author, author!

Hamish MacDonald launched his new novel (Idea in Stone) in Canada on Wednesday night. He'd already launched it in Scotland where he moved to live sometime ago. Perhaps the best all round reading experience I've attended. The author's and my pal Mark did a fine job as MC insulting all with deep sincerity, Hame's reading was fabuous and I'm looking forward to jumping into the book, and the three women who sang a couple of short sets of what I call Cracker Country (lots of Southern States' counties are mentioned, for example) were superb, quite literally suberb.

And Hame not only wrote and published this work, he also made the book -- you know hand binding and artwork and all the rest.

Hey, you can order your very own handmade copy of the book (or read it free -- ya cheap bastard!) by going to hamishmacdonald.com and clicking on the appropriate button down the left side of the page.

Way to go Hame!

(And holy cow, thanks to the singers -- by gawd I ain't heard "Rockytop" in at least a decade and rarely have I heard it done so well -- yeeeeehaw! Again made me realize, given their music was so good, just how much new country really does suck, but that's the topic of another blog)