Old Firehouse Books Blog

2011 ALSC Newbery and Caldecott Medal Winners

2012-01-26T09:40:00.000-07:00

Newbery Medal:

Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional, Dead End in Norvelt is a novel about an incredible two months for a kid named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation excitement are shot down when he is "grounded for life" by his feuding parents, and whose nose spews bad blood at every little shock he gets. But plenty of excitement (and shocks) are coming Jack's way once his mom loans him out to help a fiesty old neighbor with a most unusual chore—typewriting obituaries filled with stories about the people who founded his utopian town. As one obituary leads to another, Jack is launced on a strange adventure involving molten wax, Eleanor Roosevelt, twisted promises, a homemade airplane, Girl Scout cookies, a man on a trike, a dancing plague, voices from the past, Hells Angels . . . and possibly murder. Endlessly surprising, this sly, sharp-edged narrative is the author at his very best, making readers laugh out loud at the most unexpected things in a dead-funny depiction of growing up in a slightly off-kilter place where the past is present, the present is confusing, and the future is completely up in the air.

Caldecott Medal:

Here's a story about love and loss as only Chris Rashcka can tell it. Any child who has ever had a beloved toy break will relate to Daisy's anguish when her favorite ball is destroyed by a bigger dog. In the tradition of his nearly wordless picture book Yo! Yes?, Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka explores in pictures the joy and sadness that having a special toy can bring. Raschka's signature swirling, impressionistic illustrations and his affectionate story will particularly appeal to young dog lovers and teachers and parents who have children dealing with the loss of something special.

Congratulations to Jack Gantos and Chris Raschka!

Diagnosing Bibliophilia

2012-01-14T10:24:00.004-07:00

In recent months, a growing awareness has been spreading the country of a new and frightening disorder. No one knows how long this disorder has plagued the world, but now there is finally a way of diagnosing, and potentially curing, this ailment. It's called Bibliophilia, and it's consuming lives at an unstoppable rate. Doing our part to ease the madness, Old Firehouse Books is providing a list of symptoms, so that you might be able to diagnose yourself or loved ones before it's too late.

Symptoms include, but are not limited to:
-Arriving at any appointment and hoping that there will be a wait, so you have time to read
-Carrying at least one book with you at any given moment
-Suffering from anxiety as a result of separation from the written word
-Headaches caused by the constant conundrum of never knowing what to read next
-Constant repetition of the phrase "Just let me finish this one page/chapter..."
-Excitement over missed flights/buses because of the extra reading time allowed
-Denying companionship because the friend/loved one never shuts up long enough for you to finish your book
-Short attention span and inability to sit and do nothing, a book must always be open
-Aversion/disgust of television
-English major...
-Inability to shut up when asked if you've read anything good lately
-Owning enough bookmarks to be able to wall paper a house
-Inability to walk through a bookstore without buying something

If you exhibit two or more of these symptoms, you may be suffering from Bibliophilia. If you believe you may be a victim of this disorder, please report immediately to Old Firehouse Books for the only available cure. Actually, we probably can't help, since we're all afflicted ourselves, but at least you'll be in good company!

Have you seen this?

2012-01-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

Sean Ohlenkamp and his wife put this video together for Type Bookstore in Toronto and we love them for it.

If you haven't seen it, watch and be amazed. If you have, well...watch it again because it's that good.

The New Year Address

2012-01-08T14:20:00.000-07:00

For the first time in 2012, all of us at the Firehouse would like to say hello to our fellow readers-

Hello!

With the first week of the new year behind us, many people will be deciding which resolutions to keep, and which to drop. We suggest that if you don't already have a resolution to read more this year, then make one! Maybe this is the year to tackle those reads that you fear as much as a shark circling you out in the open ocean. Or possibly, this is the year to go back and enjoy a book that you haven't read in a long time. No matter what it is you might want to read, we are always down here to help. Suggestions, special orders... We do it all.

And so, most importantly, we would like to say thank you all for being the loyal customers whose support makes us a thriving independent bookstore. Our resolution is to continue improving our inventory and services, always doing our best to enhance your reading experience. So cheers all, to 2012. May the upcoming reads treat you well, and may we all share them for many more years to come.

OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS (Or: The Hobbit is coming out!)

2011-12-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

Exciting news! (OH how this news is exciting!)

The trailer for The Hobbit is out! I have nothing but high hopes and great things to say about this movie. It's directed by the same person who was in charge of the Lord of the Rings, and it's The Hobbit!

Secretly--or, not so secretly now--The Hobbit was always my favorite Tolkien book. You can keep your Two Towers and your Return of the King, but The Hobbit is mine. My... precious.

(Actually, fun fact, I can recite the opening paragraph of The Hobbit from memory. It remains one of my favorite openings in all of book-dom.)

Anyway, you can watch the trailer on Youtube by clicking on this statement. Otherwise, you can check almost every entertainment/book-oriented blog on the whole of the internet.

--KELLER

Books are awesome.

2011-12-07T09:27:00.006-07:00

Something that makes us jump up and down and throw our hands in the air:

"When you give a 'real world' book to someone you are saying, 'I am totally in love with this book and think you will be too,' or 'The sentiment in this book reminded me of you,' or 'Here, this is a journey you will never forget.' A book is a personal gift--something uniquely picked out, inscribed, and physically presented to another person. It has emotional and actual weight. I am not saying there are not other good gifts out there (a ukulele comes to mind), but with a book you don't have to: mortgage the home, guess bra size, learn to sing, or find out too late that they are allergic to nuts. That is why I think the book is the best gift you can give. It is economical, beautiful, hours of entertainment, thoughtful, and can last (both physically and in the mind) a lifetime."

-- Steven Salardino, manager of Skylight Books, Los Angeles, Calif., from the bookstore's latest e-newsletter.

Guest Post: Sarah Paige Ryan's Holiday Survival Guide

2011-11-28T16:48:00.005-07:00

Oh, the holidays. The shopping lists. The paper cuts. The delayed flights. The family gatherings where Grandma reminds everyone that she thought you’d never graduate from high school. If you’re like me, then the season of giving is a source of both joy and dread. After years of holiday meltdowns, I’ve compiled the perfect survival guide to see you through the merry-making.

Old-Fashioneds
You might associate this classic cocktail with the likes of Don and Betty Draper, but I have my in-laws to thank for this hangover-proof mood enhancer. Every year, my relatives gather around the Christmas tree and get good and drunk on their own version of the Old-Fashioned: lemon-lime soda, brandy, a dash of bitters, a slice of orange, a maraschino cherry, lots of ice and, for good measure, a sprinkling of Sweet’N Low.

Bad Sex
Why waste your time on a furtive quickie when you can read other people’s half-baked exploits? On December 6, the British magazine The Literary Review will announce the winner of the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. According to the editors, “The purpose of the prize is to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel and to discourage it." Twelve authors from around the world are on the shortlist, including Stephen King, Haruki Murakami, Jean Auel, and David Guterson. Extracts are available online at The Guardian.

A Good Book
There’s no better excuse for retreating to an armchair with an old-fashioned and a warm blanket than a really good read. When the season strikes, I want to be transported to distant locales. I want to ooh and aah over the marvelous and strange. If you love novels, I recommend Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder for its fire and ice evocation of disparate locales (Minnesota and the Amazon) and love and nature. If you prefer to dabble, pick up a copy of The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities and enjoy a bizarre and horrifying collection in which parasites might hold the key to religious ecstasy and mechanical teachers are linked to the development of mustard gas.

Schadenfreude is the time-honored art of deriving pleasure from the misfortunes of others. It’s distinctly un-seasonal, but it’s also an invaluable source of relief at a time when there’s so much pressure to love one another. On Wednesday, November 30, at 7pm, the members of the Old Town Writing Group will share their tales of holiday mishaps during the Feast of Fools event at Bas Bleu Theatre in Fort Collins. The reading is free. The writers include Karye Cattrell, Dana Masden, Laura Pritchett, Laura Resau, Carrie Visintainer, and myself. Work off that Thanksgiving stress with stories of social disorder.

Sarah Paige Ryan is a local writer and blogger. Her memoir, Solar-Powered Sex Machine, is available online. Learn more at www.sarahpaigeryan.com.

Feed by Mira Grant

2011-11-20T18:08:00.002-07:00

It is very very rare that I feel compelled to write a book review. I did a few too many papers in college to get excited about the process these days. I'm a simple rate it from 1 to 10, and move on gal. That said, the book I just finished deserved a few words. I want to talk about the book Feed, by Mira Grant.

How do I talk about a book like Feed?
I'm not sure where I could possibly begin.
I suppose I should start with myself, because my experiences deeply colored how I read and felt about this book.

I worked for two years at a major newspaper, and believe me when I say I know the ugly side of the news media. When I left the paper the news was already on its slide toward what I call Infotainment, and away from the Truth. Don't get me started on how I feel about the reporting being done today. I also happen to be extremely political, something that stumps my more apathetic Gen X friends. I'm constantly on my soapbox begging people to get informed and get involved. So why is this important? Oh, didn't I mention? This isn't a zombie book. This is a wake up call.

Feed takes place in the years after the zombie Rising. Life carries on. And zombies are just a fact of life. And the book follows a group of bloggers as they cover a major political campaign. The traditional news has lost its pursuit of the truth, and it is in the hands of bloggers to do the real reporting. The bulk of the book is spent on explorations of the news and politics. It is methodical and somewhat repetitive, though I never balked at its surprisingly laid back pace. You join the campaign trail and get pulled in to a well constructed world, frighteningly familiar in its similarities to our own. The actual zombies take a back seat. Terror, on the other hand, does not.

Feed is a meditation on what it is like to live in a state of constant fear. This is a book where zombies are a clear metaphor for terrorism. Actually, not even a metaphor at times - in places it is even literal. This is a world wherein the people are afraid all the time. They shut themselves in their homes, and they fear their neighbors. It's terrifying. And after reading over and over and over again about blood tests being clean, to the point where it begins to grate, the tension has reached such a point that the payoff is as jarring as it is inevitable when one comes back dirty.

This book won't appeal to everyone. It's not action packed. It's not an all out zombie fest. The terror comes in the form of a creeping dread, and in wanting to believe things will work out when you know damn well that they will not. The fear is not in the moments where zombies are running toward you. It's in the moment you are pulling off your shirt, searching for holes, hoping against hope that you aren't dead and just don't know it yet. Or worse, when you are watching your loved one do the same.

- t

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.

2011-11-06T10:50:00.000-07:00

You know that all of us here at Old Firehouse Books like to keep up on book to movie or television news. So we have to share the trailer for the upcoming film based on The Lorax by Dr. Seuss with you.

What do you think? Will you see it when it hits theaters in March?

A little too on-the-nose?

2011-11-02T15:23:00.000-06:00

Stumbling across the internet, I found this comic strip that seems to sum up the current book-selling climate astoundingly well (though it is, perhaps, somewhat dated by the presence of Borders, may-it-rest-in-peace.)

Thanks to the original authors (and original wits! DOH hoh hoh) Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. If you want to read more of their work, click on this sentence.

-KELLER

This Friday: Old Firehouse Books Halloween Bash!

2011-10-24T19:29:00.000-06:00

{Source}

With Halloween falling on a Monday this year, we all get a premium amount of time to celebrate beforehand and we decided to take advantage of this at Old Firehouse Books.

We're throwing our own Halloween Bash in the store this Friday (10/28) from 6-8pm. You should come get your BOOk on!

We'll have a literary costume contest, for kids and adults, and trivia too. Winners will receive a gift card to use in the store - you can buy that new book you've been eyeing or stock up on the classics you've read and loved. Snacks and drinks will be provided as well.

And the best part? It's free.

So grab your costume, bone up on your book knowledge, and join us.

*Adults: Need some help thinking of a costume? Check out this Flavorpill post featuring 7 bookish pop-culture costume ideas: Flavorpill Book Costumes.

DC Comics pulled from Barnes and Noble shelves?

2011-10-10T10:47:00.006-06:00

So, I just had a long weekend. Very relaxing. Full of fun. But then I come back to the store--glibly optimistic in my ignorance--to find that Barnes and Noble pulled one hundred DC comic titles from their shelves in retaliation against Amazon's exclusive E-book rights. Curious.

To quote Jaime Carey--Barnes and Noble's chief merchandising officer--in a response made to the New York Times,

"In a few isolated instances, exclusive publisher deals have prohibited Barnes & Noble from selling certain e-books, preventing millions of our digital customers from access to those titles. To sell and promote the physical book in our store showrooms and not have the e-book available for sale would undermine our promise to Barnes & Noble customers to make available any book, anywhere, anytime."

Does this sound silly to anyone else? They are pulling titles from their shelves because having them would "... undermine [their] promise to Barnes & Noble customers to make available any book, anywhere, anytime?"

They are pulling books.

Because they want them to be available.

Maybe I'm just taking this personally. I am, after all, what some would call a 'nerd.' When I hear that titles like Watchmen and Sandman are being pulled from shelves in a snit fit over e-book rights, I can't help but lament the fact that someone, somewhere, won't have access to them.
And maybe it's just me, but it always seems like anytime big distributors or big publishers fight over copyrights, or e-book exclusivity, or who-wronged-who in the profit-wars, the fallout always hurts the readers the most.
I can understand wanting to protect your livelihood. In light of Borders' perilous decline, I can see how Barnes and Noble would try to do its best to protect its investments. I mean, we've all got to survive, right?
But at the same time, when is it too much? If a bookseller takes a book off the shelf because another book seller has it available at a lower price or in a different format, wouldn't we all be out of business? Isn't it enough just to have the book for people to read, whether they buy it or not? Whatever happened to coming into a store to browse?
Because, see, that's why I go into book stores. It's not always a desperate quest to find the exact title I'm looking for. For me, it's an exploration. A walk in the woods, so to speak, to see just what's out there. And if we cut down all the trees, what's left to explore?

(I feel like I should point out that we stock DC's titles, regardless of who has the e-book rights. Come check 'em out!)

- KELLER

REVIEW: Thirteen Reasons Why

2011-10-06T11:20:00.006-06:00

Hoo. Wow. It's been a while since my last post. Quite some time, indeed.

SO!

Without further ado, a book review!

Last night, when the store was slow, I picked up a copy of Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why (Penguin, 2007.) In between helping the occasional customer, I leafed through the first few pages. Then, when it was time to lock up, I leafed through a few more. When I got home, I sat down on the couch and proceeded to finish the book.

And it was good. I mean, like, really good. That's my official first thought while reviewing this book: it was really good.

Thirteen Reasons Why revolves around Clay, a more-or-less typical high school student, who receives an unmarked package containing seven cassette tapes recorded by a recently deceased classmate. On each tape is two reasons that said classmate--Hannah Baker--committed suicide. The book follows Clay as he visits each location in Hannah's story, listening to how each person mentioned in the tapes influenced Hannah's decision and wondering all the while how he fits into the picture.

The immediacy of the book--one of the things I loved about it--comes from the narrative setup: Clay's story happens over the course of a single night, as he follows Hannah's tour of their town. It's a simple layout of a complex plot, following a map from point A to point B and so on, unfolding the significance of each location with an associated cassette tape.
That's precisely the word I would use for the way the book works, by unfolding. It is as if the book were a music box, or a wind-up toy that has been set in motion, and we've just got to sit back and watch as it plays through itself. In a way, it's a genius narrative setup: the character--and by proxy, the reader--is given steps that must inevitably follow one another, and over the course of the book each one is addressed in turn. If it feels like the story is being placed on track at times, it's because it is.

However good the book is, though, this narrative structure could be seen as both a benefit and a detriment. After all, if everything in the book has already happened, where is the tension? There are scant choices to be made after the story begins, and only a few ways for it to play out. And play out it does, from Tape 1 Side A to the silent Side B of Tape 7. So why should we care?

We should care, as it turns out, because Asher is an excellent writer. He takes an otherwise concrete narrative, and pushes it onto Clay to see what he does with it. How he reacts. If he does or does not follow the instructions on the tape. Even though the events of the story could be considered analogous to watching someone listen to a book on tape, it's handled so deftly and so vividly that I never once considered putting the book down.

The only real issue I had with the book was the fact that it was written as teen lit (Which sounds awful. I mean, why should I judge a book by its genre? It seems horribly unfair until you find out that I was an English major, and for a few years there being unfair to books was all I did.) This isn't to say that I have anything against teen lit in principle, but I've come to find that many teen lit books cling to a lingering sense of unreality regarding the functioning of the real world. This shows most tellingly in Asher's book through the presence of Clay's mother, especially when she lets him 'stay out late for a school project'-- I'm not sure if I was an anomaly, but if I lied to my mother like that and spent all night wandering the town, she would find out and I wouldn't leave the house for weeks (Which actually happened to me once. Fun times.)

This is an issue that I've seen come up in many stories aimed towards a teen audience: a magical parentless wonderland where you can stay out all night consequence-free. The most egregious offender that I've seen is the movie Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, where the titular characters spend all night in downtown New York without a single thought as to what their parents might say.

Luckily, however, Asher's book is nothing like that. It was only a niggling sense of 'But what would their mothers think?!' that I noticed. And Asher does address it, insofar as one can address the issues of parents in a teen book-- I'm just not sure if I really like how teen lit as a whole deals with grownups.

But, before this review is swamped in my gripes about the state of teen lit today, I would have to say that, overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was tense, well-written, engaging, and inevitable in a way that I think only Thirteen Reasons Why can truly be.

OVERALL RATING: A-minus, or about 9.2/10. A thumb and three-quarters up? Four stars? I'm really bad at ratings systems. You should read this book.

-KELLER

PS- Jay Asher is signing at the Council Tree Library in Fort Collins! October 20th at 6:30! Make sure you read this excellent book and attend!

Banned Book Week!!!!

2011-09-25T15:14:00.002-06:00

Old Firehouse Books here. Hope that all of you fellow readers are doing fantastic. Today, we'd like to bring a very important week to your attention: Banned Books Week. This fantastic event has fallen on Sept. 24-Oct. 1 this year. If you are unfamiliar with Banned Books Week, allow us to fill you in on a little bit of the history.

In 1982, the first ever Banned Books Week was launched. This was a response to the many "challenges" that have occurred on several books. It still happens to this day. To elaborate on "challenge," it is basically another way of saying forced censorship. Here at the bookstore, we support the freedom of the written word. We have just setup a display in our front window that shows several books that have been banned, censored, or even in some extreme cases, burned. Banned Books Week exists to make the public aware of these issues. Here are a few titles from challenged books that may surprise you:

The Adventures of Captain Underpants- Dav Pilkey
The Hunger Games- Suzanne Collins
The Sun Also Rises- Ernest Hemingway
The Lord of the Rings- J.R.R. Tolkein
Harry Potter- J.K. Rowling
Gone with the Wind- Margaret Mitchell
Fahrenheit 451- Ray Bradburry
The Grapes of Wrath- John Steinbeck

And this doesn't even skim the surface. Imagine how many classics would be lost to literature if we were to allow titles like these to be banned.

So this week, let your mind be open. Allow your thoughts to flow freely. And most importantly, respect others who do those things. Stop by the store to see our nice display, and possibly pick up a challenged book that deserves to be read. Thanks for reading the post and take care.

De España

2011-09-20T03:21:00.002-06:00

This is Kelsey posting! Even though I'm not quite exactly an employee of OFHB at the moment... For those of you who aren't quite hip to the bookstore gossip, I've taken a leave of absence from my book-slave position in order to study abroad in Alcalá de Henares, Spain for a semester!

I'll be back, don't you worry! And even though I'm not getting paid to talk books right now, I've had some awesome book-related experiences I just have to share here! First and foremost, I was elated when I got to Spain and found out that my host-mother, Pepi, also loves to read! A good portion of our conversations so far have been about that. She loves romance novels by Stephanie Laurens, Nora Roberts, and Lisa Kleypas, as well as thrillers. I was excited to hear that she's also read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series, but in Spain it's called Los hombres que no amaban a las mujeres. (The literal translation of that is The men that didn't love women... they also don't capitalize all of a title here.)

Pepi was also kind enough to hook my up with a little just-for-fun reading of my own! So in addition to Cervantes and the text books I'm reading for class, I just picked up Un ordenador nada ordinario (or... A computer that's never ordinary.) As far as I can tell so far, it's about a little boy who builds a robot that goes haywire and leads him on all sorts of hijinks. Oh yeah, and it's for 8-year-olds. But I've got to start somewhere!

I'll post again as soon as there's more book-stories to be shared! There's a few local "liberias" (bookstores) around that I'm itchin' to check out! I'll let you know how it goes!!

Just to Say Hello

2011-09-10T14:57:00.005-06:00

Hey there folk of the written word. Summer is now nearing its end, and we here at the bookstore are looking forward to a little of that wonderful autumn weather around the corner. The bookstore is in fine shape and has been thoroughly cleansed of old books during these past few months. The things that remain in the store are what we refer to as "literary gold." This message is simply here to say hello. We are still around (even though we haven't been posting as much lately) and we are always excited to try and meet your book needs when you stop by to see us.

On another note, there have been a few changes here at the store with the faces you all are used to seeing. Some of our favorite friends might not be around anymore, but be sure to stop by and say hello to some of our older employees that have returned.

And finally, to make this post a bit more interesting, I'll leave you all with some fun info: Happy birthday Mary Oliver. Oliver is one of the most eminent figures in contemporary American poetry. Born in 1935, she has been writing for several decades, always working to refine her already dazzling poetic skill. Many have compared her work to that of Emily Dickinson. Come on down to the store and grab one of her books such as Red Bird. Hope to see you soon and take care.

Graphically Yours Debut!

2011-08-15T10:24:00.002-06:00

So it has hopefully come to your attention that the Old Firehouse is about to host a brand new book club! Formed by the wonderful Keller, this new book club will be focused on reading and discussing graphic novels. Thus it is aptly named GRAPHICALLY YOURS. The first session is going to take place at 6pm on Friday, August 19th. As is usual with Old Firehouse book clubs, we'll be meeting in the back room of the store to enjoy some literary conversation, jokes, puns, and so much more. The first novel we're starting with is Watchmen by Alan Moore. A good chunk of us have read this in the past, so if you have as well, come on by and share your thoughts with us! And if you have time, read this great classic once again! So much excitement! So much fun! A brand new book club for us all to love! We'll also be setting up our reading list for the following months at this first meeting, so feel free to bring in suggestions of your favorite graphic novels. See you all soon.

Taming the Bookstore

2011-08-09T11:24:00.002-06:00

For those of you who come into the bookstore a little less than frequently, and, honestly, even for those of you who come in every other week, you may notice that a thing or two changes between each visit. And if you only come in two or three times a year, you may even have a hard time recognizing us! Since the beginning of 2011 alone we've moved nearly every section in the bookstore at least once; some sections have been relocated two or three times already!

So what's the deal? I'm often asked by customers why we would move things around so frequently when it's just going to confuse customers. Being confused is never a very pleasant feeling, so please believe me when I tell you we're doing what is best, even inevitable, for the store.

What most people do not know is that a bookstore is very much a living thing. With each season, a new section inhales and expands as more books are demanded by customers. As that section grows, inevitably another exhales and shrinks as customers seem to stop caring as much about the contents. This is particularly true with the crafts and gardening section. Few people tend to want books on planting flowers when the ground is so cold even the pine trees are shivering, and by that same rule the craft section is more popular when the weather's cold and the holidays are moving in.

In order to keep the store healthy and happy, we have to groom and relocate sections in order to let the store breath and contract as necessary. When one section is getting a lot of attention, it demands room to stretch. When another section is shriveling or becoming bloated with unsold books, we squeeze it out and shrink it down.

So believe us, we're not doing this to confuse you. We are merely servants to the unpredictable whims of this insatiable beast we call Old Firehouse Books. But if you ever do come in and need a guide through the shifting sections, we are always more than happy to help!

Scary Books

2011-08-02T10:40:00.006-06:00

FOR RENT: Top two floors of beautifully renovated brownstone, 1300 sq. ft., 2BR 2BA, eat-in kitchen, one block to parks and playgrounds. No broker’s fee.

Susan and Alex Wendt have found their dream apartment.

Sure, the landlady is a little eccentric. And the elderly handyman drops some cryptic remarks about the basement. But the rent is so low, it’s too good to pass up.

Big mistake. Susan soon discovers that her new home is crawling with bedbugs . . . or is it? She awakens every morning with fresh bites, but neither Alex nor their daughter Emma has a single welt. An exterminator searches the property and turns up nothing. The landlady insists her building is clean. Susan fears she’s going mad—until a more sinister explanation presents itself: she may literally be confronting the bedbug problem from Hell.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So reads the back of Bedbugs by Ben Winters, a book I finished not too long ago. A book that still has my skin crawling all day, and keeps me up all night with images of the ending still burned into my mind. Maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration... but not too far from the truth. My co-worker Keller can attest to how much this book freaked me out.

I read the last one hundred pages of the book alone in my apartment. My roommate had been out for a while and the place was eerily quiet. I even had to go and sit out on the balcony just to hear some human noises and remind myself I wasn't inside the book. Just as I had reached the crux of the book, when the poop hits the fan and everything falls into its horrifying place, SLAM!! Keller (who's also a friend of my roommate) slammed his hands against the sliding door. I jumped out of my seat and into defense position (which in my case is just getting ready to run away or cry) and my heart pounded my ears. Keller, obnoxiously pleased with himself, laughed at my shakiness. I was tempted to take my book and shove it up Keller's nose, but then I wouldn't be able to finish it, so I didn't.

Was I overreacting? Yes. But there is nothing that makes me more tense than a scary book. Scary movies might shock me or make me nervous, but whatever images they throw at me are nothing compared to the freakish terrors stored in my imagination.

So the question that comes to mind-- what makes these books so scary? I know my imagination plays a big part in making a book scarier than a movie, but what sparks that imagination? For Bedbugs, the answer lies in the ordinary. This book reads like a modern haunted house story, but with all of the elements like iPods and cell phones that make the setting immediate and relevant. The horror of this book also lies in the ordinary. Upon first reading the description on the back, I thought the book would be a bit creepy, at best. Maybe it was the suprise that scared me so much, too. When expecting nothing special, I found something that terrified me way beyond expectations.

What exactly makes something scary is different for all of us, but I applaud anyone who can write something genuinely frightening. Fear is a difficult emotion to pull off, with most scary movies these days resorting to just grossing us out instead. So, what's so scary about Bedbugs? You'll have to read it yourself to find out, just make sure Keller's not anywhere nearby when you do.

Fairy tales to Film

2011-07-26T09:17:00.003-06:00

Check this out for some fresh ideas for taking fairy tales to film. Some great stories, some I'd forgotten. I for one would love to see Tam Lin as a movie, after reading the modern adaptation of the story by Pamela Dean. I also love the legend of the swans adaptation by Juliet Marillier, Daughter of the Forest.

Style vs. Story

2011-07-23T13:37:00.002-06:00

Recently, a favorite author of mine, Jonathan Safran Foer, released a new book. It had been so long since he last released a fiction novel that I had forgotten to keep tabs on him and the book slipped onto the shelf without my knowing. I was surprised and enthralled the second I saw it nestled next to his other novels (Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close). The title-- Tree of Codes-- immediately intrigued me as it sounded whimsical without stepping too far into fantasy. Before my mind was even aware of it, my hand was reaching for the book, nearly shaking with excitement. As the tips of my fingers made contact, however, I was distressed not to feel the firm paper texture of a normal cover, but the slippery slickness of plastic wrap.

DENIED! My heart sank. Furthering my frustration even more, the covers of the book contained no useful information as to the contents, and the steep $40 cover price (for a paper back!) made even the purchase of the book out of reach.

Quick! To the internet! I made a mad dash to the nearest computer to discover why my dear Jonathan Safran Foer would betray me so! The findings were intriguing:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-safran-foer/tree-of-codes_b_782873.html#s181506&title=Tree_of_Codes

I was shocked to find that the book looked more like a a child's craft project than a normal book. The insides were too delicate for me to run my sticky fingers over without handing over the money first. Foer had painstakingly dissected another book, Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz, in order to produce Tree of Codes. I flew into outrage.

Why produce a book so delicate that it can't even withstand the daily handling of a bookstore? And could this book even really be all that good if it's not Foer's original words?

I cannot answer these questions. Like I said before, the $40 is out of my price range, even with the employee discount, and as much as I love Jonathan Safran Foer, I can't bring myself to purchase a book I can't flip through first. But this leads me to my main question: When does the style of a book begin to get in the way of the story? And can the two ever work together?

I think the best examples of the Style vs. Story dilemma come from Mark Z. Danielewski, author of House of Leaves and Only Revolutions. House of Leaves uses stylistic choices like colored words, one-word pages, upside down pages to enhance and work alongside the unique and creepy story. Only Revolutions tries the same thing, only amplifying the techniques to the point where the book becomes convoluted and nearly impossible to read. While the former uses style to add a new element to an already excellent story, the former supplements with style where it lacks a cohesive story entirely.

So which category does Tree of Codes fall into? Is the $40 and plastic wrap worth the treasure inside, or do both serve to mask the fact that no story actually exists? I don't know. You fork over the $40 and then let me know.

Bestsellers or Off-the-Beaten-Path?

2011-07-21T13:30:00.002-06:00

So, obviously, we get a lot of people looking for book recommendations. Helping people find a book they will love is one of my favorite things. I have noticed, in my book-recommending career, that there are two main types of people who will ask for my help. The first type is looking for that hidden gem that they will fall in love with. I have lots of those books- some are on my picks shelf right now. If you love historical fiction and aren't afraid of a complicated plot, then The Witch of Cologne is for you. Protestants versus Catholics versus Jews, and a royal succession scandal, and a star-crossed lovers story for good measure? Perfect. Prefer more modern literary stories? Maybe you'd like The Tricking of Freya, about a young Icelandic immigrant girl who loves her vibrant yet unstable aunt and old stories, but ends up in a frightening adventure.

I can go on all day. I read a lot of science fiction/fantasy and mystery too, so those genres hold no fear for me- they are old friends. If you're looking for a book, I like to ask about the books you've enjoyed most recently, find out what you loved about them, and find something that speaks to the same style or subject that intrigued you.

There is a second type of person too. This person does NOT want a recommendation that they have never heard of. They only want me to recommend them books that they already know about. Perhaps this is a way of staying safe. Maybe they don't trust me? Maybe they don't know that at our bookstore, we're not just going to hand them the most expensive book in the store to make an extra buck.

I haven't read everything on the bestseller list. That's partly because there's no way to keep up with it, partly because I actually distrust the bestseller list. Maybe it's because I wasn't one of the popular girls in high school, but I distrust popularity for its own sake. This goes for books, too. I wasn't the biggest fan of Water for Elephants or of The Da Vinci Code. However, I passionately love The Help and The Tiger's Wife. So, part of what I like to do with recommendations is promote things that aren't bestsellers, because you already know all of them by looking at the display shelves. Has anyone missed that Little Bee, Room, and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks are great books? Those titles are all over the place. But what about my shy wallflowers, Mistress of the Art of Death, Possessing the Secret of Joy, or The Tea Rose? They deserve good homes, too.

So, do you peruse the bestsellers or the farthest corners of the bookstore? I confess, I do both.

Harry Potter for Sports Fans

2011-07-11T08:21:00.002-06:00

Harry Potter fans everywhere can hardly wait for this Thursday at midnight, when the final installment of the Harry Potter series makes it to the big screen. What can they do to make the time go faster?

So, ever wanted to try quidditch? Some intrepid souls have brought this game to life in the world of the Muggles. No flying brooms, but you may want to try it! Apparantly, there's a league in Greeley. For more information, look here.

AAARGHRGARGAAARG!!

2011-07-10T12:04:00.003-06:00

Do your best to pronounce the title of this post. And be sure to do it out loud (while making an attempt to kind of scream it). Good. Very good. This is the sound that I am expecting myself to make a few times as I embark on a journey to read "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski. I'm excited, but also scared. It gives me flashbacks of trying to read "Ulysses," which may have been one of the most disastrous reads I've ever attempted. I barely got a 100 pages through it to give you some idea... Summer is a good time for a college student to try and tackle these types of books though, so I might as well give my brain some real work. There are many other books that have reputations for being notoriously difficult (War and Peace, Moby Dick...) but I'm curious to hear from you blog reader: what books are you afraid to read? Post some comments, and if you, like me, are in the mood to brave dangerous literary waters during these summer days, then I wish you luck.

Call the plumber, we've got a Martin leak...

2011-07-05T15:46:00.003-06:00

Being the book nerds that we are here at Old Firehouse, we came across some interesting information out there in the book world. As many of you may know, the fifth book called "A Dance with Dragons" in the very popular series called "A Song of Fire and Ice" by George R. R. Martin is finally due to be released on July 12. After a period of roughly six years, people are craving themselves a hunk of fresh Martin! This craving has apparently overpowered a certain distributor (who won't be mentioned, but if you're curious, they are big and powerful and just Google "A Dance with Dragons leak" to get their name) in Germany who has been rumored to release 180 copies early to the public. From what the blog world is saying, Martin is extremely angry. Or to take a guess at words that are more fitting for the famous author, the storms of a thousand years of hatred and anger have all gathered and been released by Arc Bishop Martin! All this as a result of a leak. This type of situation is common in the music industry these days, but it isn't your every day event to have a book with this much anticipation behind it randomly leaking. So just a reminder, if you for some reason come across a copy of "A Dance with Dragons" in the next few days, Mr. Martin would like to slay you and take back what is his. He said you can't have it until July 12. And apparently, he really meant it. Soon enough book lovers, there will be plenty of copies for all. Be patient though, Martin wants it of you. For more random and interesting things about books, scan through our blog and check for new posts. We are working on keeping it current and leak it out to every living soul you know. Thanks, and talk to you soon dear Old Firehouse companions.

When was Frank born again?

2011-06-27T15:44:00.002-06:00

Hello loyal Old Firehouse compatriots, this is Justin. I recently started working at the bookstore, and now I will also begin adding posts to this wonderful blog alongside my fellow coworkers. Today, on June 27, I would like to bring attention to the "birthday" of one of the twentieth centuries greatest writers, Frank O'Hara. It was widely believed for a long time (even by O'Hara himself) that Frank was born on the fateful day of June 27, 1926. However, this eventually was revealed to be a lie. Frank was actually born on March 27, 1926. His parents lied about the date of his birth because he had been conceived out of wedlock, and they attempted for many years to hide the shame this act had brought them. Can you imagine finding out that you had never actually known your real birthday? Anyway, despite O'Hara's true birthday, I would still like to celebrate today as Frank O'Hara's "birthday," and call attention to the great work he did for the literary world. O'Hara was a lead figure in the New York School of poetry, a style of writing that attempted to capture aspects of Surrealism and avant-garde art movements A piece of particular importance that he wrote is called "Personism: A Manifesto." In this mock manifesto, O'Hara calls for an end to structure and form in poetry. This work received mixed reviews as several took it far too literally, but it merely allowed for a type of writing that was loose and emotion based. Several collections of poems were produced by O'Hara, but a great book to start with is "Lunch Poems." If you aren't much of a poetry reader, then maybe today, on O'Hara's infamous "birthday," you can pick up just any poem and give it quick read to commemorate O'Hara and his craft. Thank you all for taking the time to remember an important writer with me today, and don't forget to come down to Old Firehouse to see what's in stock if you haven't been around for awhile. We love seeing you. For now, I bid you ado, and take care brave readers.

The "F" Word Part 2

2011-06-26T13:12:00.003-06:00

Feminist has become a dirty word. Somewhere along the line the popular connotation switched from a civil rights activist to a man-hating bra-burner. I resent this transition. While we have come a long way from our feminist ancestors of the 1960s and before (see my earlier post "The 'F' Word") there is still quite a lot to be done for gender equality as a whole.

Women are given more opportunities than ever before in American history, but the death of some issues has only given birth to others. Tina Fey addresses these new issues (albeit indirectly) in her memoir Bossypants. The book goes into her issues with being "fat" and "unattractive" in show business (this was the only topic I semi-resented, since her standards are obviously the unrealistic criterion of Hollywood, and even there she seems to do alright.) Bossypants talks about the jerks who claim women can't be funny, and the attitude of Fey's early improv troupe that no one would want to see a skit with two women in it. Throughout these anecdotes, however, she never uses the word "feminist," being the dirty word that it is.

There is only one chapter where Fey directly mentions feminism: in relation to her memories of portraying Sarah Palin on the now infamous Saturday Night Live sketch. In the sketch, Fey (as Palin) and Amy Poehler (as Hilary Clinton) confront the press for their sexist representation of women in politics. While the sketch exaggerated the characteristics of either woman, in reality both Clinton and Palin had been diminished in the media through descriptions of them physically, something unheard of among male candidates. In retrospect, the feminist themes are obvious, but the first time I watched it I was only laughing. Fey puts it best in Bossypants: "You all watched a sketch about feminism and you didn't even realize it because of all the jokes. It's like when Jessica Seinfeld put spinach in kids' brownies. Suckers!" Feminism has become so scorned-- among both men and women-- that if the skit were to directly reference it, the popularity would've dropped tremendously.

Bossypants works the same way as the Palin/Clinton sketch. Fey puts the feminist spinach in the comedy book brownies and you'll eat it up just the same.

The Cover Problem

2011-06-24T12:09:00.002-06:00

I’m new to the Old Firehouse staff, so to everyone reading, HELLO!! I haven’t blogged before, but I feel its past time to start, especially since there is something that is seriously bothering me.

I recently read The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson. It’ll be coming out in September, and it was a fantastic read. It follows a young woman who is being married off for the sake of two kingdoms to form a military alliance against a forming threat. She also is the bearer of something called the Godstone, which shows that she will do something in service of their God.

The story was fantastic; I loved the evolution of Elisa and of her world view. She became a much stronger character as the story went on, and her strength was needed badly in order to save herself and the countries from the approaching army.

Nothing inside of the covers bothered me; it was the cover itself that infuriated me. The cover features a fit white girl, which in itself wouldn’t be a problem if not for the fact that not a single character in the book fits that distinction, least of all the main character Elisa.

Rae Carson based her fictional culture off Spanish/Mexican cultures (as far as I can tell), and most of her characters are darker skinned because that fits her culture. The only light skinned people are in the attacking magical army. Another problem with the cover is that Elisa starts off the book rather overweight. She had lived a sheltered life, and she sought comfort in food, as a result, she was fat. This is a less serious issue I had with the cover, because as the story went on, Elisa lost weight as a result of a rather rushed, and forced, trip across a desert and through mountains.

This cover issue is not new. Justine Larbalestier, author of Liar, had the same issue with the American version of her book. Her main character was black, and yet the cover originally designed for it featured a white girl. Understandably there was quite a lot of outrage, from the author and from her fans, and under all of this heat, the publishers did the right thing and redesigned the cover to feature a black girl. (Here's the full story here: http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/07/23/aint-that-a-shame/ and here: http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2009/08/06/the-new-cover/)

Publishers defend this process in a rather twisted way. They say that since most books with people of different ethnicity on their covers are typically about overcoming racial prejudices, it prevents books in other genres with people who aren't white on their covers from selling, since most people will assume the book is about overcoming stereotypes, which means that only books about that issue will have those covers. Talk about a catch-22.

Publishers have the power to change this, and they should, like Larbalestier’s publishers did, so that the book industry can overcome the catch-22 it created and set an example for other entertainment industries to do the same.

Books and your Brain

2011-06-24T09:38:00.002-06:00

I've been reluctant to take a side in the e-books wars. I don't own an e-reader myself, but I can see the purpose of one. Wouldn't it be nice to leave for a vacation without my suitcase's weight allowance being half taken up by the books in my bag?

However, there's been something about books being read on a screen that niggles at me. Here's a piece that expresses my incoherent feelings beautifully.

I love reading for some of the same reasons I love cooking, and playing hockey. Cooking gets me to slow down and concentrate on the step by step process. You can't rush baking a cake. It takes as long as it takes. When I play hockey, I'm wholly present. I'm not multi-tasking or thinking about the list of things I've got to do.

When I read, I am wholly involved in my book. I'm not distracted ( I hope) by what's going on around me. That concentration and ability to submerge myself in print is something I value, and I want to keep that quality. I've been reading studies recently that say that doing internet work or watching TV right before you go to bed hinders your brain's ability to relax and allow you to sleep. I'm certainly guilty of doing both of those things. Maybe I need to return to my old habit of reading just before bed. My only problem there will be gathering the willpower to put my book down!

So, read a book. It's good for your brain.

March

2011-06-22T11:30:00.002-06:00

So I just finished March, the current Fort Collins Reads pick. I have to confess, I wasn't sure I would like it. I had heard that it was epistolary, and I don't like books that are a series of letters. I hadn't especially liked Year of Wonders (I know; I'm the only one) and wasn't sure about basing a book on a character from a classic like Little Women.
Well, I have now changed my opinion. What a great book! There are some letters to introduce chapters, but the entire book isn't written that way, which was my fear. Mr. March comes across as a real person, with morals, weaknesses, wisdom, and errors in judgement. I think the book might have been fine on its own, without referencing Little Women, since there are some differences in character, for Marmee especially. Much of the book is based on Louisa May Alcott's own family, which was vegetarian and part of the Trancendentalist movement. So there is a bit of blurring between the March family and the Alcott family.
The writing is beautiful. The look at war and slavery unflinching and appalling. I highly recommend this book for book clubs- there will be no shortage of things to discuss. It will be a real treat to see Geraldine Brooks in November. And now I'm excited to read her newest historical novel, Caleb's Crossing! Its subject is the first Native American to graduate from Harvard, in the 17th century.

Kevin Hearne is Cool!

2011-06-13T16:09:00.002-06:00

We recently had the fantastic fantasy author Kevin Hearne stop by the store to do a signing for his new books Hounded and Hexed (which you should read!) It was an excellent experience! He even gave us a shout-out on his blog: http://www.kevinhearne.com (which you should also read!)
And a good time was had by all!

The "F" Word

2011-06-06T11:07:00.003-06:00

A couple weeks ago I decided to pick up a copy of Gail Collins' When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present. This is a somewhat unusual choice for me, as I tend to stay away from nonfiction for the most part. I was inspired to grab this one, though, after reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. Being just barely 22, I was shocked to find the racist and sexist attitudes that were so prevalent in the United States only fifty years ago. While The Help is a work of fiction, it is set in a world that was very much real not too long ago. There is so much that I, and my entire generation, take for granted that our forefathers (and foremothers) have paved the way for.

This brings me to the big fat F word. That's right: FEMINIST. Growing up, my mother taught me to see feminism as a good thing, even giving my sister and me non-gender specific names in order to avoid preconceived notions about our sex. This was why I was so shocked recently to hear a co-worker (from a different job-- no one from the bookstore!) say "I HATE feminists." This did not compute. How could a civilized person possibly hate feminists? Didn't everyone support equality? When did "feminist" become a dirty word?

Somehow, many people (including my co-worker) have begun to see feminism as an extremist idea where men are inferior to women. While there are some feminist movements like this (they're called Radical Feminists-- and covered in Gail Collins' book,) they DO NOT make up the majority of feminists. Many people also see feminism as a finished battle. When I questioned the feminist-hater's motives, he claimed: "Feminism is done. You can wear pants and get equal pay, what else do you want?" Well, first of all, pay isn't all that equal yet, but I'll spare you that rant. And second, I acknowledge that feminism has come a long way. That's what When Everything Changed is all about. The book begins with the backlash from Rosie the Riveter, in a time when women needed their husbands' permission to get a credit card. It ends with Hillary Rodham Clinton running for president. This massive change should not be taken for granted, and reading When Everything Changed has connected me with the sacrifices made before my lifetime that have allowed me so many opportunities.

Gail Collins' book is about studying and appreciating those who have come before us, yet it never claims that the battle has been won. Pay is still not quite equal, small minded people exist all over the world, and inequalities still run rampant. Social equality is a generational process; it cannot happen overnight. If we so soon forget the steps taken by those who fought for us before, we fail in the pursuit of a more accepting future.

How to Make a Difference

2011-05-31T16:08:00.000-06:00

A couple of months ago, I wrote a piece in our newsletter expressing our concerns with weathering the lean spring we were having at the store. We cut back hours, apologizing to our incredible and understanding staff, and hunkered down. I also asked everybody who reads our newsletter to consider buying just one more book per month.

I’d like to thank all of our customers who took me up on that challenge. We have been doing better and better, and it’s all thanks to you!! We have always known that we have wonderful, loyal customers, and that Fort Collins is one of the best places to have an independent bookstore. You really proved it to us, and we couldn’t be more grateful. Thank you for taking the time to shop with us- it really did make a difference.

We do our best to give back to you and our community, as well. Here are the things that we are doing to try to make a difference for you:

We frequently donate books to the many community causes that ask, to help at fundraising raffles and silent auctions. Sometimes we run out of books that we can donate! But we are always happy to help if we can.
We give you a free membership program that gives you back a $5 Reader’s Reward- all you have to do is give your name! We don’t charge a membership fee for our rewards program, unlike some other stores. We want to give back to our customers.
We give a 20% discount to book clubs that let us know their reading list. You can call or email it to us, and we’ll make sure to stock your selections and give you your discount.
On the hunt for an elusive used book? We can put you on a list and call you as soon as that book comes in used.
We sell e-Books! All you have to do is go to our website: www.oldfirehousebooks.com/search/gbook and you can buy our e-Books directly from us. Google e-Books work with all types of e-readers except the Kindle, which is proprietary.
We take your used books in trade! Any books that we are unable to take may be donated to the American Association of University Women. We are their biggest donor! They hold a book sale for scholarships every February in Foothills Fashion Mall.
We are now offering a Book Bounty for our most sought-after used books. If you bring in one of these books, you can use 10% of the book’s price, same as cash, in the store on new books, used books, candy bars, cards- whatever you like.
Do you have a lot of credit built up? We are letting customers with more than $100 in credit (you know who you are!) convert that credit to cash at 10% of full value to use in the store. $100 in credit gets you $10 in cash to spend in the store, for example. On the weekend on June 11 and 12, we are offering this to our customers to help them use up credit and start over, if they like.
We do lots of community events- local authors like the photography book launch on June 3, for example. We also bring in great authors like Sandra Dallas, Diane Mott Davidson, and C.J. Box, just to name a few. Our events room is open for rental if you have a class or event for which you need a space. And book clubs get the room for free!
Speaking of book clubs, we have four of our own which anyone is welcome to attend! Plus, we’ll be starting a graphic novel club in the next few months- keep an eye out.
Finally, everyone who works here is a member of the local community. Buying your books at an independent book store puts 40% more of your dollars back into the community than spending money at a chain. And it puts 99% more back into the community than online sales do.

Once again, thank you for supporting us. We intend to stay here for many years to come, providing a great community space, exciting events, and, of course, a great book selection with a knowledgeable staff to help you with your shopping. You are the reason we’re here!

Why I'm mad at George R.R. Martin...

2011-05-29T13:00:00.007-06:00

George R.R. Martin, as many of you know, is the creator of the series A Song of Ice and Fire, which consists of four of the best fantasy novels I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Due to the impending release of his next book, I've been inspired to write about why I'm really, really mad at Martin.
To begin, I'll quote Martin's blog entry:

"As for me, I am getting back to work. There's good news on that front too -- A DANCE WITH DRAGONS is half-done!!!"
-George R.R. Martin, May 29th, 2005

Let me just point out that this was written just after A Feast for Crows was released. In 2005. In 2005, the next book (A Dance with Dragons) was, to quote, "half-done"(!!!) Through my expert use of math, I've deduced that it has taken around six years to write the next book. It has taken six years for the next installment of this book. And I take issue with this.
Which isn't to say I'm not going to read it, because I've been looking forward to it for at least four of those six years (The first book was recommended to me by a friend my freshman year of college.) I understand that it's quite the process to write a book, especially one as monstrous as Dance with Dragons. I don't really even have a problem with his work ethic (which author Neil Gaiman defended quite eloquently and succinctly in his blog: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2009/05/entitlement-issues.html.)
No--my only issue with Martin is that, deep down inside, I'm still five years old. And like any five-year-old, I enjoy a good story more than anything else. To my five-year-old self, a good story is like a playground; I can spend hours swinging from the monkey-bars of syntax, playing tag with the characters and winding my way through the Plot Pipes. George R.R. Martin's series is no different, except for the fact that it's bigger and better than most other playgrounds. It's like one of those playgrounds that covers a good quarter of a city block, from the days before brightly colored plastic and rounded safety-corners. One of the playgrounds that rises above the gravel like a mountain, where you can get lost for hours climbing through the scaffolding or exploring the concrete tube tunnels that wind their way for what seems like miles beneath the splintering wood and scorching-hot tin of the best gosh-darn playground ever.
And, like any other self-respecting five-year-old at the best playground ever, I never want to leave. My parents could be promising three pounds of mint chocolate chip ice-cream and clawing at my ankles as they drag me bodily from the covered slide, but still I would hang on until my skinny arms were reduced to limp noodles.
To extend this metaphor far, far beyond the point at which it maintains coherency, George R.R. Martin is like the curator of the playground, who has decided that it would be so much cooler with an ultra-double-super-slide. So he's closed down the playground for renovation. And now all I want to do is go back and play on that playground.
This is where the metaphor breaks down: see, unlike a playground under construction, I can still go back and re-read the previous books in the series. And I have. At least twice. But I keep hearing so much about this ultra-double-super-slide that the rest of the series just makes me want to experience it firsthand that much more.
These books are like candy. These books are like waking up on Christmas morning to a living-room full of presents. These books are awesome.
What I'm trying to say with all of this, is that George R.R. Martin has created something that I enjoy so much that I find myself angry he's taken so long to give me more of it. The story that Martin has created in A Game of Thrones and the subsequent books is so viscerally real and so much fun that the world has been twisting its hands for six years waiting for the next one to come out. And, like any five-year-old hiding in a college graduate's body, it is very difficult for me to wait for that long.
But! The good news? The next book comes out on the twelfth of July.
And I am so excited.

-KELLER

FREE AT LAST- Continued Tales of an English Major

2011-05-13T10:43:00.004-06:00

For those of you who pay attention, I (your wonderful bookseller, Kelsey) haven't been posting too much lately. This task has been left to my co-workers over the past few months as I let myself get distracted once again with school. One day, maybe I'll graduate and move on in the world, being able to focus solely on blogging for you. The irony of this is that when that day finally (hopefully) comes, I'll lose much of the material I blog about. If I hadn't gone to school this semester, for example, how could I tell you about reading almost 20 plays in three months?

That's right. 20 plays, 3 months. Just about a play and a half a week. Half of those plays were Shakespeare, and the other half were contemporary plays from all across Europe. The Fall semester's theme was adolescent lit (about 4,000 pages of it in 3 months) and this semester we focus on plays! Only plays! I picked up The Help the second I finished reading The Tempest and was so relieved to see that old familiar narrative style again.

Immersing myself in scripts has had an interesting effect, though. Reading a play presents many challenges that you don't find in normal narrative styles. For example, while a normal book certainly calls on your imagination, a script does so in ways you might not expect. Not only do you imagine what the character/actor would look like, you have to imagine the set, set dressing, props, and all of those other little things. This is still not too different from reading a normal book. Where the difference lies is that a play is intended to be performed in front of a live audience. No CGI allowed. This means when the character hangs himself or chops off someone's hand (we read a lot of violent plays,) this has to be performed in a semi-convincing way. This pushes the imagination to an entirely new level because the reader must consider not only what things would look like, but how they would be accomplished in a real-life setting.

And now my challenge to you: Read a play! We have a great selection of dramas in the store, and most of them are used! You don't necessarily have to go with Shakespeare, but if you do, remember that there is no shame in Spark Notes as long as you're reading the original text, too. You might want to read a script of a play set to come to Fort Collins in the next year! To check out what the local theater companies have planned, you can start at http://www.openstagetheatre.org/ or http://www.basbleu.org/ among others. Then call us up at the Old Firehouse and we'll order a copy of the script for you!

It's like reading the book before the movie comes out, but it makes you even cooler.

Book Club Picks

2011-05-06T10:13:00.002-06:00

One of our favorite things to do is to help book clubs make their selections for the year. We'll be meeting with the AAUW (American Association of University Women) next weekend to give a book talk for their book club. We've done this in the store a couple of times, and are happy to do it for your book club, too!

I've found that good book club books have a couple of characteristics:

1. It needs to have something to discuss. This might seem obvious, but several times we've selected perfectly lovely books that everyone has enjoyed reading, only to have the discussion go something like: "Well, we all liked it." Blank looks as everyone wonders what to say next. So a good romance novel, unless you like gossiping about fictional characters, is probably going to leave you at a loss for discussion unless it deals with other issues, like mother-daughter relationships, adoption, the hardships of uprooting a family for a move, etc. A novel like Baking Cakes in Kigali,on the other hand, opens up discussion about rebuilding after the Rwandan genocides, the differences in African culture, how people help each other, and, of course, cake. Speaking of which...
2. Food is a plus. That's both within the book and at the book group. It's fun to hang out with your buddies and nosh on some treats while you talk books! So a book like The School of Essential Ingredients, set in a cooking school, can give you a springboard to talk about what foods were important for you growing up, and why. What is familiar and comforting, and how do you take a bit of risk?
3. Too depressing is just too depressing. We started our first book club as a way to get away from the "Oprah books" that were sweeping the nation. Nothing against Oprah, but she sure does like downers. One memorable book dealt with the Indian partition and showed in graphic detail all the misery, disease, poverty and filth of India. A dog was even run over by a bus at the end, just to make sure that depression escaped no reader. I just don't have it in me to read that all the time. Deep doesn't have to mean depressing. Isn't hope a powerful emotion? Aren't redemption and wisdom worthy topics? For example, The Help certainly deals with a weighty topic, but manages to do it in a way that won't make you feel like downing a bottle of Jack Daniels in order to deal with it.
4. Change it up. Try books by men and women, of all nationalities and cultures, in order to get that different perspective that can make for a great discussion. Recently, I've loved Tea Obreht,who hails from the former Yugoslavia, and her book The Tiger's Wife. I also am a big fan of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell, set in 19th century Japan. Or how about Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth for a perspective into the Indian immigration experience?
5. Think about length. We usually cut our book selections off at about 400 pages unless we've got a really good reason to want to read, say, Anna Kerenina. Everyone's lives are busy, and many people want to read more than their book club selection during a month, so we try to be respectful of their time. We also usually go with paperbacks, to be sensitive to the costs of books. We do offer a 20% discount to book club selections for your book club if someone lets us know what the selection is at least 1 month ahead of time.
6. Ask a bookseller! Want something different than what everyone else is reading? Need a jump on the next book club blockbuster? We are happy to help with off-beat books, up-and-comers, and whatever you need for a great meeting. I think The Paris Wife is going to be a huge book club book, for example, and I love recommending Garden Spells (a great little book which somehow got overlooked) for folk hunting for good suggestions.

I hope this gave you some thoughts for your group, and hopefully some great books to read!

Beating the Indie Drum Again!

2011-05-02T09:47:00.002-06:00

So, today I happened on this piece on how South Carolina and Amazon are getting along these days. The short answer: not well. When you read the following piece, notice all of the perks that Amazon was getting before they raised a stink about having to pay state taxes. Small businesses don't get any of these advantages, and they certainly don't get much understanding about pricing either.

Even George Will felt compelled to weigh in on business taxes this weekend, after a Chicago newspaper wrote an op-ed piece about how nationally, it is time to pay attention to sales tax on internet sales. Will, naturally, is against any such thing. But, in this tough economy, doesn't it make sense to tax profitable businesses just as much as it makes sense to tax individuals? Again, all brick-and-mortar stores are paying their fair share. Amazon deliveries take place on Colorado roads, don't they?

Here's South Carolina:

A Tale of Two States: Sales Tax Incentives in S.C. & Tenn.
Speaking at the Free Enterprise Foundation awards luncheon Thursday, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley contended that the proposed tax break for Amazon--which was defeated in the House of Representatives last Wednesday--would have destroyed her economic development message, the Charleston Regional Business Journal reported. When she talks with companies about coming to the state, Haley tells them, "We are going to give you a fair, competitive marketplace to do business, and we are always going to take care of the businesses we already have. By allowing Amazon to get a tax break, when you are not giving it to any other business in our state, destroys what I am saying and immediately disputes everything that we say South Carolina is."

While she wanted Amazon to build a distribution center in the state, she noted that the company already had received competitive advantages: "They got free property, they got tax incentives, they got plenty of things. Don't ask us to give you sales tax relief when we're not giving it to the bookstore down the street, when we're not giving it to the other stores on the other side of town. It's just not a level playing field."

She added, "You will not see an Amazon situation in the Haley administration. We don't want that. We don't want to be known as the state that is desperate to grab anybody and anything at the sake of the rest of our businesses. That's what that was about. Retail in general is very different from manufacturing. Retail by nature has a high turnover, retail by nature is a lower priced job, and retail by nature is not solid and invested. It is not a Boeing, it is not a BMW, manufacturing, high technology is very different."

Brian Flynn, a spokesman for the South Carolina Alliance for Main Street Fairness, told WLTX-TV the decision was "a victory for small businesses and retailers across the state. It's a shame that Amazon is choosing to leave the state and it's obvious that they wanted this special deal and if they didn't get it they were going to leave."

The Book: It's Not Dead Yet

2011-04-22T09:37:00.002-06:00

Here's a link to a great little piece about how our current technology, e-books, etc may or may not be affecting those old school printed books. Take heart! They can play nicely together!

And on a Lighter Note...

2011-04-20T09:23:00.003-06:00

Here's something fun from Flavorwire: the 10 most badly bungled book-to-movie travesties. Because it's Wednesday and we could all use a laugh, right?

Three Cups of What?

2011-04-19T09:25:00.002-06:00

You may have seen some reporting done on Greg Mortenson and his organization the Central Asia Institute. 60 Minutes, supported by Jon Krakauer, is accusing him of some unsavory doings: namely, that not all the schools that the CAI claims it built were either built by the CAI or exist at all.

Mortenson's publisher states that it plans to extensively review both the accusations and the book with him. CAI denies all charges.

Here is a quoted tidbit from Krakauer's statement: Using CAI funds, Mortenson has purchased many tens of thousands of copies of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, which he has subsequently handed out to attendees at his speaking engagements. A significant number of these books were charged to CAI's Pennies for Peace program, contrary to Mortenson's frequent assertions that CAI uses 'every penny' of every donation made to Pennies for Peace to support schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Rather than buy Mortenson's books at wholesale cost from his publisher, moreover, CAI has paid retail price from commercial outlets such as Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. Buying from retailers allows Mortenson to receive his author's royalty for each book given away, and also allows these handouts to augment his ranking on national bestseller lists. (Had he ordered the books from his publisher, Mortenson would not have received a royalty, nor would bestseller lists reflect those purchases.) According to one of Mortenson's friends, when he learned that Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love had bumped Three Cups of Tea from number one down to number two on the New York Times paperback nonfiction list, 'Greg was furious. He started buying books like crazy, with the CAI credit card, to try and put Three Cups back on top.' "

Here is a link to the full 90 pages of the Karakauer piece: http://byliner.com/

I'm not sure what to think. It's always sad to hear that someone you admire for their humanitarian works has feet of clay. I do think that Mortenson's book has raised awareness of the educational issues in that region, and that his point about educating girls and providing an alternative to religious indoctrination is a good one. It is a viewpoint more likely to induce long-lasting change than bombing is. I don't think I can form an opinion at this time about the money management or lack thereof, or the possible ego involved. I'm sure we will find out lots more in the near future.

Regardless of possible financial shennanigans, I think that Three Cups of Tea has done good in the world. I would be sad to find that charitable dollars have been mismanaged. That's often the way of things, I guess. The important thing, though, is to continue to have hope for change. Without that, we are powerless to change anything.

The Sales Tax Struggle

2011-04-07T15:55:00.002-06:00

Okay, so that's one of the most boring-sounding titles I've ever come up with. However, sales tax can literally kill an independent bookstore, at least if a major competitor doesn't have to pay and we do.

Hopefully you can read the above map, but if not, the green areas are all states in which Amazon has cut ties with all affiliates because of being asked to keep track of sales tax. That's right; in Colorado it wasn't even about Amazon paying the sales tax itself, but requiring its affiliates to track it. To put it bluntly, Amazon has built its business model on not collecting or tracking sales tax. Its defense is that the burden is too onerous.

Well, it is indeed onerous for us to collect sales tax and pay it. It's onerous for our customers to pay it too. But it is the law, for everyone except Amazon and its ilk. Stores like Barnes & Noble and Walmart, both of whom have heavy online presences, manage to collect and submit sales tax, so obviously it is not an impossible feat.

Now I know that every little bit helps when it comes to a tight budget. But: our argument is that it;s unfair for Amazon to get to play by different rules. Any customer buying with Amazon right now gets a 6 to 7% savings right off the top by not paying sales tax, let alone the under-cost discounts that Amazon uses to get people "in the door", so to speak. Amazon can dictate its discounts from publishers to a certain extent, just like Walmart does, because of the massive quantities it orders. Sadly, our store is not in a position to order hundreds of thousands of copies of a title in order to get that extra 10% discount, so we have to charge more. We also have to pay rent and utilities on our store space, employee payroll, and all those other things that Amazon skimps on.

So, paying sales tax in our store means that books cost more. In fact, our books cost more, period. But believe it or not, we're not raking it in. An extremely well-run bookstore gets a 2% profit margin. We try to give value with our community events and author signings, with book clubs, with great customer service and recommendations, and by knowing your name if you shop with us. But we do have to charge and collect sales tax.

I have a feeling that Amazon's days of avoiding taxes will be coming to a close. They are taking advantage of an antiquated law from the 1990's, when the internet was not nearly so well developed, and internet businesses needed all the advantages they could get. But Amazon is being quite litigious and ruthless about holding onto said advantage.

So, we hope that you do see some value in shopping with us. And think: the sales tax you pay goes to pay the salary of your neighbor who works at the university. It helps with fighting the Crystal Mountain fire. It keeps our roads safe, and our water clean. In fact, that sales tax does quite a bit. While I do understand the tight financial situation that many of us are struggling with in this economy, paying sales tax in your local business is actually really good value.

Books as Fashion

2011-03-31T09:04:00.002-06:00

It would never occur to me to attempt this in a million years. But here we have a strangely beautiful gown with Golden Book illustrations for its pattern! Anyone up for trying this with their old kids' books?

Bom Dia! Eu precio de um novo livro por favor!

2011-03-26T11:12:00.003-06:00

Bom Dia!

That means "good day!" in Portuguese, one of the few phrases I learned during my visit there over Spring Break! While there, I was happy to see the beaches, delicious food, and unique people that I expected, but I was also pleasantly surprised at the book culture in Brazil, particularly in Rio. Every block or two I'd find a small open-air shop. These shops would sell the usual everyday necessities or desires like candy, drinks, and pens, but in addition there was a decent collection of books. At first I would have expected these to be mostly pulp novels, whatever the Brazilian version would be of sexy westerns or bodice-ripping historical romances. Those where there, of course, but there was also a wonderful collection of literature and classics, as well! I saw Portuguese editions of On the Road, Factotum, and The Road. It seems like a dream come true to live in a town where everywhere you go, a new book is waiting for you around the corner! If only I could speak Portuguese, I'd be set to take off and start my new life in Rio de Janeiro! Oh well. Next time I visit, there is only one phrase I'll need to memorize before I go: "Bom dia! Eu preciso de um novo livro por favor!" (Good day! I need a new book please!)

Until the day I master Portuguese and set off for my new life in Brazil, I guess I'll just have to be content working at Old Firehouse, where the books might not be right outside my front door, but they're pretty darn close!

Chapter and Verse

2011-03-18T14:14:00.003-06:00

We have a new book club in the store called Chapter and Verse. Its focus is children's literature, but the club itself is for adults. So if you are a parent, a grandparent, a teacher, or just like kid's books, this is the club for you! Here's a summary of last night's meeting:

This month, we had the great treat of meeting with Natasha Wing, author of An Eye for Color, to talk about her book. It was a real pleasure to talk with Natasha and learn more about her process for creating her book. She had to work very closely with her illustrator, and subtle differences in shade and color, especially in her examples and exercises, could make a huge difference.

Since President Obama picked some Albers pieces as art after he moved into the White House, Natasha sent a copy of her book to Sasha and Malia, so that they could read about where those pieces came from!

I loved the idea that Josef Albers approached his art so methodically and scientifically. One doesn’t normally think of art and science meshing well, but Albers shows that these two different perspectives can enhance each other. Understanding how colors affect each other and the moods that they create can help an artist render emotion more effectively.

In Cahoots

2011-03-17T13:51:00.002-06:00

We're having a signing with Karla Oceanak and Kendra Spanjer, authors of Artsy-Fartsy and Bogus. These ladies have won awards for their books and they are from Fort Collins- go Karla and Kendra!

The new book is called Cahoots, and it is indeed a hoot. (See what I did there?) In it, Aldo Zelnick, their hapless hero, ends up on a farm, and is out of his comfort zone.

The signing is at 3pm on April 17th. There will be fun activities for kids!

And here's a book trailer so you can see how Kendra puts her covers together.

Matilda and the Kindle...

2011-03-16T09:22:00.002-06:00

Or is it the Swindle? Check out this link to read an alternate Matilda (by Roald Dahl of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fame) and what happens when a certain type of e-reader comes her way. I did have an evil chuckle as I read this. But no hard feelings, Kindle users! Just remember that you can still buy Google eBooks from us for your laptop, smart phone or Google account. In fact, for every e-reader device except the Kindle. They don't like people other than Amazon selling Amazon customers stuff. Swindle indeed.

Cool stuff that's made of books!

2011-03-14T09:28:00.001-06:00

Follow the link and see some amazing and beautiful items crafted from books. Happy Monday!

Fort Collins Reads!!

2011-03-11T08:48:00.003-07:00

So the selection for Fort Collins Reads for 2011 is March by Geraldine Brooks. Many of you may already know this author for her book The Year of Wonders, which was a huge book club book a few years ago.

This particular work was picked to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, and in light of the Louisa May Alcott Grant received by our library.

Geraldine Brooks will visit Fort Collins to speak at the Hilton on November 12. Tickets will be on sale at local bookstores (including yours truly) after Labor Day!

This should be a great event for the city.

The Tiger's Wife

2011-03-09T09:36:00.002-07:00

This book lives up to all the hype. Tea Obrecht is the youngest of the Top 20 Under 40 writers recently named by the New Yorker. She's written a sort of magic realist story set in an unnamed Balkan country. There are three main threads to the tale. First, there is a young doctor who finds out that her grandfather has died just as she is headed out to a mercy mission, vaccinating orphans across the border of her newly partitioned country. Second, there is the story of the Tiger's Wife, which happens in her grandfather's village when he is a young boy. Finally, there is the story of the deathless man, who her grandfather meets when he is a young doctor himself.
All of these stories are engrossing, and have a faint feel of folklore about them. You can see a tiger escaping from the zoo during a bombing, for example, and even that the tiger would not know how to fend for itself and miss human companionship, but there is still an eerie feeling of myth to the Tiger's Wife.
The book brings home the tragedy and pathos of people who have lived next to each other for years, but who still can turn on each other out of fear. It also shines a light on the terrible turmoil and pain of the Balkan peoples, who have suffered through centuries of war. There's a short bit about a house fire, and how people let their animal stock burn to death because it was just easier to let the destruction happen, then rebuild- a legacy of the mindset of those who have had everything taken from them more than once.
The writing doesn't shy from destruction and decay, but I found the writing moving instead of disturbing. Perhaps the weakest point of the story was the young doctor who becomes our lens into this world- we never find out anything about her mother, except that she's alive, or her father. The grandfather is the focal point of the book, and I wish that there had been a way to make him even more the focus.
This book will make you think about the Balkans in a way that you've never done before. It will move you and transport you into a nebulous world where magic just might possibly happen, although it cannot save you.

The Long Winter

2011-02-24T15:41:00.000-07:00

So, Borders is in some trouble. In the book world, we have known this for years. There have been signs. I’m not sure if closing one third of Borders stores will save the company or not. I do know that there will be a lot of good people out of work who will be wondering if they will ever find a job that allows them to professionally exercise their love and knowledge of books again. It’s tough; things are tough all over.

Things are tough here, too. We don’t want to close our doors any time soon, but to be honest, the store is struggling right now. There are lots of reasons. Late winter and spring are traditionally our slowest times, with no summer or holiday reading to boost sales. In Fort Collins, I think the recession is starting to really hit home. Amazon and Walmart will always be cheaper. E-books may be eating into sales too, although you can buy Google e-Books online at our website. (Call us if you’re unsure how to order e-Books- we’ll be happy to help!)

We are now seeing our slowest months since we moved our bookstore downtown. It’s a bit worrisome, because you never know if customers are just giving their wallets a break or if they’re never coming back. We truly do understand that many of our customers shop at more than one bookstore. But: we don’t want to suffer the death of a thousand cuts, a little trickling away here, a little there, until we have nothing left.

So here’s a proposal: buy one more book per month here at Old Firehouse Books than you normally would. Choose one more book. Let us help you pick one out- we’re great at that! By helping to support your local bookstore, you are supporting five different book clubs hosted at the store. You’re supporting a place for local author signings (Laura Resau and Carrie Vaughn this month, C.J. Box and Diane Mott Davidson later this spring). You’re supporting a community gathering center, a place to hang out downtown while you’re waiting for dinner, a place to take the family when they’re visiting you. These are all services that are unique to our store, our town.

Everyone wants to have a vibrant downtown with a cool independent bookstore. I read every day about another independent bookstore closing, with customers in tears about losing their special place. We don’t want to do that to the community or to you. But we need your help and support. Please help us out with one more book per month. We love our customers, and want to be here for you.

NEW STORE LAYOUT!

2011-02-23T15:28:00.002-07:00

We've re-arranged the store!

After many hours of back-breaking-book-business, we've finally settled into a comfortable shelving situation! Exciting changes mean the store is approximately 137% more EXCELLENT.
Will you be able to find the books you're looking for?
PROBABLY!

Thrilling developments include:

-An E-Book Experimentation-Station! (We sell E-Books now!) Learn what all the fuss is about!
-Newer, more comfortable 'rugs' that are all the rage in Paris!
-A room devoted entirely to children's books! And teen books! And books for parents of children and/or teens!
-Light! Glorious light!
-A section for "Fiction" (consisting of our former 'novels' and 'mystery' sections) and a section for "Literature!" No longer will that 'Moby Dick' nonsense interfere with your search for Stephen King! (or vice-versa.)
-Our Science Fiction section is... Pretty much the same, actually.
-Even more in-store events! Come meet the authors of your favorite books! (See our website for details!)

Yes, here at Old Firehouse Books, we believe that change is good. So are books. When the two are combined, magic happens.

... But really, the new layout is pretty awesome. You should come by and see it.
Hope to see you soon!

-KELLER

Why you should read more graphic novels (Also, 'Zombies aren't just for nerds anymore.')

2011-02-14T12:25:00.003-07:00

I will admit, at the outset, that I am somewhat biased towards comic books. Not in the "SUPERMAN PUNCHES BADGUYS" sense, but in the "Calvin and Hobbes, I really enjoy the art and it manages to be funny AND poignant at the same time" sense. I think I've even talked about it before.
At the risk of repeating myself, I think comics like Calvin and Hobbes are totally rad. Go read them.
But now, delving into new territory, you should totally read other comic books as well.
I know it may be old news to some, but comics have grown (and continue to grow) as a medium that is completely capable of imparting a mature, innovative storyline while expressing itself as no other medium can.

One of the best examples of this?

The Walking Dead.

No, really.

I know-- zombies are for weirdos and geeks. Before they shambled into the public eye (and, really, even after that) they were seen mainly around that one table in the lunchroom that nobody really wanted to go near because of the overwhelming cheetos-and-Mountain-Dew fug that seemed to hover there like a cloud (I call it 'chountain-foo.') From inside of this cloud, muffled grunts could be heard debating the merits of specific tactics during a zombocalypse, such as which weapon to use (fire-axe) and where to go (post-office. Think about it.)
Needless to say, this esoteric mumbling doesn't foster a sense of 'welcome.'

But that's all changed in the past few years. With the explosion of nerd-culture onto the pop-culture scene, normal people have started learning about robots and aliens. Moreover, they've learned that, hey, there've been some pretty smart things written about nerdy subjects. And--like it or not, Hollywood!--people tend to like smart things.

Where was I going with this?
Oh, yeah.

The Walking Dead is one of those 'smart things that have been written about nerdy subjects.' To quote the author (Robert Kirkman):

"To me, the best zombie movies aren't the splatter fests of gore and violence with goofy characters and tongue in cheek antics. Good zombie movies show us how messed up we are... They show us gore and violence and all that cool stuff too, but there's always an undercurrent of social commentary and thoughtfulness."

So, basically, what Kirkman is saying is that he's writing a character drama. Except, when anything gets boring or tedious, zombies show up.

How cool is that?!

Here we have an intelligent, well-thought-out character drama with awesome supernatural tension to influence the character's actions and drive the plot when things get stable. And the best thing is, there are so many comics like this now.

Check out Watchmen by Alan Moore, for one. It's excellent. The Sandman series, by Neil Gaiman is another. If you're not put off by dark, surrealistic visuals and grim plot, read Black Hole by Charles Burns. If realism is your cup of tea, go for Persepolis or Fun Home.

Okay.

My point is, comic books are awesome. You can get into them without having to read years and years of backstory. You can enjoy them even if you don't like superheroes. And the best part is, they will probably make you smarter.*

Moral of the story? Read more comics.

(*This claim is not proven by science. Indeed, it is not supported by anybody but me, because I think smart things make you think, which makes you smart. Like exercise. For your mind. But you can also enjoy it, which you will.

... Read comics.)

-KELLER

A Thank-You to Brian Jacques

2011-02-08T09:58:00.001-07:00

So, Brian Jacques recently passed away. He was the author of the Redwall series, which was all about talking mice that fought talking rats with a magic sword.

Man, I would totally keep going with how ridiculous that sounds, but the truth of the matter is that the Redwall books were some of the most influential books of my childhood.
I loved the whole shebang-- all the silly agnostic mice that lived inside of an abbey and ate delicious things, and the evil rodents that wanted in on the good thing they had going. All the badger-lords of Salamandastron, and the Long Patrol that they bossed around. The sword of Martin the Warrior, and all that shit. I loved it.
I mean, seriously-- I read it all. I listened to the books on tape to go to sleep at night. I'm not ashamed to say that I liked Redwall more than I liked most everything else that I was reading or watching (or doing, or that was happening in my life) at the time.
Redwall was the first saga that I ever really felt I was a part of. I grew up with the story, and I felt myself invested in the world that Jacques created. I wanted everything to go well for the talking mice just as much as I wanted to eat the delicious things that the critters at Redwall Abbey cooked up (to this day, there has never been a writer that has tantalized me with descriptions of food like Brian Jacques.) As silly as it was, I thought that it was the coolest thing. Moreover, I thought it was the most important thing for the mice to find the sword of Martin again so they could fight off the slavers and the brigands just in time for whatever non-denominational woodland festival Redwall had going at the time. Brian Jacques made me care about a story--about a group of characters, a place, an entire world and everything in it-- in a way that nobody before (and very few since) have been able to do.
In time, I grew up. I stopped reading the Redwall series because I started high-school, and at the time I thought those books were for little kids. And anyway, I had other things to read--things for class, other series of books, and so on--so I left the world of Redwall behind.
Except, I don't think I ever really did. No matter what I read, or where I've gone or what I've learned from years of books and classes, some part of me has always been sitting down at the table with Matthias, Methuselah, Basil Stag Hare and all the rest, eating a bowl of strawberries and cream and listening to the story of how Redwall Abbey was saved from Cluny the Scourge. And I know, and I can say without any hesitation, that I've loved every minute of it.
Thanks, Brian Jacques.

-Keller

THE MACBETH CONUNDRUM

2011-02-07T13:07:00.005-07:00

As some of you may know, I recently graduated from college with a bachelor's in English. I can hear you now:
"Fantastic!" you say. "Do you plan on teaching?"
"No."
"Then do you plan... Uh. Do you... plan on... Writing?"
"Yes. Eventually."
"What do you plan on doing, then, if not those two things?" you ask.
My answer?
I plan to read.
I've found the perfect job for this vocation. I am surrounded by knowledgeable people and an almost infinite fount of literary achievement to choose from. I have a pile of books from new authors at my house primed and ready to be perused.
My first stop on this literary excursion, however, is read all of the things that I pretended to do during my college career.
Like. Actually, this time.
My first step was to read Shakespeare. I've been avoiding this guy since tenth grade, but I've heard he's, y'know, pretty good or something. The most recent one that I've made my way through (on my own time) was Macbeth. The one with the witches. "Double double toil" and... something else. (it starts with a 'T!')
Yeah, that's pretty much all I knew about it, too.
As it turns out, it was a pretty rad play. A nice slew of crazy people trying to wash blood off their hands and war. Also Scotsmen. But I'm pretty sure I've already talked about how rad classics can be, so I'll move right along to my second revelation:
I have no idea what's been published in the past twenty years. My entire education has been geared towards the 'classics.' Looking at this reading list I've compiled, I think the most recent thing that I've been assigned (and that I'm only now getting to) has been something by Jack Kerouac.
This is a terrible failing of modern education. It's like, from our perspective, literature had a heart-attack and died as soon as 1970 rolled around. Which is ridiculous, right? I mean, think of all the excellent books that've been published within the last thirty years! If all I knew about literature was from the books I read in college, then I wouldn't even know that books like...

Uh...

See, this is the problem! All I know of modern literature is from books like Fight Club by Chuck Palanhiuk and Watchmen, the graphic novel by Alan Moore (And I mean, hey, they're excellent books. Read them.)These are books that I've read on my downtime, according to the pulp-fiction tastes of a twenty-something male. They're great books, but I'm not sure how well Fight Club will be remembered to generations down the line.
What I'm looking for--and what I was denied by my education--are the modern classics. Stuff like Great Expectations, only, y'know, relevant.

(Side note: Wizard of the Crow, by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, is totally one of those modern-classic books. It's really refreshing to see something written by an African person who isn't Chinua Achebe. After all, I'm pretty sure that things have happened in the entire continent of Africa since, again, 1960. Regardless of what 'literature' would have you believe.)

But yeah. Okay. What I'm saying is that I can tell you exactly what was going through Hemingway's head as he wrote The Sun Also Rises--another excellent book--but I couldn't tell you what literary movement happened after Allen Ginsberg wrote Howl. And I really wish I could.
But first? I read Moby Dick.

Waiting for the Next Big Suprise

2011-02-06T13:16:00.002-07:00

At the beginning of this year I was pressed with the difficult decision of choosing my last personal book until May. I say my last personal book, because while I continue to read copious amounts for school, I do not allow myself to pick up anything of my choosing during the semester. I've learned about myself that when it comes down to it, if I have a book I've chosen sitting next to an assigned one, I will choose my book every time. Obviously.

But I digress. I wanted something quick, something fun, something as different from Shakespeare as possible since I knew I'd be reading quite a bit of that over the next few months. But above all else I wanted something that would shock me. I wanted a book that would make my jaw drop at the first words of the last chapter.

This desire was mostly brought on by watching a recent movie adaptation of one of my favorite books from the 9th grade. I knew what was going to happen in the movie, of course, but I can recall little Kelsey sitting down with the book version, tossing the book to the ground when my mind couldn't handle the shock any longer.

Now you may be wondering what this spectacular book/movie is, but I've decided not to tell you. This is because you may not have seen this movie/read this book yet, and if you expect it to surprise you, it almost undoubtedly will fail to do so. This happened when I picked up my first book of 2011. I expected some mind blowing twist ending, and while the ending was good, I felt like I sort of saw it coming. This same effect took place when I saw the movie mentioned above with a friend who was experiencing it for the first time. "You haven't heard about how this ends yet, right?" I questioned him before the movie started. Of course, within the first twenty minutes, he already knew how the movie was going to end.

Knowing that something is supposed to surprise us makes us all the more alert in looking for clues of what might happen. Somehow this doesn't keep me from screaming at everything in every haunted house ever, but it certainly works for books and movies. I think with books and movies our expectations just reach too high when we vaguely see what lies ahead. We want the ending to be something we have never seen or heard of before, something that will split our little heads in two. This rarely happens when you can see the axe ready to do the splitting.

Love and Books

2011-02-04T09:23:00.002-07:00

Our store is hosting a mixer for book lovers next week- you can check out the details on the front page of our website. I'm looking forward to it the way you look forward to any party- the food will be good, we've got some fun planned, who will show up? As I think about compatibility and book tastes, though, I wonder...

My husband and I have totally different tastes in reading. That is, I love to read, and he never cracks a book. He used to read more, especially during his many travels. But now he'll listen to his iPod or play games on his phone, or watch movies on his laptop, or one of the many other high tech options that we now have available to us. Me? I see an airplane trip as several hours of uninterrupted reading time. Full Stop. I usually take about twice as many books as I'll probably actually read on a trip, because who knows? I might somehow power through all the books I've brought and THEN WHAT??!! Security is bringing an extra book or two. I haven't gone to an e-reader, although traveling is one place where I could see a use for one. Maybe someday, but I don't mind cramming my suitcase full of books and pushing the weight limit for checked bags.

But I digress. The point is that I am a reader and believe I will be one for the rest of my life, and my husband decidedly is not a reader. This makes me sad sometimes. I can (and do) tell him about the books I'm reading in excruciating detail, discuss their themes, and ask him what he thinks. He will gamely take part in such a conversation. But talking about a book that I've already filtered through my brain is not the same as getting his own take on its ideas. My husband is a smart, thoughtful man. But I don't get to hear his thoughts on philosophy, the latest foodie book, or whether the new science fiction book I'm reading is as good as I think it is. He is a wonderful husband with many sterling qualities. It seems petty to be wistful about the fact that we don't read together. I certainly know that I won't change him. But if I'd gone to a booklovers mixer to meet him, he wouldn't have been there.

So, how does taste in books translate to compatibility? I love the members of my book clubs, because they are smart, funny, insightful, open-minded people, and we have great discussions. In theory, I can see that translating into a deeper connection, relationship-wise. If you know how someone thinks and what is important to them, that can help you decide if they would be a good mate. Just knowing how someone thinks and argues about books can help you see if they are willing to look at another point of view, if they are willing to listen, or if they just like to hear themselves talk.

I don't think type of reading necessarily should be a criteria for romance, though. I know, for example, many whip-smart, professional women who read romances almost exclusively. They have fast-paced, stressful lives, and they need an outlet and escape, which romances provide. Most guys that I know are not big romance readers (I can think of a couple of exceptions, though). But maybe the fact that the girl you're interested in likes a happy ending instead of tragic books is useful information? Conversely, if I know that someone else likes reading Charles Stross, for example, I know that we can have a great conversation about the direction that science fiction is going, how technology and imagination can ignite each other, and maybe find that we have similar senses of humor.

I think I can get along with just about any sort of book lover. I can respect different opinions and I know that everyone has unique tastes. It's fun to discover what you have in common as a couple, and where your interests are different enough that you learn from each other. My husband and I share a love of hockey and languages. I've taught him some about food, and he's certainly broadened my travel horizons. He hates the Vampire Diaries (my guilty pleasure) but will watch The Big Bang Theory with me. So I don't think it's about finding the perfect match, but finding someone whom you can respect and grow with.

But, I don't think I could marry an Ayn Rand worshipper. We're not coming from different viewpoints, but almost different planets. No offense to the Randians- maybe we could just be friends.

But you're just reading...

2011-01-26T08:41:00.003-07:00

I've noticed that my family doesn't "get" me when I'm reading. They see me sitting there, apparently doing nothing, book in hand. Clearly, it's okay for them to have a conversation with me, ask me to run an errand, or otherwise ensure that I'm gainfully employed instead of just sitting there wasting my life. After all, I'm just reading.
I get infuriated with the just reading thing. For me, there is no just about it. Believe it or not, even (sometimes especially) working in a bookstore doesn't afford me more time to read. It just gives me a better idea of just how many books are out there that I want to open, but can't just yet- no time, no money, no brain power. So, when I actually do sit down with a book in hand, I can hardly describe the sense of luxury and pampering that comes with it. The sense of anticipation of opening a new book by an author that you know you like, the faint sense of trepidation (did I make a wrong choice? Am I wasting precious reading time?) when you venture into a new author or type of book, the sorrow when a good book comes to an end- I revel in it all. I am not just reading, I am finally getting to do one of my very favorite things. So don't ask me to set the table. I don't feel like talking about your day. And I don't need to go shopping for vacuum cleaner bags, thank you very much.
Now, my husband, after more than six years of marriage, has finally not learned to be jealous of my books. And I have learned to set a time limit on reading. I actually do care about his day, so I'll ask for "the end of the chapter" or "fifteen more pages" or whatever else I can get away with, and then return to the regularly scheduled programming of my life. Or get everything else out of the way, knowing that sometimes there will be time by the end of the day for my own time.

But if you've ever been there, wondering why people can't just leave you alone when you're reading, this is for you.

Back to School: Adventures of an English Major in Drama

2011-01-23T11:46:00.004-07:00

Winter break has come and gone much too quickly for my tastes, and again I am back in the vice-like grip of my education. Homework began pouring in before I had even been to all of my classes once, and as an English major this only means excessive amounts of reading. As a bibliophile, excessive amounts of reading is supposed to be good, right? Well, in order to understand, imagine you really like chocolate a lot (I'm sure you do.) You love eating chocolate and do so on a daily basis. Now, through some bizarre twist of events, you are told that you must eat a minimum of three pounds of chocolate a day. You will not get to pick which chocolates you eat. Every day you will go to a special place to receive the chocolate, spend a few hours there talking about chocolate, then go home and eat all of it. Sometimes the chocolate will be delicious, sometimes it will be filled with that weird gooey stuff which isn't good at all. Either way, you will eat all of it or suffer the consequences. How much do you like chocolate now?

Well, if you're like me, you still like chocolate (or... books) very much. Even being forced to read can't take away my love of reading, but it can make it more than a bit tiresome. Especially since I have a tendency to unintentionally register for only one type of literature class at a time. Those of you who have been following my posts know that last semester I read nothing but adolescent books from August until early December. This semester is the next installment in Kelsey's "What the Hell Was I Thinking?!" registration story. I'm taking Shakespeare II (the second half of Shakespeare's work) and Modern British and European Drama at the moment. This means from now until May I will read almost exclusively plays written on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

From first glance, this will undoubtedly drive me crazy. I will very likely begin to think in terms of dialogue only, setting the scenes everywhere I go in italicized descriptions in my head. On the other hand, though, I can already tell that this will be an interesting combination. While I learn about the difficulties Shakespeare faced in bringing theater to 17th Century England, I am also learning about the censorship playwrights dealt with hundreds of years later. While trying to understand Shakespeare's complex and often outdated language, I will also struggle with the nonsensical lines of Beckett's characters in Waiting for Godot.

I'll be sure to keep you updated on my struggles and triumphs as the semester sails along. So far, Measure for Measure (by Shakespeare) and Major Barbara (by George Bernard Shaw) are the first on the chopping block. So far so good, but we've only just begun...

"I Solemnly Swear I am Up to No Good"

2011-01-13T13:39:00.004-07:00

New years always bring with them lists, goals, resolutions, and great springs of optimism. At least, that seems to be the case for most people. I for one stopped making strict resolutions years ago, but I still indulge in writing up long lists of things I'd like to do or change throughout the year. Sometimes I put a good dent in these lists before they end up buried under a pile of mail (and of course 'Keep the Coffeetable Tidy' is always on the list somewhere), to be unearthed later like flowers popping up through snow. There are a few things on my lists that I never forget about though, and those are my reading goals.

Each year I set a goal of how many books I'd like to read, as well as a few select books I'd really like to finally get through. This year I'm hoping to read three books a month, for a grand total of 36. I'm confident I can meet this goal (and I had better now that I've posted it out where all the world can see). Then again, I usually meet my quota of books. It is the selected reading I never seem to get to. But this year will be different. This year I am finally going to dig in and read the Russians. I've been meaning to for ages, and this is the year. I can feel it. Call it destiny. 2011 will be the year I finally finish Anna Karenina.

But what about you? What books have you been meaning to get to and keep putting off? Do you set goals for yourself in regards to your reading? A lot of us here at the store resolved to start Goodreads accounts and to keep up with them. I for one would like to write more book reviews to share with all of you. So share your goals with us, and lets make them happen. After all, it's only 2011 once.

- t

The Year 2010 in Review, Bookstore Style

2010-12-31T19:00:00.002-07:00

Well, we've been a bit remiss about the blog lately. But the reason is a good one: we've been so fantastically busy with the holiday season that there really hasn't been a dull moment in which to blog. I thought this would be a good time to take a look back on how the store has changed in the last year. You know how fast a year can go by, so that it's hard to really encapsulate everything that's happened to you? That's how I feel about the year at the store. We've tried so many new things and changed the store layout several times- you learn a lot the first year in a new location about the flow of the store and what people are looking for.
So, here are just some of the many highlights from Old Firehouse Books in 2010. We started two new book clubs, one for mysteries and one for nonfiction. They join our Open Book, Untitled, and science fiction book clubs. These clubs are always open to anyone who cares to come- you just have to read the book! (Hint, hint, for those who have resolved to meet new people/read more/ just generally enrich their lives in the new year.) I got to unleash my inner chef in several different food-related events at the store: we partnered twice with our wonderful neighbors, Happy Lucky's Teahouse, in a high tea and a tea and cookies event, worked with Equinox Brewery for our BBQ and Beer event, and with 10,00o Villages in an event centered around the book Hungry Planet. I hope to do more food events next year- they are lots of fun. In other event news, we got to host some incredible authors in the last year, including C.J. Box (one of the nicest guys EVER), Craig Johnson, Laura Resau (a Fort Collins treasure), Margaret Coel, the outstanding science fiction writer Paolo Bacigalupi, and the fabulous Connie Willis. I feel so fortunate to have met some of the best writers of our day. And that doesn't even include our partnership with the library to host signings by leading lights such as J.A. Jance, Pam Houston, and Jonathan Shors. In other writerly events, we sold books at the Northern Colorado Writers' conference last spring. We also worked with Fort Collins Reads to help bring Garth Stein, author of The Art of Racing in the Rain, to Fort Collins in November. Working with Fort Collins Reads is one of the most fulfilling aspects of my job.
What else did we do? I got to hold several talkbacks at Openstage Theater plays, leading question and answers sessions for the cast after a production. I get to do this a couple of times next year as well. We hosted NANORIMO writers in November- a lovely bunch, if I do say so myself. And we held our 30th/10th/1st year anniversary party in June. In case that's confusing, its 30 years as a store/10 years with current ownership/1 year at our current location. And we said goodbye to some well-loved and much-missed staff members: Tegan, Bonner, Kara, Paxton. They are really irreplaceable, but we were also extremely fortunate in our crop of new employees: Tara, Keller, Nathan, Beth, Elizabeth, and Cam. And we have our veteran staffers Revati and Kelsey helping us maintain our high standards.
Physically, the store changed a lot this year. We moved the trade counter from the second room into the third room for easier access through the alley. We're also extremely happy that the alley construction, which took all summer, is now finished. We expect much traffic through our back door next summer. The biggest change has been the addition of our events space in the back of the store. I don't know how we managed without this space before. We've used it for everything from author events to art shows in the last year. Just last month we changed how our front desk is oriented in the store, and are still getting compliments about that change.
My goals for the last year were to increase the caliber and quantity of our events, which we've done, and do a thorough inventory of the store, which we've managed. In the following year, my goals for the store are to streamline our book returns process (books can only stay on the shelf without selling for so long), and to take another look at our credit policy. Plus I'm always brainstorming about moving sections around so they make more sense.
It's now hard to remember what it was like back at our old location on South College. We essentially started over again when we moved the store- everything is so different downtown. But we love where we are, and wouldn't change it. We've had a steep learning curve, and we couldn't have done it without the support of our customers, who have been patient when books were moved from where they expected and gracious with all the foibles that running an indie book store can bring. Fort Collins truly has an amazing base of people who are willing to support local businesses, even when the strictly pocketbook thing to do is shop at the big places or online. We do our best to make our store valuable to the community, with great book recommendations, awesome events, and partnerships with community organizations. But our customers are our greatest treasure. I hope you had fun picking out books at the store in 2010 and that we'll see you some more in 2011. We plan to be here for many years to come, and you make it all possible.

Tips for Last Minute Shoppers

2010-12-20T11:13:00.003-07:00

The count-down is reaching it's end. Without warning your twelve days of Christmas have suddenly become six, and we aren't open on Christmas day so it's really more like five. By now the panic has set in. Have you even started your Christmas shopping yet? You have an entire extended family to provide for and YOU HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED YET?!? WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING WITH YOURSELF?!? Okay, now that we've panicked, let's go through a few tips to get us through the last minute rush of holiday shopping.

Tip #1- STOP PANICKING! SERIOUSLY! CUT IT OUT! Okay, done? Good. Take a deep breath. And another. One more. Don't forget to exhale! Have you exhaled? Okay. Now just continue this pattern because no one can buy presents if they've fainted.

Tip #2- Go to the bookstore. Old Firehouse Books is best (hint hint.) If there is one place where you can buy everyone on your list a meaningful present, it's here. You could go to some stupid chain and buy everyone some garbage for them to stick in their closet and forget, but I wouldn't recommend it. We have an amazing variety that can provide for both Grandma and Junior in a way that will expand their minds or provide some hearty entertainment. Remember: no one's life was ever changed by a scented candle.

Tip #3- Once you get here, DON'T PANIC. I know there's a lot of books, but we are here to help you. The biggest difference between us and Amazon is that we are living human beings who also know the importance of breathing. We can work with your budget, since we provide a wide selection of used books, as well. We also have a broad knowledge of our inventory, so we can find the perfect book based on the interests and passions of your loved one.

Tip #4- If you're a little shy, or the bookstore is packed with other last-minute shoppers upon your arrival, there are other options. For example, located just across from the biography section are our Staff Pick Shelves. These two cases are filled with books that we have read and loved. If you're shopping for someone who reads a lot, I'd suggest finding a shelf that has a book or author that you know they've enjoyed. From there you just have to take a look at the seven other books available on that shelf and trust that their similar tastes will do the rest.

Tip #5- Maybe you're shopping with a plan. If this is the case, I wonder why an organized person such as yourself has waited until the final five days to do your shopping. I'll just assume the best and imagine that you were in Antarctica for the past two months. If this is you, call ahead! We can be reached at 970-484-7898 and over the phone we can find your books for you and put them in a nice little bundle behind the front counter. This way you can waltz right up to the counter and be assured that all your book choices are there.

Tip #6- GET MOVING! We're open 9am-8pm today (Monday) through Thursday. On Friday (Christmas Eve) we'll be open 9am-5pm, but this day is reserved for the kings and queens of true procrastination. The sooner you get in the better, though, because with every passing hour we lose more awesome books to people less lazy than you.

Tip #7-On second thought, if there's one thing school has taught me, it's that only good things come from procrastination. You're already online, so just enjoy the following booky article and relax. We'll see you eventually! I mean, really, there's another five whole days left!

http://www.cracked.com/article_18787_6-books-everyone-including-your-english-teacher-got-wrong.html

Google EBooks are here!

2010-12-07T15:24:00.002-07:00

We're very excited to be able to announce that Old Firehouse Books is now able to sell you ebooks! Google EBooks has just rolled out their new platform, and is allowing independent bookstores to take part in sales. The process is incredibly easy. You can look for books on our website just like always. Just hit the tab for "Google Ebooks" and you'll be looking for titles offered in that format. These e-books can be read on any e-reader but Kindle and also can be read on I-Pads, Androids, and other smart phones. I just downloaded one to my Samsung phone. To buy e-books on the I-Pad, download a free app from the Apple Store. Android Market also has a free app to facilitate downloads.
Questions? Give us a call or an email! Now you can order e-books from your favorite indie store in time for Christmas!

STORYTELLING COMPETITION!

2010-11-29T17:44:00.003-07:00

Old Firehouse Books is hosting a story-telling competition for First Night!

WHERE:
Here.

(232 Walnut St.)

WHEN:
December 31st, starting at 7:30 and running 'til around 10:00.

WHAT:
An epic, no-holds-barred storytelling extravaganza!

WAIT, WHAT?:
Okay. So. Basically, here's how it breaks down:
We need TEN contestants to break it down, storyteller style. This means each contestant will participate in two rounds, each five minutes long. For the first round, the storyteller can read from a written story. For the second, however, the storyteller must recite the story completely from memory (Dun dun DUN!)
Each story will be judged by the audience and a guest judge to decide who moves on to the next round. In the event of a tie, there will be a tie-breaking story-telling fiesta (to be revealed upon ties.)

OKAY, I GUESS THAT SOUNDS PRETTY COOL:
Doesn't it though?

YEAH. ARE THERE PRIZES?:
You betcha.

OH MAN, AWESOME:
I know, right?

CAN YOU GIVE US A RECAP?:
Yes.

And here it is.

Storytelling Competition!
7:30-10:00 December 31st! First Night!
We need TEN contestants! First come first serve!
Two Stories! One Written, One Memorized!
COME AND BATTLE WITH YOUR STORIES!

-KELLER

Little Nuggets of Book Gold

2010-11-26T15:40:00.004-07:00

Have you ever read a passage from a book that was so perfect, so astute, so well written, so pertinent to your life that you just couldn't contain yourself?

Without any control on your part, you emitted some little squeak or squeal, your hands starting clapping or you shook your head in excitement?

I hope this has happened to you. Because it happens to me all the time, and if this isn't a common thing I very well might be losing my mind completely, or at least muscle control. I recently had such an experience (multiple times, actually) with Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman. Sum consists of forty vignettes about fantasized versions of the afterlife. Once you get past the fact that these stories are about death, you realize how well they reflect the lives we lead and the choices we make. They reflect our lives so well, in fact, that I have found myself in this squealing, squeaking, clapping state of semi-insanity at the end of almost every story. At a slow point while opening the store one morning, I picked up a copy of the book to see if it was worth purchasing. I found myself in a mini-fit at the end of the first story, that's how excited I was to read the whole thing. I was shaking my head, pounding my fists on the counter, squeaking to myself, glad the story was empty. Of course, I had forgotten that the tea shop next door was open. One of the workers there rushed over after witnessing my display to make sure I was alright and not having some sort of epileptic fit brought on by literature. Well, that was embarrassing.

It was embarrassing, but I'm not ashamed. (I see those as two very different things.) While I wish he hadn't been witness to my little spasm of book love, I wouldn't ever deny myself the pleasure of reading a book, or sentence, or even a word that is so perfect I really cannot contain my excitement. Finding those little nuggets of book gold are always worth it, even when the guy next door happens to see it.

Congratulations, Fort Collins

2010-11-26T13:26:00.001-07:00

This is a big thank you to all the people who came to hear Garth Stein at the Lory Student Center (about 800 people), who read Art of Racing in the Rain, who discussed the book at their book clubs, who checked it out from our great libraries, who purchased, lent and borrowed the book, and all of us who laughed and cried while reading this book. In our one, admittedly small store, you bought enough copes to have purchased 4% of all Art of Racing in the Rain sold in all independent bookstores in the country. Way to go! Special thanks go to the committee of dedicated volunteers who worked so hard to organize, raise money, and make sure all the events were great. Once again so many of us can thank the few who do so much to make our lives especially comfortable.

Time to Get Cookin'

2010-11-23T10:02:00.006-07:00

So we are fast approaching one of the biggest food days of the year. I happen to be a cookbook afficianado (some would say "junkie") and so I thought I'd share with you some of the favorite cookbooks to enter my kitchen in the last year.
First, an old favorite made new again: The Essential New York Times Cookbook. This book compiles recipes from the era that the Times first started (late 19th century) and goes right up to the trendiest sort of new cuisine. I just bought this book for myself as an early Christmas present and have found several recipes to make in the next couple of weeks. The choices range from a Pork and Squash Stew in Coconut Milk to Chicken Paprikash to Eggs with a Chorizo/Date Paste. Plus, this book is a food nerd's dream, due to the timelines in each chapter that talk about food trends- how salads went from suspending everything in Jell-o to the minimalist microgreens of the nineties. Lots of cream, lots of butter, and lots of goodness.
Next, here's a great party cookbook: Fiesta at Rick's by that great interpreter of Mexican food, Rick Bayless. I've got a crush on him. This book has the best guacamole recipe I've ever tried (with sun-dried tomatoes), a killer chipotle-glazed baby back rib recipe, and will tell you how to dig a pit and roast an entire lamb in your back yard, if you like. Since this is a book geared toward parties, there are menus planned and large portion sizes planned for you. Plus a great section on drinks for margaritas and mojitos galore, plus a limey and spicy beer if you want something a little different.
If you're like me, you spend a lot of time thinking about dessert, so I've got two dessert cookbooks for you. First is Rustic Fruit Desserts. The book is organized by seasonal availability of fruit, so you can make a Rhubarb Fool in the spring, a Stone Fruit Tea Cake in the Summer (and you should definitely do that), a Maple Apple Dumpling in the fall, and and a Cranberry Upside-Down Almond Cake for the holidays (hmmm....). Chocolate is my go-to dessert, but I find myself going to this book again and again for desserts when I have guests. Much as I love chocolate, it's hard to beat an Apricot Raspberry Cobbler just out of the oven with vanilla ice cream on top.
Finally, I've got to talk about the new Gourmet Cookie Book. You may be aware that magazine was forced to close its doors last year. The silver lining of that dark cloud is that they are now working to release many of their recipes in book form. This particular little gem showcases one cookies recipe per year that Gourmet was publishing from 1941 to 2009. I'm cooking from this book for our Tea and Cookies event that will be happening next Wednesday at 6, in partnership with the awesome Happy Lucky's Teahouse, our lovely neighbor. I had to choose one, just one, recipe to make from this book for samples. Would it be Currant-Studded Madeleines from 1952, Mocha Toffee Bars from 1987, Strawberry Tart Cookies from 1993, or Ginger Shortbread with Ginger-Infused Frosting from 1999? Because of the tea factor, I've ended up going with the ginger shortbread, but you could buy the book and try all these recipes, plus more!
So these are a few of my favorite things. Come by and let me know what your favorite cookbooks are- my shelf can always hold one more!

A Spoiler Challenge (contains spoilers)

2010-11-22T17:10:00.003-07:00

So, recently, I've tried to read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. It came highly recommended to me by my friend and coworker Kelsey. She'd seen the movie, and said that it was--to paraphrase--fantastic. Not wanting to spoil the premise for me, she said something like "READ IT, DUDE!" or "READ IT BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!" or maybe "DUDE TOTALLY READ IT!" (this is how I hear Kelsey's voice in my head.)When Never Let Me Go showed up on our shelves, I decided to give it a try.
Now, when Kelsey said "READ THIS BOOK I AM TOTALLY SERIOUS," she very purposefully didn't tell me anything about the plot. This is a book that is better if you don't have any inkling of what the book is about, she told me (or rather, "THIS IS A BOOK THAT IS BETTER IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANY INKLING OF WHAT IT'S ABOUT") So I took her word for it. And I could not be happier that I did.
See, with the advent of modern media, it is almost impossible to remain unsullied with regards to the content of a book. Spoilers strike like lightening. I will never forget the day that I broke the news to my friend's eight-year-old-brother that Dumbledore dies at the end of Harry Potter #6 (I hope you already knew that.)And honestly, I think that this is one of the biggest tragedies of the modern story.
There is so much in a story that relies on the audience not knowing what's going to happen. Tension, drama, surprise-- everything that makes a book interesting relies on the reader's ignorance. If you know what's going to happen, you might as well not read the book.
I don't have to watch Soylient Green now because I know it's people. I knew that, by the end of 1984, someone would end up loving Big Brother. I grew up fully aware of the fact that Darth Vader was Luke's father. And the tragic part of all of this is that the premise depends on my ignorance. Without my ignorance, The Empire Strikes Back is kinda just a movie with a really slow lightsaber fight in it.
So for Never Let Me Go, I decided to change it up a little bit: as an experiment, I bought the book knowing only what the cover looked like. All I had to go on was Kelsey's recommendation and the title. I didn't even read the back cover, and I loved it.
Reading a book without knowing what was in store was like riding a roller-coaster you've never been on before-- every twist and turn was fresh, each plummet felt new, and it was great.
The most interesting part, I think, is that I honestly wouldn't have read Never Let Me Go if I'd read the back cover. It's not something I'm usually interested in (not one of my typical genres, if you will.) But because I didn't know what I was getting myself into, I found an excellent book that I was honestly surprised by.
So, my challenge is this:
Pick up a book that someone's told you to read without asking what it's about. Once you find it, don't read the back, don't read the inside cover, and don't read that little sample-page that they put in before the real book starts. Instead, read starting from the first word on the first page, as a whole and unspoiled book. I'm sure the author would appreciate it, and I know that you will, too.

-KELLER

PS- Kelsey does not actually talk like that.

My Journey Into Insanity and Adolescent Literature

2010-11-20T09:32:00.004-07:00

If you have been following my blog posts since August, you are well aware that I have been buried in adolescent literature since the summer. That meant 9 required texts and our choice of an additional 3,000 pages before December 2nd. Let me repeat that: 9 books, 3,000 pages. That's something around 5,000 to 6,000 pages of adolescent literature. Approximately 5,500 pages of young adults complaining about their teenage problems. That and textbooks. And nothing else. Since August.

Okay, it wasn't all that bad. And I am more than happy, overjoyed in fact, to announce here that I AM ALMOST DONE!!! I've read all 9 core books and I have something like 2,965 pages read, analyzed, and ready to go. I have to say I am a bit disappointed that the last book I read didn't quite make those final 35 pages, but I'll just flip through a Goosebumps or something over break.

One thing that has been made extraordinarily clear to me since I started this insane literary adventure is the amazing variety of adolescent literature available. I read books about magical lands where the only bad thing that happens is the disappearance of a couple princesses (The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.) I read about a horrible dystopia where no one makes it past the age of 25 (Wither by Lauren DeStefano.) I read about rape (Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson,) about teenage alcoholism (The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharp,) about growing up on a reservation (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.) The variety was astounding, not to mention the huge range in age appeal. It seems like every age has a series of books that would appeal exactly to them, and then within that series a variety of topics, issues, and themes are covered. This is pretty amazing considering that adolescent literature as we know it today has only been around arguably since 1967 when The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton was published.

And despite all of the complaining I have loved doing over the past four months, I also learned that adolescent literature can be good reading for adults, as well. Some of the most intriguing plots I have heard of for a while are coming out of adolescent literature right now, and they usually read a lot faster than any adult novel. They are meant to entertain a generation that was brought up with YouTube, so you know they have to grab your attention as quickly as possible.

Continue reading the Old Firehouse Blog for the second installment of my journey into insanity through books. Next spring I am enrolled in Shakespeare II and Modern British and European Drama. I will read nothing buy plays from January until May. That's right. I did it to myself again.

Bookstore jet-setting

2010-11-17T08:57:00.001-07:00

Going anywhere for the holidays? If so, Lonely Planet has found some of the best bookstores to visit in the world. Drop us a line from Beijing!

Movies and Books

2010-11-04T09:38:00.003-06:00

I admit, I pretty much always think the book is better than the movie. It's hardly a fair comparison, really. A book gets 300 to 800 pages (more, if it's Gone with the Wind) to set your imagination on fire, describe characters, get inside their heads, and take you to strange and beautiful places. It's hardly fair to ask a 2 to 3 hour movie to accomplish the same thing (although there is some beautiful cinematography out there).
That said, recently I have seen a few movies that I think compare favorably to, or even beat, the books on which they were based. Take Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The Swedish movie did a fantastic job of paring down a 600 page book, losing no important plot threads, and getting to the heart of the mystery faster than the book did. Frankly, part of what I tell customers with this book is that you need to get through about 100 pages of backstory before the book really takes off. Which it does! But the movie makes that 100 pages unnecessary.
So, I've got a link to a reader survey that comes up with seven movies that are better than the book. What do you think? Did they miss any? Was the book better than the movie after all?

Two Halloween Treats!

2010-10-29T09:30:00.003-06:00

Happy Halloween to all! We are just about to hand out candy for the Tiny Tots Halloween walk through downtown. (We just might have some candy left over, if you stop by later.) In honor of the holiday, I've got two things of interest for you. First, have you heard of All Hallow's Read? It's a tradition that Neil Gaiman, he of the spooky Graveyard Book fame, is trying to start. In short, for Halloween, what's better than giving a scary book to a friend? It lasts longer than candy and isn't as fattening.

Next, a trick from our friends at Bookpeople:

Science Fiction's New Hero

2010-10-27T23:24:00.002-06:00

Where do I even begin to describe the heights of my enthusiasm for Paolo Bacigalupi and his work? It turns out that not only is he a fantastic guy, full of wit and intelligence, but those qualities also translate to his writing. Well, the intelligence does at the very least. While seldom funny, his books are unnervingly astute when describing the direction we, as a people, are going, as well as what makes us at our core human.

Bacigalupi’s young adult book, Ship Breaker, took me to a place so horrifying and raw that it could only be rooted in truth. The story, which follows a boy named Nailer, sucked me into a world of a grimy, poverty stricken, future. And while that future was bleak and alien it was also familiar, which was why it was able to touch me the way it did. Chronicling the plight of a poor boy that makes his living stripping wires out of the air vents of huge beached ships could have been dull. Or worse, unbelievable. But I never doubted the world Nailer lived in, nor his motivations. When the book becomes part adventure and part an exploration of family and friendship I found myself unable to pull myself away. It is rare that I devour a book as swiftly as I did this one.

Bacigalupi’s debut novel, The Windup Girl, is no less stunning. While I found the book taking a while to get moving, it was easy to stay on board just to find out more about the world being revealed. As well conceived and insightful as Gibson was when he introduced us to the Sprawl back in the 80s, and as thought provoking as Dick was when he caused us to examine our humanity through Replicants. This is a book that forges ahead into a new direction, indicative of our current times. Critics are calling it Biopunk. I’m calling it terrifying and brilliant. I would tell you what the book is about, but part of the beauty of the book is figuring that out for yourself.

So here it is in short: If you like science fiction, read these books. If you want to examine where we might be heading, read these books. If you want to think about the world we live in, and what makes us human, read these books. If you want to look at the world in a different way, read these books. And heck, if you just want to get lost in a good, well written book, read these books. I’m going to follow my own advice and pick up a copy of his short story anthology, Pump 6, next time I’m at work.

Old Firehouse Books currently has signed copies of all of Paolo Bacigalupi’s books. Get your copy before they are gone.

- t

What the Cool Kids Are Reading These Days

2010-10-15T18:52:00.002-06:00

At some point, I’m not certain precisely when, the adult population decided to take teen literature seriously. More than that, teen lit became the hot new thing. My initial impulse is to point the finger at J.K. Rowling. After all, the Harry Potter phenomenon was larger than anyone could have anticipated. Suddenly people old and young were rushing to bookstores, lining up around the block like the Beatles were back on tour.

Still, at some point adults had to pluck copies of Sorcerer’s Stone from their kids’ hands and take their stolen tomes to the beach or the dentist’s office. And this happened in mass. And then those people owned up to the fact they were reading “kid stuff” to their friends and got them to try it. And so on, and so forth. But the question remains: why did so many adults turn to teen lit? Or perhaps the question could be rephrased like this: why did so many adults turn away from traditional adult lit?

I have a friend who theorizes that the boom in teen lit is just symptomatic of the dumbing down of society. I might have lent this theory more credit if I wasn’t in the thick of it. Teen lit readers aren’t stupid. In fact, they may just be on to something.

For a long time teen lit was ignored and a lot of edgy cutting edge stuff squeaked in that might not have made it years ago. While contemporary fiction continued to crank out yet another book about divorce or racial strife, teen lit was digging into universal questions like how to belong, be happy, or survive in a changing world. The appeal is broad and the audience broadened to match. And the genre is currently exploding. If you can’t find something in teen lit that appeals to you then you simply aren’t looking. I’m speaking now from experience.

Sure, I read Harry Potter. And I tried to read Twilight to see what the big fuss was about. I try to keep up as much as I can with lit pop culture, but I never really took teen lit that seriously. It wasn’t until I started reading through things in the teen section that I made a surprising discovery. There’s some dang fine stuff in there!

While I still read plenty of “adult” books I now have a healthy stack of teen lit at home as well. I dare say I’ve brought home more teen books this past year than I did when I actually was a teenager. Right now I’m hip-deep in Paolo Bacigalupi’s teen book Ship Breaker, and it’s easily the rawest, grittiest book I’ve read all year. (Which will likely change once I read Windup Girl as I understand it, but the statement stands.)

If you already read teen lit then none of this is news. But if you don’t I’m here to let you in on the secret. Don’t count teen books out because they are marketed differently. And don’t cheat yourself by dismissing them. The next time a friend, or a friendly bookseller, hands you a teen book do yourself a favor and consider the possibilities. You may be happily surprised.

Teen Read Week is October 17^th through the 23^rd.

- t

Calvin & Hobbes Makes You a Better Person.

2010-10-11T17:23:00.003-06:00

It's scientific. 100% scientific.

It is rare anymore to find a syndicated comic strip--that is, one in wide publication with a consistent audience--that has the depth and soul of Calvin and Hobbes. I don't know what it is, really; perhaps the slow confinement of the Funnies page between the police-blotter and the Sudoku that author/artist Bill Waterson was so fervently against. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that no syndicated author has the courage anymore to draw stunning full-color vistas with twigs the way Waterson was wont to do.
Regardless of the reason, Calvin and Hobbes still has the ability to astound me, even as (especially as?) an adult.
We recently ran across all of our old copies of the books as my family was cleaning out the house for a garage sale. Flipping through them, noting as I did my old green-crayon signature on their covers, I began to skim a few strips.
One in particular I remembered from when I was a child: Calvin, playing with his transmografyer--no, of course I don't remember how to spell it--turns himself into an elephant. 'Oho!' says Young-Keller, 'He's turned himself into an elephant! And now he and Hobbes are playing in the mud! How droll.'
Adult-Keller reads the strip. As Calvin (an elephant) and Hobbes (a tiger) are playing in the mud, Suzie--Calvin's female nemesis--comes up. Calvin shouts "Guess what we are, Suzie!" After a pause, he continues: "The Republican Party and Tammany Hall!"
Adult-Keller stops, stunned.
'What?' he thinks. 'Was that just a reference to the corrupt political society that was run by William M. "Boss" Tweed in mid-nineteenth century New York?'
'... Yes. Yes it was.'
'AND IT WAS HILARIOUS.'

See, no other syndicated strip that I've personally encountered has the guts (or, frankly, the brains) to write a joke centered around obscure American-history trivia and make it funny (believe me: I don't do it justice.) Especially a strip written about a six-year-old and his stuffed tiger.

But don't lose heart! There are inheritors of the Calvin and Hobbes tradition!
Though comics in the newspaper may be dying out, standalone comics are just beginning to hit their stride. Check out The Best American Comics 2010 collection (edited by Neil Gaiman!) for a start. Depending on your tastes, move on to Bottomless Belly Button by Dash Shaw or Blankets by Craig Thompson. Both are excellent! Or, if you're in the mood for something a bit more (maybe a lot more) fantastic, read Watchmen by Alan Moore and see what all that movie nonsense was about.

There is no reason to languish in the land of Family Circus! The universe of good comics awaits!

-KELLER

(P.S. Sorry, Family Circus fans. I didn't mean it.)
(P.P.S. Yes I did.)
(P.P.P.S. At least it's not Marmaduke.)

At Home

2010-10-11T09:56:00.003-06:00

Bill Bryson bought a Victorian parsonage in Norfolk England in which he lives. In this book, he uses the rooms in the house as a platform to jump into descriptions of life in Britain from Roman to modern times. Perhaps this is a trend. Toby Lester in The Fourth Part of the World uses an ancient map as a platform in a similar way. Each room in the house is a chapter in At Home and each chapter describes a wide range of history appropriate to the room. For example, The Kitchen describes the economic impact of the rarity of sources of spices for Europe and its influence on European exploration. That may sound like dull reading but it isn't. Bryson spices up (pun intended) the text with clever turns of phrase and funny, or should I say spicy, anecdotes. I was charmed. Try this book and if you're not yet a Bryson fan, you're likely to become one. Also a great Christmas present for a father or Bryson fan.

~ Dick Sommerfeld

Literature for Adolescents in a Post-Columbine World

2010-10-10T14:44:00.004-06:00

I return to you again, with more news from the world of Adolescent Literature novels (see my post from September 27th if you don't know what I'm talking about.) The last one I completed was After by Francine Prose, which I chose as my book to revisit, a requirement of the curriculum. Again, I was surprised at how quickly I became enveloped in the novel. I was also surprised to find that I was a much darker 13-year-old than I seem to remember.

After takes place in a fictional reality (oxymoron, I know) where another school shooting takes place after Columbine. This massacre, however, occurs in Pleasant Valley, Maine and the consequences quickly become more drastic. Under the guise of "helping students cope" with the disaster, the government begins sending "grief and crisis counselors" to every high school. These counselors are there to serve a much darker purpose, however, and quickly begin implementing rules that are much more severe than necessary. Before long, the high schools begin looking much more like police states and students are being shipped away from home indefinitely for even the most minor infractions. Tom and his friends find no one to turn to for help, since their parents seem to have changed overnight into brainwashed robots. It is up to them to find a way to escape their high school without losing everything, including their lives.

Now this book may seem incredibly bleak, especially for a young susceptible teenager, but do not underestimate the abilities of the young. If you read Tara's blog below about banned books, adults are consistently trying to protect teens from the "big bad books" out there. Teens know what is going on, no matter how hard we try to protect them. Allowing teens to read books like After will make them feel empowered and more than likely spark the bibliophile within them.

I would also recommend After to many adults. Eleven years later, it is easy to forget about the effect Columbine has had on schools and students alike. Most of today's high schoolers were only 3 to 6 years old when Columbine happened, so those tragic events that effect their lives daily seem as real as anything out of a history book to them. While it is important to honor the memories of those lost or permanently scarred from the Columbine massacre, it is even more important to consider what steps schools are taking to prevent these events from happening again. After provides a narrative for what high school felt like for those students who were not directly involved. The plot may be exaggerated and overly dramatic, but then what in high school isn't?

Adults interested in After by Francine Prose should also consider Columbine by Dave Cullen as a non-fiction supplemental text. Both can be found at Old Firehouse Books.

Warning!

2010-09-30T18:26:00.002-06:00

Every year the last week of September is Banned Book Week. I clip on my banned book pin, I read up on what books are currently in danger of being pulled from schools, and I get ranty about the rights of readers and writers. Free speech! Literature to the masses! Down with censorship! And yes, I believe in all of those things. Strongly. But it occurs to me that not everyone knows what I'm so up in arms about.

We live in a glorious culture, one where if you want to you can stroll down here to the bookstore and buy any of the books that were banned this year. It is fantastic. And it leads people to ask me, again and again, what it means to ban a book. After all, it's right here on the shelves. Customers can put a banned book right in their hot little hands and take it home. How forbidden could it possibly be? Turns out quite a bit if you don't have the means to buy your books.

When a book gets banned it is pulled from libraries and schools. Sure, some retailers (I'm looking at you Wal-Mart) will refuse to stock a book if it is banned, but most chose to listen to dollars rather than angry letter writers. What this means is that we are removing those books from a significant portion of our population and culture: the poor and the young. Think about the books you read in school. The books that impacted you, shaped your life, and helped you grow into the person you are. Now recognize that the odds are at least one of those books is banned. Possibly several of them.

Banned books are rarely as inflammatory as the now notorious Catcher in the Rye. In fact, most of the books we placed on our banned book shelf this week are indistinguishable from their non-banned peers. A Light in the Attic? Banned. To Kill a Mockingbird? Banned. The Diary of Anne Frank? Banned. (For being a "downer" no less.) Blood Meridian, one of the most horrifically violent books I've ever skimmed (I'd say I read it but I couldn't face it)? Not banned. These books have the sole distinction of aggravating the wrong person, and that person fought to have them silenced. And that person succeeded. Or did they?

So long as we, as readers, educators, writers, booksellers, or just plain old conscientious citizens, continue to fight for our right to read we cannot lose. If you hear about a book being challenged write a letter of support. Defend your schools and libraries. And read. Read read read, and share those books with everyone you can. Our freedom to read is one of our most precious rights. Revel in it. Defend it. And fight for it when need be. The children of the future will thank you.

- t

*To learn more about Banned Books Week visit the American Library Association.*

Experiences in Adolescent Literature or Why Haven't I Grown Up Yet?

2010-09-27T18:16:00.003-06:00

This semester I decided to enroll in CSU's Adolescent Literature course. This has been an interesting experience because:
a- Adolescent Literature is generally (always) easier to consume than Chaucer or Keats.
b- We get to revisit at least one book from our own adolescence.
c- This class will consume all of my free reading time until finals are over in December.

The reading is easy, but nonetheless time consuming. In addition to the 13 predetermined books assigned, we are required to read an additional 3000 pages of adolescent books of our choosing.

So don't be surprised if every blog post between now and December 17 is talking about adolescent books. And don't be surprised if you come into the store one day and I'm throwing a fit because Jimmy texted Janie, but she IMed me that she didn't like him, and no one sat by me on the bus ride to school, and my parents don't understand me AND NO ONE EVER WILL EVER EVER. Just kidding.

I am beginning to realize, though, that there is still a lot of teen left in me. I didn't expect to enjoy the books we've been assigned as much as I have. The last one, in particular, struck a chord within me. Black Box by Julie Schumacher was beautifully and dramatically written, ideal for any teen, especially girls. This book tells the story of Elena, whose older sister Dora is placed in the hospital's psychiatric ward after an attempted suicide. Elena struggles with how to tell people at school where Dora is, how to keep her own life in balance after her family's upheaval, and ultimately feels responsible for "saving" her sister. I was surprised to find that I was crying by the time I finished. Recently my younger sister has had to deal with problems that no one should have to handle, and I related to Elena's sense of helplessness and inner-conflicts.

Black Box isn't the only one of these books that has touched something within me. The others have either reached the child-like part of my soul that I had been neglecting or made me consider that maybe I'm not as grown up as I like to believe. The issues handled in Schumacher's book reached me at the age of 21, and I think the message would have still reached me if I were thirty years older. We are not all as wise and mature as we like to pretend. Often we feel like outcasts, misunderstood by those closest to us, and many other emotions usually deemed "teenage." I shunned these books before because I assumed that I had learned everything there was for an adolescent to learn, but I am still vulnerable to the world. While these books may be simply written or have a 16-year-old protagonist, they still offer solace, advice, and most importantly, permission to admit that maybe I'm not as grown up as I appear to be.

"Oh God! No More Elves!" Or, An Argument for Genre Fiction

2010-09-25T09:22:00.005-06:00

Being an English major and working in a bookshop is an interesting combination.
If I had to make a comparison, I'd say it's like visiting Disney world, applying for a job there on the off chance that they'll hire you, and then being handed a mop and a bucket with the instructions, "Wait at the bottom of Space Mountain."

What I mean is, in being instructed how to write, you learn all of the dirty little secrets that plague the literary world. Like working at Disney World and learning that Mickey is just a guy in a suit. The most distressing secret to me, I would have to say, is the advice "If you want to be taken seriously, you won't write genre fiction."

It's not just advice, either: in the creative writing department, it is strictly forbidden to write anything 'genre' for a class. Professors tell us specifically that genre fiction has no place in their English department.

When I first learned this, I was crushed.

For background: I grew up with genre fiction. My Dad read me Hubbard's Battlefield Earth when I was four. My favorite books when I was learning to read were Star Wars offshoots and the Chronicles of Narnia. When I discovered Dungeons and Dragons, I read nothing but the Forgotten Realms books. When I was in High School, there was a period where all I read was H.P. Lovecraft. My favorite author is still Neil Gaiman.

I love genre fiction.

But here is my Professor, telling me that I can't write anything that even comes close. Apparently, the realism fixation that started with Hemingway hasn't quite left us. So I learned to like Raymond Carver and Jack Kerouac, finding solace in the arms of Cormac McCarthy and nonfiction comic authors like Alison Beschedel. They're all fantastic authors; I could easily recommend any of them to most anybody.

Slowly, I came to resign myself to the fact that the Top Fifteen Bestseller lists had an average of three books concerning either the Holocaust or Post-Colonialism at any given time. With authors like Nicholas Sparks and Kathryn Stockett dominating the charts, it seemed like there was no hope for genre fiction. My professors were right. And it seemed I was all right with that. Maybe literary realism wasn't so bad, after all.

But there was something missing.

After a while, I began to crave spaceships. I wanted sword-fights. I wanted a good ol' zombie invasion.

Which brings me to my point: I can appreciate realism. I really can. But there are some things it just doesn't do for us, like post-apocalyptic wastelands and dragons. It's my opinion that the strength of so-called 'genre' fiction lies with the theoretical: there are some things that Hemingway just can't get across with drunken expats and crippled ambulance drivers.

Genre fiction allows for speculation into things that just couldn't happen, otherwise. In doing so, authors of genre fiction can explore the symbolism of a particular fantastical aspect to its fullest extent; using things that don't exist, genre fiction can shine a brighter light on the things that do.

I believe it is folly to state that you won't be taken seriously if you write genre fiction. I mean, look at Kurt Vonnegut or Haruki Murakami: their books aren't exactly "true to life," but Sirens of Titan and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World are two of the most poignant and emotionally charged books that I've ever read. One of them has space-ships. The other has unicorns.

In other words, genre fiction is like getting a job at Disney World and realizing that, even though you have to clean up little kid spew, Space Mountain is still a pretty rad ride. Every so often, it's worth riding even though all of the serious Disney World employees are standing back with their arms folded saying "I can't take you seriously. You ride Space Mountain."

Guys. Come on. You work at Disney World.

-KELLER

Book Trailer for the Next Big Blockbuster

2010-09-13T16:40:00.002-06:00

You may not have known that the powers that be make trailers for books, much as they do for movies. These trailers are designed to fascinate, titillate, and otherwise raise interest in the book.
So, Ken Follett has a new book coming out. It's Called Fall of Giants, and is the first in a trilogy that spans the twentieth century. You may already be a fan of Ken because of his historical doorstopper, Pillars of the Earth, and its sequel, World Without End. I myself enjoyed these two books immensely and am very much looking forward to his new series. So, click on this link to learn more about this book. Sure to be a great holiday gift! You can read it very quickly yourself before giving it away! (Sorry, Mom.)

The Hugo Winners, or, Aren't We Smart!!

2010-09-09T16:16:00.002-06:00

So the Hugo winners have recently been announced. If you are an SF/F geek like I am, you've been waiting for quite a while to see who will be honored. This is the big one for science fiction, just the the Edgars are the big one for mysteries. And we've got the Pulitzer and Man Booker for the more literarily minded of us. Speaking of which, I'm reading Wolf Hall now, and I'm charmed.

But this is about the biggest fan-voted award for science fiction. The reason that I'm crowing is because we have already selected the winners for Best Novel, Best Novella, and Best Novelette as book club selections, long before the awards came out! Check it out, if you will, in our book club section of our website.

This month, our Strange Worlds book club is reading Peter Watts' first book, Starfish. He just won Best Novelette for The Island, which you can also read for free on his website.

This month, our Traps and Trenchcoats mystery book club is reading The City and the City by China Mieville, which tied for Best Novel with Paolo Bacigalupi's Windup Girl, which we are reading NEXT month for Stange Worlds! I am swooning because Paolo Bacigalupi will be here IN PERSON on October 25 to answer the question of what it feels like to have your first novel win the Locus, Nebula, Hugo, and Jack Campbell awards. Also, he's very cute. (Don't worry, Paolo, I'm married. I'm just sayin'.)

As if all this madness wasn't enough, we will be reading a selection from Charles Stross in January for Strange Worlds (Glasshouse). He just won Best Novella.

Plus, two of our other author selections, Roger Zelazny and Octavia Butler, were just inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame this year.

So, in short, our science fiction book club rocks. We've got incredible taste and the ability to select the biggest and best authors for your reading and discussion pleasure before anyone else has figured it out. You are welcome to come visit our merry crew- we meet at the store on the second Thursday of every month at 6pm. We're friendly. Live long and prosper.

Choose Your Own Book

2010-09-03T17:53:00.002-06:00

Who else remembers Choose Your Own Adventure books? Was there anything cooler in the 80s and 90s? Forget the slinky or the Rubix cube, pass me a box of those slim, white-covered tomes. Never has the second-person point of view been so popular and beloved. You could go anywhere or do anything. How else could you pilot a space ship and then go on to become a prisoner of the dreaded ant people all in the same afternoon? Now that’s magic.

For those of you who missed this phenomenon, Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books allowed you to become the protagonist of the stories. At the end of each scene you got to choose what course of action to take. Do you hide from the goblins or go in sword swinging? Do you try to rescue the martian slaves, or do you take up trade with their captors? The choice was always yours. And often, if you picked a “poor” path, you died gruesomely. Hence the need to read with your thumb in the pages as you skipped around. If you were a cheater like me that is. What can I say. I tended to explode from my own heroics.

Part of the charm of CYOAs was the re-readability of them. Sure, one story was usually a short event, but you could read the same book over and over and it would be different every time (assuming you changed things up). As I aged I found myself wishing they made something similar for adults. I even toyed with the idea of writing one myself, but other pursuits always won out. A few authors did try, but never with much success. (Example: Pretty Little Mistakes by Heather McEltatton.) Why adult CYOAs never took off will always be a mystery to me. I suppose videogames had something to do with it, but that is just a guess. Well, imagine my surprise when I heard this week that there is a growing popularity online for what are being called word games, which are in all rights grown-up CYOAs for the digital age.

Choice of Games just released their newest contribution to the realm of online CYOA reading, Choice of Romance. While I don’t read romance novels I think the idea of a CYOA romance is sheer brilliance. How many times have you chastised a character for going with the wrong man/woman? I know I have more times than I can count. So here is your chance to set it straight. Think the Duke is a tyrant and prefer the soldier? The choice is yours.

So my question now is this: are we finally ready for adult CYOAs? Will the trend reach a resurgence? Will I be happily clearing shelf space in the future for a new section? Or should we renounce all of this? Keep books squarely in the realm of the passive, and leave our adventuring for other modes of entertainment? What do you think?

If you’d like to read new and exciting adult CYOAs, turn to page 42.

If you’d like to read only standard books, turn to page 11.

(Note: CYOAs came out in 1979 and they continued to release new titles until 1998. You can still order reprints both through us and through their new publisher, and we currently have several of the lovelies in stock here at the Firehouse, if you are so moved. Happy reading!)

- t

Gender, Genre, and the Politics of Book Reviews

2010-08-26T16:52:00.002-06:00

"As it stands, thrillers and mysteries and speculative fiction can get daily reviews, or considered in the NY Times Book Review round-ups. Chick lit gets ignored, unless it gores one of the paper's sacred cows (note to self: don't mess with Anna Wintour!). Romance gets ignored completely...and that, I think, is the most damning argument about gender bias at the Times. How can anyone claim the paper plays fair when genre fiction that men read gets reviewed but genre fiction that women read doesn't exist on the paper's review pages?"
- Jennifer Weiner in a recent Huffington Post interview
There has been a lot of talk recently about whether or not female writers are getting the same respect and coverage as their male peers, especially when it comes to reputable media such as the New York Times, The Washington Post, or the Atlantic. While this has been brewing for ages (some might even say since writing was invented), the argument has been bumped to the foreground recently because of the New York Times' extensive coverage of Jonathan Franzen. With book review space so limited it caused an uproar when the New York Times Book Review (NYTBR) covered Franzen's new book, Freedom, twice in seven days. When he made the front cover of TIME the same week things blew up.
On the surface this seems to be an argument of whether or not certain books are considered Literary or Commercial. Literary novelists (such as Franzen, Foer, or Irving) get reviews, magazine spots, and advertising. Contrarily, commercial novelists (such as Picoult, Wiener, and Weisberger) don't get the critical attention, but they do get the sales. It can be argued that the more commercial writers just write populist fiction devoid of real substance, while the literary authors write fuller books that speak directly to the human condition. There's just one problem with that: the two overlap more than most acknowledge. And when the line gets drawn it is often drawn right between the genders.
It has been pointed out that if a man writes about family and work it is literary and cutting edge. Worthy of being lauded. Whereas if a woman does the same the book is called a "beach read" and doomed to the classification of chick-lit. This gets particularly sticky when you consider that the former books are getting hailed in the media while the latter are ignored entirely. Compound that with the fact that more women buy books than men and it becomes suspiciously sexist.
Do I, personally, think there is a sexist agenda at the NYTBR? No. Do I think there is some pretty serious gender inequality going on? You betcha.
I, for one, do not read chick-lit, romance, or beach reads (however you wish to define the boundaries). It should be noted that I also don't read books with the same themes, written by men, and classified as Literary. However, as both an academic and a reader of sci-fi and fantasy, I am sensitive to the shunning of genres as low-brow.
Weiner makes an excellent point when she points out that, "by willfully ignoring commercial women's fiction, the Times has made itself, as an institution, an unreliable narrator." When you chose to cover male dominated genres such as suspense and horror, but then chose to exclude female dominated genres such as romance, you are admitting your bias openly. You are saying that one type of genre writing is worth reading while another is not. And if the genre you are ignoring happens to be dominated by women, both authors and readers, you will be presenting a poor knowledge (if nothing else) of gender politics.
So what do you think? Should the NYTBR spend more time reviewing other genres, and give more attention to chick-lit writers? Should they even things out by ceasing to cover genres like horror and just stick to what is considered Literary fiction? Or is this whole thing one big miscommunication built on misperceptions? I for one vote for more book reviews overall so that every genre can get its day in the sun.
To read more about this visit this article on GalleyCat and read the full interview of Picoult and Weiner on the Huffington Post.
- t

Existentialism in Reading (or WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!?)

2010-08-13T12:49:00.002-06:00

"I went back to the sofa and started reading the rest of Anna Karenina. Until that reading, I hadn't realized how little I remembered of what goes on in the book. I recognized virtually nothing-- the characters, the scenes, nothing. I might as well have been reading a whole new book. How strange. I must have been deeply moved at the time I first read it, but now there was nothing left. Without my noticing, the memories of all the shuddering, soaring emotions had slipped away and vanished.
What, then, of the enormous fund of time I had consumed back then reading books? What had all that meant?"
-Haruki Murakami, "Sleep" from the short story collection The Elephant Vanishes

I read this short story my freshman year of college and this quote has haunted me ever since. There is a disturbing honesty behind it that I usually try to ignore. As a general rule, any book I've read more than three months ago becomes a blip on the radar. Even if I were asked now to compile a list of every book read so far this year, I would struggle in doing so. If prompted, I can recall general themes, or maybe a scene that I enjoyed, but usually this requires a long hard stare at the cover first or a brief skimming of the description on the back. I don't think I'd be able to name a single character from any of the books on my pick shelf by name.

I know I'm not alone, either. Many of our customers can't even keep track of which books they've read and which they haven't. Covers, titles, and authors all start blurring into one gray mass of literature.

So what, then, of the enormous fund of time I consume by reading books?
It took some thought, but I'm convinced that this time wasn't wasted. First and foremost, I love reading. And I would much rather not remember literary characters' names than not remember which episodes of Jershey Shore I've already seen.
Taking this even a step further, however, I may not remember a character's name, or even the general plot of a novel, but something sticks with me subconsciously each time I pick up a book. Murakami's short story "Sleep" is the perfect example. I have no idea what that story is about as a whole, or even most of the other stories in that collection. It's been three years since I picked that book up last and still the quote above stuck with me. It planted itself deep in my mind and that is something irreversible, even if I can't remember the name of the character who said it.

Go Ape

2010-08-12T00:30:00.002-06:00

I never read Water for Elephants. It made a huge splash. It was recommended highly by people I know with excellent taste. It was written by a fellow NaNoWriMo participant. It even has elephants. And still, I never found the time to read it. So when an advanced copy of Sara Gruen’s new novel, Ape House, showed up in a box of goodies I snatched it up tout de suite. I was not going to miss the boat again. I have to say I’m glad I finally got on board.

I have a tendency to soak up fast-paced action packed media. I like explosions, car chases, and wise cracking anti-heroes. This book has none of that. Okay, I lied. It has an explosion. The book literally gets going with a bang. And from that point forward I was hooked. Car chases or no.

I would warn that this review has spoilers, but the main engine of the book is not the plot. On the surface it is a simple story: Woman teaches apes to communicate. Man meets apes and has a change of perspective. Woman loses apes. Woman, and Man, quest to get apes back. Nothing world shattering here. Fortunately the real heart of the story isn’t the plot. The plot is a skeleton to hang all the good meaty stuff on. And the meaty stuff is plentiful.

The people, and indeed the apes, are the real show stealers in Ape House. Every minute decision, feeling, conversation, and thought all add depth to the people of the story. The main characters are John Thigpen the journalist, his wife Amanda the failing author, and Isabel, who regards the apes as family. Then there are all of the secondary characters. Scientists. Rivals. Opportunists. And they all have their own problems and unique ways of interacting with the world. Also, let us not forget the apes, who have their own personalities and desires. All of these varied people become real throughout the crafting of the novel, and it is their lives that captivated me. It was one of those rare books that left me wondering about the characters when I was finished.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the greatest triumph of Ape House isn’t the characters, or even that I found it thoroughly entertaining. It lies in the fact that it shows so much by saying so little. Over and over it shows us our nature, and the nature of our ape cousins. This is a book that makes no effort to conceal its agenda. It shows us how very human the great apes can be. More interesting however is that it also shows how very ape we humans can be. By the end of the book man and animal become indistinct. And therein lies the argument the book makes so eloquently: are we really so different? And if we aren’t, then what?

I must say I am both reluctant and excited to pass on my copy of Ape House. It seems a shame to give it up, but I can’t wait to talk to someone else about it. The hole it has left on my shelf has been filled though - I’m pleased to say I picked up a copy of Water for Elephants. I feel confident this time I will get around to it.

Ape House goes on sale September seventh.

- t

What? Classics? GOOD?

2010-08-09T09:59:00.002-06:00

It has struck me recently that classics are good books.
And not just in the "YOU SHOULD READ JANE EYRE BECAUSE IT'S LIKE A CLASSIC AND SUCH" way, either. Classics, it turns out, have usually done something to earn the title, and I think we often forget that.
Don't get me wrong. I dislike Great Expectations as much as the next person. Perhaps even more. It's tough to appreciate a book with archaic diction and sentence structure (Especially Dickens' syntactical train-wrecks. Hoo golly. [Yes I know he's a master of the English language. I don't care.])
But once you get past the frustratingly obtuse turns of phrase, you begin to pick up on the emotional brilliance of these writers. Deep psychological examinations of traumatized characters coping with the events of the story. Regardless of how cliche the specifics have become, the emotions transcend centuries.
Take Shakespeare, for instance. I used to hate Shakespeare. "He's over-rated," I would say, "A complete hack. He wrote for money, that's it. Sure, he was good in his time, but we're past that now."
And then I read Hamlet again.
Something you never notice about that play is how blatantly, how strikingly, and how gut-wrenchingly unhappy it is. Hamlet's soliloquy, the one that begins "To be or not to be, that is the question..." is about suicide.
Today we see as melodrama; something to be ridiculed and poked fun at, ever since Mel Gibson's garbled rendition that ignored an entire scene and ruined Hamlet's reputation for an entire generation, spawning the skull-holding cliche that still haunts us today(I'M NOT BITTER NO NOT AT ALL.) My first memory of Hamlet was when it was 'performed' on the cartoon Animaniacs one bright Saturday morning sometime in the early nineties. Hamlet was performed by Wakko, in a faux-British accent that grated on my nerves even then.
I laughed. It was funny.
Just play that back in your mind for a moment. I laughed. It was funny.
This just goes to show how much we, collectively, don't understand Hamlet.
For contrast, here is the beginning of the actual soliloquy:

"To be or not to be– that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And, by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep
No more – and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to – ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause."

Hamlet is saying that death is preferable. End your troubles. Sure, go on with life; suicide might not be worth it. But, then again, what if it is?
I mean, holy crud.
And then there's the whole issue of whether or not he actually means it or if he's just pretending in order to throw off his fiance Ophelia who's been used to gauge Hamlet's madness by her father Polonius who is the right-hand man of Claudius, the King of Denmark (who we all know killed Hamlet's father and married his mother, just for kicks.)
Just about the point where Hamlet accidentally stabs Polonius causing Ophelia to go mad with grief and drown herself, I remebered that the play Hamlet was totally awesome.
That's the problem with classics: we see them so often that nobody remembers how rad they are. The list doesn't stop with Shakespeare, either. Everything from Hawthorne to Dostoyevsky is worth reading. Forget Twilight, read Wuthering Heights. If you're looking to be depressed, read The Sun Also Rises. For comedy, A Confederacy of Dunces.
It turns out, there's a reason that your high-school teachers made you read these books. People have been feeling the same emotions for generations upon generations. Sometimes, an author finds the best way to capture those emotions with words; when that happens, a classic is born.
In short:
Read classics. There's a reason they're good, even if you know the story.
Except Dickens.

-KELLER

We're hiring! Or: thoughts on bookstore life

2010-08-05T10:45:00.007-06:00

Working in an independent bookstore is the best job I've ever had. EVER. I love the environment, the customers, my co-workers, and the feeling that we are building something of value to the community. After all, we help make available knowledge, entertainment, and a sense of community. I've had other jobs, even other careers, I've sold pets, men's ties, and movie tickets. I've been a counselor and an educator. But the biggest miracle of my life has been that I turned what started as a way to pay for grad school into a vocation, in the broader sense of the word.

And we're hiring! You're welcome to go here and fill out an application. But beware: more than a love of reading is necessary to work in a bookstore. In fact, it's highly unlikely that you're going to be reading much, if at all, at work. Here's some thoughts on life in an independent bookstore from the manager of the Twig Bookstore in San Antonio:

"It is a fantasy to think that you can sit behind a counter and read until a customer comes up to pay for a book. Bookselling requires physical and mental stamina. Ordering books requires poring over catalogues with publishing representatives, vendors, and authors. These days a bookseller must have a comfort level with various computer programs from point of sale programs to search engines and publication designs. Boxes of books come daily that must be unboxed, received, and shelved. Organizational skills go beyond alphabetizing. Marketing books once they are in takes retail and design sense. Shelves must be culled of books that are not selling and returned to the publishers or authors. And there is always dusting and sweeping to be done. Oh yeah, and then read, read, read. I used to feel like all I had time to read was the back of a book. After a year as manager that has improved somewhat.

"I have found booksellers to share a common ideal about the world. We care deeply about our communities, about the power of the written word throughout the centuries, the importance of sharing the stories of our human condition. We are finding and even creating new ways to connect with each other, between various organizations and businesses, in partnerships and special projects."

To this list of things to do I would add: playing detective for vaguely remembered but much-desired books, holding back the chaos of the children's section, being ready for whatever questions or problems arrive at your counter and going the extra mile EVERY TIME, and being pretty whippy on the computer too.

Still the best job I've ever had.

Tweed vs. Polyester (and Zombies?)

2010-08-04T16:24:00.003-06:00

Anyone can tell you that what is old will eventually be new again. Our culture is constantly recycling itself. I remember one summer I raided my mother's closet for fashion gems from the 70s, which were the height of cool all over again. I find it particularly interesting is when this happens with literary culture. Watching as Hollywood releases yet another remake of Dracula, and then observing the subsequent rush to read the original novel. And how many versions of Hamlet have made it to the silver screen now? I've lost track. Perhaps the most intriguing phenomenon I've been witnessing, however, isn't just a resurgence of classics, but rather a poppy and youthful reinvention of them.

It used to be (at least in my recollection) that books like Jane Eyre were approached with a certain dread by teens. Classic British literature was dusty and dry, something you skimmed because it was assigned or because you wanted to flesh out your reading list. Somewhere along the lines this changed, and suddenly such books are the height of cool.

It’s tricky to pinpoint the exact time that this transition occurred - when classics got that extra bubblegum oomph that launched them from the Ivory Tower and into mainstream pop culture. Was it Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet? Or perhaps a better springboard could be Clueless? Whenever it happened, it is in full swing now. And the mash-ups and cultural spins that have followed are numerous and colorful. When you start running across things like Jane Austin Fight Club and faux Brotë sister action figures on YouTube you know the phenomenon has gone from in-joke to mainstream satire.

The media is saturated with references and spoofs, and our books shelves are no exception. We have mash-ups aplenty: Pride and Predjudice and Zombies. Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters. Dawn of the Dreadfuls, and let us not forget the newest addition: Android Karenina. And then there are the remakes. Just this week I came across and advanced reading copy of Jane by April Lindner (due out this October), which is described as, “a modern retelling of Jane Eyre with an iconic rock star twist.”

It has taken me a while to settle on my feelings regarding all of this. Part of me finds it delightfully comedic and appealing. Still another part (I suspect the part that got a degree in English) finds it all somewhat disheartening. After all, must we really add zombies to make literature appealing? There is this though: people are reading classics again. Sure, they may be chopped up or retold, but people are reading them. Isn’t that better than them not reading them at all?

What do you think, dear readers? Is this just the next step up on evolutionary ladder for literature, a fine blending of popular culture and literary culture? Could it simply be a trend that will come and go like the bell-bottom jean? Or is it a slip down the rungs, another step deeper into the “dumbing down” of reading that some fear has taken hold?

- t

Jose Luis Borges

2010-08-03T15:53:00.002-06:00

This 20th century, blind poet/essayist from Argentina was, I believe, ahead of his time. Check out his surrealistic essays, mostly less than one page, in Dream Tigers to discover that he was the consummate flash fiction writer, 50 or 60 years before the term was invented. I don't know how the man managed to evoke memories of places and people using just a few sentences, perhaps because I'm not a world-class writer...

Respond if you have opinions about Borges! I would love to hear alternative points of view.

"Dead Beautiful" review

2010-07-29T09:09:00.001-06:00

Here's another great review by Kathleen Ivy, this time delving into a debut teen novel.

Dead Beautiful by Yvonne Woon is a highly readable tale that is likely to appeal to fans of such writers a Libba Bray and Lilith Saintcrow. Renee Winters is “every girl” and yet still displays character and backbone when confronted with moral dilemmas and unnerving circumstances that would send most sixteen-year-olds screaming into the night. (Which would not be a wise choice anyway, considering what is out there.) Dante, her enigmatic crush, certainly seems like the answer to every young girl’s prayer – but is he really? That is just one of the page turning questions. What is the curse that seems to haunt the grounds of Gottfried Academy? What actually killed Renee’s parents? How did Renee find her parents, and why is she seemingly drawn to find dead things? Why did Renee’s grandfather insist on her attendance at the academy and why did he leave her among strangers? What are the school monitors up to with their secret meetings? Confused and alone, Renee seeks answers to the mystery surrounding her and their intrinsic link to her own identity. Will she find them before it is too late, or will more people have to die lost in the twisting tunnels beneath Gottfried Academy?

I Book, You Book,...E Book?

2010-07-28T13:21:00.003-06:00

"To me, a book is a book, an electronic device is not, and love of books was the reason I started writing. I don't have a word processor, e-mail, any of that stuff. I write in longhand mostly, then put it on my typewriter as I go along. I don't have any interest in any of that electronic stuff, but I'm going on 85, and won't have to worry about it too much longer."

--Elmore Leonard, quoted on his website.

There has been a lot of talk about e-books in recent years. Those who are on the bandwagon talk excitedly about digital conversion and having any book you might want at the press of a button. Naysayers turn up their noses at the technology and worry that this may be the last nail in the coffin for the publishing industry. And booksellers? Well most of us try to adapt as much as possible and keep a watchful eye.

Amazon recently reported that they sold three times as many e-books for the Kindle in the first half of this year as they did last year. Then again, independent booksellers are reporting that their sales are up 1%, which is in line with other retail sales for the year. It seems that while e-books are exploding there are still some people steadfastly holding on to their paperbacks.

E-books seem like a perfect invention for those that spend a lot of time travelling. When I imagine the ideal e-book consumer I think of someone like George Clooney’s character in Up in the Air, who is constantly on the move. For me the main appeal is the lack of weight and space that a Kindle would take up in a bag when compared to a stack of traditional books.

I’m a technophile. I love my laptop, iPod, email, and cellular phone (when it works). I spend a lot of time commuting, and hauling books with me to and fro. On the surface I seem to be a great candidate for such a gizmo. And yet, when asked if I wanted such a thing I can feel my lip curl in distaste. For me reading a book is more than ingesting content. It’s the feel of the pages in my hands. The smell of the paper. The finality when I turn that last page and close the cover. It’s a rich tactile experience. It’s the reason I printed all my online reading in college. Reading from a screen just isn’t the same. At least not for me.

I have friends on both sides of the fence. Friends who love their e-books intensely and friends who would sooner die than read Jane Austin on a screen. So what do you think? What’s your opinion? Are e-books the future, or will there always be a place for print?

-t

For the Writers

2010-07-21T22:40:00.002-06:00

Working in a bookstore I must say I was surprised to discover I was only one of two writers on staff. (A high-five goes out to my fellow coworker and compatriot, Kelsey.) While I know that obviously not all readers are writers, it is fairly true that most writers are readers. If ever there was a place to nestle into in between bouts of madness, err, authorial genius, it is surely a bookstore – I didn’t suspect I’d be one of the few (the proud?) to land amidst the stacks. Yet here I am: the resident oddball poet and novel scribbler.

It wasn’t long after I read my first book that I wrote my first short story (a saccharine tale about a girl that fell to Earth in a raindrop – every bit as youthful and trite as you probably imagine). For me writing and reading are intertwined, and both are as normal and necessary as breathing. And so I compile this entry for my fellow wordsmiths. Whether you pen novels, poetry, short stories, essays, letters, or even the occasional lengthy diary entry, I salute you. After all, without the writers this store would have remarkably empty shelves.

William Safire's Great Rules of Writing:

Do not put statements in the negative form. 

And don't start sentences with a conjunction.

If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. 

Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. 

Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.

De-accession euphemisms.

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. 

Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.  

For a more serious list of guidelines, Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander, has a list of Ten Rules for Writers that she recently shared with the LA Times. You can read them here.

And if you just want to waste a little time and have a giggle check out the I Write Like site and have your writing analyzed and compared to a famous author.

- t

Eye Love

2010-07-19T16:43:00.004-06:00

Last week I got Lasik surgery. Well, not exactly Lasik, but PRK which is something very similar except the healing process takes longer. For those of you who aren't in the know, Lasik surgery is an operation involving lasers (awesome) that permanently corrects the vision of the patient.

Besides average fears and nervousness, I was most afraid as an avid reader. Anything that messes with my eyes is scary. I couldn't help but think of Jose Saramago's novel Blindness, in which an entire city is stricken by (what else?) blindness. The horrors in that story are so fantastic yet realistic that they stuck with me throughout the procedures. Fortunately, everything went perfectly, which is good because I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to learn braille.

To be fair to all the eye surgeons out there, I was being a tad dramatic. The odds of anything detrimental to my sight happening was astronomical. My eyes were, however, unable to focus properly for the first few days which meant I spent that whole time unable to read. Sick days were never the end of the world to me because it meant I had the perfect excuse to kick back for a day to sleep and read. Illness without this excuse was painful.

The long wait is finally over, though! As of this morning I was officially reading-ready and I was almost disappointed to get called out of the waiting room this morning just as I was beginning to sink back into my book. My vision isn't 100% quite yet, but just you wait for that to happen-- I'll be reading over your shoulder from miles away! I guess the "deep message" behind this "profound blog post" is don't take your vision for granted-- that alone gives you the perfect excuse to read as much as possible today!

Want To Know a Secret?

2010-07-14T00:32:00.003-06:00

The real secret to Todd Mitchell’s book, The Secret to Lying, is that while it is shelved in the teen fiction section most adults would probably find it just as enjoyable and relevant. The story follows James Turner as he attempts to find a balance between who he is and who he wants to be. Invisible and ignored, James gets an opportunity to reinvent himself when he goes to a new school. His yearning to be noticed leads him to lie about his past and who he is, and as the lies snowball his eccentric bad-boy persona balloons until his true self becomes all but lost.

Perhaps one of the most surprising things about this book is how radically it departs from what one might expect. While the plot is fairly typical, the prose and world it is set within are not. James frequently retreats into his dreams, which are far more bizarre and Burroughs-esque than one would ever expect. Disturbing and strange interior worlds mix with James’ crafted lies to form a collage of teen apprehension. When the only real thing in James’ world is the friendship he forms online with an unnamed person, reality becomes strangely fragile, vacant, and reflective, like a house formed of mirrors and windows.

While part of the charm of this book is in the characters and their adventures, what really makes the book pop is the snappy dialogue, solid prose, and honest heart. At its core this book is a foray into the absurd mixed with the grounded reality (and pain) of finding oneself and growing up. For a book all about the lies we tell to each other and ourselves this may be one of the most honest books I’ve had the pleasure of reading.

- t

Another Post on Movie Adaptations

2010-07-07T09:56:00.003-06:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!!! If you haven't read The Road yet (are you living under a rock???) or seen the movie (definitely more forgivable) you might not want to read any further.

So, I finally did it. I rented The Road, sat down, and watched it. The whole thing!! I've been meaning to do this since it came out in theaters. I'd been following the progress of the film online before the many postponed release dates.

The first 90% of the movie was great. Suspenseful, emotional, and quick-moving, I sincerely enjoyed it. Then came the ending. Oh, the ending! Why, Hollywood, why?!?! I was barely able to control my scoffing when, at the conclusion of the movie, the boy is united with a family that had been "following them all along" including a mother and son I could have sworn we'd seen get hacked up earlier in the film. This wasn't right at all, so I determined to put my complaints to blog-form and tear the ending apart.

This is when things started to get funny. I sat down this morning, with the movie fresh in my mind and grabbed a copy of The Road off the shelf in order to reference the REAL ending. I was shocked to find that the movie HAD represented the "real" ending, almost word for word with the exception of a few corny lines delivered by the mother.

Had the two years since I'd read The Road been enough time for my brain to completely reshape the ending? I didn't think so, because I remembered discussing what I considered the "ambiguous and unclosed ending" with friends. I think, instead, that Hollywood is not to blame, but rather the conceptualizing of any written form. Basically, because I didn't trust the people at the end, I saw their appearance as ambiguous. When screenwriter Joe Penhall read the end, he must have seen the people as a force of good.

The problem with movies based on books is not always boiled down to poor adaptation. It's more that reading is so personal that no director can tap into our heads enough to portray scenes and characters the exact way we imagined it. No adaptation will ever please everyone simply because everyone related to the book in a different way.

Do Vampires Suck?

2010-07-06T13:16:00.003-06:00

Robyn Riley wrote an article in the Sunday Herald Sun taking a stand that "vampires are bloody annoying."

I think we can all agree that vampires seem to be everywhere these days. Lurking in movie theaters, television shows, and of course, bookshelves. This isn't the first time in recent history that vampires crept out of a popular book and overtook our popular culture. (Anyone else still remember Lestat?) I'll even admit to being a bit of a vampire fangirl, especially in my younger more "black lipstick" days. I watch True Blood, spin Concrete Blonde's album Bloodletting, and have a hard-bound gold cover copy of Interview with the Vampire. So naturally I must be jumping for joy about all of the new vampire blood on the scene (pun intended). Right? Wrong.

Let me be open about this: Yes, I read Twilight. And I hated it. (You can direct your hate mail here, care of Tara.) Perhaps it's my English degree snobbery, but I can't get past the fact that Meyer can't seem to write her way out of a paper bag. (Quoth the fans: "Sure, it's not the best writing, but it's soooo good!") Bad writing. Wooden characters. The excitement of watching linoleum curl. And a subtext that makes my teeth itch. Not a winning combo. Plus, vampires shouldn't sparkle, but we've all covered that at great length by now. Now we have movies, with equally bland dialogue recited by equally bland actors. And don't even get me started on what they've done to werewolves...

So what are we (I speak now to my fellow fans of the good old fashioned bloody fanged vampire) supposed to do in this flooded, and watered down, vampire market? We could join the haters and renounce our love of all things fanged. Or perhaps we could throw in with the Twihards and just embrace the fact that we have a lot to choose from. Instead I suggest taking a third road: dig through the pile, set aside the inferior works, and embrace the gems. Not sure where to start? Here are a few favorites from a couple of us here at the Firehouse to get you started.

- t

1. Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice

2. The Passage - Justin Cronin

3. I Am Legend - Richard Matheson

4. The Golden - Lucius Shepard

5. Death Masks - Jim Butcher

Last words...

2010-07-03T12:47:00.002-06:00

This is it friends. The last shift, my staff pick shelf has been taken down, my reading frenzy of books I am afraid of never seeing again has slowed (never ending of course), and I sit wondering "what next?"
Many of you might know the changes happening here in the store but for those of you that don't I will fill you in. I am moving to Portland next week with my fiance! We are getting married (back in CO) in September but until then I am preparing for the wedding and he is working at the lab he will be in for school. It's a big change and to be honest hard for me! I have gotten used to this adorable town and this wonderful and amazing bookstore being the center of a lot of my life here! But it's on to new things and new bookstores (never a chain though, rest assured!).
I will miss everything about this store and the customers. I have loved getting to know many of you and talking "shop" with you! Books are such a wonderful thing to draw people together and make them into friends. What a treat it has been to read some customer recommendations and other books that I might not have branched into on my own! Thanks!
In closing, I want to encourage you to READ MORE! Our motto here of Eat, Sleep, Read really makes for a charming and wonderful life and I am trying my best to live it out! I hope you find books that capture and enthrall you, that take you to far away places and teach you about other lives, and I hope you find books that change your life (ahem, The Happiness Project...cough, cough).
Cheers!
-Kara

2010 Colorado Book Award Winners!

2010-06-30T16:08:00.010-06:00

Congratulations to the 2010 Colorado Book Award winners, including Fort Collins authors Laura Resau and Karla Oceanak and illustrator Kendra Spanjer!

Anthology/Collection

A Dozen on Denver: Stories, Rocky Mountain News (editor), Fulcrum Publishing

Biography

Rosalie Edge, Hawk of Mercy: The Activist Who Saved Nature from the Conservationists, by Dyana Z. Furmansky, The University of Georgia Press

Children’s Literature

Grandmother, Have the Angels Come? by Denise Vega, illustrated by Erin Eitter Kono, Little, Brown and Company

Creative Nonfiction

Just Like Us: The True Story of Four Mexican Girls Coming of Age in America by Helen Thorpe, Scribner

General Nonfiction

Voices of the American West by Corinne Platt and Meredith Ogilby, Fulcrum Publishing

Genre Fiction - Historical & Romance

A Land Beyond Ravens: Book 4 of the Macsen’s Treasure Series by Kathleen Cunningham Guler, Bardsong Press

Genre Fiction - Mystery/Thriller & Science Fiction/Fantasy

The Radio Magician and Other Stories by James Van Pelt, Fairwood Press

History

First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord’s Resistance Army by Peter Eichstaedt, Lawrence Hill Books

Juvenile Literature

Artsy-Fartsy: An Aldo Zelnick Comic Novel by Karla Oceanak, illustrated by Kendra Spanjer, Bailiwick Press

Literary Fiction

Spoon by Robert Greer, Fulcrum Publishing

Pictorial

Phlogs: Journey to the heart of the human predicament by George Stranahan and Nicole Beinstein Strait, People’s Press

Poetry

Theory of Mind: New & Selected Poems by Bin Ramke, Omnidawn Publishing

Young Adult Literature

The Indigo Notebook by Laura Resau, Delacorte Press

Petty Magic Review

2010-06-29T09:42:00.008-06:00

Phew! Kathleen is reading circles around us! Here is a new review for Petty Magic by Camille DeAngelis:

In Petty Magic, Camille DeAngelis gives readers a slightly new perspective on the life of awitch. Imagine living with the opinions and interjections of ancestors long dead as well as theinterference of a host of well meaning aunts, uncles, sisters and cousins for hundreds of years –not to mention the members of the coven! With one sister, Helena, accused of a heinous crime,a new – possibly reincarnated – beau, and an evil nemesis bent on destroying her family Evelynhas a lot to keep up with. She manages with humor and aplomb, but remember – not all storiesworth reading end with “happily ever after”.

Plain Kate Review

2010-06-25T12:13:00.003-06:00

Here's another Kathleen Ivy review. This one is for a teen book, but I know I want to read it.

Set in a medieval world, Plain Kate by Erin Bow takes the reader on a journey that explores the edges of things and considers the true nature of what knits us together – and what tears us apart. Though written for a young audience, Kate and her adventures has a lot to say to every reader. Full of multidimensional characters hemmed in by a creeping, misty terror as well as the stresses and striving of day to day survival. Pushed by forces she struggles to understand, and harried by gifts that are as startling to her as they are to those around her, Kate travels from market town to hillside, stream and forest seeking answers – seeking peace. With her sleek gray cat, Taggle, for company Kate finds pain and healing, friendship mingled with betrayal, and magic mingled with common needs. It is a tale well told, and a tale worth keeping.