Ha!
Comments(2)Link from Bookslut: “I’m a geeky bookworm, so I don’t attract guys.“
2 more lunch break books
Comments(0)60. Cycler by Lauren McLaughlin (Random House, 8/2008). YA. I have been reading a LOT of YA the last few weeks, trying to pick out what the YA book discussion group will read September through December. And believe me, there is a blog post coming on the YA cliches that I was choking on through almost all of them. But not Cycler. From the first chapter, this book is weird as all get out, in the best possible way–I mean, you know from the beginning that the author is NOT messing around. The premise alone is fascinating: a teenage girl who, instead of getting cranky and suffering cramps during PMS, literally turns into a boy. And that boy, who is porn-loving and testosterone-high, is not happy about only getting 4 days a month, especially because he’s locked in their bedroom the whole time. The only cliche present was “the best friend who just don’t care what nobody thinks” (complete with odd sense of fashion), but to be fair, I haven’t read a new release YA book in the last two weeks without that trope. And it doesn’t change the fact that this was the sort of book that makes your eyes widen, and that you don’t want to put down. I don’t want to say anymore about the plot, but I will highly recommend this. Might do it for YA book discussion, but it’s definitely for mature teens, and I don’t want to leave out the 13 and 14 year-olds.
61. Arab In America written and illustrated by Toufic El Rassi (Last Gasp, 2007). Graphic novel. Very much liked this as well. I think most people instinctively know that being Arab in America is crappy, but this book makes it clear. It’s interesting that he describes his urge after the 9/11 attacks to say “it wasn’t me” to white people, because this book gave me that queasy urge to say “not all white people think this!” But you can’t blame him, or any Arab, for thinking that white Americans distrust and vilify Arabs, and El Rassi does a great job of pointing out the many places in which he and all Arabs (especially men) are stereotyped, patronized, and in danger. I also really like his illustration style and the way he uses shadows. Will probably put a staff pick in it.
Links and bits
Comments(1)First, blogs recently added to my reader and sidebar:
Norlight Lit Life: Just started by Northern Lights Books and Gifts, in Duluth, MN. I’ve been emailing with John of Northern Lights and he seems pretty awesome so I think this blog will be, too.
Zeitgeist: Just started by Bookazine. <3 Bookazine, <3 the idea of this blog and hope they keep it up.
Corpus Libris: I can’t even describe this blog, you just have to go look at it. I saw it last night and since I came into work this morning, have been on the look out for a book I could use for a picture!
Also: I cannot go to Bookstream’s TitleWave event on Monday because not only is it Musikfest (groan), but Janis Ian is doing an event here from 1-2pm, so it’s all hands on deck. But Mid-Atlantic-area booksellers reading this blog should! Free baked goods, people! Also, Princeton is home to my favorite ice cream shop in the world. And you get to hang out with booksellers, which is second only to a good night’s sleep in terms of recharging.
Finally, a fascinating book that I finished yesterday after being handed it by Head Buyer: Ghettonation: A Journey Into the Land of Bling and the Home of the Shameless (59).I’m not linking to her site because it only links chains, but you might check that out too. Basically, Cora Daniels is theorizing that the “ghetto mindset” has infected every corner of society, all classes, races, etc. And she makes a great case. Further, the book is just plain fun to read. I would definitely recommend it; pick it up and read any random piece, you’ll definitely want to read the whole thing. Also reading at work: Comic Book Tattoo, a collection of short comics based on Tori Amos songs. Which I had to order in, because that is a book aimed straight at my heart. I’ve been reading pieces here and there, though, and I have to say a number of them have been disappointing in one way or another. But enough of them have been good that I will probably end up getting it. It really is a stellar collection of writers and artists, and obviously the source material is solid, but I’ve been kind of bored by some of the stories, or they’re too short. On the other hand, it’s been really cool to see which direction people have taken many of the songs. So, I’d recommend it for Tori fans–lawd knows they’re legion–but I’m not sure how other people will respond.
Fiction about Beijing
Quick link: as seen in Shelf Awareness, an article in the Guardian that lists the author’s top 10 books on Beijing. Here’s the list:
- Beijing Coma by Ma Jian
- Please Don’t Call Me Human by Wang Shuo
- A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li
- The Uninvited by Yan Geling
- The Crazed by Ha Jin
- The Last Empress by Anchee Min
- Serve the People by Yan Lianke
- I Love Dollars by Zhu Wen
- The Dragon’s Tail by Adam Williams
- Beijing Doll by Chun Sue
Little-known fact about Bookavore: in an attempt to make my specialty as obscure and useless as possible, I not only got my BA in East Asian Studies, I also spent a year writing my honors thesis on a particular type of contemporary Chinese literature that I called the “body poetics literature,” of which Beijing Doll was one. To make it a soundbite: it was pretty much Chinese chick lit. But there’s a lot going on under the surface of the books, if you’re looking for it (which, having a thesis to write, I did). I’ve noticed a lot of people are surprised that the rising generation of Chinese aren’t pushing for democracy and reform–there are a lot of factors involved in this, of course, but if you want a look into some of the reasons why, read Beijing Doll (or the other two books I focused on, Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui and Candy by Mian Mian).
Anyway, of this list, I would also highly recommend I Love Dollars, and Please Don’t Call Me Human (or anything by Wang Shuo). Haven’t read Beijing Coma yet, but it’s in my stack to be read. I also am very fond of Xiaolu Guo, who is not on this list, author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, which I had as a staff pick for awhile and is recently in PB. She also has a new book coming out next month (I believe) that I adored, called 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth. If I remember correctly, this was a book published in Chinese originally several years ago, and recently translated and published in English. Good great awesome, definitely recommended.
Suggestions wanted
I have a FAQ to hand out to local authors, but I find that the format doesn’t work at all. So I’m starting something new: a “do’s” list. No don’ts. Well, there are don’ts, but I’m structuring this to be as positive as possible. I’m pasting my current list here, and would welcome any additions or comments. And lest anybody think I’m over-the-top here, I have only included suggestions that would have helped at least 3 people. In other words, at least three people had to make a mistake for me to include it here. I think every event coordinator in America will back me up. Et voila:
Derived from the many event requests we receive, here are some do’s about asking an independent bookstore for a signing (guaranteed to work for the Moravian Book Shop, almost guaranteed to work for any other indie bookstore), and making that signing as good as possible:
- Do show us that you support independent bookstores—if you want us to support you, we want to know that you’re supporting us! Include a link on your website to www.indiebound.org, the website for locating your local independent bookstore, or link directly to your favorite indie store. (Not sure why we think indies are a better choices for communities and for authors? Check out this link [NB: I will be inserting a link here later].) Do not advise us that your book can be purchased at Amazon, Borders, or Barnes & Noble, or their websites. As a matter of company policy, we do not purchase from our direct competition, and we don’t like being told to do so.
- Do spell everything correctly, including spelling the title of your book consistently. This also includes spelling my name correctly. It’s a very common name, spelled correctly everywhere on our website and on my business card. Keep in mind that this is the first contact I’ll have with you as an author, and if your email/letter has multiple mistakes, I’ll assume your book isn’t any better. One or two typos are human and won’t kill an application, but multiple mistakes will, every time. I go out of my way to respond to every application, but I’ve had a few that are so bad that I wouldn’t even respond.
- Do be aware that it’s even odds that a woman will be the one reading your letter or email. “Dear Sir” no longer cuts it here in the 21st century.
- Do let us know about your great reviews and publicity! Don’t be afraid to talk yourself up; if you don’t do it, who will?
- Do be ready to self-promote when you do the event, as well. Everybody from bestselling authors with publicists from major houses, to self-published authors with a debut book, have to do it. Sitting at the table and reading a book will not sell your book. Avoiding eye contact will not sell your book. Being friendly, talking to people as they walk by, and being ready to answer questions will sell your book. If you’re not comfortable with this, maybe an in-store event is not the best way for you to promote your book.
- Do be ready to provide your book to the store if you are self-published or published by a print-on-demand company. We do not buy directly from xlibris, PublishAmerica, AuthorHouse, or other similar companies because of numerous problems we’ve had with them. We will offer to buy them from you at a 40% discount, on a returnable basis, which is standard for the book industry.
What do you think? Booksellers, what would you add? Authors, what else do you want to know?
10 Easy Steps to IndieBound
You may have noticed a certain bookavore lurking in this week’s Bookselling This Week in this article, “10 Easy Steps to IndieBound.” Thanks to Paige at ABA for helping to make my incoherent rambling IndieBound to-do list into something that has the potential to be of use to other people! In other BTW news, I found this article about maybe doing a reading marathon VERY intriguing. I am fond of saying that if reading were an Olympic sport, I would represent my country with pride. This is not the same thing, really, but still interesting.
And one more media link: an article in PW this week about Book Buddies, a program that I love being a part of! Really, I get paid (by my store) to occasionally go hang out in another bookstore with other booksellers who I love. How does one woman get so lucky, I ask you.
Cory Doctorow
Today, YA book group spoke with Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother. The conversation actually ended up being as much about politics as books, but if you’re read Little Brother, that probably won’t come as much of a surprise. Below, some selected quotes from the conversation (thanks to Cory for allowing me to re-print them; I have done minimal editing for the sake of comprehension and flow):
On reading and writing YA:
“My favorite author has always been Daniel Pinkwater, whose Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars may just be the perfect YA novel (though he also has a YA novel called Young Adult Novel that gives it a run for its money). However, I started writing YA after some of my writer pals got into it and showed me how much fun it could be — and how cool it was to have young readers, who engage with text in a way that adults rarely do, using it as both a guide to how the world works and something to argue with when it doesn’t match their views and experiences. The first one to help me see this was Kathe Koja, whom I got to know when she was writing “splatterpunk” graphic horror novels like THE CIPHER. She gave it up to write YA — actually let the horror books all go out of print, which I think is a real shame — and had nothing but good things to say about the experience (plus her fiction kicked 11 kinds of ass). Then my friends Justine Larbalastier and Scott Westerfeld (they’re married) started writing YA too, and they were clearly having a high old time at it — we stayed with them in Australia while I was passing through on a lecture tour on our way to Tokyo just as Justine was finishing up her second or third book, and we had all these great talks about what made YA fic work and how it was different from writing for adults.”
When we asked how writing YA is different than writing for adults, he linked to a recent essay he wrote for Locus Magazine (very good, definitely worth reading), and quoted from it:
“Writing for young people is really exciting. As one YA writer told me, “Adolescence is a series of brave, irreversible decisions.” One day, you’re someone who’s never told a lie of consequence; the next day you have, and you can never go back. One day, you’re someone who’s never done anything noble for a friend, the next day you have, and you can never go back. Is it any wonder that young people experience a camaraderie as intense as combat-buddies? Is it any wonder that the parts of our brain that govern risk-assessment don’t fully develop until adulthood? Who would take such brave chances, such existential risks, if she or he had a fully functional risk-assessment system? So young people live in a world characterized by intense drama, by choices wise and foolish and always brave. This is a book-plotter’s dream. Once you realize that your characters are living in this state of heightened consequence, every plot-point acquires moment and import that keeps the pages turning.
And also:
“Risk-taking behavior — including ill-advised social, sexual, and substance adventures — are characteristic of youth itself, so it’s natural that anything that co-occurs with youth, like SF or TV or video games, will carry the blame for them. However, the frightened and easily offended are doing a better job than they ever have of collapsing the horizons of young people, denying them the pleasures of gathering in public or online for fear of meteor-strike-rare lurid pedophile bogeymen, or on the pretense of fighting gangs or school shootings or some other tabloid horror. Literature may be the last escape available to young people today. It’s an honor to be writing for them.”
This is a long conversation, so I’ve posted the rest of it after the jump. Read on for his thoughts on Obama, American politics, and the three crucial things teens need to do if they still want to have rights when they become adults: Read more »
Book tattoos
My mom just sent me the a link to this recent article in PW about book-related tattoos and told me to blog about it. And I learned long ago to ALWAYS listen to my mom. Sooooooooooo.
If you could see me in person, my position on book-related tattoos would be clear, as during the summer, when I wear short sleeves, 3 of them are visible at all times. I love them! I think they’re pretty and some have meaning to me (some I just got the idea in my head and went for it). In chronological order: I started with the alphabet in my favorite font, Zapfino (a literary tramp stamp, if you will). “words, words, words” in a loop around my left wrist; do you know which play this comes from? “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” around my right bicep from “Ulysses” by Alfred Lord Tennyson. “it’s pretty, but is it Art?” on my left rib cage from “The Conundrum of the Workshops” by Rudyard Kipling. An Old English word that my mom and I got together. And the latest, only a few months old: Jules Feiffer’s ink drawings of Rhyme and Reason on the outsides of my breasts, and on my right rib cage, Reason’s quote, “Whenever you learn something new, the whole world becomes that much richer.” Coming up in the future: a half sleeve that has nothing to do with books, and I also plan to fill in my left leg from knee to ankle with my favorite children’s picture book characters (Eloise, Mr. & Mrs. Mallard followed by Jack Kack Lack Mack Nack Ouack Pack and Quack, Grumpy Bird, something from Tim Egan, &etc &etc). I’m working on a tattoo related to Alan Moore’s Promethea. And there’s a few more I think about from time to time. The only thing that ever holds me back is funds.
So yeah, I think they’re fun! Personally, I think the best reason to get a tattoo is because you think it would be pretty–”having meaning” is good too, I think, but it is ultimately an aesthetic decision. I get a little fussy when people talk down on tattoos that aren’t deep somehow. There is nothing deep about the alphabet on my back. It’s just purty, in my favorite font. The one that my mom and I share has meaning, so I’m not saying that’s a terrible idea, just that I dislike the sentiment I hear frequently that tattoos HAVE to mean something. That’s one of the cool things about book tattoos, because they have meaning on some level, but they’re not JUST about meaning. If that makes any sense. I’m rambling! Ignore this paragraph!
The most common question I get after “did that hurt?” (which: um…….yeah! and here’s the answer to the follow-up question, “what does it feel like?” It feels like exactly what it is, which is a very sharp needle going into your skin over and over very quickly) is, “Don’t you think you’ll regret that someday?” Usually said with a certain degree of smugness, as though I will suddenly realize my mistake! and be forever grateful that FINALLY somebody pointed it out to me! And yeah, maybe I will–although I hope to be struck down by a falling shelf of books if I ever regret inking myself with Shakespeare. But even if I do, I hope I can remain open-minded enough to remember that these were all important to me once, and on the strength of that alone, I won’t regret it.
Another thing I like about them in general is that they keep me off the straight and narrow. When I got the second one done (around my wrist), I knew that it would automatically disqualify me for a number of jobs–all jobs I would be miserable doing, but that I could see myself taking out of fear, confusion or a desire to please someone (a bad habit of mine). They’re a gift from my irresponsible self, keeping my responsible self from making my life miserable. Which is, at least somewhat, why I am a bookseller and not a–well I don’t even know what, some sort of job where you wear suits and heels and carry a Blackberry everywhere.
IndieBound in pictures
Sorry for my continued absences. I’m still getting the hang of having a second job in my schedule (although barista is not a bad job to add to bookselling–I’ve been selling books while serving coffee!) But I did definitely want to post about how my store has been promoting and using IndieBound. Monday and Tuesday of this week we changed the windows to promote, changed one of our main display tables to echo the windows, and changed the BookSense Picks table to the Indie Next List table. I’ve also started explaining all the ins and outs of the changes to each bookseller in the store individually, and so far the response has been GREAT! I couldn’t have hoped for a more excitement and acceptance.
So, here’s a picture of the EAT SLEEP READ window to whet your appetite:
And here’s the link to a Flickr set of pictures from the last two days: IndieBound photos. Enjoy, and feedback VERY welcome. I’ll keep updating our progress with IndieBound as it occurs–my next step is to start playing with and using the Identity Manager. What has your store done with IndieBound so far, or what are you working on?
In-store update
Lots of goings-on here in the store. We’re gearing up to finally have a sizable manga section and expand our graphic novel section (YAY!), so I’ve been working on those opening orders piecemeal all day. Suggestions welcome; so far my order is based around the most popular series. This expansion is being accompanied by a big floor and shelving move in the kids’ department that will probably take the better part of the month to get completely done. And we have a ton of great events coming up, including a midnight release for Breaking Dawn, the latest Twilight book, and a big big big children’s author in October.
On top of all this, I thought it would be a great time to start up a weekly e-newsletter from the store, to go out every Tuesday morning. Head Buyer named it The Bookmark, which seemed overly simple to me at first, but it has since grown on me. We’ve been shocked by the great response! I thought people were so sick of email that we’d have half the list unsubscribe, but we’ve only had a few people drop it. And surprisingly, we even had people ask to be added to the list. In a personal triumph, I even got an email from a customer saying how impressed she was! So, definitely worth losing a piece of my Monday. I’ll gladly add you to it as well–just email my work email (stephanie at moravianbookshop dot com).
O yeah, and I think I almost understand co-op, thanks to Melissa Lion and a boatload of prompt and brilliant sales reps. Melissa kindly provided her notes from her days in co-op, which helped settle a lot of random questions I had. Thanks Melissa! Then I wrote an email to all my big reps Wednesday, and by Friday I had heard from almost everybody at least once–giving me more information and ideas, answering my questions, and being excited for me that we’re finally doing it. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 my sales reps!
Link of the day, sent from NAIBA: an intriguing article by Nicki Leone, a former/current bookseller, on her idea of the perfect online bookstore. Very intriguing for those of us looking to the future decades of bookselling.
In an attempt to catch up the books I’ve been reading, here are some recent lunchtime reads, one sentence each:
57. Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron (FSG, 2007). YA fiction. A sweet and captivating story that is as quiet as its protagonist but also just as powerful.
58. One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding by Rebecca Mead (The Penguin Press, 2007). Hahaha, this was my staff pick for my newsletter last week, so I can just cut and paste its description here: “Now that we’re in the thick of wedding season, Mead’s book makes great reading for anybody planning or attending a wedding. She looks at how the wedding industry grew to its current size (over $160 billion a year!) and what weddings mean in modern-day America. Her writing is funny and well-researched, with fascinating information like the fact that there are occasionally rivalries between Las Vegas wedding chapels, and that the diamond engagement ring didn’t become traditional until after World War II. This might not make a good wedding present, but you could slip it to the mother of the bride or the maid of honor!” Let me just add that if you are trying to convince somebody to elope, rather than have a wedding, this would be a good choice.
59. The Facebook Book: A Satirical Companion by Greg Atwan & Evan Lushing, illustrated by Aurora Andrews (Abrams Image, just out). I mean, this is pretty funny if you use Facebook, which I do; not sure if it would make sense to the other 85% of the country. But then, it’s not supposed to. (Why, I remember when my college had to sign a petition to get ourselves on Facebook! And then we had to walk to dinner barefoot in the snow uphill both ways! And then we all felt silly when the whole world could get on Facebook without any trouble 18 months later! I’m just never sure who will buy a book like this, because though it’s funny, I don’t think I’d read it again. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure who would buy The Truth About Chuck Norris, and we’ve sold 75 copies of that since November. So clearly I know nothing about the appeal of novelty books about the internet.)
I swear I’ll blog the rest of the great unread masses soon. It’s just that when I get home from work, I prefer to read books, rather than write about them. Which probably explains why I have chosen bookselling, rather than book reviewing, as a career.
