While I should be writing

So Saturday was great.

Any day that is filled with two amazing (and huge) bookshops and a chat with Cover to Cover-host Mark Dewitt is obviously a great day.

Books & Co is located on 4453 Walnut Street, Dayton, and the minute I stepped into the store I knew I was in big trouble. “Look at all these books!” I wispered greadily and perhaps slightly manically to Lathea.
Lathea looked at me. “Katarina”, said she. “Focus.”
Lathea has taken the place of my sister for this trip: she knew I had just been to the post office without entirely solving the weight-problem. I had sent five books home, but been unable to part with so many that I still had to sit on my suitcase to be able to close it.

In the end, I was saved by the fact that our interview with Mark was at four o’clock in Cincinatti, and the event at Books & Co was in Dayton at two. Math and the relentless passing of time meant I did not have time to look around.

But I had a great time. Nothing is more fun than to get to meet other people who love book like I do. One had brought her mother to my event for Mother’s day. “It’s an hours’ drive for both of us, but from different directions, so we sort of meet in the middle.”
I looked at the mother in question, a bit worried. I wondered if she considered listening to me babble on about books quite as nice a mother’s day gift as her daughter did. But she didn’t seem to be suffering too much, or maybe she was just too polite to show it. Mother’s can be like that.

There was also two sisters there, which naturally speaks to me.

“But she doesn’t forbid me to buy books”, said one of them.
“It’s because I don’t have to live with you”, said the other.

After Books & Co, we went on to WRRS-FM Cover to Cover, hosted by the charming Mark Dewitt. He said the title of my book so many times that I didn’t have to worry about doing it myself – before that I had been certain that I would either a, forget to mention it at all during the entire 25 minute-interview, thereby babbling on and on while leaving all listeners happily unaware who I was or what I’d written, or b, that I would annoy the hell out of every listener by saying it constantly. Of the two, the first scenario was definitely the more likely one. But Mark took excellent care of me, and asked some great questions.

And then we were on to Joseph-Beth Booksellers, which are also huge, and so very charming. We visited their store in Cincinnati, but they also have one in Kentucky. Before the event, I thought aloud to Lathea about the origin of the name of the bookshop. “It has to be the founders, I guess”, I said, somewhat disappointed. It’s such a mundane explanation. Then I brightened. “But wouldn’t it be fun if it was in fact founded by two people with completely different names? Like… Joseph-Beth Booksellers, founded by Steven and Jane.”

As it turned out, both versions were correct: it was named after the founders, but after their middle name. So they could in fact introduce themselves like this: “Oh hello, we’re Neil and Mary, founders of Joseph-Beth Booksellers.”

I hope they did.

Anyway. I digress. The bookshop was absolutely lovely. One of the employees of the Kentucky store came by after a Kentucky Derby party, with her friend. “Did the right horse win?” I asked, and apparently the friend had both bet on the right horse and won the prize for the best hat. “It’s a lovely hat”, I said honestly.

Which reminds me: people should wear hats more often to book events. I have to start the trend myself, I guess. Unfortunately I did not forsee this need when I packed back home in Sweden, but now I feel an incredible longing after a good hat for events. I could call it my book hat and refuse to go anywhere without it. And if you’re coming to one of my events – don’t you feel that a hat would brighten things up enormously?

Anyway. The employee from the Kentucky store was responsible for the Crime/Mystery-section, and as I had been in the mood for some cosy crimes for days, I naturally asked her for recommendations. It also turned out that they did have one Miss Fisher Mystery in stock, which was my particular craving.

“Have you seen the Netflix-series?” asked the Kentucky-employee.
“Yes!” I said, delighted to have met a fellow Phryne Fisher-fan. “Isn’t she just great? I want to be like her.” I leaned in closer and sort of whispered, half ashamed: “I think I might actually prefer the Netflix-serie to the book…”
“Oh, so do I”, she said, and I felt as if we were fast friends by then.

I knew we were fast friends when she proceeded to recommend four other books to me.

Lathea only shook her head. By the time she discovered the pile of books, it was too late anyway. They were already mine, mine, mine.

PS. A funny side story. They offered to give me the banner (see below!), and naturally I accepted gracefully. Only afterwards did I stop to think: where exactly am I going to put it? The living room might look sort of strange, but so would my bedroom. My bedroom already looks like a library, adding a banner of my own book might not improve it.

“You should just put it at your front door”, said Lathea.
“But what would your sister say?”, commented a new friend who’d heard me on one of my talks.

But my sister is very supportive. She would just help me get it up there on the front door. The only problem is that we live in an apartment with a mail slot on the door. Might be tricky getting the mail with a big banner in front of it.

Then again, it’s mostly bills nowadays anyway.

For a light Friday evening entertainment, Lathea and I drove to Corrallton to visit Georgia’s oldest bookshop. Not only is it charming and, obviously, the oldest bookshop in Georgia (which in itself makes it well worth a visit), but they also have three cats. Anyone who’s read my book knows my fascination with Dewey the library cat, so naturally I was thrilled to see not one, not two, but three bookshops cats. As a friend of mine said: “Books and cats, it’s like my idea of heaven!”

The bookshop was founded sometime late 19th century, and they even have the text of the very first advertisement for the store. My bookish heart is especially pleased with the last line: “I sell for cash, but will take eggs, or chickens for school books when parties can’t pay the money.”

Amen.

My first stop in Georgia, though, wasn’t FoxTale Book Shoppe, but Eagle Eye Bookshop in Decatur. It was the first thing I saw, did and experience in Georgia, and what an experience it was!

The bookshop was lovely, and only our tight schedule prevented me from buying several books there. Also, I was distracted by the signing table.

“Let’s go to the signing table, and you can sign the books over there”, said Jamille of Eagle Eye Bookshop, and she was certainly right it being a signing table.

Have you ever seen anything so lovely?

Ps. The amazing Jamilla also recommended Community Q Barbeque for lunch, so I am eternally obliged to her. We would never have found it without her, and what a tragedy that would have been.

When I’m writing this I’m in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, wondering why I’m not in Woodstock instead. Woodstock is a lovely town. Its mainstreet consists of low, beautiful, old buildings on one side, facing the track on the other side. At some time a railroad town, I imagine. Now, of course, they are mostly known for their bookshop. Okay, I don’t know if that’s true, but it should be.

The bookshop is called FoxTale Book Shoppe, and it is magical. I spent one of the most memorial evening of my life there, and I am already burning to turn them into a book. Theirs is a story that should be written. But since the three owners (Jackie, Karen and Ellen) met during a writing class, I’ll leave it to them to tell it. (Jackie, Karen and Ellen – if you’re reading this: get to work! No pressure, of course).

They started it some ten years ago. “We didn’t think”, says Miss Jackie, one of the owner. “And we were fearless.”

I’m betting they still are.

This is the sort of bookshop where customers are greated by name, where everyone knows each others stories; where people can come for a break and a laugh if life gets too much, where stories are shared. And of course, where the humour is raw. “We’re the unholy trinity”, says Miss Jackie. “You have to be able to laugh.”

Later on, to a customer: “I’m 75, but I can still take you, you know.” To me: “I can do it, because I know she wouldn’t fight back. Since I’m older, you see.”
Customer, to me: “Miss Jackie knows I could never do anything to her.”
Me: “I bet she’s counting on it.”

Not only a magical bookshop, it was also a magical evening: as a surprice, miss Jackie took me to the back office for a few minutes, then out the back door, around the shop and back in again – only to discover all the attendees of the event standing arround the bookshop, reading my book. Since it was Cinco de Mayo, they had also prepared a Swedish-Mexican Fusion, with a Broken Wheel punch.

I need hardly add that I’ll be back.

And naturally, I also bought a book: Scott Wilbanks The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster. I can’t wait to read it!

Is naturally a topic important to any Swede. I need hardly say that the sun started shining in Sweden the moment I left? For a time, it seemed I had simply taken the rain with me to the US. It rained in Rhode Island. After that, we went on to Mobile, Alabama. It rained.

“Well, the sun seems to be shining in Fairhope”, said Lathea to me in the car on the way there.
“But I haven’t gotten there yet”, said I.

It rained in Fairhope.

So, to the people of Fairhope: my sincere apologies. The weather didn’t matter at all the moment I stepped into Page & Palette, of course. It’s an amazing bookshop, and the event took pace in the room next door where there was a bar.

So there I was, surrounded by books and people who loved books, with a beer in my hand and a smile on my face. I like to take this opportunity to stress that I did not have the beer until after the event.

The event itself, as the bookshop, was truly amazing. Such friendly people and so many great books around us. I had a blast, and bought three books. This does not bode well for my luggage.

It was not until we reached New Orleans that I experienced some sunshine, but New Orleans in the sun more than made up for it. “There are great stories here”, I said to Lathea. “I could definitely see myself writing here.”

The only thing is, I don’t think I could write about the south. I already love it (when I’m writing this I’m in Georgia). It’s something about the heat. Warm weather is such a big part of the people and culture and history that I doubt I could ever fully describe it or do it justice. I come from Sweden. We don’t have heat. I imagine it’s a big part of why we turned out the way we did; coming from ancestors who for some reason choose to live in Sweden. No wonder we don’t have any great philosophers. It’s easy to think if you live in, say, Greece or Italy, with sunshine and beaches and red wine. Not so in the cold, with snow and darkness and moonshine.

In New Orleans I bought a poem and got another one for free. The second one began: “the freedom to use the imagination, laws in which the rebel can roam, freely, the art of the broken heart. the strenght behind storing and sharing secrets. the spaces between ideas, the words wrapping around the urge to be more than an adverb.”

I couldn’t be a poet either.

In New Orleans I also ate food while listening to a live jazz band, of course, and made small talk with our waiter. He was perhaps 60, maybe 70, maybe timeless, and on his wrist was a silver jewelry that was also a harmonica.
“How long have you been in New Orleans?”
“Oh, since 1980.”
“Do you have family here?”
“What do you think I came to New Orleans to get away from?”