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Author
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Comment
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dorisi
Registered User
(7/27/03 12:04 pm)
ezSupporter
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Question for Midori
Midori - I've been trying for many moons to buy a copy of The Innamorati. I ordered it through Borders here in Australia, waited patiently for two months, then got a card saying it was in print but would take longer to come in than usual. I waited another two months, somewhat less patiently, then got a card saying it was unavailable. One big bookshop told me it was out of print, another big bookshop told me it was in print but they couldn't get it in. Is it indeed out of print and should I try hunting the used book shops? if it is still in print, I thought you should know about Borders' ignorance of the fact. If you read this, could you please reply to my private email as my computer is currently being temperamental and will often not allow me to access the web. I'm doris@imber.com.au
On another note, I’ve just come back from being a guest at the inaugural Norfolk island writers festival. Norfolk is an extraordinary place. Lusciously beautiful scenery and the home of many of the descendants of the Bounty Mutiny. They came from Pitcairn Island (the island the mutineers steered the commandeered Bounty to - its location was wrongly marked on the maps and thus provided the perfect place to hide. When they arrived, they burnt the Bounty so that no trace of their existence would be left. What an extraordinary feeling that must have been...) Norfolk was a very special experience. Like being in an enchanted world - Prospero’s island - a lot of magic and spirits as diverse as Ariel and Caliban. Emotions and lives were much closer to the surface My role doubled up - I ended up becoming the in-house shrink (I’m a psychologist) as well as an invited writer. This is the long preamble to what I wanted to say. As part of my talk I retold the old Russian folktale ‘Go I Know Not Where, Bring Back I Know Not What’. It was certainly the quest I was sent on in writing my memoir and is the quest that I think many of us are invited, or forced, into at some time in our lives. The response from the audience (of about 300 people) was extraordinary. Everyone was coming up to me afterwards to say how wonderful it was to have a fairy story told to them as adults and the powerful emotions that it had aroused.
Leaving the island was interesting. Sat up talking with friends until 2.30 a.m., suddenly realised the time and that I was leaving early the next morning. Finished packing at my hotel, at 3.30 in the morning, went to sleep and woke at 5.30. Put the final seal on my packing, although I began to realise that I was missing things - drawers that I’d forgotten to clean out -
shelves I’d neglected (of course I wasn’t reluctant to leave the place...). Then I took myself off for a sunrise drive around the island. I thought I was heading for South end but ended up at the North end (pretty standard directional behaviour for me) navigated around cows meditating in the middle of the road, had a chat to some geese and arrived home in time for
breakfast. Did a double check of my room - definitely empty and cleared of everything and headed off to the airport.
At the airport a check-in Nazi obviously didn’t like my face and demanded that I weigh not my check-in luggage but my hand luggage (no-one else in the airport had to weigh their hand- luggage). This it turned out was two kilograms over the ‘limit’. She demanded that I re-pack. I had to get rid of two kilos, she thundered at me. Then, in a loud whisper that anyone within several hundred metres could hear, she leaned forward and said ‘Perhaps you could shift your
underwear’. And yes, of course I never travel anywhere without at least two kilos of underwear - why there’s the chain mail body armour, the cast-iron chastity belt and any number of things I wouldn’t dream of mentioning in public. How did this perceptive woman
know? Anyway, finally I was forced to clear out all of the reading matter I’d bought for the flights back.
Afterwards I was outside muttering to friends. that I wouldn’t have anything to read on the plane. One said reasonably’ Buy some magazines’. ‘Do you think the airport sells them?’ I said looking back at the distinctly cosy airport area. ‘Of course’ he said with confidence. So I went back into the airport, investigated their commercial activities and was just discovering
that there was no way they were selling anything that even vaguely resembled reading material when there was a tap on my shoulder. A young man stood there. ‘Doris Brett?’ he said. I nodded and he handed me a package. ‘You left this at the Colonial hotel’ It was the wonderful book I’d bought on the history of Norfolk. I spent the rest of the time till departure clutching the book inside my jacket and walking sideways whenever I spotted the Nazi (she hadn’t noticed my handbag, which was hanging down behind my back). In my efforts to keep my back from being seen by her, I was doing some excellent John Cleese
imitations.
Doris
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Midori
Unregistered User
(7/28/03 10:39 am)
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innamorati
Doris,
The hardcover is out of print--but when last I checked, the trade paperback is available. Also, Amazon seems to have a healthy supply of used (remaindered) hardcovers. Perhaps the same is true with the overseas Amazon?
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(7/28/03 10:22 pm)
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Re: innamorati
Also try www.bookcloseouts.com where 23 new, not used, paperback editions were available just a few minutes ago when I checked.
Heidi
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Gregor9
Registered User
(7/29/03 5:10 am)
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hardcovers at Daedalus
There are hardcover copies of Midori's book available at Daedalus
Books, www.daedalusbooks.com/Default.asp.
Greg
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