Matthew Pearl's Blog, page 7

First Impressions, The Last Dickens

Happy to report some really nice early coverage and reviews of THE LAST DICKENS. I wanted to share these with you, and hope you'll make your own comments on Facebook, blogs, book selling sites, twitter (twitter's still mostly a mystery to me), etc.:

http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment...

http://features.csmonitor.com/books/2...

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articl...

Here's a great early blog post, too, from a Good Reads reader:

http://nocbooks.blogspot.com/2009/03/...

How to sign?

With each book, I've tried to have a little "catchphrase" to make a signed copy more fun. So for The Dante Club I write "Welcome to the 'Club'" (originally it was "Go to Hell" but I was worried someone wouldn't get the joke), and for The Poe Shadow I write "See you in 1849."

But what about The Last Dickens? Something Dickensian? Since the characters' searching for Dickens's lost ending to his last novel stirs up the book's central mysteries, maybe something like "Help find the ending."

Sometimes people give you very specific requests, for instance to write "Happy Birthday Aunt Edna, a fellow fan of Dante's infernal journey." Actually, that makes it easier!

"God bless us, every one"?

Still thinking... Any ideas are welcome, even though I know most wouldn't have read the book yet, at least in the US.