You can pre-order the Staten Island book now. I am excited by it; it looks to be a thing of beauty. The illustrations by Lesley Chen are extraordinary. I’m told I’ve pre-sold three copies, thereby exceeding all expectations.
Selling books reminds me of Thoreau’s printing of a thousand copies of his first book – which admittedly is not a great work, the Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers – and having to buy back 800 copies (of a thousand, I believe) from the bookseller and put them in his mom’s attic (could the indignity be any worse). He later boasted of his “library of 900 volumes, 800 of which I wrote myself.” One of the pleasures of words is the power to put a spin on experience, to grab it by the grabable handle.
2 Comments
make that 4 copies
Make that 5.