The Olive Reader

Wouldn’t you love to spend a weekend with these lovely faces?

They, along with Book Club Girl, will be at Club Read in Virginia from October 15-16! Club Read is a reader’s retreat that will run from noon on Saturday October 15th through 2 pm on Sunday October 16th at Mariner’s Landing Resort in Huddleston. The weekend will kick off with a Happiness Project lunch with #1 New York Times bestselling author Gretchen Rubin and will conclude on Sunday with book club maven Adriana Trigiani regaling readers at a Don’t Sing at the Table luncheon. In between, authors will speak at panels, meals and other fun events, and readers will get to mix and mingle with authors both favorite and new. You can see the current schedule of events here and the complete list of attending authors here.

You can buy a ticket either at one of the participating bookstores, or via the website. Club Read is brought to readers by the North Atlantic Independent Bookselling Association and the Southern Independent Bookselling Association. Additional sponsors include Reading Group Choices and Authors Around the South.

Follow Club Read on Twitter and friend them on Facebook for news and updates.

Sadly, it’s the same weekend as the Boston Book Festival, so I won’t be there, but I can assure you that Book Club Girl knows how to party. So do Jessica Blau and Greg Olear and Matthew Norman. I don’t know the other authors well enough to comment on their partying abilities, but I have faith.

This is Claude.

Claude belongs to Kirk Farber, author of the recent Colorado Book Award-winning Postcards from a Dead Girl. He has a 6-foot vertical leap and often acts as lumbar support on Kirk’s office chair when he’s writing. He also responds to the name “Orange Panther.”

Claude!

After a few false starts, I’m now ready to share my thoughts on everyone’s favorite San Francisco saga, Tales of the City!

For anyone who doesn’t know, the main characters of Tales of the City are:
Mary Ann: a secretary from Cleveland who decides to move to San Francisco. She’s somewhat naive but learns quickly.
Mona: a copywriter who may or may not be a lesbian and likes to take Quaaludes
Michael: Mona’s gay best friend and the sweetest character. Also, seems not to work ever.
Brian: something of a Lothario (he ends up sleeping with a girl AND her mom), but underneath seems dissatisfied with it all. Mrs Madrigal: their landlord, who provides joints and has many secrets
Edgar Halcyon: Mary Ann and Mona’s boss, head of a major advertising agency and DeDe’s dad
DeDe Halcyon Day: Edgar’s daughter. A socialite who is also fairly dissatisfied.
Beauchamp Day: DeDe’s husband. Kind of a jerk. Also, his name is pronounced “bee-cham,” which I forgot from my first reading and kept forgetting throughout the entire book.
D’orothea: Mona’s current/former girlfriend. Former high-fashion model.

With the exception of Mary Ann, who introduces us to this world, every single character in Tales of the City has a secret. Some are fairly innocent (Brian was once a lawyer), while some are decidedly not (I won’t give anything away, but there’s infidelity, deadly diseases, pornography, and pretending to be a difference race.) And aside from one secret that isn’t even revealed until the later books, I had forgotten every single one, which made re-reading this book a complete and total joy. The chapters are all 3-5 pages long, and the book speeds by. Like many of my experiences re-reading old favorites, this was so incredibly relaxing.

When I read this ten years ago, there were so many things I didn’t appreciate that I do now. The greatest strength of this is the dialogue. It’s real and true and there’s tons of it, which I love. Give me two pages of dialogue over two pages of descriptions any day. I also didn’t appreciate the character of Brian as much as I do now. Reading it again he was definitely my favorite, even though he probably has the smallest role in the book. But this time around he just seemed so normal, so almost . . . quiet . . . in his dissatisfaction.

I also hate Beauchamp. But I always did.

What did you think? Was this your first time reading or are you a fan?

Last night Simon Van Booy kicked off his tour for Everything Beautiful Began After at McNally Jackson. A good time was had by all, and Simon had the largest signing line I’ve ever seen at an event. Here are some photos:

First, a few of Simon in action:

Now that long line:

The books themselves:

This guy came late, but I really think he enjoyed himself:

Today is Canada Day. When I think of Canada, I think of:

1. Our friends at HarperCollins Canada, and the olive reader’s brother blog The Savvy Reader. (For some reason, I think of the olive reader as a girl and the savvy reader as a boy.)
2. The strawberry shortcake McFlurry I had at a McDonald’s in Montreal in 2004.
3. Some of our amazing Canadian authors and their books, like:

Alison Pick, author of Far to Go, the story of a family and their governess on the eve of World War II and the betrayal that awaits them

Miriam Toews, author of the upcoming Swing Low, a hard-to-categorize yet fascinating book about her father’s suicide and struggle with depression

Tish Cohen, author of The Truth About Delilah Blue, the story of a young woman discovering the truth about her parents and then herself

Trevor Cole, author of Practical Jean, the story of a woman who decides to kill all her best friends (and one of my favorite upcoming books!)

Who are your favorite Canadian authors?