This was the first Christmas in years when I didn’t receive a single book, despite the fact that my Wish List consisted of nothing but book titles. Perhaps the family we exchange presents with had heard Hania’s complaints about the growing piles of books in our living room and decided they didn’t want to contribute to my habit. I did receive two gift cards for Barnes & Noble, but maybe the donors hoped I was going to buy calendars and stuffed animals instead. Fat chance.
Last week we stopped by the Barnes & Noble on Federal Highway and, as I expected, they didn’t carry any of the books I wanted. I gave the woman at the information desk the titles – Father and Son by Jonathan Raban, Homelands by Timothy Garton Ash, Glowing Still by Sara Wheeler – and she located each on her computer, took my address, and said they would be delivered to my home in five to seven days. That was it, much easier than I had anticipated. Before leaving, Hania spotted the new biography of Larry McMurtry and suggested I buy it. (Her concern for my mental state overrides, usually, her penchant for domestic order.) So I walked out with a new book to end the old year with.
When your book is published in November you watch as the lists of the year’s best books – which you don’t expect to be on because yours came out too late – are quickly followed by lists of the new year’s most anticipated books.
It was a small gathering at Books & Books last night, despite the fact that no rain fell until well after my reading. When writing a book, one never considers the role histrionic weather people are going to play in its reception.
Sunday’s New York Times Book Review listed the best books of the year in various categories, including Thrillers, Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Horror, and Crime. It mixed genres I have very little interest in with genres I have absolutely no interest in.
I’m back from a little book tour – D.C., Philadelphia, New Jersey – hence the long silence. The nice thing about reading in places that appear in your memoir is that old friends sometimes turn up to hear you. The problem, if you wait too long to write the memoir (or it takes too long to get it published), is that a few of them can’t make it due to physical disabilities.
Yesterday the memoir appeared in Michael Dirda’s roundup of books for the holidays in the Washington Post.
One nice thing about having your book published in the middle of November is that you don’t expect to see it on “Best Books of the Year” lists.