Update on the mysterious Amazon listing. No. My God, Navalny.

I guess it is winter, after all. Snow yesterday – very pretty. The garden:

Must go fill the bird-feeder, shown on the right.

So, an update on my book, which was supposed to be released yesterday on Amazon, 3 1/2 months after its release locally. I and others were looking forward to this. Nobody is enamoured of Amazon, the behemoth, but it’s the biggest bookseller in the world where many turn to buy books and ebooks, particularly those in far-flung places.

My book is listed as “temporarily out of stock.”

The publisher would prefer readers buy from his press, Mosaic. I understand; keep the money in Canada. However, as a writer, my wish is for as many people as possible to be able to effortlessly buy my book, and that means a listing, among others, on Amazon. I hope it will be up there soon.

I am currently taping the audiobook; it’s going well, and I think it’ll be pretty good and released in a couple of months. If you want the book now, please order it from the wonderful Ben McNally Books, your local bookseller, or from Mosaic.

In other news, I treated myself on Valentine’s Day. People have given me a few good bottles of wine that are saved for special occasions with others, like during the visit of my friends from France. But on Feb. 14, as I contemplated dinner — Christmas dinner unthawed from my freezer, surprisingly good — I decided to open a good bottle. Luckily Monique came over and had a glass, and next day Toronto Lynn came for dinner and we finished it off, so it was not a solo bottle after all. Delicious.

P.S. Apologies for this impossibly trivial post. I just found out that the heroic Alexei Navalny is dead. Why oh why did he go back to Russia? Surely he knew what fate awaited him. That extraordinary man, despite impossible odds, kept his sense of humour until the end. The only good thing about this horrendous, sickening news is that surely it will remind the world, and the fucking venal, power-hungry, conscienceless Republicans, what a loathsome murderer Putin is.

The world desperately needed a man of your caliber, your courage and vision, Alexei. We mourn your loss. Your murder.

The post Update on the mysterious Amazon listing. No. My God, Navalny. appeared first on Beth Kaplan.