Links of the week November 27 2023 (48)

The latest Nielsen Bestseller awards revealed that you've now sold 500,000 copies of Sleepyhead, 250,000 copies of Scaredy Cat, and 250,000 copies of Buried - what does that mean to you?

The idea of those three titles selling a million copies between them seems fairly ridiculous and I'm still trying to picture how far all those books would reach if they were laid end to end. From here to the bottom of the garden? The main road? Milton Keynes? In all seriousness, you never really dare to think about how many copies a book might sell (or how few) because that way madness lies, but to know those books have reached so many readers is hugely gratifying.

At the end of the day, it's readers that writers should be thinking about rather than units, and knowing those books have found their way into the hands of so many confirms at the very least that I made the right decision in giving up the day job. Not that I've ever had what you might call a proper day job to give up, but you get my point...

"I go by a nickname," I would say. I remember looking up my names in baby name directories. Miriam means "rebellious." Christine denotes belief in Christ. I never could embody both at once-finally finding my rebellion, I lost my faith. I have always been a little out of phase with my names. When I married, I added another name-I liked the x-to my collection, as if it were a figurine on the shelf. There they were, my names: glass images lined up in front of me but never mine entirely, never me.

And like glass, they are fragile. A typo at the Social Security office once gave me, briefly, the surname of Benne Dixon, an almost-welcome error, redolent of blessing. I am regularly mislabeled Chrissy, Christy, Kristen, or Kirstie, in endless permutations. Friends forget my first name and, in their guessing, make me Marian or Muriel. I myself chip off pieces of my names and sign my writing and my checks with my initials. I find it hard to get attached to my many, frangible names. But then, they do not seem particularly attached to me, either.