Category: bookstore

Starting 2014 Off Right!

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Conversation with The Most Evil Brother Ever (aka Andy) on Sunday night.

Andy: “Yeah, so I went down to the Danbury Barnes & Noble this morning…”

Me: “That’s funny. I went to the one by Westfarms this afternoon. Just got a calendar for my desk.”

Andy: ” Their computer books section is so small. Think they’re on the chopping block?”

Me: “The Danbury one? I don’t know…they’re right next to Danbury Fair (a mall) and easy highway access. And they were one of the first Barnes & Noble superstores. I mean they survived the Borders threat. I totally see the Waterbury one getting closed though.”

Andy: “Yeah, you’ve got a point there. Hey, want to go to the Book Barn on New Year’s Day…”

Me: “Heck yeah! Just got to make sure I don’t slip and fall on ice in my apartment parking lot like I did this year…”

Fast forward to today (Wednesday January 1, 2014). Andy and I were the first customers at the main Book Barn. Adorable cats were cooed at (my favorite Book Barn cat, Bitey Cat aka Jake, was curled up at the cash desk and in NO MOOD FOR PETS). And a very sweet little black cat decided I should be giving all the pets vs looking at any books in the Annex. Seriously, I was looking for D.E. Stevenson on the shelves with my left hand while the little black cat was straining to get at my right hand. Andy? Just laughed and headed for the main building to check out the history section. Andy is NOT a cat person.

And yes, books were bought! Here’s what came home with me today.

  • A Very Private Eye: An Autobiography in Letters and Diaries by Barbara Pym
  • Lark Rise to Candleford: A Trilogy by Flora Thompson (PBS tie-in trade paperback. Would have bought the illustrated Lark Rise to Candleford hardcover but it was <shudder>…abridged…I don’t do abridged.)
  • The Mystery at Lilac Inn (#4 Nancy Drew Mystery Stories(TM) by Carolyn Keene (yellow back hardcover with the 1950s updates. No judging. This is my favorite Nancy Drew story ever.)
  • 80th Anniversary Limited Edition: The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew Mystery Stories (TM) by Carolyn Keene (how could I not buy this? It’s the source. The wellspring. The first. And only $1.o0)
  • Victorian Household Hints: Useful Hints & Tips to Keep a Well-Managed Household by Elizabeth Drury (Blacklight is laughing. Especially since I’m in a “why why why” mode about housework right now. But I do love me some vintage household hints.)
  • Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field (one of my all time favorite books ever. Lovely hardcover. Bought a copy for my favorite baby niece a few years ago and hope she’ll love it as much as I do.)

Andy found some lovely finds too. He snapped up a massive book on cartography, a Latin grammar, Latin dictionaries, a book on early civilizations and several sci fi mass market paperbacks. And if he’s still in Connecticut on January 1, 2015? We’ll be in his car, waiting for 9 am and Book Barn to open.

 

 

 

Books & Boos

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

It’s Friday and one of my Company X coworkers is doubling checking the procedures for the work he’ll be covering while I’m out on vacation. Then he asks the question. “So whatcha ya gonna do? Going anywhere?” My response: “I’m going to Book Barn on my birthday and then I have to find out where the heck Colchester is because there’s a bookstore called Books & Boos that has new and used books and all kinds of cool stuff…” Cue co-worker shaking his head. Whatever dude…

So clutching directions to Colchester (which turns out is a few towns over from my in-laws), I hopped in Mr Honda yesterday and sent out on an adventure.  Books & Boos is nestled in a small New England town and the trip there takes you on winding country roads. Would I get lost on the way? But I DID have directions, a full tank of gas and a Stephen King audiobook playing. Before I knew it, I had crossed the Colchester town line, saw the yellow building Books & Boos is in and pulled into the parking lot.

I had gotten about three feet into Books & Boos when I was knew I was going to find some treasures. A vintage Better Homes & Gardens gardening guide? (I have a collection of those binder Better Homes & Gardens guides) Hello there! And then turning and seeing a cool Zombie Poe t-shirt? My kind of place.  Books & Boos is also a shop that is proud of the local creative community and supports them wholeheartedly. Display cases flanking the horror section have handcrafted wooden items and stuffed collectibles (my favorite? the stuffed blood stains). On the walls are hung with framed artwork by local artists available for purchase. And there are two large racks of local authors. One of my favorite things on the local writers racks? A little sign over Stacey Longo’s Secret Things: Twelve Tales to Terrify saying there’s a 50% chance the author is in the store. How many bookstores can make that claim?

Not interested in local authors and want a good used book? No shame in that. Books & Boos will have something for you. There’s everything from fiction, biographies, religion, history, kids books (they have Nancy Drew!), cookbooks and more. There’s a locked case full of amazing movie tie-in books from all genres including Imitation of Life. If I was still collecting vintage cookbooks from the 1950s onward I would have found quite a few titles to add to the kitchen bookcase. I ended up with three books in great shape for very reasonable prices including the Joyce Carol Oates edited H.P. Lovecraft collection (Blacklight: “Of course you bought Lovecraft…” Me: “Hey, I also bought a Richard Matheson paperback too!”). I bet even Mr Picky Pants Blacklight could find something nifty in Books & Boos stacks. (Blacklight: “What’s wrong with my books?” Me: “Stephen R. Donaldson, Tom Clancy, Larry Bond…” Blacklight: “You know there are books that aren’t H.P. Lovecraft or Stephen King or Shirley Jackson or that Grace Malicious right?”)

Books & Boos isn’t a giant used bookstore with what Andy calls “the Wall of King and Koontz” like Book Barn down in Niantic or Andy’s beloved McKay’s Used Books out in Tennessee but it’s totally worth the trip. After all, there’s nothing like a good used bookstore with friendly staff and a welcoming atmosphere. I’ll take that over Barnes & Noble any day even if you waved a $1,000 Barnes & Noble gift card in my face.

Books & Boos Online

http://www.booksandboos.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Zombie Autopsies

~ Wendy-Marie ~ 1 Comment

If you’re on the third floor of Company X’s F-ton location and wandering down the aisles, the dark haired chick with the scuffed rectangular glasses in the white oxford with a certain stuffed green monster at her desk and glaring at her dual monitors with a hot pink iPhone 3GS jammed into ears is me. Okay, maybe I’m not exactly glaring at the dual monitors (see scuffed glasses reference, Blacklight is an expensive spouse) but there are iPhone headphones jammed in my ears from the second the clock hits 7am until snack time. And what am I listening to so intently as I process away? HPPodcraft, Stuff You Should Know, Pop Culture Happy Hour, Skeptoid and Monster Talk. And thanks to my podcast habit, I have a huge list of Stuff I Want If I Ever Had Money. Hey…that iPhone? It’s a refurbished/reconditioned 3GS with the cheapest plan known to man, ATT and Company X. And remember those scuffed glasses?

So thank heavens for the Connecticut Public Library system. Because this afternoon while taking some Me Time at the Noah Webster/West Hartford Public Library, I saw IT, the book that had been calling my name, nay, screaming my name at the Blue Back Square Barnes & Noble. Curse Barnes & Noble and curse the good people at Monster Talk and curse Steven C. Schlozman because there was The Zombie Autopsies just sitting there on the shelf in Science Fiction, all “you know you want me. Who needs to pick up boring old lactose free milk and get quarters for laundry?”. Let me tell you it took all my strength to walk away from the book shelf and march out the door and over to the library. Because come on! George Romero wants to do The Zombie Autopsies. GEORGE FREAKING ROMERO!

So I was in the new fiction section of the library. And what did my tiny little hazel eyes see? And what did my little undead paws snatch off the shelf like there were slavering hordes right behind trying to reach the same book? The Zombie Autopsies of course! (You know…the book I’m writing the blog post about?)

Do I even need to say the second the milk was shoved into the fridge and comfy clothes were on, The Zombie Autopsies joined me on Mr Couch for a hot date? And the second I put the finished book down I was reaching for Mr iPhone to tweet how awesome sauce The Zombie Autopsies was?

Here’s the basic plot, it’s 2013, a zombie virus known as Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome (ANSD) has unleashed havoc on the world. Billions are dead, non-infected humanity lives in underground bunkers and an island laboratory might be the one thing that can possibly unlock the secrets of ANSD.

Sounds awesome right? Then again in the wrong hands the above plot could go horribly disaster zone coughcoughdeankoontzcoughcough wrong. Right now Dean Koontz is tearing out his hair plugs and stomping his feet. Calm the bleep down Dean! I read and actually thought Funhouse was a hoot. And your literary biography is great. I just don’t think your take on the basic The Zombie Autopsies plot would be very good. And don’t go strutting around too cocky Mr King, Cell wasn’t very good either. Many an eyeroll betwixt the first and final pages.

Part of what makes The Zombie Autopsies so good is that Steven C. Schlozman is a doctor. A doctor that has the rare of gift of making the tricky science bits seem so basic and easy that even my stuffed dragon baby Bob could understand them. (Bob: “I smart! I not dumb! I real!”) And like Michael Crichton, Schlozman has the knack of making you believe as you sit on your couch “yeah I can totally see this being true and going down”.

If I had to break down The Zombie Autopsies for a Hollywood pitch it would be “okay imagine Max Brooks’ Zombie Survival Guide had a baby with Michael Crichton and Margaret Atwood’s Haidmaid’s Tale now where’s my $30 million?”

So if Shaun of the Dead and The Zombie Survival Guide are in your favorites, scamper down to the library or Barnes & Noble and splash out the $20 for The Zombie Autopsies. Me? I’m off to fill my weekly intralibrary loan request with all zombie things starting with World War Z!

Helene Hanff: 84, Charing Cross Road

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Looking at the hardcover of Helene Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road, it’s hard to believe such a slight book spawned a cult, film adaptations and a stage production in both London and New York. It’s just under 100 pages long and nothing but LETTERS, some no more than a few scrawled lines.

But it’s what’s in the letters that’s made of invisible steel. From New York, there’s the brash, bossy Helene Hanff desperate to read/own great works. From London there’s the secondhand bookshop on Charing Cross Road filled with inexpensive treasures. And more than books cross the Atlantic. Helene gets a glimpse into the narrowness of everyday life in post war Britain and decides to do something even if it’s as small and simple as order a package of tinned foods and real eggs to be shared amongst the bookshop staff. The bookstaff gets a glimpse into the exotic sounding life of a writer living in far off New York City even if the writer’s days and nights are filled with cigarettes, gin and babysitting verus nightclubs and champagne. A true friendship develops that not even financial misfortune and death can break.

There are writers who can spend their lives trying to craft something glorious and meaningful. In a few handfuls of letters dashed off at moment’s notice during her everyday life, letters that anyone else might have thrown in the trash Helene Hanff had her masterpiece. Now try and read 84, Charing Cross Road and NOT become part of the cult.

Bye-Bye Borders

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

On the side table next to Mr Couch. Diet ginger ale, Kleenex, Hershey’s Kisses, Lovecraft revision collection The Horror in the Museum, and a mug of Lady Grey Tea…in a Borders.com mug.

Before you race off to the closing Borders near you to snap up your own giant Borders mug, hold on a second. To get my Borders.com mug you’re going to have to hop into a time machine to the late 1990s and a lovely winter day when a certain Gwendy came home from a long day of work at Company X to find a package waiting for her on the kitchen counter. A lovely package from Borders.com but did Gwendy order something? This was pre-Blacklight so there was all the monies to spend on books. Inside the mystery package? A gift from Borders.com to their loyal customers, a huge coffee mug and Post-It notes with the Borders.com logo. Score!

Now fast forward over ten years. I’m dragging poor Blacklight to Borders to use up the gift certificate lurking in his wallet and half-horrified/half laughing my butt off/half wondering if the staffers are tempted to do the same thing when Blacklight directs my attention to a search he’s plugged into closest customer service terminal. “BANKRUPTCY”.

The next day at work, the list of doomed stores in Connecticut is on the list. Six stores. Some aren’t a huge surprise. Because every time I went to the Borders in the Dadster’s town it was ghost city. But the Danbury Borders? Really? An image of the Danbury Barnes & Noble staff popping open bottles of champagne and giving high fives comes to mind. Who knew that in the great Danbury bookstore chain war, the tiny superstore without a cafe, music or video section in plaza next to the mall would be the victor?Because, full disclosure I’ve worked for both. And the best Christmas working retail ever? Borders hands down.

But just because a company is awesome to work for doesn’t mean they always make the most sensible business decisions.

Exhibit A: the alliance with Amazon.com for their online presence. As much as I love Amazon.com (check my bank statements!), what companies came out for the better after joining the Amazon empire? Not many.

Exhibit B: the great e-book reader wars. Can you name the Borders chosen e-book? Blacklight says Nabooo. I say “that’s Queen Dingbat’s planet from the Does Not Exist Star Wars movies!” Blacklight tries again. Nook Book? I sigh. And look it up online. Well there is the Kobo, a couple of different Sony and Velocity readers…dang… just gimme a single platform…choosing an e-reader shouldn’t be more difficult than picking the perfect Droid phone!

Exhibit: The Borders Rewards card. Original Recipe Borders rewards card? Heaven! Awesome program to accumulate points to blow at the holidays, tons of coupons. Heck, get a 40% off coupon and forget Amazon.com for that special graphic novel! Then the changes started, switch to the Waldenbooks type of points rewards (what if you don’t have a particular book you want to buy within that 30 day window? GRRR) still great coupons. Still able to resist the Barnes & Noble “do you have our Membership Card?”. Then the pay for play card option appears. no desire to upgrade.

So bye-bye Borders. Thanks for the great memories of Christmas 2001, the discounts, the hours browsing the shelves. I hope all my former coworkers still in Danbury find new jobs. And I hope the six stores closing in CT are the only ones to fall.