I came home Friday night and checked my email when I was pleased to read a note from a friend that said that the review in the National Post was positive. And when I read it for myself I was pleased, of course. It is a very thoughtful review. I’ve thought about it though. While I do derive a certain amount of satisfaction from reading nice things about my book I don’t think the degree of happiness attained would be comparable to the feelings of disappointment had it not gone well. I was continually preparing myself for a negative review all week. I guess this is human nature.

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When my buddies ask me whether I was frustrated by the NBA lockout and indifferent to the compressed season I tell them no. If anything it means that I’ll be spending less time in front of my television. And now that the season is underway I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the consistent effort of these Raps. Andrea Bargnani, Jose Calderon and Demar Derozan have been very good so far. What amuses me is that, according to the pundits, they’re not supposed to win many games this year. And, according to them, that’s by design–a weak record this year means that they get another high draft pick. For this reason I would love to see them continue winning. I applaud the players for snubbing Colangelo’s rebuilding efforts. After all, there’s no reason they have to lose. Still early. To be continued…

When I’m at Chapters I’ll use their terminals to check on the status of any upcoming books from some of my favourite authors. One of those authors is Michel Houellebecq. His novels have a way of staying with me well after I’ve finished reading them. In the fall I saw that he had a new novel coming up in January, so it was with much anticipation that I bought The Map and the Territory the other day. It actually came out a few days before the release date, and the cover suggested that it was promising–it’d won a prestigious award in France last year. In the first chapter he introduced a peripheral character named Michel Houellebecq, a decision of his that I can’t understand. I don’t know how it can add anything to the story. And it’s been done to death in the past by other authors like Martin Amis, and Philip Roth. Jury is still out.

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I was reading some stories from DW Wilson’s collection, Once You Buy a Knuckle, at Chapters today, sitting in a corner of the store by a fireplace. When I got up to leave I passed a terminal. On the screen was my collection, The Maladjusted, which means that someone must have just punched it up. It wasn’t there when I sat down. As per my routine I had checked the availability of my book at a terminal, but I’d done this on the first floor. I was positive of this. So I went to the shelf in the fiction self where my collection resides and, sure enough, were four of my IB history students–one of them with the book on his lap, opened. A little awkward, but funny too. They are very nice guys and we talked for a few minutes about the Christmas break and I offered to lend them a copy once school restarted.