In darker moments I wonder if I'm seeing the future.
"The days when Sag Harbor was known as a writers' colony are over," says a local estate agent. "They can't afford the rent any more." Indeed, to rent a three-bedroom cottage from Memorial Day to Labor Day (the period that constitutes the summer in America) now costs at least $75,000."
The article goes on to say that the drunken brawls between writers are a thing of the past, and the shaky economy and book trade are likely to blame.
Listen, if writers can't afford to drink anymore....
"That, in turn, means fewer service jobs available in high-visibility eateries, an alternative way to keep body and soul together for less successful writers. "If my next book isn't a hit I'm thinking of becoming an interior decorator," says a well-known author whose first novel won a series of prizes. "Either that, or write a memoir called My 100 Worst Dates – And the Ice-Cream Recipes That Got Me Through."
The only thing worse than reading a memoir with that title would be reading it sober.
Posted by David
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
and yet I love you all
I'm late on this, but lest the joys of retail be lost on those who've landed elsewhere, the Australian bookseller experience is pretty much accurate.
"Browse or buy? I had one guy come in three or four days in a row and read the same book for about two hours. Some fantasy. So, when he left on that fourth day, I said, "You know, there's a library just around the corner there." We actually like people to spend some time, that's why we have couches, but he was halfway through the book.
Confusing requests? A woman was buying a book for her mother's birthday and I asked what sort. She said "either a book on Elvis or some kind of lesbian anthology".
Dumb questions? The worst question I've had was "Which is the best book?" You sort of sit there dumbfounded."
These sorts of articles are pretty common, but I've never understood why oddball behaviour is any more illustrative of the human condition in bookstores than anywhere else. I'd imagine a hardware store is pretty good fodder for comedy as well.
Posted by David
"Browse or buy? I had one guy come in three or four days in a row and read the same book for about two hours. Some fantasy. So, when he left on that fourth day, I said, "You know, there's a library just around the corner there." We actually like people to spend some time, that's why we have couches, but he was halfway through the book.
Confusing requests? A woman was buying a book for her mother's birthday and I asked what sort. She said "either a book on Elvis or some kind of lesbian anthology".
Dumb questions? The worst question I've had was "Which is the best book?" You sort of sit there dumbfounded."
These sorts of articles are pretty common, but I've never understood why oddball behaviour is any more illustrative of the human condition in bookstores than anywhere else. I'd imagine a hardware store is pretty good fodder for comedy as well.
Posted by David
Monday, August 25, 2008
no rest for the vacationless...
although this ol' soapbox hasn't been up to much.
The shop has gotten a new computer system that has taken most of the month to figure out and now it's time to go into the fall busy season.
August is traditionally the slow time of year, but most of us haven't been this tired in a long time.
In the last few days, we've been dismayed by the passing of Rod Hay, one of our favourite people and a man who had read pretty much everything.
Apologies, but I never did get to the review of Gail Bowen's new novel, but the locals were pretty excited about it.
More after a drink and a bit of sleep.
Posted by David
The shop has gotten a new computer system that has taken most of the month to figure out and now it's time to go into the fall busy season.
August is traditionally the slow time of year, but most of us haven't been this tired in a long time.
In the last few days, we've been dismayed by the passing of Rod Hay, one of our favourite people and a man who had read pretty much everything.
Apologies, but I never did get to the review of Gail Bowen's new novel, but the locals were pretty excited about it.
More after a drink and a bit of sleep.
Posted by David
Friday, August 22, 2008
Friday, August 08, 2008
Monday, August 04, 2008
Surely not as bleak as this?
Or maybe it is.
I think I'm seeing a few more major dudes around the shop of late, although this Stephanie Meyer craze is decidedly female heavy.
But Christ, it's not like guys have to do a whole lot of work to find a kick ass equivalent.
Still it's different for girls.
Link via Bookslut
I think I'm seeing a few more major dudes around the shop of late, although this Stephanie Meyer craze is decidedly female heavy.
But Christ, it's not like guys have to do a whole lot of work to find a kick ass equivalent.
Still it's different for girls.
Link via Bookslut
That's about right
Our man in Washington applauds Gargoyle, the much anticipated first novel by Andrew Davidson.
"The Christian mythology gets a bit heavy toward the end, and The Gargoyle is overcooked by at least 75 pages, but nothing is certain in this swirling novel of tales and legends. The narrator has seen enough horror movies to know that "a burn victim may 'get the girl' -- but usually only with a pickax." After all, he admits, "Marianne Engel's love for me seemed built on so flimsy a premise that I assumed it would come apart." Nothing he -- or you -- can assume about this spectacularly imaginative journey will help navigate its twists and turns. Before it's all over, like Dante before him, our narrator must visit Hades, and like every chapter of The Gargoyle, that's a hell of a story, too."
He's right on all counts.
Andrew Davidson drops by on Sept. 25, but the book will be on the shelves tomorrow.
Also dropping tomorrow, is the new Andrew Pyper. The Killing Circle is another winner from one of my favourite Canadian writers. The guy has a bazooka for a narrative and literary chops to burn.
Pyper's most intriguing talent lies in keeping his man characters almost entirely separate from what goes on around them until just the right time in the plot. Everything unfolds at the right time, the pace is quick, but measured and for me reading the Killing Circle was like watching a master carpenter.
The main character Patrick Rush is recovering from his wife's death and after floundering at his TV-related job, he decides to channel the novel he thinks is in him and joins a writer's circle. Shortly after the only real talent in the group reads aloud, Patrick finds himself at the centre of a series of murders; and soon after members of the Circle start to disappear.
Excellent stuff, this.
I'm going to enjoy turning both crime fans and literary types onto this one.
Note the appearances at Words Worth and Word on the Street.
Posted by David
"The Christian mythology gets a bit heavy toward the end, and The Gargoyle is overcooked by at least 75 pages, but nothing is certain in this swirling novel of tales and legends. The narrator has seen enough horror movies to know that "a burn victim may 'get the girl' -- but usually only with a pickax." After all, he admits, "Marianne Engel's love for me seemed built on so flimsy a premise that I assumed it would come apart." Nothing he -- or you -- can assume about this spectacularly imaginative journey will help navigate its twists and turns. Before it's all over, like Dante before him, our narrator must visit Hades, and like every chapter of The Gargoyle, that's a hell of a story, too."
He's right on all counts.
Andrew Davidson drops by on Sept. 25, but the book will be on the shelves tomorrow.
Also dropping tomorrow, is the new Andrew Pyper. The Killing Circle is another winner from one of my favourite Canadian writers. The guy has a bazooka for a narrative and literary chops to burn.
Pyper's most intriguing talent lies in keeping his man characters almost entirely separate from what goes on around them until just the right time in the plot. Everything unfolds at the right time, the pace is quick, but measured and for me reading the Killing Circle was like watching a master carpenter.
The main character Patrick Rush is recovering from his wife's death and after floundering at his TV-related job, he decides to channel the novel he thinks is in him and joins a writer's circle. Shortly after the only real talent in the group reads aloud, Patrick finds himself at the centre of a series of murders; and soon after members of the Circle start to disappear.
Excellent stuff, this.
I'm going to enjoy turning both crime fans and literary types onto this one.
Note the appearances at Words Worth and Word on the Street.
Posted by David
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Arts & Letters Daily has most of the needed links around the Russian greats death, but amongst them DerSpiegel is extensive.
I've only read required school texts, but Solzhenitsyn was a giant certainly, and the Gulag Archipelago will stand forever as the text that laid bare Stalin's labour camps.
Posted by David
I've only read required school texts, but Solzhenitsyn was a giant certainly, and the Gulag Archipelago will stand forever as the text that laid bare Stalin's labour camps.
Posted by David
Saturday, August 02, 2008
step up to the global flea market
I'm late on this, but with the news that Amazon has bought the Advanced Book Exchange, it's not good news for the established used and rare booksellers out there.
Bibliofind is proof positive that things are gong to get tough out there for the second hand trade.
Obviously online sales are a pretty important revenue stream in used book stores and ABE already ticked off their vendors recently.
The homogenization argument is easy enough to make, but the dollars and cents aspect will make itself known first.
Posted by David
Bibliofind is proof positive that things are gong to get tough out there for the second hand trade.
Obviously online sales are a pretty important revenue stream in used book stores and ABE already ticked off their vendors recently.
The homogenization argument is easy enough to make, but the dollars and cents aspect will make itself known first.
Posted by David
She seems nice
Stephanie Meyer in the Wall Street Journal.
"As a kid, reading was my favorite thing. A ton of kids tell me, "I never read much before this. I only did it for school." You have to get kids the right book. You need to give them something in the classroom to remind them that books are also entertainment."
I've never read the series and YA isn't really my thing. My vampires have a bit more bite in them. But this is clearly her day, and perhaps her year.
Full marks to Meyer for stating the both the obvious and the revolutionary.
Posted by David
"As a kid, reading was my favorite thing. A ton of kids tell me, "I never read much before this. I only did it for school." You have to get kids the right book. You need to give them something in the classroom to remind them that books are also entertainment."
I've never read the series and YA isn't really my thing. My vampires have a bit more bite in them. But this is clearly her day, and perhaps her year.
Full marks to Meyer for stating the both the obvious and the revolutionary.
Posted by David
Friday, August 01, 2008
It's likely the aren't big readers either
Andrew (Be Near Me) O'Hagan mourns the loss of British pub culture.
"I've gone from being someone who stopped in at a pub several times a week when I was younger - and practically living there when I was a student - to hating pubs.
Many of the establishments are so pressed for custom that they will do anything to fill their bar - mainly selling toxic drinks in devastating quantities to kids who consider a good night out to be one that ends in copious vomiting.
I grew up knowing very well the dangers of excessive drinking, but most of that was done in private, at home or in the street, while social drinking was a matter for the pub. On Coronation Street, the Rovers Return seemed a perfectly typical hub of community life, where - believe it or not - conversations took place and business was done and views were exchanged.
Young and old used to meet in the pub, as did the differently educated (in Corrie, Ken Barlow would be at one end of the bar reading the London Review of Books while his rival, Mike Baldwin, would be at the other end chatting up the barmaid)."
In times past, the crowd I drank with used to read the London Review of Books and chat up the barmaids.
Posted by David
"I've gone from being someone who stopped in at a pub several times a week when I was younger - and practically living there when I was a student - to hating pubs.
Many of the establishments are so pressed for custom that they will do anything to fill their bar - mainly selling toxic drinks in devastating quantities to kids who consider a good night out to be one that ends in copious vomiting.
I grew up knowing very well the dangers of excessive drinking, but most of that was done in private, at home or in the street, while social drinking was a matter for the pub. On Coronation Street, the Rovers Return seemed a perfectly typical hub of community life, where - believe it or not - conversations took place and business was done and views were exchanged.
Young and old used to meet in the pub, as did the differently educated (in Corrie, Ken Barlow would be at one end of the bar reading the London Review of Books while his rival, Mike Baldwin, would be at the other end chatting up the barmaid)."
In times past, the crowd I drank with used to read the London Review of Books and chat up the barmaids.
Posted by David
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