Official website of the author
One nice thing about doing an appearance on your birthday: the crowd just may sing “Happy Birthday” to you. This is me conducting the singers at the Duxbury, MA, Public Library last July. It was my 49th birthday. The event was sponsored by the Westwinds Bookshop in Duxbury. (Photo by Julius Prince.)
I think about the reader. I care about the reader. Not “audience.” Not “readership.” Just the reader. That one person, alone in a room, whose time I’m asking for. I want my books to be worth the reader’s time, and that’s why I don’t publish the books I’ve written that don’t meet this criterion, and why I don’t publish the books I do until they’re ready. The novels I love are novels I live for. They make me feel smarter, more alive, more tender toward the world. I hope, with my own books, to transmit that same experience, to pass it on as best I can.
Jeffrey Eugenides, Paris Review
I have a bit of a strange request: My publisher is looking for photos of Defending Jacob on display in bookstores. I don’t have any, but I said I’d call out the troops.
To sweeten the pot, the best photo will win a signed first edition of any of my three books — your choice.
Either post your photo here on Tumblr or email it to me direct at bill@williamlanday.com. Be sure to let me know what bookstore your photo shows.
Feel free to share this message, forward it, tape it to your forehead, etc. The more submissions, the better.
Thank you!
Weegee, “Coney Island Beach” (1940)
Labor Day weekend. Always a melancholy time. Goodbye, summer.
I am always doing what I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
Pablo Picasso (via)
Elmore Leonard interviewed by James Parker of The Atlantic.
War hath no fury like a non-combatant.
Charles Edward Montague (via)
The last bookplate giveaway was so popular, we blew through my supply in just a few weeks. But a new shipment just arrived, and this bookplate is even nicer than the last — beautiful letterpress printing on thick paper. Even better than a plain old signed book. And your showoff friends who read the ebook on their fancy iPads will be sick with envy. (A photo of the full bookplate is here.)
For those of you who missed it the first time around, this is just my way of saying thank you to readers who can’t get to a reading to have their books signed in person. There’s no charge. Just send me your snail mail address and any special inscription you might want (“For Uncle Marvin on his 73rd birthday…”). Reminder: for security reasons, don’t post your mailing address in the comments section. Send it to me in an email (you can use the form here).
Thanks again, everyone.