Just in from Fantagraphics: But I Like It, Joe Sacco; Castle Waiting, Linda Medley; Champs, Steven Weissman; Clouds Above, Jordan Crane; Escape From Special, Miss Lasko-Gross; Grave Robber’s Daughter, Richard Sala; Heartbreak Soup, Gilbert Hernandez; In My Darkest Hour, Wilfred Santiago; Living & The Dead, Jason; Maggie The Mechanic, Jaimie Hernandez; Night Fisher, Kikuo Johnson; Peculia, Richard Sala; Quimby The Mouse, Chris Ware; Sandman Papers, Gaiman et al; and The Plot, by Will Eisner.

We had a swell time last week with Jen and Kate’s poetry. Thanks to all those who dropped in. Tomorrow, we thought we’d try a little prose. Amy Eller Lewis and Cybele Collins will be reading their own fiction at 6pm. It should be fun. There’ll be dry wine and salty things and old scratchy records beforehand. Please come.

I urge each of and all of you strangers (and friends of strangers) to go to the Cable Car Cinema(204 S. Main) tonight(9:30) for a memorial screening of the animated films of Helen Hill, presented by Magic Lantern(www.magiclanterncinema.org). It’s only a $5 donation, it’s a worthy cause(www.helenhill.org) and if you bring your own cup you get a free-fill of hot tea.

Direct from Portland, Oregon, a box of jewels from Clear Cut Press including: stories by Robert Gluck; essays by Charles D’Ambrosio; art by Michael Brophy; architecture by Lisa Robertson; poetry by Howard Robertson; and novels by Stacey Levine and Matt Briggs. The value and interest of these books is not only on the inside. They were designed to be easy on the eyes and in fact, they’ve already classed up the joint. (I feel like I should’ve worn a tie.) If you like your pudding proofed, then check out Clear Cut’s website at your right. Or if you’re in Ada’s neighborhood, drop in and see them live. (The books, I mean, not the authors.)

Another shipment of new things, including the giant, the epic Ninja, by Brian Chippendale; the less voluminous but equally luminous Pig Tales, by Paper Rad; the first three issues of Cold Heat; the (nearly) wordless wonder Incanto, by Frank Santoro; the aptly-named Trenton Doyle Handbook, eponymous; the oddly-namedd 1-800-MICE, by Matthew Thurber; The Drips, by Taylor McKimens; and my personal pick, Why Are You Doing This?, by Jason. You may recognize that most of these titles come to us from PictureBox (linked on your right), who encourage you to order directly if you’d rather the postman walk through slush than you.

I guess it isn’t good weather for poetry after all. Because of the drifts (and the worry that you won’t want to brave them), The Publicity Complex has decided to postpone the first Ada Books poetry night. It will instead happen a week from today, same time, same snacks.

Today we’re having poetry weather in Providence: our first genuine snow this winter. I have an excellent view of its pile-up through the wide vitrine that fronts Ada Books. But what does snow have to do with poetry? Nothing really, although I’m sure if I reached for (and opened up to the S’s in) my Bartlett’s, I’d find plenty of snowy lines to quote to you. In fact, were it a violent sun or a crumpling fog or a gently pelting hail, I’d still insist that it was poetry weather. Because tonight is the first in what I hope will be a long series of poetry nights, put together by The Publicity Complex. Kate Schapira will read from her Pheonix Memory and Jen Tynes will read from her freshly minted The End of Rude Handles. Jen Tynes also is the editor at horse less press, which she describes as a bare-bones, thin-skinned literary press housed in Providence, Rhode Island. We believe in the necessary absence of every articulated thing. All our publications are constructed by hand. So for the stalwart, the snowshod, those crazy about free verse and free wine, please come to the reading, tonight at 6pm.

This Friday, Ada Books presents the outloud poetry of Jen Tynes, author of The End of Rude Handles and Kate Schapira. It’s going to happen at 6pm. It’s free and there will be snacks.

Yesterday was the sixth monthiversary of Ada Books. There was no fanfare (unless you count my accidental tripping of the burglar alarm) and no tomfoolery (unless you count filling out tax forms) and nobody got (very) drunk. Boy, do I know how to throw a party! I’ll make it up to me (and you, loyal blogfollower) in a half of a year, give or take an afternoon. Today’s weather is better suited to hibernation than celebration. I question my sanity (not to mention my business acumen) for even unlocking the shop door on a day like this. Books would be the last thing on my mind right now, if I weren’t surrounded by them, and so I don’t imagine too many of you will be out looking for literature. It’s okay. I understand. After all, I didn’t even invite you to my party. Which I regret because I could have used some help with those tax forms.

The new books keep trickling in: DEAR DEAD PERSON AND OTHER STORIES BY Benjamin Weissman; HAUNTED HILLBILLY by Derek McCormack; HOW THE HULA GIRL SINGS by Joe Meno; IT DISAPPEARS by Nate Powell; A VOID by Georges Perec; EPILEPTIC by David B.; and GARNER by Kirstin Allio. Kirstin Allio is local talent, Providence patriots. She taught or teaches at Brown. For those of you who like to thumb up the books that some other person doesn’t even want anymore (or the books that some other person is too dead to read anymore), I have recently taken in a couple of hundred orphans, mostly fiction, most of which found space on my shelves, books whose titles and authors I can’t remember in any detail (so quickly do they blend in with the others) but titles and authors of note, rest assured, and taste. Here’s something else that’s new: I’ll be open on Sunday this weekend, from noon till four.