Alex George's Blog, page 4

Goodreads Giveaway!

Somehow, the paperback of SETTING FREE THE KITES launches on Tuesday, January 9, and to celebrate, the nice people at Goodreads are giving away 25 copies of the book. Go here to enter your name for the drawing. You have until January 16 to put your name in the virtual hat. Good luck!

That Time I Interviewed Doris Kearns Goodwin

In addition to writing books, I also run a literary festival in Columbia, Missouri, called The Unbound Book Festival. It’s a great little event – we’re heading into our third year – and while it takes up a huge amount of time, I relish every moment of it. (You all should totally come, by the way. It’s completely free to attend. April 19 – 21, 2018. OK, end of commercial.)

One of the perks of the job is getting invited to do cool things which otherwise I would never have the chance to do – like interviewing bestselling Pulitzer Prize winning historian, Doris Kearns Goodwin. The evening prior to this chat Doris had spoken to a packed house at Jesse Auditorium on the University of Missouri campus. Our interview took place over breakfast the following morning. She was charming, and funny, and of course super-smart. If you want to know which US President would have been best at Twitter (clue: it’s not Donald Trump) – watch the clip.

 

Fall Appearances for SETTING FREE THE KITES

Greetings from lovely Maine, where my wife and I (and the dog) are spending a few blissful days reading, writing, and relaxing before we return to Missouri and face the madness that is the start of the new academic year. In addition to all the fun and games that having four children in four different schools entails (= military-precision planning that Rommel would have been proud of) and training for the New York Marathon, I also have some book events to look forward to in the next couple of months, because, you know, we weren’t going to be busy enough.

First up, I’ll be in Chicagoland on Sunday, August 27, at the Book Bin in Northbrook, IL. This is a fun event called Books n Bottles, the idea being that people will be able to drink wine while they listen to me talk about SETTING FREE THE KITES. My hunch is that the addition of wine will make me far more interesting. I’m certainly hoping so. There are actually two events scheduled, the first at 3.00 p.m. and the second at 5.00 p.m.  This will be my only appearance in the area, and I’d love to see you there.

Next up, I’ll be in Topeka, KS on Saturday, September 9, for the Kansas Book Festival. I love book festivals. (I love them so much I started one.) They’re always a wonderful opportunity to meet new readers and connect with authors. I’ll be discussing the book at noon, with a book signing afterwards, at 1 p.m.

On the subject of book festivals, St. Louis is launching a new one, Bookfest St. Louis, on September 23, and I’m thrilled to have been invited to participate in the inaugural event. Presented by the wonderful Left Bank Books, there are all sorts of fabulous writers attending, including my friends George Hodgman and Whitney Terrell (both of whom have written spell-binding, unmissable books which you should absolutely go out and read now.) And, oh yes, Sherman Alexie will be kicking things off the night before with what I know will be a wonderful event at the Sheldon Concert Hall.

I’d love to see you on the road!

Stealing the Words.

“When he left us, he stole all the words.”

One of the central dramas in SETTING FREE THE KITES revolves around the illness of Liam Carter, the brother of the novel’s narrator, Robert. Liam suffers from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. I first became aware of this terrible disease several years ago when I read a piece in the 2002 edition of Best American Essays by Penny Wolfson, which told, in heartbreaking terms, of her son’s struggle with the illness. I read and reread the essay many times, and then sought out the book from which it was extracted. I found more books on the subject and read them, too.

The disease is devastating. It is slow and degenerative, and there is no cure. Not many patients make it to their twentieth birthday. As I read, I kept wondering how families survive as they watch loved ones deteriorate toward an inevitable early death. When a topic refuses to leave you alone, that’s a pretty good clue that you should probably write about it, and so I did.

Several months ago, before the book was even published, I tried to read an excerpt of the novel that talked about Liam’s Duchenne to an audience in Barnes & Noble. It was almost unbearably difficult to do. Even now, I still find myself tongue-tied with grief at the thought of the damage caused by this terrible disease.

Liam, bless him, is still stealing all the words.

And so I’d like to ask you a favor.

On November 5, I’ll be running the New York Marathon as part of “Run for our Sons,” an on-going charitable fundraising drive created by to raise money for research to find a cure for this terrible disease. My goal is to raise $3,000. If Liam’s story in KITES touched you, then I would be eternally grateful if you felt able to contribute to this effort. You can go to my fundraising page here to make a donation. I will send a signed hardcover copy of the book to anyone who gives $250.00 or more.

Thanks so much for your consideration.

All the very best –

Alex

Day 31

Today I can eat what I want. But I probably won’t.

Yesterday my wife and I finished the Whole 30, a dietary regime which removes all sugars, gluten, grains, beans, dairy, alcohol and (it sometimes feels) just about everything else from your diet for 30 days. I went into the project with a fair amount of apprehension, perhaps for obvious reasons. On the first or second day we went to the supermarket and I got rather sad as I scoured the small print on the packaging looking for the treacherous words (fructose and dextrose) that had me reluctantly putting things back on the shelf. It turns out that there’s sugar in everything.

So for thirty days we ate a lot of meat and vegetables and salad and nuts, and not much else. I drank nothing but water and coffee. The jar of Nutella remained resolutely shut throughout.

If this all sounds like a lot of hard work, well, it was. We bought a Whole 30 cookbook and adapted recipes from a cookbook for runners and another called Weeknight Paleo. But the effort was worth it: we enjoyed a constantly changing and (usually) delicious menu, and discovered a lot of things we would not ordinarily have bothered to try. We used substitutes (ghee instead of butter, for example) and scoured shops for sugar-free fish sauce. To my astonishment, we ate wonderfully well and after about a week I (mainly) stopped counting the days until it was all over.

By far the hardest moments were when we ate out. Our favorite restaurant in Columbia serves the most delicious tacos, and these were strictly verboten. And it wasn’t easy to watch our friends drink beer and wine while we cracked open another can of lemon-flavored La Croix.

And, glory be, here we are at Day 31. I’ve lost thirteen pounds. I am sleeping better. I have more energy during the day. My metabolism seems to have reset itself and I get full much more quickly and feel less hungry. I don’t want any of these good things to stop, but this morning I’m confronted by an interesting psychological twist to all this. For the last 30 days we have been living according to a set of rules. It was simple: there were things that we were simply not allowed to eat. On Day 31, however, I find myself in far more dangerous territory. Those rules have been replaced by the infinitely more precarious concept of choice. Now each time I open the pantry door I am going to have to make a conscious decision not to eat this or that. It shouldn’t make a difference, but I know that it will. Rules are a comfort, a means to finesse the knotty issue of self-determination. Freedom to choose is far harder.

Wish me luck. Those tacos are already calling me.

 

 

Deep Breaths…

Remember me?

First of all, my apologies for the radio silence. It has been, without question, the busiest six or seven months of my life. In addition to the publication of SETTING FREE THE KITES and the attendant tour, I also put on the second Unbound Book Festival in April which was an astronomical time suck (if also fabulous fun.) Add to that a very busy time in my law practice, and the last push to finish my next novel… well, you get the picture.

Anyway, I finished the first draft of the new book a couple of weeks ago, and it is now in the hands of four trusted readers. I am trying to preserve what’s left of my fingernails as I wait for their feedback. (There is always a point when you realize that you have absolutely no clue whether what you’ve written is any good or not, so you have to ask someone else.) This is my seventh novel, but this waiting stuff never gets any easier.

The provisional title of the novel is PARIS QUARTET. It’s set in Paris (surprise!) and takes place over the course of one day in June, 1927. The novel onsists of four interlocking stories, each of which features a different protagonist who is struggling to escape ghosts from their past: a destitute painter, a journalist (and novelist manqué), Proust’s maid Celeste Albaret, and an Armenian puppeteer. Many of the well-known inhabitants of the city make cameo appearances, including Gertrude Stein, Maurice Ravel, Josephine Baker, Sidney Bechet, Sylvia Beach, John Dos Passos, and (inevitably, I suppose) Ernest Hemingway. I had a lot of fun writing it.

OK, not quite.

While I’m waiting for the verdict, I’ve been thinking a lot about my next project. The problem (and I realize it’s a nice problem to have) is that I actually have too many ideas for the next book. I keep shuttling between the various different ideas, desperately trying to work out which one I should pick. It’s a scary decision, knowing whichever one I plump for I’ll be spending the next several years of my life in that world. All of which is to say: you don’t want to screw it up.

No pressure, right?

In other news, it was a very nice surprise to discover A GOOD AMERICAN listed in Book Riot’s list of 100 Must-Read Books of U.S. Historical Fiction. The book has received a nice bump in interest thanks to the publication of KITES and this was a very welcome piece of news on the back of all that. My deepest thanks to everyone who’s picked it up lately. It’s lovely to see it enjoy another spin around the proverbial block.

Notes From the Road

Today is, I am reliably informed by various pieces of electronic equipment in my hotel room that must surely know better than I do, Tuesday. I am, therefore, in Seattle, and later today will be flying to Birmingham, Alabama.

Today is also the first time in eight days that I will not stand up in front of a crowd of strangers and talk about my book. It will be nice to have a day off. I’ve started to feel a little bit like Charlie Brown when he goes to school – all he ever hears when the teacher speaks is a low, tedious drone, devoid of actual words. The only difference is that in this instance, I’m also the one doing the talking.

Anyway, time to catch up.

My event with Rainy Day Books last Thursday night was great fun – a super, engaged crowd and of course the lovely Vivien Jennings asked excellent questions, not just about SETTING FREE THE KITES, but also about A GOOD AMERICAN and The Unbound Book Festival. Vivien and Roger have always been wonderful supporters of my work and it’s always a pleasure to see them.

Vivien Jennings and Roger Doeren of Rainy Day Books

The next day I flew to San Fransisco, and had three events over the next three days at three fantastic book stores: Rakestraw Books, Book Passage, and a Great Good Place for Books. What a joy to discover such places! It gives me so much hope to know that there are super smart, dedicated people still devoted to selling books the old-fashioned way. Rakestraw and GGP in particular are beautiful by virtue of their size – small but perfectly formed (or at least perfectly curated.)

Many excerpts. Many stickies.

 

With Garrett, my host at Book Passage

Alex and I spent a lovely day on Sunday exploring the city on foot, which involved climbing up and down many hills. The weather was glorious (after several weeks of unprecedented rainfall) and we enjoyed the sunshine. That night was the Oscars, but that didn’t stop people coming out to Oakland to a Great Good Place for Books. I was especially happy to meet Paula, a reader who had reached out to me over social media and whom I’ve been speaking to for some time. It’s always such a joy to meet these wonderful people IRL (as the kids say.)

With Paula at a Great Good Place for Books in Oakland. Hallelujah, Facebook!

Signing.

Kathleen, the owner of a Great Good Place for Books, was quite wonderful and told me that if she doesn’t literally bash customers over the head with books she really likes, she comes awfully close. My kind of bookseller!

Let’s Do Launch

Greetings from… wait, where the hell am I today?

Oh yes. It’s Thursday, so I must be in Kansas City, sitting in my hotel room before going to my event this evening where I will be talking with the wonderful Vivien Jennings from Rainy Day Books. Vivien is one of my very favorite people and has been very supportive of me and my books and I’m very much looking forward to talking to her about SETTING FREE THE KITES.

Tuesday night saw the official launch of the book at Barnes & Noble in Columbia. We had a fabulous crowd of people, and I’m very grateful to everyone who was kind enough to show up to help me wave the book off into the big wide world. My only regret was that bookseller extraordinaire Lisa Loporto, who has done so much for so many writers in our community, was too sick to attend. She was much missed. Cathy Salter did a lovely job introducing me at short notice – thank you, Cathy!

I did my usual schtick about the book, and people were very kind and laughed in all the right places. Then they were even kinder and bought copies of the book and then waited patiently in line to get them signed.  Musical entertainment was provided by my son, Hallam, who performed all his own songs, and very nicely, too. Here are some photos, courtesy of my brilliant friends Stacie Pottinger and Shane Epping.

The frankly amazing crowd. At least, some of ’em.

Look, you would be grinning, too.

Defacing private property.

 

He’s available for weddings, funerals, and bar mitzvahs.

The following day, which would be, wait, yesterday, I drove five hours to Wichita.  I spoke with the brilliant Newbery Award winning author Clare Vanderpool at the wonderful Watermark Books and Cafe, and then signed a bunch of books (SFTK will be part of the shop’s signed first edition series, which is very cool.)

Blackboard goodness.

This morning I woke up at 5.00 and drove back to Kansas City in time to appear on two (count ’em! Two!) morning TV shows (CBS and NBC) here in KC to promote tonight’s event. All of this, I might add, was fueled by nothing more than one cup of mediocre hotel coffee. Those of you who know me will appreciate what a mammoth achievement this is for me, craven slave to the coffee bean that I am.

Tomorrow I fly to San Francisco for three events in and around the city, then it’s on to Seattle. More soon.

The Calm Before the Storm…

Nearly there.

I’m writing this on Monday afternoon, February 20, 2017, the day before SETTING FREE THE KITES is published. At the moment all seems relatively calm.

I know from my previous books that the day of publication can be something of an anticlimax. Because here’s the shocking truth: the rest of the world has the temerity to continue on exactly as before, somehow oblivious of the grand momentousness of the day. Quite how this happens, I do not pretend to understand. All I know is that when you publish a book, the world does not, in fact, stop. I know. Horrors.

Tomorrow will be a busy one for me, though, and I’m grateful for that. I’m doing what’s called a “radio tour”, which means I have five hours of back-to-back radio interviews starting at 7.30 (drive time on the east coast) and going throughout the morning. I did this for A GOOD AMERICAN, too, and it’s a bizarre experience – or at least, it slowly morphs into one as the hours tick by. By the time you get to your sixth or seventh interview, a vertiginous sense of unreality sets in. You hear the words coming out of your mouth, but your brain is going: hang on. Is that really me talking?

I’ll be asking that question a lot in the forthcoming weeks, I daresay. I’m thrilled to be going on tour to so many wonderful bookshops, and can’t wait to meet a bunch of lovely readers, but the change in register between that very public way of carrying on and my usual one couldn’t be more stark.  These days I do find myself standing up in front of large crowds of people on a regular basis, but it tends to be to talk about The Unbound Book Festival, and not my own work. Writing books is a strange job. For 99% of the time it’s incredibly private, but the other 1% is a veritable orgy of toe-curling self-promotion (as, ahem, you may have noticed.) I’m comfortable in front of an audience – as my wife would put it, I’m awfully fond of the sound of my own voice – but it still is strange to be talking about something so private in such a public setting.

So, first off, I’ll be at Columbia’s Barnes & Noble tomorrow night at 7.00 p.m. to launch the book – I’d love to see you there, if you’re in the area – and then I’ll be off to the wonderful Watermarks Books and Cafe in Wichita, KS, to chat with Newbery Award winner Clare Vanderpool. I’m hoping to post fairly regularly from the road, if the Gods of Hotel Wifi deem it fit.

Finally, I mentioned in an earlier post that the price of the e-book of A GOOD AMERICAN has been reduced to $1.99 at all online retailers for a limited time. Yesterday the thing started going absolutely bonkers. It crept into the top 100 bestselling e-books on amazon, and over at Barnes & Noble’s website, this happened (and, in fact, is still happening at the time of posting this.) It’s surreal, but, well, it’s kind of fun, too.

Audiobook news and e-book sale!

Not long to go now.

This afternoon I am planning a trip to Walgreens to get “travel size” packs of shaving cream and toothpaste. Then I’m going to get my suitcase from the basement. Then I’m going to fill the suitcase with books.

All of which is to say… publication of SETTING FREE THE KITES is now four days away. We’re launching the thing at Barnes & Noble at 7.00 on Tuesday evening, and then I’m setting off on my travels.

And I am here to tell you two things:

First of all, Penguin have thrown caution to the wind and have reduced the e-book price of A GOOD AMERICAN to a frankly ridiculous $1.99 for a couple of weeks to co-incide with the publication of the new book. You can grab it here. I’m not quite sure when this offer ends, but I do know it won’t last for ever. So if you never got around to reading it when it came out, that’s OK, really, but – well, now’s your chance.

Second of all, for those of you who like audiobooks, Penguin have released an excerpt of KITES for you to listen to on Soundcloud. I chose the narrator, Ari Fliakos, and I really like what he’s done. It’s a super-smart reading, to my ears. He’s really paid attention to each word – and, as an author, I don’t know that I could ask for more. Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think.