Musings
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Kids and Fortune Cookie Chronicles in front of Barnes and Noble
Thursday, March 27th, 2008My friend Kelly sent me this photo of her kids with my book on display at Barnes and Nobles.
Fortune Cookie Chronicles in Hawaii
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008A friend sent me a photo of her 90-year-old dad reading The Fortune Cookie Chronicles galley while on vacation in Hawaii.
Random people actually read the book…which still continues to surprise me
Monday, March 24th, 2008So I was at R&G Lounge in San Francisco Chinatown for a low-key alumni event when these people from another table actually recognized me because they had read my book. They weren’t even Chinese American or my age. It was a father and teenage son pair, genetically Indian, from Brownsville, Texas. (That’s like essentially Mexico). […]
Third printing!
Monday, March 24th, 2008Due to strong re-orders from bookstores and (hopefully) continued media attention, the publishers just ordered a third printing. Yay. Whew.
#26 on 3/30/08
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008Yay. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles hits the New York Times extended bestseller list at #26 on the March 30 issue (which is up today). Because of the way the list operates, that represents the second week of sales, or the week closing on March 15 (my birthday). As my friend pointed out, 2 + 6 […]
General (Tso’s?) Sushi? A reader responds
Saturday, March 22nd, 2008Getting reader emails like these is in part why authors write — to know they have changed how someone looks at the world. The line about whether the General of the sushi is the one of chicken fame or not made me burst out laughing. After reading your book, I have to say; I’ll never […]
Politics and Prose, Kosher Chinese Food and Standing Room Only
Monday, March 17th, 2008This is one half of the audience at my Politics & Prose event at Sixth and I Synagogue which is in Chinatown. (It was like the perfect convergence of my book: literary, Jews, Chinatown). The other half of the audience is at the right, past the laptop. It was about 150+ people, standing room only. […]
Fortune Cookie Chronicles E-card
Monday, March 17th, 2008My publisher designed an e-card!
How to minimize reading at “readings”
Sunday, March 16th, 2008I’m running around trying to pack and get all the logistics together before goig o tour. (The itinerary roughly goes Washington –> Philly –> Boston –> San Francisco/Bay Area –> Los Angeles –>Seattle). I have packed for two weeks at a time while doing research for my book. Packing for two weeks if no one […]
It’s my birthday and all I want to do is sleep
Saturday, March 15th, 2008I have a one day respite between New York City publicity (which happens to be my birthday). Dinner tonight with my closest friends and then book tour starts tomorrow. It goes Washington –> Philly –> Boston –> San Francisco –> Los Angeles –> Seattle –> (Home in NYC for a few days) –> Chicago. Put […]
Now 40% off on Amazon
Wednesday, March 12th, 2008Not sure why, but Amazon just upped the discount on The Fortune Cookie Chronicles from 34% to 40%.
Breaking Amazon’s #100 barrier
Saturday, March 8th, 2008Yes. I obsess about my Amazon ranking, like every new author does. It’s like watching a stock ticker, which updates every hour (if you are in the top 1,000?) and every day otherwise. (My dad obsesses too, once I told him there was something to watch. We are very goal-oriented people), Today, just now, The […]
Preparing for The Colbert Report
Saturday, March 8th, 2008Here is my explanation of what it’s like to prepare for The Colbert Report on The Huffington Post: Don’t try to be funny. That was the piece of advice that was repeatedly given to me when my friends first heard I was booked on The Colbert Report to talk about my book on Chinese food […]
Airbrushing before a TV appearance
Thursday, March 6th, 2008Make-up artist (holding a menacing metallic device): Have you ever been airbrushed? Me (looking at aforementioned device): Um, not to my knowledge. I thought airbrushing was something they do only after a photo is taken? Apparently not.
A (brief) five star rating on Amazon?
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008I checked Amazon today and was surprised to see that my book is already in stock though launch day is not for another two weeks. (But don’t buy it yet. It’s better if everyone buys in the same week). Even more surprising, I already have a five star rating (which with one review, means I […]
You CAN judge a book by its cover. So what does mine say?
Tuesday, February 19th, 2008The Fortune Cookie Chronicles cover gets a shout out by designer Christopher Tobias on his Outerwearforbooks blog as part of his Non-fiction Cover Genius Awards, launched Feb. 14. As he puts it: Why do fiction books get all the glory? In my experience non-fiction is often more of a challenge to design than fiction. I […]
How Chinese is All-American, excepted in a magazine that is all-American: Readers Digest
Monday, February 11th, 2008So, my book is excerpted in Readers Digest’s March issue (who knew? they have a ciruclation of 10 million!). I also have a piece in Maxim on the origins of General Tso’s chicken this month and another essay in Food and Wine on how I grew up not understanding how to use the oven. That […]
NPR: Twelve, Betting on a Dozen Books (now with transcript)
Monday, February 4th, 2008NPR has an 8-minute piece on Twelve’s first year in publishing, focusing on Jonathan Karp’s serial monogamy for twelve books a year. Little tidbits. Out of every every 10 hardcover books, 7 fail financially, 2 break even, one becomes a hit. It’s a hit driven business. It’s like corporate legalized gambling. Anyway, Twelve has a different […]
Washington Synagogue, March 17, with Politics and Prose
Thursday, January 31st, 2008The event, scheduled for March 17, 2008 (a Monday), at a local synagogue is being held in conjunction with Politics and Prose, one of the venerable independent book stores. I’m all about the synagogues.
The Books are Here!
Thursday, January 31st, 2008I will post photos later. I was running out of the building so only caught a glimpse of the books in the package. The orange cover glows slightly — almost fluorescent.
Presenting the future of journalism…
Sunday, January 27th, 2008I’m not even sure how I ended up at a karaoke bar in Koreatown with (mostly) sophomores on the Harvard Crimson on a Friday night. I start losing track of the years. I think they are the 136th guard.
Read the The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner
Thursday, January 24th, 2008This is a plug, but a relevant one. Yesterday I went to a reading/presentation by Eric Weiner, the NPR resporter and author of Geography of Bliss, at the Rubin Museum in New York City. The Geography of Bliss is one of my favorite books of the last year. I was lucky to read an […]
Soy sauce packet, writ large
Thursday, January 24th, 2008This is just a random amusing shot of the cover of my book next to the Chinese takeout that we had for the the media luncheon last week. It’s very large and very orange. At this point I have talked about Chinese food in Boston, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Ann Arbor and New […]
So did you like my book? A strangely satisfying compliment.
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008From my friend Tim Layman, about my book: “It’s not that like I was expecting not to like it. But I was surprised how much I did.” Have had other double-edged compliments like that. From Seth: “I’m not even interested in Chinese food! But I liked your book.” Or this e-mail from my good friend […]
Updated tour sked: Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles
Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008I just got my updated book tour list for March for Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and Los Angeles. I will add them to Appearances page in a bit. We are still trying to nail down DC. Possibly a joint synagogue-bookstore event.
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