For information about the book itself, see its page on the soloshowpublishing.com site.

Helen’s had one launch event already, in Beijing last week. (A few photos available at her site.)

She’s also got one coming up in London on November 3, at the Phoenix Artist Club. Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood — I know I would!

“What if?” you ask. I’d be academically interested in knowing there were reasonable alternatives which didn’t involve things like running a chimney from a freestanding fireplace through glass, say. (Or, for that matter, running a chimney straight up through a 20-foot-high ceiling.)

I suppose you’re going to tell me it’s all simple as long as we use a gas fireplace. Or maybe even a fireplace with artificial logs and orange randomly-flickering LEDs. All of which would make it “simple” only in its own right. Because, you see, there’s a pre-existing laundry list of OTHER stuff: ceiling fans, decking in need of replacement, pulling up the carpets and installing wood(ish) floors…

Hence the academic interest. :)

But you’ve touched on a sore point for both The Missus and me: that this house, unlike the previous one which we’d rented, has no fireplace. Not even a good place to put one. But now you’ve got me thinking that I could save a bundle on the cost of charcoal (if people didn’t mind eating flakes of the WIP with their fish and steaks and corn and potatoes).

Jules: Oh, I bet the number of still-packed boxes here would easily dwarf anything you’ve got. Not, Lord knows, that our house is that big or that the still-packed contents of those boxes are particularly special or worth keeping. No, we’re both just

1. old enough to have accumulated more stuff (and hence to face a more daunting task of unpacking), and
2. lazy. Or, to put it more kindly, we have a lot of distractions, real and imagined. :)

marta: So, you’re saying… what? You’re saying you want the contents of that garbage bag? Done! Thank you! The local curbside-recycling-pickup crew thanks you, too!

cynth: The Missus would take the view, I’m sure, that if I haven’t missed look at any of those books for a dozen years or more, then I — cough, I mean we certainly don’t need to look at them, period.

But I know, or think I know, that those books came from the old homestead, is that right? In which case, well, who knows what treasures (or at least triggers) of nostalgia lies in those boxes?

IF — and I’m not saying this could or should happen, mind you — IF we got a phone call or a doorknob notice to the effect of “This is the Greyhound bus company, and here at the terminal we’ve got two boxes weighing a total of 80 pounds with your address on the outside”… well, we couldn’t turn them away, could we? Especially with the (granted, merely alleged) approach of cold weather. That would be cruel!

Helen: If you’ve lived anything remotely like a peripatetic life, I bet you’ve got boxes of books in a half-dozen places around the globe. (I can still tick off the titles of books which I know I left on ex-girlfriends’ shelves decades before The Missus entered my life, and wonder if it would be bad form to ask if I could have them back.)

Time-zone arithmetic being what it is, I’m not sure what tense to use in extending congratulations and best wishes — and asking for a report, here or elsewhere — about the book launch. But consider all of them rendered (or in the offing, if that’s appropriate)!

(And the London launch is coming up in a couple of weeks, right?)

Wish me luck, Beijing launch tonight.

I’m jealous you’re organized to be pulling off a garage sale and clearing out bookshelf space (as mentioned in your kicks). I really need to do that. I was relieved to read that you had boxes sitting around for many years, though. We have an entire room like that.