14 Days and counting
I have visited Salt Lake City several times. When you get on the Interstate near the airport and head East towards Salt Lake City, you see “Cheyenne, Wyoming” on large…
Tom’s Blog
15 days and counting
Herd to believe,but in 15 days the booksigning at Santa Barbara’s Chaucer’s Books will be behind us and we (my wife, my son, and I) will be taking to the…
The Advance Copy (and Errata)
Yesterday I couldn’t write about what it felt like to hold the finished book in my hands. The experience was too fresh. Robert Frost said that he always wrote in…
Thomas Wolfe: In Memoriam
Again a nod to Today in Literature: on this day, Thomas Wolfe passed away from tuberculosis that had been lurking in his body since he was a boy. He was…
The Significance of September 14
If you have not visited Steve King’s Today in Literature, by all means you should. Just click on this link. http://www.todayinliterature.com/ Today happens to be: 1) the day John Gardner,…
Memory believes before knowing remembers. (Faulkner)
I am now reading a book I picked up many years ago called New Burlington. It caught my eye because I am from a Burlington—Burlington, Vermont. But this book was…
Printing is Finished
Just last week, I came across an e-mail from Tamra from September 1, 2007. It read:”We officially hit the road.” That was the day Tamra and Jacob, and their dog,…
On the Occasion of Ted Williams's Birthday
Today, August 30, is the 91st anniversary of Ted Williams’s birth. After his last game, John Updike, dilettante sportswriter who happened to be present, penned a tribute. Great ballplayer met…
The Greatest Project I Ever Worked On (As a Printer)
I inherited the estimate from the soon-to-be departing production assistant, Angela. It was a quote for 10,000 copies and about $100,000. Not small potatoes. The client name was Control Bureau.…
Ayn Rand and the Ardor of Reading
Yesterday we were having lunch at La Bottega Marino, on the Westside. It is an intimate place, with small round marble-topped tables grouped close together, perfect for overhearing conversations. At…
Progress on the Book
The interior pages of the book have now been approved for printing. What remain to be approved are only the jacket and the sample of the foil stamping on the…
Blue Highways
It is now August 12th. In less than two months, my wife and son and I will be hitting the road in a one-way Budget SUV rental, headed from Santa…
It's a wrap! (Except for the wrap)
Yesterday, we approved the last remaining proofs: a photograph of Leadville, Colorado, a photo of “The Last Good Country” from upper Michigan, The Wayside in Concord—home to many Concord luminaries—and…
The Notion of the Book
The idea for A Journey Through Literary America came to me in January of 2008 in Kawasaki, Japan (near Tokyo), where I was visiting my wife’s family. On the plane…
Hopkins Bookshop
When I was young, my parents became friends with Bill and Roddy Cleary, owners of the first bookstore that I ever experienced. The name of the shop was Hopkins. Bill…
July 31
July 31 Today we uploaded the files for the jacket and the endsheets. The only element that hasn’t been sent off to Toppan Printing is the layout for the foil…
Sherwood Anderson
Clyde “Winesburg” Ohio It was pitch dark and my motel, with its faux colonial columns seemed to be surrounded by empty space when I arrived that night from Lorain, Ohio.…