Denise is speaking and signing tonight at 7:30 PM at Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, NC. If you’re in town, come on by. Tomorrow, Country Bookstore in Southern Pines. Saturday, Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill.
Also: Shaved my head for summer!
What’s up? Well, Denise is speaking at Parnassus Books in Nashville today at 6:30 PM. At least one of the women from her book will be in attendance. I’m on the road with her, looking forward to visiting some of the indie bookstores I’ve heard so much about. Later this week: Raleigh, Chapel Hill, Southern Pines, NC.
Zelda Fitzgerald gets a lot of play in Asheville, since she lived and died here. (A stone apparently marks the spot of the hospital fire, though I’ve never been able to find it.)
Our local indie bookstore Malaprops assembled a clever diorama of props—gin bottle and pearls—to celebrate this weekend’s talk by Therese Anne Fowler, author of Z. And their cafe magicians whipped up a special Zelda-inspired coffee.
If you haven’t seen my earlier post on what F. Scott was doing in Asheville while visiting Zelda, check it out here. Contact the bookstore for a signed copy of Fowler’s book. They should still have plenty.
Two podcasts this week discuss my wife’s book, The Girls of Atomic City. The Nerdstorian, a history-obsessed, Atlanta-based podcaster, grew up partially in Oak Ridge, TN, and talks about her memories of the place and tells the story of Colleen Black, one of the key women in Denise Kiernan’s book. In the second half of the podcast, the Nerdstorian—love that name!—delves into the scary story of Ebb Cade, whose tragic tale Denise told as part of the book’s section on human experimentation. Find the Nerdstorian podcast here.
Author Robert Swartwood also has a podcast up this morning, interviewing Denise. It runs about 28 minutes long, and gets into a lot of the writerly questions like how she pitched the book, wrote the proposal and other good stuff. Check out Robert’s podcast—and his books—here.
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Denise hits the road today for the first stop on her driving tour of the Southeast. She’ll do an interview with Mike Collins of “Charlotte Talks,” at the studios of WFAE, the city’s NPR station. That’ll be Thursday AM at 9 AM Eastern. (You can find that interview shortly after at the same link.) And she’ll do a book talk and signing at Park Road Books in that city at 7 PM Thursday evening.
I’m tagging along. Charlotte has good cheese.
“My” new book BLIND SPOT pubbing tomorrow!
With all the excitement around here, I’d nearly forgotten that one of my co-writing book projects is pubbing tomorrow.
Blind Spot, which is being published by the HarperCollins imprint, HarperOne, is a book I co-wrote with the British scientist Gordon Rugg, whom I profiled in Wired magazine back in 2004.
For lack of a better expression, Rugg is an “expert on human expertise.” He studies how human beings can acquire profound knowledge yet still manage to screw up. Rugg first garnered international media attention a few years back when he asserted that the freaky Voynich Manuscript—a bizarre book preserved at Yale University—was in fact a hoax.
He claims that the scholars who’ve studied that book for the last 100 years failed to “decode” or “translate” the book because they simply made a mistake—because that’s what experts do. (I should say that his “solution” is still hotly debated.)
Blind Spot uses Rugg’s Voynich findings as a jumping-off point for discussing other types of expert errors. The book is what publishers call a “big think” or “Gladwellian” book, and it was certainly interesting to work on. Just a week or so ago, Rugg revealed another twist on his Voynich work at the online ‘zine, Tablet. I just noticed thatThe Millions also linked to that article.
People sometimes ask how I work these co-writing projects. The truth is, every one is different. In this case, Rugg was kind to let me share a byline on the cover, but since the book’s content is 100 percent out of Rugg’s brain, he will do the bulk of the media interviews and outreach.
Here’s the publisher’s pitch for Blind Spot:
“What can chess masters teach us about how humans become experts?
Why can’t race car drivers explain decisions they’ve made behind the wheel?
What does predicting the winner of a soccer match say about our ability to make the right choice?
When we talk about experts, we typically have bought into the idea that they have all the answers. Now, in this groundbreaking book, Gordon Rugg exposes the surprising ways in which all people tend to make the same sorts of mistakes, regardless of what field they are in, how smart they are, or even their level of expertise. Focusing on why and how we make decisions, Rugg offers insight into what motivates us, how we fail to find the answers we are looking for, how we can learn to ask the essential questions, and more.
Rugg has devoted his life to learning how experts solve problems. He gained international attention after arguing persuasively that the famous Voynich Manuscript is a hoax. Now, he demonstrates his techniques in the Verifier Method, which can be applied to any seemingly unsolvable problem.
Drawing on his personal odyssey in the field of human expertise, Rugg makes astute and entertaining conclusions about how and why we inevitably fail, and explains how to make better mistakes, work backward, and reengineer the ways we pursue success.”
If the premise intrigues you, check out the links below:
Available:
Girls of Atomic City — National Tour in May & June
My wife Denise Kiernan is hitting the road May and June to promote her book, The Girls of Atomic City. Here’s the list of cities, bookstores, and events. The first half is a driving tour through the Southeast; the second half will see her bopping around the U.S. to various bookstores. The list is finalized except for three cities, marked to be determined.
SOUTHERN DRIVING TOUR
Charlotte, NC
Thursday, May 2
Park Road Books 7 pm
4139 Park Rd.
Charlotte, NC
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
Greenville, SC
Friday, May 10
Fiction Addiction 12 pm
Venue: City Range Restaurant
615 Haywood Rd.
Greenville, SC
*Lunch Event & Signing
Nashville, TN
Tuesday, May 14
Parnassus Books 6:30 pm
3900 Hillsboro Pike
Nashville, TN
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
Raleigh, NC
Thursday, May 16
Quail Ridge Books 7:30 pm
3522 Wade Ave.
Raleigh, NC
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
Southern Pines, NC
Friday, May 17
Country Bookshop 4:30 pm
140 NW Broad St.
Southern Pines, NC
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
Chapel Hill, NC
Saturday, May 18
Flyleaf Books Noon
752 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Chapel Hill, NC
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
Knoxville, TN
Tuesday, May 21
Union Ave Books 6 pm
Venue: The East Tennessee History Center Auditorium
601 Gay St.
Knoxville TN
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
Atlanta, GA
Tuesday, June 4
A Cappella Books 7 pm
Venue: Carter Presidential Library
441 Freedom Parkway
Atlanta, GA
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
August 30 - September 1, 2013
Decatur Festival of Books
Details TBD
Sylva, NC
Saturday, June 29
City Lights Bookstore 6:30 pm
3 East Jackson St.
Sylva, NC
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
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*NATIONAL TOUR
Milwaukee, WI
Saturday, June 8
Boswell Books 2 pm
2559 N Downer Ave.
Milwaukee, WI
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
Chicago, IL
Sunday, June 9
Chicago Tribune Printers Row Festival
Solo Presentation
Details TBD
Lexington, KY
Wednesday, June 12
Joseph-Beth Booksellers 7 pm
161 Lexington Green Circle
Lexington KY
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
Denver, CO
Friday, June 14
Tattered Cover 7:30 pm
2526 East Colfax Ave.
Denver, CO
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
Los Angeles, CA
Saturday, June 15
Vroman’s Bookstore 4 pm
695 E. Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
San Francisco, CA
Monday, June 17
Book Passage 6 pm
1 Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
Seattle, WA
Wednesday, June 19
Elliot Bay Book Company 7pm
1521 Tenth Ave.
Seattle, WA
*Talk, Q&A, Signing
Albuquerque, NM
Friday, June 21
Bookworks
Albuquerque, NM
Venue TBD
One of my publishers, Quirk Books, is running a post I wrote about my hometown library in New Jersey in honor of National Library Week. Find it at the above link or here.
