In Which there is an Author, a Reading, and a Signing

About 10 days ago, I went to check out Patrick Rothfuss’s, blog and noticed that he was doing several signings in the UK, and that he was trying to arrange one in Taunton, subject to being able to get from Glastonbury to Taunton. I thought, 'Hmm. I have a car, I live practically next door, I was planning to take Tuesday as a day off work anyway, and I think that Authors going to bookshops and meeting readers and fans is a Good Thing....' so I sent him an e-mail offering my chauffeur-ing services.

Which led, pretty much directly, to my being in my car, en route to Glastonbury, on Tuesday morning, to collect an author before travelling on to Taunton

Rothfuss is the author of The Name of The Wind which is his first novel and the first part of a trilogy, and which I can definitely recommend (unless of course you are likely to become fretful or aggrieved at the fact that books take longer to write than they do to read, and that therefore you will have to wait for parts 2 and 3...
He is also a very nice guy, and an interesting conversationalist.

The signing in Taunton was small – as it was on a weekday and arranged at short notice there weren’t huge numbers of people there, which from the point of view of an attendee was great, as we got to hang out & chat. I'd like to think that we made up in quality what we lacked in quantity.

We all talked - about reading, and writing, and whether the books you love are hoarded or pressed upon all comers, and whether it is ethical to donate bad books to libraries, and about swine flu - Pat was fighting off a bug of some kind, so we were considering getting T-shirts, 'I met Pat Rothfuss and all I got was Swine Flu' - and about Serenity, and urban fanatasy and genre writing.

And then, after Pat signed further copies of the book for the shop. (We tried to persuade him to sign other author’s books at random, but we were unsuccessful)

We headed out to Vivary Park, where we sat in the sun for more conversation. We addressed the question of whether having a child, and reading aloud and telling stories to him/her will stand Pat in good stead when it comes to doing the voices when reading his own work, or whether it will simply mean that book three reads “Here’s Kvothe. See Kvothe run. Run Kvothe, Run”... we talked about Santa Claus and mineral water, how we see different characters from the book, and then Pat read to us from the second book – just a taste, to whet the appetite.

And then we all went for dinner.

Where conversation included asking questions about the book and it’s inspiration, but also all manner of other subjects, such as the plural of Lego and some nice Italian food.

I don’t know whether all fans of The Name of the Wind are as companionable, or if we just struck lucky. It felt like spending an afternoon with a bunch of old friends, except I hadn't met any of them previously.

It was a lovely day.

I don’t know how Pat would rate me as a chauffeur, but I would certainly recommend him as a passenger!