The initial list is here and includes the obvious "It's a home run!" and "rookie novelist Chad Harbach" as well as general suggested phraseology: "With the Internet and social media changing the way we live, it’s the bottom of the 9th for the American novel, and Harbach’s Art of Fielding comes in TKTKTK relief pitching &c. &c. "

Subsequent addenda here and here have added the closer from the New York Review of Books ("Welcome to the big leagues, kid. Now get out there and play") and some home runs from USA Today ("But you never stop rooting for these characters, or for Harbach" and "Harbach is all Derek Jeter, not Alex Rodriguez").

The crowd at the reading processed this information silently. Here was the man who had once written "our lives are actually made up of lots of tiny searches for things like a CD we are not sick of, an out-of-print edition of Phoenix, a picture of Lawrence that I saw when I was seventeen, another identical pair of suede shoes to the ones I am wearing now, even, I suppose, a cornetto integrale, ideally, a place where they serve perfect cornetti integrali each day without fail." He had told us, in other words, that life was only so many searches for the perfect pastry, along with some other stuff. And then the pastry is too sweet.

"I'm not even sure I want one tomorrow," he said.

Mr. Dyer was behind a podium set up in front of the "Ideas" section of McNally Jackson, and therefore stood before a backdrop of book spines that prominently displayed "BADIOU," "WHY MARX WAS RIGHT"and the distinctive green and orange spine of Gayatri Spivak's translation of Derrida's Of Grammatology. He was introduced by the novelist Sam Lipsyte, who described Mr. Dyer's work as "gender-bending." He meant genre. Their respective statures recalled Laurel and Hardy.

During the reading The Observer had a pen and a relatively clean receipt from Amy's Bread Company (for one peanut butter and jelly sandwich and one Arnold Palmer) on which to take notes. The only note The Observer ended up taking, however, was that Geoff Dyer, when writing books, tries "keeping knowledge only fractionally ahead of the writing."

Then The Observer just started writing down names every time Mr. Dyer quoted someone, which happened roughly every three minutes, beginning with the people he quoted in the essay he read about going to the couture shows in Paris from his new collection, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, and then moving on to the writers he quoted from memory in the Q and A.

Here is the list, which took up most of the receipt and therefore is not in any particular order, and probably not even exhaustive:

1.      Mark Doty (who provided the following epigraph to Mr. Dyer's essay on the couture shows: "The world's made fabulous / by fabulous clothes.")

2.      Frank Gehry

3.      Philip Larkin

4.      Don Delillo (Mr. Dyer quoted the following: "her face conveyed the suggestion of lifelong bereavement over the death of a pet rabbit.")

5.      Jim Morrison

6.      Nietzsche

7.      D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers

8.      F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night

9.      Nicholson Baker

10.  Tony Judt (who came up when Mr. Dyer commented on "the incredible regression in social mobility" in Britain.)

11.  T.C. Boyle's Budding Prospects

12.  Albert Camus' Lyrical and Critical Essays

13.  Jonathan Franzen (Mr. Dyer recalled something a friend said about Mr. Franzen: "he suffers so you don't have to.")

14.  Sebastian Faulks

15.  Thomas Mann

16.  "Borgesian"

17.  Charles Dickens' Great Expectations

18.  Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: "I like her tone."

19.  Julian Barnes

20.  Martin Amis

21.  Alan Hollinghurst (Mr. Dyer called him "the greatest straight-down-the-line English novelist," remembering with particular fondness the description, "knob-flaunting speedo.")

22.  Renata Adler's Speedboat

23.  John Updike

24.  Thomas Bernhardt

The discussion ended with a member of the audience asking an extended rambling question about how a British man musters the confidence to write about American jazz with authority, and some other stuff that The Observer stopped paying attention to in favor of examining a book shelved next to her chair called Insectopedia, until another audience member kindly interrupted to summarize the question as "Where do you get off?" To which Mr. Dyer replied, "On the beach in Mexico."

Afterward, a McNally Jackson representative told Mr. Dyer he was entitled to one free book for his pains. He requested and received The Essential Schopenhauer.

Of the schedule, store owner Sarah McNally said in an e-mail that "there have been technical issues, but I believe we are on track."

Currently McNally will order a book for a customer if a desired copy is not on hand. With the EBM, the store would be able to print one out right there. Buyer John Turner sees the machine as a way to expand inventory. It also reduces the hassle and wait time associated with ordering books by request.

"For me the biggest issue is, quite simply, as a medium-sized bookshop we can't fit every book in the world on our shelves," Mr. Turner said. "This will let us provide a wider variety to our customers."

It was rumored that McNally Jackson was getting an EBM last year. You may remember the machine from its New York Public Library cameos in 2007, just before the debut of the Kindle. 

In late July Amazon announced that their e-book sales now top their sales of hardcover books but Dane Neller, CEO of On Demand Books, which makes the machine, told the Observer last week that he plans to expand "heavily" into New York despite the fact that this city in particular — Hello, subway iPad users! — seems to be on its way to writing off print.

Even though Mr. Neller admitted that he thinks that e-readers sales will continue to will grow exponentially, he said he doesn't believe that everyone will have one anytime soon.

"It's not an iPod moment," he said. "For a fairly long time print will predominate."

But Mr. Neller believes that publishers and retailers will be more attracted to the "print on demand model," as opposed to overproducing print copies. Though, for now, your chances of getting a hot-off-the-presses bestseller from the Espesso are low.

"The publishers so far have been willing to give their books to e-books and not print on demand," Mr. Neller said, citing their desire to control book supply.

Mr. Turner said not having the newest title will not be a problem for McNally since they should already have those in-house "if we are doing our job right."

Right now there are 37 EBMs in operation and 14 planned around the world. EBMs are frequently used for self-publishing purposes — but Mr. Turner doesn't see that application being the "main focus" at McNally Jackson.

"I just don't know that we have enough resources to provide that," Mr. Turner said. "I mean never say never. With the right book the right situation we'll do whatever works."

Ex:

Hey everybody, let's follow @mcnallyjackson, purveyors of shiny new books, exclusive West-Coast coffee, and vicious prevarications.

The Huffington Post characterizes it as "a veritable war of words" with "tongue-in-cheek insults" aplenty.