erin's emporium of discount dreams & well-worn wonders

I am always surprised by these last days of the year. They sneak up on me, hiding behind the holidays with a brand new year in tow. I think, “wait, what?” and then it’s January. Every time.

This year is probably worse than most, though, since the last few months have been so busy, though the fall tour is already seeming like a dream in these dwindling days of 2011. I know there are stories that I meant to share that never made it onto the blog (I had such grand plans to do a blog post per tour stop, I really did) but I suppose this will have to do, a late December post of camera-caught images and a few already gone moments in between.

Being on a book tour is a travel tease, you get to see cities from car windows and rarely if ever have proper time to explore. I found this particularly frustrating since I haven’t traveled much, but at the same time it’s like having a little sampler platter of cities. During my second trip to Toronto I had some free time and actually got to see the city from very high up:

One of many views from the CN Tower. I did get to see a fair amount of the city from the ground as well, including a lot of really good food, but it was the only city where I got to have a proper very high view.

Also falling into the interesting view category, on my second very short trip to London, this was the view from my hotel room window:

For those of you playing along, that is St Pancras station, and I was staying at the hotel that is the former Midland Grand, both of which appear in The Night Circus. Also I don’t believe I mentioned before that during that 24 hour trip to London I unexpectedly met Audrey Niffenegger because we both happened to be having lunch in the same teeny tiny restaurant and this is apparently the kind of thing that happens in my life now and also she is delightful & lovely.

I thought about doing book tour hotel superlatives, like Yummiest Room Service Breakfast (Raphael Hotel in Kansas City: portobello & goat cheese omelet with a parmesan potato cake!) or Largest Hotel Bathroom (the Alexis Hotel in Seattle, I have lived in apartments smaller than that bathroom) but then there were too many lovely hotels and I got into weird categories like Most Swoon-worthy Elevator Doors:

The Ambassador Hotel in Milwaukee, all fabulously art deco and you have to pull open those doors, of course. I have a thing for art deco anyway, I think the desk lady thought I was weird when I kept taking photos of the elevators and the light fixtures.

Also while in Milwaukee (in Oconomowoc, technically) I had an event I can’t say was Best or Favorite but it was a particularly nice, something extra thoughtful in the post-reading discussion, maybe I was in a thoughtful mood because I’d found out that Steve Jobs died just before we started (The Night Circus was written on several different Apple computers) and I don’t even remember everything I talked about but it stands out in my memory nonetheless.

There are so many things it seems like too much to have occurred in such a comparatively short amount of time. So many wonderful booksellers and red scarves and readers, it is still so strange to me that people can visit a place that existed in my head for so long, and it is so many people in so many different places. Maybe that’s why I am still dizzy from everything despite the fact that I’ve been post-tour for a while now, though the holidays are always dizzying in their own sugar plum way.

I took this photo in Austin, Texas:

I think perhaps it’s my favorite photo of the tour, for a lot of reasons but mostly because of that “so much” added in different handwriting. That’s what the tour was, really. That’s why it’s difficult to capture in words and pictures after the fact, because it was so much. So much. People and places and airplanes and books and wine and chocolate mice and love.

So much.

This is not a proper catch-up post, because that would have thoughtful things and links and artfully curated photos.

This is a post to say miscellaneous things with miscellaneous photos and possibly links if I have time.

Firstly, I am very sorry that my appearance at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville this weekend was cancelled at the last minute. This whole touring thing is extremely difficult and new and I am only one often undercaffeinated person. There were personal issues involved that the whole internet doesn’t really need to know about but I do feel badly and I hope I’ll be able to visit the Nashville area properly sooner rather than later.

I had my very first trip to the UK last week, there will be a proper adventure recounting post at some point with photos (took the real camera, hurrah) but I had an absolutely lovely time and I get to follow through on that whole “hope to come back soon” thing since I’ll be back in November for the Galaxy National Book Awards because I am nominated for International Author of the Year amongst some mind-blowingly impressive company. Am honored and humbled.

In general, I am mostly a whirlwind of forgetting what time or day or month it is and assuming it must be autumn because of crispy leaves and pumpkin spice lattes. I am off to Texas soon and then Toronto for the International Festival of Authors at the end of the month. It is still strange to be considered an author. My apartment looks like an explosion of laundry and cardboard boxes. I am dreadfully behind on emails and anything else that involves proper communication. I have been on more airplanes in the last month than in the rest of my previous life combined. I oscillate from giddy to exhausted and happy to sad so fast it’s nauseating.

I don’t know how to do this. I’m trying to take one day at a time.

Half the time I can’t even manage to straighten my hair anymore. Proof:

I took that photo sitting on the floor because that’s where the mirror is in the office because I haven’t managed to hang it yet.

Really, let’s move on to photos before I get all philosophical and maudlin with the typing.

I have visited so many beautiful bookstores on my tour with very little (if any) time for proper browsing, it’s such a tease. But when I do have time I’ve been shopping and having things shipped to me, so I am accumulating a pile. This is what has made it back to Boston so far, with more on the way:

(I have already read The Shadow of the Wind, of course, but I only had it in paperback and I found it at Lemuria Books in Jackson, Mississippi in glorious hardcover and simply had to have it. And there are some other ones that have wandered out of the pile. Bel Canto is missing, likely because I’ve been reading it.)

And at Boswell Book Company in Milwaukee I also bought this adorable raven mug, because how could I not?

So that is the rather short version of Erinland at the moment. I hope I will have time for proper London photos and tour catch-up at some point, but it may be a while.

True confession: I sing the spelling of Mississippi to myself every time I type it.

I had never been to Mississippi before and I was fortunate enough to have wonderful weather for my visit, I wish I could conduct all of my phone interviews from porch swings.

Had a splendid, open windowed reading at Square Books, which featured the book tour’s first bookstore kitty:

And then I had a long winding road trip from Oxford to Jackson, with a stop in Greenwood to sign stock at the lovely Turnrow Book Co. Then in Jackson I signed quite a few books at Lemuria Books before my fantastically circusy event. I tweeted the view from the podium and this is from the back of the room:

I tried to convince them to just leave the ceiling like that. And my blurry phone camera photos will not do all their exquisite circus signage justice:

Had a fantastic time and huge thanks to everyone who came out for events and worked so hard to put them together!

In Milwaukee now, clinging to my room service coffee before I get rolling on a day full of interviews and things.

Hi Internet! I have been away and off and about and becoming far too intimately acquainted with airports.

I have had good intentions of blogging along the way but then my connectivity gets cranky and sleep seems so much more practical than blogging and then a week goes by, not sure how that happens.

A housekeeping note: am in the process of trying to overhaul the site a bit, giving news & reviews their own blogfeed rather than putting them all on this one. Still working on the best way to accomplish that.

I have been all over the place and I am not sure I can do a proper recounting of my adventures, so I will rely on the bits I managed to capture on my phone camera, which as you may know, takes better photos retro-cam style than it does normally.

One of my favorite bits from Odyssey Books in South Hadley, MA, their very own Wishing Tree:

And this has nothing to do with anything (well, directly) but I couldn’t not capture this bit of found Shakespeare in Salem:

Llamas in Baltimore, from the very quick trip I took to the Baltimore Book Festival. (The Peabody Library is astoundingly beautiful, by the way.) I am not sure if they are drama llamas, but they probably are. I suspect most llamas have drama.

This week I spent several days in Toronto on the first of my international stops, got to break in my brand new passport. Everyone at Random House Canada was wonderful and I ate so much good food that I forgive them for putting me on tv. A lot. They had a lovely cocktail reception with cotton candy and tarot reading and magic, I signed books in bookstores and tried to wrap my head around being the kind of person who gets talked to on tv shows and failed, it was all very strange. I get to go back next month for the International Festival of Authors so I am very much looking forward to the return visit, I’ve been promised I will have more time for city exploring.

Geese in Toronto:

View from my hotel room in Toronto:

Home now for just over a day before the busiest leg of the tour begins. Next time I’ll be back in Boston it’ll be for a matter of hours before leaving for London. So far have spent my day off doing laundry and shopping for new dresses to add to the tour wardrobe rotation.

Also, in between Baltimore and Toronto I briefly stopped in NYC to hug all my Doubleday lovelies, and they gave me the stunning original paper art from the cover! It has been shipped to me, proper photos once I actually have it but it is truly lovely and it was such a sweet & thoughtful present. I am a very lucky girl to have found myself such a wonderful publishing family. They’re all cute, too, I’m just sayin’.

There were also beautiful cookies and cupcakes and I got edible roses that I can’t bear to eat:

Also, I cannot quite believe that tomorrow is October already.

I type this from San Francisco. I have never been here before and I’m glad I’ve had a little bit of time to wander the city. I have a crush on the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market. I’m so used to flat cities that the inclined streets keep reminding me of Inception. I’ve been signing books and meeting lovely bookish people and practicing my public speaking skills. Not sure I quite have the hang of this whole author tour thing yet, but I’m enjoying soaking in the scenery.

Also, my hotel room has a goldfish. He is difficult to photograph because he doesn’t like to stay still. I shall miss him.

Headed to Seattle later today.