Friday, March 04, 2016

Book, other books and things, and even a video game!

Did you want to see the spiffy new blurb by CLAIRE MESSUD that's right on the front cover? Well. You know what you have to do. (CLAIRE MESSUD! Right?)
So. This book comes out in one month. I know you know this, but preordering a book sends a message to the sales team. And that message is: People have preordered the book! Which means that they won't remainder it before it even gets published. I want to say you should buy it because you will love it! And you might. I really, really hope you do! But really, you should buy it to spare me the aching, squirrely humiliation of it not getting bought. Is that wrong to say? Please preorder it, and please bribe your friends to do the same. (A nice bottle of Pinot, I'm thinking, or some Fiddle Faddle.) Also, please ask your local booksellers about it! But if they don't carry it or plan to, and won't even deign to order it for you, and are like, "Catastrophic what?" you totally don't need to leave a message on my answering machine about that! Even if you think it might be helpful! Just saying. 

Also? I did the audio recording. Which gave me and the audio producer a great new get-rich-quick idea: Jews Read Your Favorite Books on Tape. Harry Potter, for example, but nasal, with a New York accent, and interrupted by laughing at my own jokes! You will love it.
This book is so dear and so funny that after I went to Cammie's reading, she sent me an email thanking me for laughing so much, and I had to resist the urge to interpret it as asking "What on earth is your problem?"
Okay, but enough about my book (which you have now pre-ordered, no?). Because my friend and neighbor Cammie's middle-grade book is out now, and Birdy and I love it immeasurably much. Just My Luck. The downtrodden main character is so utterly, heartbreakingly lovable that all I could say when I was done with the book was, "Promise me this will be a series." Also, because I have a hard time with the concept of fiction, and because there are three sons including one with autism, like there is in their very own family, I have a hard time not asking after things that are in the book that are not from real life. "How's your head injury?" I ask her husband Mike, every time I see him, and he indulges me by nodding slowly. "Better."

You should also read this book (I could not stop reading aloud from it) and this book (crushingly beautiful) and this book (a short, gorgeous, slow-paced stunner) and this book (which Birdy loved, and which was written by one of our friends from this very blog!).


Also, weirdly, I'm recommending this video game, Monument Valley, which we saw a little display about at the fantastic Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York, and which Ben is now obsessed with. He says this: "It's very M.C. Escher-y. You have to be able to manipulate the perspective in different landscapes to move your character along. And there's also kind of a storyline, but it's not super plot-driven, it's more design-driven, and each level has its own aesthetic theme that carries throughout. It's easily the nicest game I've ever played, visually." Ben actually even paid for higher levels, even though he's notoriously cheap, so there you go.

Meanwhile:

Birdy turned 13. WTF?

And finally? This. Lest you think it's all Martha Stewart all the time around here. Also, as a local friend asked out, when I posted this on Facebook, "Aren't there supposed to be *six* donuts in an Atkins bag?" Yeah, well. We call that the "finder's fee." 

43 comments:

  1. Darcey11:51 AM

    Happy Birthday, Birdy! Thanks for the laughs, Catherine, going to pre-order now!

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  2. OH MY GOD, I can't wait for April 5th! I'm gonna pour myself a big-ass glass of wine, open up a fresh bag of Smartfood (with a name like that, it's totally healthy, right?) and read that book from cover to cover. In bed. Also, you should totally do a book tour that involves Vancouver Island, because we would treat you SO WELL. Thanks for the book recommendations -- I just finished When Breath Becomes Air, sobbing all the way, then started back at the beginning. Happy birthday to Birdy! This was a very scattered comment, but I know you don't care. xo.

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  3. Preordered! I am going to *try* to save your book for late April when I will have many hours to kill chaperoning a HS marching band trip. It feels appropriate, as Waiting for Birdy accompanied me to the hospital for three births.

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  4. Catherine, Just pre-ordered your book for my kindle, so I can read it anywhere and I'm so excited for it. I love the photo of you at the computer and I'm giggling that you have a grabber too, I like deciphering what it is in the background....lol! Happy Birthday to Birdy, I can't believe she is a teenager already<3 Love her bed head picture too! What a cutie pie!

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  5. Pre-ordered now. I can't wait! And I can't wait to see you at your future book reading in Portland, Oregon!! Right? Right??!!
    I'll check out the others, too. LOVED When Breath Becomes Air (and could sob all over again just thinking about it).
    Happy 13th birthday to Birdy, Official Teenager!

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  6. Anonymous1:41 PM

    Already pre-ordered it. If you're taking book tour requests- St. Louis!

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  7. Anonymous2:25 PM

    Pre-ordered, and I got teary reading the reviews because that's exactly the way I felt reading "Waiting for Birdy" 7 years ago! I can't wait to read this!

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  8. Catherine, I've been lurking for a million years. Of course, I pre-ordered the book and can't wait. You've been a friend and a source of humor and connection and inspiration without even knowing it. Come to Peoria, IL for a book reading. Please?!

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  9. Anonymous3:25 PM

    Pre-ordered! LOVED Waiting for Birdy and can't wait for this one.

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  10. How did I not know this was happening? Of course I preordered! 2/3 of my kids are between the ages of 4 and 14. The other 1/3 will get there in a couple years, as soon as he stops being a big bald baby. Waiting for Birdy is one of my favorite and most recommended books.I can't wait for it to have a companion. :)

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  11. So, 4 books for my Kindle later.... I have read your writing here (and there) for so many years, and made your Tortilla Soup so many times that it's part of our rotation. I am really looking forward to your book (and your friend's book for my 11 year-old, and the new Elizabeth Strout book that I was hesitating about, and... I don't remember the 4th one!). And my kids may even get a new game to play. Thank you.

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  12. Anonymous6:46 PM

    Ordered!

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  13. Are we making you a list of places to tour? Add Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca NY. I'll help you fill the place!

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  14. I have pre-ordered your book! And as an overshare can I say that your two beautiful children are the main check in my "pro" column for disrupting our happy one-child family? Also my kid is finally old enough to play Junior Catan instead of Mermaid Island which may have something to with these feelings.

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  15. I went to pre-order it and according to Amazon I already bought it in October! Way to go, past me.

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  16. Beth Ellen Rosenbaum9:50 PM

    Pre-ordered! I'm very excited! What will I do with myself (and my two children who are exactly your children's ages) until then?

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  17. My husband gave me your pre-ordered book, from our local bookseller, for Christmas! I actually teared up at the Atkins donut bag. I went to Hampshire a million years ago and all we could smell, every night, was the scent of baking donuts, drifting through the apple orchard to our vegan co-op. Sigh.

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  18. nice blog but for popularity you’re struggling to develop your Twitter following. Buying Twitter followers has become a popular method for business, celebrity to grow their existence and popularity on Twitter. About 28% of Twitter users have bought followers and the numbers continue to increase more. Are you being left out? The industry provides you with to live through it.
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  19. Preordered, and not even the kindle version- got it in hardcover. Hello bubble bath and a glass of wine reading!!!

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  20. Sorry, I'm not pre-ordering. I'm holding out hope that you're coming to Porter Square Books in Cambridge so I can ride my bike and spend my money locally and feel all super trendy (while the minivan is parked a mile away). By golly, if you don't make it, I'll buy the darn thing for sure either way. :)

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    1. Yes please, Porter Square Books!

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  21. Pre-ordered your book and the other books you recommend are the only books I have recently been reading. I tried to read the last paragraph of When Breath Becomes Air without crying, but after six times I realized it won't be happening. So beautiful.
    After nine years, my much older body is again waking all night long with a sweet baby....each morning thinking I just want three hours of sleep in a row! Funny, you think you won't mind, or you will have more perspective, but sleep obsession doesn't change!

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  22. Dear Catherine, I have pre-ordered your book for my Kindle from France. Hopefully it will show distributors that you have an amazing international following!

    Loved the Birdy book soooo much; I read it in the first few months after my second son was born and it's the closest and funniest and most touching depiction I've ever read of what it's really like to have a second child.

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  23. Congrats on the book- know it will be a huge hit! P.S. And I refuse to believe Birdy is 13 . . . (Sob)

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  24. Anonymous9:00 PM

    After reading (lurking) around your columns for years (back to Babycenter), I'm commenting to suggest a book tour stop in Oakland, CA. I actually saw you at A great Good Place for Books in Oakland when Waiting For Birdy came out but was too starstruck to even get my book signed (total nerd, right?). Anyway, think about it: awesome burritos, great thrift stores, thriving beer scene...I'm just sayin'

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    1. Anonymous12:16 AM

      Yes! Come to the Bay Area! Come for days! We'll feed you amazingly well and we'll bring all our friends and we'll buy extra copies, yes please!! (I preordered months ago and can't wait for Apr 5.)

      Also, yes, yes to the Coates and the Kalanithi. Emphatically and a thousand times yes.

      But seriously - SF/Oakland/Peninsula.. or your old stomping ground in Santa Cruz... just come. We'll schlep to wherever.

      kj

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  25. I clearly remember the "The Birdy Has Landed" post that Michael wrote. How can that be 13 years ago? How can my baby who wasn't quite 2 be about to turn 15? And my daughter loves that video game. My husband does too.

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  26. Birdie is 13... 13. We blinked. shoot. ;)
    Book pre-ordered. Cannot wait... I'll have to order more for gifts when the discretionary funds allow it. Hugs and congrats!

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  27. A didn't say Happy Birthday to Birdie! eeek
    Happy Birthday dear Birdie! <3 from a complete stranger on the internet (well not complete)

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  28. STOP IT, Birdy cannot POSSIBLY be 13. Agh!

    (I preordered months ago. Can't wait!!)

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  29. Preordered from our local independent bookstore! Will you be doing any readings in the Boston/Cambridge area?

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  30. Preordered a while back, but now I may just have to preorder another copy or two for gifts because I KNOW I will want to share! Happy birthday, Birdy. My oldest is just a few months older. In fact, I discovered your writing while pregnant with her and have followed your voice everywhere since then. 13 years? Really? How did that happen?

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  31. SO excited you have a new book coming out-the world needs more of your writing and your message. I love how it reaches all the way to fourteen-which we're closer to than four. I could use the humor and hope I know your book will convey but my sis-in-law could REALLY use it, but sadly I can't envision her reading it with three kiddos under five in her charge. I'm holding out for the audio version for her and will get myself the real book. Do you know when the audio book will happen? Same time as release of book? Thanks for the new book title recommendations, too! I bought Jooge The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz for Christmas and ended up reading it myself. It was really good, I would recommend to Birdie and you!

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  32. NO!!!!! NOT a photo of Atkins donuts to a former local! NO!! That is torture! I will take a week to pre-order on a account of that (just kidding! no, but seriously, that was cruel) ;-P WOW, so Birdy is ONE YEAR minus a few DAYS younger than Kelvin, my oldest, whose birthday is on 3/9? Born in the same hospital, almost a year apart. wow. How do I not remember this every year?

    CAN'T WAIT for your book!!

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  33. Pre ordered the book, and then added the others to my shopping cart. Just bought and LOVE Monument Valley. As does my 5yo daughter. Thank you

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  34. Pre-ordered the book. Ate yay it's Wednesday leftover spaghetti. Happy birthday Birdy, xoxo.

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  35. Anonymous9:35 AM

    Preordered from Northshire Saratoga, with a strong recommendation that they order it for the store!

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  36. Pre ordered the book, and then added the others to my shopping cart. Just bought and LOVE Monument Valley. As does my 5yo daughter. Thank you
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  37. miryboo12:56 PM

    Wait. How long has that "new website" link been there?! And a novel?!!!!! How exciting!

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  38. I can't wait to have it in my hot little hands!

    Happy birthday, Birdy! You were Waiting for Birdy at the same time that I was waiting for my son Owen, and I feel like maybe time folded in on itself because how can a teenager's worth of years have passed since then? It is a mystery.

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  39. Yesss Atkins cider donuts! Fond memories of my Hampshire College days.

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  40. Anonymous1:50 AM

    Come to JosephBeth Booksellers in Cincinnati Ohio!!!!

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  41. awww! Happy birthday, Birdy! And thanks for all the book recommendations, Catherine! hopefully one day soon I'll be able to send you *my* book!

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