{"id":7194,"date":"2021-07-21T06:53:55","date_gmt":"2021-07-21T13:53:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/?p=7194"},"modified":"2021-07-21T06:53:57","modified_gmt":"2021-07-21T13:53:57","slug":"the-ultimate-literary-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/meditations\/the-ultimate-literary-happiness\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ultimate Literary Happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-7194\" data-postid=\"7194\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-7194 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve seen people reading my books in bars, libraries, cafes, breweries and bookstores and the moment always discharges a blast of literary happiness. Rarely, have I ever said anything to the reader when I see such a thing. No need to ruin the moment with talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today, another such moment occurred, and it easily topped them all. I was pulling my car around the front of a grocery store, where the line of homeless people waiting to deposit cans and bottles into the machines was seven or eight deep. I noticed one homeless man sitting on the sidewalk waiting his turn. He was leaning against the store and reading a book. It was my book chat homeless man! I slowed down. He was reading my book, <em>The Great Birthright<\/em>! Earlier that morning, I&#8217;d stocked it in a half dozen nearby street libraries. And there he was reading my novel about Oregon&#8217;s socialist ocean beaches and the evil California developer trying to privatize them. (You can join the homeless bibliophile and purchase your copy from this blog!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I smiled. I laughed. I said, \u201cHell yeah!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then it hit me. We&#8217;d have to chat up the book on our next book chat. It very well could be this afternoon! What if the reader who loved <em>Ivanhoe<\/em> hated my book? What if he gave me a bad review right there on the sidewalk when he was drinking malt liquor or smoking a cheap cigar?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I relished that possibility, almost more than I relished the possibility he would love the novel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the record: there is a very good chance I am the only American author in the history of American literature who witnessed a homeless man reading that author&#8217;s novel while sitting on a sidewalk and drinking malt liquor or smoking a cheap cigar, or doing all three at the same time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Top that Jonathan Franzen or Jennifer Wiener! Yeah, you too, Ernest Hemingway, although you are dead.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve seen people reading my books in bars, libraries, cafes, breweries and bookstores and the moment always discharges a blast of literary happiness. Rarely, have I ever said anything to the reader when I see such a thing. No need to ruin the moment with talk. Today, another such moment occurred, and it easily topped [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7194"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7197,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7194\/revisions\/7197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}