Book Junkie

I GOT IT! It just came in the mail. I feel like shouting, "I'm going to Disney World!" like the quarterbacks do after they win the Super Bowl. What is it? You ask. April & Oliver by Tess Callahan!

...

OK, so you probably haven't heard about this book, and there's really no reason why you should. (And no, it's not me by another name if there are those amongst you who thought for a brief moment that I would be able to keep my big mouth shut over a pending publication.) No, this is just a book that I saw in the "Deals" section of PW and thought it might work for the film franchise I'm employed by. I've been waiting for it to be pubbed to get it in. BUT! In the December 1, 2008 PW issue, I saw an ad saying that they would send an advanced reading copy (ARC) to the first 100 people who sent an email to such-n-such email address. I did, and I got one! HA! I feel like I just got away with something. Something big. In fact, I always feel this way when I've scored a free book. It's a sickness. They need a 12-step program for it because it's so wrong but it feels. So. Good. You might wonder how I got to this place. Well, like all addictions, it's not a pretty story.

It all started when I was a young kid and my mother would take me to the local library where I would be able to take out ten books at a pop...for free! And no, it never bothered me that I would have to give them back after two weeks because I'd already had my way with them and they bored me and now I could get MORE. If I had been older, I might have been suspicious by this philanthropic display by the government, but I was young and naive and believed that my government wanted me to be happy. When I hit my teen years, I started to make my own purchases. And once the money exchange started, I only wanted quality. And my sickness took a turn...towards autographed books. Since I grew up in a relatively small town without any attraction to touring big named authors, an autographed book was like a rare gem. The first time I ever saw a signed copy (a book by Alice Hoffman) just sitting there in the local Barnes & Noble and for no extra charge than the price of the hardcover, I grabbed at it like $50 bill just lying on the sidewalk. I got a buzzy high off the score. I didn't know it could get better. But it could. I went to work at a magazine where ARCs arrived one by one like magic. I had never seen an ARC before and was overcome by joy. The publishers gave out samples! I read these books whether they were good or bad. I didn't care. They were free and one shouldn't question ones supplier as to the grade of drug they're dealing if they're handing it to you for nothing. Just keep 'em coming. So it should be no surprise then that I slowly began migrating to the source of these books. To the one place where a book junkie can get the ultimate mainline: Publishing.

Since I'm no longer in the biz, I feel like I can divulge my ugly secret. There were times, god and David Shanks forgive me, that I would finish up my job for the night (night, being the operative word) and take the staircase to the other floors where I would steal books from the publicity departments of other imprints. That's right. I did it. That missing copy of Eats, Shoots and Leaves? Me. A signed copy of Anne Lamott's Plan B? Me again. I'd secret them out of the building, stashed somewhere between my 300 page unedited Indian romance novel and the commercial non-fiction pitches about astrology and baby names guides. And if I wasn't misappropriating books, I was taking them from the give-away shelves or the Sales Department open closet where signed books were just sitting there unclaimed. I had piles of books under my desk. Classics I always meant to read, commercial fiction that got all the good buzz, titles friends had recommended, and extra copies of books that I had read and loved and kept on hand to supply to other junkies. But then, like all addictions, something happened and the landscape changed. I found myself kicked to the curb and had to kiss the high life good bye.

That's not the end of my story though, and if you think I've hit bottom and am now recovering, you're wrong, wrong, wrong. I've got friends in high places that will pass me a book under the table from time to time. "The new Tana French? Yeah, I got that for you." And I've scored another job that supplies the love. Every year, my bosses send me to the Columbia of book pushing: Book Expo America where publishing displays their wares like whores in the Red Light district. It's only primo quality at BEA, baby. A little Toni Morrison, a little Philip Roth, and, psst, John Updike has a new Witches of Eastwick title if you liked the first taste. You wanna it? We got. And you can have it months before anyone else. All for free. Ahhh. Just the way I like it.

I don't know if I'll ever beat the need. But like all unapologetic junkies, I don't want it to over. I'm going ride it to the end of the line. And if, one day, you hear that they've found my body in some back alley in a shack made out of Signet Classic paperbacks, my rigid fingers curled around the newest Mary Roach, just know that I went happy. In the meantime, I'm in the market for a little something-something to get me through the holidays. You know my number. Hook me up, yo.