south Louisiana as this author...). Again, I found a little preview for this one, too.

This is the first book I will have read entirely on my favorite present from this Christmas. Snazzy, eh?

two fantastic finds

Check out these two things (well they sort of become one here shortly...) that I've found recently.

The first discovery is this little app that will let you sample a book (thanks to Spiefel & Grau).

The second is Philipp Meyer's first novel, American Rust, which is available for you to sample below. I stumbled across this book at a fantastic bookstore in Austin which you should visit any time you are near there. (Go after eating at East Side Pies.) The only unsettling element to Meyer's novel is that people actually behave the way that he's characterized them in the novel. And it's not set back in the wild west or in some other detached era. It's set in the present, and people really behave that way.

I'm aware that this is fairly vague, but I can't offer you a more enticing snipet of the story that the first chapter. Read it.