I had some great news from LibraryThing a couple of days ago ~ I managed to snag an advance copy of "Miami and the Siege of Chicago" by Norman Mailer! It's a memoir of the wild days of the Republican and Democratic conventions back in 1968, and I am particularly excited about it because I lived in Chicago then and experienced some (though not all) of the craziness! Not that I remember all that much about it, because I actually did live through those heady days ~ the peace marches, the student demonstrations, the blind hatred and terrifying violence that surrounded the civil rights movement, the soul-wrenching murders of Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy, all perceived through a kind of purple haze. Anyway, what few personal memories I have of that time are sporadic and perhaps even a bit distorted. It will be interesting to learn what was really going on then while I was doing, um, my thing.
Ten minutes later, another email arrived telling me that there was a problem and I wouldn't be getting an advance galley copy after all ~ not, in fact, until after the book goes on sale. At first I was disappointed, but I've gotten used to dealing with disappointment. Besides, the anticipation will make finally getting the book all the sweeter!
