Book Birthdays! You Are My Only and IQ84

Today's the day. It's finally here. Two of my favorite authors. Two book birthdays that have me singing. I hope these books will not spit too hard when they blow out the candles and ruin towers of ice cream cake (because ice cream cake is the best cake. It is ice cream and cake...in one.)

I was fortunate enough to read Beth Kephart's You Are My Only early on. It releases today! (Congratulations lovely Beth.) My thoughts on this beautiful book are here. You can buy it here.

Spit-spot, I say, in my best Mary Poppins impression, a flower sticking out from my imaginary hat. Even though I'm always the one lagging behind, the one stopping to look at a pretty tree or a happy cloud, I have little patience for those of you who are lolling about when it comes to this book. It's time you read it. It's time we talk about it. In fact, I don't know what on earth you're waiting for. It's TIME. I just broke out a Mary-Poppins-I-mean-business impression. This is about as strict as things get in Melissa Land.

And the English translation of Haruki Murakami's IQ84 also releases today. I have long tried to understand and articulate my love for Murakami's work. I have since given up trying. My latest philosophy is: Don't question it! Just do it! (The Saturday Night Live Dora parody Maraka anyone? Anyone?)

I realize this kind of attitude can have only the most dangerous consequences. It is the same philosophy that left me blind, dazed and confused after seeing a recent Edward Albee play (His work is another one of my inexplicable, tongue-hanging, head-bobbing, whatever-you-say obsessions.) Despite the fact that IQ84 is a 932 page book, a three-volume series condensed into one 5 pound dead-weight in the United States, I'm ready to take the journey. I am, after all, just a cog in Murakami's robot machine.

Anyway, it's not often that, in one serendipitous fell swoop, two of my favorite writers send their books out into my world. It's a happy day.

Any book birthdays you'd like to celebrate?