It'll always be books for me!

I am experiencing technical difficulties.  Actually, I had numerous problems all of last week, resulting in my inability to access our Facebook fan page, my inability to update our staff reviews on our website, my inability to watch Project Runway off the Tivo on Sunday night, and a particularly bizarre dream last night where I woke up mumbling something about some social media application that I couldn't think of the name of, although I was SURE it existed...  Thankfully I went back to sleep after that last one.  At any rate, it was a rough week between me and technology.

I keep these things in mind as I continue to see headlines regarding the increased market share of e-books in the literary world.  I try to keep these things in mind when I see commercials for the iPad.  (I don't NEED an iPad, but gosh I sure do like their advertising...)  I am confident that there will always be people like me: In the September issue of Wired magazine, of all places, a reader wrote in and confessed to killing a scorpion by slamming a book down on top of it.  Would you like to attempt that with your e-reader?  Take that, Kindle.

I am not afraid of technology.  I'm addicted to Facebook (stupid Bejweled Blitz...), and clearly even I can write up a blog.  It's not fear that drives me to hold onto my books.  It's an undeniable desire to hold that book in my hand, to feel the pages. And I don't think I need to tell you about the smell of books.  Admit--y'all know what I'm talking about.

So if ever you can't find me, just look for the girl with her nose in a book, her glasses halfway down her nose as she absorbs as many of those words as she can....

See you at the bookstore!
Pamela.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

This weekend I was inspired by Christopher McDougall's "Born to Run"" and made up a lovely display of running books, and thought I would, creatively, make an accompanying sign encouraging customers to "run amok." I then thought, hmmm, my recollection of the use of "amok" is the movie Hocus Pocus from the late '90s.  And I decided to make sure "amok" meant what I thought it meant.  It didn't.

Rather than encouraging customers to run about freely and without care, perhaps with a little wildness, I was actually inciting a murderous rampage.  Because that's what amok means, according to multiple dictionaries:  "in a frenzy to do violence or kill" (The American Heritage Dictionary).  Its secondary definition ("in a jumbled or confused state") is not much better. 

Now my lovely and very creative sign encourages customers to "run wild." 

Is there a word whose meaning has taken you totally off guard?  (It happens more than I like to admit.) 

Happy Reading,

--Mica

p.s. Bonus points if you can name the quote in the title!

Our B-Day Boy, Charles Bukowski, and His Words of Insight

Today is the birthday of the man who said:
"The nine-to-five is one of the greatest atrocities sprung upon mankind. You give your life away to a function that doesn't interest you. This situation so repelled me that I was driven to drink, starvation, and mad females, simply as an alternative."

A happy day to the "laureate of lowlife," Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)!

Follow the link to read his poem two nights before my 72nd birthday.

--Mica

Book Brahmin: Mary Robinette Kowal

Great interview with a local-ish author! Mary Robinette Kowal is a a Portland writer/puppeteer/voice actor (as well the VP of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America) , and her list of current reads and favorite books looks very enticing. Is it bad that I want to be her when I grow up?

Book Brahmin: Mary Robinette Kowal

Happy reading!

~Mica

Bookselling is harder than you think

View from behind the counter at Grass Roots.

I know many people who fantasize about working in a bookstore.  They dream of sitting behind a counter, reading books all day while they occasionally smile at a customer.  I hate to burst your bubble, but it is actually a lot of work if you're doing it right.  I have been working in bookstores for about 12 years now, and I am still exhausted at the end of the day.  There is still always something to learn.  There are still books being published that I want to read.

What does it take to be a bookseller, you ask?  It is far more than a love of reading.  Liking people helps, or at least the ability to act like you like people when you're having a bad day.  So important.  Enthusiasm and good cheer helps, too.

As for the job description, I stumbled upon this quote on the Huffington Post blog today, in an article by Anis Shiva highlighting Twig Book Shop in San Antonio, TX, in which he interviewed bookstore manager Claudia Maceo Sharp:

When I first began to work at Viva and found the tasks to be so complicated, my colleagues would chide me, albeit lovingly, by saying, "And you thought we were just a bookstore." 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 catalogs 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.

The glamorous life!

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.

We are a great community here, and after all of that, we do need to put our feet up at the end of the day.

See you at the bookstore--
Pamela.

Buried by berries

I am SO tired of picking blueberries.

We have four bushes in our backyard, and plenty of scrub jays patrolling the perimeters.  I am fond of blueberries, especially when they are fresh picked and still warm and juicy from their days in the sun.  They are wonderful eaten straight up, or tossed into pancakes, or sunk into homemade muffins.  I am quite amazed, however, how much four bushes can actually produce.  I have probably...I don't know...12 cups of blueberries in my freezer?  I'm just sick of pickin' 'em, and no one else is volunteering to come over.  (Although my brother and nephew are visiting from Illinois this weekend and may view the fruit picking as a novelty.  They live in the suburbs and do not garden.)

My berry stash in the freezer may not seem like much to dyed-in-the-wool home preservists, but it's a lot for me.  There are also raspberries and a growing supply of cut strawberries in there.

Not that I'm complaining!  I'm really gardening and harvesting for the first time in my life, and I'm looking for ways to manage the bounty within my time constraints and resources.  Fortunately, there is a ready supply of resources at Grass Roots to help me out, and I don't just mean my coworkers.

I like my cookbooks to be not just useful, but pretty as well (such an impractical girl...) and we have three new titles that fit the bill.

Paperback, $19.95

I have been eying Put 'em Up!: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook, from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Pickling by Sherri Brooks Vinton for a couple of weeks now.  Right there on the front cover is a precious little jar of frozen blueberries.  Well, I can do THAT; what else ya got?  (Isn't that a great way to get you to pick up a cookbook?  Taunting?)  I did pick it up, and it looks so useful and pleasant and domestic and doable.  It is divided into two major sections, "Techniques" and "Recipes."  Best of all for someone like me who's standing there going what do I do with all this stuff, the recipes are divided by primary ingredient.  My blueberry problem?  Right here under "Berries."  The pending tomato avalanche?  Covered conveniently under "Tomatoes."  There is good stuff in here.  It's well organized, and even I can manage some of these things on a day off or two.

Hardcover, $22.00

Also on the shelf, I noticed an unassuming and under-sized blue spine, about an inch thick.  I pulled it out, and there on the cover of The River Cottage Preserves Handbook, by Pam Corbin, was something that at least looked like a jar of blueberries with lemonade being poured into it.  On closer inspection, those are probably something else, but it still made me pick up the book.  The book is elegant and pretty and very British.  It is also a hardcover, and, because it is small and difficult to open, I'm frankly afraid to crack it open and give it a good perusal.  It does not look so basic as Put 'em Up, but it does look more challenging.  I think it would make an excellent gift for your favorite bookseller.  Or me.

Paperback, $24.95

Finally, one last book with alluring edibles in glass jars on the cover(doesn't food just look better in jars? unless it's baby food?) arrived just today.  Canning For a New Generation: Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry by Liana Krissof is fresh on the shelf.  This book is also full of delicious-sounding recipes, this one divided by season.  What I like best about this book is that it gives you recipes for the recipes.  Gosh, that sounds complicated, but if you go through the trouble of making homemade pickles or preserves, you may just get tired of eating pickles with your hot dog, or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Here are your options.

Well, there we go.  I've made myself hungry again.  It's probably a good thing I work in a bookstore and not a restaurant.  This way I am just overstuffed with books.

See you at the bookstore!

Pamela