Howdy! From the sky! En route to NYC! I’m Craig Mod and this is Roden, a newsletter sent via magic tubes.
Since returning from Spain I’ve been in full-bore April Pod Mode, recording a dozen+ interviews and working on a bunch of essays for various publications in service to the forthcoming launch of my new book (did ya hear?) Things Become Other Things. Which, by the way, COMES OUT IN FIVE DAYS. (May 6!) This (reminding you) is basically the entire reason for this newsletter (for my life), and I apologize if it’s thin on much anything else. (My days have been pretty thin on anything but TBOT these last few months.)
As for book tour events, goddamn, they appear to be mostly sold out? Our launch party at Rizzoli in NYC is at 200 RSVPs and it looks like you can still RSVP, so I’d recommend doing so if you plan on coming. (Oh crap, as I was typing this it flipped to “sold out!”) But look, I don’t know how these things work, (I don’t know how anything works) though I suspect (don’t quote me) if an event is “full” you can just roll up and we can sneak you in the back or something? Standing room? Surely we can slot you in between folks? Make believe you’re a lamp? Anyway, there are many events happening this month (and the start of next; RSVP RSVP RSVP) — Rizzoli on Monday, Washington DC with Ross Andersen on Friday (May 9), San Francisco with Robin Sloan a week from Monday (May 12), and Brooklyn with Lynne Tillman (May 30th), to list but a few!
Dead horse beating incoming: TBOT comes out on May 6. (Did I tell you it’s May 6? Don’t worry, I’ll blast All The Newsletters again on pub date). Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered (some copies are already arriving, it seems). Please considerpre-ordering if you haven’t already :) BECAUSE — I just got the final hardcovers a week ago and THEY ARE VERY NICE. Look:
The size and weight, the pleasing feel of the matte cover in hand — satisfying. The typography and typesetting (Bembo) — chef’s French kiss. And the black and white photos (which I “redeveloped” for this edition) on the standard mass-market hardcover paper? Behold:
It works. It works like I imagined it would. I had Rings of Saturn in mind while pushing for this design direction, and I think it hits some of those notes, while also rising to its own unique aesthetic place. (Sebald was sadly not available to rewrite the book for me.) It feels — in some ways — like something Mack might put out. I mean that as high (very high) praise for Random House. There’s also a playfulness in the layout — some images full bleed, some inline, some illustrative, some abstract. The point being: I’m darn smitten with where this landed and can’t wait for you to get it. And you really should get the physical edition, if possible. (I also recorded the audiobook (one of ten million things I did last month) — and although the process felt like waterboarding my brain, they didn’t fire me and assure me it’s listenable.)
As for pre-order campaign coupons — I’m going to turn those off on Monday; so this weekend is your last chance to get one.
… with more soon. (I just recorded, I think, my last one for a while yesterday in a fancy studio in LA, with fancy lights and fancy cameras, and it was truly a blast … I’m excited for that one to come out in a few weeks.)
Otherwise, I’m just trying to keep things together for the next six weeks. This is a huge push — physically and mentally (and, quite frankly, financially (this tour is funded out of my own pocket)). Big thanks to friends offering me space in their homes, and to everyone else who has aided the ushering in of this book (Molly, Marni, David, Andy, John, Oli, and more) to the world. Not much left to do now other than have some fun out on the road.
I’ll be audio recording the events, and plan on releasing them as a little podcast. Lord knows if we need anything in this cursed world of ours, we need more pods. Don’t worry, they’re coming.
