Alex George Books » Personal Thoughts

Countdown!

Alex George — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:12:53 +0000

There’s so much going on at the moment that I often lose track of what day of the week it is. So this is a quick post to bring you up to date with a few snippets of news, then I’m off to spend the weekend doing legal work, catching up with the stuff that has been piling up, both figuratively and literally, on my desk over the past week or so.

So – publication of my book, A GOOD AMERICAN, is now just over a week away. Luckily I am too busy struggling to get out from beneath a backlog of guest blog posts, interviews, and other fun things to be too anxious about it. Things are a bit of a whirlwind and I am grateful for my Luddite-friendly kitchen whiteboard to help me keep track of everything.

If you have nothing better to do a week on Tuesday – February 7 – I’ll be doing a reading at Barnes & Noble at the Columbia Mall at 7.00 p.m. That’s the official launch date of the book, and I’d love to see you there to help me celebrate.

On Sunday and Monday I was in Dallas for the American Libraries Association midwinter convention, which was a great way to start the week. I wrote about that here.

In a wonderful review of the book last Friday, influential book blogger Beth Fish Reads called it a “near-perfect novel”, which – as you might imagine, rather made my day. I also wrote a guest post on the site earlier this week about the restaurant in the book, and how it became a character in the book in its own right. That was a lot of fun to do.

There will be various other interviews and guest posts and I will do my best to keep track of them here.

In other book news, my friend and fellow Columbia resident Keija Parssinen‘s debut novel, THE RUINS OF US, was published last week. I am half way through it, and am loving it. It is a rich, soulful exploration of life and love, and it has me transfixed. The writing is gorgeous, and its setting – Saudi Arabia – is exotic and bewitching. The principal character is an American ex-pat who has married a Saudi native and now lives far from where she grew up, so there are certainly echoes and themes in the book that I am relating to strongly! Highly recommended.

Earlier this week possibly the nicest thing to happen to me for ages occurred. My very good friend Chris Stevens, who just happens to own the wonderful PS: Gallery in Columbia with his wife Jennifer, stopped by the office, with this:

It is, as you can see, a drawing of a pig, by local superartist Joel Sager. When I went to New Orleans with Chris last July I had coveted (but failed to buy) a wonderful picture of a pig (I do like my swine) in a gallery in the French Quarter, and when Chris saw this in Joel’s collection, he had it framed and gave it to me. Talk about random acts of kindness. It was such a thoughtful and generous thing to do. I am a lucky, lucky man.

Just in case legal work and the book wasn’t enough to keep me occupied, on February 16 I will be traveling to Kansas City to take my oath to become a United States citizen. In the book there is a scene where my characters go to the courthouse and take their oath to do the same thing. Its one of those serendipitous things that I should be doing the same almost exactly as the book comes out.

Next, a favor: if you haven’t already done so, would you please take a moment to go to my Facebook author page and click “like”? Thank you. I am a needy author, assailed by self-doubt, and these little acts of affirmation from the outside world mean a lot.

Finally, and a propos of nothing at all, I wanted to share this fantastic video with you, for no other reason that I think it’s brilliant. This is Seal’s “Kiss for a Rose,” given the blue grass treatment. Enjoy.

watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9UcLEklYnaE

Write, Erase, Repeat.

Alex George — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:31:44 +0000

Since my recent post about my new Kindle, I have been thinking a lot about technology.

On Saturday night the kids and I had a chew-and-view. We ate tortellini and watched Shrek the Third, renting the movie on my laptop from amazon instant play and having it transmitted to the TV. Who needs Netflix? I don’t even need to wait for a DVD to come in the mail any more. Later that evening, having enjoyed a delicious (and very silly) twitter conversation earlier in the day about a modern-day reworking of A Christmas Carol, I downloaded the book on to my Kindle for free and read half of it there and then before I went to bed. While I read I listened to some old Ella Fitzgerald albums that I used to own in college but were lost years ago in one of the many moves that I’ve undertaken since then… that no longer matters, though, as they’re all available for limitless streaming on Spotify.

All pretty cool. But.

(I know. You all saw that “but” coming a mile off.)

There is something slightly oppressive about the fact that I am apparently unable to step out of the door in the morning without several hundred dollars of electrical hardware in my pockets. It is sad the decision to leave my phone in the office when I go out to lunch is an event worthy of a tweet (and several congratulatory tweets back.) My calendars lie, in fully-synced harmony, on my phone and my laptop. I can never escape them. I’m electronically tethered as effectively as any criminal out on day-release.

Well, enough, as they say, is enough. In my new kitchen, we have decided to go old school. I bought a white board and a bunch of colored pens. And we write whatever needs to be written on it. Here’s a photo of it I took a week or so ago.

So that would be:

Ideas for future blog posts (including, I notice, this one)
Shopping list (complete with inept illustrations)
Ideas for Christmas presents
Odd little exchange with son (bottom left)
Daughter’s unsolicited opinion about this weird new medium (bottom right)

I think it’s fair to say that Catherine speaks for us all about the whiteboard. We all love it and use it. In addition to being a genuinely useful tool – and heaven knows how many yellow stickies it has saved us from – it’s a communal forum, an outlet for our creative urges and silliness. We can scribble whatever nonsense comes into our heads and draw pictures and anything else that takes our fancy. The children like to insult each other on it in a way that makes it very difficult to be cross with them about it. And the beauty of it all is that it can all be wiped clean with a few swift strokes of the eraser.

And, in this world of tapping at tiny screens, there is something pleasingly primal about both the act of writing on a whiteboard with a brightly-colored pen and then erasing those same words – it’s a physical, visceral sensation, all the more pleasurable for being completely self-sufficient. Not to brag or anything, but our whiteboard works during a power cut. We never have to call the helpline. I don’t worry about when the warranty will expire. Best of all, even a child can use it.

Words of Wisdom from Ann Patchett

Alex George — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:58:25 +0000

Last week a bought a Kindle. I know, I know.

Now, I’ve been down this path before. I wrote here about my brief and unfulfilling flirtation with a Nook, and this post shows another problem with e-readers generally. I will never, ever stop buying books… but, well, let’s be honest – there’s a certain inevitability about it all, isn’t there? I’m going back to England for Christmas and New Year and I really don’t want half of my allotted baggage weight to be books – especially since (because I can’t do otherwise) I would also have to lug them back across the Atlantic after I’d read them. And the Kindle really is very dinky and light and all that good stuff.

But perhaps the best reason for buying a kindle is that there is now material that is only being made available to people with e-readers. Many authors are publishing their out-of-contract back catalogs for e-readers via sites like Smashwords, and of course – if this is your kind of thing - there is always the next self-published erotic vampire novel to get your teeth into (ba-boom-tish, I’m here all week, etc.)

One of the main reasons I finally broke down and bought my kindle was because I was desperate to read an extended essay called The Getaway Car by Ann Patchett, which is only available in downloadable format through amazon. Patchett is probably best-known for her novel Bel Canto, which I read and enjoyed several years ago – although by all accounts, her new book, State of Wonder, is better yet (the – please note - actual book is sitting next to me as I write, and I am itching to start it.)

The Get Away Car, though, is something different. It’s part memoir, part rumination, part advice column. Patchett offers up some of her personal memories and reflections on her career as a writer. Anyone who is in interested in the creative process of sticking words down on paper should get their hands on it at once. You’ll devour it in one sitting. It is absorbing, inspiring, funny, honest, modest, and – best of all – it’s full of wise observations and advice. Patchett writes about writing with refreshingly unsentimental candor. Here are a few gems I pulled out more or less at random. For each quote there were another ten I could have chosen.

First of all, perhaps the best metaphor for novel writing that I’ve yet come across:

“Novel writing, I soon discovered, is like channel swimming: a slow and steady stroke over a long distance in a cold, dark sea.”

Next, an elegant description of the mountain authors have to climb every time they are confronted by the proverbial blank page:

“What I like about the job of being a novelist, and at the same time what I find so exhausting about it, is that it’s the closest thing to being God that you’re ever going to get. All of the decisions are yours. You decide when the sun comes up. You decide who gets to fall in love and who gets hit by a car. You have to make all the leaves and all the trees and then sew the leaves onto the trees. You make the entire world.”

This next one resonated with me especially:

“As much as I love what I do, I forever feel like a dog on the wrong side of the door. If I’m writing a book, I’m racing to be finished; if I’m finished, I feel aimless and wish that I were writing a book.”

And finally, perhaps the truest words of all:

“Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.”

Thank you, Ann Patchett, for writing such a wonderful little book. I’ll be returning to it time and time again. Very highly recommended.

News

Alex George — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:30:32 +0000

Lots going on at the moment, so I thought I would give you all a very brief overview of recent developments.

It’s hard to believe that it’s now less than two months until A GOOD AMERICAN is published. And there was me thinking this time would drag. It has rushed by.

The goodreads galley giveaway that I talked about a while back ended, with an immensely gratifying 1,047 people taking the trouble to enter. Congratulations to the lucky 25 winners!

There is presently another giveaway in progress – this time for signed galleys. This one involves people writing to me directly to tell me about where their families came from. I have loved reading the many, many responses I’ve received – people have been so generous with their stories, with interesting tales of journeys to America (and elsewhere) from all corners of the globe, some even with photos for good measure. One of the characters in the novel says, “We all came here from somewhere,” and here’s the proof.

We’re continuing to hear news about review coverage. The novel was favorably reviewed last week in two of the book industry’s major trade publications, Publisher’s Weekly and Library Journal. Last Wednesday A GOOD AMERICAN was featured on the blog of the BookPage website. It was a wonderful, generous review. I have an interview scheduled with BookPage on Friday for an author feature that will appear around the time of publication.

We also heard this week that the novel will be reviewed in American Way, the in-flight magazine of American Airways. This is exciting news – an awful lot of people get on those planes during the course of a month, and they are the living definition of a “captive audience”.

We are busy firming up dates for bookshop events in February and I will report back on those shortly. I can tell however tell you that on publication day itself – February 7, 2012 (but you knew that, right?) I’ll be doing an event at 7 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble in Columbia, Missouri. Later that week I shall be taking off for far-flung places to visit a couple of independent bookstores of high repute, and I cannot wait.

In non-book-related news, the biggest thing that has happened to me and my children in the past week is this:

Meet Theo. (Short for Thelonious. Spot the jazz nerd.) He is a ten month old labrador/retriever mix. He is utterly adorable – look at those eyes! – and we are all madly in love with him. I will admit that it is sometimes a little difficult to focus on the next felicitous turn of phrase when he walks over and plonks his beautiful head in my lap and looks up at me. I’m reminded of my favorite book dedication, by P.G. Wodehouse, who dedicated a book to his step-daughter, “without whose tender affections this book would have been finished in half the time.” Yep. That.

To Read, or Not To Read?

Alex George — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:51:45 +0000

In my earlier post about my trip to the Midwest Booksellers’ Association in Minneapolis, I mentioned that at the dinner hosted by Penguin on the Thursday night, there had been some spirited discussion between booksellers about what made for the best author events. Certain booksellers felt that, as a general rule, authors should never read from their books at book signings. It sounds counter-intuitive, but when you think about it, the idea makes a lot of sense.

For a start, listening to most writers (or indeed anyone) read out loud from a book is usually rather boring. Secondly, people who make the effort to go out to an author event at a bookshop are looking for an experience that can’t be replicated (or bettered) simply by sitting at home on the sofa. So instead of just reading what they’ve already written, writers need to provide insight, anecdotes, background… all these things can enhance a reader’s enjoyment of a book more than simply listening to the author declaim his or her own words. Speaking for myself, I always enjoy answering questions during the Q & A session far more than the reading itself.

But don’t take it from me. The most vocal proponent of this idea in Minneapolis was Geoffrey Jennings, who works at the wonderful Rainy Day Books in Kansas City. In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Geoffrey’s mother Vivien, founder of the store, weighed in, echoing his opinion. Rainy Day are renowned in the industry for the quality of their author events, so they really do know what they’re talking about.

One of the best author events I’ve been to recently was by Eleanor Brown, whose best-selling novel, The Weird Sisters, I have raved about on this blog before. Eleanor did read a small extract from her novel (actually “perform” would be a better description), but most of the evening was Eleanor chatting about the book, giving insights into her creative process, and answering a ton of questions from the audience. It was both stimulating and highly entertaining. Of course, when it comes to pulling something like this off, it helps if you’re, well, Eleanor Brown, who is one of the warmest and most engaging people on the planet. And this is one of the key points here: writers these days need to be able to speak eloquently and entertainingly about their work. We can’t hide behind the words on the page any more.

I’m going to be doing an author event for A GOOD AMERICAN at Rainy Day Books on Thursday, February 23 next year. At least I have plenty of time to work out what I’m going to say!

I should note that not everyone at the dinner agreed with Geoffrey’s opinion. And indeed, in the WSJ piece, some event-planners do like authors to read something. What do you think? Do you like to hear an author read from their work at events, or do you prefer just to listen to them speak?

Unplugging

Alex George — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:34:22 +0000

I’ve just come back from a few days away from Missouri. The children were not with me over Thanksgiving this year, and of course my family all live thousands of miles away, so there didn’t seem to be much point hanging around. Turkey for one, sir?

So I took off, for a quick visit to Philadelphia – somewhere I’d never been before. I had a wonderful time, loved exploring the city, and ate magnificently throughout. (Top tip: if you want to eat really well, dine with a food and travel writer. Or even better, with two. They know all the best places and are always treated like royalty. Thank you, Kayt!)

Prior to leaving I asked twitter whether or not I should take my laptop with me. The answer was a unanimous no. So, taking a deep breath, I left it behind.

And I am very glad that I did.

Without my laptop sitting in quiet accusation on the desk of my hotel room, I was able to relax and enjoy myself. Rather than pecking desultorily at the keyboard, then, the time I spent in my hotel room was a guilt-free blast. I raided the mini-bar, read a couple of books, and watched a boatload of rubbish television. I hardly thought about my novel-in-progress at all. Emails were read (I did have my phone) but every single one of them went unanswered. (None was especially urgent.) And it was all rather blissful.

Just like everyone else, writers need downtime, periods away from the pressure of work. But it’s harder to achieve for us, because it’s a different kind of a job that we do: there are no defined hours, no paid vacation days (and no health insurance, but don’t get me started on that.) It’s more difficult to leave my writing behind me than it is for my legal work. Of course, I’m only speaking for myself, but there is an irritating little voice in the back of my head which is eternally whispering: “You know, you could always go and write some more.” Sometimes the only way to shut it up it is to adopt draconian methods, e.g. leaving the damn computer behind.

While I was discussing this whole idea on twitter the night before my departure for Philly, Rebecca of The Book Lady’s Blog told me about an annual tradition of hers: Fall Back Weekend. It’s a simple idea. The weekend in autumn that the clocks go back, you go off-grid for the entire weekend. No email, no internet, no telephone, no television, nothing. Nary a single tweet. (If you can get through the entire weekend without getting out of your pajamas, you get bonus points.) I think it all sounds rather wonderful. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll be able to wait a year before I try it.

Anyway – here I am, back at my desk, feeling refreshed and ready to leap back into the creative fray. Do you have any tricks you use to recharge your batteries or get yourself out of a rut if you feel things are getting stale?

Where Are All the Boys?

Alex George — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:55:39 +0000

Recently the site Reading Group Guides very kindly did a giveaway of 100 copies of the galley of A GOOD AMERICAN. They published the list of winners, and this list gave me real pause for thought.

Of the 100 winners, two were men.

Put another way (showing off my maths skillz here), 98% of the winners were women (unless there are a whole bunch of dudes out there called Amy.) Now, I realize that the fact that the galley contest was run on a website devoted to reading groups may have skewed the numbers a little, since guys apparently don’t go in for that sort of thing much (although I would like to know why not.) But 98%? Really?

All of which leads to the obvious question: where the hell are all the boys?

Now, the idea that women read more than men isn’t exactly news. When I mentioned this to a friend yesterday, she sent me this very interesting NPR article (a couple of years old now) which discussed some of the possible reasons why women read more than men, and suggests that men constitute as little as 20% of the fiction market.

The fact that there is a website dedicated to posting pictures of men reading books tells you what a rare breed male readers have apparently become. It’s all a bit depressing.

There’s plenty of evidence of the phenomenon closer to home, too. Of all the people good enough to write a pre-publication review of A GOOD AMERICAN on the goodreads site, only one has been a man. And yes, almost all of the people who have put the book on their “to be read” list are women. I also realized, thinking about all this, that in the past several months, precisely two men have posted comments on this blog. (Thank you, Terry and Christopher.) Does this mean that no men read this blog? Well, I don’t think so. I think they just choose not to comment. Which is fine, although I’m curious as to why that is. Now, I realize that asking readers to post a comment on a blog explaining why they don’t post comments on blogs would appear to be an exercise in futility, so instead I shall make this simple plea: if you’re a bloke, and you’re reading this, please wave at the rest of us from the comment box. Are you there? Or just shy?

And if anyone else has any theories about why men appear to be so reluctant to read novels, please do share. (I’m skeptical about the “mirror neurons” theory in the NPR piece.) Have you experienced or witnessed a similar gender divide?

Only Connect

Alex George — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 17:48:28 +0000

Very early one morning a few weeks ago, as I was sitting down for my daily writing session, I saw a tweet from one of my closest friends, with a link to a YouTube video. Now, this friend and I, we go back a long way. And because I love this friend, and because he has probably the most refined musical taste of anyone I know, I clicked on the link. Imagine my surprise when a performance by James Taylor, of all people, popped up.

But if that was surprise, it was nothing compared to my astonishment when, an hour or so later, all I’d done was to click “replay” again and again and again.

Not one word was written that morning.

I am not a James Taylor fan. A vague awareness of “Fire and Rain” was the extent of my knowledge of his work until that morning – so I hadn’t heard this song, “Shower the People,” before. But its simple beauty forged an immediate and profound connection with me, and I’ve been unable to get it out my head ever since.

When Taylor stops playing his guitar at about the 3:30 mark is the goosebump moment for me (I’m getting goosebumps as I type this, just thinking about it.) There’s just singing. All you hear are unadorned human voices – Taylor, the chorus on the screen behind him, and the audience. Taylor is bringing all of these people – strangers, for the most part – along with him on his journey. What strikes me again and again is the strength of the connection he’s made, through the words and music that were inside his head. All of those people, singing together, as one. It’s just beautiful.

Whether you’re a songwriter or an artist, a poet or a novelist, what you yearn for is to forge that connection with the person you’re trying to reach.

And although watching this video still makes me a little sad, I’m glad beyond words that my friend posted it. It reminds me of the exquisite power of song to reach deep into each of us and winkle out raw emotion, often when we least expect it. Beautiful music can beat down the most obdurate of emotional defenses. I can bury my feelings away and try and inoculate myself against feeling too much of anything, but a perfect song can still crack me open and make me cry like a baby. It connects with me, engages me; it makes me feel . And in doing so, it reminds me that I’m alive. And isn’t that, in the end, what all art should do?

Enjoy the music.

English Accents

Alex George — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 01:23:18 +0000

One of the reasons why I never contemplated a career as a litigator when I re-qualified as a lawyer in the United States was that I had visions of my delivering elegantly-crafted closing arguments only to have the jury look at each other and ask each other quietly what the guy with the funny accent had been talking about.

And here is the proof that all my suspicions were dead-on. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what people hear when I open my mouth. Now you know why I wasn’t allowed to audition for my own audiobook.

A Sort of Homecoming (with apologies to U2)

Alex George — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:29:38 +0000

Tomorrow is a big day for Columbia and the University of Missouri. It is the 100th Annual Homecoming. Not being from round these parts, I’m not entirely sure what homecoming means or what its purpose is. There is a parade – I know this, because my children will be in it. And, naturally, there is a big football game involved. So, in honor of all that, I’m re-posting an old blog about the manifold mysteries of college sports.

A couple of years ago, for a funny five minutes – actually it was about a week – the Missouri Tigers, the University of Missouri football team, was ranked the number one college football team in the nation.

It had been nearly fifty years since it had last happened. People wandered about with slightly dazed, disbelieving expressions on their faces. Nobody could talk about much else. Everyone was cheerful. The whole atmosphere in Columbia changed. As a town we can occasionally be guilty of a little too much municipal pride, which sometimes morphs into self-congratulatory preening. But, my God. Number one in the nation. In football. We were floating on air.

College sports matter in this country. It took me a while to understand this. The only college event that anyone pays any attention to in England is the Oxford v Cambridge boat race, possibly one of the most tedious sporting spectacles in the world. I suppose tradition has something to do with it.

But back to Missouri. Even when the Tigers were a nothing team, regularly getting thrashed by all comers, 60,000 people would pull on black and gold and cram into Memorial Stadium to watch them lose again. Sixty thousand. That’s more than double the number of people who went to watch Arsenal, the greatest soccer team ever, when they played at Highbury.

: Just another Saturday afternoon in Columbia

So, what’s it all about? Well, I think the phenomenom can be explained on a number of levels.

Unabashed loyalty to one’s alma mater has a lot to do with it. People over here identify themselves with their school more than people in England, and (for the record) I think this is a good thing. Alumni flock back to every home game to revisit the scenes of their student days. Colleges make fortunes flogging hats, sweatshirts, and other apparel with logos. When I was in college the only people who wore “Oxford University” sweatshirts were tourists, but when I walk through the MU campus 90% of students are festooned with black and gold clothing with “MIZZOU” written on it somewhere. Heavens, even my parents own some of that stuff.
Tailgating. This was a revelation to me. Before Arsenal matches I would meet up with my friend Raffi for a pint before the game and make gloomy predictions about the scoreline. They do things differently here. People turn up hours (and hours) before the game is due to begin to indulge in Bacchanalian feasting that would have made Rabelais proud. Epicurean bounty of unimaginable excess comes out of the back of people’s pick-up trucks. It’s quite astonishing. Many, many people have been turning up to football games for years and have never seen a ball being thrown or kicked. They spend all day out in the parking lot, eating and drinking. (Of course, depending on your opinion of football, this makes a lot of sense.)
Sports mania. Americans love their sports, really they do, and there just aren’t enough pro games to keep everyone satisfied. The market abhors a vacuum, and all that, and so people follow college games as well.
Sporting Spectacle. If you’ve ever watched an NBA game (note to my English readers: this is basketball) it’s one of the most boring things in the world. Why? Because the athletes are too good. They almost never miss a shot. With college sports, though, although the standard can be high, there’s always a danger of somebody screwing up, big time. (See, for example, fourth quarter of Missouri vs Nebraska, 2009.) And while it might not be good for your nerves, it does make things more interesting for the neutral.
Social Spectacle. Tubas! Sousaphones! Brass bands marching in perfect formation! Cheerleaders. Elite cheerleaders (oh yes.) Drunken students with painted faces yelling incoherently at the roving ESPN cameraman. Canons. It’s all very strange, but rather fun.

Now, certain people take huge exception to all this. Why, for example, do the football and basketball coaches get paid a gazillion times more than the most prestigious academic appointees? Isn’t this all topsy-turvy? Well, yes, of course, it is. But come on. Does it really matter? Eat, drink, be merry, and if your team is getting its collective asses whipped, retreat to the parking lot and have another beer. There’s always next year.

Happy Homecoming, MU. Here’s to the next hundred.