Better Get Your MBA Before You Write That Book

So it turns out being an author now means learning to market yourself to corporations. The days of just trying to get a booking in a local bookstore, a radio interview here and there and a profile in a paper just don’t cut it.

The New York Times ran a story in the business section on Sunday on how Seattle is becoming the new power center for book sales. The reason? Its triumvirate of Amazon, Starbucks, and Costco.

These three corporations are increasingly driving book sales as more and more of the market shifts from conventional bookstores to other points of sale. The good part of the shift is that the people in power at those companies clearly love books and often advocate for titles that are not just mass market easy reads. The downside is that there is just a narrow funnel to capture their attention, often driven by the publicity departments of publishers.

I went into a Whole Foods the other day and was surprised to see a rack of books and CDs right next to the prepared foods section. I guess the store figures people will browse while they wait for their number to come up. I think we are going to see more and more of this kind of unusual marketing for books. The rack was small, so I don’t know if this is a good thing.

In other book news, Ed Champion and friends are carrying on a week-long discussion about Nicholson Baker’s new book on World War II, Human Smoke. The reviewer for the Los Angeles Times, Mark Kurlansky, really liked the book, which challenges long-held assumptions about the causes of the war. But Ed and friends are suggesting that Baker’s newspaper-snippet-long sections are less historical than carefully selected to present an argument and that a book that poses as a historical treatise may in reality be much more manipulative. (I think that is what they say.) Anyway, all these discussion have gotten my attention and I definitely want to check out the book.

The Annual Tournament of Books has begun. Today it is The Savage Detectives vs. Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name.

The website of blogger Maud Newton was hacked over the weekend and all of her 8,000 posts were deleted. Fortunately, her webhosting site had back-ups.

Goodbye, The Wire. It was too short.

Mercury News Layoffs -- New Proof that Media News is Short-sighted

The Mercury News lost some of its best reporters today as its new owner, Media News, continued its desperate slash of costs. Twenty-three reporters and editors are leaving, most involuntarily, although some took a buyout. Look for a much thinner paper and many more unnoticed shenanigans.

I haven’t worked at the Mercury in nine years so I don’t know all those who are leaving, but there are a few who were let go whose work has consistently been outstanding.

Barry Witt, for example, broke more hard-hitting stories than most everyone, including the news that Alameda County had vastly overpaid to lure the Raiders to Oakland.

Carolyn Jung has been a food writer and the food section editor and consistently made the section interesting.

Lisa Chung was a columnist, metro reporter, and editor and a visible face of the paper.

Sue Hutchinson’s column held prime real estate in the paper for years. She was nimble with words and wrote about an astonishing variety of topics.

A few veterans took buyouts, including Steve Wright, the editorial page editor (and my former editor) and Rebecca Salner, the assistant managing editor of business. They both had been at the paper for almost 20 years.

These people were assets to the newsroom. It’s a crime they will no longer be part of this news-gathering operation. In protest, Charles Matthews, a former Merc reporter, cancelled his subscription to the paper today. Read his reasons.

Here’s the list:

Layoffs

Lisa Chung, Metro feature writer, ex-columnist

Steve Chae, Library

Katherine Conrad, commercial real estate reporter

Barbara Egbert, copy editor

Barb Feder, medical writer

Dennis Georgatos, 49ers beat writer

Elizabeth Goodspeed, features designer

Joanne HoYoung Lee, photographer

Carolyn Jung, food columnist

Dave Kiefer, sports writer

Thu Ly, photographer

Mike Martinez, travel writer

Erik Olvera, Metro reporter

Connie Skipitares, metro reporter

Barry Witt, Metro reporter

Buyouts

Alvie Lindsay, state bureau chief

Matt Mansfield, deputy managing editor

Pam Moreland , features editor

Rebecca Salner, AME of Business

Steve Wright, head of editorial pages

Voluntary departures

Sue Hutchison, features columnist

Julie Kaufmann, food editor

Levi Sumagaysay, assistant Business editor

Goodbye Newspapers (Sung to the Tune of Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road)

The demise of newspapers continues. The Mercury News, my old stomping grounds, plans to lay off 30 reporters and editors tomorrow. The paper once had 400 editorial employees; it will soon have 170.

My former colleague Michael Bazeley has a wonderful eulogy for the Merc.

Peggy Drexler wrote a moving opinion piece in the Chronicle today about the death of newspapers.

Here’s another view.

When I left the Mercury News nine years ago to write essays and books, I never thought it was a good career move. Now it looks like it was.

Will the New York Times Investigate its Role in the Margaret Jones/Seltzer Flap?

The heat is on for the New York Times to do an examination on how its reporters (or more accurately, book reviewer and free-lance writer) completely bought into the false story perpetuated by Margaret Jones/ Seltzer.

Some people are calling for the Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt to examine whether Jones’s book got extensive coverage since its editor, Sarah McGrath, was a daughter of Charles McGrath, the former editor of the Book Review.

“What the Times has not really done is deal effectively with the big ugly toad squatting on the center square of this story...The New York Times,” writes Hartfort Courant reporter Colin McEnroe.

"Seltzer's book got the kind of ride from the Times that authors dream of. A rave in a featured daily review by alpha critic Michiko Kakutani and then a truly gushy piece in the House and Home section. How did it get that kind of star-making treatment?

One has to think it has something to do with Seltzer's editor, Sarah McGrath, who worked for three years on this book without ever noticing that it was 100 percent hooey and who is the daughter of Times writer-at-large Charles McGrath. In identifying papa this way, the Times kind of covers up who he really is -- the editor emeritus of the Times Book Review. So, Mr. Hoyt, one thing I would like you to look into is how many times Mr. McGrath slouched into this or that office around the building and suggested that a little more than usual could be done for this book by one of Sarah's authors. "Never" would be a wonderful answer.”

I remember when I was an intern reporter at the Fremont Argus, way back in 1982. One of the veteran reporters was profiling a guy for a routine story. But he checked the guy’s credentials anyway, going as far as calling his college to confirm that he had graduated when he said he had.

I was impressed by that level of care and tried to emulate it whenever possible. You would be surprised by how often people distort the innocuous details of their lives.

That said, I don’t think it was Michiko Kakutani’s role to fact check the book. The feature reporter who wrote the piece for the Home section should have done some fact-checking. Unfortunately, she was a freelancer which meant she was trying to do the piece in a timely fashion so as to maintain a decent work to pay ratio. When you are not on staff, you can’t be expected to be as thorough as a regular reporter. And the Home section is not intended to be a bastion of hard-hitting journalism.

That leaves the publisher, Riverhead. Acquiring editors are usually so pressed for time they don’t investigate prospective authors. They want to establish a good relationship, not an adversarial one. But clearly an interim step is needed with memoir. Why can’t the publisher ask a writer to provide documentation to back up key elements of a story? It can be submitted shortly after a manuscript is delivered.

Look What Came to Visit

I came home on Monday afternoon and was surprised by three wild turkeys sitting on my porch. I knew that the turkeys were roaming all over the East Bay, but I didn't expect to see them where I live, up in the hills. When I shooed them away (you should see how much they pooped in just a short time) they flew! That's how little I know about turkeys. I thought they just waddled.

Another Author Caught Lying

I wasn’t surprised by James Frey, (his opening sentences were too far out to be believed) but I didn’t expect this one.

Last week, in positive book review and a long and colorful profile in the Home and Garden section, the New York Times heaped praise on Margaret B. Jones for her affecting memoir about growing up as a gang member in Central Los Angeles.

It was all made up.

Margaret B. Jones is not really a half-white, half Native American foster child who joined the Bloods, but Margaret Seltzer, a privileged girl from an affluent family in Sherman Oaks, CA. She was outed after her sister saw the profile and called up Riverhead, the book’s publisher. Love and Consequences is a lie.

“In a sometimes tearful, often contrite telephone interview from her home on Monday, Ms. Seltzer, 33, who is known as Peggy, admitted that the personal story she told in the book was entirely fabricated,” according to an article in the New York Times. “She insisted, though, that many of the details in the book were based on the experiences of close friends she had met over the years while working to reduce gang violence in Los Angeles.”

I paid attention to this one because I am so dismayed by the killing that is taking place on the streets of Oakland and San Francisco. I thought of writing a book by following all of Oakland’s murders for a year, but ultimately decided it would be too dangerous. When I read about Love and Consequences I said to myself that this memoir was probably a much better, more effective way to shine light on all the killing that is taking place.

I was wrong on that account, as well.

Monday Musings

Michael Chabon’s and Michael Pollan’s fundraiser for Barack Obama in Berkeley on Friday raised more than $50,000, according to Chabon.

As I drove by the scene on the Uplands in the Berkeley Hills around 6:30 p.m., cars and valet attendants were so stacked up that the street was nearly impassable. Some of those who attended apparently donated $4,600, the maximum permitted by law, according to Chabon. Alice Waters, a longtime supporter of the Clintons, was supposed to attend.

The evening was billed as “Fine Talk, Fine Food, and A Fine Candidate,” and was one of a series of Obama fundraisers put on by Chabon and his wife Ayelet Waldman. Months ago they pledged to raise $25,000 for the candidate; they have been so successful that they have upped their goal to $75,000. Their website says they have raised $65,000 but I think Friday’s event puts them over the top.

The party took place in one of the most generous, politically-minded parts of Berkeley. The 94705 zip code has donated $415,000 to Democratic candidates this election and only $17,000 to Republican candidates. No surprise, as this is Berkeley.

Mary Roach, whose new book Bonk is coming out next month, had a sweet piece in Play, a New York Times magazine, on Sunday, about learning to swim as an adult.

Wallace Stegner

Philip Fradkin’s new biography of Wallace Stegner has just been released, both to acclaim and criticism. Fradkin is speaking Thursday night at the Mechanic’s Institute and I am hoping to attend.

I have read and enjoyed many of Stegner’s books. While Angle of Repose won the Pulitzer Prize, my favorite was always Crossing to Safety, about the friendship of two couples who are very different in temperament and upbringing.

And since I went to Stanford, I knew about the prestigious Stegner writing fellowship program that has helped along the careers of many illustrious writers, including Ken Kesey, Edward Abbey. Robert Stone, Raymond Carver, Larry McMurtry, and Vikram Seth, among many others.

Imagine my surprise, then, when my mother recently attended a lecture on Stegner and later informed me that he has been accused of plagiarism. Apparently Angle of Repose is based on the letters and unpublished memoir of Mary Hallock Foote, who moved to California in the 19th century. Entire pages were lifted almost verbatim from Foote’s work.

These accusations of plagiarism aren’t well known, despite the fact that Stegner is considered one of the West’s greatest writers. The author and playwright Sands Hall created a play about the controversy, called Fair Use, and other biographers have discussed the plagiarism, but Fradkin's book places the issue front and center. It's a complex question because Stegner apparently had permission to use Hallock's material. He acknowledged her contribution in Angle of Repose, but didn't reveal the extent to which he relied on her writings.

In an editorial published in the Los Angeles Times, Fradkin wrote:

“The book evolved in the following manner. After hearing Stegner lecture in 1954, a graduate student asked if he thought that Foote would be a proper subject for his dissertation. She would, Stegner said. Her letters and manuscripts were obtained from a relative of Foote's in Nevada City, Calif., and brought to the Stanford University library. The student failed to produce anything, and by mutual consent, Stegner took over the subject in 1967.

Foote had died in 1938, and her closest relatives were her grandchildren. Stegner dealt solely with one, Janet Micoleau, who he had met in Nevada City through mutual friends. When she thought it necessary, Micoleau contacted two sisters for concurrence in her dealings with Stegner.

Stegner assured Micoleau in 1967 that the book would contain no recognizable characters and "no quotations direct from the letters." Was this all right with her? She replied that the family would "be delighted to have the MHF materials used as background." Stegner thanked Micoleau for her "blanket approval."

He wasn't sure at first if the book would be a novel or a biography. He settled on a fictional account because "she just wasn't a big enough figure for a biography to be a big book."

Stegner's concept of the book kept evolving. He then told Micoleau he wanted to mix fact with fiction. He was bending the characters "so you may not recognize your ancestors when I get through with them."

At most, Stegner assured her, he was using only selected paragraphs from the letters and memoir. (Actually, the borrowed passages would be considerably longer.) Would she read a draft of the manuscript? "I'm having to throw in a domestic tragedy of an entirely fictional nature," Stegner warned.

Micoleau declined. She was busy, and a 600-page manuscript was a lot to read. "I'm sure all concerned are content to trust your judgment," she wrote Stegner. "We all wish you well with the undertaking and have no desire to censor or interfere with it in any way."

The subject will surely come up this weekend, when Fradkin and others put on a weekend long conference on Stegner at Pt. Reyes in Marin County.

New Tabloid-Sized San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

The new tabloid-sized San Francisco Chronicle Book Review arrived on my doorstep today, and I must pronounce it a success.

The Chronicle’s editors reduced the size of the section to save printing costs, but it has the unintended consequence of making the review feel more intimate and cohesive. Editor Oscar Villalon has taken the opportunity to introduce some fun, bright features to the review, like a literary cartoon drawn by Lisa Brown, a children’s book author and the wife of Daniel Handler, and a section called “Blurbs.” In the February 24^th edition, the Blurb section asks writers Anne Lamott and Jack Bouleware to name the best book that features San Francisco.

There is also a new section named “Lit Pics” where the editors recommend previously reviewed titles. In another addition, kids reflect on the best books they have read recently. There are still literary listings but they get a pick-me-up with a column named "In Town" which highlights some author talks. The Chronicle’s best-seller lists are also there.

Of course, it would be great if the book review got an extra two pages. There are four major reviews in the section and five shorter reviews of books for young readers. That’s around the same number of reviews that have been appearing in the old broadsheet format. It’s hard to imagine that adding a few more pages would cost a lot, but apparently it does.

Last note: The cover reviews are of Philip Fradkin’s new biography, Wallace Stegner and the American West and Irving Yalom’s book Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death. Both books were praised.

Literary Tidbits for a Rainy Day

Cody’s Books is packing up its Fourth Street store and moving to Shattuck Avenue in downtown Berkeley. Not a bad move, me thinks.

Stephen Elliot of the Grotto makes a sale.

The latest on Laura Albert, aka JT Leroy, as revealed in the LA Weekly.

Lindsey Crittenden, author of the memoir, The Water Will Hold You: A Skeptic Learns to Pray, connects with prisoners in San Quentin.

Daniel Handler and Andrew Sean Greer dressed up in tuxedos and served martinis and cheese balls to Amy Sedaris at a recent talk at City Arts and Lectures.

San Francisco Chronicle Book Review will Shrink ... Even More

Well the newspaper business has been imploding all around the country, but the Bay Area continues to lead the way. (This is one time I wish California wasn’t a trend setter)

Just two day after Dean Singleton’s Media News announced that its papers must immediately cut reporters, (which round is this? Two? Three? Four?) the San Francisco Chronicle revealed that it is combining sections in an attempt to cut printing costs.

Starting this week, the Book Review Section will shrink to tabloid size and will be inserted inside the Insight section. Readers will still be able to pull out the book review, which means technically it is not being discontinued. The four-page broadsheet will become an eight-page tabloid, but editor Oscar Villalon says the number of review should remain the same. The Chronicle runs about 7-8 reviews on Sunday and 4 during the week.

The Sunday Book Review was once hefty and vibrant. It's still clinging on, but its slow death is a loss to the very literate and literary Bay Area.

Remember 8 years ago when Chronicle’s readers were so outraged by the plan to fold the Book Review into another section that they bombarded Editor Phil Bronstein with angry emails and letters? The outpouring of support was so strong that not only did Bronstein rescind the changes, he created a full-size, stand along book review section.

Bronstein left earlier this month. The Chronicle has a new editor, Ward Bushee, with a mandate to stop the bleeding. This is one of his bandaids.

Carrie Fisher

Carrie Fisher is a hoot. Some of the time.

That’s the feeling I took away from Tuesday’s opening of “Wishful Drinking” at Berkeley Repertory Theater. During the almost two-hour, one-woman play, which details Fisher’s parents’ marriage, her own disastrous liaisons, her addiction to drugs and her battle with manic depression, I found myself alternately laughing out loud at Fisher’s acerbic reflections on her life, and daydreaming.

The play is marred by Fisher’s peculiar delivery style. First of all, I was surprised by her appearance. She came out on stage in a free flowing long black skirt and tunic, clearly much heavier than she used to be. Her voice was also different, which I found disconcerting. It was smoky and gravelly. She delivered some of her lines too casually, which ramped down whatever tension there was in the narrative. And she smokes clove cigarettes and sips Coke Zero constantly throughout the performance, which may be a technique to make it look like there is some action, but proves distracting.

Yet I really enjoyed myself. Fisher has lived her life bright in the Hollywood spotlight, with all its perks and perils. She has been at the top and the bottom, and she shares it all with the audience.

The evening was enhanced considerably by the presence of the people who figure so prominently in the play. Fisher’s parents, the crooner Eddie Fisher and the actress, Debbie Reynolds were there, although they were deliberately seated at opposite ends of the theater. The director George Lucas, who cast Fisher as Princess Leia in Star Wars, traipsed through the theater during intermission, followed by a posse of what looked to be young teenagers. Fisher pokes fun of Lucas’ stern, never changing countenance in the play, and he definitely looked movie-star don’t touch me formidable as he paraded around.

I was sitting in the balcony, just a few feet away from Eddie Fisher, who is in his 80s now, bound to a wheelchair, with thin hair. Fisher showed lots of pictures of her father during the show, from the days when he was married to Reynolds and then Elizabeth Taylor, to his succeeding marriages. Fisher is a charmer, according to his daughter, and you could still see that spark in the elderly gentleman who sipped white wine during the performance and caused his companion to laugh many times during intermission.

It’s clear that Fisher’s parents’ troubled marriage has scarred her deeply; growing up the daughter of Hollywood scandal is not easy. Yet Fisher is able to turn much of her pain into humor. My favorite bit of the play is when she diagrams her parents’ various romantic entanglements in order to determine whether her daughter, Billie, was related to her boyfriend, the grandson of Hollywood Producer Michael Todd and Elizabeth Taylor.

Fisher decided they were not related by blood, but were related by scandal.

Eco-Anxiety

Leslie Crawford, a friend and member of my writing group North 24^th, wrote a wonderful piece this month for San Francisco Magazine all about the anxieties caused by global warming. We know its coming (or is here, if you haven’t stuck your head in the sand like George W. Bush). We try to do our part by changing to compact fluorescent light bulbs and walking whenever possible, but the depressing reality is that our environment is disintegrating at a rapid rate. Some people are so frightened and paralyzed by this that they seek out the attention of therapists.

Well, it was a great story, which was to be expected as Leslie is a wonderful and insightful writer. San Francisco Magazine is big and glossy and chock full of fashion ads but it also offers cutting edge journalism. Its editor Bruce Kelley always manages to put out a magazine that I actually want to read, rather than flip through. And did I mention that my brother, Steven Dinkelspiel, is the president of the magazine?

All of this is a long way of saying that the New York Times ran a front page story on Saturday about eco-Moms, women who get together to try and use environmentally safe products in their homes. Mentioned prominently in Patricia Leigh Brown's piece was Leslie’s article from San Francisco Magazine. There was even a sidebar on eco-anxiety. And by 9 am California time, the story was the second-most emailed story from the Times.

This is just one more example of how California is on the leading edge of social and political movements. Not only are we organizing to fight global warming, we are in the forefront of a self-help movement to assist us in the long battle.

By the way, Leslie and her son Sam are the authors of City Walks with Kids: San Francisco, a boxed deck of 50 cards that map entertaining walks parents can do with their kids (Chronicle Books 2007).

Is Hollywood Cruel to Writers?

Maria Van Trapp sold away the rights to her memoir for only $9,000 and didn’t reap any of the profits from the enormously successful “Sound of Music.” She had to watch from her mountaintop home in Stowe, Vermont as the producers of the musical and movie made millions. She never got over it.

While giving away prose to the movies for nothing may not be Michael Chabon’s problem, (see below) it apparently afflicts other writers. Poor Deborah Gregory. Her bestselling series Cheetah Girls was made into two Disney movies, with a third on the way, and the Disney merchandise machine spewed out dolls, toothbrushes, video games, etc.

How much has Gregory reaped? A mere $125,000.

Hollywood is cruel to its writers.

Michael Chabon's Not Even Last, but Two Times Ago, Book to become a Movie

Joel and Ethan Coen, whose film “No Country for Old Men” is racking up honors and money, will direct an adaptation of Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.

The producer will be Scott Rudin, who put together the screen version of Chabon’s Wonder Boys. He also is developing The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for Paramount.

Come to think of it, the movie version of Chabon’s Mysteries of Pittsburgh should be out soon.

Want a Piece of San Francisco History? It's (illegally) for sale on Ebay.

This apparent theft of hundreds of old photographs from the San Francisco Examiner archives makes my blood boil. The donor got an $18.4 million tax write off for giving the photos to UC Berkeley, yet they are showing up on Ebay. (via Peninsula Press Club.)

That Musty Smell

When I got into a tussle with SFist, a corporate/local website, someone on the site called me a “noted lover of the way old books smell.”

I thought it was an incredible characterization, both for its impertinence and its accuracy. I do love old books, libraries, archives, and manuscripts. I was at the Judah L. Magnes Museum on Monday looking at its rare book collection; I got to hold in my hand a book transcribed in the 16^th century. Let me tell you, it was a thrill.

So I was astounded that someone could hold that love against me. I had never considered an appreciation for old books an insult, but to a twenty or thirty something who was being deliberately snarky to draw attention to a website, liking something other than hyperlinks is apparently an anachronism. The Internet is clean, fast, interactive and involves very few bodily functions. (like smell.)

I got a chance this week to combine the old and the new. As part of research for my book, I read a lot about the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. It plays a big role in the last third of the book and I have one scene-based chapter where the walls are tumbling down and the fire rages.

I went on Ebay to browse its old books, which I had never done before. I noticed that there were a slew of books about the earthquake, many of them first editions published in 1906. Before I knew what my fingers were doing, I had bid on about five of them! With bids going from 50 cents to $15, I figured I couldn’t go wrong.

Well you know where this is going. So far I have won every bid. I now have a “collection” of earthquake books. My library has a “focus.” None have arrived yet, but I am looking forward to taking a deep breath to smell the must and age emanating from the pages.

A few Bay Area Literary Tidbits

Andy Ross, the former owner of Cody's Books, is going into the agent business. According to Publisher’s Marketplace, Ross is forming the Andy Ross Literary Agency in Berkeley, CA. "Ross will focus on general nonfiction, politics and current events, history, biography, journalism and contemporary culture.”

Well, this is a good sign. We know Ross has excellent taste in books, as his bookstores were among the most diverse and interesting in the country. (Even if they struggled to compete.) It will be fascinating to see what authors he finds.

A British article on the rise of Dave Eggers’ publishing empire.

Ethan Rarick’s new book on the Donner Party hasn’t shown up in Bay Area libraries yet, but the New York Times already has a review. It’s called Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West. Quick assessment: read it.

Rarick wrote a great book on former California Governor Pat Brown, which was published by UC Press. His new book is published by Oxford Press. This is the first narrative account of the Donner Party since 1936, according to Rarick, and the book incorporates some new scientific findings about the ill-fated wagon train.

The Grotto: San Francisco's Book Factory

The Grotto, the South of Market writers’ collective, is proving once again to be a very lucrative place to work. Clearly there are many talented writers renting offices there, but it looks like the cachet of the place also provides an added value when selling a book.

Take this recent posting from Publisher’s Marketplace about one Grotto resident’s recent book sale:

Melanie Gideon's The Slippery Year, pitched as similar to Elizabeth Gilbert and Nora Ephron, a bittersweet and wise month-by-month account of the year in her life during which, upon turning 43 and confronted with her own mortality, she chooses to wake herself up, embrace the passage of time, identify what matters (and what does not) -- and "finally decide to live," to Jordan Pavlin at Knopf, for six-figures, in a pre-empt, by Elizabeth Sheinkman at Curtis Brown UK (NA).

The six-figure sale comes after an excerpt from the book appeared in the New York Times’ Modern Love column. Gideon also wrote a well received children’s book called Pucker.

In the past year, nine of the Grotto’s approximately 30 writers have sold books. Many were sold for $300,000 - $600,000 and one may have even gone for more than $1 million. Writers are always happy to get big advances, but they don’t always want to advertise the fact, so I won’t attach numbers to names.

Some of the sales since January 2007:

Po Bronson, one of the Grotto’s co-founders, sold a “counter-intuitive examination of the new science of parenting,” to Jonathan Karp at Twelve. (He and Gideon use the same literary agency, Curtis Brown.) Now Karp’s imprint is called Twelve because it only publishes 12 books year. You know they look for books they think will sell a lot of copies, and that they pay their authors accordingly.

Jason Roberts sold Every Living Thing about the audacious, often-fatal program launched by scientist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), to compile a catalog of all life by sending acolytes to every corner of the globe (billed as "The Right Stuff of the 1700s"), to Star Lawrence at Norton, in a major deal, in a pre-empt, for publication in 2009, by Michael Carlisle at Inkwell Management.

Now “major deal” in Publisher’s Marketplace parlance means $500,000 and up. (I must reveal that Jason and I have the same agent.)

Allison Hoover Bartlett's The Man Who Loved Books: The True Story of a Rare Book Thief, A Book Detective, and the World of Literary Obsession to Sarah McGrath, executive editor at Riverhead Books, by James Levine

Allison and I are in a writing group together, North 24th, and I can vouch this will be a fascinating, utterly-compelling book. It came out of a piece she did for San Francisco Magazine. The article was included in the anthology The Best American Crime Reporting of 2007.

Ethan Watters', another Grotto co-founder, sold Crazy Like Us, exploring the imperialistic spread of the American perception of mental illness throughout the world, looking at the complexity of cross-cultural psychiatry, the spread of our syndromes around the globe, and the problems that come when the US inflicts its own definitions and treatment of mental illnesses and peculiarities on other cultures, to Dominick Anfuso at Free Press, in a pre-empt, for publication in January 2010, by Chris Calhoun of Sterling Lord Literistic .

(Now pre-empt means a publisher likes a book enough to pay more than other publishers to guarantee they get it.)

NPR commentator Andy Raskin's The Ramen King and I: Searching for God in a Cup of Noodles, his quirky efforts to meet the inventor of instant ramen noodles, who died earlier this year at age 96, to Erin Moore and Bill Shinker at Gotham, in a pre-empt, by Stuart Krichevsky at Stuart Krichevsky Agency (NA).

Raskin also had a piece in the Modern Love column in the Times about love and looking for a parking space. See “pre-empt” again.

Rodes Fishburne sold Going to See the Elephant, following the picaresque adventures of a young man in San Francisco seeking to be the greatest writer of his generation and unwittingly igniting forces larger than he could have ever imagined, to Kerri Buckley at Bantam Dell, by Fredrica Friedman at Fredrica S. Friedman and Company.

Laura Fraser, the author of the memoir, An Italian Affair, recently sold another memoir.

Cameron Tuttle, the author of The Bad Girls Guides, recently completed a five-book deal.

Grotto filmmakers Xandra Castleton and David Munro apparently just found a distributor for their film Full Grown Men.

Do you think it is something in the water?

What in the $$%@#&*%$# Did Binky Urban Mean?

Amanda "Binky" Urban

The acknowledgment section in Michael Pollan’s new book In Defense of Food is very curious.

After he thanks a long list of people, including his researcher and former student Adrienne Davich, (who is a friend of mine) he praises his literary agent Amanda “Binky” Urban. Now Urban is one of the most powerful agents in New York. She is so well-connected, so sure of her place in the publishing world, that she never puts a listing of any of her book deals in Publishers Marketplace. Many, many other literary agents and publishers list their deals, either to show the world what they are up to, get some buzz going for a book, or just to let aspiring writers know what books are selling.

Not Urban. Not Ever.

Pollan praises Urban for her “sage and unvarnished advice.” I’ve heard him talk about her and he says she is incredibly smart and very helpful in crafting ideas. “Binky is almost never wrong about anything,” he writes.

BUT … Pollan goes on to say that “when I left New England for laid-back California, she predicted I would never complete another book. Here’s number two.”

Now when I read that acknowledgement it made me wonder. Did Urban tell Pollan he would never write again because 1) there are no stories in California? 2) People are so lazy in California that can’t be bothered to write books. 3) Pollan would be too busy teaching at the UC Berkeley School of Journalism to have time to write another book. 4) California is a wasteland and all of the above apply?

Coming on the heels of the NBCC events in San Francisco, which were specifically designed to try and break down the notion of an East Coast bias, I find Urban’s attitude disturbing.

What do people have against California? How can everyone insist we are all just a bunch of vapid blondes? Even vapid blondes have an occasion interesting thought.

Of course, I can’t really know what Urban thinks just based on Pollan’s comments. I may be totally off-base. But I just want to insist to her and all the other East Coast-centrics that there are lots of good stories worth making into books in California. In fact, we think we start most social movements and then they move East toward New York City, not the other way around.

A New History of Berkeley

I recently went to hear Charles Wollenberg speak about his latest book, Berkeley: A City inHistory. It was published on Jan. 23 by UC Press and looks to be one of those books that not only is a good read, but will make an excellent housewarming present for your favorite Bay Area hostess.

Wollenberg is one of the most knowledgeable historians of the Bay Area, having written books on the history of the East Bay, the region during World War II, ethnic conflict in California, and a book on California and Vietnam, done in conjunction with an exhibit at the Oakland Museum. He started this book as an on-line project for the Berkeley City Library.

While Berkeley is only a small city of 100,000 residents, it looms large in the national imagination. It is parodied as the home of Birkenstock granola-munching lefties or a place so politically correct that it’s debatable who would be a better dinner guest: Alice Waters or Huey Newton.

All jokes aside, Berkeley – and by extension the Bay Area – has been out in front of numerous social movements that subsequently swept the nation. On the top of my head I can point to the Free Speech Movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the movement toward organics and sustainability. Part of the avant-garde thinking reflects the presence of a major university smack in the center of town, but many Berkeley politicos have no association with Cal and still manage to come up with some interesting ideas.

Wollenberg, the chair of Social Sciences and Professor of History at Berkeley City College, has not written a traditional history that starts with the earliest settlers and continues chronologically until present day. While he provides a narrative sweep, he tries to write about the people and times that still resonate today. He writes about the railroad age, the Depression, World War II, and the 60s, sprinkling the book throughout with delightful tales about the people and places that make up the city. His book touches on the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, the anti-war movement, and more.

I heard Wollenberg speak at a California Studies Dinner, a monthly meeting sponsored by the Department of Geography and the Townsend Center at UC Berkeley. It’s a group affiliated with the California Studies Association, which was formed about 20 years ago by Jeff Lustig, who teaches at Sacramento State. California Studies Dinners,

Every month about a dozen people gather at the UC Berkeley Faculty Club to discuss issues of relevance to California. I’ve wanted to attend their dinners for years but never had the time. I must admit I was amazed at the people who showed. Many of them had written important books on various aspects of the West, books that I have read in recent years to better inform myself about 19^th century California. They were definitely a tough audience as between them they probably knew down cold the entire history of the state, from prehistoric times to the present.

There was Richard J. Orsi, a professor emeritus from Cal State East Bay whose book Sunset Limited: The Southern Pacific Railroad and the Development of the American West, 1850-1930, took him 30 years to research and write. There was William Issel, a professor emeritus from San Francisco State University, who has authored numerous book, including a fabulous one with Robert Cherney called San Francisco 1865-1932: Politics, Power, and Urban Development. Richard Walker, the author of The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area co-chaired the event.

Phillip Fradkin, who has just completed a biography of Wallace Stegner that will be published by Knopf in February, is a regular at the dinners. Peter Richardson, who wrote a biography of Carey McWilliams, who many consider the finest nonfiction writer on California, was there. I was delighted to run into Lisa Rubens, a historian who works at Cal’s Regional Oral History Project. Lisa gave me my first job out of Stanford way back in 1982. I helped research photos for a poster that described the history of California women. Malcolm Margolin, the founder and publisher of Heydey Books, was also there. So was Ava Kahn, one of the most distinguished chroniclers of Jewish life in California.

It was great for me as I feel as if I have spent the past few years in a self-dug hole, researching 19^th and 20^th century California. Then here were all these people who have the same interests as I do. As my friend Jan said, “Frances, you have found your people!”

Wollenberg will spead at Mrs. Dalloways’ Books on College Avenue in Berkeley at 7:30 p.m. on Friday Feb. 8.

House of Mondavi goes into 8th printing

Julia Flynn Siler’s book, The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty, has been a runaway success. The book was a fixture on the San Francisco Chronicle’s bestseller list for months and had a brief perch on the New York Times bestseller list, and it continues to sell briskly. The House of Mondavi has now gone into its 8^th printing. There are 57,500 hardback copies in print. That’s a huge number.

As someone at Gotham, her publishing house, noted: “We rarely see a hardcover continue to reorder at this rate when the paperback is imminent so this is a sign of how strong word-of-mouth is on the book, and bodes very, very well for the success of the paperback.”

Julie is a friend of mine, which is why I can’t help kvel (brag) about her success. As I’ve said before, the book is also a very good read.

Writers for Obama

Barack Obama won’t be there, but a host of literary lights will be shilling for him.

Writers Michael Chabon, Ayelet Waldman, Dave Eggers, and Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) will be the hosts of a $1,000 a head fundraiser for Obama in Berkeley on Jan. 27. It will be at the home of Linda Schacht and John Gage. (Linda is one of the main organizers for the annual fundraiser for the Berkeley Library Foundation and her husband was one of the original employees of Sun Microsystems.)

Chabon has been one of the country's most vocal writers in support of Obama. He and his wife, the writer Ayelet Waldman (who vaguely knew Obama in law school) declared their support for Obama months ago. In April 2007 they sent out a fundraising email telling people they were trying to raise $25,000 for the candidate. They’re not quite there yet, but they are close. They’ve raised about $20,000.

At the National Kidney Foundation Lunch in San Francisco in the winter, Chabon took his allotted 15 minutes to give an impassioned plea about Obama. Instead of talking about his life, his writing techniques, or his book, Chabon talked about how Obama was the only candidate to offer hope. Chabon also spoke to reporters on the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall last week, once again telling those gathered that Obama inspired hope.

Apparently the authors are supporting Obama because of his positions, not because he likes their books. According to the Phawker blog, Obama admitted as much:

"Mr. Handler recently met Barack Obama, who told him unprompted that his kids have not read ANY of his books, but they did see the movie Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events. .... Mr. Handler would have lied and said his kids have read ALL of Mr. Obama's books -- if the shoe had been on the other foot."

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

I was really looking forward to Geraldine Brooks’ People of the Book, a novel about the Sarajevo Haggadah. I was taken by the fact that Brooks was taken by the Haggadah, a centuries-old richly illustrated book of the Jewish exodus from Egypt.

The Haggadah has a fascinating history that Brooks tries to bring to life. She first heard of the Haggadah in the 1990s when she was covering the war in Bosnia for the Wall Street Journal. The book had disappeared from the Sarajevo National Museum and people speculated it had been burned or destroyed in the war.

Years later, the book resurfaced. It had been saved by a Muslim and squirreled away in a safe place, far from the mortar shells and sniper fire that made the streets of Sarajevo almost impassable. That was the second time the book, considered one of the most beautiful illuminated Jewish manuscripts in existence, had been saved. During World War II, the museum’s chief librarian, Dervis Korkut, smuggled the manuscript out from under the nose of a Nazi official who wanted to either destroy it or put it in one of Hitler’s personal libraries. Korkut gave the book to a Muslim cleric who hid it safely for the duration of the conflict.

Brooks’ book is really an impassioned plea for people of varying religions to see the humanity in one another rather than the differences. The main character in the book is an Australian rare book expert who is called to Sarajevo to repair the illuminated manuscript. Hanna, as she is called, finds small objects on the parchment pages, such as a single strand of hair, a whisper of salt, a stain that resembles wine, and an insect wing. Brooks than cuts back in time, tracing how each of those objects made their way into the binding of the Sarajevo Haggadah. She takes the reader on a journey, from the manuscript's imagined beginnings in Seville in 1480, to Spain both before and after the Inquisition that resulted in the expulsion or conversion of most of the country’s Jews, to Sarajevo during World War II and during the civil war of the 1990s and to Vienna.

The book does a nice job of showing the history of the Jews and their continued battles with those who would destroy them. Unfortunately, the narrative is uneven and at times I found myself feeling manipulated. I couldn’t believe that this writing came from the same author of The Year of Wonders, one of my favorite books, or the writer of March, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. While the sections dealing with Hanna, the Australian book restorer, rang true, some of the other parts felt forced. I had a particularly hard time with the secret vices of a rabbi who lived in Venice in 1609.

I am not the only one who was disappointed by parts of the book. Jerome Weeks, the former book editor of the Dallas Morning News, said “People of the Book is not much more emotionally complex than Nancy Drew and the Mysterious Manuscript.”

Perhaps Brooks thought it would be difficult to lure readers to a novel about a religious text, so she chose the most accessible way she could think of to draw in readers. There’s lots of drama and conflict in the book, but very little true tension. I know her publisher was comparing it to Dan Brown’s DaVinci code, since the Haggadah is a codex that is decoded over the course of the novel. I don’t think it is sufficiently thrilling, as in thriller genre, to appeal to that kind of reader.

The Frustration of Choosing Photos for a Book

This is Isaias W. Hellman sitting in the president's office at the Farmers and Merchants Bank in Los Angeles. I think the photo was taken around 1905. Note the telephone on the top of the desk.

I’ve been pulling together photos for possible use in Towers of Gold and once again I have run up against the bane of biographers: missing information.

The man I am writing about, Isaias W. Hellman, was a pack rat. If you delve into his papers at the California Historical Society, you can find all sorts of minutiae: newspaper receipts from 1890, dressmakers' receipts from the same period, plumbing bills, etc.

Then why are there so few pictures from his life?

I can not find a single picture of his parents or a portrait of him and his wife and three children. I have one picture – only one – of one of his daughters as a young girl, but none of his son and older daughter.

Since Hellman came to Los Angeles in 1859, this may not seem so unusual. It’s hard to find photos from that far back. Yet that logic falls apart when I realize I have a copy of his report card from Germany from 1854. If papers like that are still around, where are his photos of early Los Angeles?

One explanation is that a lot of his early photos burned up during the 1906 earthquake and fire. While Hellman’s house on Franklin Street was spared, the Wells Fargo Bank building on Pine and Montgomery streets was dynamited and then burned. So maybe a bunch of his stuff was reduced to ashes. I read a reference to this in a newspaper article, but I have not found any reference to this in his personal papers.

I don’t think I will ever know the answer. But as I collect photos (my editor asked me to submit about 40, which St. Martins will winnow down to 16) I keep fantasizing that an unclaimed photo album will turn up with photos no one has seen in decades.

I will just have to work around the missing pieces.

The 2007 National Book Critics Circle Finalists

More drinking and schmoozing at City Lights bookstore Saturday night where the NBCC announced its finalists for the year.

There were lots of writers/celebrities at the event, including Dave Eggers, Maxine Hong Kingston, Wendy Lesser, and many more.

A few observations: Joyce Carol Oates was nominated in two categories, in autobiography for The Journals and in fiction for The Gravedigger’s Daughter.

White Men, where are thou? All of the fiction nominees were either women or men of color, which seems an accurate reflection of America’s growing multiculturalism:

Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games
Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao
Hisham Matar, In The Country of Men
Joyce Carol Oates, The Gravediggers Daughter
Marianne Wiggins, The Shadow Catcher

You can find a complete list of nominees here.

About 17 members of the approximately 24-member board of directors holed up in a conference room at the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday. Throughout the day they winnowed down a long list of semi-finalists to five authors in each category. When they arrived at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco’s North Beach they seemed weary, but happy.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in New York City in March.

The NBCC Comes to San Francisco

There were drinks and conversation aplenty Friday night in San Francisco when the National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors hosted two panels that looked at the state of West Coast and emerging writers.

About a hundred people crowded into a performance space in downtown San Francisco to hear comments from people like David Ulin, the editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Oscar Villalon, the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, Jennifer Reese, a book critic for Entertainment Weekly, David Kipen, the NEA Director of Literature/BIG READ, Sandy Dijkstra, the literary agent, and authors Michelle Richmond, Greg Sarris, and Andrew Sean Greer, among others.

It was an attempt by the NBCC to broaden its reach and become less New York-centric. On Saturday, for the first time in its history, the NBCC will announce the finalists for its awards from City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.

The group tried to engage themselves and the audience in the question of whether the West Coast is driving American literature. Presumably, since the West was once the frontier and people still gravitate here to remake themselves, the literature they produce is more forward-looking and innovative than that produced in New York.

As provocative as that notion is, the panelists couldn’t agree on its truth.

Jennifer Reese characterized the West Coast as a “goofy, artsy” place that is not “caught up in the intense noise of the literary community of New York.” David Ulin said West Coast writers had an advantage being “out of the fishbowl.” Living 3,000 miles away from New York gives Los Angeles writers the opportunity to fail or to try things that might not work, far away from the glare and scrutiny of the publishing world. Having this ability to experiment ultimately leads to more exciting writing, he said.

Ellen Heltzel of Bookbabes lives in Portland Oregon. She said the area attracts people interested in working in their own métier, not conforming to the tastes and dictates of the New York publishing scene. An example is the poet Gary Snyder, who pursued his own interests in Buddhism and the landscape of the west, His vision and drive had ultimately brought him international recognition. (and a Pulitzer Prize.)

Andrew Sean Greer, the author of Max Tivoli said writers living in New York can find themselves drawn into the literary scene at the expense of their own writing. While it’s a lot of fun to hang out at bars, go to readings, and mingle at publishing events, all that socializing makes it difficult for a writer to do the most important thing – finish his or her book. (Greer moved from New York to Montana to write and found that state TOO quiet, so he eventually moved to San Francisco.)

Mary Ann Gwinn, the book editor of the Seattle Times, said readers on the West Coast are more adventurous, which means writers are more adventurous.

The panelists tried hard not to reduce the discussion to an “Us versus New York” dialogue, and succeeded for the most part. They also seemed cognizant of not trying to elevate West Coast writing over that of other regions, while acknowledging its strengths.

The evening brought out lots of published and aspiring writers and the networking was intense. Mark Sarvas, the blogger behind The Elegant Variation and the author of the forthcoming novel, Harry, Revised, flew up from Los Angeles for evening. Kevin Smokler, the co creator of BookTour.com and author of Bookmark Now, came, as did Jason Roberts, an NBCC finalist last year for his biography, A Sense of the World.

Kemble Scott, author of Soma and the editor of the SoMa Literary Review came, as did New York Times reporter Neil MacFarquhar, author of the novel The Sand Café. Daniel Schifrin, the former director of literary programs for the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, showed up. He has just been appointed “writer in residence” for the new Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Jane Ganhal, co-founder of LitQuake and the author liaison for the new author website Redroom.com, also made an appearance.

One last note: The participants from the first panel on emerging writers were asked to name some writers to look out for. Here are some of their suggestions:

Suzanne Kleid of City Lights Books recommended Cane Hayward’s memoir of growing up in the 1970s, The Hypocrisy of Disco.

David Kipen pointed out that Berkeley mystery author Cornelia Read had just won an NEA fellowship. (I have read her book, A Field of Darkness, and can highly recommend it.)

Michelle Richmond recommended Meg Waite Clayton’s forthcoming novel, The Wednesday Sisters.

Fame! Money! Glory!

The Chronicle ran an article this week on Redroom, a new site for authors. It looks like a terrific, easy-to-use, one-stop place to get information on writers.

When I read a book, I often Google the author and then have to wade through dozens of websites before I find the biographical information I am looking for. I am always surprised when an author does not have a website, but unfortunately many do not. Redroom will make it easy for authors to present information about themselves.

Redroom gathers authors together under one “roof” and gives them easily searchable categories. For example, I wanted to see what kind of history writers had signed up and could just click on the history category. There were more than 40 authors in that group alone.

Redroom was started by Ivory Madison, a “serial entrepreneur” who is as lovely as her name. Jane Ganahal, a former San Francisco Chronicle columnist and a co-founder of Litquake, is also involved with the site. You can see Ganahal’s influence, as lots of the writers are from the Bay Area.

The site also has a sense of humor. In the bios of the staff, everyone lists their age as 29, or not yet 29. That tongue-in-cheek reference harkens back to a time when a woman was considered old after 29.

This is the latest in a number of great writing sites recently developed. I have also enjoyed BookTour, which sends out a weekly email of authors touring in your area. San Francisco author Kevin Smokler is one of the site's organizers.

On a local level, Kemble Scott, author of the novel Soma, sends out a fabulous weekly email letter of Bay Area literary happenings.

San Francisco will be a happening place this weekend. The National Book Critics Circle is hosting a number of panels and will announce the finalists for its awards at 6 p.m. on Saturday at City Lights Bookstore on Columbus Avenue. I am planning to attend the panel that poses the question:

THE VIEW FROM HERE: IS THE WEST COAST DRIVING AMERICAN LITERATURE?
The jumping off point for this discussion is the comment Sam Tanenhaus made to NBCC board member Ellen Heltzel of BookBabes when he became editor of the New York Times Book Review. Oscar Villalon, San Francisco Chronicle Book Editor and NBCC board member moderates.

PANELISTS
Andrew Sean Greer, novelist (THE CONFESSIONS OF MAX TIVOLI, THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE)
Mary Ann Gwinn, Book Editor, Seattle, NBCC board member
Ellen Heltzel, BookBabes, Portland, NBCC board member
Jennifer Reese, Entertainment Weekly, NBCC member
David Ulin, editor, Los Angeles Times Book Review

The panel is at 6:30 p.m. on Friday at 111 Minna Street.

Is Blogging Harmful to Your Health?

The Scream by Edward Munch

Dan Fost, who took one of the Chronicle buyouts last summer, has an interesting story in the New York Times today about the high health cost of blogging. It seems that the stress from the requirement to post often can lead to heart attacks.

Dan uses Om Malik’s blog, GigaOm, as an example. The 41-year old owner of the popular site suffered a heart attack a few days ago. While he was a smoker, which probably did more to undermine his health than blogging, stress was a contributor.

“The trouble with a personal brand is, you’re yoked to a machine,” said Paul Kedrosky, a friend of Mr. Malik’s who runs the Infectious Greed blog. “You feel huge pressure to not just do a lot, but to do a lot with your name on it. You have pressure to not just be the C.E.O., but at the same time to write, and to do it all on a shoestring. Put it all together, and it’s a recipe for stress through the roof.”

That’s right. This new platform means people are reporters, editors, publishers, and advertisers rolled into one. But they also get to write about whatever they want, whenever they want, which is a huge luxury.

I’m going to ask Dan about the stress from freelancing.

East Coast Observations

Flatiron Building

We just got back from a week in New York City (well, really New Jersey) and Washington D.C.

A few observations:

The Flatiron Building on Broadway and 22^nd has been refurbished and it looks fantastic. Too bad I can’t say the same for the inside. I went to visit my editor at St. Martin’s Press. I got into a beautiful gilt, mirrored elevator and it made me feel like I was stepping back into another era. That fantasy was erased every time the elevator doors opened. The hallways are lit with fluorescent lights and the floors are covered with linoleum! Aren’t publishing offices supposed to be cathedrals to books? I guess not. (The individual offices are actually nice.)

It’s hard to find a good bookstore in Bergen County, New Jersey, but there are libraries everywhere. The county is made up of dozens of small towns, each with their own city halls, police departments, fire departments, etc. That’s an expensive way to run a community but the upside is that there is a nice library every few miles.

Politics and Prose Bookstore in Washington D.C. is every bit as good as its reputation. I had to restrain myself from buying too many books. (I just had to have Geraldine Brook's new novel, People of the Book.) The staff is knowledgeable. One of the staff members, Barbara, blogs about the books she likes. (She just read Berkeley author Beth Lisick’s new book, Helping Me Help Myself.) The store’s events calendar reflects the area’s intense interest in politics.

Living in Berkeley means I never get to hear a conservative. But they are all over Washington D.C. I went to Starbucks one morning and eavesdropped on a quartet sitting at a nearby table. I first noticed them because their conversation seemed so interesting. I soon realized they were arch conservatives – but I still found their conversation interesting. One woman praised Clarence Thomas’ autobiography and then asked in all candor how everyone could have been snookered by Anita Hill. They went on to praise the war in Iraq and kevelled about George W. Bush.

The International Spy Museum in Washington is a lot of fun.