Go Sox. That’s two in four years after generations of suffering. It’s strange how both of their World Series wins in the aughts have come against weaker opponents than those they vangquished in the ALCS. More on this later.

Hiding Out received a knock-out review in the Chicago Tribune this weekend. I really couldn’t be happier with it. It hits on pretty much every single thing that we tried to do with the book, including the integration of Nathan Keay’s photography, Rob Funderburk’s illustrations and the stories. Donna Seaman, an editor over at Booklist and host of “Open Books” on WLUW, has an art background, I believe, and it shows. It’s certainly the longest review of the book so far, and therefore the most in-depth. I think this paragraph cuts to the core of one of my favorite stories in the book:

Messinger revels in ludicrous and revealing situations. He invests simple physical comedy with deep psychology in a story about a 7-year-old who, on a dare, has gotten his head stuck in a wrought-iron fence. This is one of several insightful tales in which an extreme gesture serves as a decoy while Messinger smuggles in terse observations about ineffective, self-absorbed parents.

On top of that, I guess it’s as good a time as any to announce that the book is nearly sold out, and is headed back to the printer for a second print run. That’s exciting, because it dovetails with some big Featherproof news, which is that as of November 1, we’ll be distributed by PGW. For our entire existence, we’ve been distributed by Biblio, which really doesn’t do much more than warehouse our books (i.e. they don’t sell to bookstores, etc., which is really what you want from a distributor). So all of Featherproof’s books have really gotten into readers’ hands solely through word-of-mouth and our authors’ elbow grease. Now we have a partner that’s going to do a lot of legwork for us, which is great. In the meantime, if you want to order a book, you might be better off doing it through us, as Biblio is shipping all of our books to PGW, and there might be some downtime in transition.

Which all dovetails nicely with the fact that we sent our next title, This Will Go Down on Your Permanent Record by Susannah Felts off to the printer this morning. This is a Young Adult/Adult novel about growing up in the South and struggling to come of age as an artist. We’re really stoked about this one, which features cover art by the amazing Diana Sudyka, and will hopefully open us up to a whole new audience.

And finally, check out the events page for some fun stuff coming up. Friday night is the final Dollar Store before we go on an indefinite hiatus. Emerson Dameron and Joe Meno will read, and of course Abraham Levitan will occupy his piano stool. The next morning I’m doing an “author coffee” at the Writers Workspace, which really is just me talking with a few folks about independent publishing, tour booking, running a reading series, really everything I love to talk on and on about. RSVP to info@writersworkspace.com if you’re interested. Sounds like a fun, different kind of event.

Tonight, I’m reading with the great Elizabeth Crane and the inimitable Roy Kesey as part of Amy Guth’s Fixx Reading Series. It starts at 7:30 and thanks to being in a coffee joint rather than a booze hole, is all-ages, which is rare these days.

Don’t buy me a coffee, though. It kills me.

The Boston Globe has a story today about the decline and fall of Bookmobiles, those roving boxes of goodness, and it highlights in particular the Bookmobile of my youth in Beverly, Mass. I remember the Bookmobile coming through the neighborhood when I was a kid, near my elementary school, and all the kids clamoring on. Aside from all of the obvious benefits—bringing literature to people who can’t get to it themselves, etc.—I always thought Bookmobiles were such a great way to bring novelty to reading, something that’s important to get kids interested, I think. Even the kids who spent recess testing how far they could let their loogies dangle before they sucked them back into their mouths, even those kids got excited when the Bookmobile came around.

I’m usually not all doom and gloom when it comes to readership data. I find the attitudes of people who bemoan the popularity of television over books to be noxious and condescending, and it’s not really the kind of approach that attracts people to your cause. “Why would we want to be like you miserable lot?” That sort of thing. But the demise of the Bookmobile, combined with a reading of the latest Harper’s Index on the train this morning (Percentage of Americans who have not read a book in the past year: 27) has me down.

The Sun-Times ran a great story about Hiding Out and The Dollar Store, etc. There’s a very funny line in it about the size of my forehead, but I submit that the helicopter pad above my eyes is not a function of a receding hairline, but an ever-expanding brain mass, a knowledge blob of unending voracity.

You can tell I’m not at all sensitive about the issue, having just turned 29 and every day witnessing my crown turn into my father’s. It’s cool.

Being on the road for the last couple of weeks made it difficult to plant myself and watch some Red Sox playoff games. The snippets I did catch, though, were often in bars, so I didn’t have to listen to Tim McCarver and Joe Buck.

Tomorrow night, the Sox and Indians take it back to Fenway, and I have to say, this series has suddenly become a classic. There’s all the intrigue surrounding Manny, which I always love. First it was the Manny arm-raise, that he celebrated after hitting a solo shot to put his team down by four. I’m cool with that. I do the exact same thing when Manny hits a solo shot to put his team down by four. Then there’s his quote, about the Sox potentially losing the series: “There’s always next year. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.” As Soxaholix said, it’s a healthy attitude for athletes. Let the fans wallow in do-or-die-ism. But I think more than that, Manny is acknowledging that the Sox are now a dynasty. They’ve only won one championship, sure, but with Beckett the second coming and a healthy mix of young and old guys, the Sox should be the team to beat for the next few years. I like that kind of confidence.

On top of that, Kenny Lofton is now in full-on veteran prick mode, flipping his bat before he even walked, then flipping it when he did walk, and trying to instigate a brawl with Beckett. On top of that, the Indians had some country singer I’d never heard of ruin the anthem, and it turned out she was Josh Beckett’s ex. Coincidence! They swear!

The Sox need a new rival. Sox v. Yankees is played out. The Yanks are crumbling, A-Rod has sucked them of any postseason animus and his villain status has been reduced to a single, flailing glove slap in 2004. I like these Indians, with their young’uns playing above themselves and their ace in Sabathia suddenly turning into a tragic figure next to the untouchable Beckett. I like that they got irked by Manny. I like that Kenny Lofton is 75 and still can’t control himself. That Hafner is the anti-Ortiz. That Paul Byrd and Tim Wakefield are in a salt-and-pepper beard-off. Let’s bring back some Sox v. Indians antipathy. As all of the pundits like to say, it’ll be good for the game.