I haven't posted for a while for several reasons, the main one being that I simply didn't feel like it. Also I've been busy, and sauntering through a work of 800+ pages so that most everything else I've read this past week has been brief and not worthy of note.

Recent forays to used bookstores have filled a new bookcase with fantasy novels and other little treats, one of which I was pleasantly surprised by. Black Cats and Broken Mirrors, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers, is a collection of short stories about superstitions, written by various authors known and unknown. Nearly all of them are excellent, and I particularly liked the first one, "How It All Began", by Esther M. Friesner, which makes Joseph (of the Coat of Many Colors, aka the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) the father of all superstitions in a clever and amusing tale. Also included are a lovely story by my new interest, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and one of my favorite stories by Charles de Lint.

This is one of the very few anthologies I've read where nearly all of the stories are worthwhile--it's a keeper, and definitely recommended.