Stonebriar Centre Barnes & Noble tonight. Where it all began. I hope people bring lots of questions. Here’s a picture of me in the Stonebriar food court in October, courtesy of the Dallas Morning News article.

Here’s a li’l roundup of some press in the last week or so for Tinsel, while I have a minute and my morning Diet Pepsi…

There was a review in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune on Sunday. Was it a flat review? A good one? The writer is the very picture of restraint!

Chris Carbone had some trenchant thoughts at the Faster Times:

What is the meaning in all of this? Tinsel asks more questions that it answers. Clear-eyed and funny, Stuever paints our country’s famed conspicuous consumption in its gory detail, leaving the ultimate judgements—Is it morally right? Can it be sustained? Do these questions really matter?—to the reader.

I got off the plane at D/FW yesterday and had a look at the new December issue of Texas Monthly and was pleased to find a nice, tight review by Mike Shea there — so I bought two copies! And if you want to read it, you’ll have to buy one or wait. It’s not online yet. Which is what I call a business model!

Also, Robert Philpot at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote an article about the book last week. I thought his questions were quite good and so was the piece. It’s very strange (duh) to be the subject instead of the writer. That’s why I doubly enjoy reading a story about Tinsel that is tight and exactly right and adds some ideas of its own. I enjoyed getting to meet Robert, at least by phone, and hope I meet him in person Thursday in Fort Worth.

Thoroughly unimpressed by Tinsel, the Dallas Observer has thrown their two copies of the book to the wolves who read the Un-Fair Park blog. (CORRECTION: Read comment below. Observer actually IMpressed — they just got overwhelmed by all the copies that got sent to them in the PR deluge. I need to get thicker skin when I read blogs! But who doesn’t?)

And the DMN continues to let people know about the book. I’m making a visit to their newsroom tomorrow (Wednesday) for a verrrry informal … I don’t know what to call it — workshop? Q&A? Something. I was invited by an editor there to come in and talk about the making of the book and feature writing at newspapers and whatever else is on our minds.

I’m getting my brain ready to do an hour on Think, the midday show on KERA, Dallas’s NPR station this afternoon. I’ll file a dispatch in the next day or two about how the Frisco, Plano and Fort Worth readings go down. I have a new respect for people who can blog on the go, go, go — with links and everything. And we do this … why?