BEA Treasure Trove

The stack has been on my desk for a couple weeks. It’s getting to be time to put the books away. But there is something so luxurious in a nice list. These are the books (advance copies and already published) that I snagged at BEA, in ascending order of size:

1. an NYC moleskine for being a speaker
2. a bunch of brochures from the PEN Center
3. Lara Santoro’s Mercy about a European journalist based in Kenya came in the mail, as promised, from Other Press
4. The Fire This Time, Randall Kenan’s homage to James Baldwin and attack on the Katrina aftermath and, following it, also from Hoboken’s own Melville House, my longed for copy of Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog
5. Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader a novella about what might happen if Queen Elizabeth II became an avid reader
6. Two Lives, a joint biography of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas by Janet Malcolm
7. Robert Bolano’s Amulet which, I’m told, is the best one…
8. David Leavitt’s forthcoming The Indian Clerk which I sought on Mark Sarvas’ recommendation and then, having snagged it, ran into Mark at the Bloomsbury booth,
9. and, finally, out of character with the rest but very exciting in its own way America’s Best Lost Recipes from the Cook’s Magazine people.

Now, if only these generous publishers and publicists could find me a 25th hour in the day to get started on my reading…