In your inbox, you should be getting this month’s State of the Thing, LibraryThing’s monthly newsletter of features, author interviews and various forms of bookish delight.

This month we have 2,708 free books, a meetup, our fifth birthday, an exclusive interview with Jane Smiley, a podcast with Mary Roach and a list of the popular books this month.

Check your inbox or read it online.

I got to chat with Mary Roach, about her new book Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void. We discuss her tenacity in getting interesting details out of astronaut interviews, her zero-gravity experience, a couple of marriage proposals from LibraryThing members, cross-stitched fly swatters and more. You can hear the podcast here.

We also have an interview with Jane Smiley, about her latest novel, Private Life, a study on choosing a mate who turns out to be an ill fit. Jane talks about her characters and their foibles (a polite term–extreme eccentricity would also work), navigating marriage, and about her writing process. She muses on the Nobel prize for literature and the books that were a special writing experience. As a bonus, she told me what she’s knitting!

Read previous State of the Thing newsletters:
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/State_of_the_Thing

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