In New York I visited fourteen bookstores. In the smaller ones, an assistant would sometimes ask me "Is there something in particular you're looking for?" and a sheepish grin would appear on my face and I would say, "Yes, my book." Then I'd reach in my bookbag and pull out a copy of The Joys of Travel. I would explain the concept and extol the cover, which, I said, might attract customers looking for gift books during the holiday season. Most booksellers were receptive and said they'd order a few copies. The owner at 192 Books took time to discuss his favorite travel writers with me and then thanked me for bringing my book to his attention. If my life were a Hollywood movie - a Hollywood Christmas movie - I would return to New York next month and find my book filling the windows of every bookstore.
The only thing worse than walking into a bookstore and seeing a clearly untouched stack of your books is finding not a single copy. Unless you can convince yourself that they've sold out.
I was in the Cooking section at The Book Trader on 2nd Street, searching for a book by M.F.K. Fisher to leave for my hostess as a thank you present, when I pushed aside some volumes in a container on the floor and saw the familiar black-and-white cover of Unquiet Days. After finding a paperback copy of With Bold Knife and Fork, I carried my first book to its proper home in the Travel section, where, on a bottom shelf, out of alphabetical order, sat a copy of A Way to See the World. I pulled it out and, after checking to see if it carried an inscription (it didn't), I found a good home for it, and Unquiet Days, on a slightly higher shelf next to Colin Thubron's Behind the Wall. Later that evening I entered Head House Books, a few blocks south on 2nd, to talk about The Joys of Travel and marvel, silently, at how one street in Philly contains my collected works.
A newspaper book critic recently posted on Facebook that she's had it with memoirs. It seemed an odd statement coming from a professional reader. Isn't it, or shouldn't it be, all about the writing? There are sublime memoirs (Speak, Memory; The Gastronomical Me; Bronx Primitive; An American Childhood - to name just four) and countless numbers of worthless novels. We are constantly being urged to look beyond gender - what about genre?