New Albany Books Daily

Changes for New Albany Books Daily

2009-03-07T15:33:00.003-05:00

We've decided to transition and consolidate our writing at one place on our regular Web site, www.destinationsbooksellers.com. New Albany Books Daily will no longer have active new posts. We'll maintain this archive of past writing, but if you want to follow us, change your bookmarks accordingly.

Thank you to readers who followed us here at Blogger, and thanks to Blogger for providing the platform.

Bookselling and Community

2009-03-07T15:30:00.002-05:00

While amazon.com is famously cheap in its prices, it's also become infamously cheap to the community it lives in. The tacit silence over amazon's stinginess was first broken in a 2007 complaint on a Publishers Weekly blog by a rival Seattle bricks-and-mortar bookseller. When Paul Constant, books editor at the Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger, followed up on the post last year, he hit a stone wall: "[amazon.com] has refused to return repeated e-mails and calls from The Stranger about the company's seemingly nonexistent contributions to the Seattle arts scene," he wrote at the time. "Internet searches for any sign of philanthropy on behalf of the company prove fruitless."

Read Paul Collins' complete report at http://www.slate.com/id/2213037/.

What 2009 Brings to the Book World

2008-12-14T12:15:00.004-05:00

Encounter the peaks and the lows of the roller coaster of Diana Joseph's life in her new book, I'm Sorry You Feel That Way. In this exciting and heartening narrative, Diana introduces the men most important to her, or in her case the ones who seem the most important. The first being her son, who she throughout the book refers to as "the boy". Next, there is her father with whom she has a very loose relationship with. He having only called her a handful of times in her life, gave her a warning about becoming a slut at the age of twelve. Needless to say, she didn't actually take his advice much to heart and she ended up having to put up with an ex-husband and a common-law husband. So join in on this memoir and she where modern life takes this sharp woman.

Throughout this book, I kept finding myself relating to Diana's feelings and just some of the hard times she was experiencing. She was a very friendly person, yet she only seemed to become acquaintances with boys. I, along with other females I'm sure, have the same feelings. Maybe it's just because I would pick shorts and some sneakers over a dress and heels any day. Or not, I just find it much easier to connect and be friends with males. Another characteristic that Diana and I both share is that we both find relief from our problems with humor. Diana cracked jokes right and left all through the book. Doing so, I think it lightens up the topic manner discussed in the book.

After I finished this book, I came to the realization of something unique about it. It wasn't like anything I have ever read before (this including of wide variety of literature for a 15 year old). Sure, I have read my share of memoirs but this one particularly stood out because of the tone it was written in. But since I was required by my English teacher to compare it to other literature, I would say that it reminded me of The Gravedigger's Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates. The reason for this is because both works have rather sad basis' of what happens, but the way it is written doesn't make it seem that bad at all. That is what makes these mutually splendid reads.

This manuscript is so relatable to the world that it constructs itself to actually be thought-provoking and capable of being read without a drop of boredom. I'm Sorry You Feel That Way investigates many otherwise known as untouchable subjects. Those of which include: raising a child without his father being around, being called promiscuous names, being promiscuous, and others. I'm pretty sure we all know these subjects happen and are apparent in everyday life. The book also mentions what it's like to get married and divorced, which is an unfortunate reality in our world today. Overall, this book is not out there and exaggerated, it's just the plain hard truth from a woman who's seen it all.

I'm Sorry You Feel That Way will be available March 2009 in hardcover for $23.95.
Call the store to pre-order yours today!
Click here to view Diana's website:
http://dianajoseph.net/

Book read & reviewed by:
Sophie Riggs

Indie Bestsellers

2008-11-25T17:45:00.006-05:00

You've probably not yet tried our secure, private, online purchasing tools at
http://www.destinationsbooksellers.com/.

We're making it easy to try. If you're a Patron Passport Rewards member, we'll rebate you 20% of the book purchase price on any of these Indie Bestsellers. And if you're not, call the store and find out how to become a member.

Bestseller List for December 4th, 2008
Based on sales for the week ending Sunday, November 30th, 2008.
Click on any title to buy it now. We'll rebate you 20% of the book's price.

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Private Patient - P.D. James, Knopf, $25.95, 9780307270771
2. Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski, Ecco, $25.95, 9780061374227
3. Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows, Dial, $22, 9780385340991
4. Hour I First Believed - Wally Lamb, Harper, $29.95, 9780060393496
5. A Mercy - Toni Morrison, Knopf, $23.95, 9780307264237
6. The Christmas Sweater - Glenn Beck, Threshold Editions, $19.99, 9781416594857
7. Gate House - Nelson DeMille, Grand Central, $27.99, 978044653342
8. Cross Country - James Patterson, Little Brown, $27.99, 9780316018722
9. Arctic Drift - Clive Cussler, Dirk Cussler, Putnam, $27.95, 9780399155291
10. Just After Sunset - Stephen King, Scribner, $28, 9781416584087
11. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson, Knopf, $24.95, 9780307269751
12. Divine Justice- David Baldacci, Grand Central, $27.99, 9780446195508
13. A Lion Among Men: Volume Three in the Wicked Years- Gregory Maguire, Morrow, $26.95, 9780060548926
14. Host - Stephenie Meyer, Little Brown, $25.99, 9780316068048
15. Most Wanted Man- John Le Carre, Scribner, $28, 9781416594888

On the Rise:

17. Ender in Exile - Orson Scott Card, Tor, $25.95, 9780765304964
The latest in the Ender series by the bestselling author of Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead.

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell, Little Brown, $27.99, 9780316017923
2. Dewey - Vicki Myron, Grand Central, $19.99, 9780446407410
3. Hot, Flat, and Crowded - Thomas L. Friedman, FSG, $27.95, 9780374166854
4. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House - Jon Meacham, Random House, $30, 9781400063253
5. Holidays on Ice - David Sedaris, Little Brown, $16.99, 9780316035903
6. Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics - Ina Garten, Clarkson Potter, $35, 9781400054350
7. Last Lecture - Randy Pausch, Hyperion, $21.95, 9781401323257
8. Goodnight Bush - Erich Origen, Gan Golan, Little Brown, $14.99, 9780316040419
9. Letter to My Daughter - Maya Angelou, Random House, $25, 9781400066124
10. Annie Leibovitz at Work - Annie Leibovitz, Random House, $40, 9780375505102
11. When You Are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris, Little Brown, $25.99, 9780316143479
12. Wordy Shipmates Sarah Vowell, Riverhead, $25.95, 9781594489990
13. Panic: The Story of Modern Financial Insanity - Michael Lewis, Norton, $27.95, 9780393065145
14. Alex & Me - Irene M. Pepperberg, Collins, $23.95, 9780061672477
15. Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life – Alice Schroeder, Bantam, $35, 9780553805093

On the Rise:

19. The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008 - Paul Krugman, Norton, $24.95, 9780393071016
A look at the global economic crisis by the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics.

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1.Shack – William P. Young, Windblown, $14.99, 9780964729230

2. Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz, Riverhead, $14, 9781594483295

3. White Tiger – Aravind Adiga, Free Press, $14, 9781416562603

4. Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini, Riverhead, $16, 9781594483851

5. Out Stealing Horses – Per Petterson, Picador, $14, 9780312427085

6. Elegance of the Hedgehog– Muriel Barbery, Europa Editions, $15, 9781933372600

7. Loving Frank - Nancy Horan, Ballantine, $14, 9780345495006

8. Run – Ann Patchett, Harper Perennial, $14.95, 9780061340642

9. Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen, Algonquin, $13.95, 9781565125605

10. Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd, Penguin, $14, 9780142001745

11. World Without End - Ken Follett, NAL, $22, 9780451224996

12. In the Woods - Tana French, Penguin, $14, 9780143113492

13. Hearts of Horses - Molly Gloss, Mariner, $13.95, 9780547085753

14. Road - Cormac McCarthy, Vintage, $14.95, 9780307387899

15. Bridge of Sighs – Richard Russo, Vintage, $14.95, 9781400030903

On the Rise:
21. An Incomplete Revenge – Jacqueline Winspear, Picador, $14, 9780312428181
The fifth novel in the popular Maisie Dobbs series is now available in paperback.

TRADE PAPERBACK NONFICTION

1. Dreams From My Father - Barack Obama, Three Rivers, $14.95, 9781400082773

2. Audacity of Hope - Barack Obama, Three Rivers, $14.95, 9780307237705

3. Three Cups of Tea – Greg Mortenson & David Oliver Relin, Penguin, $15, 9780143038252

4. Marley & Me-John Grogan, Harper, $13.95, 9780060817091
5. Musicophilia - Oliver Sacks, Vintage, $14.95, 9781400033539

6. Zookeeper's Wife - Diane Ackerman, Norton, $14.95, 978039333060

7. Omnivore’s Dilemma - Michael Pollan, Penguin, $16, 9780143038580
8. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - Barbara/Camille Kingsolver & Steven Hopp, Harper Perennial, $14.95, 9780660852566

9. The Nine – Jeffrey Toobin, Anchor, $15.95, 9781400096794
10. Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth- The Onion, Little Brown, $17.99, 9780316018432
11. Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert, Penguin, $15, 9780143038412

12. Old Farmer's Almanac 2009 - Old Farmer's Almanac, $6.95, 9781571984531
13. New Earth – Eckhart Tolle, Plume, $14, 9780452289963
14. World Almanac and Book of Facts 2009 - World Almanac, $12.99, 9781600571053
15. Listening Is an Act of Love - Dave Isay (Ed.), Penguin, $15, 9780143114345

CHILDREN'S INTEREST

1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book - Jeff Kinney, Amulet, $10.95, 9780810979772

2. Tale of Despereaux – Kate DiCamillo, Candlewick, $7.99, 9780763625290

3. Lump of Coal - Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist (Illus.), HarperCollins, $12.99, 9780061574283

4. Book Thief – Markus Zusak, Knopf, $11.99, 9780375842207

5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules - Jeff Kinney, Amulet, $12.95, 9780810994737

6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Jeff Kinney, Amulet, $12.95, 9780810993136

7.Mysterious Benedict Society – Trenton Lee Stewart, Little Brown, $6.99, 9780316003957

8.Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins, Scholastic, $17.99, 9780439023481

9.Boy in the Striped Pajamas - John Boyne, David Fickling, $8.99, 9780385751537

10. Inkdeath - Cornelia Funke, Chicken House, $24.99, 9780439866286

11. Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean (Illus.), Harper, $17.99, 9780060530921

12. Slam - Nick Hornby, Riverhead, $14, 9781594483455

13.Inkheart -
Cornelia Funke, Chicken House, $9.99, 9780439709101
14.Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope - Nikki Grimes, Bryan Collier (Illus.), S&S, $16.99, 9781416971443

15.Way We Work -
David Macaulay, Houghton Mifflin, $35, 9780618233786

CHILDREN'S ILLUSTRATED

1.Swing! -Rufus Butler Seder, Workman, $12.95, 9780761151272

2.Gallop! - Rufus Butler Seder, Workman, $12.95, 9780761147633

3.Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown - Clement Hurd (Illus.), Harper, $8.99, 9780694003617

4.Gingerbread Friends - Jan Brett, Putnam, $17.99, 9780399251610

5.Fancy Nancy: Let's Get Fancy Together! - Jane O'Connor, Robin Preiss Glasser (Illus.), HarperCollins, $17.99, 9780061576713

6.If You Give a Cat a Cupcake - Laura Joffe Numeroff, Felicia Bond (Illus.), Laura Geringer, $16.99, 9780060283247

7. A Very Marley Christmas - John Grogan, Richard Cowdrey (Illus.), HarperCollins, $17.99, 9780061372926

8.Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak, Harper, $17.95, 9780060254926

9.Twilight: The Complete Illustrated Movie Companion - Mark Cotta Vaz, Little Brown, $16.99, 9780316043137
10. How the Grinch Stole Christmas - Dr. Seuss, Random House, $14, 9780394800790

11.Brava, Strega Nona! - Tomie dePaola, Putnam, $29.99, 9780399244537

12. Story of Christmas - Carolyn Croll (Illus.), Workman, $15.95, 9780761152507

13.Fifteen Animals! - Sandra Boynton, Workman, $6.95, 9780761130666
14.Fancy Nancy Sees Stars - Jane O'Connor, Ted Enik (Illus.), HarperTrophy, $3.99, 9780061236112
15. ABC3D - Marion Bataille, Roaring Brook, $19.95, 9781596434257

A funny guy

2008-10-23T10:33:00.001-04:00

It can be hard for an author to stand out in a flood of new releases. I received this charming missive from an author this morning, and I enjoyed it so much, I thought you might want to read it, too.

Hello my very good friend (your name here)!

This isn't a full-blown newsletter. It's a half-blown newsletter to say I'm having a contest to give away some free books.

The free books in question are hardcover and trade paperback copies of AFRAID by Jack Kilborn.

Jack Kilborn is JA Konrath, and JA Konrath is me.

AFRAID is being released on November 13 in the UK. It's a very scary book. The US version is coming out in paperback in April. It's also a scary book. In fact, it's the exact same book, except in England they use single quotes rather than double quotes for dialog, and they spell words funny like 'realise' and 'centre' and 'colour.' Also, if you ask for a fag in Britain you get a cigarette, and in the US you get something else entirely.

For info about AFRAID, an excerpt, and the infamous AFRAID flash game, visit http://www.JackKilborn.com.

For info about how to win free books in the Official Jack Kilborn Halloween UK Afraid Contest, visit my blog at http://jakonrath.blogspot.com.

Now for the remainder of this mini-newsletter, here's a bunch of praise from famous authors that you're going to skim over or ignore completely...

"AFRAID is a masterpiece of unrelenting horror. And I'm not exaggerating. Masterpiece. It's the best piece of fiction I've read in several years. It simply NEVER lets up."
— James Rollins, NYT bestselling author of Black Order and The Judas Strain

"AFRAID stands shoulder to shoulder with the very best of Harris, Koontz, and King. A classic horror novel."
— Blake Crouch, author of Abandon

"The moment I heard about this book, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it."
— David Morrell, NYT bestselling author of Creepers and First Blood

"AFRAID is one of the most intense books I've ever read. This one takes no prisoners."
— Marcus Sakey, author of The Blade Itself

"An absolutely relentless nightmare, with some of the most deliciously nasty villains I've ever encountered in a book. Horror fans will be wiping blood out of their eyes with glee."
— Jeff Strand, author of Pressure

“Like the evil so rife in this book, Kilborn kicks down your psyche’s front door, barges into the middle of your spirit, and RAISES HOLY EVER-LIVING HELL. Never have I read a novel so gruesome and simultaneously relentless. This book throbs with unmitigated, inexorable. sheer friggin’ TERROR. You’ll probably need a shrink when you’re done.”
— Edward Lee, author of Brides of the Impaler

"AFRAID is the most cringe-inducing thriller I've read. Twisted, frightening, and definitely not for the fainthearted. I loved every terrifying page."
— Henry Perez, author of Killing Red

"AFRAID never lets the reader rest. Kilborn's debut will have you cheering for the underdog while checking your doors to make sure they're locked."
— Crimespree Magazine

"A startling novel, from its thrilling onset to horrific closing pages. Hands down, AFRAID by Jack Kilborn is perhaps the best psychological horror to come along since Silence of the Lambs."
— Michael Laimo, author of Dead Souls

"A bloody, terrifying, hurtling assault across a landscape of non-stop mayhem. A guilty, guilty pleasure."
— F. Paul Wilson, creator of Repairman Jack

"An amazing debut. I wish I'd written it."
— JA Konrath, author of Fuzzy Navel

Okay, the newsletter is over. Go back to doing whatever you were doing. And remember... I love you.

http://www.JAKonrath.com

The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter Memoir

2008-09-06T10:41:00.002-04:00

There's little doubt that this blog is read by adults - readers perhaps, parents perhaps - but few if any teens. Yet, I think there is value in talking to you about a singular memoir that, for whatever reason, has been parked in the young adult market by Bloomsbury.

: The Year We Disappeared

Cylin Busby's life was changed in an instant at the age of nine. She loved the Muppets and her pet box turtle. But when her police officer father (and co-author) John was the victim of an attempted assassination, everything changed.

The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter Memoir is their story of a life on the run, hiding out from the criminals who wanted John Busby dead.

I mention the book simply because you won't hear about it otherwise - and then you will. So very many books come out each year that it's hard for us, much less you, to know when a good one arrives unless the mass media (or Oprah) tell you to buy a book. Frankly, I resent that, but since our Web sites will never be mass media, I hope the discerning among you will investigate further (click on the image for more details or to buy it from us online).

Our Sophie has read the book and warns that it is not for the youngest - it's a little too scary and the injuries to John Busby are described quite graphically. But for a mature teen 14 and up, it's a gripping story. In fact, it offers the best of what books can do - it gives a life lesson in bravery that few will ever have to experience. It's important to know these things, but not quite necessary to live them.

For true crime aficionados or anyone looking for a remarkable memoir that will give you a great story to tell at your next watercooler stop, I invite you to check it out.

John Dominic Crossan

2008-08-30T17:55:00.005-04:00

The noted theologian John Dominic Crossan will be a guest on New Albany Now in the coming weeks to discuss his recent book, God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now. Read more on our New Albanist blog.

Spelling snob

2008-08-30T13:57:00.002-04:00

I confess. I'm a spelling snob.

I've been thinking about this lately while reading David Wolman's Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling. Click on the cover photo for more information.

Wolman "suffered" the tyranny of difficulty with spelling as a child, and still carries scars from a quizmistress mother and spelling-segregated classrooms.

During the writing of this book, Wolman visited with a diagnostician, Dr. Uta Frith, who appraised him, tentatively, as a classic case of compensated dyslexia. Frith is the opposite of a bad speller, but "[s]he's adamant that spelling skill has nothing to do with being gifted. 'It's a waste of [mental] resources to learn all that spelling if you don't need it,' she said. 'The fact is you can't help being good or bad at this.'"

According to the author, "The evolution of written symbols, words, and prose is far too recent in human history to be coded into our genes. Instead, the brain has retooled itself for reading and writing, applying, for instance, visual processing powers that evolved for other tasks...the reading system is more tenuous than many of us realize...Reading may be a favorite form of leisure, but for the brain it's no walk in the park."

And yet, society as a whole uses the ability to spell as a shorthand for intellect, or at least for education. Wolman tells the story of an 18th-century "man of quality, who never recovered from the ridicule of having spelled wholesome without the w."

"Spelling as a measure of manners, we know. Spelling as a sign of intelligence, we infer. Think about the last time you read a formal letter with misspellings in it and the unfavorable impression it left behind, not just of carelessness, but also lack of smarts. 'Spelling,' David Crystal told [the author], 'has become the main diagnostic feature for determining whether someone has been educated in English.'"

So, I'm a spelling snob. I've always been good at it. I attribute that to the importance I place on being thought of as "smart." I was "rewarded" for being smart, and spelling was where I excelled, so naturally it became important to me. Today, I cringe when I see misspellings and grammatical groaners like "they was." You can imagine my internal pain during a typical city council meeting!

But, I don't consider myself the spelling police. I groan inwardly. When I think it will be both helpful, and taken as helpful, I'll drop a note to a friend to "help" them over a word they've written that is not orthographically correct.

Much of the book is taken up by recitals of the efforts of spelling reformers, those "valiant exterminators of dialectical vermin," from Samuel Johnson to Noah Webster to Melville Dewey (father of the Dewey Decimal System, who went so far as to change his name to Melvil Dui).

As an end note, consider this anecdote that may explain why I was nurtured to be a good speller. My mother was a tremendous speller. For instance, she could throw a newspaper page down on the kitchen table and within seconds spot the typos without consciously reading a word. My father could sit on the front porch and point out four-leaf clovers from 20 and 30 feet away in the midst of a lawn full of thick grass...not just clovers, but four-leaf clovers. But he couldn't spell a lick. And for the most part, never worried too much about it.

As a girl in school, my mom was dismissed from a spelling bee after spelling catalogue. The judges said oh, no. It's catalog. Period. This despite the fact that almost everything my mother had read spelled it with the -ue ending. Know who was responsible for that little change? Mr. Melvil Dui.

2008-08-27T18:09:00.001-04:00

Randy has transitioned all of his blogging - show-related, political, books, and other - over to a new site. If you want to, check it out and add it to your favorites and blogrolls.

It is http://newalbanist.wordpress.com/

This blog isn't going away. It's just being joined to a meta-blog.

Victory for Common Sense

2008-07-01T18:59:00.001-04:00

This just in...

Judge throws out new Ind. law on explicit material

07/01/2008
By KEN KUSMER / Associated Press

A federal judge threw out a new Indiana law requiring bookstores and other retailers to register with the state and pay a $250 fee if they want to sell sexually explicit material.

U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker, ruling Tuesday on the day the law took effect, found it too broad and said it could be applied against "unquestionably lawful, nonobscene, nonpornographic materials being sold to adults."

"A romance novel sold at a drugstore, a magazine offering sex advice in a grocery store checkout line, an R-rated DVD sold by a video rental shop, a collection of old Playboy magazines sold by a widow at a garage sale ... would appear to necessitate registration under the statute," Barker wrote.

The American Civil Liberties Union took on the case for a team of plaintiffs that included the Indianapolis Museum of Art, bookstores and publishers.

"It's a victory for booksellers and the arts community but most importantly for the First Amendment," said Maxwell Anderson, the art museum's CEO. "I'm concerned as we all should be about restrictions on free expression."

Elizabeth Houghton Barden, owner of Big Hat Books, an independent, general interest store in Indianapolis, said she and her fellow plaintiffs did not want to see lingerie shops opening up next to candy stores, but that was a matter for zoning boards.

"Any time we engage in censorship, we've lost our right to free expression," she said.

Rep. Terry Goodin, D-Crothersville, said he wrote the law to stop companies from deceiving communities with weak zoning laws. He noted one company told the southern Indiana community of Dale it planned to operate a truck stop but instead opened an adult business.

The law required people who planned to sell sexually explicit materials to register with the Indiana secretary of state's office, pay the $250 fee and state the types of materials they intended to sell.

"I don't see this gray area that people are talking about," Goodin said. "To me, it's black and white. If you're selling pornography, you know it. If you're not, you don't have to register."

But Barker found the wording of the state law unconstitutionally vague.

"The statute provides no guidance whatsoever to merchants attempting to comply with the law, and surely creates the danger of self-censorship in an effort to avoid criminal penalties," the judge wrote.

Goodin said he would confer with the state attorney general before decided what to do next, but one option included taking the matter back to lawmakers in the 2009 legislative session.

"I've got pencil in hand," Goodin said. "I'm ready to go. I'm not going to let this sleeping dog lie."
ACLU attorney Ken Falk noted the plaintiffs included the volunteer-run Boxcar Books and Community Center in Bloomington, art galleries, and trade associations representing booksellers, publishers, libraries, video rental stores and music companies.

"They are all legitimate businesses that are far from being the "'dirty bookstore,'" Falk said.
___
Associated Press writer Deanna Martin in Indianapolis contributed to this report.

Balm for One of My Pet Peeves

2008-06-27T00:17:00.006-04:00

(partial) Quote of the day:
…Ayn Rand, who is to traditionally female attributes like empathy and interpersonal relationships what Grover Norquist is to functioning government… Salon Magazine

Over the past 24 hours, I’ve been pretty busy. For that matter, over the past 24 months, but that’s neither here nor there.

Wednesday evening I was trolling one of the several Internet message boards I scan to keep up with news about books. I came across a posting by an author, Robert Thompson, who was seeking to promote his new book on leadership by offering to do Internet radio interviews. In his sign-off, he blithely told the board to “Order Your Copy Today at: Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.com.”

I’m sympathetic to the difficulty authors face in getting exposure and sales for their books. In Mr. Thompson’s case, he had taken his professional skills as a trainer and translated that into a book. The book had been picked up by a major publisher of business books, but, as you will see in the correspondence I’m sharing below, he was surprised at how much of the burden of selling his book had fallen to him.

But this blissful ignorance, this example of taking the easiest way, sounded my gong. So I flamed him, albeit gently. Here’s what I said:

Hi, Robert.

I have a new BTR show that will be about half books and half local public affairs. I'm also an independent bookseller.

Should you realize that amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com arent' the be-all, end-all of bookselling, we'd be happy to schedule you on our show.

Every time an author solicits bookseller support and then says "check me out on amazon," another angel falls from heaven.

I thought that was gentle. I have the same reaction when I hear the word “Kentuckiana.”

We Indies, the independent booksellers of America, are an amazing resource for authors of “midlist” books like Mr. Thompson’s. At this moment, I can’t tell you if the Indies would or could make his book a bestseller. His publisher, Jossey-Bass (an imprint of John Wiley & Sons), hadn’t chosen to promote it by sending it out for evaluation and I’m perfectly willing to admit that I would never have heard of it, in all likelihood, or at least I wouldn’t have remembered hearing about it.

Here’s the book, in case you were wondering. If you click on the book jacket, you will be directed to our Web site, where you can purchase it. More about that later.

To his credit, Mr. Thompson (I’ll call him Robert from now on) responded with alacrity.

He wrote: Randy, so sorry for all of the fallen angels. :-)

As a first time author, I am learning I am somewhat clueless to the industry but trying to learn as quick as possible. Thanks for the new lesson…If you ever forgive me, I would be happy to be a guest on your show. If your store carries my book it could be a mutual benefit.

Again, sorry. No offense intended.

Cheers, Robert.

Thus began a rapid-fire exchange in which I tried to educate Robert to the realities of the 1,800 independent booksellers in America who could, unless supremely insulted by the author’s attempt to drive sales to monolithic, soulless, quarterly dividend-chasing online retailers, help to sell his book.

Indies contribute to their local communities at about 150% the rate of chains. As best as I can tell, nonlocal online retailers not only don’t contribute to your community, they, inexplicably, don’t even collect or pay sales taxes.

Over the course of the day, Robert instructed his technical people to insert a link deep on his Web site that would also direct those who are aware of the distinctions between Indies and the chains and online parasites to other choices, including our own www.destinationsbooksellers.com.
Oh, and by the way, Robert’s e-mail signature now reminds his correspondents that they can buy his book at their local independent bookseller. And I learned a bit more about how authors think during the exchange of e-mails, too.

What does this mean for you, the typical reader, a person who likely shops at Destinations Booksellers and gets it? Probably not much. But let me share with you some of the reasons it’s important to shop local first.

First of all (in my words), your shopping choices are your votes. When you shop at Destinations Booksellers, you’re telling us you want us to stay in business, that having a local independent bookseller is something valuable to you. If you were building a city from scratch, wouldn’t you choose to have a bookstore? If you were to, instead, buy your books from national chains or internet purveyors, wouldn’t that be your vote to replace your local bookstore with something else – either something you prefer or, God forbid, another empty building?

But take a look at these reasons (not my words, but ones I wholly endorse):

Thanks for shopping at
Destinations Booksellers
Here's what you just did!

1. You kept your dollars in our economy
For every $100 you spend at one of our local business, $68 will stay in our community. What happens when you spend that same $100 at a national chain? $43 stays in our community.
2. You embraced what makes us unique
You wouldn't want your house to look like everyone else's in the U.S. So why would you want your community to look that way?
3. You created local jobs
Local businesses are better at creating higher-paying jobs for our neighbors.
4. You helped the environment
Buying from a local business conserves energy in the form of less fuel for transportation, less packaging, and products that you know are safe and well made, because we stand behind them.
5. You nurtured community
We know you, and you know us. Studies have shown that local businesses donate to community causes at twice the rate of chains.
6. You conserved your tax dollars
Shopping in a local business district means less infrastructure, less maintenance, and more money available to beautify our community. Also, spending locally instead of online ensures that your sales taxes are reinvested where they belong - right here in your community!
7. You created more choice
We pick the books and gifts we sell based on what we know you like and want. Local businesses carry a wider array of unique products because we buy for our own individual market.
8. You took advantage of our expertise
You are our friends and neighbors and we have a vested interest in knowing how to serve you. We're passionate about what we do. Why not take advantage of that?
9. You invested in entrepreneurship
Creativity and entrepreneurship are what the American economy is founded upon. Nurturing local business ensures a strong community.
10. You made us a destination (Destinations?)
The more interesting and unique we are as a community, the more we will attract new neighbors, visitors, and guests. This benefits everyone.

Love your local
Community, Business, and Neighborhood Alliance

More News on Enzo!

2008-06-24T12:51:00.002-04:00

The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Stein, has risen to the No. 3 spot on the latest Indie Bestseller list. Those of you paying close attention will have witnessed the correspondence between New Albany Books Daily and the author, including Garth's self-deprecating comment about his standing vis-a-vis "brand-name" authors.

Well, just for comparison, Salman Rushdie sits at No. 4. Stephenie Meyer is at No. 2. Pretty good company, if you ask me.

Plaudits to our staff and to you, our patrons, who have played a small part in elevating Enzo to such rarefied air near the summit of the coveted Indie Bestseller fiction list.

We're almost sold out again and trying to build our order for the coming season. It would be a big help to know how many of you intend to give the book as a gift this Christmas. Send us an e-mail at ops@destinationsbooksellers.com and let us know what you thought about the book. With your permission, we'll post some of the comments, with or without identifying you.

Word of mouth is more important to a book's success than bookseller recommendations, so tell your friends, too.

Sharing a Little Inside Baseball

2008-06-17T22:53:00.002-04:00

An intriguing set of survey results fell into my lap this week and I thought I'd share them with you.

The Zogby organization conducted this survey for their client, Random House.

11% of people enjoy reading books digitally.
13% of people under 30 are open to reading books digitally.
6% of people over 65 are open to reading books digitally.
43% of people go into a bookstore looking for a specific book.
77% of people make an additional purchase when looking for a specific book. (Really?)
52% of people are swayed to purchase by cover art.
49% of people are swayed to purchase by reviews.
60% of people are swayed by recommendations from friends or family.
35% of people are swayed to purchase a book because of a cover quote.
86% of people seek out books by authors they like. (That's why we all need to discover new authors!)
49% of people who shop at Indies also shop at chains and online. (Destinations Booksellers is online, too, if that's more convenient for you, and our Patron Passport Rewards apply there, too.)
9% of people usually shop at Indies. (By the way - those 9% who shop at Indies purchase from 16-18% of all books purchased. Thank you.)

Below, you'll find our SOA picks reviews in greater detail. At the radio station's Web site, you can find the list of all of the books recommended on Tuesday's broadcast.

Again, we hope you didn't embarrass you with our appearance on the radio.

The news report is courtesy of Publishers Weekly.

A Good Day, All in All

2008-06-17T22:39:00.002-04:00

Thanks to all the patrons who've commented favorably on our guest spot on WFPL's State of Affairs today. It was a real pleasure to share the microphones with such professionals and I have to say the callers were a "cut above" today, too.

If you missed the show or want to hear it again, or just don't want to navigate through www.wfpl.org, click here to hear the show.

Listen to WFPL 89.3 on Tuesday!

2008-06-14T23:58:00.005-04:00

I'll be appearing again on State of Affairs this Tuesday, June 17, to give my summer reading recommendations.

Thanks to producer Robin Fisher and show host Julie Kredens for inviting Destinations Booksellers to participate! The show runs from 11 a.m. to noon and is rebroadcast that evening at 9. You can also access the show by Web streaming and podcast at http://www.wfpl.org/.

Joining the discussion will be Robert Gieszl of Louisville's Free Public Library and Kelly Estep, one of the family of booksellers at Carmichaels bookstore, a fellow IndieBound independent bookseller.

Here's a preview of the books I'll be discussing.

America America

The Art of Racing in the Rain

A Voyage Long and Strange

Palace Council

America America

2008-06-14T23:15:00.000-04:00

America America: A Novel
By Ethan Canin
2008 Random House Inc.
Hardcover and unabridged audiobook, HC 9780679456803, $27

The time is the 70s. The place: upstate New York. Corey Sifter is the teenage son of working-class parents in the ultimate company town. Fortune comes calling when Corey’s work ethic catches the eye of the patriarch of the Metarey family, ancestral owners of the land for miles around.

The Metarey family, one and all, bring Corey into their lives, paying to send him to a prestigious boarding school and involving him in their lives of power.

The story actually stretches over more than three decades, but it revolves around those few years leading up to the presidential campaign of 1972. Corey becomes a lowly, but important aide to the classic liberal Sen. Henry Bonwiller, who, backed by the Metarey influence, seeks the Democratic nomination to dethrone Richard Nixon.

It is at once a story of moral clarity, adult responsibility, and gripping mystery. I’m a sucker for stories about political campaigns, but this is far more than a political thriller. The characters are compelling, flawed, and seductive. And you’ll wish you could meet them all.

It belongs on the shelf for anyone who, like me, adores Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men. And I think this will certainly be a finalist on many book-of-the-year lists. It, like several of the picks on today’s show, is an IndieNext selection, what was once called the Book Sense Picks. These books, praised by independent booksellers across the U.S.A., are well worth seeking out.

About the author…decades ago, Canin considered himself a failed writer. So he went to Harvard Medical School and became a doctor. Today, he teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, having returned in triumph to the locus of his “failure.”

He is the author of numerous other works, including the collections, Emperor of the Air and The Palace Thief.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

2008-06-14T18:14:00.001-04:00

The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel
By Garth Stein
2008 HarperCollins Publishers
Hardcover, Luxe PB, and unabridged audiobook, HC 9780061537936, $23.95

The takeaway from this, my favorite book of the season, is to remember: Somewhere the Zebra is Dancing.

This book is deeply philosophical, wryly funny, and frighteningly poignant. But most of all, it’s a great read, and one you’ll want to share with everyone you know.

As I told the readers of my books blog, I really want you to meet my new friend Enzo.
For my readers, I was very careful to keep them in the dark about who Enzo was until they, too, could fall in love with him. For Enzo is an incredibly likable fellow. His philosophy is somewhat simple, but certain and profound.

We meet Enzo near the end of his life. He’s waiting desperately for his lifelong companion, Denny Swift, to return home. Why must he wait? Well, Enzo is a dog. But not just any dog.

Enzo is a dog with a human soul. He’s convinced of it, and you will be too, for Enzo has the insight and empathy, the compassion and love that we all would desire in a life partner.

As Enzo tells the story of his life and the lives of the family he’s raised by, he shares with us the wisdom he has acquired. As Denny’s companion, he’s learned, for example, that there’s more to racing than going fast. That that which you manifest is before you.

He has also learned a key truth from the excessive amounts of TV he has watched, including countless documentaries. A documentary on the dogs of Mongolia changes Enzo’s life. It seems that when a Mongolian dog reaches the end of his life, his owner whispers into his ear the hope that he will return as a man. Once Enzo accepts the concept of reincarnation, he knows he has been put on this earth to prepare.

Yes, it’s frustrating for Enzo to be unable to open doors (no opposable thumbs) or communicate in English (his tongue is just too floppy to form the syllables). But knowing his destiny, Enzo can’t wait to become human.

Stein says he was inspired to tell this story from Enzo’s point of view after hearing Billy Collins at a reading in Seattle. Collins’ poem, The Revenant, begins, "I am the dog you put to sleep...come back to tell you one simple thing: I never liked you—not one bit."

Stein, a former documentary filmmaker from Seattle, wrote two previous novels - How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets and Raven Stole the Moon, and a play, Brother Jones.

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World

2008-06-14T18:13:00.002-04:00

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World
By Tony Horwitz
2008 Henry Holt & Company, an imprint of MacMillan Publishers
Hardcover and abridged audiobook, 9780805076035, $27.50

Horwitz, author of the acclaimed Confederates in the Attic, brings us another historical trek that reads like an adventure story.

And an adventure story it truly is, one that ranges all across our continent to unveil the brutal and relentless nature of European discovery in America.

The author visited Plymouth Rock a few years ago and, as is his wont, struck up a conversation with the interpretive ranger on site. The Rock is, in many ways, surprisingly unimpressive, especially when surrounded by gum wrappers and marred by souvenir-seekers through the years.

But what launched Horwitz on his undertaking was something the ranger said. It seems that far too many visitors inquired as to why the Rock had the date “1620” inscribed. Why, they asked, didn’t it say “1492?”

No, Columbus didn’t drop off the Pilgrims before returning to Ferdinand and Isabella’s court. But it motivated Horwitz to ask himself why he, trained as a historian and earning a living as a history writer, could not verifiably fill in the blanks of that century and more.

Thus begins a delightful retracing of the routes of Leif Eiriksson (or was it Bjarni Herjofsson in Vinland and Columbus and his successors in the Caribbean.

We learn how close a thing it was that much of America didn’t speak French and how the Spanish of St. Augustine (the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the U.S.) and Senor Menendez defeated M. Ribault and the French of what is now Jacksonville.

Ponce de Leon’s journeys lead us to Hernando de Soto’s (properly Soto) grueling and merciless travails throughout the southeast United States.

Meanwhile, Coronado’s quest for Cibola and the “lost” cities of gold becomes much richer in Horwitz’s telling. The delightful “revenge” taken by descendants of the natives he terrorized is one of the better stories in Voyage.

And we learn the real truth about the English and their Virginia colonies that preceded the “Pilgrims” by a generation.

Palace Council

2008-06-14T18:11:00.002-04:00

Palace Council: A Novel
By Stephen L. Carter
2008 Alfred A. Knopf, Publishers, and imprint of Random House
Hardcover only, 9780307266583, $26.95

Stephen Carter is a literary daredevil.

Palace Council is a sprawling epic of America during its most tumultuous period, and Carter conveys the idealism, the ruthless ambition, and the paranoia of America over two decades, from the Cold War of 1954 to the end of an era, 1974 and the crumbling of the Nixon White House.

Carter is a professor at Yale Law School and the author of two previous novels, The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White. I think it’s fair to say that his unique talent is an ability to capture, as reviewer David Keymer put it, “the nuances of human behavior on both sides of the color line.”

It’s 1954. Eddie Wesley is a middle-class black man determined to succeed. He gravitates to New York, specifically Harlem, and renews his acquaintance with the people at the highest echelon of black society. Over the course of the novel we’ll observe as that society unravels, but at the start, Harlem society is wielding enormous influence in the culture and in politics.

Put in his place at a party, Eddie stomps off into the night, only to stumble over the body of prominent white Wall Street lawyer Philmont Castle. That begins a twenty-year search for the clues to Castle’s death and the conspiracy that spawned it.

Junie, Eddie’s sister, disappears, then later becomes a notorious fugitive from justice as the most famous member of “Jewel Agony,” precursor to the Weather Underground. Finding her becomes the key to unraveling the conspiracy.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover makes recurring cameo appearances, as do Joseph P.Kennedy early, and Jack Kennedy later when Eddie joins the White House speechwriting staff. Richard Nixon, who may be a conspirator or who may be a victim of the conspiracy, summons Eddie several times, seeing him as someone he can confide in.

Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison show up, too.

It’s a love story, a thriller, and a mystery, and the payoff will surprise you. What makes this a great summer read is that you won’t want to put it down until you solve the mystery yourself.

Dear Garth,

2008-06-07T23:45:00.008-04:00

Oh, I *have* to know what you think! Please post when you finish it! G.S.

That's what "roadgarth" had to say to an earlier posting.

It happens rarely, but I've found that the most astute and reader-centric authors tend to be eager for feedback. These perspicacious wordsmiths make use of the technologies to find out what the world might be saying about them and their works.

So for all of you, and most of all for you, Garth, I make apologies for my failure to live up to my renewed commitment to give you regular and daily blog postings.

When last I left you, I had just completed my third consecutive posting about my new friend Enzo.

Indeed, somewhere the zebra is dancing.

I was late in coming to an appreciation for Garth Stein and his masterful The Art of Racing in the Rain. I'll admit that. If I haven't related the story before, I'll do so now.

While I was aware of the book (mostly as a title from a usually reliable publisher, granted), I hadn't taken it up. We were privileged to receive an advance copy of the book at the Winter Institute (III) of the American Booksellers Association, which this year was held in Louisville at the Marriott. Ann and Mark (our senior bookseller) attended the Friday sessions while I kept the store open and I made it over at the end of the day on Friday.

Ann, I later learned, got to meet Mr. Stein on Saturday during the author appearances. Oblivious to the writer or the book that day (I was concentrating on other authors, including Warren Adler, penman of Funny Boys), I recall Ann being lured by what appeared to be "dog treats" and thus obtaining, as funnyman Steve Martin used to affirm, "a close, personal encounter" with Herr Stein.

[The "dog treat" was, in fact, cookies made for human consumption. As none of us in the Destinations Booksellers' family had a dog at that time, it was an aspirational endeavor. That wishful thinking has been ratified since. We added the lovable "Chloe" to our "family" in the last few weeks.]

As I recall it, it was a Tuesday night and I was nearing the end of a nonfiction title. Spying the attractive cover of The Art of Racing in the Rain, I warned my bride that if she did not take it up before I finished that book, I was going to "take" it. Considering that we seldom read the same book, that was a preemptive threat. Before 11:30 that evening, I picked it up, and 100 pages later I was enthusiastically planning my e-mail to Kerri Sikorski, telesales rep non pareil in the Scranton office of HarperCollins, to enter a massive order for the book.

By Friday morning, before I reached the store (I'm known to walk the 1.7 mile route with my head in a book), I had finished the book and was already worried about running out of my initial distributor order.

In fact, we did run out before the end of that day, which explains why I did not fulfill my commitment to continue my teaser campaign to you, dear readers.

I am happy to report to you the early returns. I cannot recommend this book more highly. I have been embarrassed by the thanks our patrons have expressed for my recommendation of this book. To be sure, I have been effusive in my praise while handselling this book, utilizing my rare "guarantee" that you will adore the book. No one has asked for their money back. I even sent the book to a temporarily invalid friend at a 99.999% discount, knowing full well that when she recovered, she'd gladly remit the appropriate payment.

But what I haven't done yet for blog readers (or the recipients of our well-received e-mail newsletter) is tell you specifically about the book.

Mr. Stein has expertly captured what we believe, rightly or wrongly, are the actual thought processes of "man's best friend." My friend Enzo, I will now confess, is an ultimately perceptive canine. Enzo, who we meet near the end of his life, relates the story of his life and the life of the family that becomes his in Racing.

Do not doubt that you will be captivated before you have finished the first three chapters. Despite clear portents of coming tragedy, you will find your funnybone stimulated for the first half of the book. But it's not, in any way, a whimsical fantasy. At no point did I find myself unwilling to believe that Enzo was anything but sincere and true.

Garth Stein has conveyed the emotional and intellectual life of this dog in a way that is so natural and plausible that I (and other readers) never doubted its sincerity. He captures the naivete we expect from our canine companions - that guileless faith we exploit and revere - and the ratiocination that we project onto our pets. If my intuition is true, Enzo thinks the way my dog Chipper did.

Stein reveals a philosophical side I had never suspected, but one that I found myself captivated by. I can only hope that our dogs understand us as well as the narrator of Racing in the Rain does.

I promised a "reveal," and here it is. Denny, Enzo's human companion, is a uniquely talented road racer. We do not learn whether he carried the talent to excel in championship racing, but we do discover that when it comes to controlling and propelling a high-performance vehicle in less-than-perfect race conditions [read: rain], he has few peers.

Events conspire (partly) to thwart Denny's professional ambitions, but the principles he imparts to his Enzo become a lesson to us all.

You may believe you don't care to read a "dog" story. You may believe that a story about a race car driver won't interest you. Forget it. Fuhgeddaboudit! I know of no one who will regret reading this book.

I'm not prepared to say that Stein's book will be read 100 years from now. But I will say that if you read only one piece of fiction in 2008, you couldn't do better than to read this one.

And when you do, you'll want to pass it on [SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE: Hold on to your copy. Tell your friends to buy their own - or buy it for them].

As I write this, we've again sold out of the "Luxe" larger print editions and we still await the audio version. But I will repeat my contention that before the end of the summer The Art of Racing in the Rain will be hailed as THE book of the season.

We have ample stock of the primary hardcover edition. Let me encourage you to pick it up now and get the jump on the rest of America. I assure you that you'll be proud to have discovered it long before it becomes THE gift book of the year. Go ahead and pick up two copies, because I know you'll want to give this book as a gift at Christmas time.

FYI: I will again be giving my book recommendations on WFPL-FM, 89.3, during State of Affairs' Summer Reading Program, hosted by Julie Kredens. Producer Robin Fisher has extended an invitation to Destinations Booksellers to give our recommendations on-air on Tuesday, June 17, at 11 a.m. and then for later rebroadcast.

Can you guess which book will be my No. 1?

P.S. The bestseller lists haven't yet caught on to this one. But I predict that when we usher in the New Year, Enzo will be haunting the lists. For the measuring period ending last weekend, in Lousville, Stein's book ranked in a three-way tie for 39th.

On this week's New York Times fiction bestseller list (a week later), TAoRitR is 14th. As Mom used to say, "hide and watch." Ms. Hamilton and Mr. Patterson won't be there in 10 weeks, but Mr. Stein will be. Or so I say.

That Which You Manifest is Before You

2008-05-22T17:00:00.005-04:00

You might want to read my previous posts, Meet my new friend Enzo (2) and Somewhere the zebra is dancing (1), before proceeding.

As previously stated, we believe The Art of Racing in the Rain is going to be incredibly popular. I'm having a hard time imagining anyone who won't be entertained by this one. It's neither low-brow nor high-brow, and yet it's accessible in a widely popular way and deeply philosophical, even spiritual.

The people who will love this book can't be pigeonholed because everyone is going to love it. Now, there will be people who, like me, just hate it when the whole world is saying "you have to read this book." That's a dead-certain prescription that will have me refusing to read it. But for those who will give just page one a chance (although I recommend reading the first three chapters in the store - it will take 5-10 minutes, tops), they will be richly rewarded.

I've read no reviews as of yet, but word of mouth will sell this book. It's what we call a "hand sell" independent favorite. The best books are usually the ones recommended by your bookseller. Those are the books that don't open at the top of the lists (James Patterson, etc.), but then those books hardly sell at all in independent bookstores, where the standards of our patrons are higher.

This is also one of those books that probably won't be in paperback for a loooong time because it will continue to sell and sell and sell in hardcover. It will be just the right book for Fathers' Day and it will still be growing when Christmas rolls around. It's actually a tad shorter than most hardcovers, too, so even those who complain about how difficult it is to read hardcovers (an excuse, sez I) will be able to handle it. At 324 pages, it should be easy to finish in about a week, no matter how busy you are. And once you finish it, you'll be recommending it to your friends and family. I hope you'll refer them here.

This is probably a good time to tell you about our new Web initiatives. Alert visitors to http://www.destinationsbooksellers.com/ will have learned about this already, but we've added massive research-and-buy capabilities. Any hour of the day you can log on and find millions of books, CDs, and DVDs, pay with a credit card, and have them sent directly to your home.

But for most of you, we have an even better way to go. Go ahead and research the items you want. Then e-mail us to see if we can't save you money (no discounts on the Web site). We can usually have your books in a day or two, and depending on your current rewards level, you'll get your regular discount. And if you want to send the book to a friend, we can have the book drop-shipped directly to them. We'll pay shipping on hardcovers by media mail --- or you can pay the shipping for expedited delivery.

I honestly think you'll want to send this book to others, so why not just have it shipped? We even have gift-wrapping available on those books shipped from warehouse to "your" house.

LATE BULLETIN: Over the weekend I'll tell you more about The Art of Racing in the Rain, including why that's the title. We sold all but one copy from Friday's shipment. First come (or e-mail), first served for the holiday weekend, but we will reserve copies for delivery next week.

Meet My New Friend Enzo

2008-05-22T16:37:00.003-04:00

You'll definitely want to read the previous posting, Somewhere the zebra is dancing, but today I want to clue you in on a totally entertaining novel from Garth Stein.

You may know that we get dozens of advance reader copies of upcoming books. Our publishing friends send us books that they think we will want to order and sell. Sometimes we request them, but most of the time they come in unsolicited. Depending on the source, we quickly scan the books and Mark, Sophie, Ann, and I grab up a stack to take home and read.

The Art of Racing in the Rain does not have a flashy cover. A week ago I didn't even know what the book was about. Ann had picked it up but never got around to reading it, so I threatened that if she didn't start it by the time I finished the history book I was reading, then I would start on it.

That's a real threat, too, because I am notoriously hard on books, particularly paperback galley proofs of books I may or may not plan to stock.

So, Tuesday night, before bed, I started the book. I read more the next day while walking to work, and again today. I've not quite finished it, although I must say the book has turned much darker in its second half.

In any case, that's all I'm going to say on the subject right now. This weekend I'll add some cover art and provide a few more nuggets of wisdom from my new friend Enzo. But here's a tiny taste.

Enzo watches a lot of television and he is very specific about who his favorite actors are. When you read the book (and I'm convinced you will), you'll learn why.

1. Steve McQueen
2. Al Pacino (Enzo loved the remake of Scarface, but it doesn't compare to the Godfather movies, "which are excellent.")
3. Paul Newman (partly because he purchases his palm fruit oil from renewable sources in Colombia and thereby discourages the decimation of vast tracts of rain forest in Borneo and Sumatra.)
4. George Clooney ("...because he looks a little like me around the eyes.")
5. Dustin Hoffman

The first person who can come in to the store and tell me what 1, 2, 3, and 5 have in common, according to Enzo, before buying the book, wins a BookTV t-shirt.

Somewhere the Zebra is Dancing

2008-05-21T17:45:00.004-04:00

I write this on Wednesday, May 21. With the holiday approaching (do you know that the uberpatriotic South , even to this day, treats Memorial Day as some kind of false holiday? That's a leftover from the Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression as it's still called in some environs.

But my point is that the Memorial Day holiday means it will be that much more difficult to keep our stock levels up over the weekend. A couple of customers could clean us out on that hot new book you were waiting to read until your next day off.

Wednesday night/Thursday morning is always crunch time at the store. Thursday is the last day we can restock or promise next-day delivery. After 11 a.m., anything that's not in stock can't possibly be delivered before Monday. And a holiday means the delay is to Tuesday. If you want John McCain's Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them or The Host, Stephenie Meyer's venture out of the young adult world where she has been the most popular author of the year to cater to the not-so-young adult market, you might be out of luck if just one person decides now is the time to pick it up.

That's not so bad on a Tuesday, when we can promise it the next day because we will have restocked. And trust me, it is necessary for a local, independent bookstore to carefully manage its inventory - or go broke! So both of those books are down to one copy. If you want it on Saturday, but I sell it on Friday, I can't possibly get another copy until Tuesday.

So?

Well, the problem then becomes that you aren't served. You then start to think "they probably won't have it," and a downward spiral begins. You decide to go elsewhere. I decide that I can't take a risk on a new title because, after all, I only sold one copy of that title last season.

That's the dilemma Ann and I face with the store. We can't "stock up" on a title because we believe in it. We can love it to death, but if our customers divide their purchases among a half-dozen stores, or if the raw number of customers who shop here, or if "our" customers just can't get down to actually browse and see and touch and read the books we pick, then the balloting is over. Local bookstore: Yes or No?

I sometimes tell the story (and reveal what a geek I am) about the old game SimCity. In SimCity you are given a set amount of money with which to build a city. If you build it right, not too fast and not too slow, if you hedge against disaster while investing for a greater future, you can win the game. Such simulations involve taxing and spending and zoning and transforming. And they require a clear vision of what you want your city to become.

So I will ask the listener, if you were building a city from scratch, what would you put in it? Roads. A post office. A church, and then more churches. A school, and then more schools. A university. A swimming pool. A park. Maybe a stadium. Certainly a library.

For your populace, what stores would you build or what businesses would you recruit? A hospital, a drugstore, a gas station, a florist, a jeweler, several groceries. A bookstore. Maybe even a brewery.

You are playing SimCity, if only in an indirect way. By your decisions and choices, you are creating the town you want. If you think your city should have, say, an ethnic restaurant of a certain type (or quality), then maybe you ought to eat there. Certainly you can't personally provide enough business to keep it going. But if you only eat there infrequently, aren't you really saying "I don't think we need, I don't want this restaurant?"

It's a push me-pull you equation. Your patronage allows a store to thrive instead of merely surviving. Your choice to shop locally may permit a business to survive rather than fail. And as more of your neighbors join you in making informed decisions about what kind of city you want, the thriving store might expand. It might offer more frequent programs to enrich your life. It might be able to carry more of what you want, or take risks on new products and services that you could only dream of having available locally.

Ann and I recognize fully that it is not your responsibility to enrich us. It is ours to enrich you. And we continue to try to do just that. We can't be and do everything, but we want to do everything we can to provide you with what you need and want.

By shopping locally first, you tell local businesses you want them in town. It's the most important vote you cast. A thriving business attracts more thriving businesses, and the city benefits from a richer, fuller life. The costs of living in a thriving city are, arguably, less than of living in a moribund one.

So, beginning in June, we're going to invest even more into this business and see whether your vote is yes or no. We don't believe you want us to go away - you just don't know what you're missing.

We're increasing the payroll. We're investing in more stock. And we're going to actively market to you, to expose you to fantastic books you've been missing. This blog (and I've promised it before and failed) will be the kind of place you'll want to visit frequently because it will be filled with something new every day. It might just be a rumination. It might just be a tip. It might be a review or an unsubtle "You've got to see this!"

The phrase that is the title of this post, I believe, will be, by the end of the year, a part of American culture. It's stated by the narrator of the book I'm reading now. I started it late last night and though I've worked a full day today, I'm a third of the way through it. I put in a rush order today with HarperCollins for a major amount of stock, including audiobooks and larger print editions, what Harper calls Luxe.

This book will be, as I predicted today, as big a seller as any sleeper I can remember. Bigger than Marley and Me. Bigger than Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. Bigger, maybe, than Tuesdays With Morrie.

At the end of this day, we have one copy of the book. By the weekend we will have another half-dozen copies. By next week we'll have plenty for everybody. But even today, while handselling the book, I asked a patron to leave it on the shelf unless they promised to read it this weekend. I can sell it to you, who will, and sell it to him, who won't, next week.

Remember this blog post. Somewhere the zebra is dancing. That which you manifest is before you. Give me my thumbs, you f---ing monkeys! The field is fertile - beware. I embrace the fertility.

Tomorrow, I'll offer you more. For now, I'm going to finish my reading.

Indie Film? In New Albany?

2008-04-02T22:54:00.004-04:00

I'll admit I was shocked. Shocked, I say, to discover that independent film was returning to New Albany. Last time I looked, Constituency for Progress was putting on the COLDEST outdoor screening of "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" ever recorded. And they showed it twice, despite several near cases of hypothermia.

Hoosiers for a Common Sense Health Plan, joined by CFP and your local independent booksellers, are offering Michael Moore's "Sicko," an entertaining and provocative documentary about America's health care environment, where not only the children but millions of others are "Left Behind."

Huzzah, Hooray, Kudos. And thank you.

DETAILS: Thursday, April 3, at 7 p.m. The film is a little over two hours long and the time will pass rapidly when accompanied by the brew and repast par excellence provided by host Rich O's, off Grant Line Road on Plaza Drive in New Albany. We'll close the store a few minutes early to get over to the No. 6 beer bar in the world, order a Big Ten pizza and a couple of Electors.

It will be fun to reconnect with our old friends from Constituency for Progress and our new friends from Hoosiers for a Common Sense Health Plan, co-sponsors of this amazing film. While everyone in attendance won't agree as to who should lead our country forward, you can count on a common wish for COMMON SENSE when it comes to collectively providing health care for all.

If there's one thing we've learned, it is that the so-called free market is destroying lives. Our duty to our fellow man requires that we join to provide a common sense health plan that leaves no one behind.

Don't believe me? Come watch the film with us and then tell me where I'm off-base. Or just enjoy the food, libations, and company. I guarantee you won't find a more literate, compassionate, and rational gathering of souls than at this singular event.

I'm reminded of the query, "What Would Jesus Do?" I'm convinced he'd be there at Rich O's on Thursday night.

But this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Oddest Title for 2008

2008-03-31T12:01:00.003-04:00

Bookseller magazine has announced the winner of its competition for oddest book title of the year. Are you ready?

If You Want Closure in Your Relationship, Start With Your Legs, by Big Boom.

Big Boom claims to be a man, but the advice seems pretty universal.

The Diagram Prize has been awarded since 1978 by the British publication. Runners-up were I Was Tortured by the Pygmy Love Queen and Cheese Problems Solved.

Wow! Looks Like Fun

2008-03-28T10:50:00.002-04:00

You'll have to wait until October, but...

...and yes, we are taking pre-publication orders. It's priced at $19.95 right now and we'll honor that price even if it changes.

You also might want to take a sneak peek at the dramatic change at www.destinationsbooksellers.com.

Daniels, Legislature Besiege Booksellers...and Freedom

2008-03-26T13:25:00.004-04:00

OK. Now I'm just slightly calmer than I was an hour ago. Patrons, friends - even strangers - need to know that yours local bookseller is now under the impending threat of arrest.

That's right. If I don't register my bookstore with the state and outline all the sexually explicit materials I sell (and pay $250 for the privilege), the state will arrest me. Presumably, they will shut me down.

Now, I'm told by my lawyers that the actual statute applies to "new" bookstores, those who aren't already established. That means it would apply to the satellite store and the other full-service bookstore we plan to open.

Well, you might say, what's so wrong with that?

Let's just for a moment take a look at a few of the books that would qualify as "sexually explicit."

Hoosier Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy would top the list. The Holy Bible certainly contains sexually explicit material. Our Bodies, Ourselves is clearly sexually explicit as are any number of parenting guides that help people teach their children about their bodies.

Take a look at this list from the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression as part of this year's list of banned books, many of which would have to be documented to the state of Indiana, Floyd County, New Albany, and the various zoning boards.

Please read this article from The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression.

ABFFE Condemns Indiana Bookstore Registration Law

On March 25, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) condemned a new Indiana law that requires mainstream bookstores to register with the government if they sell “sexually explicit materials.”

“Sexually explicit” is defined so broadly that the law could apply to bookstores that sell mainstream novels and other artistic works with sexual content as well as educational books about sexuality and sexual health. H.B. 1042 was signed into law last week by Governor Mitch Daniels. “It is un-American to force booksellers to register with the government based on the kinds of books they carry,” ABFFE President Chris Finan said. “It is also unconstitutional, and we intend to do everything we can to challenge this violation of the First Amendment rights of Indiana booksellers and their customers.”

Finan said ABFFE will ask the Media Coalition to file a legal challenge to the Indiana law. Media Coalition defends the rights of businesses that produce and distribute books, magazines, movies, videos, recordings and video games that are protected by the First Amendment. Its members include ABFFE, the Association of American Publishers, and the Freedom to Read Foundation.

Book Sense Books of the Year

2008-03-21T12:35:00.002-04:00

Newsbreak

Books in red have been read and are recommended by the store staff.

The winners of the 2008 Book Sense Book of the Year Awards as voted by the owners and staff of American Booksellers Association member bookstores are:

Fiction: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (Riverhead/Penguin)

Nonfiction: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver (HarperCollins)

Children's Literature: The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick (Scholastic Press)

Children's Illustrated: Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity by Mo Willems (Hyperion Books for Children)

The awards, which recognize the titles independent booksellers most enjoyed handselling during 2007, will be presented at ABA's annual Celebration of Bookselling on Thursday, May 29, at Hotel ABA (the Renaissance Hollywood).

"We hope the entire industry will join us at Hotel ABA to honor this year's Book Sense Book of the Year Award winners," said ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz. "Each is an indie favorite that has been handsold to customers at ABA member stores during 2007. We look forward to applauding these winning authors and illustrators for their unique contributions to the diversity of titles sold at independent bookstores nationwide."

Fiction Honor Books
The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins)
Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo (Knopf/Random House)
Away: A Novel by Amy Bloom (Random House)
Run: A Novel by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins)

Nonfiction Honor Books
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's)
Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life by Steve Martin (Scribner/S&S)
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War by David Halberstam (Hyperion)
The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs (Simon & Schuster)

Children's Literature Honor Books
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown Young Readers)
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (Little, Brown Young Readers)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (Abrams Books for Young Readers)
The Arrival by Shaun Tan (Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic)

Children's Illustrated Honor Books
Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy by Jane O'Connor, Robin Preiss-Glasser (Illus.) (HarperCollins)
Pirates Don't Change Diapers by Melinda Long, David Shannon (Illus.) (Harcourt Children's Books)
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis (Frances Foster Books/FSG)
Llama Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney (Viking Juvenile/Penguin Young Readers Group)

The Book Sense Book of the Year winners and honor books were selected by ABA members from titles most often nominated for the Book Sense Picks lists in 2007. Booksellers were also able to write in titles on the ballot. Only books published in 2007 were eligible. This year's winners will receive prizes provided by Book Sense partner Levenger, Inc., a catalog and Internet seller of high-quality tools for reading and writing.

In addition to being honored at the Celebration of Bookselling, the Book of the Year winners and honor book recipients are being invited to ABA's Book Sense Author Luncheon on Friday, May 30, at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The luncheon, open exclusively to stores with Book Sense, is a festive gathering of booksellers and dozens of authors whose books they have made past or present Book Sense Picks.

Borders on the Block?

2008-03-20T22:56:00.004-04:00

Although the press releases (and they were long and thorough) tried to spin it otherwise, the news today that Borders was exploring "all" possibilities to save itself was disturbing.

I was asked Thursday night if I had heard the news. Yup. You betcha! In fact, I received an industry alert early this morning, only to discover later that Barnes & Noble had told the press that they were not opposed to buying their major national competitor.

I told my staff that I didn't know whether to smile or throw up, and that was true. Borders was once one of the great independent bookstores, starting with its store in the Michigan college town of Ann Arbor, and then growing to become a major player in the books business. Many local people have ties to that original store and company, and even today many of your friends and neighbors say they are going to Hawley-Cooke when they mean Borders in Louisville.

One of the pieces of advice we received from the owners of Hawley-Cooke before we opened our own store was this: DO NOT OPEN A SECOND LOCATION.

That Louisville institution was strong enough to scare off other national players, like Borders, until their expansion became unmanageable. When the national chain decided they were going to join competitor Barnes & Noble in the Louisville market, they offered the owners of the two surviving local stores a buyout. The way we hear it, the owners of Hawley-Cooke understood that they could not maintain their size and scale if faced with two national chain competitors, so they sold the remaining stores.

For our colleagues at Carmichael's Bookstore, that was a small blessing. After almost 25 years as the "little brother" of the larger local store, they inherited an awful lot of loyal customers and a newly prominent position in the community.

The news from Wall Street today is merely recognition that a business model that relies on predatory pricing (or debilitating discounts) will not work. The scale and efficiencies of a national chain ought to allow them to build the best of bookstores. Instead, both the national chains decided to concentrate their investments in selling more copies of fewer books, and in my view, despite comfy chairs and gourmet coffee bars, they simply did not and do not cut it with true book lovers.

I sell books for a living, but before that I bought books for my own edification and pleasure. And I have to tell you that when I visited either of the national chains, I was always amazed that I couldn't find the books I was looking for. I very often had to settle for something less than I desired. And in all my years as a book consumer, I never once thought about asking a national chain store to order a book for me. Whether it was me or them, I never felt as if they were interested in selling me something they hadn't already decided to carry in case quantities.

Since we've opened in New Albany, I've discovered that the situation is worse. Instead of offering personal service, the chains treated their customers as pigeons, and they treated their employees even worse.

There's no schadenfreude here. It's a sad day for a proud chain, and it was not necessary.

The good news is that the number of independent bookstores continues to grow, if only slightly. Indies are gaining market share for the first time, and if you're reading this books blog, you know why.

We're growing slowly and we hope we're becoming an important asset to the community. We knew from the beginning that the first five years would be rough and we anticipated the recession we're all sharing in, even if we would have wished for a brighter 2008 economy.

Borders is unlikely to survive as a unique entity. But then, they weren't unique anymore. For a few years, consolidation will allow a single national chain to survive. Like their online competition, the remaining national chain will probably try to become all things to all people, while being run from (and by) Wall Street and concentrating on skimming only the cream from the books business Instead of specializing, they'll make the mistake of ignoring their core business to seek greater profits elsewhere. And then they'll grumble about how books are dragging them down. And then they'll fail.

Their business model is simply not sustainable. We believe ours is. Our customers' self interest will kick in and we believe they'll appreciate all the reasons a local independent bookstore is an asset to the community and not just a means for exporting dollars from the local economy.

But we'll see.

So long Borders. What might have been...

Wally Lamb is Back...in November

2008-03-17T13:36:00.004-04:00

This just in, courtesy of Publishers Weekly:

Two-time Oprah book club honoree Wally Lamb, who hasn't released a new title in 10 years, has a new work on the horizon. HarperCollins' flagship imprint will release The Hour I First Believed in November 2008. The book follows a couple that relocates from Colorado to Connecticut, after the wife is traumatized from surviving the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. Once on the East Coast, at the husband's family farm, she tries to regain her footing while he must confront secrets from his family past.

The publisher is calling the novel, by the bestselling author of She's Come Undone (Atria) and I Know This Much is True (Harper), "an extraordinary work of prodigious scope and ambition" and Lamb's editor, Terry Karten, said the author's gone "well beyond his earlier work to deliver a literary tour de force."

Recommended Book, but...

2008-03-16T15:55:00.003-04:00

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, is one of my favorites. HarperCollins has made the entire book available online. Try it with the new BrowseInside widget.

Browse Inside this book

Get this for your site

Power of Three

2008-02-11T21:20:00.001-05:00

Things are piling up in threes for yours truly.

The triple play of my dad's birthday, St. Valentine's Day, and my bride's birth anniversary all fall within six days of each other.

As I write this, three inches of snow surround us.

And I have three books, all nearly completed, in progress. As I told Ann, they're all pretty darn good. I can recommend them all, though you'll have to write them down for later (or preorder them now).

The first started is Netherland, by Joseph O'Neill. I'm only 30 pages from the end of this novel from Pantheon Books. It's hard to convey just how good the book is by describing it, but I'll try. The main character is Hans, a Dutch-born, British-employed investment analyst who has found himself in New York before and after Sept. 11, 2001. Ultimately, wife and child return to England, leaving the affluent Hans at loose ends. Thusly, he renews his acquaintance with the game of cricket and thereby discovers a hidden world of Empire in the five boroughs. Sounds weird, but the plot, with its hint of a mysterious underworld, shady characters, and a transition to responsible manhood makes the book well worth reading.

Next up was A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, by Tony Horwitz. I'm about halfway through this exploration of the forgotten explorers of North and South America between Columbus and the Pilgrims. Horwitz, who brought us Confederates in the Attic, found himself, a history major, no less, embarrassed at his dearth of knowledge about the dozen or so decades between the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria and the Mayflower. The coolness starts with the cover itself, which gives us a 9-question true-false quiz. Here's a sample:

3. America is named for a ship's chandler from Seville who wrote that native women are "taller kneeling than I am standing" and "very desirous to copulate with us Christians."

6. A black slave crossed the U.S. continent more than 160 years befor Lewis & Clark.

8. Sir Walter Raleigh planted tobacco at his colony in Roanoke and wrote that "smoking this foul weed" was bad for health but good for profits.

The third book is By Hook or By Crook: A Journey in Search of English, by David Crystal, who also wrote How Language Works and The Story of English. Mark at the store finished it first and we both found ourselves liking it but growing tired of the "Welshness" of the book. Many of the references went over our heads because we simply don't know enough about England and Wales. Still, I know that several of you are going to enjoy this one. It's filled with pleasing word origins and discussions of dialect and regional speech. And it's all done with a light touch. Shakespeare-lovers will find it particularly fascinating.

Don't mistake the fact that I have three books going as a bad reflection on any of them. I've read a couple more since I started them. Since I began walking to work a couple of years ago, I've been able to add quite a few minutes to my daily reading list by reading while I walk down Spring Street. Some think it queer, but it's actually something I've done since first grade. I recommend it.

Oh, yes. There's another 3 occupying my time. Tim Dorsey's newest Serge Storms novel, Atomic Lobster is a treat unto itself. The addition of a personal visit from the author (Tuesday, Feb. 26, at 5 p.m.) makes it doubly good. And Tim's desire for a less-formal gathering afterward makes it a three-fold pleasure.

We still have a few spots left for the after-party at Rich O's that evening. But you must reserve your space if you want to spend some extended time with this amazingly talented creator.

Tim's On the Way

2008-02-07T18:17:00.000-05:00

Tim Dorsey is at this moment blanketing the state of Florida in support of his tenth Serge A. Storms novel, Atomic Lobster. Fans in the Sunshine State are having a ball before Tim departs for his trip to see us.

Along the way, he's blogging at his MySpace blog. Below is an entry that will tell you an awful lot about the author. It's dated Jan. 10th.

Hey everyone,

Only a little more than a week till blast off. ... People are always asking me, "Hey Tim, now that you no longer work for a newspaper, are you going to run out of ideas for your novels?" Actually, people never ask me that. I just compulsively make up crap all the time. That's why I write books. But it's still a valid question. And here's the answer: The book tour is hands-down weirder than anything I experienced in journalism. Out there is where rubber truly meets the reality road.

First priority of touring is not to become another Florida crime stat. Which is tough if you're traveling alone on business and have a soft spot for sub-budget (but historically significant) motels. After shooing off enough hookers and foiling more than a few muggings with my early-detection scumbag radar, I decided that returning from evening book signings in a suit was not the best tactic. Now I stop at convenience stores/gas stations and change into my anti-crime-victim uniform, i.e. crazy clothes that make you not just an unattractive target, but a potential social burden. My "standard" is a ratty T-shirt, laceless sneakers on the wrong feet and one of those baseball caps with the moose antlers (sweat pants w/urine stains optional) – while loudly repeating Peter Gabriel lyrics: "Shed my skin!"

But the compliments of readers more than make up for any hardships, and they always come in the least likely form. Such as the woman who handed me a cell phone in one book store and asked if I could talk with her husband who wanted to make it but couldn't. So I did. Yeah, he couldn't make it – had four years to go in the federal pen. But he said I was tops with the gang in the cell block.

Then there all the photos I get (see the "Readers' Pix" album on my page) of tattoos and Flat Stanley-esque location shots with my books. ... So thank you all for making this one of the most implausible livings in America!

Peace,

Tim

Atomic Lobster crosses the Ohio River on Tuesday, Feb. 26, for a booksigning at Destinations Booksellers in New Albany, Ind. But you can get your copy now and also reserve space at the after-party at Rich O's Public House. The in-store event starts at 5 p.m. The party at Rich O's at 7:30. Space is going fast, so reserve now.

Here's a little peek at A.L.

Nicknames

2008-02-06T21:07:00.000-05:00

Those of you who have read The Stingray Shuffle, the fifth of Tim Dorsey's novels about the peripatetic Serge A. Storms, will recall "City" and "Country," the delightful and daring ladies who temporarily hooked up with Serge and scarfed up all of Coleman's drugs. Those, of course, weren't their real names.

Which brings us to today's book blog. I'm reading David Crystal's By Hook or By Crook: A Journey in Search of English, from Overlook Press. Crystal is the language maven from the U.K. who brought us the wonderful How Language Works and The Story of English.

So, how do you think the word "nickname" came to be? In a meandering discussion of Shakespeare and place names, particularly inns and pubs with the emblem of "Swan" affixed, we learn that many such establishments are called things like "The Swan with Two Necks," etc. Turns out that some scholars believe that this is a vestige of the word "nicks," which means exactly what you think it means.

For hundreds of years in England and Wales, an annual "Upping" of the swans was held to take a census. The licensed ownership of swans required markings, which often consisted of nicks made in the swans' mandibles.

But nick names have nothing to do with that, Crystal tells us.

"...[there was] an Old English expression, an eke name. Eke meant 'also'. It was your 'other' name. Over time, the n of an got transferred to the beginning of eke. An eke became a neke. The pronunciation changed, and the spelling, and eventually we get the modern word."

By Hook or by Crook is coming in hardcover this May from Overlook Press.

Coincidentally, Ann and I got to spend time with the head of Overlook Press a couple of weeks ago. Peter Mayer is the distinguished head of this boutique publishing house that, book for book, seems to come out with some of the most literate books, fiction and non-, of any house we know of.

If you love the English language, etymology, geography, dialects, or just plain good story-telling, mark this one down. It would make a great gift for Mother's Day or Father's Day.

And don't forget to mark your calendars for Tim Dorsey's return to Indiana on Feb. 26, at the store from 5 to 7 p.m.

Tim, the Man

2008-02-03T22:35:00.001-05:00

The Event

2008-02-03T22:29:00.000-05:00

Florida Roadkill

2008-02-03T21:36:00.001-05:00

This was Tim Dorsey's first novel and the one that started it all. Tim had been working for the Tampa Tribune for more than a dozen years. As a former Florida newspaper person myself, I can attest that just doing your newspaper job constituted sufficient research to write the ultimate "Weird Florida" novel.

The first novel was successful enough for Tim to finally get the ink off his fingers and begin a ten-year rise to prominence that will culminate with his visit to the center of the Dorsey universe - New Albany, Indiana.

Destinations Booksellers opened in 2004 with two author-related goals. One was to lure Kurt Vonnegut to the riverside. The other was to so impress the Tim Dorsey publishing machine that a visit to our city was an inevitability.

Did you know Tim is a native Hoosier? In much the way I was born in Florida (I wanted to be near my mother), Tim was born "here" and moved away. We're treating his visit to Spring Street as a long-awaited homecoming.

In any event, most folks start their Dorsey experience with Florida Roadkill. Here are some tidbits.

from the publisher: Sunshine State trivia buff Serge A. Storms loves eliminating jerks and pests. His drug-addled partner Coleman loves cartoons. Hot stripper Sharon Rhodes loves cocaine, especially when purchased with rich dead men's money.

On the other hand, there's Sean and David, who love fishing and are kind to animals -- and who are about to cross paths with a suitcase filled with $5 million in stolen insurance money. Serge wants the suitcase. Sharon wants the suitcase. Coleman wants more drugs . . . and the suitcase. In the meantime, there's murder by gun, Space Shuttle, Barbie doll, and Levi's 501s.

In other words, welcome to Tim Dorsey's Florida -- where nobody gets out unscathed and untanned!

Here's an excerpt:

Florida Roadkill
Prologue

Florida even looks good collapsing.

From Loggerhead Key to Amelia Island to the Flora-Bama Lounge, the Land of Flowers has natives caught in seductive headlights.

Millions of residents stayed up past midnight one evening in October of 1997 to watch the South Florida baseball team win the seventh game of the World Series in extra innings.

The next day:

A full-figured maid from Rio ran in a circle in the parking lot, crying and screaming in Portuguese. The motel manager leaned against the office doorway, weary, a thin, bald Honduran, four-foot-eleven, sixty years. Brown slacks and ocher guayabera with a pink button on the pocket: "Play the Florida Lottery." He had coppery, folded skin, and he rolled his eyes at the paroxysmal woman in the white cleaning uniform who he decided was being overcome either by religion or insects.

The 1960s-era Orbit Motel was a two-story box around a swimming pool. Its east side faced Cocoa Beach and the Atlantic Ocean, and its sign on Highway A1A was an illuminated globe circled by a mechanical space capsule. The Launch Pad Lounge next to the motel office was retro-fitted into the Launch Pad Food Mart, which the manager tended without humor. The maid's hysterics were unbroachable for fifteen minutes, so the manager ate boiled peanuts. Through sobs, the maid eventually communicated her alarm.

Two police officers in a single squad car arrived four minutes after the manager's phone call. Cocoa Beach has a genie and a bottle on the doors of its police cars. The manager led the officers around the ocean side of the motel and up the unpainted concrete stairs to the balcony. The day was hot and sticky, but the second floor brought wind and snatches of conversation from a tiki bar at the end of the Cocoa Beach Pier. As the manager sorted keys, the officers looked through mirror sunglasses at the lone surfer in a black wetsuit. A cruise ship sailed for Nassau and Freeport in the Bahamas. Both cops thinking: We shouldn't have gone out drinking after the World Series last night.

The manager turned the knob of Room 214 and pushed the door open. He made a gesture into the room that said, "And you've won a brand new car!" Inside was an evidence theme park. A six-foot Rorschach pattern of blood and bone across the wall near the bathroom. Bound securely with braided rope and sitting upright in an uncomfortable motel chair was the late, luckless John Doe, his mouth covered with duct tape and eyes wide. The end of a shotgun was tied to his throat and the exit wound in the back of his neck could hold a croquet ball. His chin rested on the shotgun barrel, the only thing keeping his head propped up, and he wore a baseball cap with the Apollo 13 emblem.

The other end of the twelve-gauge Benelli automatic shotgun was wrapped to a saw horse with more tape. A string tied the trigger to the axle of an electric motor. From the side of the deceased's chair hung a bare copper wire with a small model space shuttle dangling on the end. Circling the wire was a metal collar cut from a beer can. A wire ran from the collar to a car battery. Another wire ran from the shuttle to a solenoid switch and the motor. The television was on the NASA channel. Live video of two astronauts spacewalking during their third day in orbit. The cops looked over the room, gave each other a high five and burst out laughing. One radioed for the detectives and lab guys. The other grabbed the remote control, looking for something good on TV.

Clinton Ellrod painted white block letters in an arc across the front window of the Rapid Response convenience store. Back behind the cash register, he admired his handiwork through the glass, reading in reverse: "Congratulations Marlins!"

With the efficiency of a casino worker, Ellrod pulled down two packs of Doral menthols, tore loose five scratch-off lottery tickets (the sand dollars game), rang up a twelve-pack of ice-brewed beer and set pump seven for eighteen dollars. A crew outside was taking down the Rapid Response sign and replacing it with one that read "Addiction World"; they left early for lunch.

During lulls, Ellrod studied notes from classes at Florida International University. When fried from an all-nighter, he daydreamed out the tinted windows and watched traffic on U.S. 1 run through the asphalt badlands between Coconut Grove and Coral Gables. Fast food, anemic strip malls, check-cashing parlors with steel-reinforced pylons out front. There was a desperateness to the commerce, like a Mexican border town or a remote gold-mining settlement in Brazil. Except for weeds in the cracks, the pavement sealed everything up like an icecap. But Ellrod loved sunsets, even here. Soft, warm light glinting off the cars, and the concrete orange at the end. The day people, rushing through checklists of responsibility, giving way to this other group, hustling around after dark to accomplish everything they shouldn't be doing at all.

Rapid Response stood a few blocks in from Biscayne Bay. Through the front door came construction workers filling forty-four-ounce Thirst Mutilators, school kids in baggy clothes shoplifting, registered nurses grabbing Evian from the glassed-in cooler, businessmen on cell phones unfolding maps they'd never buy. Nicaraguans, Germans, Tamil rebels, Sikh separatists, scag mules, prom-queens-turned-drug-trollops, armored car guards, escaped convicts, getaway drivers, siding salesmen, rabbis and assorted non-bathers. Ten times a day he gave directions to Monkey Jungle. Ellrod, like all Florida convenience store clerks, had the Serengeti alertness of the tastiest gazelle in the herd. He studied customers for danger. He ruled out the pair at the chips rack, the tall, athletic guy and the shorter, bookish man exchanging playful punches, debating Cheetos, puffy or crunchy.

Ellrod made change for a bookie on Rollerblades. A black Mercedes S420 limousine pulled up. Three Latin men slammed three doors. They wore identical white linen suits, shirts open at the collar, no chest hair or gold chains. Thick, trimmed moustaches. They entered the store in descending order of height and in the same order filled three styrofoam cups at the soda spigot.

The athletic guy used a twenty to pay for two bags of Cheetos and a tank of regular unleaded; they drove to the edge of the convenience store lot in a white Chrysler and waited for the stoplight at the corner to hold up traffic, then rejoined U.S. 1 southbound.

The tallest Latin asked Ellrod for the servicio, and Ellrod pointed to the rear of the store. All three went inside the one-toilet restroom and closed the door. Ellrod turned to the beeping gas control panel. He pressed a button and leaned to a grape-size microphone on a gooseneck. "Pump number four is on." "About fucking time," said the speaker on the control panel. The pickup truck at pump four sat on tractor tires. It was red, spangled metallic, with a bank of eight amber fog lights over the cab. The sticker on the left side of the bumper read, "English only in the U.S.A.!" The one on the right had a drawing of the Stars and Stripes. It said, "Will the last American out of Miami please bring the flag?"

The driver walked into the store, and Ellrod saw he came to five-nine on the robber height guide running up the doorjamb. He had a crew cut midway between Sid Vicious and John Ehrlichman, a Vandyke beard and a sunburnt face rounded out into a moon by the people at Pabst Blue Ribbon. He wore the official NFL jersey of the Dallas Cowboys.

"What took you so long, stupid!" said the driver. "That'll be nineteen dollars," Ellrod said without interest. The man pulled bills from his wallet; his face had a dense patina of perspiration. Ellrod smelled whiskey, onions and B.O.

"I asked you a question!" said the driver. He looked up from his wallet and saw Ellrod's T-shirt. "FIU? What the fuck's that? Some new shitty rap band?!"

Ellrod, African-American, picked up the drift of the conversation.

"Florida International University," he said evenly.

"Oh, you and the homeboys now stealing college laundry."

"I go to school there."

"Don't bullshit me, boy. You're so smart, how come you workin' here?" The man pointed to the employee parking space and Ellrod's two-hundred-thousand-mile Datsun with a trash bag for a back window. "That's your car, isn't it! Shit, don't go telling me you're a college boy. I didn't even graduate high school and look at my truck!"

Ellrod glanced out at pump number four and the rolling monument to pinheads everywhere. The store audio system piped in "Right Place, Wrong Time" and it was to the part about "refried confusion."

"Now give me my fucking change, you stupid fucking ..."

And he said it. The word. It hung in the air between them, an electrical cumulonimbus over the cash register.

The driver realized what he'd spoken and paused to flash back. He used the word once to criticize a bad parking job at a Wendy's, and this little four-foot guy went Tasmanian Devil on him. He received bruised ribs, a jaw wired shut and eight fog lights snapped off his truck.

He panicked. He jumped back from the counter and pulled a switchblade on Ellrod. "Don't try anything! You know you guys call each other that all the time! Don't go getting on me about slavery!"

The tallest Latin was next in line, fiddling with a point-of-purchase display, key-chain flashlights in the shape of AK-47 bullets.

"Hey!" the Latin said to the pickup driver. "Apologize!"

The driver turned the blade toward him. "Fuck off, Julio! You don't even have a dog in this fight! Go back to your guacamole farm and those tropical monkeys you call the mothers of your children!"

The driver never saw it. A second Latin came from behind, holding a bottle of honey-mustard barbecue sauce the size of a bowling pin. He had it by the neck and swung it around into the driver's nose, which exploded. Blood squirted everywhere like someone had stomped the heel of a boot down on a packet of ketchup.

Ellrod witnessed an entirely new league of violence. Everything in his experience up to now, even murder, was amateur softball. The driver was swarmed as he fell, and the Latins came up with makeshift convenience store weapons. Dry cell battery, meat tenderizer, Parrot Gardens car deodorizer. In ten seconds, they pulverized both elbows, both kneecaps and both testicles.

The tallest Latin walked to the rotisserie next to the soda machine. A dozen hot dogs had turned on a circle of spits for six hours, and they were leathery and resistent to conventional forks and knives. He grabbed two of the spits and held one in each fist, pointing down, like daggers. The others saw him and cleared away from the pickup driver, now on his back. The tall one pounced and drove the spits into the driver's chest, a bullfight banderillero setting the decorative spears. One spit pierced the right lung, and the other blew a ventricle. The driver torqued and shimmied on the floor and then fell into the death rattle, two shrivelled-up hot dogs quivering on rabbit-ear antennas sticking out of his chest.

The tall Latin stepped over the driver and up to the cash register. He pulled a ten from an eelskin wallet and handed it to Ellrod. "Three Cokes and two Jumbo Meaty Dogs."

Ellrod's legs vibrated under the counter, but he managed to make change. After a half minute, he ran to the window and watched the limousine merge into southbound traffic on U.S. 1. The windows were down and he could see three men sucking soda straws.

Sean Breen ran his finger down the triple-A map on his lap, a steady flow of crunchy Cheetos going to his mouth with the free hand. In the driver's seat, David Klein had a thing going with a bag of the puffies.

Fifteen miles south of Miami. Sean said, "Cutler Ridge." He looked up from the map and out the window. "Can hardly tell Hurricane Andrew came through. You should have been here five years ago. That business tower there. You could see in all the offices. The east face was gone."

Twelve more miles they hit Florida City. The Turnpike came in from the northeast and dumped onto U.S. 1. The end of civilization on the mainland. The peninsula had twenty more miles until the bridge to the Florida Keys, but the only thing left was a two-lane road south through the mangroves. The final building before the wilderness, the Last Chance Saloon, had a "Go Marlins!" banner over the door between the wagon wheels.

Sean and David thought professional wrestling in Florida wasn't what it used to be.

"Jack Brisco was my favorite," said Sean. "His trademark was the Figure-Four Leg-Lock."

"Those were the days, when the fundamentals meant something."

"Like the sleeper hold."

"Remember you had to apply an antidote hold after the sleeper knocked the guy unconscious?"

"Yeah, and one time this masked wrestler wouldn't let anyone in the ring to apply the antidote to his opponent, and Gordon Solie was going crazy in the announcer's booth, yelling, 'Brain damage is setting in!' The guy went into a coma and came out of it the following week to win the battle royal."

David's face turned serious. Ahead, a dark lump sat in the lane. David winced as it passed under the car, and relaxed when it cleared the undercarriage.

He looked in the rearview. "Gopher tortoise," he said. "Ain't gonna make it."

David pulled over and walked back toward the tortoise, which had reached the center line. He stood on the shoulder, waiting for opportunity. Heavy traffic blowing by, but a break coming up. One more car to go and he could run out and carry the tortoise to the other side.

Serge leaned forward in the passenger seat and tuned the radio in the canary-yellow '72 Corvette. His yellow beach shirt matched the car and was covered with palm trees; his two-dollar sunglasses had ruby frames and alligators at the corners. The first four radio stations were Spanish, then blues from Miami, then Serge found the frequency he wanted as they passed the Last Chance Saloon.

"I just want to celebrate ... another day of living ..."

Serge talked over the radio. "And what was the deal with Coral Key State Park? The place was a death-trap. If it wasn't for Flipper, someone would have died there every week. Can't believe nobody sued."

"Dolphins like to wear hats," said Coleman, a joint dangling from his lips as he drove. On his head was one of those afro wigs painted in a rainbow. He was wearing novelty sunglasses with slinky eyeballs, and they swung and clacked together when he turned to face Serge.

"... I just want to celebrate ... yeah! yeah! ..."

"What's that in the road?" asked Serge.

"Don't know," said Coleman. "Looks like something fell out of a car and that guy's trying to retrieve it. Some kind of case. ... Well not today, fella!"

Coleman swerved over the center line, like Jerry Lewis running over Spencer Tracy's hat in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

"... I just want to celebrate another day of living! ..."

And Coleman popped the turtle.

The pair turned around and saw a guy jumping up and down in the road, shaking his fists in the air. \

"You sick fuck! Why'd you do that?!" Serge shouted. "You killed a living thing!"

"I thought it was a helmet," Coleman said.

"A helmet? We're in the Keys! This ain't fuckin' Rat Patrol!"

Serge plucked the joint from Coleman's lips - "Gimme that!" - and flicked it out the window. He ripped the slinky-eyeball glasses off Coleman's face and tossed them in the open gym bag at his feet. The glasses landed on the packs of hundred-dollar bills and next to the Smith and Wesson thirty-eight.

"Pull over," said Serge. "I'm driving."

Twenty miles west of Key West, mangrove islets scattered across jade shallows. Toward the Gulf Stream, the green gave way at once to a cold, ultramarine blue that ran to the horizon. It was noon, a soundless, cloudless day, and the sun broiled.

At the far end of the silence began a buzz, like a mosquito. It stayed low for a long time and then suddenly swelled into a high-precision, motorized thunder that prevented any train of thought, and a forty-foot cigarette boat slapped and crashed across the swells far closer to the flats than was smart.

Orange and aqua stripes ran the length of the speedboat, which had the logo of the Miami Dolphins on one side and a big number 13 on the other.

Behind the wheel was twenty-two-year-old Johnny Vegas, bronzed, built and smelling like a whorehouse. Because he was wearing Whorehouse Cologne, one-hundred dollars an ounce on South Beach. Long black hair straight back in the wind, herringbone gold chain around his neck. His work-out T-shirt had the sleeves cut off and a cartoon on the front that made a joke about his shlong being big. On the back was a drawing of a woman in a bikini with a bull's-eye on her crotch. He wore the curved sunglasses of a downhill skier.

Johnny's mouth alternated between a thousand-candle-power shit-eating grin and running his tongue over his gums with cocaine jitters. He kept the coke in a twenty-four-karat gold shark amulet he bought in a head shop on Key West, Southernmost Bong and Hookah. It now hung from the gold chain. He threw two toggles near the ignition and "Smoke on the Water" shook from sixteen waterproof speakers.

Johnny lived off a trust fund generated by a life-insurance-for-the-elderly program targeting anyone who had ever been, known, seen or heard about a military veteran. He exercised daily in his Bal Harbor condo and it showed - not muscle-bound but defined at six feet, one-ninety. On weekends he cruised for chicks in the boat, and he had the tan of a professional beach volleyball player.

Other people bought jerseys with the numbers of their favorite Miami Dolphins players. Johnny customized the cigarette boat for his favorite, future Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino. He soon found that people assumed it actually was Marino's boat, and that Johnny was a tight friend. Johnny often said, yes, it was Marino's boat. Would you like to come aboard, little girl?

In romance, Johnny was a selective man. He wouldn't just go for anyone. He was attracted to a very specific type: horny, young, binge-drinking women in T-backs. Any event with a hint of spring-break attitude, Johnny's boat was there.

He ranged from Fort Lauderdale to Islamorada in the Keys, where fast boats held effective parties on an offshore sandbar. That was as far as Vegas would take the cigarette. The cocaine he bought for the World Series the night before had taken him the rest of the way down the Keys.

No sooner had he arrived, he was on the business side of Key West, heading out to sea. As the propeller cavitated, Johnny unconsciously fingered the coke talisman hanging at his sternum. At sixty miles an hour, he strained to see as the air pressure flattened his eyeballs, but he had to keep up appearances for the woman clinging to her white leather seat. She didn't really mind, with a tight belly full of Captain Morgan.

She was maybe twenty, a student at Key West Community College, majoring in flirting her way onto expensive boats with powder parties. She was thin with a deep tan, sun-lightened brown hair and a cute Georgia face. And she learned nothing in life is free when she got thrown overboard by an Argentinean tycoon on whose yacht she had been partying and whose knee she'd been grabbing before she said, "Sorry, I have a boyfriend back at school."

That morning Johnny had been idling the boat past Mallory Square when he spotted her sitting in a bikini with legs hanging over the seawall, having shown up ten hours early for the sunset celebration.

He tapped his left nostril; she nodded eagerly and boarded. They did two lines at the docks and slugged rumrunners as they passed Sand Key lighthouse.

Johnny's plan was to head south from Key West, pick up deeper water and chart west. The uninhabited Marquesas Atoll sat twenty-five miles further with a sandy beach, perfect for scoring.

Which would be a first. Because, despite the boat and the exercising and the cocaine and cologne and money, he never got a babe in the sack. Not once. It was always something. Boat fire, water spout, sand crabs, Coast Guard search, language barrier, drug overdose and, with rampant frequency, the sudden and complete change-of-heart. There was even the can't-miss time a statuesque brunette model came right up to him on the dock and said, "I fuck guys with fast boats." They were three miles offshore and she's topless, taking off her bottom, when she hears something. A hydroplane pulls up, a man opens the cockpit, and she gets in and leaves.

This time would be different. This time with - what was her name? One of those double, singsong deals. Something-Sue. Betty Sue? Peggy Sue? Ah, to hell with it: more cocaine for everyone!

Indications to the contrary, Johnny wasn't obnoxious, just immature, and the older residents of his condominium regarded him as a loveable, goofy pet. They also had no faith in his seamanship. They worried that someday he'd hit an awash coral head and there would go Johnny, cartwheeling across the Gulf Stream at eighty miles an hour until he was embedded head-first in the sand like a javelin. So they broke it down for him. Stay in the blue water and out of the green water. Over and over: blue water good, green water bad.

Johnny and 'Sue raced due south of the Marquesas in solid-green water and skirting closer to yellow and white. The water was clear as a swimming pool, and patches of sand and coral ran starboard. Between two islands was a channel that cut across the flats as if someone had poured a river of lime jello. He looked down and saw the shadow of his boat racing next to him on the sea floor, and he pretended he was the Flying Dutchman.

The bottom was soft, and Johnny's boat plowed a hundred-yard trench that bled off the violence of the grounding. The stop catapulted 'Sue onto the deck on her hands and knees.

"Are we stuck?" she asked, the boat's deck as solid and unmoving as Nebraska.

"Oh, no no no!" said Johnny. He tossed a mushroom anchor over the bow with forty feet of line, which was thirty-nine too many, and the excess coils of rope floated by where 'Sue was sitting.

"How 'bout some more cocaine!" said Johnny, creating a diversion. He tapped the amulet on the fiberglass console. 'Sue poured another rumrunner out of Johnny's titanium tactical party Thermos, having spilled the last one down the left side of her bikini top. Johnny took off his shirt.

The stereo blared "Funky Cold Medina." They climbed up on the bow. Dancing sloppy, not holding each other, rubbing chests. Johnny thought of his buzz and 'Sue and the music and how he was gonna finally get laid. He closed his eyes and saw an infomercial for Veterans' Health and Life on the inside of the eyelids, and he smiled.

The water exploded off the port side, and Johnny and 'Sue tumbled back together on the bow.

"Jesus, Harry and Joseph!" he yelled.

They looked overboard, out in the blue water, where their boat should have been. They expected to see a bale of dope or an airplane wing, but instead saw a large blob covered with seaweed and algae and gunk, a long-dead manatee or Kemp's ridley turtle.

They stared a half minute, and their crunched-up faces released at the same time with recognition. Out in the water was a man, bloated and distended, chain around his neck. 'Sue gave a prolonged, blood-clotting scream, which Johnny took to mean she was no longer in the mood.

It took a few minutes but 'Sue had started to calm down, just sniffling and her chest heaving a little. Johnny thought, yeah, there's a blown-up old dead guy all putrid and shit a few feet away, but I got the smooth moves! He put his arm around her shoulder, to console her, and began sliding his hand toward her breast.

A procession of sports cars and rv's was making the grunion run down from Florida City to the drawbridge onto Key Largo. Because of speeding, reckless driving and head-on crashes, the Florida Department of Transportation erected a bunch of warning signs and built special passing lanes.

One of the signs read, "Be patient. Passing lane one mile." Next to it, an Isuzu Rodeo towing a Carolina Skiff jackknifed trying to pass a Ranchero. The Rodeo slid upright to a stop on the left shoulder, but the skiff rolled, sending four cases of Bud and Bud Lite clattering across the road. The rigid column of high-speed traffic became unorganized, like a line of ants hit with bug spray. A Mustang swerved left, flipped and landed half-submerged in the water next to the causeway; a Mercury spun out to the right and slid down the embankment sideways, taking out thirty feet of endangered plants. Motorists ran to check on the people in the Isuzu but retreated when the Mercury's driver pulled a nickel forty-five out of the glove compartment. He opened fire on the Rodeo, across the street, which returned fire with an SKS Chinese military rifle. The Rodeo's bumper sticker said, "Hang up and drive!"

Behind the firefight, people got out of cars crouched behind bumpers or ran for cover in the mangroves. Some jumped in Barnes and Blackwater Sounds and swam away.

Twenty cars back from the accident, Sean Breen and David Klein opened their doors for shields and prepared to run. Ten cars back, three Latin men sat in a bullet-proof Mercedes limousine, playing three Nintendo GameBoys.

One car back was a yellow Corvette. Coleman and Serge stared at the boat in the middle of the road and the foam shooting into the air from the Budweisers.

As they had approached Key Largo, breaks in the roadside brush gave first glimpses of the Keys. Hundreds of yards of tangled branches blurring by, and then a two-foot opening, a subliminal view across the sounds. Unnamed mangrove islands in that unmistakable profile, long and low. Serge thought it was the same profile that in 1513 prompted Ponce de Leon's sailors to name them Los Martires, the martyrs, because they looked like dead guys lying down. No they don't, thought Serge, but he was naturally high anyway as he sat in the parked Corvette. The sniper fire was making a racket and it snapped Serge out of it.

"Beer me," he said, looking straight ahead.

"Right," said Coleman. He waited a few seconds for a break in the gunfire and ran out in the road in front of the car, grabbing one of the few cans that wasn't blowing suds from the seams.

He jumped back in the car and handed it to Serge.

Serge stared at him. "I meant from the cooler."

The Coast Guard petty officer, a serious young man with a galvanized clipboard, recent haircut and pressed uniform, stood on the back deck of Johnny Vegas' boat and said no unnecessary words as he took down Johnny's version.

Johnny eyed the man's wedding ring, which he noted was quite small and without diamonds. The petty officer hadn't mentioned Dan Marino. Johnny had been noticing for some time that people in authority weren't giving him enough respect. It wasn't that they were rude or patronizing. Worse, he was irrelevant. Maybe I need to work on my image, he thought, and planned to buy a fighter pilot's jacket.

Coast Guard and Marine Patrol boats had arrived. A four-man dive team was in the water. The body had been pulled from the gulf and lay on a stainless steel table at the stern of the Coast Guard boat. A man with surgical gloves probed the remains; another took photos with a Nikon.

Johnny sat forlorn with elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands and a rotting buzz in his head, thinking about all the drugs he dumped in the ocean after radioing the authorities on the VHF. 'Sue hunched over in fetal position on the port side with a towel wrapped around her, shivering, occasionally lunging for the gunwales to toss up more of her breakfast of cold pizza. She turned to Johnny with a sad, pleading look, not feeling so attractive any more. He shook his head with impatience and opened a water-tight compartment. "Here," he said, holding something out to her, "have a mint."

Johnny put his chin back in his hands and stared at the flotilla of partially digested pizza being ravaged by tropical fish. Another boat approached from the east, a forty-foot tri-hull catamaran. A reporter from Florida Cable News stood on the tip of the middle bow holding a microphone, facing back toward the cabin and his cameraman. Behind him, hidden under his suit, was a brace and safety harness, like a barnstorming wing-walker. He raced at top speed toward news.

The upstart Florida Cable News network had to compensate for lack of money, experience and reputation with raw daring. The coin of the realm was the scoop, and they regularly beat all major Florida affiliates by going on the air immediately with a ground-breaking series of premature, unconfirmed, flat-wrong stories.

But the worse FCN's accuracy got, the higher the ratings. An cult developed and tuned in to see how factually mangled the coverage had become. The closest thing FCN had to a recognizable personality was correspondent Blaine Crease, a former stunt man who was becoming recognized for exclusively reporting incorrect stories while suspended in a harness. Bouncing on a boat in a harness. Standing atop a fire engine in a harness. Bungee jumping into precedent-setting slander.

On the Coast Guard boat the early bets favored a gangland hit, like the mobsters that occasionally popped up in fifty-five gallon drums in the Miami River and off the Rickenbacker Causeway. Others leaned toward lunacy, remembering the psychopath who dumped three women in Tampa Bay in '89.

They wondered about the single cement block attached to the chain around the victim's neck. After the oil drums, you'd think every professional button-man would know what it takes to keep a body down when it bloats during decomposition.

A diver broke the surface behind the boat and spit out his regulator. "We got another one!"

Sean and David were stiff, sweaty and tense from sitting in the car so long. When they arrived in Key West, they skipped checking in at a hotel and drove to a bar on Duval Street.

They arrived in the purple interlude between sunset and night and parked on a side street by the Expatriate Cafe. The bar nurtured a sinister, desperado atmosphere that could be purchased on the way out in a variety of T-shirts and knickknacks. The tables nestled among fishtail palms, and mature traveler's trees fanned out at each end of the patio. The tables had tiny, dim lamps with white shades. Over the bar was a world map from the 1930s, an antique sign for Pan Am, and a row of black-and-white celebrity photographs: Ernest Hemingway in Spain, Gertrude Stein in Paris, Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, Roman Polanski in Switzerland, Howard Hughes in the Bahamas, Eldridge Cleaver making Tim Leary wash the dishes in Algeria.

Sean and David grabbed stools at the bar and ordered drafts. A hit-and-run afternoon cloudburst left puddles in the street that reflected pink and green neon. The opening guitar chords of "Whole Lotta Love" pounded out the open door of the bar across the street.

The two sat with their beers watching the pedestrians and mopeds and cars cruising Duval. They looked up at the TV, hanging on the wall between Bogart and Polanski.

"Good evening, this is Florida Cable News. Our top story tonight ..."

Serge pointed up at the TV over the espresso machine.

"... Our top story tonight is tragedy in the waters off Key West, where two bodies were recovered ..."

Serge and Coleman sat in a cramped Cuban lunch counter on two stools next to the window. The restaurant was a block off Duval Street on Fleming. A blue awning hung over the door, flanked by U.S. and Cuban flags.

They ordered cheese toast. Coleman had cafe con leche and beer; Serge ice water. They watched TV and chewed.

"... We take you to correspondent Blaine Crease with this exclusive report. Blaine? ..."

Blaine Crease bobbed against the horizon as his catamaran sailed toward the Marquesas.

"Thank you Natalie. A grisly discovery about twenty miles from Key West today as divers recovered two unrecognizable bodies involved in some kind of incident with Miami quarterback Dan Marino's speedboat. ..."

A large photograph of Marino's smiling face filled the screen.

"It is not known whether Marino himself was aboard. But we have been unable to reach him by phone, and his boat captain refused to be interviewed ..."

The TV showed a depressed Johnny Vegas staring at tufts of pizza in the water, then looking up at the camera and angrily waving it away. Blaine Crease's voice narrated over the video:

"... Heaven only knows what that poor young man is thinking ..."

Johnny was thinking, if she would only stop upchucking, I can still score.

"... Back to you Natalie ..."

"Thank you Blaine. And in other tragic news ..." said the smiling anchorwoman, who swung to another camera and switched to frown. "We take you to the Space Coast ..."

A skinny, baby-faced reporter walked backward on the beach with a microphone. "As the space shuttle orbits overhead, police face a down-to-earth murder mystery in the space capital of the United States. I'm here in Cocoa Beach, where police have discovered a crime scene almost as puzzling as it is macabre. Officially, authorities are saying nothing except the deceased is male, but sources tell me he was the victim of the world's most dangerous Rube Goldberg device. ..."

Coleman gave Serge a worried glance but didn't speak. Serge threw three fives on the counter, individually, dealing cards, and they walked into the Key West night.

(Please purchase Florida Roadkill to continue for another 255 pages)
All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2005 Tim Dorsey.

Serge's Secret Florida Box

2008-02-03T21:31:00.001-05:00

"Shredders (members of the Serge Storms Historical Research & Debating Society)" are familiar with the box of treasures that Serge A. Storms carries with him on all his weird Florida journeys. But most of you will not be.

Please be advised that while it is quirky, the underlying malady is disturbing. If you think you can handle it, go to this timdorsey.com Web page and check it out.

http://timdorsey.com/box.htm

Tim Dorsey will bring his national author tour to New Albany, Ind. on Tuesday, Feb. 26, at Destinations Booksellers. See our Web site for details and get your copy of Atomic Lobster, the tenth of Dorsey's novels, our favorite.

23 Days

2008-02-03T17:44:00.000-05:00

For three years we've been preaching the marvels of Tim Dorsey, the skillful story-teller who introduced Serge Storms to our universe.

And for three years we've been promising that we would bring Tim to New Albany. The countdown starts now. On Tuesday, February 26, Mr. Dorsey will touch down in his native state following an exhausting tour northward. Join us as we celebrate this momentous visit, starting at 5 p.m.

Our Web site contains all the key information. We invite you to pick up Tim's newest book, Atomic Lobster, the tenth of his Serge Storms novels.

We have a special invitation for all "Shredders," the folks who started the Serge Storms Historical Research & Debating Society and all who would like to join. At 7:30 that evening, we'll venture north to Rich O's Public House and the Prost Events Hall for a reservation-only evening with Tim Dorsey. The hall can only accommodate 50 people and the reservation list is filling up rapidly. The multiple dining rooms of Rich O's and Sportstime Pizza will be available for overflow, but to ensure your chance to spend time with the author, you must reserve before the list is full.

During that event, we also will have a very special presentation for Mr. Dorsey. Guests can sample brews from The New Albanian Brewing Company, but for the most part the party is a la carte. And it's free! You can order food and libations from the menu and mingle with the author, his fans, and even the Publican himself. If the festivities allow it, we'll have games and contests, too, although Tim himself asked for this venue so he could spend time with his fans.

And while we can't promise it, I expect Tim will accommodate those who can't get into the Prost but who will be lingering in the other dining rooms.

The best way you can thank Tim for this visit is to buy his book, available now at Destinations Booksellers, 604 E. Spring St., New Albany.

In the coming days we'll share with you our love for Tim and his "hero," the inimitable Serge A. Storms. Do not miss this event, whether it is the booksigning from 5 to 7 p.m. or the after-party. This will be our biggest event ever and the response we get will make a significant statement to major national publishers like Tim's own HarperCollins Publishers about how well New Albany and Southern Indiana can support big author tours.

For the time being, we're keeping publicity quiet and local, but soon the whole metro area will be clued in. Purchase the book Atomic Lobster or any of Tim's previous books now and make your reservations for the post-signing gala.

But then, they deserved to die...

2008-01-10T11:33:00.000-05:00

If you're wondering what that title means, wonder no more.

Ann and I are feeling a "Serge" of energy with this morning's news that author Tim Dorsey, our very own Moby Dick, has been sighted by our lookouts.

We received today a request from HarperCollins Publishers, parent company of the William Morrow imprint that puts out the entire Dorsey fiction ouvre, that we host Tim on February 26.

Tim's "Atomic Lobster" comes out in a few days. We've long desired to have him come and meet you all, to show him our "shrine" to Serge Storms, and to introduce an even larger group to the outstanding lunacy of the series.

I'll have more to say as details firm up, but suffice it to say that this is BIG news and a milestone event for our store and our town. You will not want to miss this author appearance.

For the biggest of Dorsey fans, we'll be having a reservation-only premium event that includes a personalized copy of Atomic Lobster and fine dining. While we can't give you complete details, we are taking reservations NOW! Blog readers will get first chance, followed by our e-mail list (sign up at www.destinationsbooksellers.com), and then the general public.

Saving Ourselves

2008-01-01T18:24:00.000-05:00

2007 marked the completion of stage one for our efforts to "go green" at the store. Moving to Floyd County and being exposed to a patron base that is, for the most part, sensitive to our effect on our environment has motivated us to examine every aspect of our business and how we can minimize our impact on the planet.

If you've browsed the store with care you will have noted the wide selection of "responsibility journalism" contained on our shelves. From The World Without Us to Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, from The Small-Mart Revolution to Building Green, we seek out these books in the belief that you will read them and incorporate their lessons into your lives. We read them and try to apply those lessons.

In 2007 we completed a total modernization of the lighting in our store. We have precisely three incandescent bulbs remaining in our store, almost none of which are ever switched on. The other 100 or so are the most energy-efficient we can find. Our electric bill decreased more than 50%!

We haven't planted a rain garden in place of our parking lot, although if we had known how few of you would use the lot at the rear of the store we would have petitioned for a waiver of the city's requirement for 10 off-street parking spaces. We haven't installed a hydroponic roof or solar panels, but we did make sure that our walls and ceilings were insulated to the max. Yes, we leak a little heat from our massive picture windows and our aged steel and glass doors, but we often explore alternatives.

Also, 2007 marked a year in which I resolved to walk to work as much as possible. I sold my car and now hoof it. It's good for me in so many ways, and I can sleep well knowing I'm not pouring carbon dioxide into the air or lubricants and gasoline into our waterways. Part of the reason for locating where we did was to make it possible for me to do just that. We know not everyone can duplicate that, but wouldn't it be nice if we all found a way to reduce our carbon imprint.

The production and distribution of books does have an impact. You may be aware of a little book called An Inconvenient Truth, a book that helped to draw attention to Al Gore. Did you know that the design and manufacture of the book itself was done in a way to minimize its environmental impact?

Now, for 2008, we'll be going greener, trying to help transition our patrons away from plastic bags. Take a moment to read this article from Salon.com that drives home the futility of choosing the convenience and low cost of the world's worst litter-creator. Within a few days we'll be introducing elegant, economical, and reusable bags. We hope you'll consider acquiring one or more for your own use. We won't be giving them away, but we think that once you see them you'll understand why we chose them.

We are working to replace our old friends, the paper & plastic bags, with something that does their job without creating needless waste or harming the environment. Using one of these for one year replaces 300 to 700 disposable bags.

One holds the contents of 2 to 3 plastic grocery bags. Six bags can hold a whole cart full of groceries.

The bag's handles are the perfect length: you can hold them in your hand, on your forearm, or over your shoulder.

They are made from super strong rip-stop nylon (holds 25 lbs) so they are light (2 oz) and compactible. They fold into a flat 5 by 5 inch pouch that easily slips in a purse or pocket. That way they are always handy when you need them.

These bags have a nice big gusset in the bottom so they will sit flat when they are filled (good for eggs & milk.)

Changing our own shopping habits is one small thing we can do to make a difference. We hope you feel good every time you use yours.

PLASTIC BAGS & THE PLANET: The average family brings home 1,000 bags every year. Most of those bags end up in land fills. That really adds up - 100 billion plastic bags are sent to landfill in the US each year. In landfills, it can take up to 1000 years for a bag to decompose. Plastics don't biodegrade, they photo-degrade, breaking down into tiny toxic pieces that contaminate soil and water or harm wildlife. Every time you use your reusable bag instead of plastic or paper you are doing something good.

Happy Holidays to You, From Us

2007-12-13T14:03:00.000-05:00

And you wondered what we do when the store is closed?

Give a Gift To Our Economy: Shop Locally Owned This Holiday Season

2007-12-13T13:10:00.000-05:00

I wanted to share with you this compelling piece by Stacy Mitchell.

This article is reprinted here with permission from Stacy Mitchell, a researcher with the New Rules Project and author of Big-Box Swindle : The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Businesses.

Whether to patronize a chain or a locally owned business is not top of mind for many holiday shoppers, but it should be. It's a choice that has profound implications for our economy.

If you shop at an independent toy store, such as Be Beep in Annapolis, Maryland, you will likely see products made by Beka, a small toy manufacturer in St. Paul, Minnesota.

A family-owned business, Beka has opted not to sell to chains like Target and Wal-Mart. Doing so, explains co-owner Jamie Kreisman, would require moving production to low-wage factories overseas, which would eliminate what he and his brothers most love about the business: their relationships with their employees and working hands-on with their products.

Beka is healthy, but its future depends entirely on the survival of independent toy stores. Over the last decade, Wal-Mart and Target have aggressively overtaken this sector and now capture 45 percent of U.S. toy sales.

If you buy groceries for your holiday meals at an independent grocer, like Catalano's Market in Fresno, California, you will find lots of food produced by small-scale, local farmers, such as Paul Buxman.

A second-generation grower of peaches, Buxman nearly lost his farm selling to supermarket chains, which demand cutthroat prices and truckloads of perfect-looking, though often flavorless, fruit that only industrial farms can supply.

With bankruptcy looming, Buxman dropped the chains and forged relationships with independents like Catalano's. He works hard to give them the best fruit and they honor this by paying a fair price and accepting the natural ebb and flow of supply.

Today, Buxman's farm is back on track. Catalano's is doing well too, but owner Michael Catalano worries about Fresno approving still more chain supermarkets and recently a Wal-Mart. Since 1998, the top five supermarket chains, led by Wal-Mart, have doubled their market share and now capture nearly half of all grocery spending.

Patronize an independent CD store, like Waterloo Records in Austin, and you not only support a business owned by a music aficionado, but help to ensure opportunities for new artists. Many beloved bands got their start when a few store owners fell in love with their first albums and began recommending them.

That does not happen at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and other mass merchandisers, which now account for more than half of all album sales, but stock only chart-toppers and have no room for unknowns.

Chain retailers have expanded dramatically over the last two decades. Home Depot and Lowe's, barely a blip on the radar screen in 1986, control half of the hardware and building supply market. Barnes & Noble and Borders account for half of bookstore sales. Every sector is now dominated by a couple of chains, and Wal-Mart dominates them all, capturing one of every ten retail dollars we spend.

We assume that the chains represent economic progress, but in fact they take far more out of our economy than they contribute.

As the chains have expanded, tens of thousands of independent retailers have lost their livelihoods and laid off hundreds of thousands of employees. A study by David Neumark at UC-Irvine found that every new Wal-Mart store actually eliminates many more retail jobs than it creates.

The expansion of the chains has triggered a cascade of losses in other economic sectors. Some three million U.S. manufacturing jobs have been eliminated since 1990, in part because the chains have pressured companies, including Black & Decker and Levi's, to slash costs by moving overseas.

The chains also return very little of what their stores take in back to the communities where they operate. A study in Maine by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance found that only 14 cents of a dollar spent at big-box store remains in the state's economy.

In contrast, the study found that independent retailers spend more than half their revenue locally. They bank at local banks, hire local accountants, advertise in local media, and require many other local services that chains do not. For mid-sized and smaller cities especially, this is a vital source of economic activity and jobs that pay a middle-class income.

In exchange for all the businesses and jobs they destroy, the chains offer us employment in their stores. Wages for most of these jobs are so low that many big-box employees rely on Medicaid, food stamps, and other taxpayer-funded programs to get by.

None of this looks much like progress. In fact, what the big-box model most closely resembles are the old colonial economies of the European superpowers, which were organized, not to improve the lives of the local inhabitants, but to extract their wealth.

This holiday season, we can declare our independence and begin building a more prosperous economy by forgoing the chains and seeking out locally owned businesses.

Not Quite Free, Day 1 and Counting

2007-11-12T14:09:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since Randy has given you an update on his adventureswith A Complaint Free World. I thought you might like to hear my take on his progress.

He thought that it would be easy to stop complaining on day 1 and not complain for 21 consecutive days. Like many things in this world, it has proven to be harder than it looks. Today is the 29th day since he started his challenge and he is on day 1 of the 21 days again.

While our world hasn't been complaint free it certainly has been a lot more pleasant. Randy has a long list of pet peeves that he brings up often. Many of them have become reflex reactions for him. I am very happy to say that his efforts at not complaining have greatly reduced the habitual complaints. And he has been much less angry without the complaints to fuel his anger.

We had been discussing the possiblity of changing our telephone service provider for a couple months and we actually went ahead with it a couple weeks ago. What was described to us as seamless turned out to be more like disastrous. I couldn't believe how calm Randy was as he handled the customer service maze that was required to work out the problems with the new service. (Just in case you were wondering, you are allowed to ask for a problem to be corrected as long as you direct your request to the appropriate person/place.)

Then last week our computer system was attacked by some ruthless hackers. I was amazed that he was not angry aboout the situation. Naturally, he was frustrated by the time and money required to fix the problem but not really angry as he would have been in the past if something like this happened.

Maybe I should give this complaint free stuff a try.
Ann

Like Attracts Like

2007-11-04T09:32:00.000-05:00

"Intellectuals, even more than the rest of us, like to believe that they reach conclusions solely through study and reflection. But like the rest of us, they sometimes choose their opinions to suit their friends rather than the other way around."

from today's New York Times Magazine article on Antony Flew, once a leading atheist, and now the "author" of There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, a new release from HarperOne, the spiritual imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

The article is well worth reading, but the pull quote is striking. It reminds me of a previously quoted passage from Will Bowen's A Complaint Free World where he pointed out that we tend to gather ourselves into groups that are more like ourselves than different.

Have a great Sunday.

Day 18: A Change of Pace

2007-11-01T14:08:00.000-04:00

Nitro High School's English teachers are in a tight spot after assigning a couple of incredible books. The censors have come out swinging. Now the author is swinging back.

Pat Conroy's letter about teachers and censorship

October 24, 2007

A Letter to the Editor of the Charleston Gazette:

I received an urgent e-mail from a high school student named Makenzie Hatfield of Charleston, West Virginia. She informed me of a group of parents who were attempting to suppress the teaching of two of my novels, "The Prince of Tides" and "Beach Music." I heard rumors of this controversy as I was completing my latest filthy, vomit-inducing work. These controversies are so commonplace in my life that I no longer get involved. But my knowledge of mountain lore is strong enough to know the dangers of refusing to help a Hatfield of West Virginia. I also do not mess with McCoys.

I've enjoyed a lifetime love affair with English teachers, just like the ones who are being abused in Charleston, West Virginia, today. My English teachers pushed me to be smart and inquisitive, and they taught me the great books of the world with passion and cunning and love. Like your English teachers, they didn't have any money, either, but they lived in the bright fires of their imaginations, and they taught because they were born to teach the prettiest language in the world.

I have yet to meet an English teacher who assigned a book to damage a kid. They take an unutterable joy in opening up the known world to their students, but they are dishonored and unpraised because of the scandalous paychecks they receive. In my travels around this country, I have discovered that America hates its teachers, and I could not tell you why. Charleston, West Virginia, is showing clear signs of really hurting theirs, and I would be cautious about the word getting out.

In 1961, I entered the classroom of the great Eugene Norris, who set about in a thousand ways to change my life. It was the year I read "Catcher in the Rye," under Gene's careful tutelage, and I adore that book to this very day. Later, a parent complained to the school board, and Gene Norris was called before the board to defend his teaching of this book. He asked me to write an essay describing the book's galvanic effect on me, which I did. But Gene's defense of "Catcher in the Rye" was so brilliant and convincing in its sheer power that it carried the day. I stayed close to Gene Norris till the day he died. I delivered a eulogy at his memorial service and was one of the executors of his will. Few in the world have ever loved English teachers as I have, and I loathe it when they are bullied by know-nothing parents or cowardly school boards.

About the novels your county just censored: "The Prince of Tides" and "Beach Music" are two of my darlings, which I would place before the altar of God and say, "Lord, this is how I found the world you made." They contain scenes of violence, but I was the son of a Marine Corps fighter pilot who killed hundreds of men in Korea, beat my mother and his seven kids whenever he felt like it, and fought in three wars. My youngest brother, Tom, committed suicide by jumping off a fourteen-story building; my French teacher ended her life with a pistol; my aunt was brutally raped in Atlanta; eight of my classmates at The Citadel were killed in Vietnam; and my best friend was killed in a car wreck in Mississippi last summer. Violence has always been a part of my world. I write about it in my books and make no apology to anyone. In "Beach Music," I wrote about the Holocaust and lack the literary powers to make that historical event anything other than grotesque.

People cuss in my books. People cuss in my real life. I cuss, especially at Citadel basketball games. I'm perfectly sure that Steve Shamblin and other teachers prepared their students well for any encounters with violence or profanity in my books just as Gene Norris prepared me for the profane language in "Catcher in the Rye" forty-eight years ago.

The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in "Lonesome Dove" and had nightmares about slavery in "Beloved" and walked the streets of Dublin in "Ulysses" and made up a hundred stories in the Arabian nights and saw my mother killed by a baseball in "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language.

The school board of Charleston, West Virginia, has sullied that gift and shamed themselves and their community. You've now entered the ranks of censors, book-banners, and teacher-haters, and the word will spread. Good teachers will avoid you as though you had cholera. But here is my favorite thing: Because you banned my books, every kid in that county will read them, every single one of them. Because book banners are invariably idiots, they don't know how the world works - but writers and English teachers do.

I salute the English teachers of Charleston, West Virginia, and send my affection to their students. West Virginians, you've just done what history warned you against - you've riled a Hatfield.

Sincerely,
Pat Conroy

I can't add anything to that. So far as the complaint-free project is going, I must start again on my 21 days. We switched phones from AT&T to Insight, and it ain't pretty.

Day 17: Still On the Beam...By a Nose

2007-10-31T22:33:00.000-04:00

Quick report...no complaints today...only 19 more days to go.

Day 16: A Complaint Free World

2007-10-30T23:33:00.000-04:00

Now get this. I'm trying. Will Bowen's concept of a complaint-free world and the eponymous book that lays out the strategy is, admittedly, ambitious. I came pretty close to completing 2 consecutive days, but I crapped out with an unexcusable computer glitch, followed by a complaint.

Now, in the modern world of bookselling, reliable computer communications is essential. Human error still intervenes to complicate deliveries, but when you computer software won't work as promised, it exacerbates the problem.

(Deb, if things worked the way you want them to, the discount would now be 64% off retail.)

So we begin again. 21 consecutive days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping. Thanks, friend, for withholding your juicy gossip. It was really a supportive gesture.

For the record, I did reach 5 straight days and that's my "best" so far. I've been asked to speak to a civic club next week, so I hope to be able to report something better than that when I show up.

It ain't easy "been" complaint free.

Days 12-15: Sorry to be so late!

2007-10-29T22:55:00.000-04:00

The big news is that I broke again...Saturday morning, with a purely instinctual complaint. The details don't really matter, but what I did was a purely routine, natural, and all-too-common complaint, made without thought or pretense.

This illustrates the dilemma. If one is a complainer, and I surely am, then complaining comes naturally. Avoiding complaint and the avoiding the ear pollution one inflicts on others around us requires resolve and discipline.

As I write this, I claim two straight days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping. There have been a few close calls, and perhaps others would claim that I did criticize. For the record, any reader who wishes to buy the book "A Complaint Free World" is entitled to claim a 32% discount off the retail price. So far as discounts go, that's it. We reached the maximum discount level under this challenge.

Now, I don't have any financial incentive to stop complaining. I have even less financial incentive to sell the book. But this has never been about money. It's about a book and a concept that I grow ever more convinced is one that needs to be shared.

Please drop by the store, sit down in one of our marvelous puff chairs, and read a chapter of Will Bowen's book. Maybe together we can change the culture.

Day 11: MmmmMmmmMmmmm!

2007-10-25T21:40:00.000-04:00

Wow! You wouldn't believe what a good post I had in this space just seconds ago. That was way back when I was about to report that I had made it one full day in my quest to go 21 straight days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping, as suggested by Will Bowen's "A Complaint Free World."

The Blogger ate my homework! Sooooooooooooooooo much for that. Startin' all over again. Discount? 16%.

Anyway, here's what I wrote, as best I can remember it.

Ann and I have been eating well, and eating good all summer. We signed up for a CSA last spring and just completed a 25-week subscription. CSA doesn't stand for Confederate States of America, but Community Supported Agriculture. Four (Kentucky) family farms offered the roll-the-dice seasonal bounty of their fields to families willing to pay in advance for almost half a year's worth of fruits and vegetables.

Even with the drought, it was a success for us. Except for the odd banana pepper, and that batch of mustard greens Ann (intentionally, I believe) let go dry, we ate it all, although it was often a stretch for Ann to plan menus on the fly every Wednesday.

We haven't decided yet whether to re-up for next year (they're offering a pre-pre-pay discount for next season) for a number of reasons. We always enjoyed buying from local farmers at the farmers' market downtown, but it was less necessary this year...we often had seven days worth of produce to consume. We'd love to find a Hoosier CSA, too.

So, tonight we had acorn squash and striped squash, fresh spinach, fresh greens salad, and a loaf of French bread. Ann stuffed the squash with Italian sausage, so I'm feeling very international. Up to a few minutes ago, I was writing a minor funny about how close I came to complaining today. Then the computer glitch caused me to COMPLAIN.

Still, here it is (was?). Ann started talking about a dish she once prepared with squash (my stomach was interested but my brain disengaged and went into smartass mode) and bulgar wheat. I responded with "I don't like vulgar wheat. I prefer my wheat refined."

Lame, right? And Ann agreed, completely ignoring my attempt at a joke. I feigned insult. And that was as close as I came to busting out today. I sat down, fired up the ol' laptop, and began my report. When I got about this far, IE bailed and my entire post was deleted.

You know, without computers, I couldn't keep you informed as to my progress. But then, without computers, I would have made it to a second day without complaining!

If you are interested in supporting family farms in Indiana, watch this space. If you're convinced about CSA's and want to sign up for the Kentucky program, visit www.familyfarmproject.com.

Oh, and in books news, the novel authorized by the estate of Margaret Mitchell to follow "Gone With the Wind" releases on Tuesday, November 6. I think I've brought in enough copies (they arrived today) of "Rhett Butler's People," the continuing story of the classic 20th Century take on the 19th Century War of Northern Aggression. Sorry, I couldn't help myself.

We're obligated to keep the book under embargo. That means we can't sell it or display it until Nov. 6. But we do have it on our "holding" shelves and store staff are allowed to read it in advance of the on-sale date. Interested?

Day 10: Going Postal

2007-10-24T21:27:00.000-04:00

Well, so much for that. Agitated already by the Daniels property tax "relief" plan and the concomitant lies being spread by a right-wing anti-tax group that's making New Albany its summer home, I held it together for a couple of hours on Wednesday. Then, a patron called to report a particularly egregious example of government incompetence, and I blew.

It probably wasn't a good day to be engaged in Will Bowen's "A Complaint Free World" challenge.

Thanks to those of you who have lent your support to my attempt to go 21 straight days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping. And I haven't forgotten those of you who don't think I can do it, either.

Enough aggravations ensued Wednesday, including a mayoral forum and a city council meeting, that I probably would have cracked anyway. Under our ground rules, the day is blown, the discount on the book rises to 8%, and per usual, I'm free to complain until midnight. You can always come in to the store and buy the book for 12% off if you think I can make it. Or, you can wait to see if the discount doubles and then doubles again.

So Thursday will, again, be day one.

Day 9: Close Calls, but...

2007-10-23T23:23:00.000-04:00

...I made it through a fifth day without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping. But it wasn't easy.

When the wife comes home at night, I have a habit of "downloading" her on all the new information I've received during the day and all the things that happened at the store. For example, as we left the store on Monday night, I asked her if she had turned on the heat. As we left, I told her I had felt a blast of heat while passing the furnace, but she assured me she had only nudged the thermostat to keep the AC from running.

It turns out that an employee had reversed the settings from cool to heat, so Ann's frugal measure turned into a more costly one, probably much to the delight of Vectren. Ann made a brief stop at the store this morning and was hit with an oven blast of heat at about 80 degrees. Fortunately, she hit the kill switch so that when I arrived it was only a bit toasty.

But that's not a complaint. It's just the type of thing that we talk about and my prior inattention to "ear pollution" would have surely turned that discussion into a gripe. With my newly heightened awareness of the impact of my words, though, I can discuss such things without being such a grump.

Ann remarked that she has been pleasantly surprised at how "calm" I have been over the past several days. I'm hoping she'll contribute a post sometime this week, sharing with us what it's like to watch what we hope is a transformation.

Do you think this "Complaint Free World" concept can spread? Wouldn't it make life in Southern Indiana a lot more pleasant if we all were sensitive to how often we complain?

I honestly believe that the next few days will be the hardest. I promise to shoot straight with you. From everything author Will Bowen tells us in his new book, it's highly unlikely I'll be able to go 21 straight days at this early stage. And I promise to raise the bar, too.

Day 8: How am I doing, you ask?

2007-10-22T20:16:00.000-04:00

Oh, no complaints. Thank you for asking.

We're now at four consecutive days in our quest to go 21 straight days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping. Does e-mail count?

You will recall this is based on Will Bowen's phenomenal new book, A Complaint Free World, available at Destinations Booksellers, 604 East Spring Street, New Albany, Indiana.

Days 6 and 7: Hanging In There

2007-10-21T16:18:00.000-04:00

It has been a busy weekend at the store, but I didn't want to leave you hanging. So far, I'm well on my way to completing a third consecutive day without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping, despite the fact that local business and politics were part of the agenda. Try discussing those topics without breaking the challenge.

That leaves the discount locked in at 4%. Several of you have come in to buy the book and we're down to just one copy. If you want the book right now, we have more on order and the walk-up price is 12% off the retail price of $16.95. Many are holding out for a higher discount, expecting that when the discount doubles, then doubles again, and then doubles again, they'll get a bargain.

But only if I fail to meet the terms of the 21-day challenge. I will report again on Monday evening.

Day 5: Progress!

2007-10-19T22:10:00.000-04:00

In like Flynn! No complaints today. We're locked in at 4% on the running discount, and we proceed to see if we can make it 2 days in a row in our quest for 21 straight days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping. Saturday should be easier as I'll be surrounded by people all day. Our usual Saturday morning rush of customers will be followed by two - count 'em - two big events. At 4 we host David Domine and his new Kentucky-cooking cookbook. Then at 7, we'll close for a brief snack (probably dinner at La Rosita) and reopen the store at 8 for an All Hallows Party featuring the book launch for "Friends Forever: A Vampyre Tale." Costumes optional, though expected...for the cookbook appearance, of course.

Will Bowen offers this scripture from the apostle Paul in his epistle to the Philippians: Do everything without complaining.

In "A Complaint Free World," the book that is driving this challenge, Bowen gives this advice: After you have gone the months it takes to become a Complaint Free person, you will find that you will have changed...you will find that your mind no longer produces the deluge of unhappy thoughts you used to live with. Because you are not speaking them, you have no outlet for them, and the complaint factory in your mind closes down. You have shut off the spigot and the well has dried up. By changing your words, you have reshaped the way you think.

There might be something to that.

Day 4: It's "Groundhog Day"

2007-10-18T23:01:00.000-04:00

Will Randy see his shadow today? Will his 21-day challenge begin all over again today?

I've taken to calling it provocation, as if such were an excuse for failing the challenge so far. A more passive sort would not even consider the past few days to have been provocative. But this duck can't let water roll off his back.

Let's quote Will Bowen again.

You have a right to get what you deserve. To achieve this, don't talk about or focus on the problem. Focus BEYOND the problem. See it resolved. Talk only about what you desire and only to someone who can provide it. You will shorten your wait time for what you seek and be happier in the process.

"But every great thing in our country began with people complaining...think about Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King!" an e-mail I received stated.

I realized that in one respect I agreed with the woman who sent the e-mail. The first step toward progress is dissatisfaction. But if we stay in dissatisfaction, we never move forward to brighter vistas. And those who complain as a matter of course chart their destination as being the same, unhappy port from which they sailed. Our focus must be on what we want to occur rather than what we do not. Complaining is focusing on what we don't want to occur.

So, what I learned today is that, if recast, neither of my stumbles yesterday would have qualified as complaints if I had restated them as desires for what I had wished to happen instead of as complaints. In fact, in retrospect, the second complaint was, in fact, phrased as an "I wish..."

My lovely and brilliant bride caught the distinction, too. My Wednesday complaint could have easily been turned into an affirming, non-ear-polluting comment.

Hey, maybe I'm starting to get with the program!

As for the daily report, I once again failed to avoid complaining. Made it deep into the day, though. Had a productive, pleasant day that included intricate book production, difficult orders, and even a smidgen of politics.

Then I went home. Streets were flooding, tornado sirens were blaring, the storm sewer grate in front of the house was filled with leaves and pine straw. Still, no complaints from this quarter. I even cleared the grate, looking forward to a nice dinner of spaghetti squash, soon to be followed by Shaker pumpkin pie.

I sat down to watch my favorite TV shows, particularly "30 Rock," with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. The wife and I always catch "ER," too.

Not this Thursday. None of the networks affiliates could countenance the thought that another station might capture a single extra viewer, so we were treated to four hours (and counting) of nonstop hysteria-mongering. The Fox affiliate offered up the ALCS game between Cleveland and Boston, but even that was marred by weather graphics that obscured the game graphics.

Though Ann would differ with me on this, I still didn't quite "complain." I did, however, switch over to KET to watch a documentary on the Broadway musical. But as each musical was presented, just as the definitive piece of music would come up, "AAANKH, AAANKH, AAANKH - The National Weather Service has issued a heavy rain warning. Find a workbench in your basement, hide under it, and stay there all night - AAANKH, AAANKH, AAANKH."

I complained. Tell me you didn't.

For the record, the discount is now 4%. See you tomorrow night.

Day 3: Otherwise known as Day 1, squared

2007-10-17T22:27:00.000-04:00

Wednesday began, as do so many others, at 12 midnight. I had just put down "A Complaint Free World," by Will Bowen. And then I went to sleep. So far, I had made it into the third day of our participatory challenge, knowing that scores, soon to be hundreds, were following my progress in trying to go 21 days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping.

I had failed my readers and myself the day before with a hysterical rant that put an end to more than 24 hours without a complaint. I knew that many were cheering me on and that others were deriving obscene pleasure from my trials.

Our publishing operations were running at full tilt, holiday orders were waiting for attention, and we lost a valued employee and were training a replacement. I planned to pretty much lock myself into the office and churn out some work, thus avoiding any stimuli that might tempt me to complain.

So how tough could it be? The city council was preparing to vote on an insanely flawed plan to draw legislative districts, but it was easy enough to avoid complaining about that. With litigation underway, no unilateral action by the council could have any bearing on the outcome of the lawsuit.

The new hire had proved to be an amazingly quick learner and wouldn't be working this day, anyway. After more than a year, the publishing operations were providing fewer and fewer annoying glitches. What could go wrong?

Ah, grasshopper. I made it to 3 o'clock before complaining. Interestingly, our major supplier made a visit, taking me to lunch at New Albany's finest gustatorium. That same supplier had failed to deliver our shipment today, subjecting all of us to the embarrassment of being unable to deliver promised product. And still, I did not complain. It was an altogether pleasant day with few provocations. I didn't even almost get killed walking to work.

Then my rep gave me some news. It's none of your business, but it involved an old wound, and I complained. Needlessly, but apparently instinctively. The wound has obviously not healed. Later in the evening, while lamenting the demise of another eatery and sharing the quite possibly tremendous news about who might step into the breach at the corner of Bank and Market, I complained again, without intent, but clearly.

For the record, I'm counting each day, not each complaint. So the running tab is two (2) complaint days. Now it gets interesting. Each time I complain, the discount on the book will double. Two more complaints and we reach the over-under number. One patron has locked in the 4.5 complaints discount, demonstrating support for my challenge. At least one other is holding out for the highest discount of 32 percent.

So, we begin again. Day 4 becomes Day 1 to the third power. See you tomorrow night.

Day 2: Impediments

2007-10-16T21:06:00.000-04:00

Let's quote the author of "A Complaint Free World," Will Bowen.

"I found that I could do very well around some people but not so well around others. Sadly, I realized that my relationships with some people I considered good friends centered on expressing our dissatisfaction with whatever we were talking about. I began to avoid them. I felt guilty at first, but I noticed that my bracelet stayed put. More important, I found myself beginning to feel happier."

Early on Day 1, I received a call from a friend. Quite honestly, a major and usually enjoyable part of our relationship involves complaining, criticizing, and gossiping. Our complaints, criticisms, and gossip are exchanged with good motives and intentions to seek improvement in our community. And while I do not expect to be avoiding old friends and acquaintances, I will admit that I couldn't have picked a worse time to embark on this experiment.

I am keenly interested in how our government serves us. I have definite ideas about how other institutions serve or disserve our community. I'm confident, inquisitive, and persistent. I express my opinions and use facts to persuade others. If one is displeased about something and feels they have something to offer, it's natural to complain or criticize. Doing so does not mean that no solutions are being offered.

But while being "natural" has its benefits, it conflicts with the experiment. How, I ask, do things improve if no one ever expresses dissatisfaction? How do people with similar interests exchange information, rightly believed, without it turning into gossip?

And with an election pending, is it possible to advocate and hope for change without criticizing or complaining?

So, how'd I do on Tuesday?

I didn't make it. Tomorrow becomes Day 1 (again) as I once more try to go 21 days without complaining, criticizing, or gossiping.

Suffice it to say that I was severely provoked while subjecting myself to an "unhealthy" environment. My downfall started when a whopping lie was told to a room full of merchants gathered to have a post-mortem on the recent Harvest Homecoming debacle. Still, I held out for more than 30 minutes. But when the current president of Develop New Albany started defending the self-appointed HH gestapo, I blew. And I mean big time.

I haven't been so angry in a quarter century, and as disruptive as my rant was, I at least had the courtesy to remove myself rapidly.

So, off we go. Tomorrow, we try again with Day 1.

Thanks to all who have been supportive and equally sincere thanks to those who a getting their kicks seeing their predictions that I couldn't do it come true.

Day 1: A Complaint-Free Day?

2007-10-15T20:08:00.000-04:00

Writing a blog entry that accurately reports what happened during the day could be construed by a strict referee as "complaining." So I'll be extremely careful to give you the full flavor of the day's events, but I won't be "complaining."

I'm invoking the free speech rule and the no-intent rule. In reporting to you, I have no intent to complain.

To be sure, it is the unintentional complaint that will get you every time. Part of the experiment is to monitor how often you inadvertently find yourself in complaint mode. Simply putting a stop to the "vertent" ones ought to be simpler. But if your instinct is to complain, it's hard to know when your resolve will falter.

I had expected to be on guard all day, measuring my responses to every stimulus in order to avoid complaining, criticizing, or gossiping. In fact, much time passed during this first day where I didn't even think about the experiment. To me, that constitutes a dangerous risk. From everything I've read, this is not supposed to be easy. After one week, Will Bowen, the man who started this experiment in the summer of 2006 (and a man who pastors a church) had been unable to get his personal best down to fewer than five complaints a day. At that point, he was averaging 12 complaints a day, and it took him until September of 2006 to successfully complete 21 straight days without complaining.

It seems that ignorance breeds confidence. If you knew how hard it would be to master a new skill, whether it be skiing, yodeling, or stopping the complaining in your life, you might not even try.

It seems that I'm "supposed" to catch myself complaining multiple times each day. Day 1, then, would be measured as an anomaly if I'm doing this thing right.

So, here's the report:

At five this morning, the next door neighbor with the oversize diesel truck fires it up and revs it outside our open window...no complaint.

At nine, while stepping across Silver Street, a car came racing through the intersection without even slowing down at the flashing red light, coming very close to putting an end to the experiment forever...no complaint, although the cars all around me registered their displeasure by leaning on their horns.

At ten, the manager of one of the city's political campaigns asked me "How's business?" I responded, "Slow." I then explained to him the experiment we are conducting and asked him if that sounded like a complaint. "Of course not," he said. "You were just answering a question."

By noon, I had been asked about how satisfied with the subscription fruit and vegetable, community supported agriculture, family farm program we are nearing the end of. I told my interrogator that the Web site was not the program's strong point, in that they often don't update the "menu" of produce each week until it's too late to plan a home menu, but then the questioner was explicity asking me the details of how it works. This questioner is a foodie who knew that this was Day 1, so I asked her to keep me honest by asking "Was that a complaint?" She assured me it wasn't.

By one, I discovered that one of my suppliers had failed to deliver some urgently needed books. For this supplier, this happens often enough that I didn't even consider voicing a complaint.

At 3:30, my newest employee's mom called to inform me that her daughter would be late for her first day at work...again, no complaint.

To be sure, I did have a few close calls where we had to go to the replay for a mandatory review. I scolded myself three times during the day for being fumble-fingered on the keyboard. One rather light-hearted "damn," one whispered "fudge," and one soft-breathed traditional Anglo-Saxon curse word that can be quite offensive when used in anger. But they weren't used in anger and they were directed at my own clumsiness.

And finally, near the end of the day, while sharing the events of the day with my spouse, I told her that conducting training can be harder than it looks, that it can be exhausting. Although she assured me that this did not qualify as a complaint, it doesn't matter, because she had left the building and never even heard me say those words.

I avoided complaining several times where I might normally have done so. Whenever there was a doubt, I asked someone within earshot whether what I said was a complaint or sounded like one and always received a response of "no."

Signing off at 9 p.m.

Tuesday: The Gimmick

Keep those comments coming. Help me make it through Day 2. And if you're in the store or see me on the street, feel free to check on my progress.

Step Right Up, Place Your Bets!

2007-10-14T21:31:00.000-04:00

Please join me as I embark on an adventure. I'll be "blogging" daily as I progress through a regimen suggested by the book "A Complaint Free World."

As titles go, that's pretty idealistic, but if you want to test reality, read the subtitle: "How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted: Take the 21-day Challenge."

Those of you who know me well understand that for me to stop complaining is to take away a big part of who I am. As some critics of the book insist (and I find myself agreeing with them as I begin this journey), it might well be immoral to stop complaining.

Nonetheless, starting Monday night, I'm going to begin reading the book (by Will Bower) and putting into practice its thesis. Not knowing all the details of the program, I'll be flying blind at first, but here is what I'm going to do:

Beginning when the alarm goes off Monday, I will refuse to complain. Given that I am seldom alone, I'll be counting on those around me, including our patrons, to keep me honest. If, while in the presence of another person, I issue a complaint of any sort, I will report it here.

Exempted will be any complaints I make while alone, unless I later discover that the program requires me not to do that, either. Also exempt will be reports of complaints I was tempted to make. If I don't tell you where "not complaining" was tough to do (not do?), it won't be interesting now, will it?

To make it interesting, I'm offering a betting pool tied to the price of the book. If and when I break and make my first complaint, I'll offer readers a 1% discount on the book. Upon my second complaint, I'll double that to 2%. Here's where it will begin to get interesting.

Every complaint that follows will see the discount double - to 4%, then 8%, then 16%, and then 32% off the cover price of $16.95. If my number of complaints exceeds that, I will have failed - in my mission and as a businessman, and we'll stop the pool.

If you don't like to gamble, then we're offering a flat 12% discount to blog readers. You can take that discount now. If you think I'm going to fail more than 4 times, you'll pass up the open discount and hold out for the 16% or 32% levels.

The 12% discount is in place for one week (until close of business on Sunday, Oct. 21) or until I make my fourth complaint.

Can I do it? We'll see. I'm told there is a theory that if you can "break" a habit for 21 consecutive days, you can break it forever. I don't know if I believe it, but I do have enough faith in the try itself that I believe it will make me a better person.

See you here on Monday. Think I can make it until then without complaining?

I invite you to post your prediction of the over/under. The 12% wager is an over/under bet of 4.5. If you think I'll wimp out and complain more than 4 times in the next 21 days, then hold out. If you think I can make it, you'd better grab the 12% now.

Please add your comments as we go along. The 21-day countdown starts...NOW!

A Comeback?

2007-10-13T01:21:00.001-04:00

Got a complaint? Well, this just might be the place you'll want to visit over the next three weeks.

And yes, I have a book I want you to buy. After all, that's how I feed myself, not to mention how I pay for this Internet connection.

Details to follow...

What Book Are You?

2007-09-06T10:33:00.000-04:00

I had promised to try to blog more often, even if it is only a quick hit. In the spirit of traditional blogs that link to interesting sites, check this one out. My fellow booksellers in the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance are having a ball with it. As for myself, I don't see how they have the time to swap e-mails about it.

To find out what book YOU are, take this quiz. If you've read it, write us to tell us why it's a good fit (or not). If you haven't, don't you think you owe it to yourself to read it?

We Hope to Do This Every Year

2007-07-31T21:12:00.000-04:00

Each year, San Jose State University conducts a competition for the Bulwer-Lytton Prize for the most turgid writing submission. The winner submitted this:

Gerald began--but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him ten percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten-mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them "permanently" meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash--to pee.

Read more at this Web site.

There, you'll find dozens of atrocious entries. Yours truly earned dishonorable mention in the years preceding my relocation to festive, clean, and just New Albany, Indiana.

Obscure footnote: We won!

Tribune Columnist Tops Harry Potter

2007-07-30T15:47:00.000-04:00

The overwhelming cultural phenomenon and international bestseller “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” author J.K. Rowling’s final installment in the wizard school series, sold well, but not well enough to place it at the top of a local bestsellers list, released today.

Destinations Booksellers, New Albany’s full-service independent general bookstore for new books, released its Top 25 bestsellers list and Tribune columnist Terry Cummins heads the list with his collection of essays, “How Did Back Then Become Right Now?”

The list covers books sold at the store at 604 E. Spring St. during the twelve months ending July 31.

Local residents who publish with a number of different publishers are well-represented on the list. Cummins’ book, consisting primarily of previously published columns that appeared in The Tribune, is published by New Albany’s Flood Crest Press. The micropublisher placeed seven titles from local authors in the top 15.

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” published in the U.S. by Scholastic Press, did take the second spot on the list, followed by “New Albany: Images of America,” a local pictorial history from Arcadia Publishing by local author Gregg Seidl.

A photographic calendar of iconic Southern Indiana scenes, “Southern Indiana 2007 Calendar,” with photos and design by Audra and Chuck Skibo, earned the fourth spot on the list. “New Albany in Vintage Postcards” took the fifth spot on the 2007 list. Written by David C. Barksdale and Robyn D. Sekula, the Arcadia Publishing title is the store’s all-time bestselling book.

The entire top 25 list is available at the store’s Web site, destinationsbooksellers.com.

Besides the Potter title, the top national title on the list is Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life,” at number 11.

Other titles by local authors on the list include “Skimming the Cream” by C.R. Reagan, who also writes regularly for The Tribune; “It Comes in the Night” by Calvin Lewis Jr. and Susan L. Wilhite; “The Great Flood of 1937” by Rick Bell; “The Governors of Indiana” by IU Southeast professors Linda C. Gugin and James E. St. Clair; “Sharks Never Sleep” by Sheri L. Wright; and “Veritas de Temporis” by F.E. Adkins.

Also on the list from local authors are: “At the Crest,” a collection of poetry and short stories from local secondary school students; “Lighten Up, Will Ya? I’m Serious” by Joe Bosco; “Phantoms of Old Louisville” by David Domine; “Mommy, is God a Super Hero” by Bev Lozier Jackson; “Jeffersonville: Images of America” by Garry J. Nokes; “The Underground Railroad in Floyd County, Indiana” by Pamela R. Peters; and “The Devil’s Temptation” by Kimberly Logan.

To see the list, go to www.destinationsbooksellers.com and click on the "Features" tab.

Southern Indiana Votes With Its Feet

2007-07-28T11:05:00.000-04:00

Those of us dedicated to the revitalization of Downtown know the drill. Sentimental attachment to concepts like smart growth, independent businesses that keep their investments and their profits in the community, businesses who support community instititutions because it is their community, are not always borne out by consumer behavior.

We aren't, however, in business as a public service. We don't concede that we are inconsequential niche businesses catering to a strictly bohemian clientele. We earnestly believe, and today few rational people argue the point, that any community that chooses to hollow itself out like a donut by turning away from a central core (downtown) where money has already been invested is making a foolish, shortsighted choice.

Destinations Booksellers is here to stay.

According to Nielsen Bookscan, traditional bookstores in the Louisville metro region sold some 17,000 copies of the final installment of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Southern Indiana, by population, represents about one-sixth of the region. We're getting reports that the average Wal-Mart sold 200 copies or so. Assume that Sam's Club, Target, Kroger, Meijer, and perhaps a few more chain retailers matched those sales at each of their SI locations.

Amazon sold about 1/4 of all copies during that first weekend (why? I have no idea!) where 8.2 million copies moved. Non-bookstores sold another 1.5 million.

One would think, then, that as the only independent full-service general bookstore in Southern Indiana, Destinations Booksellers would have sold about 1,000 copies. Price would not have been determinative, as our store had a price lower than any I've heard of. The allure of a party couldn't have been determinative. We are told that our two Harry Potter parties were surpassingly good, and they were free. Finally, those who absolutely had to have the book at midnight found (and this was true across the country at independent booksellers) that distribution involved no long lines. Our guests had all their books within seven minutes.

Destinations Booksellers sold 200 copies of Harry Potter that first weekend. I can only conclude one of two things. The first is that even after three years the residents of Southern Indiana are not aware that New Albany has a bookstore, and a good one. If that's the case, you can do something about that. Tell everyone you know why you rely on us to provide you everything a bookstore can.

The second one is far more troubling. It constitutes a referendum. 57 years without an independent bookseller has ingrained some bad habits and it seems that our neighbors have cast their vote to this question: Is it important for a community to have a full-service independent bookseller? The returns say that so far the answer from most is "No."

Thanks to all of you who have voted yes. I believe the realities will hit home in the near future. Advocacy for urbanized living, rational transportation policies, and other quality-of-life issues will dictate more localism. But most of all, it will be our continued service and improvement on delivery of that service that will ensure that our region will never again be underserved.

Sorry for the dearth of postings lately. This is the busiest time and ol' Harry did nothing to make it easier. I'm going to try to set aside a specific half-hour for posting each day, even if it's a quick hit observation. I'm still reading, gobbling up books at the pace of 2 to 3 a week, and those of you who visit the store haven't suffered. We're still hand-selling and offering recommendations - just not on the Web.

For those of you who subscribe to e-mail notices of new postings, I'm eager to know if you prefer that e-mail to be the complete posting or merely a notification that something new is up. Send an e-mail or post a comment here with your thoughts on that topic, this posting, or any books-related topic.

I Like This List!

2007-06-20T14:02:00.000-04:00

We're members of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, the regional trade association for independent bricks-and-mortar bookstores. Arguably, SIBA is the strongest of the regional associations and although we are on the fringes of its territory, it is the region we feel closest to.

SIBA just announced the 2007 Book of the Year awards. These will be presented at our annual trade show, this year in Atlanta, Sept. 28-30. FYI, the 2008 show will be in Louisville at the Galt House, and we'll be seeking volunteers to help executive director Wanda Jewell put on the show. As a special treat, at least one other regional association will be meeting concurrently at the Galt House, making next year's show possibly the biggest regional show ever held.

We're prepared to take any of you willing to be trained to serve on our advisory board, so if you're interested in a fall trip to Atlanta to meet the authors and publishers of the year's best books, please give us a call at the store. Each of the award-winners will be on hand for the presentation of the SIBA Book of the Year awards, so that list alone should be enough to encourage you to come with us.

Regional shows are a great opportunity for us to spend time with the authors, including a very special moveable feast where dozens of authors spend ten minutes having lunch with a table full of booksellers. Past shows have featured James Patterson, Tim Dorsey, Jim Webb, Karen Slaughter, Lorraine Dupree, and other top names, but much of the fun is in meeting famous authors BEFORE they become famous. Ann and I obtained the first copy of "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" right out of the box. Even the author, Susanna Clarke, had never seen the book until that moment in Atlanta, and it is one of our treasured books. We'll provide you with the list of authors later as the commitments come in, but I guarantee you'll have a number of memorable encounters and get to see all the great books coming out later this year.

So, here are the winners of the SIBA Book of the Year for 2007*:

Children's book - Alabama Moon by Watt Key (Farrar Straus & Giroux)

Cookbook - I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris (Warner Books)

Poetry - Keep and Give Away by Susan Meyers (Univ. South Carolina Press)

Fiction - Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier (Random House)

Nonfiction - Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields (Henry Holt & Co)

I'll let you know that I voted three of those as my picks - the books by Sedaris, Frazier, and Shields - and have previously recommended them on these pages or in our newsletters.

*Each year, hundreds of booksellers across the South vote on their favorite hand-sell books of the year. These are the Southern books they have most enjoyed selling to customers; the ones that they couldn't stop talking about; the ones most often pushed into a customer’s hands with the words “You have got to read this!” The SIBA Book Award was created to recognize great books of Southern origin, as determined by people whose business it is to know great books—the independent booksellers of the South.

Books are nominated in several categories, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, cooking and children's. For a book to be eligible, it must be set in the South, and it must have been published within the calendar year. In order to promote diversity in the award, no author can win the award in the same category twice. Only SIBA-member booksellers can submit nominations, and only SIBA booksellers can vote on the finalists and winners of the award.

Just a Tease

2007-06-11T12:57:00.000-04:00

June will not be a month to miss. In the coming weeks we'll have some exciting news to announce - about events, new books, and a very special piece of news that was confirmed just today. I'll tell you more about these in the coming weeks.

Our Harry Potter 7 plans are coming together and will kick off at 7 p.m on Friday, July 20, at Track Nine and Three-Quarters. Will we find a Horcrux? Will a special spell allow us to experience Hogwarts the way Harry, Hermione, and Ron do?

This weekend we're excited about hosting local author Bev Lozier Jackson, who will introduce her beautiful new children's book Mommy, Is God a Superhere? Bev will be at the store at 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 16, to read from and sign her first book. That's the same day our representative to Book Expo America will be coming to town with an armload of goodies. Join us.

And mark your calendar for Thursday, June 28. I can't reveal the details just yet, but what happens that day will be very big for Destinations Booksellers and our patrons.

Finally, if you're just a casual reader of the blog you may have missed the announcement about our e-mail lists. All patrons were unsubscribed from our newsletters and our specialty e-mails as of June 1. If you want to keep up with everything going on in the books world and the store, you need to go to our primary Web site and re-subscribe. With our new program, we have streamlined e-mails for children's interests, new books just in, the blog, and an expanding list of specialty announcements. If you've been missing your news, that's why. Why not click http://www.destinationsbooksellers.com and sign up now?

A Reader's Delight on Public TV

2007-06-08T12:14:00.000-04:00

Those of you closest to Ann and me know our dream of someday helping to bring about something for Southern Indiana along the lines of the U of L Kentucky Author Forum. Kyle Ridout at IU Southeast's Ogle Center has ambitions in that vein, too, and someday we hope to have a regular schedule of top authors here in NA.

Now we just need the endowment that KAF has!

We, and many of you, admire the Kentucky Author Forum programming, whether you enjoy it live or during later broadcasts on public TV.

This Sunday, KET2 will rebroadcast a conversation with the late David Halberstam, with Roger Wilkins serving as the interviewer. They discuss the author's The Children, the five-year chronicle of a group of students who set out to change the world in the early 60s. That's at 10 p.m. on Sunday, June 10.

The following two Sundays will also bring treats. On June 17, the most recent winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Lawrence Wright will be featured, discussing his book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. He'll be interviewed by CNN's Peter Bergen. And on June 24, Bill McKibben is on tap, discussing one of Ann's favorites, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. As an added treat, Wendell Berry is the interviewer.

Ray Bradbury Disavows Accepted Wisdom

2007-06-05T05:57:00.000-04:00

Everybody knows about Fahrenheit 451, right? You know, Ray Bradbury's 1953 classic (also made into a movie) about book-burning, where the "Fire Department" comes out when called to set contraband books on fire?

A couple or three generations now have been indoctrinated about the book as a morality tale warning against government censorship. Well Ol' Ray is here to tell us we were wrong. He once walked out of a seminar at UCLA when the students in the class insisted on telling him what his book was about.

It turns out that Bradbury was writing about the vacuity of television and how it would destroy literature. Don't believe me? Watch Ray say it on video here. He says the culprit isn't the government...it's the people.

By the way, Ray recently declined to attend the presentation of his Pulitzer Prize for Literature, but if you want to read a little, we have Farewell, Summer, his unexpected sequel to Dandelion Wine.

Oprah and Literature in the Same Sentence?

2007-06-04T12:53:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is release day for the 58th book in the Oprah Book Club program and being the good boy that I am I will comply with the embargo requirements laid down in order to get the book before release day.

That said, I have to say that Ms. Winfrey's staff has dramatically ramped up its standards with its last few selections. The current selection is Cormac McCarthy's The Road; no one will deny that McCarthy is an excellent writer and storyteller, and The Road, while typically gruesome, is certainly a book that can capture the imagination of a large cross-section of the 20% of us who admit to reading fiction.

If anything, Oprah's crew has made an even more literary selection for this summer. As is usual, to make the book accessible, the book has been repackaged (slightly) with the "O" sticker on a recognizable quality trade paperback at $15. We'll revise this posting tomorrow morning with a few words about the newest selection...aaand, we're back. Those of you who subscribe to our blog e-mail already know that Ms. O's team selected Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex.

The novel captured the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, indicating that it is not a light book, but a rather good book. The next 500,000 sales of it are probably going to be purely on Oprah's recommendation, but this story of three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family is destined to be a classic.

Keeping the Com-Lines Open

2007-06-04T01:12:00.000-04:00

I'm sleepy, so I'm going to "cheat" tonight. Instead of writing, I'm reading, and it's reading that, in the end, is designed to make me a better bookseller to you.

Join me in reading Salon magazine's summer reading recommendations. I will tell you this - I'm listening to Dick Estell on NPR's Radio Reader while alternately browsing the Web and reading the first recommended book on Salon's list. I'm halfway through The Book of Air and Shadows, by Michael Gruber from HarperCollins. It is very, very good...the book Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code) wishes he could write. I just finished reading The Fabric of America, about the way that government and the mapping of boundaries was an essential part of America's frontier expansion. For a history of the U.S. from 1780 to 1850, you'd be hard-pressed to learn more from between the covers of a single book. It synthesizes nuggets from many of my favorite history books over the past few years and provided new insights into the character of the founders.

Read the Salon piece here.

NOTE: Salon is ostensibly a "premium" site. If you have any problems accessing the link, just type in www.salon.com and sit through 15 seconds of advertising to gain a site pass.

Book Focus: Parenting Teens

2007-06-01T15:24:00.000-04:00

Tricia Goyer, a minister from Kalispell, Montana, is releasing a book this summer based on what she calls "Life Plotting." It's called My Life, Unscripted, and it may serve you well if you're a parent of a pre-adolescent or teen girl.

From personal experience, Goyer knows the perils of rushing through life without a "script" to work from, and in this book she tries to help parents guide their daughters by "teaching them to have a plan of attack before temptation or hardship come."

Goyer would LOVE to have you write a sample script from your teen years and post it along with information about this book! It could be where you make a good choice ... or a not so good one. Then share brief how God's Word helps you as you script YOUR life!

Feel free to tell your stories, whether you worked from a script or merely "improv-ed" those dramatic, emotional teen years, and we'll pass them on to the author, who will be doing a national "blog tour" this summer.

After Harry, Then What?

2007-05-30T12:51:00.000-04:00

It has been a "killer" week, but that's no reason to leave you hanging. Here are some thoughts on what might be the successor to Harry Potter and his pals. By the way, Thursday is your last day to reserve HP and the Deathly Hallows: Year 7 at our special price. The launch party is Friday, July 20, beginning at the store at 9 p.m., with distribution of reserved pre-paid copies at midnight.

POSSIBLE SUCCESSORS
Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians
Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider series
Jenny Nimmo's Charlie Bone series (a new one releases tomorrow)
Angie Sage's Septimus Heap series
Joseph Delaney's Last Apprentice books
Suzanne Collins's Underland Chronicles
Janet Lee Carey's Dragon's Keep
The Pendragon series by D.J. MacHale
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
The Edge Chronicles (now up to eight titles)

Share with us your suggestions of YA fantasy that will do the trick!

Who Will Be First?

2007-05-24T12:22:00.000-04:00

Rigidly embargoed until Tuesday, Al Gore's new book, Assault on Reason, is now available. I'll be telling you more about it after I absorb it, but can anyone doubt that Gore has transitioned from run-of-the-mill politician to prophet and high priest of a growing segment of our population?

Here's a mini-review from Talking Points Memo:

Gore even argues that Internet interactivity, just like the back- and-forth at TPM, is reviving something like Revolutionary-era pamphleteering and “committees of correspondence,” strengthening “a meritocracy of ideas” instead of letting conglomerates corner “the marketplace of ideas” by beaming one-way shock imagery at us through our TVs.

Fear almost always trumps reason, Gore explains, and television does it hundreds of times a day to Americans who watch TV for the national average of four and a half hours. Print, at least, makes you think by engaging a different lobe of the brain to interpret its otherwise meaningless symbols. He praises the Internet for restoring reading and writing to millions, if sometimes too instantly and anarchically to make them think as well as they would while sitting down with a good, serious book like his.

New Book by Author of The Kite Runner

2007-05-23T05:34:00.000-04:00

I've been promising Randy for almost 2 weeks that I would post something about A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and since it came out yesterday I figured I better get busy.

Many of you are already familiar with my reading habits and you are aware that if a book is wildly popular I have probably not read it. Why is that? One reason is that our patrons will usually find out about those books some other way and I am trying to read some of the great books that don't get so much attention so that I can tell you about books you won't hear about anywhere else.

This leads to my confession that I had not read Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner until it was selected as the book for the May meeting of our dining book club. Being in a book club is a great way to catch up on books that you may have missed.

I am glad that I finally got around to reading The Kite Runner. I enjoyed it so much that when I finished it I immediately began reading the advance reader copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns that we had received from the publisher. If you enjoyed Hosseini's first book you won't want to miss this one.

While not a sequel, the author again sets his novel in his native Afghanistan. This story follows the lives of Miriam and Laila, two women from different backgrounds, who are brought together by a shared struggle to survive the volatile events of the last 30 years in a culture where women have few choices and little power over their own lives.

You may have heard the author on NPR this morning, if not, here is a link to the NPR Web site.

Thanks for reading.
Ann

Everybody's Got One

2007-05-21T10:37:00.000-04:00

We've often been asked about "best" books lists. Every reader has one, and we're no exceptions. Here is one reader survey of the best books of 2006 - most of which we've sold or are currently selling.

Believer Book Awards from Beleiver Magazine.

Books on the Air, Plus a Great Review

2007-05-19T14:57:00.000-04:00

I can't always stay up to date with the blog, but that's no reason you shouldn't be able to see what's good. Herewith, a review link...

Eight years have passed between the release of Nathan Englander's widely acclaimed debut collection of stories, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, and his first novel, The Ministry of Special Cases. As with any highly anticipated event, the burning question about the novel is, was it worth the wait? The answer is a qualified yes—this accomplished if imperfect work of literary fiction is beautifully written, hard to put down and packs a very subtle, lingering emotional wallop...read more.

If you listened to Bob Edwards this weekend you'll have heard Frank DeFord talk about his new novel, The Entitled. I've read it and I loved it. Bob also talked with actor Bruce Dern (Things I've Said, But Probably Shouldn't Have). We have that book, too, in our memoir/biography section.

The Blooker Prize: Any Local Contenders?

2007-05-16T08:53:00.000-04:00

LONDON - A former U.S. machine gunner’s irreverent memoir about his year fighting in Iraq has won the second annual prize for the best book based on a blog.

“My War: Killing Time in Iraq,” by Colby Buzzell was to receive the $10,000 Blooker prize on Monday, beating out 110 entries from 15 countries...more

Carnegie Center Garners Prestigious Prize

2007-05-15T21:05:00.000-04:00

Outstanding news and congratulations to our friends at the Carnegie Center for Art and History, New Albany's chrysalis-like center for culture. If you haven't been by there lately, pick a day and I'll pay your admission fee! ;)

The Carnegie Center is pleased to announce it is the recipient of a 2007 MUSE Bronze Award in the Teaching and Outreach category. A MUSE award recognizes achievement in museum media, and is conferred by the Media and Technology Standing Professional Committee of the American Association of Museums. Winning entries were expected to demonstrate outstanding achievement in content quality, interface design, functionality, production quality, visual appeal and the user’s experience.

The Carnegie Center’s award was given for its newest permanent exhibit, “Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage: Men and Women of the Underground Railroad in the Indiana and Kentucky Borderland” which was designed by Solid Light, Inc. of Louisville, KY. It is a unique interactive learning experience, which enhances awareness of the deep political and ideological divisions experienced throughout the Ohio River Valley as a result of slavery. Focusing on local citizens – barbers, ferrymen, ministers, freed people – who risked their lives, welfare and freedom to help runaways, the exhibit illustrates individual acts of resistance in undermining the institution of slavery.

In commenting on the project, the judges noted it is “a beautiful and moving presentation that heightens understanding of a portion of the Underground Railroad. The DVD is very engaging and full of deep, rich content, offering viewers a slightly different perspective to gain new understanding of the complexity of the issue. The technology was user-friendly and enabled the delivery of a powerful narrative. The production quality was very high using photographs, historical documents, drawings, voiceover, and reenactments in an impressive and aesthetically pleasing manner.”

The MUSE Awards competition received nearly 200 applications from a wide variety of museums in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Nick Honeysett, Chair of AAM’s Media & Technology Committee said, “The quality and diversity of entries has been exceptional. The ingenuity and creativity of the people who conceptualize and build these projects never ceases to amaze me.”

Carnegie Center Director Sally Newkirk was on hand to receive the award at the 2007 American Association of Museums Annual Meeting in Chicago on May 13. She said, “ It is an honor and privilege to accept the award on behalf of all who were involved throughout the development of our exhibit. Competitors for this award represent a Who’s Who in the museum field, and the Carnegie Center has earned its rightful place on this international platform.”

She noted the outstanding financial support from Caesars Foundation of Floyd County, the Carnegie Center for Art & History, Inc., the New Albany/Floyd County Public Library, the U.S. Dept. of Interior National Park Service, Dr. Curt & Pam Peters, Cinergy Foundation, Paul V. Ogle Foundation, James & Phyllis Robinson, National City, Tri Kappa, Nu Chapter, Vectren Foundation, Aebersold Charitable Trust, and numerous individual contributors. She also expressed gratitude to the members of the Advisory Committee for their vision, professional expertise and wise counsel to ensure sensitivity and historical integrity in the telling of this important story.

A regional art gallery and local history museum, the Carnegie Center for Art & History is a department of the New Albany/Floyd County Public Library. It is located at 201 E. Spring Street in downtown New Albany and open Tuesday through Saturday, 10-5:30. Admission is free. Visit the website at www.carnegiecenter.org.

What's the "books hook," you ask? Pam Peters' The Underground Railroad in Floyd County, Indiana was a critical research tool in developing the multi-media exhibit. Pam's book continues to sell well and is a requirement for any Indiana history bookshelf. It recently went to a second printing.

Act Locally

2007-05-15T09:51:00.000-04:00

You've always gotten a special feeling, a little retail buzz, when you shop at independent, locally owned businesses like, say, Destinations Booksellers. Right?

Well, it wasn't just the hand-picked stock, knowledgeable staff, and welcoming atmosphere. There are cold, hard numbers to back up the buzz.

Locally owned bookstores support the economic health and well-being of a region. The San Francisco Retail Diversity Study revealed that independent bookstores contributed $54 million a year back to the San Francisco area, but chain stores and Internet booksellers contributed $8 million a year back. That's almost seven times as much!

Internet sales do not generate sales tax or jobs for the community. And chain stores don't spend money on services in the community. They retain everything from signs to C.P.A.'s on a national level.

The study also pointed out the difference created by just a 10% shift in customer spending from chain and Internet book retailers to locally owned bookstores. In the San Francisco area, the economy would gain $3.7 million a year from taxes and wages and such, and the shift would create 25 new bookselling jobs.The study, (http://www.civiceconomics.com/SF/) released last week, was commissioned by the San Francisco Locally Owned Merchants Alliance along with support from the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association and the American Booksellers Association. Civic Economics, the research company, conducted the survey over two years.

What is Literature?

2007-05-12T00:45:00.000-04:00

edify - To instruct especially so as to encourage intellectual, moral, or spiritual improvement.
- The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition.

It is not entertainment. Yes, it may entertain, but to my mind, to be literature, it must edify. It must instruct and clarify. Perhaps it puts into words something that we already knew on a subconscious level. Perhaps it opens a corner of our minds that we were unaware of. And perhaps it introduces an idea, a concept we never considered before.

Narrative fiction can elucidate equally as well as any piece of history, biography, or other nonfiction. After some initial resistance, I succumbed to the allure of Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons, a novel that addresses elements of my own heritage and, at least halfway through the book, concerns in part the Cherokee Removal (you know that as "The Trail of Tears").

My own ancestry includes both Cherokee heritage (a great, great-grandmother) as well as descent from the soldiers tasked to escort the mountain-dwelling nation to Andrew Jackson's proposed refuge west of the Mississippi. My mother's sister wrote a novel about that, in fact, and although by appearance I am clearly Scots-Irish, my mother's clan is clearly discernible as descended from Native American blood.

The protagonist of Frazier's followup to Cold Mountain is also Scots-Irish, but adopted into a Cherokee clan. In Tennessee, and in North Carolina, which once included the Great Valley of Tanasi, Cherokee heritage is today generally claimed with some pride, much as the rest of America now, rightly or wrongly, claims descent from emigrants from the Emerald Isle.

A few days ago I shared with Ann a passage in the current book that was as dense as the prose of Melville, the first great American novelist. But that quickly passed. Thirteen Moons is engrossing, and evidence that it is entertaining and still edifying comes in this passage that speaks volumes: What I wanted to do was slap him down with a bit of wit and words. Grammar and vocabulary as a weapon. But what kind of world would it be if we all took every opportunity presented to us to assault the weak?

May I encourage you to consider that this book, novel and Novel as it is, would be entertaining literature?

A Diversion From Normal

2007-05-10T23:01:00.000-04:00

My apologies for the leanness of our books postings lately. Frankly, the stuff we have up now is among the best I can suggest. I do have a couple of notables you need to be aware of, one new, and one so in demand since December that I have only been able to bring in 4 copies since Dec. 9. I'll say more later.

Since I no longer post original commentary on any other blogs, I beg your indulgence today as I pay tribute to a true New Albany downtown pioneer and champion of revitalization.

My friend Rick Carmickle died Thursday. Of the hundreds of people I've met in Southern Indiana over the past 3 years, Rick was among my closest friends. He kick-started the downtown merchants association. He offered himself for public service in elected office. But most of all, he believed in New Albany and was damned if he was going to let anybody see it die.

Carmickle's Photography was the epitome of a service business with integrity. Rick bristled, of course, if anyone challenged his integrity, but he always made sure his clients were happy. Along with his wife Karen, Rick fought the good fight to build a business, knowing that his faith in a resurgent NA downtown would someday be rewarded.

Selfless to a fault, Rick could not abide insincerity and though he was no shrinking violet when it came to calling a pile of manure horseshit, no one will tell you he didn't have faith in his hometown.

Rick was distinct from many of my friends. His acceptance was unalloyed. There was no artifice in him. You always knew how Rick felt about things. I was fortunate to spend a few moments with his wife on Wednesday, and though I felt a frisson when reminded that he was scheduled for surgery (sinuses) today, I was poleaxed when another friend called tonight with the news of Rick's passing.

My friend joined with me and another local businessman recently to help the NA-FC Public Library preserve an important piece of local documentary history. Access to local history will be enhanced by his efforts (offered up at no charge) and his generosity will allow for the preservation of an important document while making it available for researchers.

If you didn't know Rick, your experience on this earth is impoverished. I consider myself blessed to have called him my friend. Our love goes out to Karen and all of those who cherished Rick during the brief time he shared with us.

Lincoln Lives

2007-05-07T14:35:00.000-04:00

A loyal reader just alerted me to good news regarding "Young Abe Lincoln," the outdoor musical near Santa Claus, Ind. that is fondly mentioned in Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America. You can read our review here, and read (for a limited time) how the Indiana legislature has restored funding for the drama here.

More patrons are enjoying this book every day.

Kids' Thursday: The Edge Chronicles

2007-05-03T09:41:00.000-04:00

Millions of dollars are spent in the promotion of books and yet hundreds of great books come out each year that barely penetrate your consciousness. Topical nonfiction pervades the news, and an occasional fiction will become a water cooler subject, but kids books have it tougher. As much as the adult world coalesces around single books, often for inexplicable reasons that have little to do with quality, in the world of children's books the concentration is intense.

If, as someone said, books are a conspiracy of smart people, it's even more important that we teach our children to explore the world of books. A homogenized reading list based on what everyone else is reading can stunt their growth.

Whatever the merits of a certain boy about to graduate from a school for wizards, there is a lot more out there. Last year (and this year) I was privileged to read to Scott Burch's 5th Grade class a Mt. Tabor Elementary School during their annual read-in. Parents and community leaders come in to read their favorites to the children in an all-day celebration of reading and story-telling. Finding myself in the room with judges, school board members, an ex-congressman, and the U of L Cardinal doesn't make me a community leader, but I was proud to be there.

Last year I introduced Mr. Burch's class to The Edge Chronicles. From Beyond the Deep Woods (Book 1) to The Winter Knights, the eighth and latest in the series, we together discovered a fantasy series and an imaginary world that, by consensus, surpassess Harry and his pals, and even Lemony Snicket. Truly, this is a gem of a series, stocked and ready for summer reading. And it really has no top end. A really bright 3rd-grader might be able to read it, 5th grade is probably the target demographic, and teens and adults won't begin to be bored.

Rather than try to tell the story of this mysterious world, I invite you to visit the Web site for The Edge Chronicles, the world created by Brits Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell for David Fickling Books and Random House. Enjoy

My Favorite New Word? Locavore!

2007-05-02T05:49:00.000-04:00

Barbara Kingsolver, as a novelist, is an acquired taste. But as a writer of nonfiction, she is practically without peer. When Ann and I, no particular fans of the author of The Poisonwood Bible and many other bestselling fiction books, first heard about the year and the book she had planned, we were intrigued. Fortunate enough to be able to read the book a few months ago, we grew excited, even trying to book Kingsolver for a visit to New Albany.

Alas, the visit won't be happening any time soon, but the book released on Tuesday, and we've stocked up on Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. If you thought Omnivore's Dilemma or Twinkie, Deconstructed gave you insight into the food we eat, your mouth will water at this chronicle of a year living off the land. The Kingsolvers (her husband Steven L. Hopp, and her daughter Camille Kingsolver are coauthors) make "a passionate case for putting the kitchen back at the center of family life and diversified farms at the center of the American diet."

The family swore off "the industrial-food pipeline," exchanging it for a one-year spiritual and journalistic vow to buy only food raised in their own neighborhood, or by themselves at their newly purchased farm in the Shenandoah Valley, or do without. With great humor, they regale us with stories of turkey sex, overzealous zucchini, and an admirable food culture that nourishes community.

As much as possible, Ann and I are trying to modify our diets to support sustainable, diversified local farms. The infrastructure isn't in place yet, and we will NOT be moving to a farm, but we're dedicated to doing all we can to see to it that our food comes from somewhere we can visit. It's good for us and it's a boon to the environment and our local society.

We invite you to enjoy this roadmap. It's no dry recital. It's not a preachment to guilt you into eating better. It is an honest portrayal of one family's investigation of what our future will require.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver, et al
ISBN 9780060852550 HarperCollins (Hardcover) 363 pp. $26.95

Bonus Recipe:
Cucumber Yogurt Soup

8 small-medium cucumbers, peeled and chopped
3 cups water
3 cups plain yogurt
2 tablespoons dill
1 tablespoon bottled lemon juice (optional)
1 cup nasturtium leaves and petals (optional)
Combine ingredients in food processor until smooth, chill before serving. Garnish with nasturtium flowers.

Blessed By the Best

2007-05-01T05:12:00.000-04:00

I never do this, but last week I used the phrase "the best book in the store." I take very seriously my recommendations to you, whether on this blog or while handselling in the store. We expect to be here for at least another two decades and if my recommendations become suspect for any reason, it won't be good -- for you or for our bottom line.

When a book I believe will be incredibly hot also draws a rave from me or Ann, it's a blessing for us all. With Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day, not to mention graduation on the horizon, many more patrons will be coming to us for recommendations. Particularly for Fathers' Day, we're loaded with can't miss titles. But I digress.

Last week I promoted (in-store) without reservation Andrew Ferguson's Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America, from Atlantic Monthly Press. I am far from a Lincoln buff. Where I come from, we're much more realistic in our appreciation of what he accomplished in keeping the Union together no matter what measures it took. But here in Indiana, it's a given that Ole Abe was the best president there ever was or ever will be.

Ferguson went through a childhood fervor for the Railsplitter, but as time passed, Lincolniana became, for him, passe. With great affection, but no small amount of humor, he rekindled that passion in researching this book. I can say that of all the new releases, this is the best book in the store. Lincoln is adored and scorned and every year brings out a new debate about the man and his importance to our modern world. But this book captures our Abesession in a way no history could.

From memorabilia collectors (first-degree items include reliquary-like artifacts like hair, with rumors of teeth and bone) to the Sons of the Confederate Veterans (who are better-armed than most when they argue that most of Lincoln's actions were extra-constitutional), the Weekly Standard editor captures the unique fascination we have with the 16th president.

How many of you ever attended the outdoor musical drama Young Abe Lincoln at Santa Claus, Ind.? Ferguson attended what appears to have been the final performance just a few months ago, revisiting the town after having joined a national convention of Lincoln (and Mary Todd) impersonators.

That's in the latter half of the book, when the author grabs up his family, including two teenagers, and follows the Lincoln Heritage Trail from Illinois to Kentucky, backtracking through Lincoln's life to end the book at the legendary birthplace of Honest Abe. Did you know that the LHT is 960 miles long, that each of the three states (Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky) have exactly 320 miles of highway devoted to Lincoln? Of course, the Indiana sites include, for some reason, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and with the Lincoln Bicentennial fast approaching the trail is only intermittently marked. Vandals and thieves have stolen most of the once-ubiquitous markers. By the way, Car & Driver magazine calls Ind. 62 on the trail one of the Best Driving Roads in America, ending at the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Dale.

The book is manageable in small chunks, but I guarantee you'll finish it in a week. It's that good.

So, all last week I'm touting the book as the best book in the store, with several patrons taking it solely on my recommendation. I wasn't ready to blog about it, because it was scheduled for publication in June, so when it arrived unexpectedly, I reordered and fished out my notes for the planned June posting.

Why is that a problem? Because we have TWO best books in the store beginning today. Tomorrow I'll tell you more about the other, Barbara Kingsolver's nonfiction masterpiece, Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: A Year of Food Life, from HarperCollins.

Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America by Andrew FergusonISBN 9780871139672 Atlantic Monthly Press (Hardcover) 288 pp. $24

So Much To Be Said...Agree, or Not?

2007-04-27T06:00:00.000-04:00

I spent a couple of days hunting down a cogent summary of this deplorable trend, but here you go, for a weekend read. From Art Winslow on the blog site "The Huffington Post."

In the new book burning we don't burn books, we burn discussion of them instead. I am referring to the ongoing collapse of book review sections at American newspapers, which has accelerated in recent months, an intellectual brownout in progress that is beginning to look like a rolling blackout instead... read the rest of this post and please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below

Warriors Phenomenon Keeps Building

2007-04-24T05:31:00.000-04:00

Today is a banner day for author Erin Hunter as she launches the third six-book series in her incredibly successful Warriors series. Today is the release date for The Sight, book one in her Power of Three series.

Actually, Erin Hunter is the pen name of two English writers, Kate Cary and Cherith Baldry, and if you have a child anywhere between the ages of 8 and 18, they have surely read one or more of the previous 12 books. Around here, it's one of those series that we have a standing order for each new release. We try to keep all of the titles on hand, too, so that as children reach a certain age they can begin the adventure at the beginning.

Those of you who pre-ordered will have already been called about the new book, but you may be unaware that HarperCollins Children's Books has extended the brand even further into manga...that's the Asian-influenced graphic novel style with all original stories, and book one of a planned three-book series also comes out today: The Lost Warrior.

If you're still puzzled about the whole Warriors phenomenon, just ask the child in your life, or read the annotation below:

There will be three, kin of your kin . . .

The wild cats have flourished in their new home on the banks of the lake for several seasons, and the Clans are growing strong and healthy with new kits. The time has come for three kits of ThunderClan to become apprentices.

Hollypaw, Jaypaw, and Lionpaw spring from a strong legacy: children of Squirrelflight and Brambleclaw, two of the noblest ThunderClan warriors, and grandchildren of the great leader Firestar himself. All three young cats possess unusual power and talent and seem certain to provide strength to the Clan for the next generation.

But there are dark secrets around the three, and a mysterious prophecy hints at trouble to come. An undercurrent of rage is rising against those who are not Clanborn, and the warrior code is in danger of being washed away by a river of blood. All the young cats' strength will be needed if the Clans are to survive.

. . . who hold the power of the stars in their paws.

From the "Internets"

2007-04-21T11:29:00.000-04:00

I can't always devote the time to entertaining original content here, but that's no reason you shouldn't get new content on a (near) daily basis. Saturdays are an office work day for me, thanks to Ann, but we both listen avidly to Michael Feldman's What Do You Know? on WFPL 89.3 FM, the NPR station.

Not the least of the reasons for listening is Feldman's attention to writers and writing. Today's guest was the coauthor of Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home, David Shipley and Will Schwalbe.

Check out Feldman's blog at http://blogs.britannica.com/blog/main/author/mfeldman

All Harry, All the Time?

2007-04-20T06:11:00.000-04:00

Sooner than you can imagine, you won't be able to turn your head without hearing about J.K. Rowling's mammoth conclusion to Harry Potter's school days, Year 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. We're going to embrace the madness ourselves, and it has begun.

Your independent booksellers will be offering a sweepstakes to win a trip to London as part of our Independent Muggles for Harry Potter promotion.

Scholastic, Rowling's U.S. publisher, is offering special Book Sense collectible bookmarks and we have them (on request). Each of seven bookmarks lists a key question leading up to the gala release at midnight on July 21, 2007. The first is out - bookmark #2 is available on May 1. Come by and ask for your collectible bookmark while supplies last. And then during Harry Potter weekend, you can enter the sweepstakes.

Author Spotlight: Michael Pollan

2007-04-19T10:19:00.000-04:00

I'm deferring our young readers spotlight to next Tuesday, when I'll be privileged to be one of the readers at Mt. Tabor Elementary School. It was a delightful experience last year, and I look forward to it.

Here's an author you'll want to get familiar with - Michael Pollan. His current rousing bestseller is The Omnivore's Dilemma, but he's been a prolific writer for about a decade. What's most intriguing about Pollan is his choice of topics.

A Place of My Own is the writer's reflections on the meaning and building of "home," as drawn from his experience in building a wooden hut in the woods near his Connecticut home. At first blush, you might suspect it to be dry, but just a few minutes reading will make you a fan. Each tangent reveals a fertile mind, and the narrative essays draw you inexorably toward the author's central theses.

The Botany of Desire is even more unlikely, but even more enjoyable. The book is categorized as "human plant relationships," an incongruous connection, but it works. He uses botany to explore four basic human desires - sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control -through portraits of four plants that embody them: the apple, tulip, marijuana, and potato.

We carry all three. Check them out.

What I'm reading: Breaking Open Japan: Commodore Perry, Lord Abe & American Imperialism in 1853 by George Feifer