Hello from gorgeous cow country in upstate NY!

Autumn is officially in full swing. It suddenly got cold yesterday, and I spent most of the day wandering amid falling leaves. (well, not really, but I dreamed about it).

This is the most exciting time of the year for me. As the trees lose their leaves, the expanse of the open sky becomes more and more visible. There's something about that huge sky in winter that really inspires me to write. If summer is for looking down to the earth, for digging out weeds and planting tomatoes, then fall and winter are times to think about oneself and one's place in the world. Then, to write about it. 

So I'm looking forward to a prolific next few months. And not a moment too soon, because book 5 is like a chick inside my brain trying to get out. I'll keep you all posted on the progress. 

In the meantime, I finally got done something that many of you have been asking for. A reading list of my recommended books of the imagination (fantasy and sci fi). It's got some obvious ones, but it also includes some forgotten classics, and probably some books you've never heard of. Check it out.

Book Club!
I've started an exciting new project that I've teased before to you guys. It's a book club, led by yours truly, exploring classics old and new of imaginative literature. 


I've decided to host it on Patreon, setting participation in the club at only $1.00 a month. Patreon has a lot of fun features, and many are being added regularly, so think of this less as an "entry fee" and more as a "ticket to an event." 

We've already begun reading our first book, Perelandra by C. S. Lewis. Here's the first post on Patreon where the book-clubbers are already introducing themselves to each other. I think this is going to be great fun, and I hope to see some of you there. 

Here are some of the books we're planning on reading:
- Perelandra by C. S. Lewis
- Banewreaker by Jacqueline Carey
- The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
- The Fall of Gondolin by J. R. R. Tolkien
- Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft
- Rusalka by C. J. Cherryh
- pretty much anything by Gene Wolfe
- The Worm Ouroboros by E. R. Eddison
- The Aviator by Eugene Vodolazkin

Click or tap here to join us in the reading room!

Bi-Weekly Links of Internet Interestingness

Although Showtime has shockingly canceled The Kingkiller Chronicles show it was developing, the new Amazon series set in Tolkien's Second Age is coming along full steam ahead. As a result, there's a lot of fun Tolkien-related stories on the internet. Here's one, as well as a few other interesting stories I found over the last few weeks:

• The Poem that Started Middle Earth 
• Neil Gaiman's Introduction to a New Book of Norwegian Tales
• Bring back handwriting: it's good for your brain
• How a fake mountain range slowed arctic exploration