The thing that always strikes me about New York City is the overwhelming size of the place. It's noisy, it's vast and it seems to move in a state of perpetual fast-forward.
For a humble lad from Sydney-via-Paris, it's all slightly overwhelming. So it was that I fronted up to Idlewild bookstore in Manhattan last Thursday night for the US launch of A Town Like Paris with a hulking great knot in my stomach.
A few glasses of Thompson Estate Chardonnay (note gratuitous plug for friend's delicious Western Australian white wine) managed to take the edge off sufficiently that I was finally able to stand up before the 100-strong crowd, make a short speech and read from the book.
Thank you to everyone who waded through the New York humidity to join the festivities - and thank you, especially, for the lively Q&A session that followed the book reading. Some of you had really done your homework, quoting back at me entire passages from the book. If I looked momentarily taken aback, it was simply because some of you appeared to know my book better than me. Impressive work people.
2 comments:
I am so glad that I found this place to express the mixture of strong admiration and deep envy for ATLP. I laughed sitting, I laughed standing, I laughed on train, I laughed on bus, I laughed on bus stations, I laught exercising on my bike and, of course, I laughed at work whenever my boss was busy talking on the phone.
Strong admiration comes from the style of the book, so fresh that if you don't laugh means you are either dead or you don't have a sense of humor (which is kind of the same as being dead).
Deep envy comes simply from your living in Paris
It helped a little that I am from Romania and live now in United States, so I have, too, the wonderful feeling of not really belonging anywhere, after all. Or belonging everywhere? I feel that I might belong in Paris so I buy travel guides to Paris (like a genuine American). But no travel guide amounts to ATLP.
I do hope sales go well and I would like to see ATLP published in Romania. Sincerely, from Chicago, Amalia (a global seeker and finder). At least I was a finder once, when I paid for my copy of your book!
Amalia,
Thanks for your message -- sorry it's taken me so long to respond to you. I've been in the US and Canada, doing a bit of a book tour.
I'm really pleased you found the book amusing. It was lots of fun to write (hell, it was even more fun to live)... I feel humbled when I receive reader feedback like yours. I'm very pleased I was able to give you a few laughs.
Stay tuned for book two ...
Bryce
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