At least for one week. As I typed my way toward the end of that new book deadline, I got an unexpected boost yesterday when I learned that If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name, my first book, made the New York Times Bestseller List for July 21st in ebooks. It’s #17. Wild is #18. Seriously? Pinch me. (I have seen a copy of the list. Powers that be say it’s real. If you get the Times mail me the list after you read it next week, okay? I’m at PO Box 936, Haines AK 99827. I’d like to frame it. Heck, it may never happen again.) I did ask my agent, Ms. Elizabeth Wales of Seattle, and my Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill editor, St. Amy of Algonquin, if this meant I’d be rich and famous. I haven’t heard back. Oprah hasn’t called either. My dogs are quite pleased though. When I told my daughter she said she thought I already was on the list. I explained that was different one, the Pacific Northwest list and the Indie booksellers’ list, for a bit after both books first came out. I was once on the long NY Times list, down around number 50 or so. Still, to celebrate, my garden produced the first big bowl of red ripe strawberries for breakfast, which Chip and I ate all by ourselves, since we are still home alone. We did eat a supper of spicy vegetables while watching a cycling movie- Breaking Away– filmed back in 1979 when we were in college– I loved it. (I know, I can’t believe I’ve never seen it either.) And this week I finished a really fine book, no doubt a New York Times Bestseller for months on end– Abigail Thomas’s memoir Three Dog Life, which I read in three sittings. In other news, tonight at 6 the women’s choir has a practice at the library for a top secret fair performance with Julia that will be fantastic, and tomorrow night at 7:30 the Arts Council presents “Enlightenment on E Floor North” at the Chilkat Center by a visiting theatrical group. It is for mature audiences and billed as ” an outlandish character driven” production about boredom in the workplace. Kind of like “The Office”, it’s a window into a world most of us here never experience, or if we have, left behind to move here. They are selling a limited amount of tickets– so buy yours early at the Babbling Book. In the meantime, here’s the view from this New York Times Bestselling author’s office yesterday– (Am I allowed to say that now? Even if I only last one week? What’s the rule on this kind of thing? And yes, I have asked people who should know, but they are busy, one presumes, creating more bestsellers, and wishing I would get back to work on my third book. No pressure or anything…)
