This is just a brief update to let you know about various things that have popped up on the web, if you missed my incessant tweets and facebook updates over the past few days.

Publication isn’t officially until Tuesday, but the book has already been spotted in the wild.  This is in Freeport, Maine:

A GOOD AMERICAN was named as one of amazon’s Best Books for February.

Here is an interview I did with Nicole from the excellent book blog Linus’s Blanket – I only answered six of the twenty questions she sent me, and everyone should probably be grateful for that.

Also, a smart and funny review by Amanda Nelson of the Dead White Guys blog.

And this review appeared online yesterday at the Kansas City Star.  Not sure when it will appear in the paper edition.

Talking of paper editions, Columbia, MO residents be warned: there’ll be an interview with me in the Sunday edition of the Columbia Tribune.

And speaking of Columbia residents, if you have nothing better to do next Tuesday, please consider coming to Barnes & Noble at the Mall at 7 p.m. to help me launch A GOOD AMERICAN out into the world.  I’ll be giving a small talk about the book and reading an extract.  I’d love to see you there, before I set off on my travels later in the week.

Not sure how much blogging will get done in the forthcoming days and weeks.  I’ll do my best to keep this updated as and when I can.  In the meantime, thank you ALL for reading, your comments, and your support.  It means the world to me.

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

]]> http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/countdown/feed/ 3 http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/librarians-are-not-all-like-philip-larkin-really/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=librarians-are-not-all-like-philip-larkin-really http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/librarians-are-not-all-like-philip-larkin-really/#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:28:43 +0000 Alex George http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/?p=4914 Click here to continue...]]>

Let’s play a little cultural word association.

If you ask an Englishman what comes to mind when he hears the word “Dallas,” he would probably answer Larry Hagman, JFK’s assassination, and possibly cowboys (although the cowboys would be wearing ten-gallon hats, rather than football helmets.)

I’m told that if he was of a certain age and inclination, he might also think of a lady named Debbie, although I wouldn’t know anything about that.

What he probably wouldn’t think of is: librarians.

This Englishman, though, will always associate the place with librarians, after my flying visit there last weekend.  The event was the winter convention of the American Library Association.  I had been invited to speak at a breakfast with five other authors.  The idea was we would stand up in front of a roomful of librarians and talk about our books.  They would be a sympathetic crowd, I had been reassured by my publicist.  ”Just remember to tell them how much you love libraries,” she said breezily.   Libraries.  Right.  I decided to tell them about the summer when I was 10 when my library card had been misfiled under the name of George Alexander.  It wasn’t exactly gripping stuff, but it was all I had.

I flew in from Kansas City on Sunday evening.  One of the brilliant things about these trips is that you do feel just a little bit like a rock star.  There was a guy standing by the luggage carousel with a card with my name on it; we walked out to a gleaming limousine and scooted into town.  There was even a bottle of water in the back seat.  Just for me.  I mean, really.  Living the life, baby.  My driver, James, had the football game on the radio, which gave me an opportunity to display the profound depths of my ignorance about the game.  They take football very seriously in Texas.  It’s testament to James’s professionalism that he didn’t throw me out of the car and make me walk.

The hotel, the Joule, was achingly hip and beautiful.  As is now traditional on these trips, I took a picture of the bathroom, in this instance the sink.  (At least I think it’s a sink.  It might just be a salad bowl that someone had left there by mistake.)

The room was gorgeous, although it took me several minutes to work out how to turn the taps on and switch the lights off.  (These days I am used to being outsmarted by hotel facilities.  When Penguin put me up at the Trump hotel in Soho, I couldn’t for the life of me work out how to empty the bath, so had to leave with my dirty water still in the tub.)

The other problem with swanky hotels is that they never have those little Mr. Coffee machines in the rooms.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, Mr. Coffee coffee isn’t great, but it’s still coffee.  The next morning I stumbled around, dangerously uncaffeinated, while twitter friends assured me there would probably be FREE COFFEE in the lobby.

Thankfully they were right.  I gulped down two cups and had pretty much stopped twitching by the time I met Alan Walker of Penguin Academic Marketing, who was in charge of corralling the various Penguin authors who were appearing at the convention.  Alan is very chilled and fantastically nice.  We discovered a mutual love of squash – the game, people, not the vegetable; we are men, after all – as we walked to the convention center.  When we arrived at the author breakfast I met Alan’s colleague Dominique, who is as lovely as Alan.  (Where do Penguin find these wonderful people?)  I was directed to the author table, and poked anxiously at my eggs as I waited for the event to start.

I should say here that I don’t much like public speaking.  Much as I am very fond of the sound of my own voice, the only way I can get through these ordeals is if I have thoroughly prepared and know what I’m going to say.  Consequently I had three pages of typewritten remarks tucked into my pocket, which I patted for reassurance every so often.  I was up second, which was a blessing, as I didn’t have time to be completely traumatized by the fact that all the other authors spoke without any notes at all.  In particular, Robert Leleux and Val McDermid were utterly brilliant, impassioned and hilarious.  Anyway, the audience seemed to like my library card story, and nobody threw any tomatoes.  The other authors were all fascinating to listen to and I found myself desperately wanting to read all of their books, especially Pure by Julianna Baggott.

After the breakfast Alan took me to the Penguin booth where I signed copies of A Good American for an hour.  By the end, my signature bore no resemblance to the scrawl it usually is.  It was equally illegible, though, so I suspect nobody will ever be able to tell the difference.  Everyone was fantastically nice, and seemed excited to read the book.  Gratifyingly, many people had already heard about it.

Once we had run out of books, Dominique and Alan helped me choose some brand new books for my children and then it was time to find James for the return trip to the airport.  It was a whirlwind trip – less than 24 hours – but a wonderful one.

Oh, and by the way.  I managed to fit eleven books into my tiny backpack. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind to it. (I knew there was a reason I packed so light.)

Lots of news to share with you.  Where to begin?  Let’s see…

A GOOD AMERICAN was named #1 Read to Pick Up for February in O Magazine.  Yes, that’s Ms. Winfrey’s little publication.  Kind of a big deal, and we’re all very happy about that.

The book has also been named as a Midwest Connection Pick for February.  These are books chosen by the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association.  I’m very honored about this, and obviously pleased and proud of the novel’s connections to this part of the world.

My editor, Amy Einhorn, was profiled in the New York Observer on Monday.  And yes, she really is as smart and as kind and as generally wonderful as the piece suggests.  My book got a mention as being this year’s February Amy Einhorn release, following in the footsteps of The Help, The Postmistress, and The Weird Sisters.

So.  No pressure there, then.

As I type, I am suddenly spooked by the lack of definite article in my book’s title.  Eep.  (Because, like, I didn’t already have enough things to keep me awake at night.)

This week also saw the online publication of a great interview with BookPage, which will appear in next month’s magazine proper.  It was one of those interviews that was scheduled for 30 minutes… an hour later, we were still talking.  (People who know me won’t be especially surprised by this.)

You will have already noticed that things have changed a little around here.  Yesterday saw the launch of the new site design , and I hope you like it.  Quite possibly (= almost certainly) there are typos and mistakes lurking; if you catch any, or find some dodgy links, or have any other suggestions as to how the site could be improved, please do write to let me know.  My deepest thanks to web genius Paul Boomer for all his hard work on this.

Finally, speaking of travel-related matters, on Sunday I am flying to Dallas to the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting.  I get to deliver a little talk to a roomful of yawning librarians on Monday morning while they eat breakfast.  Tough room, I’m guessing.  Now we’ll really find out how far a cute English accent will get you.

This is a page chosen more or less at random, during the second six month rewrite, after I had signed my deal with Amy.  I am hopeless at editing on screen – I need a pen, paper, and lots of time.  (And quiet.)  And then I do this sort of thing.  Whether you call it fine pruning or hacking with a machete is, I suppose, a matter of opinion.

One of the reasons I wanted to post this photo is that this kind of close editing is one of the most enjoyable parts of the process for me.  The careful chipping away of unnecessary words, the cleaning up of infelicitous syntax, the hunt for clarity – all these things are immensely rewarding.  The only downside to it is that it is a never-ending process.  I know that if I were to pick up the book today I would still find things I’d like to change.  But I cannot.  I am learning to ignore those little voices in my head.  My work here is done.

This blank sheet of paper (and a few hundred others) got written on.  Some guy had an idea for a story, and every morning at five o’clock, he hauled himself out of bed, switched on the coffee machine, and sat down to write for two hours, while the rest of his family slept.  The story was an elusive thing.  There were many wrong turns taken.  Whole plot lines lay abandoned on his computer’s hard drive.  Once-cherished characters got written out entirely. Some good ideas turned out to be very bad ideas.  It was an exhausting, enervating, frustrating and utterly wonderful journey.

Five years later, this is what he ended up with:

So: a book!  Or rather: a big block of paper with lots of words on it!

The guy sent this big block of paper to his literary agent in London, who liked the story.  His agent sent it to another agent in New York, who also liked the story.  Submissions began simultaneously in both markets.  Within days, there was a response from a well-known editor in New York.  She loved much of the novel, but couldn’t make an offer for it.  The last third of the story was too flawed, she said.

OK, said the guy, wobbling only slightly.  As rejections go, that’s pretty heartening.

Over the course of the next few months, the big block of paper was rejected by everyone else, too.  Many people professed to love it, but nobody wanted to published the damn thing.  Most mornings there was another rejection waiting in the guy’s inbox.  He began to dread waking up.  He became despondent.  Sure, he still had his big block of paper – nobody was ever going to be able to take his story and his characters away from him.  It was still, people told him kindly, a wonderful achievement.

But.

Finally, the guy called his agents and told them to stop the submissions.  Something was obviously wrong with the story.  It needed more work.  He hunkered down, and with a slightly heavy heart, attacked the manuscript once again.  The five o’clock starts acquired a new focus.  Six months later, he had a streamlined story, with a completely new ending.  This time, they submitted the manuscript to just one editor – the very first person to respond last time around.  And, this time, she liked it, and made an offer to publish it.  But, she warned, it still needed a lot of work.  Oh, and a new title.

The guy and his new editor talked long and often on the telephone, discussing what had to be done.   “A lot of work” was something of an understatement.  The guy sat down and beavered away for another six months, making wholesale changes to the story.  And the story was immeasurably better as a result.  A few weeks after he delivered the revised manuscript, this arrived in the mail:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is an uncorrected early proof copy.  It is, frankly, a mess.  It’s full of typos.  The font size changes at haphazard moments, the pages are not properly formatted, and the cover, you’ll notice, won’t be winning any design awards, either.  But, to the guy’s eyes, it was a thing of beauty.  All those words he had been wresting with for so long finally looked like a book.  He no longer needed a carrier bag to haul his novel around.

Work continued.  The text was line edited, copy edited, proof edited, fact checked.  Every last syllable was scrutinized.  The guy read and reread, wrote and rewrote, until the words were swimming in front of his eyes.

Then came the cover.  And it was a thing of beauty.  Soon after that, galleys were printed, resplendent with gorgeous design and kind quotes from early reviewers.

These beauties were sent to reviewers, booksellers, magazines and a fair few were sent out to readers.  Soon people began to talk about the book.  Reviews began to appear online.  A buzz was building.  (By this time, the guy’s left arm was a mosaic of black and blue bruises from all the pinching that had been going on.)

And then, just after  Christmas, this arrived in the mail.

I’m kind of anxious to find out what happens next.

]]> http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/a-story-in-five-photos/feed/ 14 http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/a-good-american-1-pick-for-februarys-indie-next-list/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-good-american-1-pick-for-februarys-indie-next-list http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/a-good-american-1-pick-for-februarys-indie-next-list/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:01:12 +0000 Alex George http://alexgeorgebooks.com.s139906.gridserver.com/?p=4754 Click here to continue...]]>

Exciting times!

Through the Indiebound collective, booksellers from independent bookstores across the nation submit nominations for the books published each month that they’re most excited about.

I’m proud, and slightly startled, to announced that A GOOD AMERICAN has been selected as the #1 pick for February 2012.

As you might imagine, this is fabulous news.  Independent bookstores remain the beating heart of the publishing industry.  Their influence is of unparalleled importance when it comes to creating a buzz about new titles and handselling the right books to the right customers.  Indie bookstores are owned and staffed by knowledgable, articulate, fantastically well-read people who are passionate about books.  I can’t imagine a more gratifying nod of approval.  I’m incredibly humbled and flattered.

So – thank you, thank you, indie bookstore people everywhere, for your amazing vote of confidence in A GOOD AMERICAN.

]]> http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/a-good-american-1-pick-for-februarys-indie-next-list/feed/ 1 http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/holiday-cheer/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=holiday-cheer http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/holiday-cheer/#comments Sun, 18 Dec 2011 15:44:59 +0000 Alex George http://alexgeorgebooks.com/?p=4701 Click here to continue...]]> Something of a pot-pourri today.

Good news continues to roll in about the book.  We are now hearing about media coverage in newspapers and magazines, and it is all very exciting.  I will post nearer the time when and where things will be appearing.

In the meantime, I have to share this wonderful review of A GOOD AMERICAN by Michael Magras.  It was a wonderfully thoughtful (and generous) write-up.  Michael and I have been corresponding on twitter for some time, usually about either writing or jazz, and so it should come as no surprise that the focus of his reading was on the musical elements in the novel.  I have Michael’s new novel on my kindle and am looking forward to reading it over Christmas.

Speaking of which, the festive spirit has finally arrived in our house.  We had a late start and were starting from scratch in terms of decorations but the children and I have been hard at work with the glitter glue and stickers and now we have a nattily-dressed tree that we are quietly proud of.

The children are staying with me pretty much all the time until Christmas Day.  It will be beyond strange, and I fear beyond awful, not to spend Christmas itself with them, but such is life.  This year they will get two visits from Santa, and right now we are all focusing on those kind of silver linings, such as they are.

Once I have dropped the kids off, I will be turning the car east and driving down I-70 to St. Louis.  Since I won’t be seeing the children again until after the New Year, I’ll be flying back to England on Christmas Day itself, arriving home on what we call Boxing Day.  Being on the other side of the ocean from my children will be hard, but it will be wonderful to see the rest of my family (including the northern California contingent.)  While I am in England I will be reading (a lot), catching up on a backlog of blog posts that I owe various people, doing a variety of interviews and PR-related stuff, meeting my agent and seeing old friends in London, and (I hope) catching my breath before the madness of publication begins in earnest next year.

On the subject of catching one’s breath, I am joyfully rediscovering the therapeutic benefits of having a dog.  There is a park near our house where dogs are allowed to run off-leash and the four of us have been there three times in the last two days.  Theo runs with the other dogs, while my pet-crazy children pet any four-legged creature they can get near.  The weather has been unseasonably warm for the past couple of days, and we have loved just being outside in the fresh air, watching our puppy have the time of his life.  It’s astonishing how witnessing such unbounded joy can rub off on you and wipe away more quotidian worries.

The other wonderful thing about all this is the aftermath.  Tired children + tired dog = relative peace and deep, deep contentment.

]]> http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/holiday-cheer/feed/ 5 http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/news/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=news http://www.alexgeorgebooks.com/news/#comments Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:30:32 +0000 Alex George http://alexgeorgebooks.com/?p=4640 Click here to continue...]]> 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.

If you read this blog, the chances are you’re interested in books.  And if that’s the case, may I humbly suggest that you join Goodreads, if you haven’t already?  Goodreads is a great online community of readers.  It’s like a book-centric facebook, but without all the annoying games, aggravating political inanities, and pictures of other people’s puppies.  It’s the largest book-related social media site on the planet, which means that you’ll always find someone ready and willing to chat about whatever your literary interests may be, no matter how rarefied.

And if you do? Or if you already have? Please take a minute to look me up and become my friend – or, if you’re really a glutton for punishment, become a, ahem, “fan”.

Here’s another reason to join.  One of the other cool things about Goodreads is that they give away lots of books.  You can probably guess what’s coming next… my publisher is hosting a giveaway of 25 galleys of A GOOD AMERICAN.  If you are a member you can go here and click on the “enter to win” button.  You have until December 5 to do so.  Good luck!!

In other news, plans for events in February to mark the publication of the book are slowly coming together.  We are waiting for the final pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to drop into place and once that has happened I will let you know.  I also spoke with the wonderful Penguin publicity people on Friday and learned more about some of the media coverage for the book.   Reviews a-plenty!  It’s all very exciting, and I will announce stuff here just as soon as I am able.

Happy Monday, everyone!