Hello! It's been a busy week, but not quite the usual busy... I spent some time at the WETA studios yesterday taping a segment for a new videoblog program called Author Author! hosted by self-titled Book Maven Bethanne Patrick. As soon as it's up we'll have a link to it from our website. We talked about some of the best books of the year and also some great holiday gift selections. I kept retooling my list all weekend long, trying to fit in all my personal favorites and all the favorites from the stores. So if I left one or two titles off they're surely highlighted at a store or, even better, in our Holiday Gift Guide.

This year's Holiday Gift Guide (or HGG as we so cleverly call it in-house) has finally taken shape and is available on our website. The print version is due next week. I'm really excited about our title selections this year. It's a lot of fun poring through all the year's titles and looking at the upcoming releases that we're all a-titter about.

Speaking of the Holiday Gift Guide, Tuesday night I joined Tony Ritchie at the Lisner Auditorium where the Smithsonian was hosting a conversation with Steve Martin. His recently published autobiography Born Standing Up is one of our featured titles this year. It has garnered a lot of positive reviews and it was one of the pre-publication books I greedily picked up earlier this year. I've enjoyed his fiction and his humor pieces over the years and was eager to see what resulted when he turned the lens on himself. And of course, like just about everyone else in the universe my family had (and played into the ground) the A Wild and Crazy Guy album. And there may have been some arrow headgear floating around, too.

Well, his autobiograghy is a well-crafted and intelligent narrative that reflects as much on his actual life as it does on his savvy and tenacious approach to the science and philosophy of comedy. It's also one of my favorite books this season. And making it an even sweeter deal, we were able to get a number of copies signed by Mr. Martin and they're available at all of our stores.