An added benefit to a great story

Difficulty staying Faithful

I finished reading Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stephen King and Stuart O’Nan, and while I enjoyed the bo0k, I have a few quibbles with it as well.

As a Yankees fan, I knew that reading the book would be difficult. The 2004 baseball season was the worst in Yankees history. After taking a 3-0 lead over the Red Sox in the battle for the pennant, the Yankees became the only team in baseball history to lose the next four games and thus lose the series.

This would be heart wrenching regardless of the opponent, but the fact that it was the Red Sox made it exponentially worse.

Still, I wanted to read this book. I’ve read everything else that Stephen King has ever written, and I adore the man.

While I haven’t quite read everything Stuart O’Nan has written yet, I like what I’ve read so far. More importantly, he was my professor for a writing class at Trinity College, so I got to know him a little bit and liked him a lot.

Even though I knew it would be hard to listen to these men describe the events of that 2004 postseason, I thought that I would be happy for them as well. As a native New Englander who grew up near Boston, I understand the suffering the Sox fans had endured. They deserved to win. At least this is what I had convinced myself of when I dove into the book.

I have three complaints about the book, and they all pertain to O’Nan.

First and most surprising, O’Nan engages in conspiracy mongering several times in the book, implying with all seriousness that baseball might be fixed. A remarkable confluence of events seem (in his mind) to be too dramatic and convenient to be anything but orchestrated, and he says as much more than once. King actually dismisses these claims at one point in the book, and rightly so. Like King, I find this kind of conspiracy theory nonsense to be exactly that:

Nonsense. But I know there is a small but vocal minority of sports fans who feel this way.

Yet when the long haired, loose-lipped Cowboy-up Red Sox of 2004 overcome a 3-0 deficit against a corporate team with twice the payroll that has embraced the moniker of the Evil Empire with enthusiasm, there is not a single mention of conspiracy theories to be found.

This annoyed me. If you’re going to imply that the fix is in several times over the course of the baseball season, you can’t ignore what would seem like one of the most orchestrated moments in the last 100 years of baseball.

Second, O’Nan is less than magnanimous when it comes to the Yankees. King has no love for my beloved team, but he is not mean-spirited about the team, either, He does not call them cheaters or question their character. O’Nan does so repeatedly, and it is not necessary.

Lastly, the nicknames that O’Nan uses when discussing the Red Sox players in the book made me bonkers. Nicknames have always been a part of baseball, but O’Nan takes it to an entirely new and truly bizarre level. Most of my friends are Red Sox fans, but I never heard them refer to Mark Bellhorn as Marky Mark, Pedro Martinez as Petey or David Ortiz as El Hefe (especially since Ortiz already has the often-used nickname Big Papi). It makes no sense. Was O’Nan inventing these nicknames himself, or did he hear some inebriated bleacher creature use these names and co-opted them for the book.

A good nickname is a thing of beauty. Naming your utility infielder after a former Boston-based hip hop musician turned serious actor is an act of stupidity.

Then again, I’m a diehard fan of the New York Yankees who died hard in October of 2004, so perhaps I am biased.  

Wedding reboot: Best wedding response ever

My wife and I will be celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary later this month. A couple days ago I was writing about the hora, and it prompted me to go back and look back at some old posts that I wrote about our wedding on a blog that no long exists.

Though the blog was deleted more than five years ago under rather unfortunate circumstances, I’m so glad that the content from that blog was saved. I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed reading about our wedding day. 

As our anniversary approaches, I’ve decided to re-post some of those wedding memories here as a means of preserving them as well as sharing them with readers.

Here is the second of these posts:

__________________________________________

In the spirit of creativity, here is the prize winning wedding response card, sent to us by bridesmaid and groomsman Charles and Justine.

Knowing that I am a Dickens fan, they sent this response to our wedding invitation:

Charles was disappointed to find out that I didn't own a copy of David Copperfield.

Nevertheless, two days before the wedding, I finally got around to finding a copy of the novel and looking up the passage, in order to determine if we would be a groomsman and bridesmaid shy of our expected number.

The passage reads:

It certainly had not occurred to me before, but I said, Yes, I should like that.

And no, we did not honor their food request.

I hate the Red Sox, but I love these guys

I’m listening to the book Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season by Stephen King and Stuart O’Nan. It’s essentially a double-entry journal that chronicles the Red Sox for one season. It’s full of traditional journal entries, email exchanges, summaries of phone calls between the two men, and recollections of games they attended alone and together.

Even though I am a Yankees fan, I’m enjoying the book a lot, though I suspect I will enjoy it much less once I reach the postseason entries. By some stroke of genius, King and O’Nan chose to work on this book during the season in which the Red Sox win their first World Series since 1918.

Lucky bastards.

But having grown up in Massachusetts, I spent a lot of time around Red Sox fans, so listening to what King and O’Nan have to say about the team and the game of baseball is a little bit like going home.

I also like both writers a lot.

O’Nan taught at creative writing at Trinity College during my time there, and I was fortunate enough to squeeze in one class with him before he left. I’ve heard him speak a few times since then, and I’ve read several of his books, including most recently LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER. Years ago I read his nonfiction account of the Hartford Circus Fire, and I cannot recommend it enough.

Stephen King has become a bit of a hero to me, for several reasons.

Growing up without very few books in my home, it wasn’t until I was granted my own library card that I really began reading and falling in love with books, and many of those first books were written by Stephen King. NIGHT SHIFT, DIFFERENT SEASONS, THE SHINING, and CUJO were just a few of the novels I read that first summer, and I loved every one of them.

Eventually I would go on to read all of King’s work, including IT, which I have read at least a dozen times, and his Dark Tower series, which I consider a genuine masterpiece.

Two decades later, it would be another one of King’s books, ON WRITING, that would inspire me to continue writing when the possibility of a writing career felt impossible and hopeless. The first half of ON WRITING is an autobiographical account of King’s life as a writer, including his very humble beginnings as a short story writer for men’s magazines.  The image of Stephen King siting in the laundry room of his trailer, shoved against the washing machine, unable to afford medicine for his sick children, sent me back to the laptop ready and willing to conquer the beast.

At the age of ten, Stephen King opened my mind to the world of books and reading, and thirty years later, I have now joined his fraternity. It’s an incredible feeling. Sort of like idolizing a ballplayer as a kid and then finding yourself playing alongside that same player someday.

In reading FAITHFUL, I’ve learned a few things about King that I did not know, specifically in terms of his approach to time management. It turns out that he and I have a lot in common in this regard.

While watching the Red Sox game, King has a book in his lap, and in between innings, he will read. He estimates that he can read about 40 pages during the average baseball game.

I have also been known to do this, in addition to spending commercial breaks listening to audiobooks and podcasts or pounding away at the laptop. From time to time I’ve also been known to listen to an audiobook while watching television, especially when the show is somewhat mindless and predictable.

Even more impressive, King writes about how he will listen to the ballgame on his car radio but switch over to an audiobook in between innings, timing the two minute commercial break with his wrist watch.

Similarly, I can be found at the gym with two sets of headphones when running on the elliptical. One is a wireless pair connected to my iPhone, through which I am undoubtedly listening to an audiobook or podcast. The second pair is attached to the machine so I can listen to the television affixed to it. I will switch between these two headphones during a workout in order to take advantage of commercial breaks, which has caused more than one fellow gym rat to stare at me in confusion. Yesterday, for example, I was watching the replay of the Yankees game from the day before as I worked out, and similar to King, I would switch headphones between innings and listen to my book, which happened to be King and O’Nan discussing the Red Sox “June swoon.”

Fear not, boys. Things will turn around for the Sox soon enough.

I’ve often thought that if Stephen King and I had the chance to get to know one another, we would be fast friends. While this is unlikely to ever happen, I do hope that he reads one of my books someday, which isn’t asking much considering the number of books the man reads on a yearly basis. I wouldn't even need to know if he liked the book or not. Just knowing that the author who inspired a ten year old boy to read and a thirty year old man to write picked up one of my novels would be enough for me.

I judged this book by its cover (and its title) because I'm an idiot

I’m an idiot. For years my wife has told me to read Sharon Creech’s Newbury Award winning novel Walk Two Moons. I adore many of Sharon Creech’s other books (I can’t read Love That Dog without getting teary-eyed) and my wife has never steered me wrong in terms of literature, but I have never been able to get past the less-than-enticing title of the book and the even more unappealing cover.

Like I said, I’m an idiot.

My students became aware of my idiocy in regards to this book this year, so one of them brought in a copy of the book with its new cover:

It's a much better cover, but still, Walk Two Moons? Not a great title.

I really am an idiot.

“Luke, I am your father.”

The book, Darth Vader and Son, was a fine Father’s Day gift in its own right. But this made it the best gift ever:

Peeping Tom

My favorite photo from last week’s Book Expo America was Erin Morgenstern’s Instagram of the advanced readers copies she acquired while at the Expo.

Erin Morgenstern is the author of THE NIGHT CIRCUS, a book that I enjoyed very much. It is especially thrilling when an author who I respect and admire a great deal is interested in reading one of my books.

Even though I’ve published two novels and have a third on the way, I still feel very much like an outsider when it comes to the publishing world. I’ve always thought of myself as someone who is peeking through the windows into the industry rather than stepping through its door.

Moments like seeing my book in Erin Morgenstern’s pile bring me a bit closer to that proverbial door.

A moment that makes up for all the poop

As a parent, you never know when your child is going to do something that will cause your heart to soar (or sink). One minute your child is lying about the obvious poop in her diaper and the next minute she is breaking your heart with an act of unplanned grace and generosity.

Like yesterday, when Clara said, “I’ll be right back!” and ambled up the stairs to her bedroom. She returned a couple minutes later with a handful of books, plopped herself down on the floor next to her sleeping brother, and began reading to him for the first time.

It was one of those perfect parental moments that I will remember for a long, long time. 

Four audiobooks: One I loved, two I can’t wait to listen to, and one that annoys the hell out of me.

June is Audiobook Month!

With this in mind, I stopped by my local Barnes and Noble yesterday to pick up Nichole Bernier’s debut novel, THE UNFNISHED WORK OF ELIZABETH D. (not yet available on audio) and decided to take a moment and browse the audiobook section as well.

Truth be told, I purchase almost all of my audiobooks through Audible. It’s much easier to download the books digitally rather than uploading the CDs onto the computer, but I’ve been known to purchase audiobooks in their physical form as gifts for friends and family, so I find myself in the audiobook sections of bookstores quite frequently.

I pulled these four books from the shelf for comment:

The first is THE ILIAD, which I have actually listened to on audio several times. In addition to listening to new titles on audio, I love to listen to books that I have read previously, and especially books like THE ILIAD that I was required to read several times in college as part of the curriculum and now want to listen for pure enjoyment.

If you’ve been afraid to read THE ILIAD because it’s ancient and large and daunting, don’t be. Try listening to it on audio. You will not be disappointed.

The second is UNBROKEN by Laura Hillenbrand, which is a book I purchased from Audible almost a year ago after listening to a book club discuss it as a possible choice for the coming month. I'm also a fan of listening to nonfiction on audio, since I find it easier to jump in and out nonfiction regardless of how long I go between listening. If I am listening to fiction, I feel like I need to listen every day, and oftentimes more than once a day, in order for the story and the characters to remain fresh in my mind. It’s not impossible, but if my life is especially hectic, my podcasts have piled up and I don’t have time time to listen regularly, fiction on audio can be a challenge for me.

I have yet to listen to UNBROKEN, but it is near the top of my audio pile. I saw a segment about the book on CBS Sunday Morning recently and am looking forward to it all over again.

Enter video caption here

The third is WORLD WAR Z by Max Brooks, a book that I desperately wanted to listen to since the book, an oral history of a fictional Zombie War, seems to be perfectly suited for audio. But for reasons that will always baffle me, the publisher, Random House Audio, produced the book in abridged form only.

Abridged? Who the hell wants an abridged version of any book? Why does the industry continue to produce abridged versions when everyone listener I know despises them? I don’t get it.

I DON’T GET IT!

Random House also went out of their way to cast an impressive list of narrators for the book, including Mark Hamill, Henry Rollins, John Turturro, Alan Alda, Becky Ann Baker and more. Yet they decided to abridge the damn thing, cutting these talented voices short!

I can’t tell you how annoyed I am by this decision.

I plan on reading the book, but I feel like it’s an opportunity wasted.

The last audiobook is ROOM by Emma Donoghue, a book that my upcoming novel, MEMOIRS OF AN IMAGINARY FRIEND, has been compared to repeatedly. I have yet to read ROOM for this very reason, but I made it my Audible pick for May and now have it loaded onto my iPhone. It is currently in a metaphysical battle with UNBROKEN for my next listen.

A recommendation, a quandary and a stupid book that belongs in the trash

The books that are most popular with our three year old daughter eventually find their way off the shelf and into a wicker basket in her bedroom. As these books fall out of favor, they eventually make their way back to the shelf, often to regain favor again months later. 

Comments on three books currently residing in this basket:

THE RECOMMENDATION

10 MINUTES TILL BEDTIME by Peggy Rathmann: I cannot say enough about this book. It’s essentially a story that teaches children to count down from ten, but the illustrations are tremendous. Clara and I have read this book more than twenty times, and I am still finding details in the illustrations that make every page new, interesting and fun. It’s the kind of book that both parents and children can mutually enjoy.

THE QUANDRY

WHEN YOU GIVE A MOUSE A COOKIE by Laura Joffe Numeroff

My daughter loves these books, including this first one which launched the series, but I have never understood one thing about this book:

Why does the mouse use scotch tape to stick his picture to the refrigerator? It makes no sense. Why not a magnet? Has anyone in the history of modern-day refrigeration ever thought it a good idea to affix a piece of paper to a refrigerator with tape?

THE BOOK I WANT TO THROW IN THE TRASHCAN

I’m not going to say the name of this book, because although I despise it with every fiber of my being, I’m not sure how we acquired it and do not want to risk offending the person who gave us this book.

It’s a non-fiction children’s book about ballet, including descriptions of ballet practice and recitals. There’s far too much text on each page for someone as young as my daughter, but it’s a series of photographs in the middle of the book that I find most objectionable:

Little girls, approximately 5-7 years old, plastered with enough makeup to make them look like sad, elderly children.

Rarely have I ever seen grown women wear the amount of lipstick and eye shadow that these little girls are wearing.

What kind of parent thinks this is a good idea?

Clara loves ANGELINA BALLERINA, so when she found this book on her shelf last week, she was thrilled. But since there is too much text on a page for her age level, I’ve been inventing a story of a more appropriate length to go along with the photographs, including sentences like:

“Look at those girls wearing all that makeup. How yucky. Those little girls must be so sad. Little girls should never wear so much makeup. It’s gross.”

I can’t remember a time in my life when I wanted to throw a book in the garbage, but this might be the one. At the very least, I plan on removing this book from my home as soon as possible lest these clown-like images of these sad children become ingrained in my daughter’s mind.

What’s in a name? Several literary references.

It’s a boy! In case you haven’t heard, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy yesterday named Charles Wallace Dicks.

Charlie was born at 3:09 PM. He is 7 pounds, 1 ounce and 18 inches long.

We chose Charlie’s name for a number of reasons.

To start, we liked the name Charles a lot. We liked the old feel of the name and the way it seems to match well with his big sister’s name (Clara). I’m also an enormous fan of Charles Dickens (I have three plants in my classroom named Pip, Philip and Pirrip), so the connection to this literary giant didn’t hurt.

We also love the nickname Charlie. My favorite moment during Charlie’s delivery happened just seconds after Charlie was born. With The Byrd’s Turn Turn Turn playing in the background, a nurse asked us what his name was, and Elysha called out, “Charlie!” When I heard her say his name aloud, in what I can only characterize as the most beautiful singsong voice I have ever heard, I knew we had chosen the right one.

It was one of those moments I will never forget.

As for the Wallace, a couple literary thoughts guided our decision.

First, Charles Wallace is the protagonist in Madeleine L’Engle’s WRINKLE IN TIME series, which are books that Elysha and I both adored as children. In fact, I had recently expressed hesitancy in re-reading the books as an adult, in fear that they won’t hold up to my fond memoires of them, but I guess I have no choice now.

Elysha and I are also fans of the poet Wallace Stevens, who lived and worked in Hartford, the city where Charlie was born. We especially love the poem 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird and have taught it to our students every year. Every year, I discover new depth hidden within the poem, and I hope I can say the same about my son someday.

Our perfect little boy, Charles “Charlie” Wallace Dicks!

Hate reading and hate watching: What a stupid, disingenuous waste of time

In case you aren’t familiar with the terms, hate reading is the idea that a reader can despise a book and everything it stands for but still find pleasure in reading it all the way through. Please note that this is very different from reading a book that you expected to love but did not. Hate reading is actively choosing to read a book that you expect to despise under the premise that you will enjoy hating it.

For example, I've known several people who have told me that they read 50 Shades of Gray for this very reason.

The same concept has been applied to television and film as well. With the start of The Bachelor, I've seen many people on social media explain how they only watch the show because they hate it.

I have been thinking about the concept of hate reading and hate watching and have arrived at a conclusion. Specifically, if you are in the business of hate reading or hate watching, I believe that you probably fall into one of two categories:

1. You are utilizing the concept of hate reading or hate watching to conveniently explain your consumption of content that you genuinely enjoy but consider beneath your typical standards of good taste. It is a dishonest and hypocritical attempt to mitigate any potential embarrassment over the pleasure that one is garnering from what he or she has deemed low brow content.
2. You have far too much free time on your hands. If you have hours to spend reading or watching content that you knowingly despise, you should seriously reconsider the way in which you are utilizing the precious minutes of your life. With all the great literature and film in this world, it strikes me as idiotic to spend even a minute consuming content that you know you will hate.

Despite my position on hate watching, my wife and I  inadvertently hate watched a show this week called America’s Got Talent. Before switching over to Mad Men on the DVR, we caught about 45 seconds of the show, which turned out to be about 35 seconds longer than we should have given this piece of trash. We watched a troop of mimes and a guitarist get booed off the stage by an exceedingly angry audience and immediately felt like we needed to take a shower.

But it left me wondering how anyone could spend even a minute hate watching something with so much great film and television available, especially now that it’s possible to watch almost any television program or film ever produced from the comfort of your couch, and with the touch of a button.

I simply cannot accept that someone would read page after page or watch episode after episode of content that they loathe without also thinking that choice either utterly stupid or a pathetic attempt to mitigate embarrassment over something they love but feel they shouldn’t.

Either admit that you genuinely enjoy The Bachelor and 50 Shades of Gray, or acknowledge that your life is so empty of meaningful pursuits that you have the kind of time on your hands to watch a television show that you genuinely despise.

Go to bed (in a whisper)

Two days ago my daughter took a rather hard lined (and hilarious) approach to the animals in her book while putting them to bed.

Just one day later, her position had eased considerably.

Go to bed!

Our new favorite video.

It involves Clara and a book, of course.

Ranking Stephen King’s 62 books: Some minor quibbling on my part

Vulture recently ranked Stephen King’s 62 books. Not an easy task, and overall, I think they did a surprisingly good job. I have read all but one of King’s books (see below), and despite the excellence of Vulture’s rankings, I would like to quibble a bit about a few of their decisions. First and foremost, I would have lumped all seven (and now eight) of King’s Dark Tower Series together or (preferably) excluded them from the rankings entirely. Though I admire the attempt to rank each book individually, these novels are inseparable in my mind. Had I been forced to include them on the list, I would have lumped them into one entry and placed them in the first position.

Ideally, however, I would have left the Dark Tower books off the list completely, explaining that they are quite separate from his stand-alone books. Placing them on the list is akin to comparing apples to oranges.

Other, more minor quibbles:

• I would rate Insomnia and Black Housemuch higher on the list, but this is admittedly because their connections to The Dark Tower series were readily apparent and much appreciated by me.
• I would rate Duma Key and Christine much lower. Duma Key is the only Stephen King book that failed to hold my interest, and the premise for Christine was just too silly for me to accept (but the movie might have also ruined this book for me).
• I did not love Rose Madder, but I do not think it is King’s worst novel. I would reserve that position for Cell (you can’t simply turn your derision for cell phones into a novel) or Duma Key.
• I was happy to see that the short story collections Hearts in Atlantis and Night Shift were placed in the top third of the list. I feel hat they are often overlooked. Both are better than Skeleton Crew, another short story collection which is also excellent but should be ranked below them.
• I liked From a Buick 8 but it does not belong as high as #16.
• I did not like Under the Dome. I found the novel to be long and disappointing. I felt it was one of King’s worst books. The ending of the story was a complete letdown. Placing it at #12 is crazy. Vulture’s worst decision.
• Danse Macabreis an interesting and well written work of nonfiction, but it does not stack up to his best works of fiction. It has no place in the top 20.
• I have never read Lisey’s Story, which is ranked #10. This is an oversight on my part that I will soon correct.
• I would have placed The Green Mile in my top 10.
• I am so happy that It was placed at #3. This is exactly where I would have rated it as well. I freakin’ love that book.

• I was equally pleased to see the respect given to On Writing, a book that inspired me to continue writing when all hope was seemingly lost. It is a brilliant combination of memoir and inspiration.

• I think Vulture’s top 5 are ranked perfectly. I think this is the most impressive aspect of their entire list. The wisdom to place It and On Writing along such obvious choices as The Stand and The Shining is impressive.  Misery is ranked #6. I think I would have placed Salem’s Lot at #6, but Misery would have remained in my top 10.

Yes. I’m an author. Yes, with real books and everything. Why doesn't anyone want to believe me?

Author Allison Winn Scott wrote a piece for Psychology Today that made me realize that I am not alone. In imagining a future in which she is no longer an author, she writes:

I could no longer say that "I'm a writer," and then when they inquired further (because often times, no one really believes you when you tell them that you're a writer, as if this is code for sitting around watching cat videos on YouTube), I could then say that my fourth novel was just published and see them nod their heads approvingly.

I can’t tell you how relieved I felt reading this paragraph. Like Winn Scott, I experience the same sort of doubt and skepticism from many of the people I meet, and perhaps to an even greater degree.

When asked what I do for a living, I say, “I’m a teacher and a writer,” purposely leaving out my other careers so as to not confuse matters. After debating the correct response to this question for many years, I’ve decided that condensation and brevity trump any effort to be thorough.

My response is normally followed by an inquiry into what and where I teach, and once that information has been provided, I am then asked, often with great trepidation, “So what do you write?”

I reply that I am a novelist, and after answering the inevitable and impossible questions about genre, I am then asked a series of questions which typically include:

Have you published anything yet?

Oh, did you self-publish?

Are they e-books or real books?

Do you have a website where people buy your books?

Oh, in actual bookstores? Like a Barnes and Noble? Really?

Can I find them on a shelf, or would the bookstore have to order it first?

Oh, you’ve published more than one book?

Doubleday? Really? And St. Martin’s?

You mean the Doubleday?

So you’re like a real author then? Huh?

Oddly enough, my wife often experiences the same kind of interrogation when she tells people that her husband is a writer, though her questions are also accompanied by a hint of sympathy and consolation as well.

While I’m happy to expound upon my career, these questions never feel good.

Lately, I’ve been trying to add, as quickly as possible without sounding like an arrogant jerk, that my upcoming book, Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, is being published in more than 20 different languages and counting. This seems to be the only thing I can say that brings the interrogation to an immediate halt and convinces people that I am an actual author with actual books that can be purchased in actual bookstores.

I’m not sure why there is so much skepticism when it comes to the validity of an author’s career, but I was pleased to discover that the furrowed brows, inquisitive stares, and probing questions are not only directed at me.

If Allison Winn Scott is also receiving them on a regular basis, I am at least in good company.

The Kingman Rule of Book Snobbery

The inestimable Ann Kingman of Books on the Nightstand fame stated in her most recent podcast that book snobbery should not be permitted unless the snob has actually read the book. Two things about this statement that I like a lot:

1. It forces the Proust snob to read a book like Twilight before denigrating it as literary trash.
2. It acknowledges that book snobbery is perfectly acceptable so long as it is an informed position.

I like that. It requires pretentious literary jerks to shut up and read but still allows an informed critic to question the literary merit of a book.

For the record, I read the first 100 pages of Twilight before denigrating it as literary trash.

I forged author Kate DiCamillo’s signature, but don’t worry. I was signing one of her books.

While speaking on a panel at the Newburyport Literary Festival on Saturday, I was asked to recommend two books. I recommended my first novel, SOMETHING MISSING, though doing so made me a little uncomfortable, since I was the only author on the panel.

I also recommended THE TALE OF DESPEREAUX, the Newbury Award winning novel by Kate DiCamillo. It’s a brilliant and beautiful book about courage, sacrifice and the dangers of nonconformity, and it’s equally suited for children and adults.  Then, in order to make up for my level of discomfort in recommending my own book, I suggested that audience members buy DiCamillo’s book before purchasing my own.

“I’d even be willing to sign Kate DiCamillo’s book if you’d like, if that will convince you to buy it. With my name or Kate’s name. Whatever you’d like.”

The comment garnered a laugh from the audience, but as I was signing books in the outer lobby, one of the audience members took me up on my offer, asking me to sign Kate DiCamillo’s name by proxy.

I have often told readers that I am perfectly comfortable with them signing my name by proxy in my books, since I believe in delegating responsibility whenever possible, but I have yet to see someone actually take me up on this.

But as requested, I signed Kate’s name to the book, adding an inscription that complimented my own wit, charm and good looks in order to ensure that the signature appeared very tongue-in-cheek and unlikely made by the hand of DiCamillo.

Later that night, I received a tweet from the woman whose book I signed. She hadn’t taken the time to look at the inscription at the time of the signing but noticed it several hours later and had a good laugh over it.

I’m hoping Kate DiCamillo won’t mind, since I did manage to sell a book for her. Many, in fact.

But it got me thinking:

At every bookstore appearance, I make it a point of recommending half a dozen other books to my audience in addition to my own. I try to recommend books in a variety of genres, including fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, children’s books and even a cookbook.

What if I was to ensure that, in addition to my own books, the bookstore had at least one of these titles in stock, adding during the recommendation portion of my talk that if anyone purchased one of these books in addition to my own (or even instead of my own), I would be willing to sign that author’s name by proxy?

Would authors be pleased that I am helping to sell their books?

Would they be annoyed with me for forging their signature?

Is this even amusing enough to make it worth the time and effort?

The idea certainly garnered a laugh on Saturday, and it made enough of an impression in the mind of one audience member to take me up on the offer, but perhaps this is the kind of thing that goes well if done spur-of-the-moment but not so well if it is planned and executed in a regular basis.

Thoughts?

A joyous respite for book lovers everywhere

Reflections on Booktopia 2012

Elysha and I spent the weekend in Manchester, Vermont at Booktopia, a book retreat organized and run by the the inestimable Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness, the hosts of the podcast Books on the Nightstand. It is a weekend of conversation with readers and fellow authors, and it is one of our favorite weekends of the year.

Actually, I think it is the favorite weekend of the year.

Last year I attended the now-dubbed Booktopia as an author. This year I returned as a reader, and Elysha and I plan to return every year as long as Ann and Michael can find it in their hearts to keep this tradition alive.

Last year I posted a list of thoughts following a busy day of seminars and speaking engagements.

I have a similar list this year, though based upon last year’s list, it would seem that I got in a lot less trouble with my wife this year.

1. Only at Booktopia could a podcast geek like myself stumble upon a fellow podcast geek who listens to Slate’s stable of podcasts despite the fact that we both despise at least a few of their weekly hosts.

I have friends who listen to podcasts, but they are few and far between. But I have found that bookish people will consume content in any way they can, and podcasts appeal to many of us.

After all, it was a podcast that brought us together in the first place.

I’m thrilled to have a new friend who has the same voices in her head as I do each week, and I look forward to ranting about pretentious, know-nothing hosts to someone who understands and feels my pain.

2. Author Howard Frank Mosher, who has penned a dozen novels and two memoirs in his 50 year writing career, has just turned 70, but he is still one bad ass gangsta wordsmith.

Howard attaches negative reviews of his books to the side of his garage and blasts them with a 16-gauge shotgun. I saw a photo of Howard, his shotgun and his bullet-riddled garage this weekend. It was unbelievable.

Howard is also a diehard Red Sox fan, a fact that I knew all too well when I opted to don my Derek Jeter jersey for the Booktopia kickoff. My introduction to this esteemed author included a ribbing about the Sox 6-2 loss to the Yankees that night, and it got even better the following night when the Yankees staged a late inning, eight run comeback to defeat Boston 15-9.

Best of all, the Yankee’s miracle comeback literally began as Howard took the podium to deliver his Saturday evening address, a fact that I was sure to share with him as he was signing my book.

It turns out that Howard and I are both attending the Brattleboro Literary Festival in October, the time that the Yankees (and perhaps the Red Sox) will be battling in the playoffs. We agreed that it should be a fun time for us.

Howard is almost twice my age, but I found a kindred spirit in that man this weekend. Howard Frank Mosher is my kind of guy.

3. I became convinced over the course of the weekend that I am the least committed, laziest, most lame excuse for an author on this planet.

I am a pretender. An amateur. A fraction of what I should be.

This weekend I met, amongst others:

Richard Mason, an internationally bestselling author who writes his novels longhand, is creating an immersive, cutting-edge digital version of his novel, and once donated the advance from his first novel to assist in educating underprivileged children in South Africa. The man is handsome, brilliant, speaks with a British accent, and works tirelessly to help others while writing enormously successful novels. He is everything I could never be.

Madeline Miller, who was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Orange Prize for her novel SONG OF ACHILLES, which she spent ten years writing and at one point threw away a finished manuscript and started over.

Leslie Maitland, who spent years researching into her family history and traveling the world in order to write her memoir CROSSING THE BORDERS OF TIME and bring together two long lost loves in the process.

The aforementioned Howard Frank Mosher, who chose to spend the last 50 years in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont simply because it is so rich in untold stories.

Sara Henry, a former journalist who also spent ten years writing her first novel, which was listed as one of the ten best crime novels of 2011 by several esteemed publications.

These are writers that put me to shame. These are writers who spend decades laboring over novels like master sculptures chiseling into the mightiest boulders. They are artists and storytellers of the highest regard. They are writers that make me look like a mere scribbler.

4. I found this sitting in the corner of one of the meeting rooms this weekend and have yet to determine what this is or what is does. Anyone?

5. I stopped at a gas station on Sunday morning to fill up the car and then went inside the adjacent convenience store to purchase a candy bar. While standing at the cash register, a woman stepped out of a public restroom near the front of the store and announced, “I don’t know how busy you’ve been this morning, but that bathroom was a mess!”

“I’m sorry,” the clerk said. “I honestly didn’t know. I’ll get it cleaned up in just a second.”

“Don’t bother,” the customer, a middle aged woman, said, now heading for the door. “I took care of it for you. But I’ll tell you, it was a hell of a job.”

Only in Vermont.