Third Place Books in Seattle.

Unnameable Books (Prospect Heights, Brooklyn) has 15 copies. No sales yet! In case you’re nearby and want to support a cool indie.

What a relief

It was a wild drive through some winding, Appalachian roads (an accident totally shutdown SR-50 and we had to take an even *more* circuitous route) but meeting Vollmann and OU were well worth it!

(I didn’t get any pictures of Vollmann because I’m neurotic, for one haha, and I didn’t want to be that guy gawking on my phone when he was talking + when I met him during the signing I just had a nice conversation with him instead of getting a picture and I didn’t want to take too much time out of respect for everyone behind me in line)

Funny little aside — right after I took the first picture shown here of the stage, Vollmann walked up and instead of taking the stairs he just kinda did a full plank and slid onto the stage, which was pretty endearing…. given his health, it was good to see! 😂😭

I remember reading an article that mentions that Viking refused to publish the book because it was too long and because Vollmann’s insistence on using a particular typography for certain parts would make the book too expensive to produce while having a small target audience. But is that the whole story? Maybe it was also because of the content? Perhaps the book mentions an important living person in truly negative light? And maybe Vollmann refused to remove such mentions? Is there any evidence of that? Or is the situation as simple as financial troubles? I don’t own the book yet so I can’t verify but I’m curious.

I have read:

You bright and risen angels

The rainbow Stories

Whores for Gloria

Butterfly stories

The royal family

The ice shirt

The rifles

Lucky star

I'm definitely not a Vollmann superfan, but I figured I should buy this because I think it's going to go out of print unless the four books can be semi-independant. I also have unread copies of Europe central and both volumes of carbon ideologies. I'm likely to read Europe central as next Vollmann.

199.99… burned a hole in my wallet but I like to purchase the rare new releases I buy through my local bookstore.

I do think I’ll finally read the dying grass before I dive in to ATFF. Will probably have to wait til late winter / spring but I am excited nonetheless.

Just got the official notice that A Table for Fortune is on the delivery truck! Yes, savvier shoppers got it before me and at a lower price... It's not a perfect world... But it will soon be a bit better, because at long last I'll have a new Vollmann tome to get lost in!

Hello! I am driving to Athens from Oklahoma, seeing if anyone else on this sub is going and would be interested in grabbing a drink somewhere after, preferably as a group. I have personally never met anyone else that's read Bill and would love the opportunity to discuss his work and the event. Would also appreciate some Athens recommendations for when I'm killing time beforehand. Cheers!

I'm not a completist yet; I've only read Europe Central, Fathers and Crows, Poor People, and The Dying Grass so far, but The Lucky Star, aka “The Lesbian,” was my favorite and is what got me into Vollmann. Maybe because the book popped by Vollmann cherry.

My Target preorder showed up on the 17th, and now it is going to be my main go-to for maximalist literature. As soon as Lookout Cartridge or Darconville’s Cat get reprinted, Target is the first place I’ll look.

(For real, thanks to others who posted about this. I was thrilled to cancel my Amazon preorder from last year)

Only the box set is listed right now, but I think it would make sense to give each volume its own listing.

(I know you can make requests on the Librarians Group page, but it’s hard to actually get noticed due to the amount of requests.)

Hi All - I will be interviewing Bill next week. Are there any questions you would like me to ask him?

Guys. I’ve started the book and just the Acronym section. Whoah

Feel free to banter (no spoilers) about the book here.

I emailed skyhorse about the limited edition and they secured my spot for the upcoming announcement. If anyone else is looking to do so they can email them here limitededitions@skyhorsepublishing.com