I’m interested in how various pairings draw readers in (or fail to do so). I’ve deliberately left Elizabeth and Nathaniel off because I am guessing they would get the lion’s share of the votes. Also, I didn’t include couples where the courtship happened off-stage (for example, Birdie & you-know-who and Blue-Jay & y-n-w).

So you if had to pick JUST ONE… which would it be? You can write in some other couple if you like, but please not E&N.

In the right-hand column under the login box there’s a new feature called “unread messages since your last visit.” Which means you won’t have to scroll through 75 threads on any particular discussion trying to remember what you’ve seen already.

The hitch is, you have to register to use the feature, and you have to log in. Registration is dead easy, I never sell anybody lists of anything, so no spam worries. And you’ll have the wonderful ability to see exactly what’s new, tailored to you.

So there you are. I hope it makes things easier. If you have comments, suggestions, complaints, please post them right here.

The Bob Cudmore Show–News of the Mohawk Valley and weather with Dave Greene, weekdays from 6-10 a.m. on Lite 104.7 FM and 1570AM WVTL, online at www.wvtlfm.com. WVTL—now on Facebook and Twitter!

Monday: Frank Mucilli has Amsterdam weather readings every morning at 6:00. John Thomas has sports at 7:10, Pat Beck’s Leader Herald editorial at 7:45. Steve Fitz news commentary at 8:10, Monday through Thursday. Ed Lamberton reports every day this week at 8:20 from Daytona leading up to the Daytona 500. The author of this year’s Amsterdam Reads book selection is on live at 9:05 to take phone calls from fans. Sara Donati is author of “Into the Wilderness,” a historical romance novel about the Mohawk Valley.

If you’ve finished the book (and/or you like spoilers) don’t forget the spoilerish discussion thread, here. It’s been a great treat for me to be able to answer (and ask!) questions. Your responses and discussions are hugely interesting to me.

One of the weblog software quirks is that I have to decide whether comments should show oldest or newest first — and that decision applies to all comments on every post.

Because the spoiler-laden discussion of The Endless Forest is getting so big, it’s very hard to follow just now because the newest comments are on the fourth page. So I’m going to switch that order. I’m telling you this just to avoid confusion on other posts.

Here’s the map that appears at the front of The Endless Forest. Click on the small version for the full pdf file, which will either open in a new window, or offer a download button, depending on how you have your browser set up. You need Adobe Acrobat to look at pdf files, but I think most everybody knows that these days, no?

Laura Maestro is the artist; she created and illustrated the maps for all six novels in the series.

I was very happy with the quality control on the first five novels in the series, but I’m starting to despair about The Endless Forest. Today somebody at Bantam/Random House sent me digital copies of the family tree and the map to post here on the website (a reasonable reader request I’ve heard a couple times), and what jumps out at me immediately?

On the galleys I corrected a doozy of a typo. In the family tree you’ll find Nathaniel Booner instead of Bonner, something I not only marked VERY clearly in the galleys, but also talked to one of the production people about. That’s already taken care of, I was told.

Hah.

Google tells me when “The Endless Forest” Donati shows up someplace, and I usually go look. Well, people are noticing the typos. Really noticing them. It’s especially frustrating because I can’t drop in on discussions out of the blue and say, HEY, that’s not my fault. Because that would be peevish and childish and whinging (as my Brit sister-in-law says). Really, I just have to let it go. But first, loud and clear:

Something did go wrong, but it wasn’t on my end of things.

It just makes me sad. About 1.5 million words in the series, and Booner is the one that will stick in my head the longest. Maybe I coould just preteend that it waas intentioonaal, an aartiistiic floooouriish, aaall thee vooooooowels reeeprooooooooooduuuuciiing liiiiikeee raaaaaabiiiiiitts.

Yeah, that’s the ticket. That’s my story, and I’m stiiiiicking to it.

Now that I’ve got that out of my system, I will be posting larger copies of the family tree and the map sometime over the weekend. This is primarily for those who are reading the ebook or kindle version, or listening to the audio edition  (the ones who miss the map and family tree entirely, but don’t have to endure the typos).

I’m determined to get every one of those mistakes fixed for the next edition, so if you spot something (or I should say, WHEN you spot something) please leave a note about that in the comments to the last post or this one.

Update:

First, a word of explanation: I never open a new hardcover when it first comes out; I wait for a year and sometimes more. It’s a silly superstition: I’m sure that if I open it, some dog-awful error will jump out at me.

So it turns out that the person who sent me the image of the family tree did not send the most recent one, the one that actually went to press — in which Booner has been mercifully changed to Bonner. If I had opened the book I would have known that, so the onus is on me. In summary: the family tree page does not have a typo on it (unless one spontaneously generates). I was just working off an earlier draft, and didn’t know it.

So I will post high quality versions of those two images here, sometime this weekend.

*this innocent bunny comes from DK Images.

Things will be a little bumpy around here today as far as formatting goes, as I have to change some underlying software. Please forgive the high winds and rough seas.

I’m disappointed myself, so I talked to my editor and she wants a full list of all the errors. I have a partial list. It would be really helpful if you could leave a comment listing any errors you noticed, along with a page number. If you’re listening to the audio version or reading on Kindle, a partial sentence will do because I can search for it.

Thanks!

Don’t forget — if you’ve finished The Endless Forest, there’s a lot of discussion on the spoiler page (link to the right).

I’ve had some comments and quite a few emails about which posts from the old weblog I should resurrect and repost here. It’s going to be a slow process, but I thought I’d run another minipoll and see if interest is concentrated in any particular area. You can pick more than one, but that would kind of defeat the purpose. And things are moving slowly, please be aware. Also, the book reviews will all (eventually) end up at goodreads.com

Your answers are entirely anonymous.