"A Shot Of The Purest Oxygen"

I received the final books for The Invention Of Air the other day, which is always an exciting milestone, after the seemingly endless drip of first-pass pages, pre-galleys, galleys that leads up to the publication of a book. I've been flipping through it on and off for the past few days now, and I think it turned out really well. (I'm finally lifting out of the inevitable phase at the end of the edit cycle, where you're just so sick of re-reading everything that you can't tell whether it's any good.)

We also had our first big review last week: Publisher's Weekly featured it as a special "signature review," penned by Simon Winchester, whose books I very much admire. It's  positive throughout, and ends with a fantastic quote that I may have to have tattooed to my forehead for the book tour:

The influence of [Priestley]—he was a fervent supporter of the French Revolution, a tolerant stoic and a rationalist utterly opposed to religious fundamentalism—was quite astonishing, and Steven Johnson makes a brave and generally successful attempt to summarize and parse the degree to which this influence infected the founding principles of the American nation.  As a reminder of the underlying sanity and common sense of this country—a reminder perhaps much needed after the excesses of a displeasing presidential election campaign—The Invention of Air succeeds like a shot of the purest oxygen.

Riverhead has also put together an extensive book tour to support Invention -- I'm going to be on the road a lot in January and parts of February. More details to come on that shortly.

Comments

[Kaethe]

Good for you! Winchester knows whereof he writes. Really looking forward to the new book.

[John Maloney]

Congrats, Steven, looking forward to reading it.

On the book tour, will you bring your own set of clubs or just rent :)?

JM

[amy]

congratulations! i really enjoyed 'the ghost map' and am looking forward to this one.

[Rikard Linde]

Everyone discusses 2008 christmas gifts, wondering what to give, and it's right here in front of us. Congratulations Steven, looking forward to reading it.

[Jacob Marshall]

Congratulations Steven, I am also very excited to read this.

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