There are a number of reasons why this promises to be a most excellent book, not the least of which is: the lead character is a bicyclist who rides with his umbrella! While Jed lives in Northampton, this book was obviously written for bikey, rainy Portland.

Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief said:

“Jedediah Berry knows magic. The Manual of Detection combines the intricacy and thoughtfulness of Borges and Kafka with the page-turning excitement of a detective thriller. . . . It made me laugh, thrill, think, and wonder.”

This book might be extremely important reading in case you accidentally find yourself a detective in a complex mystery. (no affiliation!)

There is a great website for the book (www.manualofdetection.com) built by the same guy who does a ton of great websites for books -  Jefferson Rabb.

A publisher who did not publish the book,  the curiously named ‘Small Beer Press‘ – is hosting a mystery contest to win signed copies of the book. I’ll be picking mine up tonight at Powell’s Books (I’m going to see TC Boyle read – see you there?). Here’s The Manual of Detection at Powell’s.

Best of luck, Jed!

Oooh it feels awesome. It weighs 19 pounds. It has the feel of heavy steel machinery, machined perfectly, it’s cold and smooth to the touch. 

It has 280 pages fashioned from aircraft-grade aluminum. They really went all-out on this one. A teardown done by iSuppli reveals that the base cost of components is $183, and so obviously SBP is selling this one as a loss leader.  An incredible bargain for you at only $16.

And inside? There’s a picture of the author that, if you stare deeply into his eyes, will fill you with a mad craving for chocolate chips. Fortunately, there’s a small cache of them on page 47.

20% of all sales go to support Obama’s campaign. What a sweet deal.

Small Beer Press sale

See what we have nailed down so far (and see my real-life author photo) here at Book Tour. 

Alternately, if you look to the right you’ll see the RSS feed of my book tour right here. Subscribe! Be merry!

Regarding being on tour: I hear I’m famous for that one trick with the podium and the coat hanger in Milwaukie. Ah, Wisconsin, how you laughed, how you cried.

Also, as noted on  Boing Boing it’s been released as a free download.

Floor map of Book Expo America 2008. See that green dot? That’s Small Beer Press on May 30th, #2120. Corner lot, yo.

It looks like the cross section of the death star or maybe the preferred cuts of a piggy bank.

Here it is, traversing deep space, the giant small press battlestar. Going where all booksellers are going simultaneously.

At any rate, these people have been tasked with doing something there, probably involving powdered ice cream or eating tea with chopsticks in microgravity.

Two: I have a short story, The Coder, which appeared in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wrislet #21.

Three: Small Beer Press has purchased my novel, Couch – a book about three guys who carry a somewhat opinionated couch to South America.

Hooray! What a fantastic way to start 2008. I wrote Couch while Laura and I were living in South America in 2002. It was a magical time, and I am very excited to be working with the fantastic people at Small Beer Press.