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I’m packing today for the West Coast portion of my book tour. If you happen to be in Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco, I would love to see you! In Seattle, I’ll be reading at the public library, a place I love both for its architecture and for the people who work in it. The event is co-sponsored by Elliott Bay Book Co., where the booksellers always have the best recommendations for what to read next. I had a wonderful time in Seattle when my previous novel, Secret Son, was a citywide read there, so I’m really looking forward to being back.

September 16, 2014
7:00 PM
Reading and Discussion
Seattle Public Library in conjunction with Elliott Bay Book Co.
1000 Fourth Avenue
Seattle, Washington

After that, I’ll be reading at the legendary City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. I’m excited about the prospect of seeing family and friends from the area. Details are below:

September 17, 2014
7:00 PM
Reading and Discussion
City Lights Booksellers and Publishers
261 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco, California

My last stop of the week will be at Powell’s Books. All I can say about this bookstore is that I want to set up a tent and live there. It’s that great.

September 18, 2014
7:30 PM
Reading and Discussion
Powell’s Books
1005 W. Burnside Street
Portland, Oregon

If you want to know a little more about the genesis of The Moor’s Account, you can read this piece I wrote for Biographile. I also created a musical playlist for Largehearted Boy’s Booknotes. Several new reviews of the book appeared over the last few days: The Wall Street Journal called the novel “sensitive” and “elegant;” the literary magazine The Millions said it was “magnificent;” and the Seattle Times found it “meticulously researched and inventive.” The New York Times made it an Editors’ Choice this week.

My new novel, The Moor’s Account, comes out today. The journey from conception to publication has been long, but it has been wonderful in every way. I’m very proud of this book and I hope you enjoy reading it. I’m also thrilled to see that it has already received some notice. For instance, in its review, The New York Times called it “a fictional memoir told in a controlled voice that feels at once historical and contemporary.” The Los Angeles Times said it was a “rich novel (…) that muses on the ambiguous power of words to either tell the truth or reshape it according to our desires.” Other reviews and mentions appeared in BookPage, The Huffington Post, and The Village Voice. And you can hear me discuss the novel with Arun Rath on NPR’s All Things Considered.

I will be launching The Moor’s Account in Los Angeles this week, at two separate events. Tomorrow, I’ll read from and discuss it at Skylight:

September 10, 2014
7:30 PM
Reading and Discussion
Skylight Books
1818 N Vermont Ave.
Los Angeles, California

And then this Sunday, I’ll be speaking at Diesel in Brentwood. Details are below:

September 14, 2014
3:00 PM
Reading and Discussion
Diesel, A Bookstore
Brentwood Country Mart
225 26th Street, Ste. 33.
Brentwood, California

After that, I will be going on a huge tour to promote the book. All my scheduled readings are posted on my Events page. Do come.

In trying to make sense of the injustice and the violence that has been unfolding in Ferguson for the last couple of weeks, I returned to James Baldwin’s essay “Notes of a Native Son,” and recommended it for NPR’s All Things Considered.

It is early August. A black man is shot by a white policeman. And the effect on the community is of “a lit match in a tin of gasoline.” No, this is not Ferguson, Mo. This was Harlem in August 1943, a period that James Baldwin writes about in the essay that gives its title to his seminal collection, Notes of a Native Son.

You can listen to the piece on NPR’s website.

Photo: Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/AP. A demonstrator throws back a tear gas container after tactical officers worked to break up a group of bystanders on Chambers Road and West Florissant, Aug. 13, 2014, in St. Louis.

Book tours sound very glamorous, but they usually go like this: you wake up at an ungodly hour, you hope that your cab is on time, you hope that your flight is on time, you hope that your seat mate isn’t a sociopath, you hope that your hotel room is ready when you get there, you hope not to get lost on your way to the bookstore. All that hoping can be stressful. So why go on tour? Because after a few years of writing a novel, it’s very enjoyable to talk to readers about it. I have the most amazing readers. Once, at a reading in Los Angeles, a woman told me she had driven three hours so her daughter could come see me. Another time, my friend A. from grad school surprised me by showing up at my Elliott Bay reading in Seattle. He lives in Arizona, but was in town on business, so we ended up having dinner together and catching up. And I love doing events in independent bookstores because, unfailingly, the staff are knowledgeable, friendly, and always have a good book to recommend. Yes, book tours are stressful, but they’re also lots of fun. Right now, I’m getting ready to tour for my new novel, The Moor’s Account. I’ll be visiting Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, New York, Washington DC, and Boston this fall. I’m also doing the Chicago Humanities Festival, the International Festival of Authors in Toronto, and the Miami Book Fair. And I’m speaking at several colleges, including Williams in Massachusetts, Yavapai College in Arizona, and the University of Texas at Austin. Do come by and say hello! I’d love to talk to you about my new book.