Citizen Reader

I know, I know, nobody likes advertising. That's why largely there's none to be found here. But when it takes as long to write a reference book as it took me to write this one, I can't help but take a day to announce its publication.

It's here! My second nonfiction readers' guide, The Inside Scoop: A Guide to Nonfiction Investigative Writing and Exposes, is all ready to go. And I for one am glad. I had a lot of fun writing it, but after you've gone through the manuscript a couple of times and indexed it, you don't really feel like looking at it ever again.

My favorite part of this new book is that it contains, not only annotations and suggestions for William Langewiesche's books, but many, many references to Langewiesche in general, including his quote about the difficulty of classifying investigative works:

"In truth it doesn't really have a label--which is why you can never find the stuff in a bookstore. They don't know where to put it, so they try to force it into existing categories."

Ah, Langewiesche. Even when writing about writing he's got it spot on.

In other administrative news, don't forget that Book Menage II is scheduled to start Monday, March 23. Our two books are the essay collection The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders and the story collection Dangerous Laughter by Steven Milhauser. Remember, you're welcome to comment even if you don't get both books read. (I've got to get going to make sure I get both books read myself!)