Simple fact of writing in 2009: anytime you get offered an opportunity to promote yourself, you should take it. (Hey, all those people who post one-star reviews of my books should have some competition. Particularly when they make nasty statements without supporting evidence. But I digress.)

So I followed the link to my Author Page, where I posted my photo and a brief bio. Now any Amazon.com readers who are dying to see what I look like can indulge themselves.

Amazon then notified me that it would have to confirm my identity with my publisher. Works for me; I don’t want random people masquerading as me on the world’s biggest online retailer.

Apparently this involves checking with my publisher to verify my email address. I’m kind of curious as to who, at W. W. Norton, got to answer that particular important query.

Anyway, within 48 hours I got an email from Amazon: “Hi Susan Wise Bauer…”

Congratulations! Your publisher has verified your account information. Your Author Central account is now activated.

We encourage you to sign-in to Author Central and share more information about you and your books:
Add your books and suggest changes to your bibliography
Post a photo and provide a biography (if you haven’t already)
Connect with your readers by blogging
Any information you’ve already provided through Author Central will be reflected on the Susan Wise Bauer Page shortly.

Thanks,
The Author Central Team

Five minutes later I got another email from Amazon:

Hi Susan Wise Bauer,

Random House was unable to verify that your email address belongs to Susan Wise Bauer.

We’d like to help you complete the activation of your account. If you believe there has been an error, you may contact your publisher through Author Central. Or you can contact the Author Central Team directly.

Thanks,
The Author Central Team

Quite apart from the weird sort of logical parodox in the salutation and first line of this email (not to mention the use of the hyphenated adjective “sign-in” as a verb in the other message), this puzzled me because I have never written ANYTHING for Random House. So I sent them a query. Why, I wondered, were they pestering Random House, as 1) I am not a Random House author, and 2) Norton already confirmed my identity? (And why would I want to contact my publisher through the very indirect route of Amazon’s Author Central Team when I could simply call the editor-in-chief’s cell phone? But perhaps there are reasons I’m not aware of.)

A day later, I got this response:

Hello,

I understand your concern as we have contacted “Random House” to approve you as an author even though they are not your actual publisher.

We requested that “Random House” approve your registration because they are listed in our records as your publisher, or at least one of your publishers.

We sometimes have more than one publisher listed for an author, and in these situations we send approval requests to all publishers listed.

*****However, only one publisher needs to verify your account.*****

After looking into your Author central account, I see that one of your publishers “Norton” has already approved you as an author and your Author central is active now.

You can find your Author central page using the following link:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001IQW9KY

You can now add or edit your photo as well as biography on this page.

I hope this information was helpful. Thank you for using Author central.

Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.

Best regards,

Sujay P.

As there’s no way to contact Sujay P., I can’t point out that this link goes to the Author Page of a nice man named Briane Keene, who apparently writes horror for a publisher called Leisure Press. Nor can I ask them to correct their records to reflect that I do not and have never written for Random House. Or, indeed, any sub-section of the Bertelsmann Group.

I do, however, appreciate the sudden appearance of caution in the vague and non-specific salutation, “Hello!”

If I were a bad person, I’d see whether I could edit Brian Keene’s account. But I resisted the impulse (and I’m hoping that whoever got sent the link to MY account shows similar restraint).

It’s so tempting to explain exactly why a reviewer who didn’t like your book has the comprehension skills of a mole.

But every writer I know who’s done this regrets it. The following is courtesy of Publishers Marketplace

Go Ask Alice: Author Hoffman Shows Authors Not to Tweet In Anger, Apologizes

With one angry electronic outburst novelist Alice Hoffman may have changed how many readers view her. After novelist and longtime critic Roberta Silman wrote a mildly critical review of Hoffman’s THE STORY SISTERS in the Boston Globe, Hoffman reacted with a series of angry tweets. Not just a grumpy post or two, but 27 in all, according to NY Magazine (they have now been deleted, along with the corresponding Twitter account.)

The series of 140-character-or-less insults also included Silman’s phone number and e-mail address (with a typo) and a rallying cry to “Tell her what u think of snarky critics.” But Silman was out of town, isn’t on Twitter, and first learned about the controversy from a friend, she tells the LAT’s Jacket Copy. “There have been nine emails to me, all in support of my review and/or my right to review and all apologizing for Alice Hoffman’s perplexing behavior.” Silman adds, “I wouldn’t change anything about my review. I have written many reviews for The Globe and say what I believe, and, in this case, I praised her earlier work, which was clearly better. I’m sorry Alice could not take pride in the good things I said, and perhaps mull a little on the criticism.”

Hoffman issued an apology through Goldberg McDuffie, now saying that she was upset because she believes the review gave away the plot: “I feel this whole situation has been completely blown out of proportion. Of course I was dismayed by Roberta Silman’s review which gave away the plot of the novel, and in the heat of the moment I responded strongly and I wish I hadn’t. I’m sorry if I offended anyone. Reviewers are entitled to their opinions and that’s the name of the game in publishing. I hope my readers understand that I didn’t mean to hurt anyone and I’m truly sorry if I did.”

Separately, Page Six notes that Hoffman also criticized blogger and reviewer Bethanne Kelly Patrick on Twitter after a Barnes & Noble panel discussion before “making up.”

The response to Hoffman doesn’t surprise me, but today I’ve been thinking it through and realize that I’m not exactly sure why it sounds so bad when a writer takes a reviewer to task. There’s little question in my mind that writers come out looking like losers when this happens, which is why I usually try to chant the mantra above. (I also try not to read the Amazon.com reviews but always fail.) But why should that be? Why the aroma of whine when we fight back?

Talked to a lot of readers, signed a bunch of books.

I promised a few scenes from Salt Lake City, and here are the ones that struck me…

roses (they must like desert air–roses in Virginia don’t look like this),

Salt Lake City’s extraordinarily wide streets,

the headquarters of the LDS church, with the Temple behind it,

the Temple, from the sidewalk outside,

a gate I was not allowed to go through (there were many).

And then leave again. Drove up to Washington D.C. after lunch and caught a plane for Salt Lake City. (It was the only way to fly direct. And going out of Richmond, I could only fly business-class by going through L.A., which seemed like wasted effort.)

Anyway, here we are at the Plaza at Temple Square, on the tenth floor, separated from the outside air by the ricketiest tin balcony rail I’ve every seen.

There are mountains,

and I can see the corner of Temple Square.

Tomorrow I’ll post pictures from the Utah Home Education Association conference and a few more shots of Salt Lake City. But just now I’m going to bed.

They’ll be very useful.

Yesterday was Give Away Free Stuff day; today was Count the Freaks day.

People will do anything to promote their stuff.



(“How should I promote my business? I know. I’ll dress up in a scary black suit and put a poster saying ‘China Needs Romance’ behind me!”)

There were some familiar faces too.

And a couple of celebrity spottings…Nicholas Sparks (slightly blurry because none of us wanted to stand in the long long long line necessary to get closer)

and Wesley Snipes (ditto, only more so).

Why he’s here, I don’t know. I assume he’s written a book. About something.

And we did a lot of business. Talked to foreign publishers about translation rights, to librarians about the books they stock for home educators, to printers about their costs for trade paperbacks in various print runs, to reviewers about the need to review our books…

Heading home with a bagful of business cards and a lot of follow-up to do.

We ended up with a double booth this year (I’m not quite sure how it happened, but the extra space is amazing).

Reports have said that BookExpo attendance is down, and that several major exhibitors have pulled out; this may be true, but the halls have been consistently full, and we have talked to scores of librarians, booksellers and educators this morning. Our “featured title” this year is Writing With Ease and the accompanying workbooks, and we’re giving away a CD of my writing lecture to anyone who seems interested.

I haven’t had much time to wander around yet (I’ll report on that tomorrow) because we’ve been talking to people and also guarding our give-aways. This year we have mugs for librarians, coloring books and crayons, and posters. Oh, and tote bags.

During the first half hour of BookExpo, freebie-seekers go storming through the halls grabbing everything that isn’t stapled down, so you have to stand in front of your booth and throw your body in the way of anyone going for the books and audios. After the first frenzy, it calms down a little, but attendees swipe stuff all weekend long. Some of them are polite: “Are these free? May I have one?” Others don’t even bother to speak to you; they walk up, grab a bag or coloring book, and leave without ever making eye contact. The weirdest ones slink up sideways, snag a whole armful of goodies, and then take off down the hall.

I labelled our mugs “For Librarians Only,” but then I had to guard them until they were all handed out to librarians (they were gone within twenty minutes). The tote bags lasted until about lunch–we’re near the front entrance this year, so people swipe them and head off to collect more freebies. The crayons are all pretty and shiny and we’ve had real trouble with people sneaking up, clutching whole handfuls and then making off without the coloring books (which are the part that has the ADVERTISING on it).

You know, I would never run up to someone’s booth, grab free stuff and sprint away. It’s rude and slightly creepy.

More tomorrow…

A couple of months ago, the daughter of a friend of my brother and sister-in-law wandered into their home office and saw the poster for the History of the Ancient World on their wall. “Hey, we use that book at our school!” she said.

Heather said, “Oh, yeah, my sister-in-law wrote it.”

“I love that book!” she said. She is clearly a girl of great taste and intelligence.

So she and her mother (here they are)–

talked to her history teacher, and on this trip to Seattle her teacher invited me to come speak to his ninth-grade history class.

This was a first for me. I don’t generally find myself lecturing ninth-graders (apart from my own). But they were charming and interested, and told me how much they liked the book and how it was so much better than a standard textbook, and asked lots of questions about how you write a history of the world.

Like, “How do you decide where to start?” (Answer: You pick a starting point, write fifty pages, throw them away and start at a better place.)

And, “Are you going to finish the books on time?” (Answer: Er, no, not even close.)

And, “Now that you’ve done the first two books, is it getting easier?” (Answer: No, I reinvent the wheel every single blasted time; the only difference is that now I can say to myself, I’ve done it twice, it will probably come together one more time.)

And, “Do you edit your rough drafts?” (Answer: Well, the original drafts of both books came out to around 900,000 words each, and the final drafts clocked in at 250,000, so that should speak for itself. Someday I will seriously publish The History of the World: The Director’s Cut. Not that anyone will read it.)

This was fun. I talk about history a lot, but I don’t talk about writing it very often, and I enjoyed myself. And afterwards they wanted me to sign books.

I LOVE having teenage fans. And it’s not a given, when you write political history about people named Meskiaggasher and Adjib and Yi.

Two hundred families registered. We had attendees from Alaska, California, Canada, Arizona–and one home school parent scheduled to fly in from Hong Kong who had to cancel when her government blocked her from flying through JFK. The rest of us just washed our hands a lot.

Random images of: me speaking,

Jim Weiss storytelling,

book table,

my mother and my son preparing for a session (he ran her PowerPoint slides for her),

a notebook full of Story of the World projects that two wonderful little girls brought me to sign,

and Storytime with Ben, Rex, and Christopher–we drafted my two oldest sons and a friend to act out Macbeth to entertain a horde of children while their parents were listening to us talk.

I don’t have too many more photos because I spent the whole time talking and talking and talking, but I know that conference guests took a ton of pictures–so if you were at the workshops and have any great shots, let me know.

There’s an enormous vendor hall here,

and the workshop rooms hold a couple of hundred people each; here’s the right side of my 9:30 AM writing seminar,

and here’s the left side.

The only problem with this convention is that I said I’d do eight workshops. Eight workshops in two days and one evening is proving to be right at the edge of what I can manage.

Hey, I think I’m getting middle-aged.

Missed Connection: Christian Book Expo Attracts Few Customers
by Marcia Z. Nelson — Publishers Weekly, 3/23/2009 7:50:00 AM

Stacks of unsold books and glum publishers stood for three days inside the cavernous Dallas Convention Center this past weekend at the Christian Book Expo, a first-of-its-kind event designed to connect publishers and authors directly with readers in the evangelical Christian market. Only problem was there were few readers to connect with, despite the show’s location in Dallas, the buckle of the Bible Belt and a top market for Christian publishers. The show, sponsored by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, attracted 1,500 consumer attendees; it had hoped for 15,000-20,000.

Off the record, exhibitor publishers rolled their eyes heavenward, but spoke with circumspection on the record. “Every new experience has a few nicks and bruises, but things can be worked out,” said Greg Petree, v-p of marketing at Howard Books. A few were more blunt. “We can’t afford these kinds of risks,” said Dennis R. Hillman, publisher at Kregel Publications. “In a year like this the last thing we want to do is something that has no payoff.”

Conceived before the current economic downturn and more than two years in planning, the event combined three days of panels and programming to provide both a conference experience and a product. ECPA president Mark Kuyper said the goal of the event was to drive awareness of Christian authors – 238 were featured – and their message. The sponsoring ECPA had a minimal marketing budget that Kuyper said its board had approved. Instead, the marketing strategy relied on relationship building through early meetings with influential religious leaders in heavily churched Dallas. That was intended to mobilize regional networks. ECPA planners expected that participating publishers would also alert their own customers. “We’re going to be following up with them to find out what they did or didn’t do,” Kuyper said.

The show might, or might not, go on. “If we end up doing this again, it would be a smaller show,” Kuyper said. “We’ll be smarter next year,” said Michael S. Hyatt, president and CEO of Thomas Nelson and chair of the ECPA’s executive committee.

Before that decision is made, publishers will have shelved their returns and added up their expenses. “InterVarsity Press will be looking for a more concrete, specific marketing plan for the event – with some strings attached – before we would consider setting aside money to participate,” said associate publisher Jeff Crosby. “Viewed in total, the event was a major disappointment.”

In other words, instead of looking for new channels for publicity (blog reviewers? Twittering? making free downloads available? hello??) the Christian publishers go back to a model that worked three decades ago, and try to make it even bigger.

As a publisher, I have slightly more mixed feelings: I appreciate the ease with which we can sell through Amazon, although I wish they wouldn’t undercut us QUITE so much in their pricing, and I’m not a big fan of the fees we have to pay in order to keep our books featured in various categories.

As both publisher and writer, I can’t STAND it when their information suddenly mutates.

I don’t know what happens with the various databases, but the information on the books suddenly warps without warning. Last week, all of my books were listed under the name Susan Wise Bauer. This week, eight of them come up when you search for “Susan Wise Bauer,” three only come up if you search for “Susan Bauer” plus the title, and two have apparently been written by Susan W. Bauer, who is not the same as either of the previous persona. And there suddenly seems to be massive confusion over which titles are published by Peace Hill Press and which are published by Norton.

Have you ever tried to get a listing corrected on Amazon? Let’s see…to what shall we compare it? Telephoning the customer service number at the Division of Motor Vehicles? Writing to the I.R.S. with a question about your tax bill? Spitting into a bottomless well?

I’ve punted the problem over to Norton in hopes that they can shout loud enough to be heard within the Citadel.

I’m not familiar with the awards (academic publishing generally is kind of a foreign land for me), but I’ll take my Honorable Mention with pride.

Also an interesting article about the book in Harper’s (you’ll have to be a subscriber to access the whole thing).

It’s a lot of pages for an ebook, isn’t it? I have a Kindle but haven’t used it as much as I expected to (mostly I take it when I’m flying, since it’s light). It drives me crazy not to be able to flip back and forth through actual pages.

Anyway, if you buy any of my books on the Kindle, let me know what the reading experience is like. I’m curious.

Although I can’t resist making just one remark about The Day the Earth Stood Still…

I adore disaster movies. But HELLLOOO?

(SPOILER ALERT)

You CAN’T have a disaster movie where the plot is…

1. People will never change! I must destroy you!
2. Oh, look! You’re hugging each other!
3. You can change!! I must not destroy the earth!!!

What a disappointment. And just when I needed some really cathartic and major city-destruction, too.

I’m finishing the Medieval World MS this week, so no more right now. But I should be back shortly with photos of the stack of manuscript…

1. We got Emily a pony for her birthday because the horses have turned out to be JUST TOO BIG for her to learn on.

So we’ve spent a lot of time working with the pony. Also Max, my Belgian draft horse, did not adjust well to the pony. He wanted to EAT it. Simultaneously we were having the fence replaced, so keeping them apart was an ongoing labor. Now, at last, they seem to have made their peace.

(Everyone eating hay, with Ben in the foreground.)

2. The election sent the message boards at the Well-Trained Mind website into an amazing tizzy, meaning that the moderators needed HELP. What a circus.

My personal summary of the styles involved: Troublemakers who are Republicans post nasty offensive messages on the board. Troublemakers who are Democrats send nasty offensive messages to the moderators. I finally got on the boards myself and banned all political conversations until the election was over. We’ve tried to lift the restrictions since Tuesday, but whenever we do, chaos sweeps over us. Unhappy Republicans post apocalyptic messages about how their children’s future has been ruined and they’re going to have to move to Canada (I’m unsure how this is better, but never mind), while offended Democrats post in return that they’re SHOCKED and HORRIFIED by the incivility on the message boards.

If you think I’m going to reveal my own political leanings here, you’re nuts.

Word to the wise on both ends of the spectrum: The world didn’t end (HELLO), and it’s easy to be civil and gracious when your candidate won.

ADDENDUM to word to the wise on both ends of the spectrum, after reading today’s batch of emails: Do you realise that you ALL think you’re outnumbered on the boards and made to feel unwelcome because the boards are so clearly dominated by the other faction? Think about that one for a little while…

3. Had to do significant work on the third level of the Writing With Ease workbook series to keep it on track for publication.

4. My sister-in-law/business partner and I had to figure out how to deal with a slew of irate customers who wanted to use First Language Lessons 4 this fall. This book has been a NIGHTMARE. I ended up doing a huge amount of unexpected work on the manuscript myself, due to circumstances beyond our control, and it’s way late. They’re right to be irate, but we’ve done everything we can…

5. I ended up writing several different pieces to follow up on the publication of the Art of the Public Grovel. One was for the Richmond Times Dispatch, which asked me to write about home education after this piece ran. Two more were for the History News Network and the Wall Street Journal…I’ll let you know when the WSJ piece runs.

6. I’m leaving for New York tonight to present the Peace Hill Press titles at W. W. Norton’s fall sales conference. More on this shortly.

7. The first-pass galleys for the third edition of The Well-Trained Mind appeared, courtesy of Norton.

Yeah, the box looks unopened. It is. It’s due back in a couple of weeks but I haven’t actually had time to open it up yet.

8. There are over a hundred unanswered emails in my email box. So far I’m coping by ignoring them, but this is a strategy bound to come back and smack me in the head at some point.

9. Oh, yes, history. In the middle of all that I wrote a pretty good chapter about the rise of the Fujiwara in tenth-century Japan. Must…write…faster…

So, to sum up: Did two interviews on the BBC (see below) and one with an Irish radio station that called me at our London hotel. Then, on Thursday, I lectured at the RSA, which is a sort of public think-tank–it has a roster of members who gather at lunchtime to hear a lecture and discuss the topic. They’ve had some very distinguished speakers, so it was an honor to be invited. (Also, they taped it for a webcast, which will eventually be up here–I’ll try to let you know when/if it makes it to the website.)

The hosts had decided to get in a U.K. speaker as well to do a response, since the phenomenon I describe in The Art of the Public Grovel is peculiarly American. The speaker they convinced to come in was Jonathan Aitken, a former Member of Parliament who went to jail for perjury in 1999 and has since gotten a seminary degree and now works with Prison Fellowship International.

Jonathan Aitken was very British and immaculately turned out and very polite and scrupulously kind and absolutely hated my book (I think that British men of a certain age display loathing and hatred by being very polite and scrupulously kind). He was charming and gallant and it was a little bit like being excoriated by James Cromwell in a very plummy accent.

He called the book “deeply cynical and judgmental”; as a man who has himself gone through the cycle of confession and redemption, he obviously took my thesis very personally.

I actually don’t have any trouble with the first part of the charge. The book is cynical, in that I think the confessions were carefully planned and scripted. I don’t think they were spontaneous. So I plead guilty. My sense is that in most cases, the initial reaction of any of these men was the genuine one, and that reaction was inevitably, “It wasn’t me! I didn’t do it!” Not until the spin doctors, lawyers, and speechwriters had had a crack at them do they come out with the beautifully scripted confession.

But I do object to the second accusation. I make no judgment as to whether or not, in the long run, any of these men sincerely repented. Jonathan Aitken accused me, essentially, of trying to “open a window into men’s souls” and evaluate the motivations of their hearts. In fact I tried very hard not to do this. I made no judgments as to sincerity in the book; it is a study of the content of their speeches and the effect on the audience, which is an objective evaluation.

In any case, I am sorry he thought so badly of me. He is clearly a man of Christian conviction, and I think he probably chalked me up as the enemy.

After the RSA, the rest of the trip was all fun. Thursday night, we went to see Kenneth Branagh in Ivanov–an absolutely devastating portrayal of depression (OK, that may not sound like “fun,” but it was Kenneth Branagh and he was thirty feet away).

Friday through Sunday morning we spent in Oxford, where I worked at the Bodleian while Mel toured, and where we spent every night eating good food with one of my favorite people.

Tonight I did Night Waves; you can listen to the program here for the next seven days…endure through the few seconds of dead air, as there were some technical difficulties right at the beginning of the program (and I’m not on until the last fifteen minutes, although the rest is fascinating too).

This was a live studio interview, with all four of us around the table…host Anne McElvoy, me, London South Bank University president Deian Hopkin (a charming man with much patience, and a native Welsh speaker), and A. S. Byatt.

OH MY GOSH, A. S. BYATT. She just walked in and said “I’ve had the most hellish taxi ride!” and I practically fell down at her feet. I had no idea that she was the other guest. A. S. Byatt has got to be one of my favorite novelists of all time, and absolutely the most faithful, insightful chronicler of women’s lives EVER….EVER….

AHEM.

So on the way to the studio I said to her, “I’ll probably never have the chance to say this again, but I loved A Whistling Woman.” And then after the program was over she talked to me! And told me that she would like to read my book! And waved goodbye and said, “Have a lovely evening!”

I am TOTALLY STARSTRUCK.

More tomorrow….

Updates as time permits. Got to get on the plane (and turn off my wireless).

Oh, and check out today’s Barnes & Noble Review!

More like one where you’re standing in one place, fending off enormous objects that threaten to hit you.

Also I’m getting ready for a week in which I’ll throw two birthday parties (Em is turning eight, Dan is turning twelve) AND go to London to do publicity for the U.K. edition of the Art of the Public Grovel. Yeah, I know, it’s a tough life.

One of my goals for the next year is to move from “fending off obstacles” mode into “making journey through difficult landscape” mode. I’m not quite there yet. Anyway, you’ll have to forgive me if this week’s blog post is mostly links. Here’s the Page 99 Test, the Financial Times review, and a thoughtful Salon.com essay/review by Laura Miller.

(Clockwise, from top left: John Edwards, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Swaggart. Photographs by Eric Thayer, Getty Images; Hulton Archive, Getty Images; Rob Nelson, Time Life Pictures, Getty Images; and Joyce Naltchayan, AFP, Getty Images)

School for Scandal

The truth and consequences of public figures’ libidinal lapses

By SUSAN BORDO

To some, our fascination with the sexual transgressions of the powerful doesn’t need academic theory for explanation. “There’s not much interest in foreign news,” says Mark Feldstein, an associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, but “sex scandals are timeless. They go back to Alexander Hamilton’s day. And everybody loves it.”

Apparently I missed that particular history lesson. I am old enough, however, to have lived through both the conspiracy of silence surrounding John F. Kennedy’s sexual affairs and the semen-stained exhibits produced by the Starr inquisition. A television junkie from early childhood, I have a brain overflowing with pop-culture images like family photos in an overstuffed album: Donna Rice on Gary Hart’s knee, Ted Kennedy rambling on about the “various inexplicably inconsistent and inconclusive things” he said and did while Mary Jo Kopechne was dragged to the bottom of a channel off Chappaquiddick Island, Monica-in-beret on that meet-and-greet line twinkling at Bill. I have seen news programming bloat from 10 minutes long — barely time to ignore important foreign and domestic affairs in favor of sexual ones — to 24/7 broadcasting in which desperate commentators will do virtually anything to fill their overallotment of media time. I’ve seen good men get brought down by blow jobs and sociopaths get away with homicide. And I don’t think Professor Feldstein’s “timeless” quite captures the historical and individual range of scandal mongering and consuming.

Consider a tale of two politicians:

One, married to the same woman for 31 years, has a brief affair, which he confesses to his wife, a cancer survivor. She is furious, then forgives him, and together they try their best to keep the affair private. Two years later, after losing his campaign for the presidency of the United States, he is outed by The National Enquirer and is forced to fully admit his guilt. He is decried as a “scumbag” and a traitor to his wife, whose disease has by then recurred. He remains with his wife and family, but is exiled from public life. Although he was once a likely candidate for a cabinet position or possibly even vice president, commentators generally acknowledge that his public career is over.

The other, on his return from military service, finds that the wife he left behind, a former swimsuit model, has been in a horrendous auto accident, requiring 23 operations and leaving her limping and disfigured, a full five inches shorter than she had been when he left. After five years of casual affairs, he meets a beautiful young heiress, whom he secretly pursues for six months and eventually obtains a license to marry while still legally married to and living with his first wife. He remarries five weeks after his divorce is granted. Thirty years later, he becomes his party’s candidate for president. During his campaign, few articles or media reports mention the first wife or the circumstances of his remarriage. It’s as though she never existed.

You know who these guys are. I bet, however, that at least some of you didn’t know about Carol McCain, wife No. 1, and with good reason. It’s as though there is some anachronistic collusion — or mass delusion — sustaining the myth that the perfectly coiffed blonde, as primly glamorous as a Hitchcock heroine, is all there is and ever was. But you only have to count up the children, whose numbers rival Brad and Angelina’s, to see how unlikely that is. Yet most journalists, while they frothed in indignation over John Edwards’s dalliance with self-described party-girl Rielle Hunter, seem to have reverted in dutiful obedience to the JFK playbook in dealing with John McCain’s truly shabby treatment of his ex-wife. The September 8 issue of Time, in 17 reverential pages devoted to Mr. and “Mrs. Maverick,” mention the break-up, in a sidebar on “The Clan McCain,” in one euphemistically constructed sentence: “After John returned from the war their marriage ended because of his infidelity.” Oh, and it was “the marriage” that filed for divorce? (McCain exploited the same passive construction when describing his “greatest moral failure” — to evangelist Rick Warren, during his televised Saddlebrook faith forum — as “the failure of my first marriage.”)

Perhaps Elizabeth Edwards’s life-threatening cancer elicits more sympathetic outrage than Carol McCain’s physical ordeal, now long over (although, from the few photos I’ve seen, the ravages clearly remain). Maybe, as is suggested by the career of Ted Kennedy, who was declared “finished” after Chappaquiddick but is now revered as the conscience of the U.S. Senate, there is simply a statute of limitations on public condemnation. Or maybe McCain’s horrific years as a POW have given him a “get out of jail free” card that seems never to expire. (Maureen Dowd’s mother explained it to her daughter matter-of-factly: “A man who lives in a box for five years can do whatever he wants.”) On the other hand, there are those who are never allowed to get out of jail. Bill Clinton was stalked by scandal-hungry journalists on a campaign trail that wasn’t even his own, but his wife’s.

Two fascinating, recently published books offer more theoretically driven explanations as to why scandal sticks to some while sliding off others. Ari Adut’s On Scandal: Moral Disturbance in Society, Politics, and Art, which covers the gamut from Oscar Wilde to Bill Clinton, does not offer one theory so much as a reminder of the importance of historical and cultural context. In exploring “Sex and the American Public Sphere,” for example, Adut, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, eschews the tired notion that America suffers from a “timeless” lingering Puritanism to argue that the post-60s loosening of sexual mores (which, among other things, brought the word “penis” out of the closet) and the rise of “sexual politics” (read: feminists obsessed with men abusing women) are the cause of the “high frequency of sex scandals in American public and political life.” In virtually direct contrast, Susan Wise Bauer’s wonderfully titled The Art of the Public Grovel puts the blame on the growing influence — on the American psyche, if not yet manifest politically (her book is pre-Palin) — of evangelicalism.

I usually prefer complex, multidetermined explanations of events, like the ones Adut proposes, but Bauer’s argument is elegant in its simplicity — and surprisingly persuasive. The key that determines whether a sinner will be forgiven or flayed alive, she argues, is public confession of his sins. So, according to Bauer, the 1980 presidential hopeful Ted Kennedy’s big mistake was having tried to explain his state of confusion, panic, and shock when he abandoned the car he had driven off a bridge, leaving Kopechne to die, rather than simply admitting that his actions that night were morally reprehensible, and begging us, his congregation, to forgive him. As a result, a second Kennedy presidency became unthinkable. Jimmy Swaggart, in contrast, offered a “model confession” of his infidelities, virtually wallowing in multiple admissions of sin, and abjectly begging forgiveness — from his wife, his children, his church, his ministry, his Bible school, his fellow television evangelists, and his savior. It was like Academy Awards night, but with no one playing the “wrap it up and get off the stage” music.

You don’t have to be an evangelical to know how to grovel as effectively as Swaggart (Clinton, after some initial evasion, did pretty well, too), but it helps. For underlying the demand for public confession, Bauer argues, is the “kinship” between American democracy and American evangelicalism. By this she means not that American democracy is essentially evangelical, but that the antihierarchical, optimistic, “anyone can be saved” spirit of evangelicalism — expressed, among other ways, in the “handing over of power” to the group that the public confession enacts — “translates seamlessly into rituals of American public life.” In other words, Americans respond most warmly, our self-righteousness notwithstanding, not to moral purity (and unfortunately, not to competence), but to gestures that erase hierarchy — like public admissions of fallibility, like John McCain’s “my friends” mantra, and like Sarah Palin’s insistence that she is “just your average hockey mom.”

John Edwards, of course, did confess — very publicly, on ABC’s “Nightline,” on August 8. He begged Elizabeth for forgiveness, asked God for forgiveness, admitted his own “self focus,” “egotism,” and “narcissism.” So why was he disappeared, while Swaggart and Clinton — and, let us not forget, McCain — went on to have full and highly visible public lives? Neither Bauer nor Adut discusses Edwards (whose affair hadn’t yet been made public when their books were written) or McCain (even though his post-Vietnam philandering and the circumstances of his divorce came out during his 2000 run at the Republican nomination). Happily, this gives me the opportunity to test their theories against currently unfolding events.

In a nutshell, Bauer’s theory stands up (with a bit of tweaking) and Adut’s falters. While Edwards did confess, mere confession alone, Bauer points out, is sometimes not enough to show that you are on the right side of the evangelical ledger. Her prime example is Jimmy Carter, himself a neo-evangelical, who lost 15 percent in public-approval polls and was denounced by conservative Protestants of all stripes after he confessed that he had “looked on a lot of women with lust” and “committed adultery in my heart many times.” Carter was going for just what Bauer claims is the essence of American evangelicalism: admission that one is not immunized by power or morally above the fray, but a sinner among sinners. Unfortunately, he did it in the pages of Playboy, and his choice of words was not the wisest. “Christ says, Don’t consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife,” he cautioned readers. Christ said “screw”? And what was with this “whole bunch” of women? Carter, in going for the common touch, had identified himself more with the wife-swapping, leisure-suited playboy of the mid-70s than with the morally conscientious, scrupulously honest man he actually was.

Edwards, despite his strong antipoverty politics, arguably never had the common touch, which was supplied to him by his wife and family. Take them out of the picture, and he seemed to many a slick-lawyer type, with an unfortunate patent-leather patina to his looks. His wife, Elizabeth, a warm, spontaneous, perfectly attractive but not Barbie-like woman, humanized him, made him appear less like a Ken doll, but when he appeared to have abandoned her for a New Age bimbette, in many people’s eyes he reverted to type. Once that public-relations alchemy had taken place, his confessions were simply not seen as redemptive. They proved not that he was contrite but that he was a hypocrite, and an arrogant one to boot. The pronouncement by Time columnist Ramesh Ponnuru about Edwards was one of the more moderate: “To think that you can build a campaign around your strong family life and standing by your sick wife and still not get caught, that is an astonishing level of arrogance.”

Applying Adut’s post-60s-rise-of-sexual-politics theory to current events, we find that it was not feminists but self-righteous (and possibly self-exonerating) male journalists who came most fiercely to Elizabeth Edwards’s defense, and that neither feminists nor Barack Obama have tried to resuscitate the circumstances of McCain’s divorce. Indeed, the “liberals” have been extremely delicate in their treatment of their opponents’ private lives. When the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter Bristol came to light, Obama told the media to “back off.” “This shouldn’t be part of our politics,” he said. “It has no relevance to Governor Palin’s performance as governor or her potential performance as a vice president.” And contrary to what Rush Limbaugh or Lou Dobbs would have you believe, I have heard no feminist sermons about Sarah Palin’s poor parenting of her wayward daughter. To the extent that feminists have invoked the plight of the pregnant teen, it’s been to point out the by now well-documented flaws in the abstinence-only education that Palin advocates as public policy.

Despite a surplus of jargon on Adut’s part and a tendency to reductionism on Bauer’s, both books have information and insight to offer. Neither, however, gives due credit to what in my opinion remains the single most important factor in determining who gets skewered and who doesn’t, particularly in our current “postmodern” political climate, in which facts matter little and compelling narratives win the day: chutzpah. Those who believe that they have God on their side are loaded with it, while those who recognize that there are always several sides to a story tend to be — unfortunately for their political campaigns — more judicious.

Those with God on their side don’t worry about contradicting themselves, either. When McCain was on the evangelicals’ black list in 2000, the evangelical Christian James Dobson, chairman of the board of Focus on the Family, harshly condemned McCain’s involvement with “other women while married to his first wife,” and compared him to Bill Clinton (not a compliment in conservative circles). In 2006, Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokeswoman for Focus on the Family, indicated that adultery was still intolerable to evangelicals. “If you have a politician, an elected official, and they can’t be trusted in their own marriage, how can I trust them with the budget? How can I trust them with national security?” she told a reporter, reserving special condemnation for the man who leaves his wife as a result of an affair.

But that was before the Republican presidential candidate McCain chose Sarah Palin for his running mate and became the evangelicals’ darling. Now silence about McCain’s former life prevails — except, of course, when political expedience dictates otherwise, as it did on September 16, when McCain, speaking to a crowd in Jacksonville, Fla., warmly thanked the people of Orange Park, Fla., for “taking care of my wife and family” while he was in Vietnam. “My children had about 50,000 parents while I was gone, and I’m very grateful,” he told the crowd. His children’s actual parent, Carol, was not at the event. It was Cindy McCain who introduced him to the crowd.

Susan Bordo is a professor of humanities at the University of Kentucky. She is currently writing a book about Anne Boleyn.

UNDER REVIEW

The Art of the Public Grovel, by Susan Wise Bauer (Princeton University Press, 2008)

On Scandal: Moral Disturbance in Society, Politics, and Art, by Ari Adut (Cambridge University Press, 2008)

I did have an odd experience at the Princeton Club, though. I mentioned, as part of my presentation, that my husband is the minister of our local church. Afterwards, a whole handful of people came up to me and said, “So your husband’s a minister? That must create some interesting tensions between you. How do you deal with that? What kind of argument do you have with each other? How do you manage to have a life together?”

I answered as well as I could. And then said to the friend who went with me, “Um…did I say anything that suggested I’m not in sympathy with my husband? Anything that implies I don’t agree with him?”

“No,” she said. “It’s just that you have a Ph.D. and a university job and wrote a book for a university press and you’re obviously articulate and smart, so they figure you can’t possibly be in agreement with him.”

And she’s right. It was one of those eye-opening moments where I suddenly got a glimpse of my world through the eyes of someone who doesn’t understand it at all.

The entire day was an exercise in stepping into different worlds, as it happens. I did an in-studio interview on The Gist, hosted by Michelangelo Signorile, a sharp intelligent host who seemed to have READ the BOOK (they don’t always) and had insightful questions for me. Then I had a phone interview with the Washington Post, which also sent a wonderful photographer to do a shoot. She said, “Let’s go find an interesting wall to shoot against.” We ended up standing outside a white-brick garage wall, where she took scores of pictures while saying things like, “Shake your finger like you’re scolding someone! Now hands on your hips, chin up, tilt your head to the right! Let’s try hands in the air! Turn sidewards to me and look thoughtful!” She didn’t ever say, “Work it! Work it!” but otherwise I felt quite model-like. And quite silly, doing this out on the street in the middle of Manhattan. In fact a little circle of people gathered to watch us. My friend, who was entertained by all this, said, “Do you want me to tell them you’re not really a model?” “No,” I said, “we’ll just let them assume.”

The Post interview was long and interesting (the reporter was very well-informed and asked great questions), but seems to have gotten carved down to the absolute minimum. That’s how it goes. Anyway, the photo and abbreviated interview will run in the Post on Sunday and can be seen online right here.

Travelling is part of writing; if you publish a book, you’re going to have to spend some time promoting it. It can even be fun. This particular trip is STRESSING me, though, for four reason.

First, the flight just got delayed two and half hours. I have better things to do than sit in the airport. (Don’t we all.)

Second, this is my first talk based on the Art of the Public Grovel (not counting my dissertation defense, at which I was under no pressure to be entertaining). The more often I speak on a subject, the more fun I have. A completely new talk is no fun at all.

Third, the Princeton Club is one of those places designed to intimidate the uninitiated. I’ve been there for coffee with my editor a couple of times. The building isn’t marked; you have to be a Princeton alumnus/a to belong, so the place is run on the assumption that if you need to know where it is, you already will. When you do find it and (cautiously) let yourself in, doormen descend on you to ask you why you’re there. If you’re a guest, they escort you into a little side room (very pleasant, of course) where you sit and wait for your Princeton alumnus/a friend to come and get you. I could wish that my first talk on grovelling came in a slightly more relaxed atmosphere.

Fourth, business travelling–for mothers, anyway–is always fraught with guilt. It doesn’t matter how much time I spend with the kids beforehand, or how long it’s been since I’ve travelled; when I get ready to leave they look at me with huge Bambi eyes and say, “You’re leaving AGAIN?” Do men sit in airports and feel guilty, or is it just women?

And then last night, Emily (aged seven) came up to kiss me goodnight and gave me a huge hug and said, “Mommy, I just want you to know that I will never forget you.”

Er…

I’m not even a nervous flier, and that creeped me out a little. Probably watching the pilot episode of Lost (I’d never seen a single episode, but Pete just bought the DVDs) afterwards was not the best strategy.

Anyway, here they are (all times are Virginia times…)

Wednesday, September 23, 4:30 PM on Sirius XM Radio, Channel 109
Thursday, September 24, 9:05 AM, also on Sirius XM Radio, Channel 109
Thursday, September 24, 9:35 AM, Hudson Valley Radio Network (WGHO 920 AM, WBNR 1260 AM, WLNA 1420 AM)
Sunday, September 28, 3:15 PM, AKTINA-FM (WNYE 91.5, tri-state area of New York)

ADDENDUM on WEDNESDAY:
The 4:30 PM interview got bumped, thanks to ongoing coverage of John McCain’s announcement. The guy’s in my limelight. If it’s rescheduled I’ll post here…

But the book hasn’t been published yet. In fact, it won’t be published until October 4.

This is one of the many weird ways in which book publishing is still at least a decade behind the rest of the business world. Once upon a time, you couldn’t buy a book until its publication date, which was usually at least four weeks AFTER the books had rolled off the presses. The books had to be shipped from the printer to the publisher, then from the publisher to the distributor; the distributor had to catalogue the book and ship it to bookstores; then the bookstores had to put it into inventory and place it on the shelves. In the days when all of this was done manually, instead of electronically, it took a month for books to get from the printer to the bookstore shelves. So: by tradition, pub date is about four weeks after the book actually comes into existence.

Now, of course, this is mostly not true. Online retailers have the book in stock about three days after it leaves the printer (which is why many online stores have the availability date, not the publication date, listed on the book’s web page). Quite a few brick-and-mortar stores, particularly chain stores, do as well. The issue is no longer: Can I get the book? Of course you can. The issue is: If a reader hears about the book on the radio, or sees a review, and then walks into a bookstore, will she find it at the front of the store on the New Nonfiction table? It’s rare that a reader is so fascinated by a new book that she’ll jot down the title and then go and ask for it. But if she hears about it, and then happens to see it when she strolls into Barnes & Noble, the chances that she’ll buy it multiply. “Publication date” now means: That window of opportunity during which the book is at the front of the store and also featured on as many media outlets as possible.

For this book, that window is the first two weeks of October, and that’s when most of my events are scheduled. I’m speaking at the Princeton Club of New York on October 1, and then at the Princeton Public Library on October 5. I’ve got various other events on the calendar which I’ll post closer to the time; and in the middle of October I’m going to London to do some publicity for Princeton’s U.K. office. (More on that soon.) Media outlets which plan to run pieces about the book have been asked to wait until closer to the “pub date” in order to do so.

You can probably find the book at your local Barnes & Noble now, but there will be a single copy on the Current Affairs shelf, buried among a host of other titles. In early October, with any luck, there will be a stack of them much closer to the front of the store, and readers might actually pick them up and KEEP them.

In the meantime, I would never tell you to move that single copy up to the front of the store. No, indeed, that would defeat the whole purpose of Publication Day.

More soon.

(Em is thinking about this whole another-girl-in-the-family thing)

The flight here was…long. Word to the wise: If you fly AirTran, there will be no food and no movies, not even on six-hour flights in business class. I can’t believe I shelled out all that money to fly business class in exchange for two packs of Pepperidge Farm cookies and hours and hours of being ignored by the flight attendants. (Granted, the seat was nice and big, but after nine hours of entertaining two children on planes sans electronics or meals, AirTran has lost my business.)

The conference, which was in Puyallup, was a particularly friendly one (here’s half of the room full of people who are getting ready to listen to my “What Is Classical Education” talk):

and I spent a lot of time at the book table afterwards, talking to parents. I’m continually impressed, whenever I go to these conferences, by the amount of dedication on view. So many parents, all putting tremendous effort into curriculum choices for their kinds, trying so hard to tailor education to each child’s needs. This is the bright counterpoint to all those dark pronouncements about how America’s kids can no longer read, write, or think. These conferences remind me that the desire to learn is still very much alive.

ADDENDUM:

Random thoughts about the Pacific Northwest….

1. The weather here is GREAT. Yeah, I know there’s all the rain and clouds and stuff, but in Virginia it’s been over 100 degrees for most of June so far, and here it is COOL. I would actually come and live here if I could figure out what to do with the farm in Virginia. I’ll take clouds over sun and 95% humidity, thanks.

2. We’ve ended up eating out a lot on this trip. The food is great. The service, not so much. Is there some kind of northwest ethos out here that causes waiters to SAUNTER towards your table, and to forget that your order is, in fact, waiting to be picked up and brought to your table, until your hungry niece begins to hurl forks on the floor? The one constant in restaurants so far has been that it takes FOREVER to get the food. I’m ready to make a general statement about waitstaff in Seattle: They’re not in a hurry. Ever.

3. When the cash machines ask you to confirm that you’ll pay the $2 fee for making use of them, they don’t give you the options of “I decline” and “I accept.” They say, “No, thank you,” and “Sure!” (This makes me giggle every time.)

which was even more exciting than Alec Baldwin waving at Dot (as I walked by his signing table with her on my hip–I didn’t know he was there) and saying, “Baby! Hi, baby! Look at the baby!”

(Dot, with Bob, not Alec)

There are always celebrities at BookExpo, signing their latest book, but there’s a particularly high celebrity-factor here this weekend, probably because it’s in L.A. Bob ran into Doctor Ruth, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy have both been doing signings, Jamie Lee Curtis and Cheech (of Cheech and Chong) are around somewhere–oh, and there have been some actual WRITERS doing signings too. (Ray Bradbury and Neal Stephenson, for you SF fans–although I didn’t make it over to either booth. Drat.)

We’ve talked to a lot of booksellers who weren’t familiar with our books, and to a number of foreign publishers investigating translation rights. I’m hoping that the press from India follows through, and also that one of the two contacts we made with Spanish-language publishers will pan out. I’d love to see the books in Spanish.

I’ve been to a few seminars–one on multimedia supplements to children’s books (The Story of the World Role Playing Game? ), one on changes in book distribution (incredibly unhelpful, as the presenters stood up and said, “There are big changes coming in book distribution!”), and one last night where Ron Sider, Randall Balmer, Marcia Ford, and David Gushee talked about evangelicals and their involvement in politics. That was the best, and the most sparsely attended, of any of the sessions.

Wandered over to say hello to the folks at Princeton who’ll be selling The Art of the Public Grovel,

tried out the Kindle (keep an eye out for Peace Hill Press books in the Kindle format–we’re working on it),

investigated a number of of the parties that seem to break out around 4 PM at the bigger publisher booths. They bring in caterers and a portable bar, and everybody storms the aisle.

I’ve been going back to the hotel and collapsing afterwards, but apparently there’s been quite a bit of wild partying going on. The guy across the aisle was on his way to the “Ted Turner party at Larry King’s house,” and Prince hosted a house-party (so I hear) that went on until 5 AM.

Weirdly enough, I didn’t get any of those invitations. Hmm…

At 4 PM today, we’ll break down the booth and send the essentials (the PTSB and a few other things) back to the Norton warehouse. We’re trying to take back as little as possible, since it costs an arm and a leg and another leg to ship it all back to the east coast, so we’ll probably donate most of our display books to First Book, a great charity which will box them up and distribute them to kids who need them.

we arrived. The hall was divided up into publisher spaces, and the exhibition company in charge of running the show had delivered all of the boxes/furniture/posters shipped ahead of time to each publisher’s spot.

Bob and Heather set up the PTSB (the Portable Trade Show Booth–it’s a metal framework with a blue velvet surface that forms a backdrop for our booth),

and we spent a couple of hours unpacking boxes and trying to figure out how to turn blank space into an attractive display.

By this morning, Norton had finished setting up its space too (we’re distributed by Norton, so our booth is actually within their aisle, which means we also get to benefit from the their plushy blue carpet instead of standing on the concrete floor.) Compare this with the night-before photo up top!

I’ll take a few more photos today and report on the day’s happenings as soon as I can…

Anyway, today I’m running in circles making sure that everything’s done here before I leave. (Pasture fence fixed, galley proofs for Art of the Public Grovel packed so that I can read them on the plane, dry cleaning picked up, cookie jars filled.) Regular updates commencing tomorrow. Stay tuned.

There was a HAUL there. So I thought I’d share with you a few random quotes from the letters and emails.

***
I am journeying through your delightfully readable book, “The History of the Ancient World” where I learned Assyrian soldiers made a standard practice of blinding their war captives (bottom of page 250). Elsewhere, I had read that the Byzantines did this regularly, including to their 15,000 Bulgarian captives in AD 1014. These acts would have resulted in extraordinary amounts of suddenly blinded people in one place. What happened to these soldiers next?

(That is a FINE question.)

I am reading your new history of the ancient world and enjoying it very much, but I am puzzled by the title. I am particularly interested in late antiquity and “fall of Rome” studies, so I am confused about why your book is billed as ending with the fall of Rome, when in fact it does not.

(I lobbied for the “End of Rome,” actually, but my editor overruled me.)

So, as I was reading about the ancient Sumerians and the years their kings ruled, a question arose: How do we know the ancient Sumerians kept time as we keep time, today?

(Huh. Well, we don’t, really. I’ll have to think about that one a little more.)

I’m in the middle of reading The History of the Ancient World. I must say I have never been so better informed and enlightened of the origins of the human race. I’d just like to thank you for making ancient history such an interesting experience for me.

(You have just made my day.)

I was enjoying your book on the history of the ancient world until I discovered your description of ancient Sumeria. Once again I find the same old uninformed tripe that all other scholars write. When will you stop trading ignorance with each other and actually research the facts?

(Probably won’t answer that one.)

Why don’t you use Bishop Ussher’s dating? You should show more respect for the great scholars who have come before you instead of ignoring their contributions.

(Sigh…)

I am going to be teaching Medieval History in a 9th grade history class and an 11th grade West. Civ. class. What topics from this significant era should be covered with high school students in a classical school?

(That is a great question, but it makes my brain hurt.)

I found your book, “The History of the Ancient World”, a delightful and thoroughly engaging narrative. I look with great anticipation toward your next installment which hopefully will cover “The History of the Middle Ages.”

(“Hopefully” is the operative word at this point…)

Are there any self-help books you recommend?

(None come to mind.)

Would you mind sharing with me some of your time management ideas? I’m feeling quite overwhelmed by trying to find time to do it all.

(You and me both.)

I’m 14 and I would just love to say that I love your book: “The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome”! I have never read another book as easy to read and as informative. I am wondering how your current book on medieval history is going along. When do you think it will be released?

(I was really enjoying that one until I got to the end.)

Hi Ms. Susan, I am 6years old. I read your book called the story of the world .I really liked it. Anyway one chapter called The mystery of Mohenjo-Daro I think they fled because they wanted to be ruled by a king.

(AWWW….)

I’m curious about your timeline and where you would put the Ice Age, caves of Lascaux, ancient Europe nomads, etc. How do these events reconcile w/ Creation account in Genesis and the young-earth philosophy of the earth’s age?

(Believe when I say that I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA.)

I am enjoying reading your new book, “The History of the Ancient World.” But on page 32, it says, “…the Indus, which flowed northwest through India into the Arabian Sea.” Is this correct?

(Well, er, no, it isn’t. Thanks for pointing this out.)

I am a huge fan of your book the Well-Trained Mind. I just wanted to know, without taking too much of your time, about your thoughts on video games.

(Still formulating those. Should have a coherent answer as my last son is leaving for college.)

***

You know, I really like my mail, even when it makes my brain hurt.

I’ve also come to a conclusion about readers who take the time to write when they find an error. 90% of the time, they are either retired doctors, or retired army officers. Retired doctors point out the error nicely and tell me how much they enjoyed the book. Retired army officers point out the error with indignation and inform me that they will never buy a book of mine again.

I’m sure there’s some sort of cultural studies essay lurking in that phenomenon.

I’m sitting down in my office listening to the wind howl outside. Branches are lashing against the roof, water is pouring down the windows. I’ve got my heater on to keep my feet warm. This happens every spring: we get a cold, wet week or two that feels more like February than May. My grandmother called it blackberry winter, and sure enough, it comes when the blackberries are in full bloom.

We get a blackberry winter pretty much every year, but it always surprises me when it happens. It’s been cold and dark and grey for ten days now,

and it has rained, and rained, and rained, and rained. And rained. The horses are standing in ankle-deep water in the paddock,

so I turned them out into the pasture, where they stood out in the rain all day instead of coming in and spending the afternoon in a nice, dry stall.

(Our draft horse Max now has a friend–this is our very sweet-natured new horse, a thoroughbred with such a naturally calm disposition that he’s practically comatose. The kids haven’t named him yet, so I call him Minimus. He looks a little muddy and cold here, but if the sun ever comes out again I’ll post a nice picture.)

To close, a few late History of the Ancient World bits: a nice review from About.com, a review-essay from Books and Culture, and I’m a nominee for the Library of Virginia awards. Also, you can now pre-order The Art of the Public Grovel in Canada, should you be so inclined.

Afterwards I turned my hotel room into a steam bath (I turned the thermostat off and the shower on) and slept for half a day. Thanks to the steam and emergency antibiotics, I got up feeling a lot better–which was a relief because we had planned to go to Manhattan afterwards and spend a couple of days; Suzanne’s never been to New York City.

So off we went. I met up with my editor at Norton and also my agent, and looked up a couple of books at the New York Public Library. (One of the challenges of writing the History of the Medieval World is that I keep searching on WorldCat for books and getting the message: “There are two copies of this book. One is in Stuttgart and the other is in the New York Public Library.”)

Then we did the tourist thing.

(Suzanne in Times Square)

(The wisteria in Central Park)

(Lanterns and fairy lights in Central Park at night)

(An Ostrogoth helmet at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Hey, I found it exciting.)

We’re on our way back home now, so I’ll post a little later in the week with book updates. In the meantime–you can now check out the Art of the Public Grovel on Amazon.

Here’s what he says:

“Susan Wise Bauer’s The History of the Ancient World from the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome is, in a way, a ridiculous project — it simply can’t be accomplished. Yet this is a worthy attempt to put in one volume an account of the major events, people, and movements of ancient peoples who kept written records (or had significant encounters with people who did). She skips from place to place and time to time quite deftly; she organizes the account so that it’s easy to keep track of who is doing what at the same time that someone else is doing something else. Naturally, the history of each people and nation has to be sketchy, a mere synopsis of a summary. Wherever she wrote about a time and place I happen to have studied, it became painfully clear just how cursory and superficial her accounts all must be. Yet she is rarely inaccurate. If your first introduction to a particular ancient nation is this book’s version of their history, and then you read in-depth books, you will certainly learn and understand far more than she could possibly have offered, but you won’t have to unlearn much of what she told you.”

I guess I put too much sheer hard labor into finding, digesting, interpreting, and retelling the stories of the ancient world to completely agree with “superficial and cursory.” But that last sentence is a rare compliment, and Card’s remarks are generally dead-on….he has identified the enormous central dilemma of the world historian.

And I’m not saying that just because I’m a huge Card fan.

Ender’s Game was a book I read in one sitting, and have never forgotten it; I think it changed forever the way I think about war.

And on a less geek-fan note, here’s a notice that just came out in the William & Mary Alumni Magazine.

This was a surprise to me; thanks, Justin, for bringing it over. (OK, I am a bad alumna. I hadn’t even opened the magazine yet…)

“Susan Wise Bauer M.A. ’94, Ph.D. ’07 believes that history should be studied chronologically. In The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome (W.W. Norton, 2007), Bauer urges readers to make connections across countries and cultures linking Britain to the far coast of China. The book offers a complete chronological history of major human events all over the world, from the time of the Sumerian king Alulim to the fall of Rome. Each chapter includes a timeline and maps to help the reader make associations between simultaneous events transpiring in two very different and geographically separated countries like Britain and India. The book blends history with human emotions to reveal the relationships between various classes and people. Bauer combines historical events with the literature of the time, primary sources such as private letters, folklore and other materials to give the reader a human face of history and the causes behind world events.”

(In case you’re wondering, there were three babies in that gap between M.A. ’94 and Ph.D. ’07.)

Which means that I get to do a brand-new Author Questionnaire for Princeton’s publicity department. Those of you who’ve been reading my blog for a while will remember my last encounter with one of these necessary monsters, done for the History of the Ancient World. I can pirate some of my answers…but this is a different kind of book, and there are some topics on THIS particular monster that I’ve got to wrap my mind around.

This, incidentally, has to be done by mid-January.

You’ll probably find this long and tedious, but here it is, in case anyone’s interested in comparing it to the Norton questionnaire. And, as always, if you have any suggestions, PLEASE POST THEM.

*

Book Title:
Author’s Name (as you wish it to appear on your book):

Below, you’ll find a detailed questionnaire that will serve as an invaluable resource in helping the Press plan the promotional activities for your book, from writing jacket copy to getting reviews to advertising and exhibits. We appreciate your completing the form in its entirety and returning it at your earliest convenience.

1) Educational and Professional Training: Please give dates, institutions, academic fields, and degrees. You may attach C. V. instead.

2) Career: Please give dates, institutions, academic departments, and exact titles. Please list professional associations to which you belong.

3) Author Bio: Please provide a brief description of yourself in two or three sentences that we can use at the end of the book and on the jacket or cover. Include your current academic position (title and school) and any appropriate previously published books.

4) Published Works: Please give titles, dates, and publishers of books, and mention names of any journals or magazines to which you are a regular contributor.

5) Rights: Have any of your previous books been translated, co-published with a UK publisher or licensed to a book club? If so, please list title, year, publisher, and/or book club.

6) This is the most important section of the questionnaire:

Capsule Description: In no more than 250 words, please describe your book to a potential buyer. Discuss what is most important about your book, what distinctive contributions it makes to your field, the method of approach, and the main conclusions you have drawn. Your statement will help our staff in writing jacket copy and all promotional material. Please do not repeat verbatim from your introduction or preface.

7) Short Description: In some cases, we may need to describe your book in 50 words or less. What is the most succinct statement that you can make that aptly describes your book?

Competition: Are there any competing books? If so, please provide titles, dates and publisher and indicate how your book differs from them. Include any features that make your book unique or first in its field.

9) Audience: What is the primary readership for your book? What are the related audiences (if applicable)?

10) Special Sales: If applicable, do you have corporate or professional contacts that you recommend we contact for bulk sales of your book? This could include contacts at firms for whom you consult. Please provide names, addresses, and phone numbers of your personal contacts.

11) Direct Mail: Besides supplying our catalogues and other brochures to major domestic and foreign bookstores and libraries, we also send them directly to individuals whose names are on our in-house lists or other lists we rent, including those of the main professional associations. Are there other groups or associations we should consider targeting?

12) Class Use: If your book was primarily written as a text for course use, please list the names of courses in which you anticipate your book being adopted for class use.

13) Exhibits: Please recommend three to four scholarly meetings you attend regularly where you would like to see your book exhibited.

14) Advertising: Which 3 scholarly journals do you recommend for advertising your book? (Please rank them.) There are a number of considerations that we need to take into account in preparing the advertising plan. However, we value your recommendations.

15) Electronic Promotion: Do you participate in or are you familiar with a Listserv or other dialogue on the Internet where we should promote your book? If so, please provide the name of the Listserv and e-mail address of the moderator whom we will contact. Do you have a web site containing information on your book? If yes, supply your URL and we will add a link from our web site.

16) Excerpts or Serialization: Are there any chapters or sections in your book that could be published in a magazine or journal before the book appears? Please indicate these sections and suggest the appropriate media.

17) Publicity: Are there any distinctive or news-worthy features of your book that should be emphasized in our publicity (i.e. new research, tie-ins to events, etc.)?

18) NYRB reviewers: We are routinely invited to suggest possible reviewers for the New York Review of Books. Please provide the names of people who either already write for the New York Review, or write in the NYRB style, who might be interested in reviewing your book.

19) Prominent Contacts: If applicable, please provide the names of prominent people you personally know who might be interested in writing an endorsement for the book.

20) Lectures and Travels: List any prominent places where you have lectured. Include any plans you may have for the coming year.

21) Publicity Hook: (This question is of particular relevance if your book is written for a general audience). Broadcast and print media look for a hook that might be either quirky or topical on which to frame an article or piece. If applicable, please briefly highlight 1-2 such hooks about your book that could be used for this purpose. One example might be a story from the book that illustrates it central theme. These can be given either in the form of vignettes or talking points.

22) Other Media: Have you been interviewed on either television or radio? If possible, please list show names, addresses, phone numbers, contact names, and the date and subject (briefly) of your interview.

23) Prizes and Awards: Please note any prize or award for which your book may be eligible and include the name (and, if not nationally known, the address) of the sponsoring group. Please limit your suggestions to five, and rank them in order of importance.

24) Review Copies: Please give the exact titles of general, scholarly, or specialized publications (including web logs), both regional and foreign, that regularly cover books and might cover yours. If you know of individuals at these publications who might be interested in your book, please list them too.

25) In the event you have additional recommendations to help us sell your book, feel free to add them here.

(My own front yard; it’s a beautiful fall, this year.)

A few final scenes from Korea, just for fun…

The medieval royal palace in Seoul, with the modern world intruding.

Squid, drying in long ranks along the shores.

Morning tea with the monk on the mountain.

Christopher, who would have been extremely cramped if he’d lived in Korea in the Middle Ages.

Treatment (apparently) for eye strain, courtesy of Dr. Han, who has followed in a long family tradition of acupuncturists.

Odd dishes on the lunch table: This is fish sperm. Yes, that’s right, fish sperm.

And this is the most gorgeous sushi in the world.

Finally, my gratitude again goes out to the publisher of Theory & Praxis, Mr. Kim, and my beautiful new friend Yeonglan Han, president of Corea Literary Agency, who spent the entire week translating for me. Many, many, many thanks. May we meet again soon.

Day before yesterday, we set off south for Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the old Korean kingdom Silla, where I wanted to see the royal tombs: huge mounds of stone with clay and grass covering them, built over wooden coffins where the kings were laid to rest.

Only a few of the tombs have been excavated; many of them still lie across the landscape in perfect harmony with the curves of the mountains behind them.

This is one of the artifacts which has been uncovered, and now is one of the greatest Korean national treasures–the golden crown of the king of Silla.

The next morning, we drove into the mountains to Haeinsa Temple (in the photo below, you can see the main temple building and, in front of it, worshippers going through the ritual of walking the path while they pray).

Behind the temple lies a square of ancient buildings which contain the most amazing sight I’ve seen in Korea: the Koreana Tripitaka, over eighty thousand carved wooden blocks for printing pages of Buddhist scripture. The blocks have been in these same buildings since the early Middle Ages, preserved by a brilliant building design which naturally keeps the humidity and airflow constant in both wet and dry seasons. You can’t get into the buildings, but I was able to photograph one of the rows of blocks through the wooden grates.

In this photo you can see the characters carved into the faces of two of the plates.

As a gift, our guide–an old friend of my publisher’s, who had helped to arrange the whole outing–gave me a sheet of parchment with an actual page from one of the blocks printed on it. They are still sharp and clear.

By this time, the sun was beginning to set,

so we got back into the car and drove deeper and deeper into the mountains, up a teeth-clenchingly steep road to a tiny temple perched on the side of the mountain.

There, we had dinner with the monk in the monastery kitchen (only vegetables, of course).

and after dinner we climbed a steep path up to the guesthouse, which sat at the top of the mountain right at the edge of the dropoff into the valley.

There, the monk served us tea, in an elaborate and lovely ritual of hospitality.

After which my publisher and and his friend produced the hospitality gifts they had brought (wine), and the rest of us dug out out all the snack food we’d been eating in the car, and the evening turned into a corn-chip-and-Whoopie-Pie-feast. High on the mountain, in the middle of the night, with a Buddhist monk.

Once the party wound down, we all slept on the floor, which was more comfortable than it sounds because the floor was heated from beneath. The biggest challenge, once we were all wrapped up in our blankets and snoring (in the case of three of us, anyway), was the plumbing (so to speak). The guesthouse had no water; to take care of middle-of-the-night issues, you had to go out into the dark night, put on your shoes, pick your way down a woods path with a steep drop to the right,

and be flexible.

But the inconveniences were minor, considering the view: in the morning, the sun rose up over the mountains

and the valley lay all spread out below.

I’ve gotten to do and see things on this trip which no tourist would ever be privileged to experience. I can’t speak high enough praise for my publisher and his wife, who spent the entire week with us, and for all the wonderful folks associated with Theory & Praxis who have made it possible.

Getting ready to head home now; as soon as I put my laundry in the washer, kiss my husband, hug the little ones, and get some sleep, I’ll post a few final pictures.

Since I’m travelling with the boys, I’m going for the food first. History coming soon. (Although food is important. I’ve been reading Asian history for years now, but until you breathe the air of a place, it’s hard to write about it well…and certainly food is central to a city’s identity.)

Yesterday we visited the Nam Dae Mun Market (here are the boys with two of our wonderful hosts, who took the whole afternoon to show us around).

I’ve never seen anything like this market, which sprawls across blocks and blocks and blocks of downtown Seoul, and which is packed with every imaginable kind of goods for sale and more people than I’ve ever seen crammed together in narrow streets.

Among the things we don’t see at home: jars of ginseng,

and dried squid (particularly popular with the Japanese tourists, I’m told).

We ate a late lunch of barbecued pork at a tiny restaurant tucked back off one of the market streets,

(these would be the barbecued pig’s heads),

and Christopher tried out the accompanying hot peppers.

His greatest adventure, though: both he and I sampled the fried butterfly larvae. You stick a toothpick into them and pop them in your mouth. When you bite down, they POP.

After the market, we accompanied our hosts to the nearby supermarket, which had the most amazing variety of fresh seafood I’ve ever seen. If I lived near a market like this, I’d cook in a completely different way.

This is the one thing I haven’t yet tried,

although, judging from the tanks outside the restaurants, it’s about as fresh as you can get.

In the evening, my publisher hosted a dinner for me which included the amazingly talented editors, designers, and marketing folks at Theory & Praxis, along with my Korean translator. I spent too much time eating to take pictures (and thought it might rude to keep snapping shots of people while they were chewing), but towards the end of the meal it did occur to me that I’ve never before been treated to a meal so luxurious that it had FOUR different kinds of wine accompanying it.

Today I’m doing the last of four interviews (two of them have already appeared in the papers), while the boys are off to Lotte World. Stay tuned for further updates…

We’re staying at the Somerset Palace Seoul, which caters to people who can’t speak Korean, which is nice when you stagger in after 26 hours without sleep, having endured fourteen hours of flying. It’s a beautiful place with a rooftop garden ideal for sitting and reading in.

We haven’t done much sightseeing yet; after flying in we had a lovely dinner with our hosts (who are both kind and patient with our total lack of comprehension) and then collapsed at the hotel. This morning I had two sets of interviews with journalists,

which were more enjoyable than this photo may make it look. The tension on my face is entirely from trying to pick up as much of the Korean conversation as possible. I’m finding that I can catch quite a bit, but speaking is an entirely different matter.

In any case: we’ll be here for a week, so more updates soon

I took my second son with me, since he hasn’t yet had a chance to meet his new cousin; Saturday night we flew from Sacramento up to Seattle to visit my brother and his family.

Ben and Dot (that’s one healthy baby)

Today I’ve got a couple of meetings set up in Seattle, so I came into work with Bob and he let me use the office overlooking the water.

I have some writing to finish up , and then I’m going to wander around Seattle for a bit until Bob’s ready to go home.

It’s hard to imagine a place less like Charles City, Virginia, but I find my imagination working when I’m here. I’ve visited a lot of cities over the past eight or nine years of book-publicity, and there are plenty of cities that I enjoy, but wouldn’t want to live in. But Seattle is different. I think I could live here.

Of course, we’d have to sell the hundred-acre farm in Virginia, which would mean that we could afford a two-bedroom condo here. Not sure I’m ready for that.

I have some new information on my academic publishing project, by the way–update coming soon!

Correction: which I will go BACK to writing about when my sabbatical is over.

(Gyeongju, the capital of the early medieval kingdom of Silla, which controlled most of the Korean peninsula between 700-900 or so)

I very much enjoy dealing with Theory & Praxis, which I primarily do through an incredibly gracious and helpful Korean literary agent in Seoul. In fact, this is the first time in fifteen years of professional writing that a publisher has offered to pay for me to take a publicity tour. Yep, only had to wait for my ninth book. Chew on THAT, all you aspiring writers.

Anyway, Theory & Praxis asked me to write a special foreword for the Korean edition, which I finally finished last week (it shouldn’t have taken me that long, but there’s something paralyzing about writing forewords). They also asked whether I could sign my name in Korean for inclusion at the end of the foreword.

My Korean handwriting is pretty elementary. In fact, my whole attempt to learn to READ Korean characters was greatly hampered by the fact that I tried reading it right to left for at least a month before I figured out that I was doing it wrong. (OK, I know that sounds stupid, but the strokes are so much like Hebrew that I didn’t even think about it–I just automatically started on the right side of the page and read back.)

After much practice and consultation with the Korean agent, here it is (click on it for a closer view):

I’m going to practice it until it’s automatic, since it would be nice to sign books with both English and Korean signatures while I’m there.

Theory & Praxis has even agreed to pay for a business class ticket (so that would be 14 hours WITHOUT my knees in my chin). And as a bonus, they invited me to bring my family. Hmm. Well, I adore my family.

However, two fourteen-hour plane trips with all six of us and ten days in a country where I’m the only one who speaks even a tiny bit of the language….er, maybe not. (My husband, consulted, blanched when I said the phrase “Fourteen hours” and said, “I could stay home with the little ones.”)

So Christopher and Ben (16 and 14) are coming with me. What a great experience for them to have in their teens.

They, incidentally, will be flying coach. Do I feel guilty about this? Not in the slightest. I intend to park them in their economy-class seats with their peanuts and sashay my way back up to business class where my steak awaits me.

I am working on my Korean conversational skills with increased urgency, but I have a feeling that I will smile and point a lot. I was doing OK with the textbook exercises (“Go to the market and buy seven cucumbers and three cloves of ginger”), but the conventions of Korean conversation are SO complicated, and so unlike English conventions, that I’m quite sure I will say something enormously inappropriate. With any luck, my Korean hosts will have great tolerance for the awkward Americans.

Just to close, two entirely random bits of information. Here’s an interesting essay about why the SAT should be abolished. And is this company for real, or am I falling for some straight-faced prank?

It was a very well-organized conference, despite the fact that there was NO CARPET ON THE FLOOR IN THE EXHIBIT HALL, which means that after standing for two days I had to down enough Advil to sear my liver. Concrete is death on your feet and legs.

(I snappd this picture of one of the aisle before the hall before it opened to exhibitors.)

And my workshops were filled with very friendly listeners.

/

The NoVa conference is a smaller alternative to the larger and older state conference. In the last few years, more and more small home schooling organizations have sprung up, often to offer an alternative to state organizations which tend to be politically and socially conservative. Many home schoolers (including those who identify themselves as Christians) find themselves at odds with the politics of the older state organizations. And also at odds with the tendency of some of these organizations to insist that their politics are the only truly Christian politics around.

I think the multiplication of conferences is a healthy sign, proof of a vigorous movement that resists all forms of top-down control. The home school movement is remarkable as a grassroots phenomenon that has CONTINUED to be a grassroots phenomenon–and one largely directed and controlled by women.

Although you wouldn’t know that from the lineup at some state conventions.

But I digress.

Anyway, I found the conference organizers charming and efficient, the attendees friendly, and the floor extremely hard. Now I’m home again, getting back to my grassroots life.

This week I got a lovely note from the Korean agent who handles my Korean rights. (Foreign sales require two agents–your agent, who acts on your behalf, and an agent working on behalf of the foreign publisher who’s bidding on translation rights to your books. The two agents split the commission, which is 20% for foreign sales compared to 15% for domestic. Anyway…) The agent, who works in Seoul, tells me that my Korean publisher reads my blog and is very sorry that I haven’t gotten more reviews in the States, and that the attached reviews, all from major Korean papers, should make me feel a little better.

The reviews were in Korean. I can speak a little (I’m improving, I hope), but I can only read a few words, unfortunately. (I’m good at prepositions.) So I’m hanging on to them for translation practice.

And I do feel better. Just a little bit embarrassed about all the whining.

I’m still planning out my break, so please chime in with reading and recreational suggestions. And if you read Korean, you’ll be able to finish reading the review below while I’m still identifying the prepositions.

󰂐 조선일보 (Chosun Press)
_김윤덕 기자(2004년 2월)

영화보다 쉽고 재미있는 세계사

책의 제목 앞에 ‘교양 있는 우리 아이를 위한’이란 수식어가 붙었지만, 어른들이 읽어도 지극히 유익한 역사서다. 그 방대하고 복잡한 세계사를 이렇듯 쉽고 흥미진진하게 들려주는 역사서가 몇 권이나 될까. 뭣보다 세계사를 ‘외워야 할 것’으로 머리에 꾸역꾸역 집어넣는 고통을 겪지 않아도 된다는 점이 이 책을 읽는 가장 큰 즐거움이다.
우선 이 책에는 다른 세계사 책들이 정석으로 알고 시시콜콜 늘어놓는 연대(年代)가 표기되지 않는다. 고대 편을 다룬 1권은 나일강 문명의 형성으로 시작해 로마의 멸망으로 끝이 나지만, ‘지금으로부터 약 7000년 전’ ‘그로부터 4000년이 지난 뒤’라는 식의 표현만 있지, 단 한 번도 구체적인 연도를 언급하지 않는다.
놀라운 건, 굳이 연도를 몰라도 고대라는 큰 틀에서 역사의 흐름을 감지하며 따라갈 수 있다는 점이다. 전적으로 ‘꼬리에 꼬리를 물리며’ 이야기를 엮어가는 저자 수잔 바우어의 능력이다. 3대 문명의 발생을 들여다보자. 기존의 책들이 고대 3대 문명을 이집트·메소포타미아·중국 편으로 분리해 그 지역을 집중적으로, 그러나 단절적으로 느끼게 하는 우를 범했다면, 바우어는 3대 문명을 중심으로 생긴 도시국가들이 교역과 전쟁을 통해 서로에게 어떤 영향을 끼치며 발전해 갔는지에 초점을 두고 역사를 풀어간다.
‘세계 정복의 역사’가 한 편의 영화처럼 드라마틱하게 전달되는 것도 그 때문이다. 메소포타미아의 수많은 도시 국가들을 통일한 바빌로니아를 페르시아가 점령하고, 이를 다시 마케도니아의 알렉산더 대왕이 정복해 나가는 과정. 이탈리아의 작은 언덕마을이었던 로마가 카르타고와 이집트, 스페인과 브리튼(영국)까지 점령하며 번성했다가 쇠퇴하는 과정을 좇아가다 보면 세계사가 어떤 거대한 물결을 이루며 흘러왔는지 한눈에 파악된다.
그뿐인가. 칼이 아닌 법전으로 바빌로니아를 태평성대로 이끈 함무라비 왕, 페르시아제국을 건설했으나 정복당한 국가들에 자치성을 주고 공정하게 다스렸던 키루스 대왕, 싸우는 법 대신 글을 읽고 쓰는 법을 배워 찬란한 민주주의를 꽃피웠던 아테네 사람들, 로마제국의 1인 황제가 되려고 욕심부리다 가장 친한 친구에게 죽임을 당하는 시저(카이사르) 등 제국들의 흥망성쇠가 단순히 강력한 군대와 힘에 달린 게 아니었다는 역사적 교훈을 저자는 많은 분량을 할애해 전하고 있다.
반면 역사의 큰 줄기를 이해하는 데 그리 중요하지 않은 사건들은 과감히 쳐냈다. 대신 고대 도시국가들의 생활상, 문화 현상에 확대경을 들이댄다. 이집트 파라오들의 미이라가 수십 차례의 공정을 거쳐 피라미드에 안치되는 과정도 손에 잡힐 듯 생생하다. 고대 일곱 가지 불가사의 중 하나인 ‘바빌론의 공중정원’이 페르시아 공주의 향수병 때문에 만들어졌다는 이야기며 아시리아 제국에 세계 최초의 도서관이 만들어진 사연, 대중목욕탕을 만들어 사용했던 인도의 모헨조다로 사람들과 콘크리트를 처음 발명해 평평한 도로를 만든 로마인 이야기 등 흥미진진한 역사적 에피소드가 곳곳에 박혀 있다.
다분히 아이들을 위해서였겠지만, 당시의 역사적 사실을 뒷받침할 성서와 신화, 민담을 풍부하게 활용한 것은 이 책의 진가를 더욱 빛나게 한다. “~의 역사를 잠시 되돌아볼까?”처럼 구어체로 서술한 것 역시 그 때문이지만, 자신은 물론 네 아이를 모두 홈스쿨링(Home Schooling)으로 키워냈을 만큼 방대한 지식과 언어 구사력을 지닌 저자가 바로 곁에서 이야기하듯 생생하고 자상하게 들려주는 ‘세계사 강의’에 매료되지 않을 어른도 드물 것 같다.

Norton scheduled me to do a signing at their booth at 11:30 AM on Saturday, the first full day of the conference. Signings are rough. If no one shows up, you sit and try to decide whether to smile hopefully at passers-by, or whether to gaze thoughtfully into the distance as you compose your next book in your head (since the one you’re signing obviously isn’t of interest to anyone). Neither of these is particularly dignified.

So I was frankly dreading this one. I went up Friday evening on the train and bought myself a good dinner at a restaurant two blocks from the White House, and the next morning I got up and went for about a seven-mile run all around the Mall and its landmarks. Then I dressed and headed over to the convention center with butterflies in my stomach.

Even before 11:30, though, people started coming by to get books signed.

Golda, Norton’s marvellous library coordinator, took these photos and sent them to me so that I could document the event. There were PEOPLE there! There was actually a little LINE!

Charlie, who came up for the day to talk up Peace Hill Press books with librarians, handed out biographies (we’re trying to get a little more attention for our “Who in the World” biography series for elementary grades) to people trapped in line.

We actually ran out of books before the hour was over.

Now that I’ve exulted over the Little Line that I had in front of my table, I should mention that Norton was, in fact, giving the books away. Norton doesn’t sell books in D.C. at trade fairs because of tax regulations, so signings at ALA (and at last year’s BookExpo, which was in D.C. as well) are a chance to score free books. However, I’m going to pretend that all of those people would have BOUGHT a book anyway.

I also got news from my editor this week that the History of the Ancient World has sold to the largest publisher in Russia. So when the translations are finished, it will be available in Korean, Spanish, Bulgarian, and Russian.

Maybe it’ll actually get REVIEWED in one of those languages. Yes, I’m still annoyed by the enormous silence that greeted the book’s publication. It got three industry reviews (Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist), two listings in scholarly papers (the Chronicle and Booknews), one snarky pan (Bloomberg), and one two-sentence mention in a newspaper in Oklahoma. That’s IT. I don’t think I’ve had a book this thoroughly ignored since my first novel came out (the one that sold three thousand copies). The History of the Ancient World seems to be selling along just fine, and it’s done well with libraries. But why the news blackout? I am puzzled. (I’ve also discovered, via the grapevine–not officially, that is–that my publicist at Norton is leaving. I’m not sure what this means for the book.)

This sort of thing ought to be less disturbing than it is, but I’m having a hard time plowing on with the History of the Medieval World. However…this is probably because I’m also in need of a thinking break. At the moment, then, I’ve given the history a rest so that I can finish getting my study of public confession into publishable shape. With any luck this will be done in a couple of weeks. After that…still trying to cope with the post-dissertation brain-cell loss. I’ll keep you posted.

One last note: I’ll be trying out the “webinar” format on August 3rd, taking part in an online seminar. I’ll be talking about how to teach writing, so if you’d like to visit,go by the site and register.

This year, though, it was in the Javitz Center in Manhattan, a huge and very badly air-conditioned venue stuffed with hundreds of publishers, thousands of books, and an unbelievable number of people, both outside the exhibit halls

and inside them (there were three floors of exhibit booths).

Publishers represented ranged from the very large,

to the very small.

(I wish I’d thought of that name for our company.)

And of course, we were there.

Peter and Charlie came up earlier in the week and did all the hard work of setting up; I came in once all the sweat-work was done. I flew up on Thursday and went to the BookForum party on Thursday night; this was held in a concrete-floored art gallery which was as hot as the Sahara and as loud as a Boeing 747 by the time I got there. It was impossible to talk, impossible to hear, and close to impossible to move. I have limited experience of book parties, but so far all the ones I’ve been to are like this. There must be some segment of the population which equates Noise/Heat with Good Time, but it doesn’t include me.

At BookExpo, our main goal is to get books into the hands of teachers and librarians. We also make contacts with foreign agencies and publishers who might want to buy translation rights to our titles–last year we sold Chinese language rights, and this year we have serious inquiries from Mexico, Iceland, and Egypt. If the books sell through into those countries, I’ll let you know.

BookExpo also has a contingent of unpublished writers who wander through it, hoping to attract the attention of a publisher by dressing up in strange costumes and otherwise making themselves conspicuous. Last BookExpo was distinguished by the presence of a guy who had written a novel called “Toilet” and spent the whole conference strolling around through the aisles with an actual toilet on his head (which stuck up through the bowl). This year we had My Name Is Scott

and a guy dressed up as God who was promoting his book on atheism. (He had a sign around his neck saying “Out of Work.” I’d have gotten his photo from the front, but I was kind of afraid that if he saw me taking his picture, he might come and talk to me.)

Publishers also schedule signings for their authors at BookExpo. This year, one author did his signing from California, using a nifty new invention called the Long Pen.

He talked to the autograph seekers via video screen, and when he signed his name on the west coast, the pen in New York moved to reproduce his signature. I’m not quite sure what the point of this is–I’m not an autograph collector, but I always thought the motivation was to be in the presence of the author. Yes, I guess he IS present, in a gnostic sort of way….but still.

Heading home now from Newark. Will post next week as we get back to regular school again…

ADDENDUM

My husband just emailed me the photo of Pete After Three Straight Days of Kid Duty.

Awww. Time to go home and make cookies for that man.

Anyway, I’m doing fewer conferences this year because I told the guys in the office NOT TO LET ME OVERBOOK THIS SPRING. I knew I would be doing dissertation duties right up until May 20 (which proved to be the case). Now, at last, it’s REALLY all done. As witness me with my friend Marcia, who finished her computer science doctorate this year as well.

Yes, folks, there it is. The Great Green Doctoral Robe. I wore it as long as I possibly could after commencement, but it was too uncomfortable to sleep in.

Now I’m readying myself for a few weeks of broken work-time, since I’m travelling four out of the next five weekends. I’ve got education conferences in Florida and Pennsylvania, and I’m also attending BookExpo in New York next weekend (read about last year’s BookExpo experience if you’re curious). I’ve also been informed by Norton that I’m doing a book signing at the national American Library Association conference in Washington D.C. (that’s June 23), and I’m already quite certain no one will show up. Maybe some nice people from Norton will talk to me while I kick my heels. (Read this as a veiled request to TELL YOUR LIBRARIAN TO COME TALK TO ME.)

The Florida convention, which starts tomorrow, is an education conference I usually enjoy, partly because it’s always at an over-the-top resort hotel and partly because the conference schedule has a lot of workshops on…education. This may not seem worth mentioning. Unfortunately, many state home education conferences have been scheduling more and more workshops on everything BUT education and fewer and fewer that actually deal with TEACHING YOUR KIDS. I’m the first to agree that educating your kids overlaps with parenting, cooking, house cleaning, marriage relationships, emotional wellness, Bible study, and other parts of a full life, but over the past few years, I’ve seen a lot of conference schedules crammed with sessions which don’t seem to serve the needs of parents who are there for the sake of their child’s education.

Florida, however, has lots of good content scheduled, as does the Pennsylvania conference I’m doing in June and the Northern Virginia conference in July. Also it appears I’ll be in California in September–more on this as soon as I have a few more details.