The Graveyard Book At Last and Padma Venkatraman

Neil Gaiman's new novel comes out today! I am so excited to read The Graveyard Book and almost as excited to see a real, actual copy sitting on the shelf of a bookstore!

Also, I would love for people to know that Padma Venkatraman, author of the very wonderful novel Climbing the Stairs, will be making appearances on the East Coast later this month; I strongly advise going to see her if she's going to be in your area -- she is a truly lovely person and brilliant writer.

Thursday, October 16th -- 10:30 a.m. at Politics and Prose. Washington, DC -- 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW; phone: (202) 364-1919

Friday, October 17th -- 2:00 p.m. at VIMS, Gloucester Point, VA 23062 -- 1208 Greate Road; phone: (804) 684-7000

Also on Friday, October 17th -- 5:30 p.m. at The College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA -- Washington 201 (old campus); for more information contact Ann Repeta at (757) 221-2457

Saturday, October 18th -- 5:00 p.m. at Big Blue Marble Books, Philadelphia, PA -- 551 Carpenter Lane; phone: (215) 844-1870

Finally, on Sunday, October 19th -- 2:00 p.m. at Books of Wonder, New York City! -- 18 West 18th Street; phone: (212) 989-3270

I especially recommend going to see Padma (who is a friend of mine) if you feel passionate about multiculturalism! For more information about Padma, visit http://cliofindia.com/padma, or http://climbingthestairsbook.com (which is a beautiful site all about her novel).

And now I am going to go play with The Baby Name Genie (http://babynamegenie.com/), because I tend to have too much fun with names ....

~Emily