The Agony and Ecstacy of Book Reviews (set to thumping music)

How does a writer survive a bad review?

Thanks to Meg Waite Clayton for tipping me off to this.

Catch Towers of Gold on TV

 After a quiet interlude, I am about to do a bevy of events for Towers of Gold. I will be on CBS’ Mosaic show this Sunday Nov. 15 at 5 am. Yes, you read that right: 5 am.

Mosaic is a weekly show on spirituality. This week the host, Rabbi Eric Weiss, brought in guests to discuss Jewish Book Month. I talk about Towers of Gold and how social networking is changing publishing. Howard Freeman, talks about the programs and resources offered by the Jewish Community Library in San Francisco, and Joel Harris, owner of the wonderful independent bookstore, Clayton Books, in Clayton, CA talks about the bookselling environment.

I will be at Congregation Beth David in Saratoga on Tues. Nov 17 at 7:30 pm

I will be at the Marin Chapter of the California Writers Club on Sunday Nov. 22 from 2 to 4 pm. It is held at Book Passage in Corte Madera. I will be talking about how to make your memoir interesting to people other than just your family.

Then I will rush to the new Books, Inc on Fourth Street in Berkeley. The store is hosting a wine tasting and author meet-and-greet for local book groups. Free wine! Free talk! Lots of my favorite authors will be there, including Meg Waite Clayton, Michelle Richmond, Annie Barrows, and more.

I will be talking about Bay Area Jewish History with Fred Rosenbaum and Stephen Dobbs at the Osher Marin JCC on Wednesday, Dec. 2 at 7 pm.

On Thursday, Dec. 3 at 1 pm, I will do a slide/lecture for the Outdoor Art Club in Mill Valley.

For a complete events listing, look here.

Bay Area Literary Musings

I have an op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle today about the demise of the 118-year old law firm, Heller Ehrman. The firm was started by Isaias Hellman’s son-in-law and was inexorably linked to Hellman and Wells Fargo Bank.

If you want to hear more on why history is better than fiction, come to the Litquake panel Scandal, Intrigue and Drama in California History, on Monday Oct. 6 at the Commonwealth Club. I will be on a panel talking about writing history with authors Julia Flynn Siler, Ethan Rarick, and Rick Wartzman.

Michael Chabon reports on the Democratic Convention in Denver for the New York Review of Books.

Caitlin Flanagan has an interesting piece (and video) on the kidnapping of Patty Hearst. It’s partially a review of a new book, Patty’s Got A Gun, by William Graebner.

I have always been fascinated by Patty Hearst. When I was 16, I scored a press pass to her trial, even though my school didn’t have a newspaper. On the day I was set to go to the trial, I was walking to school when my father drove by. My parents were divorced and I didn’t live with my father. He picked my up and took me to school and I told him how I snared a press pass to the Patty Hearst trial. He was so impressed by my ingenuity because seats were in high demand at the trial. We had a nice interaction. Two days later he died of a heart attack while skiing. He was 45. So you see, Patty Hearst resonates in many ways for me.

Bay Area author, Meg Waite Clayton, the bestselling author of The Wednesday Sisters, has sold her next book to Ballantine. It’s called The Ms. Bradwells and it is about “four law school friends whose reunion at a Chesapeake Bay island family home leads them to face the truth about an unexplained death years earlier, their very different career paths, and the redemptive power of friendship,” according to Publishers Marketplace.

Meg’s new blog on how authors came to be writers is really interesting.

Thursday Literary Musings

Lots of Bay Area literary news:

Zyzzyva editor Howard Junker is stepping down after 25 years. The Los Angeles Times takes a look at what he accomplished.

Novelist Harriet Chessman writes about her first novel on Meg Waite Clayton’s great new blog about writing.

Christina Meldrum, the author of Mad Apple, appears on Ron Hogan’s blog Beatrice. She talks about the research behind her book, specifically the question of whether a novelist who bases her writing on fact must present those facts accurately in a book.

The Times of London gives City Lights Books the star treatment.

Thursday Literary Musings

It’s a good day for readings in the Bay Area.

I am planning to hear Meg Waite Clayton tonight at A Great Good Place for Books in Montclair. Her new novel, The Wednesday Sisters, has received high praise and is already a bestseller. It’s the story of five women over the course of 40 years.

Annie Barrows, one of the two authors of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a delightful story about the island of Guernsey and its eccentric inhabitants after World War II, will be talking tonight at Mrs. Dalloway’s on College Avenue. Barrows’ aunt and co-author, Mary Ann Shaffer, a former bookseller at Book Passage, died before publication of their book. The publisher is really pushing this one, and it is bittersweet to think that its creator never got to revel in her success.

East Bay author Ericka Lutz is trying to become the #1 blogger on Redroom. Help her out by paying her a visit. The deadline is July 31. She is both poignant and amusing. I especially enjoyed reading about her bouts of envy.

Tiny Pt. Reyes is becoming a literary destination, after the success of the recent conference on Wallace Stegner.

Anne Patchett reveals the sad truth about book tours.