McNally Jackson Books used to be called McNally Robinson Books. There was a renaming party, and Joseph O'Neill, author of Netherland, was there. It just so happened that I was reading Netherland at the time, and I had my copy with me - only, it wasn't my copy, strictly speaking, as I'd borrowed it from the library.
Didn't stop him signing it anyway.
"Ambivalently," because, as the author, he was glad someone was reading his book, but less glad that they hadn't paid for it. (Though I would venture a guess that Mr. O'Neill is in support of libraries generally.)
Here's one of Michael Chabon's newer essay collections, Maps and Legends. I refrained from buying the beautiful limited edition hardcover when it first came out, partly because I had just made a rule not to buy hardcovers (you don't realize how many you have until you have to box them up and move), partly because hardcover prices are a bit steep. But then McSweeney's had a "garage sale," and all of a sudden it was prettier than it was pricey.
You can't really tell here but there is a cut-out jacket over the printed cover itself. Anyway, it was sitting on my desk on top of a stack of other books I hadn't got around to reading yet, and a coworker/friend who went to a Chabon reading earlier this week offered to take it and get it signed for me.
A compass pointing north: perfect. (If you ever get a chance to see him speak or read, you should go. I heard him read from The Yiddish Policeman's Union and it made me want to re-read the book right then and there.)
Last one for now: Sloane Crosley's amusingly titled I Was Told There'd Be Cake.
She signed this for me at the Brooklyn Book Festival just last month. She drew me a cake!
In completely unrelated news, my roommate and I just watched Doubt (2008), the Academy Award-nominated movie with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. It's a fantastic but by no means lighthearted movie; however, I just had to share one of Meryl Streep's lines:
"'Frosty the Snowman' espouses a pagan belief in magic...It should be banned from the airwaves."
We re-wound to hear that one again.
What I'm reading: The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
What I'm listening to: Head Trip in Every Key by Superdrag; Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 5 in D Minor (Reformation) and The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave)
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