THE GIRLS OF ATOMIC CITY hits the New York Times Bestseller List!
The Girls of Atomic City a NYT Bestseller!
This is surreal: We found out today that Denise’s book The Girls of Atomic City had hit The New York Times Bestseller list at #33 for the week ending March 24, 2013. 9, 2013.
Yes, the publisher has been unwavering in its support of the book, Yes, the book’s gotten great press, such as the NPR interview the Sunday before it pubbed. And yes, it seems to have been eagerly awaited by legions of Americans who had some connection to the facility in Tennessee profiled in the book.
But was that enough to send it to the extended list?
We’re still trying to make sense of it.
While we were hopeful this might happen someday, we certainly didn’t think it would happen like, now. Like, so fast.
Denise is blown away. She did a lunchtime talk today at the National Archives in DC. The Archives has been nice to us in the past with our Quirk history books, and Denise used a lot of Archives resources researching her book. So doing a signing there was a natural. Eighty-three people attended. Not an earth-shattering number, but nice to see familiar faces in the audience who have stopped by the Archives bookstore in the past to have us sign our previous books, such as the U.S.’s "Collector-in-Chief."
Later, we went out with one of Denise’s “girls,” who came into the district with her husband and grown children. We enjoyed a nice lunch. And then, as Denise and I were hanging out at a bar on the way back to our hotel, she got the call from her editor.
What does it mean? How does it change things? Will it change things? We frankly don’t know. It’s a lot to take in. But for now, Denise is just trying to relax and calm the eff down.
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I was sad to hear of the death of horror writer David B. Silva, a true master of the genre. I’d only started reading his work in the last two years, and I’ve never read anything so fine and so chilling. Robert Swartwood has a nice tribute on his blog about Silva. Truly sad.