The (Unofficial) End of the Book Tour

It's been a great ride, but I'll be glad to get back to a less intense -- and more homebound -- pace of life.

Tomorrow marks three months since the publication of my book Lawless: The Miseducation of America’s Elites. It’s been an amazing run, including reviews in National Review and the Wall Street Journal, plus countless media and podcast appearances (though not on Joe Rogan like my now-colleague Douglas Murray with his new book). Those of you who were subscribers in January were able to read my impressions of that launch week and preview of the first six weeks of the speaking tour that was then starting.

Truth be told, I’m on a never-ending speaking tour, as speeches, debates, and panels are a big part of my vocation (thanks, mom and dad, for ferrying me around to all those public-speaking competitions when I was in grade school). And I was speaking on the subject of my book, the illiberal takeover of higher education and what we can do about it, long before Lawless came out. I’ll also have a handful of book events in late April/early May, the stragglers that just couldn’t make it onto the schedule earlier. But for all intents and purposes, the Lawless book tour has come to an end. As the Brits would say, I’m drawing a line under it now, which is symbolic because this Passover week I’m on spring break with my older sons in Arizona; Grand Canyon Railway Adventure here we come!

To give you an idea what the last three months have been like for me—and for my wife holding down the fort at home while I’ve been gone more than there—here’s where I’ve been on a weekly basis:

Jan. 13 - New York for book launch and related media

Jan. 20 - Cleveland, Tampa, and Austin (plus some inaugural balls and other festivities)

Jan. 27 - my only DC book event, Philadelphia, Miami, Palm Beach, and Fort Myers

Feb. 3 - Northern and Southern California, driving between the two for the first time

Feb. 10 - New Orleans (Super Bowl!), Tampa/Lakeland, Palm Beach, and Delray Beach

Feb. 17 - Denver, Boulder, and Albuquerque (got my one western ski day this trip)

Feb. 24 - Puerto Rico and Phoenix (and boy that was a long travel day between the two)

Mar. 3 - Bratislava (Slovakia - for a conference, not book-related)

Mar. 10 - Cluj (Transylvania, Romania - to teach a class on my last book)

Mar. 17 - Pittsburgh, Dallas (Old Parkland!), Tyler, Tallahassee, and Tampa

Mar. 24 - Buenos Aires and Tucuman, Argentina (conference and meetings unrelated to the book)

Mar. 31 - Madison and Chicago (and my triumphant return to Georgetown Law for a debate)

Apr. 7 - Oklahoma, Philadelphia, and St. Louis

I got exhausted again writing all that out, so I’m glad it’s over. But I’m also glad I did it; it’s surely a unique period of my life that I’ll never quite have again. And it’s a particular contrast to the zoom-tour I had for Supreme Disorder, which came out in September 2020.

Anyhow, I look forward to returning tanned, rested, and ready for the challenges ahead. In the meantime, I leave you with summaries of two briefs that I filed in the last couple of weeks.