The Fortune Cookie Chronicles


  • #26 on the New York Times Best Seller List
    and featured on The Colbert Report, Martha Stewart, TED.com, CNN, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Charlie Rose Tomorrow, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, and NPR stations coast to coast. Also selected for Borders Original Voices and Book Sense. Follow me on Twitter! Fan me on Facebook.

  • Book Musings

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    Is Fortune Cookie Chronicles a Borders Original Voices Choice?

    Sunday, April 6th, 2008

    Went to Chicago for a talk at Northwestern in the Chicago area for the Taiwanese students confeence, so (like a diligent little author) I went around to all these Chicago bookstores to sign stock. There were only two of eight copies left at the Evanston Barnes and Noble. And then I discovered something surprising. Apparently, The Fortune Cookie […]

    Lessons from TV

    Saturday, April 5th, 2008

    This is what I have learned over the last few weeks re television/video appearances. You do not dress for television the way you would dress in real life (or at least I don’t). For women, wear bright (but not too bright) solid colored tops: Royal blue, wine, maroon, emerald green. Pastels can be good (but […]

    OC Register: confronted by a wall of me-ness

    Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

    Richard Chang brought me physical copies of the paper where his Q&A with me ran. I have to say, I was kind of overwhelmed with the amount of me that was on that page. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of myself that large before.

    The Underground Onepot Dinner in Seattle with Fold-Pak menus!

    Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

    The underground dinner in Seattle via Onepot.org was held in this discrete loft entertainment space in a semi-industrial area in Seattle. Yay Michael Hebberoy for organizing and Jerry Traunfeld + Xuan Che for cooking, and Jerry’s partner, Steven (sp?), for designing the adorable menus with the Fold-Pak motif!

    It was snowing in Seattle…in March

    Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

    My plane to Seattle from Los Angeles was delayed because of snow (?!). Talk about climate shock.

    The butt-to-seat ratio, the key to readings

    Monday, March 31st, 2008

    I’ve discovered at my events that it’s really not about the absolute number of people who show up (though that’s important), but more, it’s about the butt-to-seat ratio in the room. See above at Skylight Bookstore in Los Angeles. There were probably only 30 seats, but then a lot of people showed up from hearing […]

    Libraries versus publishers…how business models change

    Monday, March 31st, 2008

    When I spoke at the San Francisco Public Library, the woman who arranged the event (Joan) mentioned that the book had been very popular in the Bay Area. They had ordered about 40 copies of my book and all of them were out. Plus there were 71 holds (i.e. a waiting list) on those copies, […]

    Fortune cookies find their way back to Japan (and Mexico and Iraq)

    Monday, March 31st, 2008

    Tomoko, who played an important role in the Japan section of the book (and the wardrobe advice for the book launch) sent me this email today:   yesterday, as i was headed out of office, i noticed one of my colleagues had a bright orange book in her bag. i thought to myself, ‘wow, that […]

    Fortune cookies are not a “food’ (according to our federal government

    Monday, March 31st, 2008

    Fortune cookies are not necessarily food, at least, according to the federal government The Nixon Library made these adorable custom-made fortune cookies to promote my talk on Saturday (above). But the library is part of the National Archives which is part of the federal government which is not allowed to give out “food” as presents […]

    Fortune Cookies, the Hollywood version…

    Monday, March 31st, 2008

    Since I was in Los Angeles,  I met up Hollywood folks who are interested in optioning The Fortune Cookie Chronicles for a television series about Chinese food. Optioning of course, is a looooong way from anything ever happening. I’ve had other things optioned (Man Date), so know that there are many ways for projects to […]

    Signing books in book stores…a humbling (and encouraging) experience

    Friday, March 28th, 2008

    So during our downtime in San Francisco, I ran around to local bookstores with Naomi Epel “signing stock” as they say in industry parlance, which means that you sashay into stores and say you are an author and you want to sign your books. Very proactive authors do this (I should really do this in […]

    I’m sooooo tired, but I can’t sleep

    Friday, March 28th, 2008

    This is the first day in many days that I did not have to get up at some time for an interview or an event or something. I got up at 5:30 a.m. for a 7:45 flight at SFO. But even though I went to bed at 2:30 a.m. because I was up thinking about […]

    Alcohol makes people buy books…the San Francisco launch party

    Friday, March 28th, 2008

    On Wednesday night we had an amazing book event in San Francisco, spearheaded by Dave Lu of Fanpop (and aided with Jimmy, Ben, Lydia and James). It was 150+ people at Swig Bar on Geary Street, and it was a new promising model for a book event.

    Escorts, Drivers, and Literary Chaperones

    Thursday, March 27th, 2008

    So when authors go on book tour, they plug with this whole network of people who drive the authors from event to interview to hotel to bookstore to FedEx/Kinkos. Each city has a handful of such people, and in San Francisco I was hosted by the inimitable Naomi Epel, who has been doing it for […]

    Kids and Fortune Cookie Chronicles in front of Barnes and Noble

    Thursday, March 27th, 2008

    My friend Kelly sent me this photo of her kids with my book on display at Barnes and Nobles.

    Fortune Cookie Chronicles in Hawaii

    Wednesday, March 26th, 2008

    A friend sent me a photo of her 90-year-old dad reading The Fortune Cookie Chronicles galley while on vacation in Hawaii.

    Random people actually read the book…which still continues to surprise me

    Monday, March 24th, 2008

    So I was at R&G Lounge in San Francisco Chinatown for a low-key alumni event when these people from another table actually recognized me because they had read my book. They weren’t even Chinese American or my age. It was a father and teenage son pair, genetically Indian, from Brownsville, Texas. (That’s like essentially Mexico). […]

    Third printing!

    Monday, March 24th, 2008

    Due to strong re-orders from bookstores and (hopefully) continued media attention, the publishers just ordered a third printing. Yay. Whew.

    #26 on 3/30/08

    Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

    Yay. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles hits the New York Times extended bestseller list at #26 on the March 30 issue (which is up today). Because of the way the list operates, that represents the second week of sales, or the week closing on March 15 (my birthday). As my friend pointed out, 2 + 6 […]

    General (Tso’s?) Sushi? A reader responds

    Saturday, March 22nd, 2008

    Getting reader emails like these is in part why authors write — to know they have changed how someone looks at the world. The line about whether the General of the sushi is the one of chicken fame or not made me burst out laughing. After reading your book, I have to say; I’ll never […]

    Politics and Prose, Kosher Chinese Food and Standing Room Only

    Monday, March 17th, 2008

    This is one half of the audience at my Politics & Prose event at Sixth and I Synagogue which is in Chinatown. (It was like the perfect convergence of my book: literary, Jews, Chinatown). The other half of the audience is at the right, past the laptop. It was about 150+ people, standing room only. […]

    Fortune Cookie Chronicles E-card

    Monday, March 17th, 2008

    My publisher designed an e-card!

    How to minimize reading at “readings”

    Sunday, March 16th, 2008

    I’m running around trying to pack and get all the logistics together before goig o tour. (The itinerary roughly goes Washington –> Philly –> Boston –> San Francisco/Bay Area –> Los Angeles –>Seattle). I have packed for two weeks at a time while doing research for my book. Packing for two weeks if no one […]

    It’s my birthday and all I want to do is sleep

    Saturday, March 15th, 2008

    I have a  one day respite between New York City publicity (which happens to be my birthday). Dinner tonight with my closest friends and then book tour  starts tomorrow. It goes Washington –> Philly –> Boston –> San Francisco –> Los Angeles –> Seattle –> (Home in NYC for a few days) –> Chicago. Put […]

    Now 40% off on Amazon

    Wednesday, March 12th, 2008

    Not sure why, but Amazon just upped the discount on The Fortune Cookie Chronicles from 34% to 40%.

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