The Great American Book Tour, Week 2

Week two of the Great American Book Tour for my new novel, Walking to Gatlinburg, has been lively.

On my way back to my motel from a wonderful event with Tom Holbrook’s River Run Bookstore, at the Portsmouth (NH) Library, my car stalled. Right on a busy exit ramp of I-95. The next 24 hours included:

1. A hitchhiking and walking excursion through the Sunday-afternoon streets of Portsmouth looking for an automotive repair shop.

2. A ride in a breadtruck with an indignant driver who thought my publisher was making me hitchhike to my events.

3. A falling-out with my muse, who told me to quit complaining, that I should be ready to walk to Gatlinburg myself for more “material,” and that a little hitchhiking now and then was “good for” a 67-year-old author.

4. A morning spent reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in the waiting room of a Nissan dealership.

5. A visit to yet another mall bookstore in which I was forbidden, by a 12-year-old bookseller, to sign my own books. (“Look at the author’s photo. That’s me, see? I know book tours will age authors but not in the first week.”)

6. The unencouraging sight of Karl Rove’s new book stacked up to heaven at the front of yet another mall store.

7. Several absolutely wonderful events at independent bookstores around New England, including Joan Grenier’s world-class Odyssey Bookstore in South Hadley, MA, and Vermont’s fabled Bear Pond Books in Montpelier. The Odyssey, by the way, was founded in the back of the pharmacy owned by Joan’s dad, Romeo, an autodidactic French Canadian immigrant upon whom the Mt. Holyoke College Board of Trustees conferred the title of “the most learned apothecary since John Keats.” Pretty inspiring!

8. During the hitchhiking interlude, after I started counting, 200 plus cars went racing by without stopping. Come to think of it, I might not stop for myself, either.

9. Quote for the week #1: “We never refused nobody a ride on the road nor something to eat if we had it ourselves.”
Ma Joad
The Grapes of Wrath

10. Quote for the week #2: “Them days are gone forever, pal.”
HFM’s Imaginary Companion, Road Bud and Muse, in the Incarnation of a Broken-down Old Nashville Songwriter.

Well, folks, there are worse ways to spend a few months than visiting America’s best independent bookstores. In fact, I can think of few things I like more. On Friday, March 12, I’ll be at Partners Village Books in Westport, MA, at 7 p.m.; Baker Books in Dartmouth, MA, on Saturday, at 10:00 a.m.; and the Brown Bookstore, in Providence, RI, at 2:00 on Saturday afternoon (March 13).

On to a joint event with Books on the Common at the Ridgefield, CT, Library on Sunday afternoon, March 14, at 4:00 p.m., and, on Monday, March 15, at 7:00, RJ Julia in Madison, CT.

Next week will find me at 192 Books in NY City at 7:00 on Tuesday, March 16; Chester County Book and Music Company, in W. Chester, PA (near Philadelphia) on Wed., March 17, at 7:00; Richmond (VA) at Fountain Books at 6:30 on Thursday, March 18; and Quail Rodge in Raleigh, NC, on Friday, March 19, at 7:00.

I’ll finish up the week on Saturday, March 20, at 11:00 a.m. at McIntyre’s Books at Fearington Village, NC; Asheville’s (NC) Malaprops at 7:00 on Saturday March 20; and Nashville’s Davis Kidd on Sunday afternoon, March 21, at 4:00.

And that’s just the beginning of “The Great American Book Tour” – which just happens to be the title of my next book, a memoir of my tour, coming soon from Shaye Areheart Books and Random House.

Until next time . . .
Yours in reading,
Howard

The Great American Book Tour, Week 1

With the help of my independent bookselling friends here in Vermont, I’ve survived the first week of my Great American Book Tour. I had well-attended, lovely events at the Galaxy in Hardwick, the Rutland Library, Northshire Books in Manchester Center and the Norman Williams Library in Woodstock, where the Yankee Bookshop sold my new novel.

And, oh, the stories you’ll hear on a book tour. Paula Baker, director of the Rutland Library, told me that when she was a little girl, she loved to be read to. She was especially fond of the works of Ben Franklin. One day her mother took her to an enormous public library with terrazzo floors and soaring skylights. They wound their way back through the stacks, and Paula’s mother took a book by Franklin down from a shelf. Still awe-stricken by the stateliness of her surroundings and the presence of so many books, Paula actually thought that this was the original Poor Richard’s Almanack, written in Franklin’s own hand. I was especially struck by this story because to this day I still feel more or less the same way when I pick up a promising new book or a beloved favorite at a library or bookstore.

Thanks to all the great independent booksellers and readers who are making my tour possible. More New England events are scheduled for this coming week. Please see the Appearances section of my website for when I’ll be in your area. I’d also like to alert all my bookselling friends and their customers that I’ll be posting regular Facebook (Howard Frank Mosher), Twitter (howardfmosher), and blog entries as I criss-cross the U.S., so be on the lookout for more stories.

Yours in bookselling, reading and writing! Howard M.

Book Launch

On Tuesday, March 2, at 7:00 p.m., I’ll be launching my 2010 Great American Book Tour for my new Civil War novel, Walking to Gatlinburg, at Linda Ramsdell’s wonderful Galaxy Bookstore, in Hardwick, Vermont. That will be the first of about 100 events I’ll be doing over the next several months, in New England and nationwide, mostly at America’s great independent bookstores.

One of the questions I’ve been asking myself as I’ve pored over my sun-faded Rand McNally road atlas, trying to figure out whether I can drive from Denver to Phoenix in two days and from Minneapolis to Milwaukee in a day (yes, I can), is whether book tours, in this strange electronic era, are still worthwhile.

I think that they are. Independent bookstores got me started and have kept me going. A tour gives me a chance to thank indie booksellers, and their customers, for enabling me to write fiction.

For novelists who may spend years chained to their desks to complete just one book – Walking to Gatlinburg took about 7 years, counting research time – a book tour provides a terrific break from the isolation of writing.

What’s more, traveling the country alone in a clunker, eating at diners and staying at cheap motels, is a great way for a writer to accumulate new material. And there’s something about driving, I don’t know exactly what, that seems conducive to break-through ideas for stories and stories-in-progress.

There are far worse ways to spend a spring, summer, and fall than riding the roads of America from one renowned independent bookstore to another. This time out, I’ll be chronicling my trip via Blog, Twitter, and Facebook. You may expect regular reports on where I’ve been and where I’m headed next, what new literary discoveries I make at our great indies, what I’m reading nights at my motels, and, of course, humorous encounters along the way.

My friend the acclaimed writer Garret Keizer, whose marvelous new book on noise, The Unwanted Sound of Everything We Want, will be in the stores in just a few weeks, made an interesting observation to me about books and the electronic age. When I told Garret about my Great American Book Tour and how booksellers, authors, and readers are availing themselves of electronics to get out the word on books and book events, he said, “Wouldn’t it be ironical and wonderful if the very technology that was supposed to kill the book as we know it helps keep books alive?”

Yes, it would!

Please check this blog, Facebook, and Twitter for “Dispatches from Bookland” as, once again, I light out for the territories, as Huck Finn might put it. I can’t think of any better territory to visit than America’s independent bookstores. It’s pretty exciting just to think about. (Don’t forget to check my website appearances to see when I’ll be in your region!)

Three Cheers for Good Independent Bookstores!

Recently, as I was setting up my “Great American Book Tour” itinerary for Walking to Gatlinburg, a bookseller asked me to define “a good independent bookstore.” I’d like to share my reply with my blog readers and fellow fans of indie bookstores everywhere:

In response to your inquiry, I believe that a good independent bookstore always puts good books and good customers ahead of the bottom line. Interestingly, by doing so, passionately and knowledgeably, many (though, sadly, not all) independent bookstores have managed to stay in business in this economically depressed era when even chain stores are suffering.

Of course, one of the reasons that chain bookstores are having their own difficulties is that many of them do not place a top priority on books and customers. In fairness, though, I have to say that, from time to time, in chain stores, I meet very independent booksellers who love books and respect customers and like to match them up.

Good independent bookstores – like Tolstoy’s families – are all different. But they are very happy places. When I walk into one, the colorful jackets of books that are my old friends or may become new friends excite me the way walking out of the dim concourse of a major league baseball stadium onto the bright, geometrical familiarity of the diamond below excites me.

Good independent bookstores are always welcoming. Customers are invited to browse. Booksellers make time to talk about – books! Go into any university English department at the end of the day. All you hear is people grousing about poor students, parking restrictions, pay freezes. Booksellers should be so lucky. Still, they’re as enthusiastic about Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed and the new Raymond Carver collection at the end of the day as at 10 a.m. They just plain love books.

And there’s something else about independent bookstores. Something important. They keep writers like me, and hundreds of others, going. They don’t overload their stock with just the best sellers. Most of my favorite writers – Richard Russo, Chris Bohjalian, Annie Proulx, Richard Ford, Ivan Doig – got their start in independent bookstores. What’s more, by championing freedom of speech, our constitutional right to privacy, and freedom of the press, the indies help preserve America’s precious political and cultural heritage.

Thank you, independent booksellers!

WORLD PREMIER

This coming March 2, at 7 p.m., world-class booksellers Linda Ramsdell and Sandy Scott, of the fabled Galaxy Bookshop in Hardwick, VT, will be hosting the WORLD PREMIER of the Great American Book Tour for my new Civil War novel, Walking to Gatlinburg. Thank you Linda and Sandy!

Then it’s off to the races for this clueless writer, with visits to more than 100 towns and cities over the next several months. Whew! It begs the question: Do book tours really work?

Yes, they do. Besides selling books – and there are, after all, worse things to peddle than novels – my coast-to-coast book tours are a wonderful break from the isolation of fiction writing. Walking to Gatlinburg took more years to write and went through more drafts than I care to remember. Time for a change.

The title of the slide show I’ll be doing for my book tour this time around is “Transforming History into Fiction: the Story of a Born Liar.” Touring, however, gives this storywriter a chance, for once in his life, to tell the unvarnished truth. To the readers, booksellers, and librarians who keep us lying-through-our-teeth novelists going, please let me say, “Thank you. I appreciate it!”

I’ll be keeping a journal of the Great American Book Tour – which also happens to be the title of my next book, a memoir coming soon from Shaye Areheart Books – on this Blog. Some of it – I promise – will even be true.

Official Release of WALKING TO GATLINBURG

Walking to Gatlinburg, my new Civil War novel, seven years in the works, will be officially published on March 2. I will be launching the WORLD PREMIER of the novel in Hardwick, VT, at the Galaxy Bookshop on the evening of March 2nd with my new slide show, “Transforming History into Fiction: the Story of a Born Liar.” (We all know who the born liar is.)

Please watch my website, after January 1, for regular entries about Walking to Gatlinburg, including a posting of the first chapter, updates of my book tour itinerary, reviews, outrageous journal entries from the nationwide tour, etc.

In the meantime, happy holidays and good reading from northern Vermont’s cold, snowy, and ever-so-beautiful “Kingdom County.”

Recently, I mentioned to a writer friend that while I have always loved to write, and started writing baseball and fishing stories at six or seven, I live to read. (“Read a thousand books, write one,” the adage goes.)

With my new Civil War novel, Walking to Gatlinburg, coming in the spring of 2010 – please watch for the “official” announcement in “The Kingdom Journal” on Dec. 15 – and the first draft of my forthcoming memoir, The Great American Book Tour, completed – this fall has been an especially good time for me to catch up on my own reading.

Richard Russo’s That Old Cape Magic and Pete Dexter’s Spooner are flat-out the funniest new novels I’ve read since A Confederacy of Dunces. In both instances there’s a powerful undertow of sadness, as well, but Russo and Dexter aside, what’s become of the old-fashioned, no-holds-barred American comic novel? Where’s Mark Twain when we need him most?

William Trevor’s Love and Summer exceeds even my high expectations. There’s a drifter in Trevor’s novel – an unemployed librarian and household retainer – who is at once one of the strangest and most memorable characters in contemporary fiction.

After searching for thirty years for a Canadian novel I loved and gave away, whose title and author I’d forgotten, I found Richard B. Wright’s Farthing’s Fortunes through Abe Books Book Sleuth link. It’s a hilarious, picaresque story in the tradition of Little Big Man, and I liked it every bit as much the second time around, three decades later.

My most important literary discovery was an unpublished manuscript by a deceased author. Beverly Jensen, an actress who died in 2003 of cancer, left a wondrous story collection called The Sisters of Hardscrabble Bay. Set in Maine and New Brunswick, and spanning much of the twentieth century, The Sisters of Hardscrabble Bay chronicles the rough-and-tumble lives of Beverly’s mother and aunt, Idella and Avis. Wildly hilarious and profoundly moving, Beverly’s book defines character-driven fiction at its best. Of it, Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout (Olive Kitteridge) has written, “The story of these two sisters, Idella and Avis, travels from Canada to New England, but mostly it travels through their lives and hearts, and it will travel through your heart, as well."

I’m delighted to report that, through an extraordinary effort on the part of Beverly’s husband, Jay Silverman, Beverly’s writing teacher, the acclaimed novelist Jenifer Levin, author and former Houghton Mifflin editor Katrina Kenison, and a number of other family friends, The Sisters of Hardscrabble Bay will be published early this coming summer by Viking. I would rate Beverly Jensen’s unforgettable sisters right up there with Ruby and Ada of Cold Mountain. You’ll see why in a few months.

More on December 15 when I make the official birth announcement of Morgan Kinneson, the 17-year-old hero of my tenth novel, Walking to Gatlinburg – which is exactly what Morgan does, walking all the way from Kingdom County, Vermont, to the Great Smokies, in search of his older brother, Pilgrim, who is missing in action during the Civil War.