There is a moment in Jonathan Raban’s memoir Father and Son – which describes his recovery from a stroke – in which his physical therapist announces that she’s going on a cruise. Ever the literary man, Raban gives her David Foster Wallace’s essay “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” somehow not realizing that it is like giving Deliverance to someone planning a camping trip.
October is Polish American Heritage Month and I have been using that peg to try to set up readings of my memoir at bookstores, a few of which boast of their support of the marginalized and the underrepresented. In American publishing, few groups are as poorly represented as the Poles. Yet I am finding that not all marginalized groups are equal; some, in fact, are not even regarded as marginalized.
Eric Weiner spoke at Books & Books last night about his new book, Ben & Me, an unconventional biography of Benjamin Franklin. Each chapter title consists of an adjective followed by the word “Ben”: “Resting Ben” “Bookish Ben” “Wandering Ben”. For Miami, Eric read from the chapter “Naked Ben.”
Eight people came to Books & Books in the Grove last night to hear my conversation with the traveler and publisher Hilary Bradt. Admittedly, we had stiff competition: Sebastian Junger was over at the Gables store. But Hilary, a charming octogenarian, has also had an adventurous life, one that his included hitchhiking – as she told the audience – in every decade except the first. Her article about her most recent experience, in Germany, appeared in the Guardian.
After the event, over bowls of French onion soup at Le Bouchon, I told Hilary that travel writing is not as popular in the U.S. as it is in Britain. And not just Britain. She said she did an event in Belgium that 60 people attended. And 40 of them bought her book, which of course is written in a language not native to the country.
There’s a fashion on social media now for authors to film themselves eagerly opening the just arrived box containing their new books. I'm not a fan of the self-congratulatory display (I’d dislike it even more if I were still searching for a publisher), and I also question the emotion. I’m familiar with the thrill of seeing one’s new book for the first time, but for me it’s coupled with the dread of opening that book and finding a typo. Often, I don’t open it. I let it sit around, sometimes for days. Eventually I crack the spine, bravely glance at a few pages, then a few more. So my cartoon shows a man looking at his smartphone and saying to his wife: “Instead of a video of an author opening a box of his new books I’d like to see a video of an author opening his new book and finding a typo.” The expression of surprise would be much more authentic.
I’m reading the memoir of Hilary Bradt, founder of Bradt travel guides – in preparation for my interview with her next week at Books & Books – and was amused to learn that, in her early days of budget travel, when rental car companies charged by the mile, she and her husband would occasionally drive on Texas country roads in reverse.