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Friday, August 25, 2017

The Writer's Life 8/25 - C'est La Vie

Here's a list of the best selling authors worldwide since 2001, according to telegraph.co.uk: 1. James Patterson 2. JK Rowling 3. Nora Roberts 4. Dr Seuss 5. John Grisham 6. Stephenie Meyer 7. Dan Brown 8. Nicholas Sparks 9. Janet Evanovich 10. Jeff Kinney (Diary of a Wimpy Kid). The only name that surprises me in Evanovich. Although I know she is popular, I had no idea it's to such an extent. I find it hard to believe she has outsold Danielle Steel, Mary Higgins Clarke and Stephen King the past 17 years. I haven't kept a record, but I'd bet I've sold far more books on the street by Steel than any other author.

Here are the best books, so far, of the 21st Century, according to librarything.com: 1. Atonement by Ian McEwan 2. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 3. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides 4. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood 5. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell 6. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger 7. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson 8. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 9. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson 10. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I've read only number one, which is excellent. I've seen the adaptation of the second, which I enjoyed, so I won't be reading it, even though I know there is usually a big difference between a book and a film based on it. I've sold many copies of Larsson's first in the millennium series. I wish I'd read it before seeing the Swedish adaptation, which I loved. That novel has received more praise than any other, any genre, from my customers. I'll be on the lookout for the others except for numbers four and nine, as I've read books by those authors and, these days, I restrict myself to only one of an author's works. A book also has to conform to my page count requirement, roughly 350 at present.

New Jerseyian Jeffrey Riegel, 56, passed away last Friday. He'd promised friends a funny message in his obituary. A rabid football fan, he asked to have eight Philadelphia Eagles as pall bearers so they could let him down one last time. He'd owned season tickets more than 30 years and never saw the team win a Super Bowl. Eight friends wearing Eagles jerseys laid him to rest. (From Yahoo's Odd News, in my own words.)



Unable to land a favorable parking spot at my usual nook, I took the floating book shop to the Sheepshead Bay promenade. It was a nice change of pace. The photo above is the view I had. I parked near a small tree that provided ample shade. My thanks to the young woman who bought a Kathy Reichs' thriller, and to the elderly one who purchased a book on Yoga in Russian. The highlight of the session was a conversation with a middle age woman who'd worked until recently in the fashion industry at Ralph Lauren for about 20 years, putting in long hours. She was glad to leave, as the stress was becoming too great. She's spent the summer decompressing, going to nearby Manhattan Beach most days. She asked how much the books were. "One or two dollars," I said, certain she wouldn't be interested in any of mine. Sure enough, she was drawn to A Hitch in Twilight and Billionths of a Lifetime. She held me to the prices I cited. One of the reasons I acquiesced was that I wanted to make sure I left with a little money to show for my efforts. The sale will be worth it if she reads the books, which she may not now that she no longer commutes. Oh, well, C'est la vie. The sale of other books more than makes up for the loss.

And here's where I picked up dinner:


Vic's Sixth novel: http://tinyurl.com/zpuhucj 
Vic's Short Works: http://tinyurl.com/jy55pzc
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