Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis

Welcome once again to "Bookmarkin'! with Jack Pendarvis," your online source for finding out which bookmark goes with which book. Today we bought THE BLACK LIZARD BIG BOOK OF PULPS at Square Books. We must admit that the tiny, malnourished Square Books bookmark did not exactly go with our newly purchased behemoth. In fact, it might be easily swallowed. On a happy note, however, we read Laura Lippman's intro to the "Dames" section over at the L&M bar. And truth be told, we laughed aloud at least three times just at that section, rendering any bookmark obsolete. [Note: laughter, however pleasant, does not actually render bookmarks obsolete - ed.] Speaking of bookmarks, we are now reading PNIN by Nabokov, upon the recommendation of Roy Blount, Jr. That's right! Roy Blount, Jr., came over to our house a few weeks ago and recommended a novel... that's just how fancy we have become! The hardcover "Everyman's Library" edition of PNIN comes with its very own bookmark built into the book: a gently frayed golden tassel, as Nabokov might call it. Me, I'm working on my "detective novel," which is the opposite, stylistically, of the Nabokov book. So if I really thought about it, I might be able to come up with a more rough-and-tumble way to describe that bookmark. But take heart! A gently frayed golden tassel is perfect for maintaining order amid Nabokov's fluid linguistics. In fact, we might say as a generality that if your book comes equipped with its own bookmark sewn into the lining, that book is trying to tell you something. Something like, "Use this bookmark!" Why argue? Goodbye until next time!