Emma's Mixtape

I have a favourite book store in any city I've spent more than five minutes in (sidebar: the teenage country singer, Taylor Swift, has my heart, though I've yet to hear any of her music, after she said "If I've talked to you for more than five minutes, I've probably gone on to write a song about you".)
Anyway, my favourite book store in L.A, from long before I ever lived here, has always been 'Book Soup'. Each time I published a novel I'd ask my editor, "Can I do a reading at Book Soup?" And they'd always say they were totally booked up, because reading there is simply so prestigious. When 'Damage Control' came out, the store finally came to ME and asked ME to read there - this is ten years after I started publishing, after going to see Martin Amis read there, Jennifer Belle, Rachel Resnick, all these novelists I so admire. I got to the door, a-quiver with nerves, and was greeted with this sign:



I read on a Thursday, he the night before. I laughed so hard, I had - to invoke Kate Winslet at the Golden Globes - "gather" before I could speak. Hey, at least on book shelves, my name is generally after Ford Maddox Ford.