what I'd like to do is read excerpts
from three of my books and then if
people are interested I'm happy to spend
some time just chatting with you
answering questions about my my writing
life publishing life reading life
whatever you're curious about um so the
brief history of the Dead was a novel
that Josh mentioned that came out in
2006 yes 2006 and this is a novel that
has two strands one of those strands
follows a woman named Laura bird who is
a researcher and has been isolated in
the Antarctic where she gradually
discovers that a calamity has befallen
the rest of the human race the other
strand takes place in the afterlife
specifically in a city of the dead but
not yet forgotten so the idea is that
once you pass away you move on to this
other place and you remain there so long
as you're remembered by somebody who's
still alive once you've been forgotten
by the living then you move on to
whatever might come next and I'd like to
read just the opening couple pages of
this book to you and these pages take
place in that city of the dead but not
yet forgotten and the chapter is called
the city when the blind man arrived in
the city he claimed that he had
travelled across a desert of living sand
first he had died he said and then snap
the desert he told the story to everyone
who would listen bobbing his head to
follow the sound of their footsteps
showers of red grit fell from his beard
he said that the desert was bare and
lonesome and that it had hissed at him
like a snake he had walked for days and
days until the dunes broke apart beneath
his feet surging up around him
lash at his face then everything went
still and began to beat like a heart the
sound was as clear as any he had ever
heard it was only at that moment he said
with a million arrow points of sand
striking his skin that he truly realized
he was dead Jim a singer who managed the
sandwich shop in the monument district
said that he had felt a prickling
sensation in his fingers and then
stopped breathing it was my heart he
insisted dumping firmly on his chest
took me in my own bed he had closed his
eyes and when he opened them again he
was on a train the kind that trolleys
small children around in circles at
amusement parks the rails were leading
him through a thick forest of gold brown
trees but the trees were actually
giraffes and their long necks were
reaching like branches into the sky a
wind rose up and peeled the spots from
their backs the spots floated down
around him swirling and dipping in the
wake of the train it took him a long
time to understand that the throbbing
noise he heard was not the rattling of
the wheels along the tracks the girl who
like to stand beneath the poplar tree in
the park said that she had died into an
ocean the color of dried cherries for a
while the water had carried her weight
she said and she had lain on her back
turning and meaningless circles singing
the choruses of the pop song she
remembered but then there was a drum of
thunder and the clouds split open and
the ball bearings began to Pelt down
around her tens of thousands of them
she had swallowed as many as she could
she said stroking the cracked trunk of
the poplar tree she didn't know why she
filled like a canvas sack and sank
slowly through the layers of the ocean
shoals of fish brushed past her they're
blue and yellow scales the single
brightest thing in the water and all
around her she heard that sound the one
that everybody heard the regular pulsing
of a giant heart the stories people told
about the crossing where as varied and
elaborate as their ten billion lives so
much more particular than those other
stories the ones they told about their
deaths after all there were only so many
ways a person could die either your
heart took you or your head took you or
it was one of the new diseases but no
one followed the same path over the
crossing live Bailey said that he had
watched his atoms break apart like
marbles roll across the universe then
gathered themselves together again out
of nothing at all han Bingley said that
he woke inside the body of an aphid and
lived an entire life in the flesh of a
single peach Graciella Cavazos would say
only that she began to snow for words
and smile bashfully whenever anyone
pressed her for details no two reports
were ever the same and yet always there
was the drum like thumping noise some
people insisted that it never went away
that if you concentrated it did not turn
your ear from the sound you could hear
it faintly behind everything in the city
the brakes in the horns
the bells on the doors of restaurants
the clicking and slapping of different
kinds of shoes on the pavements groups
of people came together in parks or on
rooftops just to listen for it sitting
quietly with their backs turned to one
another but dumb but um but um it was
like trying to keep a bird in sight as
it lifted blurred and faded to a dot in
the sky so that's a couple pages from
the brief history of the Dead next I'd
like to read a couple pages from my most
recent book save one I have a book
coming out in april of next year um but
my most recent to date is a novel called
the illumination and the illumination is
a book about what happens to the world
when people who are in pain begin to
generate light so that you can see when
the people around you are suffering
specifically it follows the fortunes of
six characters there's a data analyst
photojournalist school child a
missionary a writer in a street vendor
and all of these characters are enduring
injuries of one kind or another many of
them physical injuries but some of them
psychological or spiritual injuries and
they all feel that this phenomenon
changes their way of thinking about
their own place in the world and the
places of all the people that surround
them and then the pages I'd like to read
to you are from the photojournalists
chapter his name is Jason Williford and
in these pages you'll witness this
phenomenon of the illumination at it
begins to play out inside his body
in the accident he had cracked his
sternum and three of his ribs dislocated
his right shoulder fractured his pelvis
and not identical wedge-shaped fragments
out of his front teeth the steering
column had crushed his right knee a
ballpoint pen flung loose from the coin
tray had perforated his stomach the side
curtain airbag had bruised his left eye
and at first after the swelling went
down he presumed that the light he saw
leaking from his injuries was a result
of the contact lens the doctor had
prescribed designed to keep the scab
beneath his eyelid from scratching his
cornea then someone told him about the
illumination and he understood that the
same thing was happening all over the
world everywhere everywhere in bars
locker rooms parks and emergency wards
the wounded were burning with light he
could see his own lesions shining
through the bandages on his shoulder the
cotton compress on his abdomen the pins
and netting of his leg harness he was
aware of the pain but ever since he woke
from surgery his senses had been buoyed
up on a sea of narcotics and as he lay
there staring at the contours of his
limbs it seemed to him that he was
watching a distant cloud Bank flashing
with lightning somewhere far away the
rain was falling straight and hard the
sand was pockmarked with raindrops it
was all so lovely and mysterious and yet
for the nurses who came every few hours
to change his dressing and adjusts his
drainage tubes he had only one question
can I see my wife
will you check on her for me her name is
Patricia Patricia williford patty I'll
have someone look into that for you sir
she'll be worried about me I need to let
her know that I'm all right for now
let's just concentrate on taking care of
that body of yours okay it was like that
every time he asked about her as if his
questions had slid through some
invisible crack in the air and vanished
into another world had they spoken to
his wife yet I'm sure the doctor will be
in to talk to you soon what was her
condition are you feeling any discomfort
mr. williford how are those painkillers
working for you evidently a decision had
been made that he was too fragile to
know the truth by the time his doctor
finally sat down to explain what had
happened to her he was only waiting for
someone to say the words out loud i'm
sorry mr. williford we did everything we
could but your wife's injuries were too
extensive she didn't make it his 23 days
in the hospital were spent watching his
bones heal and his scars form trying to
forget who he was in what had happened
to him he couldn't cough or even breathe
too deeply without feeling that his ribs
were about to split open hiccups were a
terror the one time he sneezed his
vision blurred and he nearly passed out
whenever he shifted his weight he saw
two long serrations of lights opening
through the thin blue cotton of his exam
gown one across his sternum another over
his left hip
the ballpoint pen had left a small round
mark on the white field of his stomach
and he discovered that the seat belt had
printed his torso with a crisply
bordered bruise like a soldier's
bandolier its ammunition sash glinting
in the sunlight day by day he watched as
it turned blue then green then spread
over his skin in a grotesque yellow
stain that gradually lost its shine and
color the radiance that had filtered
from his mouth ceased to show as soon as
his incisors were capped with porcelain
suddenly to his relief he could
pronounce his FS and his visa gehen it
was his kneecap that took the longest
time to mend for nearly two weeks it
sent an excruciating silver spike
through his leg every time he moved in
his harness just when it seemed the pain
was beginning to abate his physical
therapist decided that the day had come
for him to try walking again she lowered
his leg onto the bed and measured him
for crutches they might be somewhat
uncomfortable for you at first she
cautioned but won't it feel good to
leave here on your own two feet now hold
your horses until I come back she said
and he lay there thinking about what it
would be like to open his front door to
collect the mail an attempt to revive
the plans the name he had been
struggling to ignore rose up and sign
him and pressed at his lips her name is
Patricia Patricia willeford patty
only his long habit of silence and the
abrasions lingering in his mouth kept
him from repeating it out loud soon the
physical therapist returned with a pair
of metal crutches chromium she said with
gel polymer tips the best we have she
insisted that he tests the mound as he
wobbled across the room she carefully
laid out her instructions presenting
them one by one like a waiter placing
dishes on a table nice and easy that's
right balance yourself on your left leg
your left leg if it hurts that means
you're not letting the crutches do the
work you want to avoid placing any
weight on that injured knee of yours he
found that if he ignored her advice if
instead he leaned into the pain when it
came his leg would flood with a glow so
strong he was unaware of anything else
for a few seconds he seemed to be
nothing more than the light of that
shattered bone white and expansive
pulsing within its own radiance and his
wife's name faded entirely from his mind
the agony was nearly indistinguishable
from bliss so that's a couple pages from
his section of the illumination finally
I'd like to read a piece from a fairly
recent story collection called the view
from the seventh layer this one came out
in 2008 and it's a collection of 13
stories of disparate modes pursuing very
different aims but four of them are
short fantasies that I hope have kind of
an air of classical fairy tales about
them and fables is how I think of them
even though they're not animal stories
necessary
but they're all these very short
fantastic stories with these unwieldy
titles so there's one called a fable
ending in the sound of a thousand
parakeets a fable with a photograph of a
glass mobile on the wall a fable
containing a reflection the size of a
match head in its pupil and then finally
the one I'd like to read is called a
fable with slips of white paper spilling
from the pockets once there was a man
who happened to by God's overcoat he was
rummaging through a thrift store when he
found it hanging on a rack by the fire
exits nestled between a birch colored
fisherman sweater and a cotton blazer
with a suede patch on one of the elbows
though the sleeves were a bit too long
for him and one of the buttons was
cracked the code fit him well across the
chest and shoulders lending him a regal
look that brought a pleased yet
diffident smile to his face so the man
took it to the register and paid for it
he was walking home when he discovered a
slip of paper in one of the pockets in
old receipt he thought or maybe a to-do
list forgotten by the coats previous
owner but when he took it out he found a
curious note typed across the front
please help me figure out what to do
about Albert the man wondered who had
written the nodes and whether in fact
that person had figured out what to do
about Albert but not it must be said for
very long after he got home he folded
the slip of paper into quarters and
dropped it in the ceramic dish where he
kept his breath mints and his car keys
it might never have crossed his mind
again had his fingers not fallen upon
two more slips of paper while he was
writing the elevator up to his office
the next morning one red don't let my
nerves get the better of me this
afternoon and the other I'm asking you
with all humility to keep that boy away
from my daughter the man shut himself in
his office and went through the coat
pocket by pocket it had five
compartments all together to front flat
the pockets each of which lay over an
angled hand warmer pockets with the
fleece almost completely worn away as
well as a small inside pockets above the
left breast he routed through them one
by one until he was sure they were
completely empty uncovering seven more
slips of paper the messages typed across
the front all seem to be wishes or
requests of one sort or another please
let my mom know I love her I'll never
touch another cigarette as long as I
live if you'll just make the lump go
away give me back the joy I used to know
there was a tone of quiet intimacy to
the nodes a starkness an open-hearted
pleading that seemed familiar to the man
from somewhere prayers he realized
that's what they were prayers but where
on earth did they come from he was
lining them up along the edge of his
desk when isley from technical support
rapped on the door to remind him about
the ten o'clock meeting half an hour of
coffee and spreadsheet displays he said
should be relatively painless and he
winked firing an imaginary
pistol at his head as soon as I slept
the man felt the prickle of an obscure
instinct and checked the pockets of his
coat again he found a slip of paper
reading the only thing I'm asking is
that you give my Cindy another few years
Cindy was I sleaze cat familiar to
everyone in the office from his
Christmas cards and his online photo
diary a simple coincidence somehow he
didn't think so for the rest of the day
the man kept the code close at hand
draping it over his arm when he was
inside and wearing it buttoned to the
collar when he was out by the time he
locked his office for the night he
believed he had come to understand how
it worked the coat was or seemed to be a
repository for prayers not unerringly
but often enough when the man passed
somebody on the street or stepped into a
crowded room he would tuck his hands
into the coats pockets and feel the thin
flexed form of a slip of paper brushing
his fingers he took a meeting with one
of the interns from the marketing
division and afterward discovered a note
that read please oh please keep me from
embarrassing myself he grazed the arm of
a man who was muttering obscenities his
feet planted flat on the sidewalk and a
few seconds later found a note that read
why do you do it why can't you stop
torturing me that afternoon on his way
out he was standing by the bank of
elevators next to the waiting room when
he came upon yet another prayer all I
want just this once is for somebody to
tell me how pretty I look today
he glanced around the only person he
could see was Jenna the receptionist who
was sitting behind the front desk with
her purse in her lap and her fingers
covering her lips he stepped up to her
and said by the way that new girl from
supplies was right right about what I
heard her talking about you in the break
room she was saying how pretty you look
today she was right that's a beautiful
dress you're wearing the brightness in
her face was like the reflection of the
Sun in a pool of water you could toss a
stone in and watch it fracture into a
thousand pieces throwing off sparks is
it gathered itself back together so that
was one prayer and the man could answer
it but what was he to do with all the
others in the weeks that followed he
found thousands upon thousands more
prayers for comforts in prayers for
wealth prayers for love in prayers for
good fortune it seemed that at any one
time half the people in the city were
likely to be praying some of them were
praying for things he could understand
even if he could not provide them like
the waitress who wanted some graceful
way to back out of her wedding or the
UPS driver who asked for a single night
of unbroken sleep while some were
praying for things he could not even
understand let the voice choose lunch
this time either Amy sussan or Amy
goodale nothing less than thirty percent
he walked past a ring of elementary
school students playing duck duck goose
and collected a dozen notes reading pick
me pick me along with one that read I
wish you would kill Matthew brandman he
went to a one-man show with the
repertory theater sitting directly next
to the stage and afterward found a
handful of notes and contained nothing
but the lines the actor had spoken he
made the mistake of wearing the coat to
a baseball game and had to leave at the
top of the second inning when slips of
white paper began spilling from his
pockets like confetti soon the man
realized that he was able to detect the
pressure of an incoming prayer before it
even arrived the space around him would
take on a certain elasticity as though
thousands of tiny sinews were being
summoned up out of the emptiness and
drawn tight and he would know suddenly
and without question that someone was
offering his yearning up to the air it
was like the invisible resistance he
remembered feeling when he tried to
bring the common polls of two magnets
together the sensation was unmistakable
and it seemed that the stronger the
force of the prayer the greater the
distance it was able to travel there
were prayer that he received only when
he skimmed directly up against another
person but there were others that had
the power to find him even when he was
walking alone through the empty soccer
field in the middle of the park his
footsteps setting little riffles of
birds into motion he wondered whether
the prayers were something he had always
subconsciously felt he and everyone else
in the world stirring around between
their bodies like invisible Eddie's but
which none of them had ever had the
acuity to recognized for what they were
or whether he was able to perceive them
only because he had happened to find the
overcoat in the thrift store he just
didn't know
at first when the man had realized what
the coat could do he had indulged in the
kind of fantasies that used to fill his
daydreams as a child he would turn
himself into the benevolent stranger
answering people's wishes without ever
revealing himself to them or he would
use the pockets to read people's
fortunes somehow he hadn't yet figured
out the details or he would be the
mysterious slightly menacing figure who
would take people by the shoulder locked
gazes with them and say I can tell what
you've been thinking but it was not long
before he gave up on those ideas there
were so many prayers there was so much
longing in the world and in the face of
it all he began to feel helpless one
night the man had a dream that he was
walking by a hotel swimming pool beneath
the sky the same lambent blue is the
water when he recognized God spread out
like a convalescent in one of the hotels
deck chairs you the man said what are
you doing here I have your coat don't
you want it back God set his magazine
down on his lap folding one of the
corners over and shook his head it's
yours now they're all yours now I don't
want the responsibility anymore but
don't you understand the man said to him
we need you down here how could you just
abandon us and God answered I came to
understand the limitations of my
character it was shortly after two in
the morning when the man woke up in the
moonlight he could see the laundry
hamper the clay a bowl in the dozens of
cardboard boxes that covered the floor
of his bedroom
all of them filled with slips of white
paper he could not bear to throw away
the next day he decided to place an ad
in the classified pages purchased at
thrift store one overcoat sable brown
with chestnut buttons pockets worn
possibly of sentimental value wish to
return to original owner he allowed the
ad to run for a full two weeks going so
far as to pin copies of it to the
bulletin boards of several nearby
churches but he did not receive an
answer nor it must be said had he
honestly expected to the code belonged
to him now it had changed him into
someone he had never expected to be he
found it hard to imagine turning back to
the life he used to know a life in which
he saw people everywhere he went in
which he looked into their faces and
even spoke to them but was only able to
guess at what lay in their souls one
Saturday he took a train to the city's
pedestrian mall it was a mild day the
first gleam of spring after a long in
frigid winter and though he did not
really need the code he had grown so
used to wearing it that he put it on
without a second thought the pedestrian
mall was not far from the airport and as
he arrived he watched a low plane
passing overhead dipping through the lee
waves above the river a handful of notes
appeared in his pockets please don't let
us fall please keep us from going down
let this be the one that makes the pain
go away
the shops restaurants and street cafes
along the pavement were quiet at first
but as the afternoon took hold more and
more people arrived the man was walking
down a set of steps toward the center of
the square when he discovered a prayer
that read let someone speak to me this
time anyone anyone at all or else the
prayer was a powerful one is taught as a
steel cord in the air it appeared to be
coming from the woman sitting on the
edge of the drive fountain her feet
breaking two straight lines in the
leaves the man sat down beside her and
asked or else what she did not seem
surprised to hear him raise the question
or else she said quietly he could tell
by the soreness in her voice that she
was about to cry or else he took her by
the hand come on why don't I buy you
some coffee he led her to the coffee
house hanging his coat over the back of
a chair and listening to her talk and
before long he had little question what
the or else was she seemed so
disconsolate so terribly isolated he
insisted she spend the rest of the
afternoon with him he took her to see
the wooden boxes that were on display at
a small art gallery and then the
Victorian lamps in the front room of an
antique store a movie was playing at the
bargain theater a comedy and he bought a
pair of tickets for it and after it was
finished the two of them settled down to
dinner at a chinese restaurant finally
they picked up a bag of freshly roasted
pecans from a pushcart down
by the river by then the Sun was falling
and the woman seemed in better spirits
he made her promise to call him the next
time she needed someone to talk to I
will she said tucking her chin into the
collar of her shirt like a little girl
though he wanted to believe her he
wondered as he rode the train home if he
would ever hear from her again it was
the next morning before he realized his
overcoat was missing he went to the Lost
and Found counter at the train station
and when he was told that no one had
turned it in traveled back to the
pedestrian mall to retrace his steps he
remembered draping the coat over his
chair at the coffee house but none of
the baristas there had seen ends nor had
the manager of the movie theater nor had
the owner of the art gallery the man
searched for it in every shop along the
square but without success that evening
as he unlocked the door of his house he
knew that the coat had fallen out of his
hands for good it was already planed to
him how much he was going to miss it it
had brought him little ease that was
true but it had made his life
incomparably richer and he was not sure
what he was going to do without it we
are none of us so delicate as we think
though and over the next few days as a
dozen new accounts came across his desk
at work the sharpness of his loss faded
he no longer experienced the compulsion
to hunt through his pockets all the time
he stopped feeling as though he had made
some terrible mistake eventually he was
left with only a small ache
back of his mind no larger than a pebble
and a lingering sensitivity to the
currents of hope and longing that flew
through the air and at pang Lin's
Chinese restaurant a new science hoon
appeared in the window custom fortune
cookies made nightly and on the premises
the diners at the restaurant found the
fortune cookies brittle and tasteless
but the messages inside were unlike any
they had ever seen and before long they
developed a reputation for their
peculiarities and their singular wisdom
crack open one of the cookies at paying
Lin's it was said and you never knew
what fortune you might find inside
please let the test to be cancelled thy
will be done but I could really use a
woman right about now why would you do
something like this to me why Oh make me
happy that's
thank you very much so again I'm happy
to spend some time talking with you
answering any questions if you have any
about these books or my others or my
writing like my publishing life my
reading life my biography anything you
might be interested in I will request
however that you speak very very loudly
I feel as if I'm you know at the bottom
of a pool listening to things so are
there any questions
so the question is can I talk about the
feeling of wounded loneliness and
dislocation in my writing and where I
think it comes from I'm repeating it in
case people at the back didn't hear you
know last week I attended a reading by a
husband and wife riding team Tom
Franklin and Beth and fennelly both of
them wonderful writers who together have
written a novel called the tilted world
and when they were talking about this
book Tom Franklin mentioned that writers
will be familiar I with a kind of you
know what it's like to have it how the
writing life can be a sad and lonely one
because it's very isolating you know
you're not it's not a social activity
writing you know as much as you feel
you're in Congress with other human
beings you're doing it all alone I think
of this because I happen to be in the
audience for this and I know the two of
them and so he said you know Kevin
brockmeier well you know I'm sure be
able to attest to you know the sadness
and loneliness of the writing life so
when I had the two of them signed my
books I I you know I insisted that they
sign it you know in acknowledgment of my
sad loneliness so it's a good you know I
think all writers should you know make a
point of speaking about the sadness and
loneliness of me at their events but um
it so I I'm not so sure that it's part
of it i think that experience is
certainly part of the common human
experience I don't know that it's the
central feature of the common human
experience but I think in my case it's
something that rises up and me when I'm
sitting down to write I don't always
experience it otherwise and I've been
struggling to understand lately whether
my life is difficult to me and whether
my writing expresses the difficulties of
my life or whether my life manifests the
difficulties of my writing I can't
figure it out so what I'm trying to do
for a book that I just started is to
write happy
um and you know see if it turns my life
around maybe things will be great now
who knows um so it seems to me that for
a long time I've been writing the book
of Revelation over and over again and
I'm trying to write the book of Genesis
now you know beginnings rather than
endings and joy rather than sorrow it is
very much the case that the illumination
in particular is a book that's entirely
oriented around human suffering and the
idea behind that book is it just equates
suffering with light at a very direct
equation and you could take that idea of
the way suffering is bound together with
beauty and pain is bound together with
luminescence and spend this equation
around on itself for you know 270 pages
and you would get a book that looks an
awful lot like this book does um but
it's a book that's designed to grapple
with exactly those questions you know
how do we make sense of our lives in the
context of the suffering that life
exposes us to and it's a question that
I've spent some time thinking about and
it was a question that said directly
into this particular book yeah so that's
that who else
yes
from me that the art forms that are at
the center of my life our literature
film and music you know the others like
a visual art I have some appreciation
for but I feel that it's very much kind
of a position that's rooted in my own
ignorance basically um whereas I've
spent a lot of time reading and also a
lot of time movie going and listening to
music now my talents don't don't lie in
kind of filmmaking and they certainly
don't lie in music making but just as a
human being I'm very appreciative of
those art forms and it was mentioned in
my introduction that you know I keep
these lists and that is in fact the case
and I you know I'm in the habit of kind
of keeping this list at my 50 favorite
books and handing them out everywhere
but I also keep a list of my 50 favorite
albums and my 50 favorite movies and in
kind of various other lists at this type
and I'm kind of reconsidering them
regularly in the light of new
experiences so those are the art forms
that are most important to me
okay so what was the last book to get
kicked off my list of 50 favorable it's
always hard to remember um you know
there are books that you can just kind
of tell are hanging on by their
fingernails and I love them but I know
i'm gonna read something that's going to
demand a space on this list and I'm
sorry George Orwell you're gonna have to
go that's that's that's kind of how it
works so in it might in fact have been I
love Orwell's nonfiction his essays I
think or his greatest work and that his
collection collection of essays that's
the title of Abel a collection of essays
was on this list for a long long time
and it might have been the last one to
get bumped um II and that would have
been this summer jun 29th i always date
these lists so the idea is that it's 50
books alphabetically by the author's
last name with no more than one book per
author and with asterisks beside my
current top 10 so presuming that Orwell
was the last one to be bumped if I'm
right about that he was bumped in favor
of a novel i read this summer by russell
Hoban called turtle diary he was just
republished in a New York Review of
Books edition and it's a beautiful
beautiful book about like there's
there's very little to the plot but it's
about a middle-aged man and a
middle-aged woman who conspire to free
the sea turtles from the London Zoo and
release them into the ocean um and
that's really all there is to the story
but more than that it's just about ah it
was one of these works for when I read
it I kept recognizing features of my own
experience that I thought were entirely
my own um and here they were like part
of Russell hoban's experience and the
experiences of his characters and it
just made me feel reading this book you
know I'll be damned I'm a human being
you know it's not just me like I'm part
of the world I'm really an amazing book
and amazing for exactly that feature the
way it makes you feel like you're a part
of human concourse one with everybody
else so I know that that was the book
the last book that el bote its way onto
the list by the way I do have a big
stack of these so if anybody is curious
to know what my 50 favorite books in
alphabetical order by the author's last
name with no more than one book or
author with asterisk beside the nerd top
10 are you're welcome to grab one from
me at the end of the reading who else
yes
what came on yeah that's right yep yeah
um it's so yeah maybe maybe I am turning
things around thank you good sign thank
you who else all right well thank you
very much um there are books for sale at
the table and I'm gonna sit right here
I'll be happy to sign books or talk
one-on-one with anybody and again if
you'd like to grab a copy of this list
I've got a big stack of them and you're
more than welcome to thanks