Everybody does it. I look at the books around me every day in the bookstore and I imagine the books I don’t see; the books I’m unlikely to ever see published, or even written. It isn’t a symptom of dissatisfaction with the books there are. Every day I get to work in the bookstore I …
There is doubtless a right way to do this sort of thing. People do it all the time. Professionals, even. No doubt careful planning, experience, good taste, connections, all of that is required to successfully launch a new book. I’m sure that’s right. Good times. On the other hand… When one has produced just a …
The Holidays can make the strangest of bedfellows, no? And here I don’t mean that awkward combination of cousins in Grandma’s guest room, but rather gifts, givers, and books. One of the deep mysteries of working the retail Season, as it were, has always been the unlikely and unpredictable popularity of this or that title …
Ah, well. So long as there are bookstores, there will be these little difficulties, won’t there? Nothing to be done about it. Even were our problems “as many as my hairs”, I would still count myself lucky to have a job in books, even when that job requires the little patience needed to answer the …
I’m in a rather Biblical state of mind. Not usual for me—but then having grown up in the fly-over, I suppose it was inescapable that now and again my point of reference should be Old Testament. Signs and wonders and all that, signs and wonders. The difficulty is avoiding the prophetic voice. In the first …
There may not be a lot on which one may still count in the book business nowadays. Terms change. Publishers merge. Books go out of print. That first customer of the day? Just came in to use the phone. Ain’t always easy, pushing literature. That’s why, I suspect so many of us still cling to …
You know how it’s okay to make fat jokes if—and only if—one is fat? Well, I’m fat. I also sport a relatively long white beard. Santa Claus references will happen. I get that. One gets you a pass. Two, I start to get a little testy. Three and I’m going to use the wart on …
We’re always going on about the unique virtues and contributions of Independent Bookstores: how socially responsible we are, how community-based we are, how committed to books and literacy, tradition and innovation and on and on. True, if we weren’t around anymore—perish the thought—our customers would be without a major cultural resource, without a convivial, if …
If I had to say what I do for a living, I’d say I buy and sell books–though it’s calendars mostly at the moment. Anyway, I’m proud to have the word “bookseller” after my name on various forms and documents. Mine’s an honorable occupation, and I’m part of a long and largely respectable tradition. It’s …
My very dear immediate supervisor, regretting the imminent departure of a coworker for greener pastures, rather hilariously suggested in front me—of all people—that when she goes, there will be no one left on staff who, like said, very dear immediate supervisor, occasionally lets slip that best old English word for sexual congress. (You know the …
