Looks like the good people behind Operation Havoc have awarded a winner of thei photo contest.  Chuck himself selected his favorite pic.  See below for an update from their newsletter.

A message to all members of Operation Havoc:

All hail most Glorious King of the Pygmy Photo Challenge. Most deftly has he demonstrated the tactic of Flying Giant Stork Death Kick.

Aaron Bonogofsky is now relishing his copy of Pygmy, inscribed and signed by comrade Chuck Palahniuk.

*To see the favorite photo larger, click the below link or the smaller image to the right: http://operationh.ning.com/photo/flying-giant-stork-death-kick-3?context=top

Wow.  Chuck has hit a homerun with his latest novel "Pygmy".   It just debuted at #3 on The New York Times Best Seller List.  I think this might be an all-time high for a Palahniuk release.   (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

All of you deserve a big round of applause for coming out and supporting Chuck, like you always do.  It was all the purchases of the hardcover of "Pygmy" that led to this awesome achievement.

See the list here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/books/bestseller/besthardfiction.html?_r=1

As is his custom when visiting Canada for book tour, Chuck Palahniuk will be on the popular late night talk show "The Hour" with George Stroumboulopoulos (takes a breath after spelling that one).  The show was recorded last week and was originally set to air Monday May 11th, but was delayed last minute due to the Hockey playoffs up there.  The new details for Chuck's appearance on the show are:

The Hour, Monday May 18th, 11pm, on CBC.

Here's the link with more info:

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/videos.html?id=733698251

Enjoy!

This is a big one, folks.  Chuck was interviewed for TIME Magazine while on the road for his U.S. 'Pygmy' Tour.  The picture above (which I think is one of the best I've ever seen of Chuck) was taken by Neilson Bernard for Getty.

Read the interview here!

Chuck gets directly asked about the website, and also talks about the new Anthology we're planning in this years Writers' Workshop.

Well, the U.S. leg of the 2009 'Pygmy' tour has ended.  Many of you were upset that Chuck was only able to do five cities this time around, not the least of which was Chuck himself.  But as you heard him mention in the recent KPBS interview, he lost his mother recently to cancer and spent a large potion of last year caring for her.  Also don't forget that he was coming off two tours in 2008.  One for the 'Snuff' hardcover and then another one soon after for the 'Choke' movie.

What I can tell you is that Chuck has three more locked tour events coming up in Canada.  You can see those dates on our Tour page.  Also, don't forget to Join Operation Havoc and get your pictures in before the events begin!  We have not heard any information yet on whether or not he will be touring overseas.  But the year is young and anything is possible.

For now, we have set up a wonderful new Flickr group that fans have been uploading all of their tour photos too.  You can check out the group by visiting the below link:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/chuck-palahniuk-pygmy-tour/pool/

New Tshirts are available for the upcoming 'Pygmy' tour!  You may remember that we did this last year and the year before, for 'Snuff' and 'Rant' (respectively).  We initially held off on making these, due to the fact that Chuck is only doing five stops on this tour.  But then three more stops got added to Canada and we suddenly had 8 cities that we could list on the back of the shirt. 

Order your 'Pygmy' tour Tshirts here!

So this is the first time we've ever offered tour Tshirts with Canadian dates included!

Pygmy is now out in bookstores across America.  Chuck usually doesn't need our help doing this, but let's try and get him in the bestseller list again.  In otherwards, don't wait to get your copy.  Rush down to your local bookstore and scoop one up today!  Or, order a copy from Amazon and get your good friends at The Cult a small commission while you're at it:

Order "Pygmy" Today!

I'd like to use this thread as a place to gather reviews that begin appearing online, so if you want to help us out, go ahead and link any reviews you're able to find.  We'll then begin updating the actual Pygmy section on the site with them.

For today, check out this awesome article the Baltimore Sun did on Chuck recently.  Yours truly was interviewed for the piece, and I think it's a great read.

Chuck Palahniuk writes novels with punch

We're trying something new this year.  Besides the normal way of having fans send in photos themselves from the "Pygmy" tour, we have just set up a specific group on Flickr to host even more pics.

Join The Chuck Palahniuk 2009 Pygmy Tour Group

If you prefer to directly upload your photos to your own account, just tag them with pygmytour and they'll show up in our group too.

Not quite sure exactly what this is, but Random House is promoting it, and it seems fun.  Check out the details from their home page, then get over there and join in.

To celebrate the release of Chuck Palahniuk's new book, Pygmy, we invite you to choose your sparring maneuver and upload your photo today in the the Operation Havoc Photo Challenge.

The top 10 most popular photos will be given to Chuck Palahniuk to judge, and he will crown one of you as the Pygmy Photo Challenge King or Queen. For this, you will get a signed copy of Pygmy to add to your collection.

Join Operation Havoc!

Last year, Doubleday commissioned a very talented artist by the name of David Dwitt to design a tour poster for 'Snuff'.  I was actually not aware of this, but those of you who were at some of the events might have seen it.  So I'm happy to report that David has returned this year with a beautiful poster for 'Pygmy'.

David only has 200 of these posters available!  So I urge you all to gobble it up before the tour starts by visiting the below link.  Poster is only $20!  If you're attending any of the stops and have it by then, you can have Chuck sign it in person!

http://www.dwitt.com/catalog/i72.html

David also have some posters left from the 'Snuff' tour stop in MPLS at the Triple Rock here:

http://www.dwitt.com/catalog/i7.html

This is the only tour merchandise that David has available this year, so hurry before they all go!  I personally can't wait to frame this thing and hang it in my office.