Bookish people read books. Bookish people attend readings and book festivals.  Bookish people are disappointed when Will Self, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Mary Robison cancel.   (Yes, that really happened.)

But one can be too bookish.

I am too bookish.

It means that I carry a book everywhere, even shopping.  Today I panicked because I was waiting for a beverage without a book. I was running errands.  One doesn’t usually read while running errands.   I’d have read the labels on the coffee beans if I hadn’t found a newspaper.

I said to myself, “You are too bookish.”

I have been told this many times.

The most recent “too-bookish” episode was when I listened to the Grateful Dead for 48 hours. It was a good remedy for grief, but after the first day I HAD to read:  my cousin said I couldn’t because I had to be mindless. She said I wouldn’t have wanted to read if had had more than one shot of vodka. Having Ambien in the cupboard didn’t count, since it is a sleeping pill.

“Now if you combine it with…”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

I have decided to prove that I am unbookish.  I will go to rock concerts and book festivals.

Now this isn’t as silly as you might think.

You can’t read at either.

We are all rapt when we listen to rock music except when we have to do it for the entire Labor Day Weekend.

At rock concerts we wear black and sway.  If our hair is long enough, we flip it around.  We can do the same kind of thing at a book festival.  Only less swaying and flipping.

The  Zombies are on tour and will play within the 400-mile radius designated for my new rock thing.  I would love to hear them sing “The Time of the Season.”

It’s the time of the season
When love runs high
In this time, give it to me easy
And let me try with pleasured hands

We’re never too old for that!

Bonnie Raitt is touring in a city near me. “Put your hands together for the one and only Bonnie Raitt!”  She sings better than anyone about love and work.  During an unhappy work experience I listened to her version of “Angel from Montgomery” again…again…again…and again…

How the hell can a person
Go to work in the morning
And come home in the evening
And have nothing to say

How could I possibly have missed the Rolling Stones in Chicago in June?  I could have taken the train to Chicago. Perhaps they sang “Beast of Burden”!

Am I hard enough
Am I rough enough
Am I rich enough

Yes, I think you probably are.

Couldn’t R.E.M. get back together just long enough to sing my favorite song, “Driver 8”?  I respect their breakup, because why perform if you don’t want to, but I miss them.

And the train conductor says
“Take a break Driver 8, Driver 8 take a break
We can reach our destination, but we’re still a ways away”
But we’re still a ways away

Can one be a groupie at book festivals?

On my sidebar I have listed the four best new books of 2013.  I sincerely do doubt that any of these writers will come here on tour.

One gathers that Sir Peter Stothard, author of Alexandria:  The Last Nights of Cleopatra, might be too busy editing the TLS or judging awards or something to go on tour in the U.S.   I googled “Peter Stothard book tour” but nothing came up.   Too bad!  Wouldn’t it be great to have an autographed copy of his book? Just his name would be fine.  “To Kat” isn’t necessary.

Karen E. Bender, author of A Town of Empty Rooms, wrote me a lovely email when I wrote about her book.  She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, so she might come to the Midwest sometime.  But in the  2013-2014 academic year, she is teaching creative writing at Tunghai University in Taiwan.

Steve Yarbrough, the author of the brilliant novel, The Realm of Last Chances, has been one of my great “discoveries” of the year. But he teaches at Emerson College, and it looks from his tour schedule as though he’s not coming anywhere near here.  What a pity!

Susan Choi, author of My Education, is giving readings in Brooklyn and Portland this fall.  A long way away…

It’s much easier to see a rock band than a writer!  See you in black at the concert.