Day: July 15, 2003

I’m heading out to San Diego tomorrow, to see my good friend Ian, as well as some Contract Pharma advertisers. Given the amount of traveling I do for the job, I decided it’d be in my best interest to get an MP3 player. Esp. since, during my recent flight to San Antonio, I essentially used my laptop for that function. At more than 7 lbs., it seemed a little inefficient.

I had to choose between the iPod and the Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox Zen. Now that I’ve had it for a week, I have to admit, that Steve Jobs sure can make an elegant piece of hardware. The iPod may be the greatest invention in man’s history.

Revised cover (still some revisions to go) for the book is in. It includes a great blurb from Irving Malin, who called it in to Mr. West after reading the book in a 48-hour span (at least, that’s about as long as he’d have had, given the date that I sent him a review copy).

David Madden, who wrote the introduction to our edition of The Place In Flowers Where Pollen Rests, offered up the following (edited) blurb, too:

“[I]t takes a writer like Paul West to explore the deep psychic lacerations occasioned by [9.11] . . . Anyone who thinks he or she knows anything about that harrowing moment should read this novel; it will change their perceptions forever.”

Speaking of reviews and blurbs, if any of you Virtual Memories readers out there have a venue in which to get the book reviewed, and want to give it a read (it’s 240 pages), e-mail me. Just keep in mind that it IS a novel of 9.11, and has some pretty strong imagery.