PowellsBooks.Blog

[Editor's note: Don't miss Nathan Englander at the City of Books on Friday, February 17. See our events calendar for all the details.]

You think I'm not going to miss you all? Well, I am. Today is my last day blogging for Powell's. And I promised I'd find a way to write this earlier and not when I'm racing to the next reading, but, inevitably, that's how things go during book tour.

In Boston now. My hotel is on Commonwealth Avenue, the street on which my mother was born. It's a mighty long street, so this hotel itself has zero historical significance. But it does offer a nice view of the avenue, which I'll cheat into a little extra faux-niceness by way of Hipstamatic.

If you're unfamiliar with Hipstamatic, it makes everything look a little more charming than the situation might really want it to be. Here, for example, is the wooden-horse-going-crazy lamp in my room. I almost want to take home its Hipstamatic wild-horse version.

On the flip side, if you're very-very familiar with the app, ...

Does it count as daily blogging if today looks a lot like yesterday? Been running around in circles since the morning and find myself, once again, using my first chance to sit down to reach out to you all, with the get-to-the-event-clock ticking down. This one is at my local neighborhood bookstore, Greenlight Bookstore, where I'll be in conversation with wide-hearted author Colum McCann, who you may just know from reading your beloved copy of Let the Great World Spin or any of his 96 other books (or maybe it's 97, I may have miscounted). (Also, if you've already read Let the Great World Spin, it's time for you to pick up Dancer. And if Dancer's the one you've read, then maybe try Songdogs... and if you've read them all, then I like your taste.)

The Local, our Fort Greene/Clinton Hill blog for the New York Times ran a piece today announcing the event, which is mighty nice of them. Also, The Local has a new regular column of great interest called "Dog of the Day," and I thought you ...

Tonight is the first event for the new book, and I've spent most of the afternoon at home with curlers in my hair and cucumber circles on the eyes — prettying myself up for the big event, is the point. I did sneak out of the house this morning to head over to Big Think to talk about writing in a big-thinking sort of way. Everyone there was supremely nice, and I don't know if there's enough bank lights in the world to remove the green sleepless pallor I've been working on this week (and a special thank you to the guy who drove by blasting music out of his car at 5:30 a.m., it definitely didn't wake any of us). Anyway, in case something went horribly wrong and those videos end up hidden deep underground in the Big Think post-Armageddon seed bank, I'll provide you with a couple of the already posted examples so you get the idea. Here's Salman Rushdie on magical realism. And here's Edward Norton talking about his grandfather and urban planning.

In about four minutes I'm ...

Well, today is the on-sale date for the book. And, as promised yesterday, the unmooring has begun. Which means I spent last night with book-launch flu, hiding under the covers and watching No Strings Attached. Yesterday, I gave you a list of what I was reading (or about to) and thought I'd bridge the gap between the two posts by including one of the Ferlinghetti poems that I read last night. I don't know why this seems fitting to me, but it does. And so, "Nine":

9
See
   it was like this when
                    we waltz into this place
a couple of far out cats
                   is doing an Aztec two-step
And I says
          Dad let's cut
but then this dame
               comes up behind me see
  

...

[Editor's note: Don't miss Nathan Englander at the City of Books on Friday, February 17. See our events calendar for all the details.]

It's been five years since I last guest-blogged for Powell's. I'm happy to be back — and back with a new book (which is out on Tuesday, and one fine reason why I resurface). Also, blogging on launch week gives me a really nice opportunity to reconnect with you all, and, if everything goes according to plan, for you to have a prime vantage point from which to watch me as I become psychologically unmoored as the week progresses . This "unmooring" is a long-honored book-launch tradition that is dear to my heart. (Though, really, a day before the on-sale date, and I still feel fine.)

Since you, kindly people, are the folks who take an interest in a bookstore blog (which means, we probably have something in common), I thought constructing a map of the landscape of books that surround me in a sort of topographical fashion might be a fine way to reconnect. So, if we start in bed, I woke up ...

How about if I start every entry by saying what a good time I had the night before and then telling you that I am en-route to another destination? Well, on the train from Philly, and I did indeed have a really great time at the Free Library last night (that is, once again, a great time seeing folks after the reading). The Free Library is also an excellent building to arrive at — it's got gravitas. And apparently the podium was very ornate, but on my side all I could see was the bottle of water and some wire. And if I'm to continue with this happy-go-lucky attitude, I also want to say that I've enjoyed guest-blogging this week. And I really, really didn't think I was going to. I much prefer to write and rewrite and obsess, and then to rewrite some more, and tweak a bit, and then to hand in (only to beg changes) whenever I do anything, instead of writing and sending and seeing it instantaneously online. About the obsessing part: Since I can't currently ...

If you go to an airport, they will now ask you the following question: "Do you have any liquids in your bag?" I got up at 5:45 in the morning to catch a flight and, bleary-eyed and half-caffeinated, found I was having difficulties with basic comprehension. I was asked the 'liquid' question by the guy who took me to the automated check-in, and then by the woman behind the counter at automated check-in, and then again by the lady to whom I voluntarily relinquished my water. Three times, I answered, "No." After all that, the woman at the scanner shook her head as my bag went through and then security took me aside. As I was well aware — but simply not processing — my carry-on bag is chock full of liquids of varying viscosities (toothpaste and shaving cream, margarita mix, saline implants, snow globes, etc). When I pointed out to the nice security lady that it was very early in the day for me (too early for thinking), the security lady made it clear that, just because she was wearing the white shirt and clip-on tie, it doesn't mean it wasn't early for ...

It's Wednesday and I'm on the Acela to Boston. That's the fast train, which a friend once referred to as a rolling gated community. I'm headed to Boston for an appearance at Brookline Booksmith. If anyone is actually reading these posts, the Strand reading went fine. Afterward I went around the corner with some friends to The Old Town for a cheeseburger and a drink (and an extra order of onion rings). It's an excellent old bar. Yesterday was also the official publication day. I think it was Monday morning that a friend, sitting at the coffee shop where I spend an inordinate amount of time, called me first thing to say someone was there reading my book. I know this is an unsophisticated thing to admit, but it's nice and meaningful the first time you hear your book is spotted outside a store being read. Then about two seconds later another friend texted me to say, "I'm sitting at your coffee shop reading your book." So I called the first friend back and said, "Does the man reading my book ...

I'm riding the 2/3 Express up toward 96th Street. I often call this subway the Red Line, though I don't think anybody else has in fifty years (if ever). I feel most comfortable when riding this train. And lately I also feel an enormous amount of pressure to move to Brooklyn. All my friends live there. For those of you who don't know the city, 96th Street is all the way uptown toward the top of Central Park and right below Columbia University. I can't really picture leaving my neighborhood, but also end up thinking about it constantly. (I was in the East Village yesterday, and as I walked down the street I was doing that What if this was my street? thing that I do whenever I'm in another neighborhood and feeling that pull.) If I do ever leave, I'll move somewhere convenient to a Red Line stop. Anyway, as for typing on the subway, I can't believe I'm the guy that's so busy that he has to type on his way uptown (and, because of my extreme journalistic integrity, I'd like to make it ...

It's just plain strange coming out of hiding. For the last bunch of years, I get up, brush my teeth, and write. That, to me, is multitasking. I don't generally have to be anywhere; I'm often confused about what day of the week it is; and I wear the same pair of jeans without a break until they learn to ask for a day off on their own. And then the book hits the stores and my week suddenly breaks down clearly into days, those days into hours, and those hours are all accounted for and doled out to the kind folks who may want to talk to me about my novel. Some of these interactions involve sitting face to face, or being photographed, facilitating the changing of clothes. (I'm afraid I'm going to end up like Ronald McDonald, the kind of person where, if he wasn't in his yellow jumpsuit, if you say, spotted him, in a smart John Varvatos two-button, and a tie, you'd wonder who that red-headed man was. That's how I feel about my blue sweater at this point. I really need ...