Saturday July 30 7:30 pm
Helen DeWitt and Timo Andres,
THE LAST SAMURAI, an evening of music and reading
Tickets $20
National Sawdust
80 N 6th Street
Brooklyn, NY
11249
Sunday July 31 5pm and 9pm
Screenings of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai with brief introduction by Helen DeWitt,
book signing after 5pm showing
The Metrograph
6 Ludlow Street
New York, NY
Tuesday August 2 7:00 pm
Reading, book signing, PARTY!!!
Community Bookstore
143 7th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Hope to see you if you're in town!
I will also be visiting various bookstores to sign copies of the new edition of The Last Samurai; the schedule is roughly as follows:
Monday August 1, NYC
2 pm -- Posman's Books, Chelsea Market
2: 30 pm -- 192 Books
3 pm -- The Strand
3:30 pm -- Three Lives
4 pm -- McNally Jackson
Afternoon -- Greenlight Bookstore
6 pm -- Community Bookstore (see above)
If any other bookstores feel they have been overlooked and would like me to drop by, please contact the New Directions publicist, Mieke Chew (mchew@ndbooks.com).
6 comments:
I truly, truly hate life.
I've no idea why Mithridates hates life, but I'm a little disappointed myself at the moment: I was just at Three Lives bookstore, where your lovely blog post indicated you would turn up at 3:30 -- and learned that no one had told them you were to be there. They called your publicist's office and evidently _they_ didn't know about it, either; in the meanwhile I called The Strand to see if you had shown up there to sign books, but the staff person I spoke to had no record of any event scheduled with you.
So, I came home. I live close by, so it's not a big deal on that score, but I do hope that you are well and that other events are proceeding as you would like them to.
Just know that you have supporters in Manhattan!
Vicky, I'm so glad we managed to meet at Three Lives after all. I should probably have placed more emphasis on "roughly" in my blog post - it doesn't take much time to sign books, but it's naturally not possible to anticipate how long one might spend talking to booksellers and readers. In any case, these weren't really formally scheduled events - the plan was simply to visit various bookstores with my publicist, starting at 2, and I thought some readers might find it more convenient to come to a bookstore than go to an event. Anyway, I'm sorry for the confusion; all's well that ends well.
Helen, thank you so much for graciously staying to chat. Just to be clear, the confusion was entirely my fault--I misinterpreted "book signing" as Illustrious Author sitting at a table and signing books for a long line of aficionados, and wondered how such could be accomplished in half-hour increments, even if the shops in question are relatively close together. It didn't occur to me that authors, notwithstanding their illustriousness, sometimes just sign a pile of books without fanfare at a particular location. My naiveté; when I learned that neither shop had been told you would be coming, I assumed something had gone awry. I was therefore delighted but completely surprised when Joyce called to say you were, indeed, present at TL.
Had I had more presence of mind, rather, were it not still stuck in the work I'd returned to, I would have asked several questions I've always wanted to ask about the Last Samurai. And how could I have just gotten one signature for my friend and not bought a signed copy for myself?! Argh. Too many moments of chagrin on my way home. But you were wonderfully warm and patient. So thanks again, and I wish you the best of success on tonight's party and whatever other events you have coming up.
I'm sure this is a redundant comment and you must have spent way more time being bothered by this than I have, but the blurb for the 2001 Vintage edition of the Last Samurai really doesn't do it justice. Blurb-writing must be quite a small field, so how are there so many people working in it who are bloody awful at writing blurbs?
Rusty, Sorry to be so late answering your comment, it apparently got stuck in Awaiting Moderation. I don't have a copy of that edition to hand, but in my experience the editor usually drafts something and the author makes some suggestions and the editor has the final say. It may be that other publishers use specialists to write blurbs but I've never come across that.
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