It's approximately T-minus three hours till I head out tonight (now it's 3:43 P.M., with scattered showers here in Tampa), and I find myself in a bit of a stressful situation: I'm not confident that the bookstore I'm going to actually carries Ma Jian's Beijing Coma. You see, my intention is to enter (win?) the Virginia Quarterly Review's "Young Reviewer's Contest," but to do so requires that I review a book published this year. Which is fine. I'll also be picking up a copy of the Virginia Quarterly Review, just so I can get all my ducks in a row--the last thing I want is to be disqualified for something other than my writing--but when it comes to books, I'm a "wait for the paperback" kind of guy, so I'm always a year behind. (I also figure it's prudent to pick a book, by a relatively obscure author, that hasn't been getting a lot of coverage. I mean, who wants to read another review of--I don't know, say: a novel involving vampires and teenage romance?)

So: Beijing Coma. It better be there. Or I'll have a lot of browsing to do. Because I don't have a back-up choice.

Actually, come to think of it, browsing would be fine, too.