keeping score

The Mirage post-book tour recap

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Previous recaps: week one; week two; week three; week four.

This week The Mirage is back on the Pacific Northwest Independent bestseller list at #12. Also, Nancy Pearl has been saying nice things about me on the radio, and next month I’ll be a guest on her Book Lust TV show. And my publicist and I are still waiting, fingers crossed, on reviews from a couple major newspapers that haven’t weighed in yet.

But in the meanwhile, now that the book tour is over it’s time for me to shift back into writer mode and start working on my next novel—and by “working” I mean, at this stage, going for very long walks, talking to myself, and trusting my wife to understand why I am even more distracted than usual.

To get myself back in the work work habit, I’m also going to try and blog more frequently—so if you’ve got questions you didn’t get a chance to ask me on tour, or just general topics you’d like me to ruminate about, feel free to make suggestions in comments.

The Mirage week four recap

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I’ll be in San Francisco for the next three nights (see my event schedule here for details). Before I head for the airport, here’s a quick rundown of last week’s Mirage highlights:

Reviews

Essays and Interviews

  • Radio interview with Ross Reynolds for NPR’s The Conversation
  • Interview with Lindsey McGuirk for Northwest Book Lovers

Other mentions

  • CQ Homeland Security, a daily news digest published by Congressional Quarterly, name-checked The Mirage in its February 17 roundup  “BEHIND THE LINES: Our Take on the Other Media’s Homeland Security Coverage”

Scorekeeping

  • #5 on the Seattle Mystery Bookshop February hardcover bestseller list
  • #7 on the Pacific Northwest Independent bestseller list for February 26, 2012

Previous recaps: week one; week two; week three.

The Mirage week three recap

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The big news of the week is that HarperCollins is ordering a second printing of The Mirage. Thanks to all the early buyers who helped make this happen! If you still want a first edition, you should track one down soon. (You could try one of the bookstores where I’ve recently appeared and signed stock, or come to tonight’s reading at Queen Anne Books.)

Other highlights of the week:

Reviews

  • Details magazine blog — “Books we Like”
  • Paul Di Filippo for BarnesandNobleReview.com — “A book that will captivate upon an initial surface reading and trouble your certainties long after.”

Essays and Interviews

  • Interview with Haroon Moghul for Religion Dispatches

Scorekeeping

  • #11 on the Pacific Northwest Independent bestseller list for February 19, 2012

Previous recaps: week one; week two.

The Mirage week two recap

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This week’s highlight reel:

Reviews

  • The Oregonian — “It’s bracing to read a novel that generates a fresh look at Our Troubled Times without the exhausted polemics and manipulative sentiments. In fact, The Mirage is a 9/11 novel we’ve been waiting for, audacious, funny and bold.”
  • The Kitsap Sun — “The Mirage is a shimmering tour de force — an entertainment, a contemplation, and an indictment, all rolled into one.”
  • BookPage — “It’s no easy task to recreate the universe in its own, if slightly distorted, image, yet Ruff has succeeded handily, dizzying and dazzling the reader with a fantastic—and fantastical—story.”
  • The Brown Tweed Society — “Characters worth caring about, real tension and suspense, and a wildly unexpected resolution…”
  • The Authors Speak — “Rarely do I call a book ‘transcendent’, but this one may be just that.”

Essays and Interviews

Other mentions

Scorekeeping

  • #9 on the Pacific Northwest Independent bestseller list for February 12, 2012
  • #3 on the Elliott Bay Book Company bestseller list for February 19,2012

Week one highlights here.

#9

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I just got home from the Oregon leg of the Mirage book tour. I’ll have more to say about that tomorrow once I’ve caught up on my email (and my sleep), but one bit of good news I wanted to share right away is that The Mirage debuts at #9 on this week’s Pacific Northwest Independent Bestseller list. Thanks, local indie booksellers!

Also, a programming note: I’ll be at Seattle Mystery Bookshop tomorrow signing books from noon to 1:30 PM. Then tomorrow night at 7 PM I’ll be reading and signing at the University Book Store. And on Friday at 6:30 PM I’ll be at the Lake Forest Park location of Third Place Books.