Salman Rushdie - Off and On

I was actually thinking just the other day that it would be cool if Salman Rushdie came back around to promote his new novel, Quichotte.  I hadn't moved quite fast enough when he came to the TPL reading from The Golden House a year or so back and that still rankled a bit.  (I have seen him reading before -- in Chicago, most likely from The Enchantress of Florence.)

At any rate, I opened this week's Now and saw under events that will sell out, Salman Rushdie was giving a reading at the AGO at the end of Sept.!  As soon as I got to work, I went to the AGO website, only to be greeted by a sold out notification.  I was pretty annoyed, given that there was essentially no notice at all.  While it is true I could have picked up Now yesterday, I felt in general that AGO members should have gotten a bit more advance notice.  I then went back through my emails from the AGO and saw an email with a moderately prominent mention of the Rushdie reading from yesterday, and then more or less a footnote in another email from two weeks back.  It is true that I don't read the emails from the AGO all that carefully these days, since I am not expecting any major exhibits for at least another six months, but that's still not what I would call a lot of warning.  Needless to say, I was extremely put out.

When I got home from work, I decided to check once more.  While it was unlikely that a block of tickets had been freed up, you just never know.  And lo and behold, there were tickets available here.  (Whether the earlier sold out notice was a glitch or it was real (and they added seats) is unclear to me and frankly not all that important.)  There is the option of just attending the lecture or buying Quichotte at the same time.  I don't know if it is pre-signed (honestly, probably my preferred option) or you get to stand in line for a signing, but only if you bought the book.  There may even be the option of having an additional book signed, so after I find out the ground rules, I might bring along The Golden House if it is allowed.  I decided that I should not hesitate and took the plunge, splurging on the novel as well.  Hopefully it will be an entertaining (and uneventful) evening.  I haven't read either of his most recent novels, but the reviews have generally been positive, saying they are a bit of a return to form.

I might as well throw a list together, since there are quite a few mid-career novels that I haven't tackled, and this will eventually inspire me to get around to them.

Grimus (1975)
R Midnight's Children (1981)
R Shame (1983)
R The Satanic Verses (1988)
R Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990)
Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981–1991 (1992)
O East, West (1994) - short stories
The Moor's Last Sigh (1995)
The Ground Beneath Her Feet (1999)
R Fury (2001)
O* Step Across this Line, Collected Nonfiction, 1992-2002 (2002)
Shalimar the Clown (2005)
R The Enchantress of Florence (2008)
Luka and the Fire of Life (2010)
R* Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (2015)
R The Golden House (2017)
R* Quichotte (2019)

O Languages of Truth: Essays 2003-2020 (2021)
R Victory City (2023)
Knife (2024)

* Signed copies. 


Edit (9/10) It appears to be sold out from my home computer as well, so I guess I got very lucky.  Sorry if you found out too late...