It is a great gift to go to a place authors don’t often get to go, and to bring Izzy and Maria, and to help give so much pleasure to so many people. Libraries are brave and valuable places these day and they are appreciative and enthusiastic. If Cincinnati and my evening with Rita Mae Brown were among the most memorable evenings of the book tour, my visit to Bainbridge was the sweetest.

People brought cookies and pie and biscuits for us, sold out the books, bought most of the remaining notecards, and thanked me profusely for coming. The thanks go to them. Library manager Donna Fried  (above) did an amazing job of putting the evening together on such short notice. We talked together for nearly three hours and every minute of it was a joy. Izzy greeted almost everyone, and was a bigger hit than me. People are eager to meet Maria. Most of the crowd came off of Facebook and the  blog, many drove from as far away as Pittsburgh.

I like the idea of expanding the book tour to new audiences (we will continue this at the South Hadley, Mass., Public Library next Tuesday at 3 p.m. and Odyssey  Books at 7 p.m.) and of using new technologies like the Ipad and Facebook. Book tours should be a conversation, at least for me, and not a stiff reading of my work. I am debating whether I am fair to Izzy to keep hauling him around to public events, but seeing the swarm of people around him hugging him and taking photos,  realized I have to keep doing it. But to a limited extent. He has become a rock star. People seem excited about the novel, and I love the feedback I am getting. Anyway, I am falling asleep writing this, so I will go to sleep.  Home tomorrow and through this weekend and out again next week.