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."