discover the art of the novella

Bless Melville house. The novella is rarely respected. Why? Because it’s usually an overpriced harddcover that barely has enough pages to line the inside of a shoebox. Or it’s burried in a collection of short stories.

But now, NOW, we get some nice design-y type pocket sized paperbacks that are cheap! Oh and are they cheap. They’re all between $9 and $10 and we’ve got them marked down a further 10% to offset that awful, AWFUL, Cook County sales tax. How many days until that bozo can be voted out?

We’re carrying the older novellas, but Melville also publishes contemporary novellas (though a bit more expensive) in the same format. Let us know if you want us to carry them. Follow this link!

You will get such gems as:

The Girl With the Golden Eyes by Balzac

Mathilda by Mary Shelley

A Simple Heart by Flaubert

You get the idea? There are, like, a million of them. Or 25. Ish. Stop by and take a look.

The things you own end up owning you

Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry. Just in time for Un-Valentines day? This catalog is a couple’s love story and final dissolution told through their collected stuff. The shared life told in between the wooden birds and pictures of Lenore Doolan putting on lipstick become tender and real.

Thesis: Love is more than our accumulated things but those things are also an intimate reminder of an intangible event.

The article in The Times (guess which one) had this nice quote:

“It’s sort of about how reliant we are on our things to define us,” Ms. Shapton said, acknowledging that there is a strain of what she described as somewhat “suffocating discernment” running through the protagonists’ lives. “But I wanted to balance that with a pretty genuine love of very private meaning,” she said, adding that most of the things put up for sale are “those kinds of things that mean everything to the person who owned them and nothing to anyone else.”

This would be great with a nice note/poem/story about both the eternalness one feel in love but also the conflict with time that we must work within.

Signed. Sealed. Delivered. I’m yours.

Obit. Oscar Wilde bookshop, 1967 – 2009

Our grandfather of sorts is passing into the great beyond. That venerable institution that started it all for GLBT bookstores is shuttering its doors. Though hastened by the flailing economy, it has had money trouble for years. Wilde’s always approached their GLBT books differently than we did, and boutique bookstores just can’t make it anymore. (See Chicago: No more Savvy Traveler, no more Transitions, no more Soliloquy. ) It also had its fair share of owners (six!), but that shows how important it was to some people.

You will be missed Oscar Wilde Bookshop. We won’t forget the path you paved for us all to follow. Long live the independent bookstore!

Does anyone have a great memory of Oscar Wilde’s? The bookstore not the person.

BRAAAAAAINNNNSS!!!

Ok ok ok ok ok ok ok ok …. are you ready? You are NOT ready for the mind explosion you are about to have. Brace yourself …..

Pride and Prejudice … and Zombies!!!

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be want of more brains.”

So. Original P&P = a GIANT snooze fest. What do you do? How do you spice this baby up? Add nudity and sex scenes? Nah, too pedestrian. Think outside the box: you add zombies. Lots of zombies. Hordes if you will.

To summate:

“As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.”

Ok. I need to catch my breath. This little gem is out May 13, 2009 on Quirk books. Reserve your copy now for, you know, the invasion … of zombies.

Also included: illustrations in the style of the original illustrator of P&P.

To become a fan of the book on facebook … click here.

Not so new, but man, did I miss that word

David Foster Wallace may no longer be with us, BUT, his words, thankfully, will continue to whip us into a frenzy of bibliophile mania. This site picks one of DFW’s chosen words that hardly continue to be in the current lexicon, and explains the meaning, AND (the best part) reproduces the passage the word was found.

Though no longer updated on a regular basis, the person is looking for someone to take the reins. Could that person be you? You know you love DFW that much. Who doesn’t? I mean, it only took me 2 years to get through Infinite Jest. It was about a video tape, right? Tennis? I remember pot.

Go. Learn some vocab. We’ll have a test next friday.

Opus and Bill and Pete & Pickles

Someone came in today speaking of classic Bloom County cartoons and it got me thinking. Oh yes, Virginia, I do think…from time to time.

As some of you may very well realize Berkeley Breathed has had a second (maybe it’s third…actually if you count the movies, it’s fourth) career writing and illustrating children’s books.

We love, LOVE, his style – very similar to the Bloom County shenanigans that made him so famous.

Robert had this to say for all of us:

“Pete’s a pig who doesn’t even know he’s lonely until he meets the ungainly, irresistible elephant, Pickles. Breathed’s amazing illustrations pay homage to the art of the past, the pleasures of friendship, and the power of play. We dare you to red this and not get caught in its spell.”

Here’s a pic. Enjoy the ride! Weeeeeeeeeee!

no posts without more coffee

Does anyone remember the Franzen essay where he talks about the 60640 area code?

You’ll win a “no-prize” if you can tell me the name.

NY Times rundown.

Before your Facebook fills up with a thousand links to the same articles … no? Just mine? Okay.

Star Wars Should Have Been About Pills – Lets hear it for drug problems … from celebrities. She’s still funny. We all wish she’d write more. The cover alone is frame-worthy.

The Key Object is … MANUAL TYPE WRITER – Ok. I am going to be honest. We don’t have anything by Donald Westlake. But. He would probably fill our whole mystery section by himself if we did.

Then Why Did You Publish It? – The arguement does not hold water “If I didn’t do it, then someone else would.” A series of escalations is not always in the cards. But. Ms. Sontag still remains a wonderful marvel even after her death.

the day after the day after

The day after New Years day should also be a holiday.

I’m just sayin’

closing early

Listen, as much as I’d love to be open all hours of day and night, really, we gotta’ close sometime. So what does this mean … I don’t know. I forgot. Um. Cheese? We’re only open until 5pm today. AND we’re not open at all tomorrow. Closed.

Smiling Shark

But turn that frown upside down, we’ll be open again on Friday. At 10am.

Happy New Year and all that.