James Hynes

Two new reviews of Next have appeared: this one from the New York Times, by Janet Maslin, and this one, from Fiction Addict, by Lori Twichell.

Next has been available in some stores and on line for about a week now, but today is the actual official publication date, and in honor of the occasion, my friend John Marks has reposted an interview we did last year, at Purple State of Mind.

Another pub day special: my nostalgic ramble through the playlist of songs referenced in Next, in the order in which they appear in the book, at largehearted boy.

The book has also received its first newspaper review, from the Austin American-Statesman. And the radio interview I did at KOOP in Austin last week is also now available as a podcast; thanks again to Francois Pointeau, Dillon McKinsey, and Lee Davis. I enjoyed our conversation.

If you live in or near Austin, I'll be doing a reading and book signing at BookPeople at 603 North Lamar on Friday, March 12, at 7 p.m.

And, as always, if you go here you can purchase the book, read an excerpt, and read reviews.

I spoke too soon this morning: although the official release date for Next is March 9, it turns out the book is already in stores, or at least in two stores in Austin, Texas. Not that I was checking or anything—honestly, I wasn't—but I saw it on display at BookPeople this evening, and I saw another couple of copies at a Barnes and Noble. I didn't see any at my local Borders—again, still not checking—but I'm hoping it's just a day or two away.

So there it is: the die is cast, the Rubicon has been crossed, my new book has been released into the wild. As I said earlier today, you can find it at fine indie bookstores such as Schuler Books, or you can order it directly from such online emporia as IndieBound, Powell's, Barnes and Noble, Borders, or Amazon. You can read or find links to all of the book's reviews here, and you can read the first chapter here. And, again, I'll be talking about the book, live, on the radio, on Wednesday, March 3, and appearing at BookPeople a week from from Friday, March 13.

Next will be officially launched a week from tomorrow, which is the day that copies will be available in actual brick-and-mortar bookstores. You can buy it online already, apparently, at the usual outlets, but please remember it's always good to support your local bookstore, especially the independent ones. You can buy a copy online from a local store through IndieBound.

If you live in or near Austin, Texas, you can wait until March 12, when I'll be doing a reading and book signing at BookPeople, at 7 p.m. In Michigan, please stop by one of the Grand Rapids or Lansing area locations of Schuler Books, which is the great indie store run by my old friend Bill Fehsenfeld. Not only can he sell you a copy of Next, but via the magic of his new Espresso Book Machine, he can print you a copy of one of my earlier books, while u wait!

In the meantime, you can hear me talking about Next on Writing on the Air at 6 p.m. CST this Wednesday, March 3, on KOOP radio in Austin. I'll be live on the air with host Francois Pointeau. In Austin, you can hear KOOP at 91.7 FM, and the show is also streamed live on the web at KOOP.org. It will also be available as a podcast later.

And, finally, I woke up this morning to this very generous review of the book by Michael Schaub in Bookslut.

All in all, not bad for a Monday morning.

PS: And here's a bonus review, from the Review Broads website.

I just got my first copy of Next. This is my fifth book, so I suppose I should be blasé about getting a copy hot off the press, but (in the spirit of Robert Stone, see below), this never gets old. It won't be in stores or available online for another two weeks, and it's entirely possible that I'm going to be the only person in the world the book makes this happy—it's pretty likely, in fact—but for now, I'm going to run with it.

And this just in: the very first review of Next, by Mike Shea, from Texas Monthly.

But wait, there's more: the second review of Next, by Lauren Bufferd, from BookPage.

My new novel, Next, comes out in six weeks, so those of you who drop by this on-again, off-again (mostly off-again lately) blog should brace yourself for increasingly intense bouts of self-promotion, defensiveness, and rank narcissism. I'm going to make an effort (really, truly) to write about other stuff, too, but today, I'm returning to the blogosphere to shamelessly tout the book.

Starting with Shelf Awareness, a daily website for the book business, which is devoting today's issue to the launch of Reagan Arthur Books, my new publisher. Reagan is my once-and-future publisher, actually, since she not only edited Next, but The Lecturer's Tale as well, back when she and I were both at Picador. Since then, she has become (in the words of Gawker) a "rock star editor" at Little, Brown, publishing critically acclaimed and bestselling novels by Joshua Ferris, Elizabeth Kostova, Kate Atkinson, Denise Mina, George Pelecanos, and others. And now, for reasons that passeth understanding, she's publishing me again. Anyway, check out Friday's Shelf Awareness for news about all of the imprint's new releases, some lovely photos and interviews with Reagan and her talented team, and some smart-alecky answers from me to the site's Book Brahmin questions.

And if you go here, you can read the recent Publishers Weekly review of Next, wherein I dodge a bullet. So far, so good.

You can now read the first chapter of Next, my forthcoming novel. Go here.

Everything I read and everything everybody I know tells me says that this is how you publish and promote a novel these days, but it still feels weird to me. I'm doing my geriatric best to keep up: I'm on Facebook now, fer chrissakes. God help me, I'm on Twitter, too, though I hardly ever think of anything interesting to say. The other day, I tweeted that I was eating a banana. Is this what Herman Melville would have done? Oh, time, strength, cash, and patience!

I've just put up a new page for my forthcoming novel, Next. Right now, you can see the catalog copy from Little, Brown, some very generous advance blurbs from Jim Crace, Kate Christensen, and Laura Lippman, and a link (click on the picture) to the book's Amazon page. In the near future, I hope to put up an excerpt, probably the opening pages of the book. Stay tuned.

John Marks has just put up a longish interview with me on his Purple State blog. I talk a little bit (though not too much) about my forth-coming novel, Next. I also bloviate about some other stuff.