The tour has been brilliant thus far. I’ve met many fabulous booksellers, authors, and sales reps—hey, Michelle & Anne!—and generally had a grand time. Running into John Scalzi & Liz Gilbert was a definite highlight. Liz is in Chicago too. Right now she’s at Oprah’s studios. That’s right, she’ll be on Oprah on Friday! Liz is one of my favourite people in the universe so if you get a chance do watch her on Friday’s Oprah. The whole hour is devoted to Liz. How incredible is that?
In addition to hanging out with book people and gossiping I’ve also snaffled up some pretty awesome freebie books, including the latest Easy Rawlins by Walter Mosley, Blonde Faith. So far I loves it:
“What are you reading?” I asked.
“Catcher in the Rye,” she said, a little frown on the corner of her pillow lips.
“You don’t like it?”
“It’s okay. I mean it’s good. But I just think about a little black child or Mexican kid readin’ this in school. They look at Caufield’s life an’ think, ‘Damn, this kid got it good. What’s he so upset about?'”
I laughed.
“Yeah,” I said. “So much we know that they ever even think about and so much they think about without a thought about us.”
I didn’t have to tell Gara who they and us were. We lived in a they-and-us world while they lived, for all appearances, alone.
Wow, huh?
And now I have some writing of my own to do. Here’s hoping it will be half as good as what Mosley writes.