At least once a week, sometimes more, I receive a package of books which have been written by me and translated into foreign languages. I have accumulated quite a few of these over the years, as this photo will attest:
Often when I get foreign copies of my books in the mail, they will have no note accompanying them, telling me what they are. But that’s OK, because it’s usually pretty easy to determine from the cover art, like in the case of last week’s shipment:
Not so hard to figure out, right? French Princess Diaries, some kind of All American Girl book (although that is not exactly how I envisioned Samantha’s hair) and How to be Popular.
But sometimes I get stuff that is, simply put, a mystery. Don’t get me wrong. I LIKE all these covers, and I am honestly not making fun of them (well, okay, maybe I am making a little fun of some of them).
I just have no idea what some of these books are. Seriously. And the cover art is not exactly helping me out.
Like this one, for instance:
Honestly. Do you have any idea what this book could be? Besides having something to do with fine washables?
Or how about this one:
Okay, someone is an extra large. Probably Heather Wells. That I get.
But what about this one:
Help!
This one is a little easier to figure out if you work on it:
Okay, that has to be Mia and Michael, and there’s beer, so…PD7?
Ha! Right! Feeling pretty smart, huh?
Then riddle me this one, Batman:
What book is this? Because I never wrote a book about a fembot (that I recall). Why is her hand so big and her head so little and why are her boobs covered in @ signs? And what is with the hat? (Okay, this cover, I’ll admit, I find a little scary.)
And what book might this be?
I don’t recall writing any books about Canadian senior ad executives in love…but perhaps I did!
Whose keys are these? Did I write a book about driving? How could I? I don’t even have a license!
I don’t know what this book is, but I do know I totally want to read it:
It looks romantic!
What is going on here, though?
Who the heck is SHE? She kind of looks like Heidi. Only by the ocean. Did I write a book about Heidi by the ocean? Cool!
You think you’re confused? Well, imagine how I felt when I opened a box and found six copies of THIS inside:
Her dress is falling down! And she isn’t wearing a bra! Holy smokes! It’s like the Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake thing, on a book cover! What if my grandma ever goes to this country and sees this? Good thing my name isn’t on it. I mean, in English.
But honestly, I was never more confused than when I reached into a box the other day and pulled out a bunch of copies of this book:
I wracked my brain trying to figure out what book I could have written that was about a girl who looked just like me, a one-eyed cat, and a laptop computer with Mia and Michael on it. Even weirder, I saw that it had all these pictures in it…from my blog.
That’s when it hit me: Hungary had published a book of my BLOG! Yes! In Hungary, you can walk into a store and buy a book–based on my blog. I vaguely remembered my agent mentioning something about my Hungarian publisher asking if it would be all right if they could do that, but I’d completely forgotten…until the books arrived.
So there you go. One piece of mystery mail, cleared up.
In the meantime, we still have a lot more mysteries to solve. Such as, well, THIS. 
Honestly, this one left me speechless. That better not be Heather Wells, is all I have to say. Because no one could actually be solving crimes in THAT outfit…could they???
More later.
Much love,
Meg
