I don’t know where you are, geographically, dear reader, but these North Carolinian “April Showers” would be better described as “April Tornado Warnings.” Well, they ARE tornado warnings. The rain has been sporadic and steaming and will soak you to the skin in a matter of minutes. I haven’t had to bathe in weeks.

So there’s that…

1. Lit Mags and Journals. Long live the lit mag! Whether you pick up a glossy copy of Harper’s Magazine while dinner simmers or peruse Glimmer Train online (much better than spending an hour on Facebook), there’s new fiction out there–vibrant, contemporary, short fiction just begging to be read. Doing some of that writing yourself? Check out Poets & Writers for contests and calls for submissions.

2. A Well-Read Man. In the last two roundups I featured essays about the importance of dating a girl who reads. Just to be clear: a well-read man is likewise hard to find. Check out these 75 Books Every Man Should Read and see if you or your man is up to snuff (what does that even mean?).

3. Bookish Aphrodisiac. Karl Lagerfeld is coming out with a new fragrance called Paper Passion. That’s right. Book perfume. Lather up.

4. Murder, She Wrote. I love a good mystery novel. Keene. Christie. LeCarre. I went through a phase a few years back where I’d only read those Diane Mott Davidson capers, you know, the ones with punny food titles. Now, from Macmillan, there’s CriminalElement.com–a website dedicated to all things mystery-novel. Dum dum dummmm.

5. Oh my.

6. More of the Same. I can’t stop. But it’s good to know that there are others out there, likewise obsessed. Click.

7. New Lingo. I often find myself walking away from heated conversations thinking “That person must think I’m an idiot. That last thing I said wasn’t even a word.” But sometimes, to get your exact point across, there isn’t an appropriate English word, so you have to improvise. Incongruical. Globalascious. Vicionimous. Sneakidly. If Shakespeare can invent new, useful words, so can I.

8. OH MY!

9. Books as art, as books, as art. I’m moving to a new apartment next month and I think it shows in my book-roundup-preoccupations. Pretty bookshelves, book print linens, and postertext.com.

10. Self-conscious book blogging. You know how children’s TV channels are always making ads encouraging kids to turn off the TV to go outside? Yeah.

11. Algonquin. One of the best parts of being a book-lover has been getting to work with other book-lovers. I get to read and write and mingle with glamorous authors, spending my days in a mode of bourgeois artistic pursuit only enjoyed by Austen characters. I get to think in terms of plot and character, drama and catharsis. This is my last roundup as an intern at Algonquin and I can’t thank them enough for letting me publicly air my love of books for these many months.

Alright, May, don’t let me forget Mothers’ Day again this year.

– Susannah Long, intern