An Interview With Zippy

Have your family and friends from Mooreland read the book? What do they think?

I think that most of the people who appear as characters in the book couldn't love it more. My sister owns a diner called The Blue Moon just outside of Mooreland, and she has the book cover framed and hanging on the wall there. I feel certain that as the book produces more artifacts Melinda will eventually put together a little shrine. My mom is the same: just unabashedly supportive and delighted. My favorite reaction, though, came from my old friend Andy Hicks, who is featured in the essay, "Favors For Friends." I gave him the book in manuscript, and he and most of his family read it. He sent me a letter and said they all wept when they finished it, because they realized that someone had actually seen them; their family had meant something to someone else. That feeling of having been seen is so important to us all, I think, but consistently a surprise.

The rest of the interview...http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/0301/kimmel/interview.html

Also another wonderful interview in a Blog by two fascinating women who read called "Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast; Why Stop at Six" A reference of course to Lewis Carrol's "Through the Looking Glass" and a conversation between Alice and the White Queen. http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=522#comment-84106



And as always, I want to know who they love to read and here is what Haven says...

South of the Big Four by Don Kurtz.

It's become part of my life's work to mention that book and promote that writer.

{Kimmel's essay on the book, "The Most Familiar Book I Ever Read," is included in Remarkable Reads: 34 Writers and Their Adventures in Reading (edited by J. Peder Zane and available in paper from Norton in February). She also has an essay included in the forthcoming, Killing the Buddha; The Hunter's Bible. In the anthology, thirteen novelists were asked to rewrite a book of the Bible. Kimmel wrote the chapter on Revelations.)}

Little, Big by John Crowley. Harper Perennial brought out his back list. The large format trade paper is breathtakingly beautiful. The book is gorgeous, strange, and deep.

The funniest book I ever read is Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend. I was rereading that book when I was pregnant with my son. I laughed so hard I went into labor.

I would recommend almost everything by Anne Tyler.


Enjoy!