How Did Christopher Moore's Event Go? It was Really Great and I'm Very Sad That You Missed It. But I Only Direct That at 50 of You, Because After That, We Would Have Reached Capacity and You Would Have Waited Outside on the Signing Line.

And you would have gotten mad at me. And I would have said, "You should have come earlier." Oh, I can't even think about it. So glad that our turnout was not just a manageable 275, but a very fine and polite group of 275, who laughed and clapped in the right places. My hat's off to you, but not my pince nez, as I've misplaced it.

Speaking of lost items, I really do have to either find our store camera or replace it. I thought I took a bunch of photos on my phone, only to check later and have this be the only one in the file. Doesn't this look like seven people showed up at Christopher Moore's event last night, instead of the huge crowd that actually attended? I was positive that I took at least one of Moore and our pal Mary G., who was his author escort for the evening. But no.

Moore had just found out that Sacré Bleu just came in at #3 on The New York Times fiction hardcover bestseller list, his best appearance to date. It's hard to imagine he was at one time hoping just to hit the list, and now he dreams, like all best-selling authors, of #1. So here was his competition--in the brave new world of publishing, 9 of the top 15 titles are debuts.

1. The Lost Years, by Mary Higgins Clark (debut)
2. Guilty Wives, by James Patterson and David Ellis (second week)
3. Sacré Bleu, by Christopher Moore (debut)
4. The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection, by Alexander McCall Smith (debut)
5. The Shoemaker's Wife, by Adriana Trigiani (debut)
6. Betrayal, by Danielle Steel
7. Stay Close, by Harlan Coben
8. The Beginner's Goodbye, by Anne Tyler (debut)
9. Lover Reborn, by J.R. Ward (last week's #1)
10. Beastly Things, by Donna Leon (debut)
11. Gypped, by Carol Higgins Clark (debut)
12. Lone Wolf, by Jodi Picoult
13. A Dance with Dragons, by George R. R.  Martin
14. The Big Cat Nap, by Rita Mae Brown with Sneaky Pie Brown (debut)
15. Dorchester Terrace, by Anne Perry (debut)
16. Kill Shot, by Vince Flynn

Martin is the only book here that really has legs, with 36 weeks on the list, followed far behind by Flynn with 9 and Picoult with 6. There's also a divide between literary and commercial. Most of these authors are not first-timers (if any), but the only one who might have had a front-page New York Times Book Review is Anne Tyler, and honestly, the positioning of the new book with those tea cups sort of screams, "Please don't let me have a front-page review for my new novel."

But as you probably well know, for most authors, they have very little say in jacket for their book. I had a very interesting conversation about the various jacket ideas for the new book last night with Mr. Moore. Mostly I needed to confirm that the jacket for the advance reader's edition (yellow, with pince nez) was actually the treatment for the final novel, and not just a placeholder. The book's about the color blue and the jacket is yellow. I just couldn't get that through my head. (and note to the Dallas Morning News, who has a very nice review from David LaBounty, you're using the wrong jacket.)

But I digress. And whatever I was actually going to write about today will have to wait, as I am off to do some errands and then head to Boswell for tonight's event, the mysterious Trenton Lee Stewart, who is coming for The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict.