PERSONAL DAYS IS HERE!

I. Publication day for Personal Days! See if your local bookstore has it! If not, ask to talk to the manager!

U.S. shoppers, this is the cover you'll be looking for (a paperback original that slips easily into satchel or purse for maximum commute/boring-meeting accessibility):



And U.K. shoppers, get ready to lay down some "quid" for this riot of color...excuse me, "colour"!:


(It's a nice thumpable hardback.)

II. Self-promotion day continues!

The second installment of "The Oblivion Arms" is up at Five Chapters. Here's the introduction by editor Dave Daley:

Dear friends,

This week on FiveChapters.com we'll serialize a new story—actually more like a novella—by Ed Park, "The Oblivion Arms." I could describe it as being about two parents who write Broadway musicals searching for their child-actor son, but that would hardly capture this wild and imaginative story or the insane genius of musicals based on Robert Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," Ed's take on TV culture, the crazy front desk clerks, agents who start their phone calls with an ad for the cell phone company in exchange for a discount...

I could go on, but part one is on the site now and you can read for yourself. Hope you enjoy it.

You may know Ed as one of the editors of The Believer, the mind behind New-York Ghost and an esteemed book critic. He's also the author of a very funny new novel, "Personal Days" (Random House). We'll give five of them away this week; drop a note [to editor@fivechapters.com] if you'd like one.

Thanks again for reading, David

(So: You can win a copy of Personal Days! You can also buy it, online or in a store.)

III. Over at ed-park.com, more quotes from recent reviews—including another blazingly smart one from Stop Smiling, the esteemed "magazine for highminded lowlifes."