Latest PNBA Column

Notes from a (New) Librarian
by Colin Rea

Hey hey, PNBA (how many books did you sell today?).

Ah, nothing like a little LBJ nostalgia to start a rambling. I'm sitting at my huge desk here in my huge office and thinking about the changes in my work routine o'er the last month. Besides swapping a cubicle for a room with a door, I've had a lot to get used to. Indeed, I have a lot to learn. What thrills me, though, is that I still play with books. The processes have changed, but the lit remains.

My brain is a bit scrambled from learning a complex job filled with everything from material selection to state laws regarding special districting, elected officials, and a forthcoming tax levy. As complicated as this all is, I comfort myself with the knowledge that I don't have to man a till on X-mas eve! In keeping with the scrambled theme, here are a few random thoughts, images, and musings about my first month as a librarian:

· The hardest thing so far? Scanning the &@#$-ing book! I've spent a decade aiming scanners at the lower right side of the back of books. Our library books, however, get their own special bar code on the upper left side of the FRONT of the book. I can't tell you how many times I've stood there repeatedly sticking the UPC under the scanner, tilting it this way and that trying to get the silly thing to read. D'uh. Understandably, my staff loves to watch me do this.

· Thanks to all who e-mailed a farewell when I suddenly disappeared. The number one question from the world of retail books: Where is Fern Ridge? Why, it's right here, of course.

· Coolest thing about my library? That would be John Daniel's one-line poem, written for the library and painted in 12-inch tall letters around the interior of the library. (See below)...

· Hand-selling is soooooo much easier when it's hand-loaning. Actually, in libraries, it's called reader's advisory, and it's great to tell people 'Try it; if you don't like it, bring it back and try another.' This just re-affirms my belief that a guarantee on all staff rec's would work in a retail bookstore. The confidence gained by your staff would result in more than enough sales to offset the few returns.

· I miss my sales reps. I now choose titles solely based on print reviews, catalogs, etc. Even as I come across glowing reviews in Library Journal, I can still hear Cindy H. saying 'This book is incredible, you'll sell a ton.' You know what, she was always right. So was George, Bob, Reed, Michael, and all the rest.

· Denis Johnson and Sherman Alexie just won National Book Awards. That is more than a quiet endorsement of the quality of the literature coming out of our woods.

· Brian J visited a few days ago from the offices of the PNBA. Even in my office, he couldn't help but speak quietly in the reverential tones of a library patron. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why libraries are my church, and the created word is my religion.

Until next time,
Colin
crea@fernridgelibrary.org

ps Here's the John Daniel poem.

Read then, if you will,
and in the springtime of your reading
the pages will shine with pale fire,
like new alder leaves in sun.
In their secret way they grow
and gather as you turn them,
they remain with you,
they rise up close around
like blackberry thickets in midsummer,
a wilderness of leaves
you're lost in. Turn, turn further.
Something shy and never seen
awaits you, and as you search
you may discover what you did not think
to ask for, a last apple
in autumn boughs where you saw
a bird fly in. Listen.
In the Douglas firs the wind
is saying something, voice
of distant places, other years
returning. Does it speak your name?
You need nothing more for winter now,
the faithful rain on your roof,
a warm fire within. Go
the way you were born to go,
turning and turning the pages of time.

Tee Hee

I WASN'T carded for buying a six-pack of Redhook tonight because of the white hairs in my beard... and yet, I still love to watch old classic Scooby-Doo episodes and even the new Avatar serires on Nickelodeon. Just thought I'd share that.

On a less tee-hee note, I'm still bumming about the Terry Pratchett news, and about the fact that they most likely won't make a sequel to Golden Compass.

Neglect

See what happens when you leave the '20 hour job stretched out to 40' to take a real job? You neglect your blog, which was a great time filler at work. Throw in a stomach flu that hits the whole family, the advent of the silly season, and a new HDTV in the basement, and it's all over from there. To catch you up, here are the last few books I read:

The Colorado Kid by Stephen King... A nice little pseudo-noir pulp.
The Last Town on Earth by Thoma Mullen... Very good, but not great novel about a logging town in WA trying to keep out the Spanish Influenza. Some good commentary on what community is in this one.
Return to Spirit Lake by Christine Colasurdo... A dad recommendation, and well worth the time. Reminded me that it's time to take the kids up to see Mt. St. Helens.

I'm following up the Stephen King read by listening to Blaze, his last Bachman book on my commute. Not sure what else to start. Where's the new Pratchett galley when you need it? Speaking of Pratchett, the Hogfather movie mentioned below was fun. An awful lot of Pratchett's humor doesn't translate to the screen, especially the wizards at the Unseen University, but Death, Susan, and Alfred made up for that.

I want to go camping.

I wanted to embed this song from Lair of the White Worm, but the embed was disabled. Click to see it here. 20 years ago, my brother and I tried in vain for a long time to find any info about this song and where to get a copy of it. Thanks to IMDB.com and YouTube, it took me all of 12 seconds when I stumbled across the movie on cable the other night. Sometimes, the 1's and the 0's really work out, no?!

How did I not hear of this?

http://www.rhifilms.com/hogfather/

And here in the states we'll be stuck with yet another excreable Tim Allen Santa movie, I'm sure...

Those who review and/or blurb love to heap praise on good non-fiction by stating 'it reads like a novel.' I'll go along with that, and then assume that the opposite must be true as well. Roth's speculative fiction/alternate history masterpiece is so plausible and, of course, applicable to our current political mess that I have to now remind myself that Charles Lindbergh isn't to be reviled as 'the anti-semitic president.' Combined with my recent tear through Chabon's library, I have been immersed in the imaginary Jewish past. Leaving that religion, but staying with the 'could have been' theme, I'm now starting The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen.

Also reading: The Future of Nature and The Truth. Wish I had more time to read, but new jobs tend to slow one down...

Work E-mail

I'll be working a few hours in the evening at home tonight, and while I COULD get instructions on how to check my work e-mail from home, I've decided against it. Why? Here's a reading list.

1.
2.
3.
4. My own ramblings on the subject, overwritten because it was for school.

The Horror!

That's right, I read an Oprah pick. In my defense, it was on my stack long before Oprah got her hands on it. In point of fact, I listened to rather than read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, but then audio books are really another form of reading, 'cause it's all literacy. In hindsight, I should have stuck with the codex here for a couple of reasons. The story has very few characters; an unnammed father and son account for almost all the dialog. The narrator did a great job with the father, but the whiney voice of the son grated. The story, which has no real beginning and not much of an ending, is not what defines this book but rather the stark writing -- something best enjoyed in one's head and not out loud.

Move over Blatz

This has become my beer of choice. I'm sad for those of you on the other coast who don't have access to all the micro-brews out here. Sniffle...

This Seattle brew is almost as good, but they don't bottle it, so I don't get it down here in Eugene.

Cool Docu

I caught this on cable the other night. It's a cool remembrance of a period of music that, sadly, flamed out just about the time I was starting to discover what was out there. This poor timing is likely directly responsible for the fact that, for a few brief days, I thought Matthew Wilder was the bomb -- an embarassment of which my brother takes great delight in.

Speaking of my brother, if you see this guy around on Tuesday, wish him a happy Birthday.

Scouting Libraries

I wandered around the Springfield and Eugene Public Libraries yesterday evaluating the good and bad aspects of each physical space. I had no intention of picking up additional reading, but I randomly stopped in the S's on the third floor (fiction)of the EPL and saw Garth Stein's first novel, Raven Stole the Moon. After the first 50 or so pages last night, I realized how very much he has matured as a writer. The storytelling is immediately recognizable, but his writing is much less refined than it is now. In The Art of Racing in the Rain, Stein says more with fewer words.

Two other things to note... Somewhere around page 30 a character enters a 'Starbucks Coffee.' I'm guessing an editor today would find that second word unnecessary! The next paragraph then provides the very same observations about the myriad decisions needed to order a beverage that were offered up in You've Got Mail, which released, I think, after the book. What's up with that, Nora?

Small Changes

So, really it only took a change in my 'identity' from I Buy Books to I Loan Books. Aaaaaaaaaand, we're off and running. I just finished my first week as a library Director, and thus far it's all good. Weirdly, I am lovin' the commute (about 25 minutes, some of it through a wildlife preserve area). Getting to hear large chunks of 'All Things Considered' makes me feel like the grown-up I'm really not, and reminds me so much of being a kid in the backseat while my dad had on NPR.

Literarily (not a real word, sadly), not much to report except that I found out they are making a movie of Pratchett's Wee Free Men. If they can get the Nac Mac Feegle right, we may have the greatest on-screen small creatures since the Brownies in Willow!

Oh, here's my office...

Gettin'Ready to Move, Still Reading

Three books read this week:
1. Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. I love Garth's writing, and the canine protagonist, Enzo, is a pure character.

2. Into the Wild by John Krakaur. Re-read so that when I see the movie, I'll remember that I think Chris was a nut job, not the hero that the film will undoubtedly present.

3. Dirty Work by Larry Brown. Devastatingly honest anti-war novel with shades of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

Gonna read the new Molly Gloss, the new Kitteridge, and The Somnambulist by Jonathan Barnes over the next few days.

Changes

I must cogitate on the future of my blog, as I will no longer 'buy books' but lend them. I have accepted a job as the director of the Fern Ridge Library, and begin in 10 days. If you click that link, you'll see that a new website will be up high on the list of things to accomplish quickly...

Recommended to me; Thoroughly Enjoyable.

Seattle Bound

I'm heading further north for the fall PNBA tradeshow tomorrow morning. I'm gonna bring a camera and post a bunch of pictures here after I return on Friday.

Books I Ought to have Read

When anyone hears that I work in a bookstore, they immediately assume that I've read everything, or at least a whole lot more than they have themselves. While the former is laughable, and the latter is not always the case, this perception is hard to shake. Certainly, there is an expectation that I have read all the 'classics.' Now, we've all faked reading some books, it is unavoidable in life, but there are tons of books that I freely admit that I've never read, and most of these are books I really SHOULD read. In fact, I'm ashamed that I haven't read some of them. A book that falls in this category will be all over the place this year because 2008 represents the golden anniversary of the release of On The Road.

The most intriguing of the publications is the release of the text from the original scroll. I hadn't even realized that there existed a difference between what Kerouac famously typed onto one continuous sheet and what you see in the myriad editions printed over the last 50 years. Living in Eugene, I feel compelled to read this original presentation of the work, just as I felt that I HAD to start running again because of Prefontaine. Damn hippies. What next? Soon I'll be trolling for toga parties because Animal House was filmed two blocks from where I'm sitting...

Until I have time to read On The Road, I'll read through this list of road songs; one for each state.

Good Essay

Read this essay from the New York Times Review of Books last week. Not only are the observations about MySpace from a newbie user spot on, but the style of writing is exactly the sort of humorous tone I always THINK i'm putting into my own feeble attempts at communication.

Top of 'The Stack'

Forget about Vick and the NBA Ref's. I'm reading about the ugly side of the beautiful game this week.

Long Live the Codex

Here be the follow up to the last Footnote column I posted on here:

Long Live the Codex

As if you couldn't think of enough names to call me, this month I'll give you another - hypocrite! In April I implored you to look at the world through digitally enhanced glasses. Start a blog, I suggested. Look to the future! I still stand by that missive 100%, even as I now proclaim that a backlash is a'comin.

In a recent edition of Shelf Awareness, a New York Times article was cited indicating that online sales are dropping sharply as consumers are experiencing something they call 'Internet fatigue.' Earlier this spring, an article on CNN.com
highlighted a new Lent trend: students giving up e-mail and social networking sites instead of eschewing the usual sugary or alcoholic vices. Just yesterday, I left my cell phone at home and didn't feel all that bad about it. While these revelations are not biblical in proportion (no fish from the sky nor rivers of blood), the Luddite in me cracks a smile with each indication that there is a limit to the speed of technological change.

I recently received a master's degree in library and information science from a school up in Seattle that I won't mention here in case I set off alarms at the uoregon.edu server (paranoia, another great force perhaps fueling 'Internet fatigue'). In the last paper I penned as a grad student, I wrote about a 100-year-old dictionary and the pleasure I derive from using it, something I called a 'tangible slow-down event.' I think that books will forever provide a similar moment for everyone engaging the world digitally, even the ones lining up at midnight to buy Wii's and iPhones. The fact that college students are already beginning to recognize the limitations of sites like MySpace and Facebook-and are willing to put them down for 40 days-is especially encouraging. Remember, these are 'adults' who can't remember a time when the Internet didn't exist.

How do we capitalize on this backlash? By going back-to-basics, and ensuring that even as we acknowledge the need to plug in, we hone our handselling techniques and focus on the bookstore as a place where the printed word slows us down and connects us to our past. I work in a university store, where four times a year I have to move all my shelves around in order to accommodate textbook lines. How I envy you small bookstore owners your comfy chairs and nooks and permanent displays! But even now I am shopping for chairs, rugs, and desks, happy to provide my customers with a seat even though I'll most likely throw my back out moving this new furniture along with my bookshelves come 'rush.'

Slow is all the rage these days. You all know the bestseller from last year, so I don't even need to mention the title. The Slow Food movement has gained momentum, created to protest the coming of McDonald's to Rome. I see our bookstores as an anchor to the social side of the slow movement. Five years ago, the coffee joints of the world would have laid claim to this title. But let's face it; there is nothing slow about Starbucks and the local coffee independents trying to chase them. Restaurants, bistros, bars, and other popular meeting places can sometimes provide a slow environment, but even in sleepy Eugene during the summer you can't be sure until you sit down what you'll get.

Our bookstores, though, are the ideal place to promote slow. After all, we've had years of practice ourselves. This summer, now that the dust has settled from 7.21.07, join me in trying to think of new ways to encourage customers to stick around, sit down, and go analog. Better yet, be sure to do so yourself as often as possible. After all, when the @#$% comes down, much like the survivalists building their bunkers in the woods, we'll become the experts.

Sometime TV is good too...

I actively avoid cable series like those found on HBO. HOWEVER, Jen got me watching Flight of the Conchords, and I am now hooked. Watch this to see why...

Back from the East Coast

Saw many wonderful things on my trip, from green cornfields and my new neice in Ohio, to a booming thunderstorm in Blacksburg. Saw horrendous things too, like the development in my old college town. All in all, it was nice to return home. Did I read on my trip? Well, I didn't crack Night Train to Lisbon, as predicted. Instead, one of the very few Discworld novels that I haven't read was sitting on the top of stack of books my brother is storing at the padres' casa. What would YOU have done?!

Dare to Dream

T-Rex Could Outrun David Beckham
The only way to make this article stranger (and, ultimately, more enjoyable!) would be a Flash animation showing the dinosaur actually running down and eating said footballer.

From The Stack

I've spend the last 10 days painting a new house and moving, so there is little to report here except what I just finished and what I'm starting. Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union was compelling as speculative fiction (what if, as was actually suggested in 1948, Jews were given a temporary homeland in Alaska) and adequate as a thriller/mystery. I've been led to believe that I should read The Final Solution next to get a better glimpse into his abilities in the mystery genre.

I'm leaving for Ohio and Virginia on Thursday. The book that I'll lug with me and have no time to read is Night Train to Lisbon, by Pascal Mercier.

Peace

Blogging from London

My pop has a blog now. This is both incongruous and wonderful. That my dad, a systems analyst for IBM turned computer-science prof, could surprise folks by doing something digital is a great mystery, but there you are.

Bad Monkeys

This is a great little read. With a fair amount of reality bending, a blurb on the front from Christopher Moore and one on the back from Neal Stephenson, you just can't go wrong here. Killer cover, too.

I agree with Stephen...

King, that is. Read this recent column from Entertainment Weekly, and you'll understand why I get a stupid grin on my face any time this song queues up on my Shuffle.

Nice Rack

A visit to a friend in Olympia reminded me just what great bookshelves should look like. While everyone can be impressed by the old, glass-fronted shelves in his living room, it probably takes a real book dork such as myself to appreciate the balance of his collection. Not in the subject matter or variety of genre, but in the mix of old and new. Book design and construction has changed over the decades, and not always for the better. Well-worn and well-read tomes give any collection a feeling of depth and show a care in selection and preservation. They also serve as a way to visually sort a shelf when browsing.

I've always worked in bookstores that sell current and new books/editions. As such, my shelves at home lack the sense of the past that I see in Coker's collection. I have tons of galleys and finished hardcovers, but little in the way of an aging backlist. For this, I am a bit sad. But hey, in 50 years, my complete OED should look even more impressive...

Another Footnote

I'm throwing another old column up here to give context to a follow up that I will post later in August...

Where are the Jet Packs and the Moving Sidewalks???

Well, the PNBA newsletter has gone digital. Welcome to the new millennium… really, welcome to 2000! It’s a crazy world out there, and I have to ask – What took so long? Why are we, as a profession, so far behind the times and so reluctant to change, that we are JUST NOW starting to get newsletters from publishers and other groups? The obvious answer is that we make a living selling that which many consider to be the precursor to the computer and all things digital. Or do we?

When we recommend a book, we don’t talk about the process that took natural fibers, soaked them in water, and then pressed them flat to produce paper. We don’t talk about the cover designer (except, perhaps, to praise or vilify the result), and we don’t impress upon our customer the importance of Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Place Data. We tell them about the story, about the creative thoughts or facts that spellbind us, horrify us, or make us laugh. What we are selling is an expression of a work created by an author.

What booksellers have been slow to embrace is that we need to let go of our reliance on one particular medium. In our defense, we work closely with the publishers who are fighting tooth and nail to keep the book around. We can’t help it, we love books, and we’re enabled by an industry that gives them to us. But think about the companies that have embraced digitization, and then think about the success of these companies. Google.com springs to mind, as does Audible.com and Netflix. Even librarians, our kith and kin, have been quick to bring in more audio books and other media, because they pay attention to their circulation reports, and they see what their customers require.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe in the death of the book. I also don’t believe that the bound book will be a curio, a sideline in the ‘thought emporium’ of the future. If you want reassurance about the future of the book, read the wonderful work of David Levy in Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age. But I do know that we need to rethink the business that we are in, and the business we may be in 5 or 10 years down the line. We need to be ready for the changes that come, to be proactive rather than reactive. The first step in this preparation is utilizing all the 1’s and 0’s in cyberspace to our maximum advantage. This means digital newsletters. This means blogs. This means publisher catalogs online that are tailored to the small store in Montana or Alaska or even central Oregon that is too far away for the bean counters in New York to allow reps to travel to.

Some of you might not know that I started buying and managing for bookstores in the early 90’s. Then I took almost five years off to work in the for-profit education field (go ahead, ask me anything about the GRE…) I waited patiently for a chance at another bookstore, and was shocked to find that when I did return in 2003, things hadn’t changed at all. Sure, there weren’t as many house reps and the ABA was now called BookExpo, but the function of buying books was almost untouched by the world of the internet.

If we wait for the publishers to help us embrace technology, we’re dead in the water. Instead, we need to step to the front and show them just what we can do, to prove our relevance, to make them more responsive to us. I’ve been in enough educational marketing sessions at book shows to know that the ideas are out there. I don’t have all the answers, but together, those of you reading this inaugural PNBA newsletter have an awful lot of them. The tools are there, it’s high time we pick them up.

So kudos to the folks over there in the PNBA basement offices for a first step. Like most milestones in life, there is good and there is bad. Good for the trees, pulped and pressed in order to hold ink; bad for John E. Potter, the current Postmaster General.

What are we few, we happy few booksellers to make of this small shift from print publication to electronic publication? Only time will tell, and our success hinges on just how long we allow that time to be. After all, you’d be lying through your teeth if you haven’t wondered publicly or privately about the death of the book. I know I have…

From Jews to Indians

Comic books, escape artists, and Golems. Chabon really did write a masterpiece in The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. It was, as a favorite rep of mine, Seafoye told me it would be... I didn't want the story to end. Today I'll read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, a YA novel coming from Sherman Alexie.


In the musical realm, I downloaded a replacement copy of American Music Club's Everclear from iTunes last week, and all is right in the world now. Everclear, along with a handful of others, is one of the great all-time ALBUMS. The songs all stand individually, but together they actually create something unique. Now, with a full admission that I haven't been able to follow the music scene as I once did, here are a few others great ALBUMS:

You know what, I have to stop there, as I realize that I will only incriminate and/or date myself...

The guy in the blue sweater is my current boss. Just thought I would point this out, as I have not much else to say right now because I've been dealing with selling and then reading HP7. I'm also about halfway through Michael Chabon's Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, and kicking myself for not reading it sooner. Off to buy books from Norton, one of my favorite publishers.

It's Here.

Shakespeare Fun

Interred with Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell, coming from Dutton in September, is a fun ride. The author bio holds Carrell to be a Ph.D. from Harvard, and a former Smithsonian magazine writer who has directed Shakespeare plays. This adds up to a fine background for someone spinning a yarn about lost plays, the true identity of the Bard, and a chase that spans one Globe Theater (London) to another (Utah, of all places...). If Dutton can market this correctly (think Rule of Four rather than Interpretation of Murder; the latter was a better book [sorry, Ian!] but never went anywhere, unlike the former, which made at least one of the authors enough money to have no more reason to put off marrying his girlfriend), it will rule the bestseller lists through the holiday season at the very least.

Don't Drink and Read

It can severly maim or kill books...

I Need a Kill Switch

When I moved out to Eugene from Virginia 6 years ago, I rented a big yellow truck that had a curious feature on it. Any attempt to travel faster than 65 miles an hour triggered a decelerator, a frustration in states like Wyoming where there isn't even anything to run into (in fact, in places where they were working on the highway, they just diverted traffic off the road into the farmland, as it was just as flat and hard as the asphalt...).

I've decided I need a similar internal switch to keep me from starting too many books at once. In the last 48 hours I started What is the What by Dave 'everything I write is gold' Eggers, Interred with Their Bones by Jennifer Lee Carrell, Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson, Origin by Diana Abu-Jaber, and Ovenman by Jeff Parker. This, of course, is on top of the two or three other books I'm already working on. I am an IDIOT .

ps. I just noticed that my Blog archive lists the months in a language I can't even identify. No idea how this happened, but I am pleased at the result!

Footnotes Past

I told one of my possibly three reader's I'd put up some of my older columns from the PNBA Newsletter. Here is one of my favorites:

Dear Publishers-

Hi. I work in a bookstore. Have you ever worked in a bookstore? Sometimes, I really doubt that you have. Here are a few things you need to know.

There is no ‘Next DaVinci Code.’ There never will be. Please stop putting this in your catalogs and on your books. Ditto Harry Potter.

Booksellers hate shrink wrap -- Especially booksellers who chew their nails. Any book you feel the need to shrink wrap usually retails in the neighborhood of $40-$100. NOBODY buys a book that expensive without getting to see the good bits inside. And if the good bits happen to be naughty bits, the only way that book won’t be returned as severely shelf worn is if you reinforce the binding with bolts, and go with sheet metal instead of cloth.

Speaking of packaging, stop already with the ‘creative bindings.’ Just because there is no writing on the spine (or on the dreaded plastic coil thingy we all thought was cool when were in, say, 2nd grade…) doesn’t mean we’re going to face out your book. Really, we won’t, on general principal.

Please, for the love of all that is holy, sacred, named mike, or otherwise, NO MORE MOVIE COVERS. With the possible exception of To Kill a Mockingbird, the book is ALWAYS better than the film. You have the premium product! Keep it that way. More often than not, those coming into our stores, even while the movie is still in the theaters, prefer the original cover. It’s true. Just ask anyone…

Let’s talk dumps. You may call them ‘cardboard displays’ or ‘point-of-sale displays,’ or something fancy, but they’re dumps. When did it become standard practice to put trade paperbacks in a dump created for hard covers? The slots for the books are so much bigger than the books, it is ridiculous. It’s like putting an XL parka on a five year old. If you don’t have a dump that fits the book, scrap the idea entirely. Flashing lights, screaming audio, and generic risers that look like they were created on my old Commodore 64 – bad. Elegant use of lights (see the Narnia dump from HC), string (Lemony Snicket), and pop-up (Robert Sabuda’s Winter Tale) – good.

None of us are fooled by the phrase ‘paperback original.’ We all read that as ‘See, we paid this author a pretty good amount of money in the form of an advance, and the book wasn’t very good, so we knew we’d never recoup that cash by throwing more of it into a hard cover edition. We’re hoping that enough people pick this book up on their way to the departure gate to at least get ourselves out of the red.’

I see I’m at the end of my allotted word count. In a few months, perhaps I’ll continue this letter. In the meantime, please go to a bookstore, shadow a few customers or employees (not too closely… that’s called Stalking), read a bit, and then buy a book. Hell, buy two.

The answer

...to just how long it takes me to slowly fall over is 57 minutes, 55 seconds. I had two goals for my first crack at a 10K -- to finish without having to stop and walk and to do so in under an hour. Both accomplished, happily. Nothing like being 1,185th out of 2400. Score!

Almost done with An Arsonists Guide to Writers' Homes in New England. Good story with inventive narration. I really like the examination of the nature of character and story in the text, though I must call foul when Sam Pulsifer (one of the truly great names I've come across recently) stops in a bookstore and examines an earlier novel by Arsonists Guide... author Brock Clark. Rather than provide any context, this felt a bit silly.

Eugene = Running

It took me too long to enter my first Butte to Butte 10K here in Eugene, but I just walked over to the Hilton and picked up my bib. Ever wonder how long it takes execute a six mile controlled collapse? Tune in Wednesday evening for the answer...

Wrapping Up a Few Reads

The Spanish Bow was very good, but short of excellent, I think. If you know anything about Spain in the last 100 years, the 'suprises' in this novel are too easy to pick out. However, the writing is solid and the story is well fabricated.

Interestingly, I DON'T know a whole lot about the history of Spain, but this book jump-started an interest there. I am now reading Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and its Silent Past as a result, and this I can recommend highly as a readable introduction to the history of a fascinating country. The author is a writer for the Guardian, seemingly my dad's paper of choice (online, anyway,) and his voice and experiences living in Spain suit this kind of book well.

I put down The Spanish Bow twice to read books in between (telling, really...) One of these was the new Terry Pratchett, mentioned very early on in my lame blog. Making Money reinforces the fun of the new-to-discworld character of Moist Von Lipwig, but can't quite match Going Postal in terms of the spot-on satire.

Now, on to An Arsonists' Guide to Writers' Homes In New England by Brock Clarke and Origin, by Diana Abu-Jaber.

Words for Nerds

Now THIS is why university presses are such a vital part of bookselling, and why schools like the University of Oregon should be ashamed to have let their presses fold. Where else can you find a scholarly examination of a completely imaginary language?! LOTR fans can even afford this now that it has pubbed in paper...

Books & Booze

In using whiskey (American, so the e stays...) to describe Larry Brown's writing, I unwittingly assigned my brain the task of linking other authors and books to alcoholic beverages. This will continue for some time until I have enough entries to do either a menu or a newsletter! First up, Martin Millar's The Good Fairies of New York, is much like an Irish whisky -- edgy, raw, and full of promise. As an added bonus, this novel is the first place (outside of baby name books)I've seen my daughter's name, Ailsa, in print. Too bad she can't read this for another decade or so!

p.s. Buy this now, if you can. The new cover on the re-print is awful (see the link...)

More Brown (Browner?)

I followed up A Miracle of Catfish over the weekend with Fay. Yet again, I am in awe of Larry Brown's storytelling. Somewhere on the hardcover jacket his style is described as 'Grit Lit,' but that's really more a nod to his subject matter than to his writing. Fay (the book AND the character) travels the edge of a razor -- frenetic in pace and inevitable in violence. I cain't hardly drink Jack Daniel's, but these books are the literary equivalent of that particular southern masterpiece.

The opposite of Chick Lit, I suppose

I Just Want My Pants Back by David J. Rosen

I read this last night, and it was actually pretty enjoyable. Pretty much exactly what I'd imagine living in NY city would be like just out of college. The story moves along quickly, and there are some truly funny parts. Rosen slips a few times with the pop-culture references and the obvious metaphors, but that can be overlooked in the grand scheme of things. I imagine RH will market this pretty heavily to the MySpace crowd, and it will be a hit with folks who are devoted to that culture of social interaction.

Lame

Saw this on the shelf on Friday and laughed. The NY Times Bestseller List is lame and easily manipulated by the major publishers, and this book comes from a staple on that list. A book entitled 'How I Write' needs a co-author?! Priceless.

Good title, GREAT author name

The Spanish Bow
by Andromeda Romano-Lax

...AND it survived the first chapter test!

'New Math'

Of all the things I never noticed about Roadhouse, which has to fall into the top five 'films to stop and watch when you have other things to do,' one fact blew me away. Dalton is reading Jim Harrison's Legends of the Fall before he is called away to the window by the noise of a party across the river. Whoa! How did that book make it into those hands?! Anyway, just thought this was worth mentioning, as Harrison's most recent novel, Returning to Earth, will come in paperback in the fall. You, whomever you are, owe it to yourself to pick this one up in hardcover while you can. It's worth it, trust me.

Musical Interlude II

J and I went to see Colin Hay last night play solo/acoustic at the WOW Hall here in Eugene (where, you can be in the beer garden with maybe 12 other people, and have the lead singer of the Pixies sitting a few seats away, mostly unrecognized and undisturbed). Tix felt a bit $ when we bought them ($25), but I'd pay more than that to see him again. Listening to him, I realized that he is the anti-Sting. Both were in groups that were at their peak in 1984, and both served as the primary songwriter in said groups. Then, Sting found tantra and his music slowly slid into 'adult contemporary' hell. Colin's music, though, still has the same power that it once did. And, unlike the Bee-man, his voice is still as strong as ever. I'd much rather hear the raw, six-string version of 'Overkill' than the jazzy dumbing down of 'Roxanne.'

Colin is gregarious and funny onstage between songs, and truly thankful to be doing what he is doing. Check out his MySpace page to hear a few samples... two standouts from the show were 'Beautiful World' and 'Waiting for my Real Life to Begin.' And, of course, 'I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over' played on a twelve-string was incredible.

And Sting? Get ready for the merchandising that will come with the $ Tour. I've been pitched a bunch of books, and hope like hell I won't see Police action figures in the toy aisle at Target.

Apropos of Nothing

A Miracle of Catfish was too good. If'n I ever choose to read an unfinished novel by a deceased author in the future, I'd prefer it to be sub-par. Brown's last novel had me so wrapped up that I was fairly 'ticked when it ended. Think about the great books you've read that left you wanting more -- at least those books were finished thoughts. That said, I found Miracle to be one of the best 'finds' of the season.

Looking ahead, I'm sad to say the fall season seems to be a bit thin. There are a few books that have caught my eye, but nothing big yet. I've still to receive a good number of catalogs, so the fingers are still crossed. In years past, this kind of season has meant we've discovered some new talent, and I certainly hope that is the case in '07.

In lieu of a book today, I'm linking to one of the coolest small publishers out there. Milkweed is a non-profit press dedicated to making a "humane impact on society." They first came to my attention when I read Seth Kantner's Ordinary Wolves, and I've loved everything they've done since. Oh, and everyone I've met that works there is cool too...

Just started...

Crashing Through by Robert Kurson. I listened to the audio of Shadow Divers, and enjoyed it waaaay more than I should have, considering it concerns a missing WWII submarine. I wasn't sure the subject matter here, about a blind man suddenly given the chance to see, was going to do it either (for some reason, I just kept thinking it sounded too much like a really lame movie starring either Val Kilmer..., or Richard Gere (no link to put here, but surely he made one of these, no?!)) but Kurson can make anything read like a suspense novel.

Dark River by John Twelve Hawks. The first book, The Traveler was good enough that I'll read the sequel. Where this story goes will heavily influence whether I REALLY liked the first one. I CAN say, with conviction, that the nom-de-plume and the idea that the author lives off the grid for very real and dangerous reasons is a silly marketing tool.

etc.

My friend Steve sent me this link yesterday. I laughed hard. (Warning... possibly offensive material on the left hand side of the linked page)

A Miracle of Catfish is every bit as good as everything I've heard.

My brother writes songs, and this one has been stuck in my head now for going on 3 months straight. I'm justifying putting it on my book blog because the title matches the name of the greatest YA fantasy trilogy of all time. So there.

A 'Toon

I write the occasional column for the PNBA newsletter. I tried for the longest time to write about the prolific nature of a certain kind of author. Instead, I realized a cartoon could say it all. They never published this, but I've always rather liked it, in that I've never actually done a cartoon before or since...

Oh, and if you click on the image, it's a LOT easier to read.

Southern Fiction

Having moved out to the Pacific NW six years ago (holy crow, has it really been that long?), I have intentionally stayed away from so-called 'southern fiction.' I was surrounded by it, beaten about the head by it, and generally not all that impressed by it when I was in Virginia. In reality, it was probably just a reaction to the Faulkner I was forced to swallow in high school. I kept hearing about Larry Brown's posthumous unfinished novel, 'A Miracle of Catfish,' so after the ninth subversively proverbial 'plate of shrimp' moment, I decided to give the south another try. You know what? 60 pages in, and the character development and the authentic voice of this novel have me itchin' to know what happens in each of the emerging story lines.

My Daemon

Has it come to this???

Really? REALLY? Surely there are some real cowboys out there ready to bring some frontier justice to this fella...

Does this make me a curmudgeon or a skeptic?

I've been too much a news junkie this week, reading newspapers online and watching the cable news networks, which have provided coverage both horrific and horrible. In any event, I haven't been reading many books. I did, however, start A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans, which holds promise (even 35 pages in the story has yet to really begin.)

So what to write about if I haven't been reading books? Their covers, of course. I just shelved the paperback edition of Sebastian Junger's A death in Belmont. The cover has this quote: "Riveting... a worthy sequel to The Perfect Storm." -New York Times Book Review. This bothers me because the word sequel is abused here two-fold. The book is not a continuation of the story in Storm, nor is it the book published directly after Storm. Sequel? I think not.

I did read A Death in Belmont, and while it is well written and exciting, Junger cops out at the end and refuses to make any judgement call about the veracity of his assumptions. One is better off re-reading Storm.

How Book Sales Explain Sibling Rivalry

I just sent an e-mail to the New Republic, hoping it makes it's way through to editor Franklin Foer. Every month I marvel at the number of copies we sell of How Soccer Explains the World, and was amazed that I had never made the name connection to brother Jonathan Safran Foer. Here is the e-mail:

Dunno if this will get through to Franklin, but I had to share this morning. How Soccer has been one of our bestselling books over the last year, as I have hand-sold it time and time again. Somehow I JUST realized the familial connection to Jonathan. Because I know I’d be keeping score, here are two numbers from our sales reports:


Total sales for How Soccer Explains the World in paper: 180

Total sales for Everything is Illuminated AND Incredibly Loud… in paper: 42


Ps. MSI Rules (or, it did in the late 70’s and early 80’s anyway!)

No books today

I had hoped to spend time writing about books today, but that must wait as I try to absorb the horrific news from Blacksburg, where I went to school and lived for a decade. For those of you who know that my brother still teaches at Virginia Tech, please know that he is ok and at home.

A couple of things

Fall catalogs are raining down upon my desk. Before I stack them on the shelves above my computer that will, one day, most likely break and cause me to be 'trapped under something heavy,' I flip through them looking for familiar names and titles. I admit I was fairly surprised to see that Ken Follett is writing a sequel to Pillars of the Earth. Pillars is a classic (even with the really poorly written sex scenes), precisely because Follett was telling a story that centered around something he himself is passionate about -- the building of a cathedral. For 10 seconds, I was excited by the prospect of a sequel. Then I realized that this story, set 200 years after Pillars, will lack the subplot that made the first book so fantastic. Ah well, at least I can write a shelf-talker for the updated paperback edition of Pillars that the new book will bring...

To wrap up a couple of books mentioned below... Rankin's The Naming of the Dead was fun, but my brother was right in saying that it didn't end well. It just sort of petered out. There is a review in last week's NY Review of Books that explains why: "But while that factual fidelity lends authenticity to his books, it also accounts for their unweildy structure and overburdened narratives." Again, though, as my brother says, Rankin is always worth a throw.

Frost's Second Objective was fun to read right after finishing a Rebus novel, because he takes a bit of WWII history that even I remembered from my history classes, Operation Grief and the Battle of the Bulge, and throws down a character very similar to Rebus. Frost doesn't bog down in the historical part of 'historical fiction,' and this book reads like the adventure ride it is meant to be.


Finally, yesterday I read Flight, the first novel from Sherman Alexie in a decade. To be fair, this is really a novella, and could almost have been the 10th story in his short story collection Ten Little Indians. A coworker yesterday mentioned all the things that she likes fiction to do for her -- make her laugh, make her think, and make her cry. In 180 pages, Alexie does all of this better than almost anyone. Read this book.

Making Money

My stack of Harper Collins catalogs arrived for the fall list, and said stack is becoming dangerously high (not quite a challenge to the tower that comes from Random, but certainly on the way...). I'm quite happy to report, however, that we'll see Terry Pratchett's 4,493rd(give or take) novel in October, and that Moist von Lipwig is once again at the center of things.

Store Name

When I win the lottery, I'm opening a bookstore that sells great fiction and single malt scotch whisky. This has been an idea of mine for almost a decade. My three year old provided the store name last night. When asked what he needed for bed time, he replied: Books and a Bottle.

Perfection.

Rebus is back!

After a few good but not great stand alone novels, Ian Rankin has brought Inspector Rebus back and put him in the middle of the G8 summit held a few years ago in Scotland. The use of real events of global significance and rememberance makes this one of the best Rebus mysteries in years. Rebus' brush with the noxious weed in the White House is brilliant!

Why?

Why is this P.O.C. the number one book in America right now? From the back cover: "It has been passed down through the ages, highly coveted, hidden, lost, stolen, and bought for vast sums of money. This centuries-old Secret has been understood by some of the most prominent people in history: Plato, Galileo, Beethoven, Edison... Now the Secret is being revealed to the world." Um, OK. Lemme save you some money. Next time Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure comes on cable, pay attention when they say "Be excellent to each other." Same message. Same universal truth.

A Musical Interlude

Right, so I'm touring a day care facility a week or so ago, and I'm a bit bored because the woman conducting the tour made what should have been a 10 minute visit last about 45 minutes. As is my habit, I spent most of the time looking at the books in each classroom out of the corner of my eye. And there, in the pre-K classroom, was Inch By Inch: The Garden Song, a picture book based on a song by Dave Mallett. Perhaps one of the only songs ever to be covered by John Denver, John Lithgow, and the Muppets. I was immediately sold on the center, and reminded of this fantastic performance available on the Kennedy Center website. Ain't serendipity grand?!

Welcome Back

Man, nothing better than a couple of Advance Reader Copies hitting my desk at 4:40 on a Friday afternoon. But wait, there's more! One of them is the new novel from Mark Frost. Frost, who was a writer for Twin Peaks, wrote two great novels back in the day, The List of Seven and The Six Messiahs. Then, I can only presume, he had kids who needed money for college, because he wrote non-fiction golf books. Gack. Even though The Second Objective is a stab at World War II / Hitler / historical fiction, I'm glad Frost is back telling stories...

From Page 2

...of Heartsick, by Chelsea Cain, coming from St. Martin's Minotaur in the fall:

'In this moment, the very first moment of Archie's awareness, the man's head explodes. Archie jerks as the man's blood and brain matter blow forward, splattering Archie's face and chest, a vomit of warm, clotted fluid.'

And yes, I'm hooked.

Just got back from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association spring tradeshow, where quite frankly I didn't see anything of interest to write about in terms of books to look forward to. However, the banquet for the 2007 PNBA award winners was fantastic. Standing ovations for each winner who spoke out against the war in Iraq and certain individuals behind it. I snapped this quick picture with my camera phone.

From the left:

-Russ Lawrence, current President of the ABA and Montana Bookseller, streaking (not literally, thankfully) in front of the winners.
-David Biespiel, editor of Long Journey, a poetry collection from OSU Press.
-David James Duncan, author of God Laughs and Plays from Triad Books.
-Jess Walker, author of The Zero, from the now defunct ReganBooks.
-David Relin, author of Three Cups of Tea from Viking, and Greg Mortenson, the subject of said book.

All are great books, but I think Duncan's is the most important -- everyone needs to read this counter to the insanity of fundamentalism. I was on the award committee that chose all these titles, and you can read more about them here.

'Praise for Craig Davidson'

Could you even publish an edgy, violent boxing novel without the requisite quote from Chuck Palahniuk? I mean, this actually looks good, and there are a ton of other big name blurbs, but the first thing I did when this galley landed on my desk was look for the quote from Chuck P...

It's the end of the world, as we know it...

What is it about post-apocalyptic novels that are so enthralling? I think that, for many of us, it has something to do with putting ourselves in that kind of situation. Who DIDN'T imagine wandering around the United States after Captain Tripps hit in The Stand (because, of course, surely each of us would have been immune, right?!)? Jim Crace, a Whitbread First-Novel winner and National Book Critics Circle award winner, has a decidedly literary entry into this genre with The Pesthouse. There is a great balance here between story and circumstance, with the focus mainly on two young survivors making their way east in the hopes of catching a boat to Europe, where things may or may not be any better. Crace is a superb writer, to the point where I wonder if he is TOO good to write a novel such as this. Will his fans appreciate the sci-fi elements here, and will sci-fi fans appreciate his command of the language. Time will tell, I suppose. I'll make up my own mind when I see how he ends the story...

On a related note, when I sat down to write this, I was thinking of a novel very much like The Stand that I read forever ago. It took some searching, but I finally found Swan Song by Robert McCammon. I was amazed to find that I've been attributing this novel to the wrong author for years. While I wasn't sure of the title, I have always thought Dan Simmons wrote this story. I'm wrong about a lot of things, so this is one less thing I'll screw up in the future!

Booksense Blurbs

I am just lame enough to be proud when my blurbs are chosen for Booksense recommendations. I just found out this one was chosen for April!

THE RAW SHARK TEXTS, by Steven Hall (Canongate, $24, 9781841959115 / 1841959111) "Imagine Jaws as a literary mash-up eating its way through the contemporary information explosion. Now, imagine this creature has developed a taste for you...and only you. Hall pushes the boundaries of fiction and design in this unique first novel." --Colin Rea, University of Oregon Bookstore, Eugene, OR

Yes, I'm going to talk about un-Forthcoming Books too...

One of the 5 or so books I'm reading right now is Finn by Jon Clinch. Clinch endeavors to tell the story of Huck's father, as a way to possibly explain the forces that shaped young Huck. This is not a book you tear through. It is blunt and brutal, as the story of Finn would have to be. But the writing is both spare and beautiful. I'm fascinated by the juxtaposition of brutality and beauty, both in this book and in the last great movie I saw, Pan's Labyrinth. Twain's Huck Finn is easily one of the greatest American novels, and Clinch is brave to link his debut to such history, but thus far he really pulls it off.

Here be that cover.

New Chuck

I just got a galley of the new Chuck Palahniuk's fiction. I say fiction, because it's REALLY hard to call any of his books 'novels.' They just don't play out that way, or so I understand. Now is probably the time to admit that, while I've handsold them for years now, I've never actually read any Chuck P. I've read bits here and there, and heard him speak a few times, but school and PNBA Award Committee reading has often gotten in the way. As I am now about a week from being done with school, I'm moving RANT up on my stack. If the cover is any indicator, Chuck may break several of his own records in terms of the number of people who pass out during his book tour readings...

Start

I've started this site for two reasons... the first to make general comments on books that are presented to me as a front-list book buyer, both good and bad. The other is to help me remember those books I found interesting, so that when they actually hit the store many months from now, I'll know what I wanted to focus on. Keeping found things found, and all of that...