I didn't have to get too many pages into Literacy and Longing in L.A. before I knew lunch with co-authors Jennifer Kaufman & Karen Mack was going to be a good time. You see, their book-obsessed protagonist shops at a West LA shop they call "McKenzie's," but which any Angeleno would recognize instantly as Dutton's Brentwood. And that just happens to be the bookstore where I got my first job in the publishing economy—as I joked with the two women while we waited for our hamburgers to arrive, I probably sold them a bunch of books back in '94.

Once we finished reminiscing about my ex-coworkers, we talked about how their book tour was going. Of course, they'd had their book party at Dutton's (where the novel had already made the LAT bestseller list); once they got to New York, they made sure to go out for drinks with Liz Smith, so they could meet the woman who called their novel "the most delightful read of the year." But the most interesting part of their itinerary to me was their trip to Seattle, where they teamed up with Kim Ricketts/Book Events to judge an essay contest on "the book that saved me". Both writers had already picked out favorites among the submissions, describing how Gone With the Wind provided psychological solace for one teenage girl in an abusive relationship or another woman was inspired to leave the husband who hated her dog after reading a book. So who had they chosen for the winner? That they refused to divulge early...