I said it first. I’ve only been proclaiming this for over 30 years now.
I coined the term back when I was feeling out of place at a Cleveland Public Library event where I was surrounded by youthful followers bearing tribute gifts for their hero, author Neil Gaiman, a “rock star author” who’s been to Cleveland a few times now.
When there was an overflow crowd for his appearance and it had to be moved to the Villa Angela-St. Joseph Academy, I ended up parking at a nearby funeral home and hoofing it to the school to sit on the carpeted steps in the band room! We could hear Gaiman speaking over the P.A. system. Halfway through his talk he shared his presence with us “folks in the cheap seats.”
He stood right next to me. I stared down at his expensive-looking black leather boots. They reminded me of “Beatle-boots.” I was in the presence of a rock star. I could have reached out and touched him.
The excited crowd was young and came bearing gifts. One fan painted an oil painting of him! He accepted all the gifts graciously and was kind enough to sign everything we brought! I had several first editions of course and ended up waiting with the rest of the crowd in the gym. Someone organized us and when my group was called, I got my books signed. (I finished reading Coraline during my wait.)
That Time Jane Smiley Lobbed a Book Across The Stage.
That got our attention—especially mine! I wanted to see what the title was but by the end of the event I’d forgotten to find out. The point is—Jane Smiley told us not to waste time! Time is short! She’s right. Time is precious and we can’t waste it if a book doesn’t hold our attention. If a book doesn’t “grab” me in the first 100 pages—make that 50—now that I’m even older, I donate it along to one of those Little Free Library cupboards. Smiley is one of my favorite authors and I’ve encountered her at least three times now when she’s appeared in Cleveland.
David McCullough.
If asked, I’m sure the late great Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough would have remembered the time when one fan asked him to sign a book that he didn’t write!
It was me! Me! I was that person—that total idiot.
I approached McCullough at Playhouse Square in Cleveland with my first-edition hardcover books in hand, telling him how much I admired his writing. He signed The Path Between the Seas, Truman and The Johnstown Flood before proclaiming that the next book I presented to him was not his book!
Foolishly, I proceeded to point out that his name was on the book. I babbled something about always tracking down an author’s backlist to find more books for my collection. (I donated that book, whose title I cannot now recall.)
Zadie Smith thought I had an accent.
While speaking in the signing line, she asked me about my distinctive accent! My accent?
She said that I clearly had one and that she wondered if it was a distinctive Cleveland accent. I don’t have an accent . . . do I?
She should know. A worldly author, Smith has a charming accent herself.
I was standing in line to get my books signed and all I could think about at the time was how I hadn’t finished reading her highly acclaimed debut novel, White Teeth. I personally found it tedious so put it aside. After that evening, I went home and moved White Teeth back into my TBR-pile. I must be missing something. I’m determined to finish reading it someday.
Gillian Flynn—my kind of author!
She doesn’t outline! Totally my style. I always feel deficient because I don’t outline.
Gillian Flynn and I share similar writing styles—apparently disorganized. When she described how she writes her novels I could identify. She does not outline . . . and she scribbles in longhand and then puts it all together into something cohesive, which is how I do it—but clearly she is way more successful with her books!
After reading Gone Girl,I can’t imagine that she put together such an intricate diabolical tale without some type of a “crime-scene board” on her wall.
And when I finish reading a remarkable book, I turn back to the beginning, reading the first pages and skimming through, reading portions to see how it all came together.
Musician Patti Smith was on tour for her latest book, M Train.
And when the conversation turned to how she got a song from Bruce Springsteen and needed to come up with additional lyrics, she told us how she was sitting around her New York apartment waiting for her boyfriend to call. She was waiting . . . that was back when long-distance rates became cheaper at night so you waited to make your calls!
“Back then long-distance rates were cheaper after eight o’clock and I was waiting for the phone to ring when it came to me—because the night belongs to lovers. Because the night belongs to lovers!”
Patti Smith spontaneously led a SOLD-OUT audience in an a capella concert with a rendition of Because the Night. And the audience joined in.
The great John Irving was another crowd pleaser.
When a member of the audience stepped to the microphone to tell Irving that his favorite book was Cider House Rules and he requested that Irving recite the famous good night line issued by Dr. Larch to the boys in their beds.
“Good Night you Princes of Maine, you Kings of New England . . .” boomed John Irving in the voice of Doctor Larch. A classic quote from the book.
It was met with thunderous applause in front of another SOLD-OUT audience of literary fans at Case Western Reserve University’s Writers Center Stage event last fall.
John Irving told us how he re-reads some of the classics for inspiration, especially the works of Charles Dickens and Melville’s Moby-Dick.
A participant in the well-known Iowa Writers Workshop, his instructor back in the day was none other than Kurt Vonnegut, who when reviewing his drafts would write notes in the margins, often repeating a scribbled phrase, “We know! We know!”
And later in the signing line I discovered that Irving is a neighbor of Margaret (Peggy) Atwood who had appeared earlier in the season. It was soon after The Handmaid’s Tale won big at the Emmy Awards and she went onstage. She dragged her purse along and it created a social media frenzy known as “The Handbag’s Tale.”
Both Irving and Atwood live near one another in Toronto and get together for coffee. (I’ll stalk them the next time we visit Toronto.) I told him how I missed him when we were last in Toronto at the Harbourfront Book Festival.
Rick Moody appeared downtown at the Cleveland Public Library for an event and when I approached him with three hardcovers and handed over a copy of Garden State, he refused to sign it, saying “This is my first book. It’s too valuable with my signature inside. You’re probably going to sell it.”
I explained that I was a serious modern first-editions collector and that it took me a while to find a copy for my shelves . . . but still he refused. I’ll never forget him now. I’ve read some seriously bad reviews of his work. What a prick!
As I walked away I mumbled, “Actually, your books won’t be worth anything until you’re dead.”
When Anna Quindlen came to town promoting the softcover release of her latest work, I rummaged around the house and uncovered 11 books total. I called upon my friend Debbie to be my “signing-line buddy” and tote a few books. The evening of the event arrived and Debbie cancelled. I still had two line numbers so my plan was to simply get three books signed and deposit them in the car and return with another three hardcovers. Six signed, carefully selected books was way better than being a self-proclaimed “book pig” so I would be happy.
Leave it to Anna Quindlen – a trained observer and reporter — as I made my way through the line a second time, she greeted me with, “You’re back!”
Next time, maybe I should change blouses when I grab that second armload of books. Anna will undoubtedly come to town again.
There’s a 12-step program out there somewhere for me – I just haven’t found it yet!
This is what keeps going through my mind as I stand in line waiting to get my books signed at yet another author event — in yet another bookstore.
Justified as a “good thing,” I continue to hoard my “flat-signed first-edition hard covers with pristine dust jackets (some protected in mylar) and original unclipped prices,” hoping that my son doesn’t one day put them all out in the yard on tables for a “buck a book” when I’m dead.
I might live long enough to read them all, but it’s not likely. I’ll die happy, knowing that I tried.
And when I get a lead on an author who’s coming to town on book tour, I mark my calendar and start pulling together the hard covers. I always buy the newest volume from the bookstore hosting the event – and then bring along the author’s backlist, many of which are somewhere among my stacks of books.
Lately, the problem has been locating them. I have a system that only I understand. As I ferret out a book that I just have a feeling is piled upstairs rather than downstairs, things usually fall together at just the last minute before I dash off to an event.
When author John Dunning came to town (Booked To Die, The Bookman’s Wake, The Sign of the Book) I ran into the store and took a seat in the back. He looked up at me as I came in and I said, “It took a while to uncover my books.” That brought laughter.
For one of the characters in his series, Dunning described the house of a “bibliomaniac” (which I am not, really I’m not—because I have only achieved “biblioholic” status).
A “bibliomaniac” hoards all books – desirable only in quantity – with no consideration to authorship or subject matter.
A “biblioholic” is also a connoisseur of books, but someone who collects books with a purpose — by author, genre, or subject matter. That’s me.
And after 30 years of gathering signed first-editions, it’s finally happened! I bought back my own book.
I was organizing my collection and realized that among my signed Joe Eszterhas books I was missing one. How did that happen? I apparently got mixed up and thought I had a duplicate copy of American Rhapsody. I listed that copy on eBay and sold it a few years before.
Always seeking completion, I tracked down a signed first from a bookseller in Connecticut. It was reasonable. When it arrived and I inspected it, there were clippings tucked in the back of the book—from the Cleveland newspapers! This was my book, that I sold to someone a few years earlier!
I sent a message off to Alan at Derringer Books. Alan remembered that he bought a book collection from someone in New York and the Eszterhaz was among them.
“What strange journeys our books travel. I bought that particular copy from a long-time NY collector who sold me his books when he retired. Glad it made it full circle! –Alan”
I got to know M.K., the author escort who turned up at the events I went to. I was a regular, and she was usually standing in the back of the venue.
She made sure everything came together without a hitch. M.K. told me how she picked up the author at the airport, drove him or her to their hotel and returned in the morning to escort them to media appearances around town. I thought she had an exciting schedule and wondered what the authors were like when they were offstage and seated in the back of her Jaguar XJE.
M.K. told me things. I got the skinny on what they were like when they let their guard down—real people. She told me that her absolute favorite person was P. J. O’Rourke, the late journalist and political satirist (Give War A Chance).
“He kept me laughing all day long as we drove around town, and when he said goodbye, he tossed me a ‘lucky coin’ from a recent trip.”
And remember the New Age author spiritual guru who wrote A Return to Love and so many other self-help books? The woman who ran for president in 2020? Marianne Williamson?
“She was the most foul-mouthed woman I ever met.”
So many authors, so many books! Celebrities, politicians, and activists. So many more stories I can tell.