OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

Friday felt like a marathon with one pit stop. It started at the printers with an attempt to make pool water look blue, not green, on a cover of a book, and at the same time not to make the author look sunburnt on the flap of the same cover. And all of this on paper that is not entirely white, and when it is laminated, it looks slightly different than before, too. I think we got it now and I can’t wait for readers to dive into Melissa’s first novelette, The Pool Guy.

The rest of the morning was reserved for the final corrections of the last Karavan Press book of the year: Cathy Park Kelly’s Boiling a Frog Slowly. It is going to print on Monday.

I returned home just in time for a book pickup by another Karavan Press author and wanted to lure her into having lunch with me at HARU (no time for breakfast, so I was starving), but she had to run, and so I decided to enjoy the delicious break on my own, pink wine and all.

Luxury of all luxuries nowadays: while eating, I started reading a new book just for the pure pleasure of it. I picked Abudulrazak Gurnah’s Memory of Departure. The reading itself is a pleasure, but the content is shockingly sad. I am almost scared to turn the pages.

Is the latest Harry Bosch out yet? Even a crime novel might be an emotionally safer read in comparison.

The rest of the day: A D M I N. I finished late in the evening. After a leftovers dinner, I watched one episode of Star Trek: Picard with Krystian. By the time it ended, it was well after ten and I could not keep my eyes open any longer.

Karavan Press has one cover shortlisted for the GBAS Book Cover Design Awards, and Disruption also made it!

Disruption is now available as an audio book, too:

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD