#signed saturdays

Signed Saturday

I’ve been putting together my Neil Gaiman book collection for years now, and this was an amazing addition. This edition of The Ocean at the End of the Lane is illustrated by Elise Hurst, and it includes a print of one of those illustrations. The incredible story about childhood, story-telling, and memory, is recast with these vague, dark, stunning illustrations. This book, signed by both Neil Gaiman and Elise Hurst, comes in a cloth slipcase and has a ribbon to mark pages, and is numbered 206 out of 1,000. I’m treasuring this copy of a beloved favorite of mine.

Signed Saturday

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals about Death was a genuinely entertaining and informative read. I found myself reading entire passages out loud to my boyfriend, sharing the wild facts about death and decomposition, busting myths about death and sharing the reasons behind a lot of the ways we handle corpses. Mortician Caitlin Doughty succeeds in making death an accessible and even funny topic. And I love her signature, skull and all. I found this signed edition in the Seminary Coop.

Signed Saturday

Seeing George R.R. Martin in conversation with Eve Ewing in October 2019 was so fascinating that I had to write two entire recaps of the conversation: one covering Stan Lee, the Shire, Winds of Winter, and more, and the other covering topics ranging from travel and food to the Game of Thrones characters. Fire & Blood was an epic, surprisingly readable historical tale of the early Targaryens of Westeros. I was struggling with a still undiagnosed illness in October 2019, but nevertheless it was an inspiring and exciting night, seeing two of our greatest thinkers alive in conversation, and walking away with a book signed by Martin himself.

Signed Saturday

Carmen Maria Machado is a writing powerhouse—one of my absolute favorite authors out there right now. Her Body and Other Parties is a stunning short story collection, from the tale of the woman with the green ribbon ‘round her neck to the stories of a woman’s lovers as the world around her crumbles. I was lucky enough to see Machado in conversation with Emil Ferris a few years back; just this year, I was able to attend a writing seminar on scene and setting with Machado. I can’t wait to see more from her in the future. I look up to her tremendously.

This will the the last Signed Saturday post for a while! The pandemic has curbed my access to author events and lovely signed books, and so we’re on pause for a little bit, at least when it comes to putting together a Series 4 of the book collecting feature. But I might still post with a new, exciting signed book now and then, so keep an eye out!

Signed Saturday

Seeing Ocean Vuong speak at the Seminary Coop on his novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous was incredibly valuable. “Truth is not my destination,” said Vuong about this autobiographical novel, “Art is.” If his novel is a house, the foundation is truth and research, and everything else is the fictive imagination. “It wouldn’t hold up to fact checking,” Vuong said, to laughter.

Plot, he said was the protagonist of Western lit, insisting that the protagonist has to defeat conflict to achieve self-worth. He was determined to write without “throwing these people into the woodchipper of plot.” He resisted the idea that you have to be transformed to be worthwhile. “One can just persevere. One can survive.” He wanted his characters to be able to “pursue joy on their own terms, not pursue success on the terms of a plot that would use them as chess pieces.”

His words brought such new insight into the brilliance of this novel. I was thrilled to get it signed after the signing, to hold the book and know what he had put into it, and to know that he had held the pages, however briefly, in his own hands.

Signed Saturday

The World That We Knew is a gorgeous novel about motherhood and rebellion. It’s an immersive work about Lea, a young girl who escapes Nazi Berlin with the help of a golem named Ava. The golem was created by Ettie, a Rabbi’s daughter who sets off to France with her sister, determined to escape persecution and perhaps even rebel against it. I’m so glad that I was able to meet Alice Hoffman at BookExpo, and get a signed review copy of this book, because it’s astonishing. Historical fiction mixed with the fantastic, it’s a novel about Ettie’s fire, Lea’s heartbreak, and Ava’s humanity. It sweeps across so many perspectives and takes without ever losing its emotional center. And I’m obsessed with the silver, reflective crane on its cover.

Signed Saturday

“It’s an alternate history that’s also a secret history,” said Annalee Newitz about their novel The Future of Another Timeline when I saw them speak at the American Writer’s Museum last October. They wanted to wrestle with the concept of time travel, to write about hope and resilience in the face of terror. I asked them about the hope in the novel, noting that the villains in this novel are not actually trying to achieve the most dystopian timeline, but trying to fix the timelines forever.

“Keeping history open is freedom,” Newitz emphasized, because you can always salvage it. Modern politics is often a battle over the past, and outlooks such as MAGA are all about “freezing history.” “Love of an unchanging past is conservatism,” Newitz said. “Wanting to muck around is a more progressive view of the past.” I was so pleased and thankful to get my review copy of this signed—”Grape Ape rules!”

Signed Saturday

I loved Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, from its mentions of Sephardic Judaism and use of Ladino to its dark, atmospheric New Haven setting. When it was first announced, I looked at the two cover designs—the sleek, black US snake, and the blue and silver of the UK cover—and decided to preorder the Waterstone’s edition, particularly as they had an option to order it signed. I didn’t know or suspect at the time that I would get to attend a Leigh Bardugo signing on her book tour later that fall, and by the time I got tickets for the signing I’d actually forgotten about this UK preorder. But I didn’t regret it: it’s a beautiful edition, and I almost didn’t go to the signing as I was feeling the impact of my at-the-time-undiagnosed pericarditis, so it was worthwhile ordering.