We don't always manage to hit that level, but it's always there, as something to strive and hope for, a benchmark to compare to.
For these "Reviewing the Mail" posts, the Platonic ideal is pretty simple: at least one new book to write about (the best would be precisely one), preferably a book I want to read. In the perfect case, it would be a book I didn't know existed until it hit my hands.
Reader, today is as close to that ideal as I have ever come.
The one book I have to write about this week is a new middle-grade novel by Daniel Pinkwater, who's been one of my favorite writers since I was in the middle grades. It's called Crazy in Poughkeepsie, it's just been published by Tachyon, and I'd been paying so little attention that I didn't know it was coming at all.
So this is, I think, his first book since Adventures of a Dwergish Girl, which was also set in the Hudson Valley. Does that mean the two books are related? Pinkwater has done clusters of loosely related books several times in his career, so it could be that. It could also be that he lives near Poughkeepsie, and has for decades, and generally sets books in places he has lived - Poughkeepsie, Hoboken, Chicago.
It's also illustrated, by Aaron Renier, who is also a graphic novelist, of the Walker Bean books (which are pretty darn good thereownselves, I'd say).
So this looks like it's exactly my sort of thing, and I'm avoiding reading the back-cover copy to give you more details here, because I expect to start reading it later today and probably finishing it before the weekend is over. So why get preconceptions I don't need?
I'm going to read it. My recommendation is that you do so as well. Have a nice week.
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