Our Totemic Connection to Books
4 March 2025
Dear Friends Who Read and Readers Who Are Friends,
Last month when I was dusting books in my library – I have no idea what got into me – I came across a lovely note from Donna Tartt in my first edition of The Secret History. I also found my mother’s beautiful cursive in a bookplate of her first edition of Fletcher Knebel’s Night of Camp David. And there was my older brother’s sweet note to me in the first volume of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time (he gave me all four volumes).
I mention this because this coming Saturday I begin my 35th book tour: a chance to meet new readers and see, once again, readers I’ve known for years. We don’t all fall in love with the same books, but often we share this: a totemic connection to books made of paper – to the book as an artifact.
In the library in my house, I can swivel in my desk chair and glance at the dust jackets of perhaps hundreds of the novels there and tell you where I was when I first cracked the book’s spine. Ian McEwan’s Atonement, for instance, is the grass beneath a maple tree outside a dance studio in Middlebury, Vermont, the leaves unfurling in the April sun, my daughter inside learning a new tap routine. Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep is the snack bar at Smith College, where my wife went to school when we were merely boyfriend and girlfriend, and the smell of the onions the cooks there placed on the hamburgers. And Franz Werfel’s magisterial epic, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, is the wood-paneled living room of my childhood home in Stamford, Connecticut, and my dawning awareness that there was more to my Armenian grandparents’ lives as children and young adults than they were ever likely to share. I knew they were survivors of the Armenian Genocide, but most of what they experienced, they took to their graves.
The truth is, a book’s dust jacket can instantly catapult most of us back in time. We don’t merely recall the novel’s plot or a snippet of dialogue: we remember where we were, who we were, and, just maybe, the state of our lives when we first met Atticus or Daisy or (most recently) James. A book is like music in that regard: it can resurrect memories for us. Even the smell, of course, can be a Proustian madeleine. The late Roger Shattuck, a wise and funny literary scholar who one Saturday years ago showed me how to properly scythe, told me how the books he’d had with him when he’d been a pilot in the Pacific Theater in the Second World War still smelled of the jungle, and the aroma instantly conjured memories from him of 1944 and 1945.
The Jackal’s Mistress is my 25th book. I hope some of its 24 predecessors have offered you a similar remembrances of things past. The list of cities I am visiting on the book tour is below. If I’m not coming to your town and you want a signed or personalized book, we’ll make it happen. Reach out to the Vermont Book Shop (in Middlebury, Vermont), Phoenix Books (in Burlington, Vermont), or Lemuria Books (in Jackson, Mississippi). Also? Your local bookstore might have signed copies: I signed many thousands of pages to be bound into copies last fall.
Thank you, my friends. May you always have a book you love by your bedside.
All the best,
Chris
www.chrisbohjalian.com
Praise for The Jackal's Mistress
"Masterful." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred
A "page-turner." -- Library Journal, starred
"Elegant, poignant, and richly atmospheric. . .Bohjalian once again demonstrates his profound respect for women, endowing his female protagonists with depth and nuance.” -- Booklist, starred
"Readers will be glued to the page." -- Publishers Weekly
One of the Washington Post's 10 Noteworthy Books for March
An Indie Next Selection for March
An Amazon Editors' Pick for March
A Barnes & Noble and BookBub "Most Anticipated Book" for March
The Jackal's Mistress
Rock and Roll Book Tour
SATURDAY, MARCH 8
Burlington, Vermont
Phoenix Books -- in conversation with historian Garrett Graff ("When the Sea Came Alive")
89 Church Street
7:00 p.m.
SUNDAY, MARCH 9
Middlebury, Vermont
The Town Hall Theater -- in conversation with Vermont Public's Mikaela Lefrak
Hosted by the Vermont Book Shop
69 South Pleasant Street
4:00 p.m.
MONDAY, MARCH 10
Concord, New Hampshire
Gibson's Bookstore -- in conversation with the revered broadcast journalist, Laura Knoy, who for 25 years hosted New Hampshire Public Radio's "The Exchange"
45 South Main Street
6:30 pm
TUESDAY, MARCH 11
The Jackal's Mistress officially goes on sale everywhere!
TUESDAY, MARCH 11
Watertown, Massachusetts
The Armenian Museum of America -- in conversation with historian Khatchig Mouradian ("The Resistance Network"); books by An Unlikely Story
65 Main Street
7:00 p.m.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12
Westminster, Maryland
The Carroll Arts Center -- in conversation with novelist Angie Kim ("Happiness Falls"); books by A Likely Story and Park Books
91 West Main Street
7:00 p.m.
THURSDAY, MARCH 13
Decatur, Georgia
Georgia Center for the Book
Decatur Library Auditorium -- in conversation with Karin Slaughter ("This is Why We Lied"); books by The Book Bird in Avondale Estates
215 Sycamore Street
7:00 p.m.
FRIDAY, MARCH 14
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Pine Lakes Country Club -- hosted by Litchfield Books
5603 Granddaddy Drive
Noon
SATURDAY, MARCH 15
Greenville, South Carolina
M. Judson Booksellers
"Books Over Drinks"
130 S. Main Street
7:30 p.m.
SUNDAY, MARCH 16
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore County Public Library, Perry Hall Branch
9685 Honeygo Blvd.; books by the Ivy Bookshop
2:00 p.m.
TUESDAY, MARCH 18
New York, New York
Barnes and Noble -- in conversation with Miwa Messer (host of the wonderful Barnes and Noble Podcast, "Poured Over")
2289 Broadway
7:00 p.m.
SATURDAY, MARCH 22
Charlottesville, Virginia
The Virginia Festival of the Book
In conversation with Kimberly Brock ("This Fabled Earth")
10:00 a.m.
THURSDAY, APRIL 3
Montclair, New Jersey
First Congregational Church of Montclair -- in conversation with Christina Baker Kline ("The Exiles"); books by Watchung Booksellers
7:00 p.m.
SATURDAY, APRIL 5
Tallahassee, Florida
Word of the South Festival -- in conversation with Mark Mustian ("Boy with Wings")
The AC Hotel
801 South Gadsden Street
MONDAY, APRIL 28
Virtual Facebook Event
Dolen's Bookclub
8:00 p.m. eastern time.
Yes, the brilliant novelist, Dolen Perkins-Valdez -- author of the forthcoming Happy Land -- has selected The Jackal's Mistress for her April pick. Join her bookclub on Facebook and tune in to enjoy Chris and Dolen in conversation!
FRIDAY, MAY 2
Garden City, New York
The Garden City Hotel -- in conversation with Alyson Richman ("The Timekeepers")
A lunch event hosted by Friends of the Port Washington Library
THURSDAY, MAY 8
Wilmington, Massachusetts
7:30 p.m.
Dear Friends Who Read and Readers Who Are Friends,
Last month when I was dusting books in my library – I have no idea what got into me – I came across a lovely note from Donna Tartt in my first edition of The Secret History. I also found my mother’s beautiful cursive in a bookplate of her first edition of Fletcher Knebel’s Night of Camp David. And there was my older brother’s sweet note to me in the first volume of Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time (he gave me all four volumes).
I mention this because this coming Saturday I begin my 35th book tour: a chance to meet new readers and see, once again, readers I’ve known for years. We don’t all fall in love with the same books, but often we share this: a totemic connection to books made of paper – to the book as an artifact.
In the library in my house, I can swivel in my desk chair and glance at the dust jackets of perhaps hundreds of the novels there and tell you where I was when I first cracked the book’s spine. Ian McEwan’s Atonement, for instance, is the grass beneath a maple tree outside a dance studio in Middlebury, Vermont, the leaves unfurling in the April sun, my daughter inside learning a new tap routine. Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep is the snack bar at Smith College, where my wife went to school when we were merely boyfriend and girlfriend, and the smell of the onions the cooks there placed on the hamburgers. And Franz Werfel’s magisterial epic, The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, is the wood-paneled living room of my childhood home in Stamford, Connecticut, and my dawning awareness that there was more to my Armenian grandparents’ lives as children and young adults than they were ever likely to share. I knew they were survivors of the Armenian Genocide, but most of what they experienced, they took to their graves.
The truth is, a book’s dust jacket can instantly catapult most of us back in time. We don’t merely recall the novel’s plot or a snippet of dialogue: we remember where we were, who we were, and, just maybe, the state of our lives when we first met Atticus or Daisy or (most recently) James. A book is like music in that regard: it can resurrect memories for us. Even the smell, of course, can be a Proustian madeleine. The late Roger Shattuck, a wise and funny literary scholar who one Saturday years ago showed me how to properly scythe, told me how the books he’d had with him when he’d been a pilot in the Pacific Theater in the Second World War still smelled of the jungle, and the aroma instantly conjured memories from him of 1944 and 1945.
The Jackal’s Mistress is my 25th book. I hope some of its 24 predecessors have offered you a similar remembrances of things past. The list of cities I am visiting on the book tour is below. If I’m not coming to your town and you want a signed or personalized book, we’ll make it happen. Reach out to the Vermont Book Shop (in Middlebury, Vermont), Phoenix Books (in Burlington, Vermont), or Lemuria Books (in Jackson, Mississippi). Also? Your local bookstore might have signed copies: I signed many thousands of pages to be bound into copies last fall.
Thank you, my friends. May you always have a book you love by your bedside.
All the best,
Chris
www.chrisbohjalian.com
Praise for The Jackal's Mistress
"Masterful." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred
A "page-turner." -- Library Journal, starred
"Elegant, poignant, and richly atmospheric. . .Bohjalian once again demonstrates his profound respect for women, endowing his female protagonists with depth and nuance.” -- Booklist, starred
"Readers will be glued to the page." -- Publishers Weekly
One of the Washington Post's 10 Noteworthy Books for March
An Indie Next Selection for March
An Amazon Editors' Pick for March
A Barnes & Noble and BookBub "Most Anticipated Book" for March
The Jackal's Mistress
Rock and Roll Book Tour
SATURDAY, MARCH 8
Burlington, Vermont
Phoenix Books -- in conversation with historian Garrett Graff ("When the Sea Came Alive")
89 Church Street
7:00 p.m.
SUNDAY, MARCH 9
Middlebury, Vermont
The Town Hall Theater -- in conversation with Vermont Public's Mikaela Lefrak
Hosted by the Vermont Book Shop
69 South Pleasant Street
4:00 p.m.
MONDAY, MARCH 10
Concord, New Hampshire
Gibson's Bookstore -- in conversation with the revered broadcast journalist, Laura Knoy, who for 25 years hosted New Hampshire Public Radio's "The Exchange"
45 South Main Street
6:30 pm
TUESDAY, MARCH 11
The Jackal's Mistress officially goes on sale everywhere!
TUESDAY, MARCH 11
Watertown, Massachusetts
The Armenian Museum of America -- in conversation with historian Khatchig Mouradian ("The Resistance Network"); books by An Unlikely Story
65 Main Street
7:00 p.m.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12
Westminster, Maryland
The Carroll Arts Center -- in conversation with novelist Angie Kim ("Happiness Falls"); books by A Likely Story and Park Books
91 West Main Street
7:00 p.m.
THURSDAY, MARCH 13
Decatur, Georgia
Georgia Center for the Book
Decatur Library Auditorium -- in conversation with Karin Slaughter ("This is Why We Lied"); books by The Book Bird in Avondale Estates
215 Sycamore Street
7:00 p.m.
FRIDAY, MARCH 14
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Pine Lakes Country Club -- hosted by Litchfield Books
5603 Granddaddy Drive
Noon
SATURDAY, MARCH 15
Greenville, South Carolina
M. Judson Booksellers
"Books Over Drinks"
130 S. Main Street
7:30 p.m.
SUNDAY, MARCH 16
Baltimore, Maryland
Baltimore County Public Library, Perry Hall Branch
9685 Honeygo Blvd.; books by the Ivy Bookshop
2:00 p.m.
TUESDAY, MARCH 18
New York, New York
Barnes and Noble -- in conversation with Miwa Messer (host of the wonderful Barnes and Noble Podcast, "Poured Over")
2289 Broadway
7:00 p.m.
SATURDAY, MARCH 22
Charlottesville, Virginia
The Virginia Festival of the Book
In conversation with Kimberly Brock ("This Fabled Earth")
10:00 a.m.
THURSDAY, APRIL 3
Montclair, New Jersey
First Congregational Church of Montclair -- in conversation with Christina Baker Kline ("The Exiles"); books by Watchung Booksellers
7:00 p.m.
SATURDAY, APRIL 5
Tallahassee, Florida
Word of the South Festival -- in conversation with Mark Mustian ("Boy with Wings")
The AC Hotel
801 South Gadsden Street
MONDAY, APRIL 28
Virtual Facebook Event
Dolen's Bookclub
8:00 p.m. eastern time.
Yes, the brilliant novelist, Dolen Perkins-Valdez -- author of the forthcoming Happy Land -- has selected The Jackal's Mistress for her April pick. Join her bookclub on Facebook and tune in to enjoy Chris and Dolen in conversation!
FRIDAY, MAY 2
Garden City, New York
The Garden City Hotel -- in conversation with Alyson Richman ("The Timekeepers")
A lunch event hosted by Friends of the Port Washington Library
THURSDAY, MAY 8
Wilmington, Massachusetts
7:30 p.m.
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