Trespasser Is on the Indie Next List

No one knows better than I do what a good run I had with The Poacher's Son. One of my real coups was making it onto the Indie Next List, the monthly recommendation update from the Indiebound movement of independent bookstores.

I'm happy to report that my lucky streak continues. Trespasser has made the July Indie Next List thanks to this glowing review from Vicki Erwin of Main Street Books in St. Charles, Missouri. 

Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch is back on the job, following his introduction in Doiron's debut, The Poacher's Son, and once again he's tripping over bodies. He is called to the scene of an accident in which a car hit a deer, but when he arrives neither the deer nor the driver are there. He is convinced by a state patrolman to leave the matter to the state police, but the situation continues to haunt Bowditch. Where would a young woman go on a cold, snowy Maine night? Devastated when the truth is revealed, Bowditch risks all to finally bring a killer to justice. Doiron is an author to watch!

Thank you so much, Vicki. Recommendations from booksellers truly are the most valuable commodities in publishing today. Just ask any author. 

All Your Burning Questions Answered

Some of the questions I get asked most are what I would call procedural questions. What time of day do I write? Do I use a computer or a pen? Was there a specific book that made me want to become a novelist? 

Some authors get annoyed by these sorts of questions, but these inquiries actually make sense to me.  Writing fiction is a quasi-mysterious act, and one which a lot of people fantasize about undertaking. So it's only natural to wonder what sorts of behaviors you're supposed model. Isn't the best way to learn anything to watch someone else, then do the same thing in the same way?

For those who have long been curious about my work habits (or lack thereof), I offer this interview with the web site A Serial Reader.

Without Libraries

Andrew Sullivan today links to a great piece by the poet Charles Simic in the New York Review of Book on the role of libraries in our society and what is at risk in our rush forward into the digital age. Here's Simic:

I heard some politician say recently that closing libraries is no big deal, since the kids now have the Internet to do their reading and school work. It’s not the same thing. As any teacher who recalls the time when students still went to libraries and read books could tell him, study and reflection come more naturally to someone bent over a book. Seeing others, too, absorbed in their reading, holding up or pressing down on different-looking books, some intimidating in their appearance, others inviting, makes one a participant in one of the oldest and most noble human activities.

Yes, reading books is a slow, time-consuming, and often tedious process. In comparison, surfing the Internet is a quick, distracting activity in which one searches for a specific subject, finds it, and then reads about it—often by skipping a great deal of material and absorbing only pertinent fragments. Books require patience, sustained attention to what is on the page, and frequent rest periods for reverie, so that the meaning of what we are reading settles in and makes its full impact.