I'm now three stops into this tour, and it's been a delight so far.
As I type this, I still have a beard.
Lev Grossman interviewed me at the 92nd St Y, and it was funny and glorious and he had amazingly shiny shoes and should have his own chat show.
The Big Gay Ice Cream Van was a huge success too.
Then I flew to Portsmouth New Hampshire, defying the rain gods, discovering that they have a submarine in a park that looks as if it is preparing to become a subterranean. Beautiful theatre, loverly people. The extra-loverly people at River Run bookstore should still have lots of signed books by me for sale and will ship them anywhere. I was interviewed on the Music Hall stage for NHPR's WORD OF MOUTH by the beautiful and funny Virginia Prescott, or as I will now always think of her, Crystal Ball-breaker.
Famed Periodical The Onion has started its campaign for a Pulitzer Prize. They asked if I'd make a video of me talking to the Pulitzer Committee for them, and I recorded this video.
I recommend watching the others - so far I'm a particular fan of the Ricky Gervais, the Mark Gatiss and the Ira Glass.
I'm in a hotel room in St Paul, along with two dogs, an assistant and a daughter, who all picked me up at the airport. It's odd being (sort of) home in the middle of a tour - normally I start here or finish here. This time I don't even get home to my house, so I am particularly glad that they all came out to see me.
I am not looking forward to getting Cabal into the lift (er, elevator) back down again. It went fine coming up, but he now knows what it is and will probably have remembered that he doesn't like elevators.
And if you're thinking of going to Canada, or leaving Canada, then you should read this: http://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/cbldf-case-files-canada-customs-case/. The latest Comic Book Legal Defense Fund case - they've agreed to help the Canadian Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund in defending a young man who had some Manga on his computer.
A bit jet-lagged and I have a head like a muffin right now. All is vague, and most conversations end with me saying, "Probably you should email me and tell me that we had this conversation". Which is fine, I suppose, given that the cure is just resting, catching up on sleep and, perhaps, walking the dog for a day or two.
The charts are out, and The Graveyard Bookis indeed at Number One. And as I typed that I got a call from Elise my editor to say we're still there at number one for the second week running -- which is an achievement for a book I keep being told that nobody can find. My favourite account of this is http://folkchick3.livejournal.com/380582.html where an attempt to buy The Graveyard Book turns into something approaching this:
(The visual track has been lost, so here is the audio and some stills).
And then we have a plaintive wail from Melbourne...
Hi Neil,
I find that the response of book stores in Australia to the upcoming November 1 release of The Graveyard Book to be lackluster at best.
I live in Melbourne and have been enquiring at every retailer in the CBD and surrounds about the release date, hoping that one store might have ordered advance copies. I found that most of the larger franchise stores don't seem to know about it or even to care enough to meet the release date.
This confuses me as I would have thought that The Graveyard Book would have been hyped up quite a bit after your visit here earlier this year.
The closest Borders store in Melbourne has bothered only to order five copies!
Considerering I intend to purchase more than one copy, I am worried for myself and my fellow Aussie fans that have been forced to wait and extra month for The Graveyard book to come out down-under.
I wish indeed that Melbourne had a Kinokuyniya like Singapores, or even in Sydney (which is hard for a Melburnian like myself to admit).
Cheers, Daniel
Hmmm. Speaking here as the author of the book in question...
I think my main suggestion, would be to call bookshops and see if they have it, and to reserve your copy if they do. Australian publishers Allen and Unwin back in Sydney will have lots of copies, which they want to sell in volume, and if bookshops sell their copies they will (we hope) order more and the books should reach the shops extremely fast. It's not like the replacement copies in Melbourne are going to travel by ship from England.
I was told that Borders in the US have noticed that they've sold lots of copies of The Graveyard Book despite the difficulties people have had finding it, and that they're now planning to move some copies to the front of the store to make it easier to find. Which fills my heart with love for Borders.
And my heart is already filled with love for the independent stores around the world that have placed it wherever in the shop they wanted to, and for people in the big chain stores that are ignoring corporate edicts and putting the books in piles near the front.
One thing I'd suggest for people who work in bookshops, if it's the kind of shop that has "staff picks", you could make The Graveyard Book a staff pick, which would move some copies nearer the front of the store. Also, Hallowe'en is coming, and if you have Hallowe'en displays, for children or for adults, you could make sure that you have copies of The Graveyard Book on both tables.
I've heard from a few individual shoppers who have been taken to carrying surplus copies of The Graveyard Book around bookshops and putting them where they feel they ought to be. It's not something I'd recommend, mostly because it can result in upsetting the staff when they try and send people to the actual places their computers tell them that the books are.
On the other hand, placing the books you like (or that were written by your friends) face out, if they are only spine out, is something that no jury will ever convict you for.
...
William Gibson has a line of bags named after him! (Which is fun. I don't want a line of bags named after me, which sort of removes the envy factor, but if there was a line of William Gibson fountain pens, I'd be greenly envious. If you wish to do a line of Neil Gaiman fountain pens, I am so there. As long as they're cool.)
And this one made me happy -- also, I suspect, from Australia:
G'day Neil.
Thank you. If you hadn't mentioned the influences on "The Graveyard Book", I'd never have read Kipling's wonderful "The Jungle Book" (and then gone on to "The Second Jungle Book", which I think is an even better read).
I never suspected that the stories in both books were as well written and entertaining as some of Kipling's other short works ("The Man Who Would Be King" and "As Easy As A.B.C." come to mind). Walt Disney took great liberties with the stories (surprise, surprise) which turned me off reading the books for over 30 years. When they eventually thaw him out he'll have a lot to answer for ;-)
So thank you once again, and I'm looking forward to reading "The Graveyard Book" as soon as it arrives in the mail. Steve
....
And finally, I'd remembered an Onion article from almost eight years ago, and wondered how well it held up today...
Today it's off to Laika to visit the Coraline sets (all 40 of them) and to be interviewed for the DVD extras. Maddy will be doing the interviewing.
I have to get dressed... Here's Maddy:
Well helloooooo everyone I missed you so! Um well today we are going to visit the Coraline sets as I see Dad already mentioned, but I am very excited because everything is going to be super cool! Plus I'm going to interview people so you better watch out because the new Larry King is right here. :) Just kidding! Or am I? Anyways we have some pictures of last night's get together but I do not exactly have the camera with me right now so I guess you will just have to wait until later to see them. It will be the time of your life! Ok, well have a really great day. :)
Millions of swarming honey bees are on the loose after a truck carrying crates of the buzzing insects flipped over on a highway in Sacramento.
The California Highway Patrol says 8-to-12 million bees escaped from the crates in which they were stored, swarming over an area of Highway 99 and stinging officers, firefighters and tow truck drivers who were trying to clear the accident from the roadway.
CHP Officer Michael Bradley says at about 10 a.m. a tractor trailer owned by Inter City Inc. flipped over while entering the highway on its way to Yakima, Wash. The flatbed was carrying bee crates each filled with up to 30 thousand bees.
Bradley says several beekeepers driving by the accident stopped to assist in the bee wrangling. The beekeepers called their colleagues, who responded and came to help repair damaged bee crates and get them loaded onto two new trucks.
The bees were on their way back to Washington after being used in the San Joaquin Valley to pollinate crops.
(I don't think they were swarming at all. But hurrah for the drive-by beekepers.)
