I just want to take a second to talk about how cool Mary Hamilton is. Her hair? Wicked. Her charm? Disarming. Her stories? For starters, they make undergrads swoon. We were thrilled to have her at our Blue Light Reading, and (what’s greater than thrilled?) to publish two of her short shorts in Issue 33.2.

And this is the part of the blog post where I ask you to insert your own corny joke about Mary being an optician and helping us to see how great her book selections are. I just can’t bring myself to do it. But, enjoy:

The Sounding of the Whale by D. Graham Burnett: In my next life, I want to be a blue whale. But a whale in the past, not when humans were all about killing every living thing they saw. I watch the YouTube video of David Attenborough speaking the glories of the blue whale every day. This book is huge. It has its own zip code. But I live in LA now and summer lasts all year so I think I’ll finish this book before 2013.

Pigeons by Andrew W. Blechman: I hate birds. But my friend told me a story from this book about a pigeon that was a war hero. A war hero pigeon?! Sign me up.

Twelve Diseases That Changed Our World by Irwin W. Sherman: Diseases. Don’t get ’em.