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| me staring into ipod lens in the always buzy cookery section. No one cooks anymore but my God do they buy crappy celebrity cookery books by the bucketload |
...
Munro's only had 1 copy of one of my books but I suppose 1 is better than none and they did have a nice selection of books from friends and colleagues of mine. They had a good sampling of Stuart Neville, John Connolly, John McFetridge, Tana French and Ian McDonald. They also had a great history section full of the latest British and American (and presumably Canadian) releases. There was also a nicely curated science fiction section with a couple of interesting new African science fiction books and the new Hannu Rajaniemi which I bought for the ferry ride back to America. There was a great kids section too and the friendly staff were smart and knowledgeable and able to give recommendations based on your reading history.
...
I'd also like to mention the rather eccentric toilet situation which I won't unpack for you here, but if you are in Munro's I recommend that you ask to use the bathroom and you'll see what I'm talking about...
61 comments:
Lucky you; Munro's had not a single copy of my book.
Onward to another subject--Victoria BC. It is without doubt the most beautiful city in Canada, so you could be excused for missing the rest of Vancouver Island. I suggest you spend some time on the island, say rent a car and explore following only your nose. If you want specifics; try Campbell River, salmon capitol of the world, then take the short ferry (and your car) over to Quadra Island. There's a pub/restaurant/hotel at Elliott Bay.
One caviot however: the bears (black, no grizzlies) are docile but mountain lions have killed (and eaten) several bicyclists and joggers on Northern Vancouver Island. Traveler beware.
Anyhow, the Island is a must go, before you go home to Australia.
Enough for now.
Your tease about Munro's bathroom (about which you must tell more) sounds like the catalyst for a crime novel featuring a provincial detective with irritable bowel syndrome. Just imagine the dramatic possibilities as the unfortunate detective must irregularly and frequently interrupt his pursuit of the killer, urgently seeking out singular bathrooms in unlikely places--e.g., Munro's.
Personal postscript: I remember interrupting the tour of an artist's workshop in Rejkyavik--the caretaker was kind enough to allow me use of the "facilities" (just in the nick of time). There are some moments in life you never forget.
Brian
I like the idea of the bears, I've never seen a bear in the wild before, it might be exciting and a little scary.
My book was a sad and lonely figure in the crime fiction aisle which was being swamped by Lee Child and Jo Nesbo.
RT
Cant say anymore about the bathroom as it would spoil it. You'll just have to check it out for yourself.
My favourite bathroom in the world was a toilet in the rock city of Petra which was semi exposed to the elements and afford a fantastic view over the whole "lost" city.
Actually speaking of that I remember the toilets of the Kentucky Fried Chicken in Giza were pretty incredible as the view out the window was one of the best in the city of the great pyramid.
Maybe I'll stop in for a few of those beers and save my visit to the facilities for the bookshop.
At least in crime fiction, Canadian releases tend to be simultaneous with U.K., releases, which means some novels will be available in Canada before they are in the U.S.
This is not a book shop, so perhaps the seque is not fair-game, but McGuire's Pub in Pensacola, Florida, is worth a visit; when you visit, have a seat, have a beer and sandwich, and entertain yourself by keeping a watch on the traffic going in and out of bathrooms, which is not as perverse as it must sound. BTW, the food and beverage are worth the visit, and McGuire's is consistently rated as one of the best spots in all of the southeastern U.S.
The small, independent bookstores are more rare than ---------------. Well, you fill in the blank.
Here, in my neck of the woods, the few independents cannot complete with B&N and Amazon, so they specialize instead mostly in used books. Someday, Adrian, perhaps your books will show up there! In the meantime, I have annoyed the local library with my special requests. As for B&N and Amazon being markets, I am holding against them as much as possible. So, sorry, Adrian, I have to wait until either the library or one of my review editors come through for me.
BTW, contact me again via email; I accidentally purged your previous note, and we were on the verge of working something out regarding ARCs.
Man-eating lions and toilets - from a topic on browsing in bookshops, fab.
I have quaked in a tent in the High Andes of Peru while a puma prowled (see another post on this blog)...The tent was a standard British Army issue 6-man tent, and did not have a built-in groundsheet - and yes, I was sharing it with two British soldiers, a Bombardier and a Royal Engineer.
Toilets I have known.. I will save that topic for another time, suffice to say, the worst - or best- dunny I encountered came with several shit-eating pigs. You won't want to be eating while reading.
Browsing in bookshops, a wonderful way to pass time. Adrian - people do cook nowadays, and even use the recipes from celebrity chefs' books.. I got Jamie O to autograph my favourite recipe when I worked with him. Clunky, tortuous name-drop no.15
RT - a detective with IBS sounds like a go-er. I can't think of anyone else who has covered that topic! Or would want to...
Deb says: "RT - a detective with IBS sounds like a go-er. I can't think of anyone else who has covered that topic! Or would want to..."
Really? "[S]ounds like a go-er." Really?
Could the detective's name be Johnny Bigelow? No. I think not.
I kid you not, the anti-robot prompt is "diahope." Yikes!
I don't think you mentioned, Adrian, that the store was founded by Alice Munro and her husband....nice fish and chips place around the corner on the water, Red and Blue or something, but I guess it's closed in the winter.
Although I have to admit that my childhood reading was mostly made possible by the public library and Scholastic book fairs, as an adult, I find the vanishing world of bookstores one of the saddest things about going around and visiting new places.
That's interesting that Alice Munro is behind this store. Authors like Larry McMurtry and Ann Patchett have also gotten themselves involved in the bookstore biz. Hopefully they are not relying on these endeavors for income.
Peter
Its interesting that Munro's often carried the same book in both British and American editions with different covers, quotes etc. In the history section this was quite evident.
RT
Never been to Pensacola but I'd love to go. In fact its always been a dream of mine to go to Florida for Spring Training but I've never had the opportunity.
As for those galleys. All of em are long gone mate.
Deb
My theory is that those books are bought as a kind of food porn, to look at the pretty pictures of recipes and not really as guides to making anything. There are older and better and more utilitarian and duller guides to the actual cooking. The Olivers and Lawsons et al are really just there to give to people when you cant think of anything else. Its completely inoffensive to give and get the Jamie Oliver cookbook. The fact that the poor chap is illiterate is neither here nor there....
Matt
I did not know that. Its nice to know now. In August I read Munros book about her Scottish antecedents (they sound like a right boring lot) so its nice that Munro's is literally next door to a Scottish pub.
Deb
Sounds like you've got plenty of excellent material for a memoir there...
Seana
Well my hometown of Carrickfergus now has zero bookstores. This is a pretty big town and not one bookshop.
I guess they will all disappear one day which makes visiting them all the more exciting and poignant.
And British/Canadian paperbacks may have tended to be larger and printed on cheaper paper.
Your friend Jo Nesbo used to do book tours of North America, promoting one book in the U.S. and the following book in the series, which was being released in Canada at the same time.
Interesting you should call Nigella Lawson et al. food porn. Her books have been noted for their mildly salacious titles and covers.
I forgot that you like delapidation.
We do a lot of events at our store, but sad to say, the literary ones have a very unpredictable draw. The cookbook events, on the other hand, tend to do fabulously. Probably because people make samples of the recipes.
I had Christmas dinner with a motley crew, and one of them was a woman from Northern Ireland of Protestant ancestry. I asked her if she knew Carrickfergus, and she said she did. I told her about your books and she said she'd look into them because she liked crime fiction, but I have the feeling that she won't. And I think that's because she doesn't really want to revisit that era. I think she felt she had to get out or become too involved in the whole situation. She ended up marrying an American Trotskyite who studied at the Menninger clinic, so I'm not sure it was really the escape she had envisioned. I hope she does read it, though.
The "number" part of my captcha thing is the word PIZZA with some kind of window hook on the end.Google, you are really pushing it.
Back to music - sorry A, couldn't find the old relevant post of favourite bands, albums
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJEVkuNsEi0 Little Green Cars - Irish Times best Irish act of 2012
Peter
Yeah the Canadian version of the science fiction novel I bought was a large paperback rather than a hardback. I dont like the format but I prefer it to a hardback.
Seana
This has been my problem in selling any copies of these books. Irish Americans dont want to read anything out of their comfort zone which is a very narrow place indeed. And no one in the UK wants to hear another goddamn thing about those awful Paddies. And no one in Ireland ever wants to read anything at all related to the Troubles. So my potential market is pretty close to zero. If I could have transplated the entire story to Oslo somehow of course I'd be laughing.
Deb
Looks good. My niece saw them in October I believe.
Seana
this is apropos:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/28/us/libraries-try-to-update-the-bookstore-model.html
mmm funny you should mention memoirs - my brother in Oz is writing his. In January [major international publishing house] rang him and said, 'We are really enjoying your TV series. Can you write?' Incredible eh?? Rest of us have to hope we find a publisher....
Deb
Well if he's looking for a ghostwriter...that's my other secret life.
But actually I think ghostwriters are a bad idea. Ghostwriters dilute the voice and the vision and try to impose narrative where chaos is much more fun...
Catch up with him when you are back in Oz - he lives in Ocean Grove, so not so far from your neck of the woods.. Mind you, he is doing fine with the writing - he (and I) have always had to write for work..
Catch up with him anyway for a few bevvies! He and his wife are great hosts - there is even an independent bookstore in OG to check out http://www.bookgrove.com.au/ - and of course, great beaches.
Deb
Yeah if I could give people who occasionally use my ghostwriting services it would be: write the damn thing yourself cos it'll be a lot more interesting in your voice.
I know Ocean Grove, its just across from Sorrento. Good surfing beaches nearby but a HELL of a commute from Melbourne.
Yeah, I meant not far in Oz-distance! They are about 1.5 hours south of Melbourne. I was phased by the sheer size of the place when I visited.. even tho' I KNEW it was a vast continent..
Bloody spell-check!! Fazed, fazed damn u
Good article from the NYT. It sounds like libraries are involved in the same kind of juggling act that bookstores are. Frankly, I think it's kind of a race to the botoom, but at least they're all trying.
I think the Northern Irish immigrants would actually like your book, but it's getting them to try it that's the problem.
The libraries have at least two problems: (1) evaporating budgets (with less money for books because of other costs--see below); (2) fewer readers with more narrow reading interests (e.g., my local library's book lending is in decline, but computer usage is skyrocketing, with more computers added every couple of months, which means the library is more like a computer cafe than a haven for book lovers). I wonder if this a widespread phenomenon. What about other places in the country and the world?
RT, Seana
I was pretty shocked to discover last summer that my local library in Carrickfergus, basically the place where I learned to read, had gotten rid of a lot of its stock to make way for computer rooms and places to do the internet. It was actually quite horrifying to see how empty the place was.
Deb
Thats a 1.5 hour drive on a very good day.
The distances can be pretty daunting Sydney and Melbourne look really close on a map of Australia but they're a good 12 hour drive apart and its a 2 or 3 day journey to drive to Alice Springs.
You do have to have computers in libraries now, but the mistake is to make them the focus. Because once it's all about computers, then you don't need a central place to use them.
I think we're in weird times, because people don't actually need to go anywhere to get things. But they need physical places where they can bump into each other as much as ever.
Our downtown is pretty lively, but I don't really know how it's holding on. Good climate helps.
At least book stores remain great bump-into-others places. Even the big chain stores--warts and all--have that going for them. But in the small book stores, people who work there have actually read books, which is not the case in the behemoths.
I worked briefly in a chain and I have known many people since then who have worked in them and I'd say that the booksellers at a small store and a big chain aren't actually that different a demographic. What I notice more is the way booksellers tend to drift around from place to place. Not everyone is a huge reader, of course, but everyone has some affinty for the printed word, because you certainly wouldn't be there for either the pay or the prestige.
Jo Nesbo isn't bad company... If you have to be on a bookshelf with other novelists. Lee Child not so much.
Adrian, don't underestimate your American audience. I personally am sick to my eye teeth of books about terrorists in DC and NY. Tired detective series that are predictable and 10 books past their prime are leaving crime fiction readers desperate for change. Your books are fabulously refreshing. I think the popularity of european and nordic crime fiction supports my theory... I have converted my entire family to Adrian McKinty fans. Keep 'em coming!
Melissa
Yeah I like Nesbo much more than Child.
To be honest though you're in a minority, The Cold Cold Ground did so badly in America (garnering no reviews at all! and very few sales) that I'll bet the publisher is having doubts about publishing parts 2 and 3 of the trilogy at all. It wouldnt surprise me if they didnt.
As much as I applaud Seventh Street books for bringing Cold, Cold Ground to the U.S.,I don't understand their strategy at all. As a bookseller, I would never have heard of it if I hadn't already known about it, and as far as I know, there were no galleys sent to our store, which is a fairly large place in the indie realm. In an age where every author is told how to use the social media to promote a book, how is it that a publisher doesn't understand that they have to market the hell out of the thing?
As Melissa says, people do like it. I recommended it to a friend who is a Pelecanos fan and he was instantly clammering for more and now is telling his sister about them.
I really don't think the American reading audience is the problem here.
Oh, and having heard Child interviewed recently and met Nesbo, I would take Nesbo any day of the week.
As for not having an audience, remember Herman Melville. His earlier south-seas adventure novels sold well, and the he lost his audience with _Moby-Dick_, so go figure. His audience caught up to him long after he was gone.
Of course, that is no comfort to an author seeking an audience. Sorry. It is the best I could come up with here.
Adrian, it would be very disappointing to see a publisher turn down part two and three of this trilogy. I'm sure you have some great fun planned at Duffy's expense and I would hate to miss out on that.
If you don't mind my asking... Why didn't you plan a trilogy around Falling Glass? Killian is a character that deserves a couple more books in my opinion. He is an anti-hero very much like Mike Forsythe and I know the dead trilogy did very well. I would certainly read them!
Melissa
Seana, you have a good point. If I didn't keep up with Adrian by checking his blog I wouldn't know about new books at all. I think he needs a better publisher.
Seana
Its very depressing and demoralising for me if I'm honest about it all.
RT
Posthumous success seems utterly worthless. I dont even want success, I just want to make a living...
Melissa
Yeah I loved Killian but I loved the way that book ended even more (although the ending gets a lot of shit over at Good Reads and Audible) and I felt that one more additional word would spoil that ending.
Seana
It was probably a mistake on my part to go with Seventh Street books. I had hoped that a new imprint would have new, fresh, interesting ideas and would be keen to promote in crazy, different ways. But actually its just a question of money. They had none and couldnt it seems even afford to send out galleys.
I was softened up though by getting several rejections by the major houses who looked at my previous sales figures and declared that I was uncommerical (at least 2 of the houses didnt even read that actual book itself). Alas these houses now look prophetic as Cold Cold Ground will have even worse numbers that my other books.
All this probably means that I'll never be able to find a N American publisher again even if I somehow fluke a bestseller in the UK.
Do you not make a living? Are you/ have you been living in fascinating vibrant cities? Are you not doing what you want? (Not being accusatory, just curious, and drinking red wine and watching MOTD2 at same time)
Deb
No, I'm not really making a living to be honest. Yes I'm living in interesting places but I'm working day jobs, casual jobs and living fairly hand to mouth to keep the wolf from the door. I'm also taking any ghostwriting jobs and editing jobs that come along and as a result of all that I'm too mentally and physically exhausted to really give writing the focus I would like. If I could make a living from my books I'd quit everything else and 1) be less knackered all the time 2) probably write better books
Doesn't the world seem crazy? You write so well.. Who makes the money out of you? I must admit I got the Dead Trilogy for 89p each for kindle from Amazon this week, advance of IHtSiTS for just over a fiver .. what is going on?? These seem daft prices.
BTW, have you witnessed a knee-capping?/ after effects of? - that scene made me nearly wretch, sparse but so well-written.
Adrian, your financial plight is one reason (I think) that so many writers are found in academia; the tenured position is a good hedge against low book sales.
While I am neither a writer (like you) nor a tenured professor, I do earn my living as an adjunct, and that very much keeps the hungry wolves at bay.
You said you had taught high school English. Why not re-enter that blackboard jungle?\
In any case, I commend your can-do spirit, and I wish you success. Hang in there.
Deb
Most of my books have broken even or made a small profit because my advances have been small and eventually the sales have trickled in enough to cover those advances. Books that sell a few thousand copies and break even over 5 or 6 years however are not going to make the accountants happy and its the accountants not the editors who run most of the publishing houses in the Anglo-American world. So to them I'm the equivalent of box office poison...
RT
Yeah I loved teaching. Probably the biggest mistake of my life came in the mid 2000's when I decided to quit teaching and write full time.
Slaps forehead.
But the option is always open and I still like to keep my hand in as a subsitute teacher (one of the funnest jobs in the world, if you ask me).
Adrian,
that is just depressing. Authors like Child and Evanovich churn out book after book and people buy them because they are invested in the characters. Very few of those books are any good but that doesn't seem to matter. It's like day time TV, you know it's terrible but can't stop watching.
True writers, talented writers like you get pushed aside and called uncommercial because you don't have huge sales numbers but it's the publisher's job to get you those numbers. It's just sad.
Once upon a time I was a substitute in high school. I felt more like a target in a shooting range--well, metaphorically that is.
It is safer at the university level. No adjunct will ever get rich, but it is a dirty job that someone must do. It protects the tenured profs from overworking themselves.
Melissa
Not all daytime TV is terrible. I still love Days of Our Lives when I get a chance to see it. As long as they have Stefano and Hope on there I'll keep tuning in....
RT
Ah yes, thats the difference I generally only sub in private schools or public elementary schools both of which I can handle with my meek disposition. I did teach once in Denver East a massive public high school and it was pretty intimidating.
What about screenplay work? (I have watched Ripper Street, new BBC drama, this evening, very good, very violent).
I worked on a TV prog with Philippa Gregory eight or nine years ago - author of Other Boleyn Girl etc - and I know she did screenplays too. Very interesting to see her at work, she typed away constantly between takes. She didn't isolate herself mind, good socialiser - crew and participants were altogether in some slightly rundown hotel in west London, so a boozy evening was in order.
I know you're not going to tell Seventh Street how to do their job, but in case they ever get round to asking you, many houses, small, large and otherwise are putting digital arcs on Edelweiss, which seems to be becoming the ordering system umbrella for at least indie stores. I've requested a few and downloaded a few, though not read them yet, because, well, I don't actually do that well on reading arcs ahead of time anyway. So I don't know how well this works, but it's better than nothing. At least people would see the name of the title as they scroll through.
I think there's a good stretch between being Lee Child and being a famous dead writer that you could hope to inhabit. You have to admit that the word of mouth by readers tends to be very good and the growth of your reputation is a lot more gradual than it should be, but if you keep your health up...
I don't think you made a mistake going with Seventh Street in lieu of other options. The book looks good, and it is easy to get at a reasonable price from the distributors without short discounts or anything, which is often a problem with little houses. I don't know that a big house would have done a whole lot more for you at this point. I mean at this point in their trajectories, not in yours.
Also, no sequel to Falling Glass, please. But a prequel wouldn't be out of the question...
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