'Pig' now in Nook

For owners of Barnes & Noble Nook ebook readers: My 1990 book What's That Pig Outdoors: A Memoir of Deafness is now online in Nook format, having been a Kindle ebook for a while now.

OCT. 30: It's also available as a Kobo ebook.

Pilgrimage

The other day I happened to be in Hannibal, Missouri, on the broad Mississippi River, and naturally had to pay a visit to the place where the American novel was born: Mark Twain's boyhood home.

The history is expectably fascinating, but everything on the little street that also contains Samuel Clemens' father's law office and what purports to be Becky Thatcher's house looked brand spanking Disneyland new, which was a bit disappointing. The designers seem to have rebuilt to 21st century kitsch instead of restored to 19th century funkiness. As a result, the place just doesn't carry much of an air of authenticity.

Expectably, everything in Hannibal seems to be named for Twain. The Mark Twain Hotel, the Mark Twain Dinette, the Mark Twain Caves, and so on. (There's an Injun Joe Campground, but fortunately Jim of Huck Finn fame has escaped the tarbrush of commercial insensitivity.)

Other than the myriad touristy connections with the writer, the town would be just another mouldering ruin on the river.

At last . . . the jacket

The actual book will be published April 19, and should be available on Internet vendors such as Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com later in the month.

Don't look for it in bookstores, though. The publisher, Five Star, aims primarily at libraries and the Internet.

I rather like the art—simple and bold, and it vividly evokes the ambience of the opening chapter, which takes place in an encampment of costumed historical re-enactors of the era of Lewis & Clark.

My compliments to the designer.

'Pig' now a Kindle ebook

At last, the University of Illinois Press has released the updated 2010 edition of my first book, What's That Pig Outdoors: A Memoir of Deafness, as a $9.99 Kindle ebook.

It was first published in 1990 and the 2010 edition brings up to date the story of my life as a deaf person as well as changes in my views of deafness.

You can find the Kindle version here.

Soon, I hope, it'll be available in Nook and other ebook formats.