Mmm, Brains. Protein. Christmas Presents for the Zombie Lover in Your Life

...and he ate my brains.
Zombie Lovers Anonymous

That's how I feel this morning, like I spent all night last night walking with a Zombie. Only I was the Zombie and I kept leaving little bits of myself behind, which would explain why I'm so stiff this morning. Obviously I lost some important muscles and bone pieces. Oh, and brain pieces.

Maybe I got hungry and needed a snack.

Mmm, brains.

Too bad, I kind of needed those pieces to write a paper on the different forms of narrative in fiction as compared to theatre and how the voice of the narrator can differ from that of the character. Anyone who still has a working brain want to do it for me?

Anyone?

I didn't think so.

Let's talk about the undead then, shall we? And how they make a great Christmas present for the wannabe necromancer in your life.

"Chriiiiiiiistmasssss," they're probably moaning in your ear, sounding quite a bit like their undead counterpart. "Thiiiiiings for Chriiiiiiiistmasssss."

Why they're moaning, I don't know. Why do Zombies moan? Why can't there be a Zombie movie where instead of moaning the Zombies chirp "Brains" just like the seagulls chirp the word "Mine" in Finding Nemo? Why can't there be Zombie Seagulls? They're annoying enough.

I guess the world just isn't ready for them.

But what the world, and your Zombie-lovin' family/friend/lover/roommate are ready for is this handy little gift set. Should your Zombie fiend not be adverse to the idea of a comic Zombie take, I suggest getting them their own copy of Shaun of the Dead (if they don't already own it), the Zombie Survival Guide (as written by Mel Brooks' son, Max, and an equally funny guy), and the newest version of The Stupidest Angel (v2.0) which features a Zombie Santa Claus.

Yes, it's the perfect gift set, which should be rounded out with a sharp blade for you. One never knows when ones partner may cross the line into true Zombie territory and need to be beheaded. 'Cause if it comes down to a you vs. them scenario; they've got to go. Personally, I'm rather attached to my brains.

Even when they seem to be far, far from my head this morning.

Off to procrastinate on my paper, go to school and wow them at work.

Food Porn Three (I think): People Magazine

The newest issue of People magazine, besides being a gossip bonanza, has a bunch of books in it. Proving once again that I have my finger on the pulse of the American public (ha ha), one of them is Going for the Bronze whose virtues I sang about on an earlier blog. That is not what excites me though. What excites me is that they have a chocolate cookbook in there that may be even more drool-worthy than Pure Chocolate. I can't remember the name, but I'll be sure to get it at work today, so stay tuned.

Oooh, chocolate. How I love thee.

So until I get the name of this new and delish bit of Food Porn, I leave you with this warning from the VooDoo Doughnut.

When entering the land of Food Porn the VooDoo Doughnut reminds you to stay alert and stay safe. Who knows who could be lurking.

Edited To Add:

I found it! I found it! And not surprisingly the same woman who worked on Pure Chocolate also worked on this one. Hmmm. I may have marry her.

Chocolate Obsession by Michael Recchiuti, Fran Gage & Maren Caruso (photographer)

SB Day: The Evil Abstinence Plot of Publishers, or Why I Fear Being Barefoot and Pregnant (As Well As Sharks, Refrigerators, and Drowning)

It’s Smart Bitches Day and my toes are freezing, which has absolutely nothing to do with the day except that my floors are cold and I refuse to put on socks. What can I say? Barefoot is better.

Except when tied to pregnancy.

And so begins our tale…

When I was in college I went to a costume party with the theme “Come as your worst fear.” Worst fear? That was a hard one to narrow down. I mean it’s hard to really illustrate abandonment, and no way was I going to haul around a fake refrigerator all night with some sharks painted on it to stand for my ultimate fear: drowning in a submerged refrigerator in the ocean while sharks make a run at my exposed bits (yes Freud would have been nuts about the symbolism…but that’s why no one listens to Freud anymore). Not to mention that it would be a hard one to explain because I’ve tried.

“Refrigerator?” my friends say. “You were drowning in a refrigerator?”

“I think it has something to do with a fear of enclosed spaces.”

“Didn’t you once do a scene where you were in a coffin for five or ten minutes?”

“Well, yes, but I wasn’t drowning in that coffin and there were no sharks.”

“You’re weird, you know that?”

Yes, I do. I really, really do. That’s why refrigerator drowning while being eaten by sharks was out. Luckily I had an alternative fear—not as high up there as the sharks/refrigerator/drowning or abandonment, but still a legitimate fear (yes, the sharks/refrigerator/drowning one is a legitimate fear, shut up): being barefoot and pregnant.

Thanks to a handy pillow I easily achieved the belly of a seven months gone woman, which I followed up by stuffing my bra to mimic pregnancy breasts and losing the shoes. Oh, and I let my hair down since at the time it was almost long enough to sit on.

The costume was a hit, but the fear remained. One I blame on romance novels. I mean look at all the series titles were little Miss Secretary sleeps with the hunky boss and gets knocked up on the first try. Suddenly she’s puking her guts out in the bathroom after only one night of lurve, he’s realizing that he’s got to make an honest woman out of her (and that he secretly loves her, of course), and faster than you can say “the rabbit died” they’re tying the knot. Sure she’s still worried that she’s ruining his life and that he’ll never love her, and he’s worried that he’s stolen her future and forced her into this, but each are relieved that the baby is going to have a daddy.

Okay, so love (even if they don’t know that the other person loves them although it’s completely obvious to the rest of the population) and marriage are nothing to fear. I like romance novels with love and marriage, but I hate how immediately after she marries the guy she’s suddenly quitting her job and sitting at home.

Hello? What decade are we in? Did I miss something? When did getting pregnant mean that you were suddenly relegated to “little woman” stature?

Rarely do you have the woman stating that she might actually wants to stay at work (or get another job), or have her deal with the loneliness of being married to Mr. McRich and having no friends in her new social strata. Where’s the scene where she bonds with some woman in the doctor’s office waiting room because they’re both exactly twenty weeks along and the next thing you know they are best friends because the bond of the future babe has united them? What about how random strangers come up and pat pregnant women on the stomach for no apparent reason when they are shopping? Or how pregnancy seems to be a topic that can start a conversation with anybody even if it’s that person saying “Oh my, I could never do that”?

Why, oh why, must the little Mrs. be stuck at home like a lump on the couch not existing outside the realm of her hubby? She might as well just lose the shoes to complete the package!

Damn you, Series Romance! I know that it is possible to be a strong woman and a stay at home mother. My own mother was and still is a Domestic Goddess. A job shouldn’t define you, you should define yourself, and yet all I see in these books are women being defined by their man. It’s enough to make a girl swear off sex.

And maybe that’s what publishers are trying to do. Maybe series romances are actually there to teach abstinence because the publishers know that they are the starter romance for most young girls.

Yes, I see the evil plot now! Somewhere in the high publishing house on the side of the mountain the publishers plot to forward the abstinence plan by convincing woman that they’ll get pregnant the FIRST TIME they have sex. Always. No exceptions. But only if he’s rich and your boss because, you know, the unshaven hipster down the street that makes your ovaries growl does not a romance hero make. He’d be cast as the unfeeling cad that left you pregnant—but unmarried—and destitute until the rich, handsome benefactor came to your rescue and married you because he’s actually the older brother of the hipster and has been cleaning up his messes for years!

Side note: Why has there never been a plot where this makes him a polygamist because his brother hates condoms and has been leaving pregnant woman behind all over the place? Is it just not romance-y enough? Maybe Ellora’s Cave could do it.

Just a thought.

So my point is that it is because of romance novels I fear the stereotype of the barefoot, pregnant housewife. I could also blame them for my fear of ever growing my hair out as long as I once had it (at the party), but in reality it has more to do with the upkeep.

Long hair is an evil, tangly bitch and it takes too long to deal with in the morning.

Until the day arrives that the romance world gives me a strong heroine that decides to go back to work six weeks after the baby is born or uses her time with the baby in a fulfilling manner (and that’s not just keeping her house for her man and pining away the hours until he gets home), I will leave you with the six new Harlequin Presents titles. May you abuse them and their baby-havin’, barefoot, long-haired heroines in good health!

Blackmailing the Society Bride
The Greek’s Christmas Baby
Sleeping with a Stranger
Taken by the Highest Bidder
His Wedding Night Heir
Claiming his Christmas Bride

Possible Plot:

After Sleeping with a Stranger who was Blackmailing the Society Bride, she was Taken by the Highest Bidder to have His Wedding Night Heir, but Claiming his Christmas Bride would not be easy—not when she was having the Greek’s Christmas Baby!

Go forth and plot, write, and fear (or embrace) the barefoot pregnancy! I’m going to go figure out the statistical possibility of the refrigerator/drowning/shark fear. Oh, and go to school and work, but we know what’s really important.

The Dance of the Seven Stuffings (Turkey Performance Art)

(Warning: Not appropriate for vegetarians, especially vegans)

As we were walking out of the store yesterday, I turned to my coworker and asked, "So, are you celebrating Thanksgiving?"

"You mean am I celebrating the genocide of thousands of aboriginal people?" he shot back.

"Um, no. I meant are you going to go eat, drink and make merry with your friends and family."

"Oh. Yeah, I guess I am."

Sheesh. Love him dearly, but sometimes I want to smack him.

But enough about work, it's time to celebrate (and I have no Thanksgiving tie-in book recommendations, although if you need the stress relief you can always buy this). So whether Thanksgiving is your day of thanks, an excuse to booze and gorge on turkey (that would be my family), or celebrate the genocide of thousands of aboriginal people (in which case you are a sick fuck), may your day be merry and full of good food and company and may your turkey dance the sensuous dance of the seven stuffings.

What? Your turkey does not dance the dance of the seven stuffings? But it is an old and very hysterical tradition much like listening to Alice's Restaurant! Lucky for you, I have in my possession last year's award winning performance.

I give you, Turkey, in the Dance of the Seven stuffings.

In repose Turkey waits, feeling the music vibrate through his carcass's. Oh, how it calls to him!

It's a groove thing. It's a groove thing. Yeah, yeah!

Dropping low to perform a well balanced high kick, turkey flashes some leg much to the audience's delight.

Launching himself into the air, Turkey leaps. Such perfect form! He thinks to himself, "Ha, ha!Take that Michael Flatly, you overrated, chest-baring hack!"

Overcome by the audience's appreciation and his own mad jig, Turkey bows low, tumbles to his knees. He is spent.

May this have made you laugh, and may your holiday be joyous! I'll be boozing on wine and chowing on this year's turkey winner with the folks to the tune of Alice's Restaurant. I hope your traditions bring you as much amusement and happiness.

SB Day: "Maybe he's compensating for something?" and Ellora's Cave

(Warning: This entry may not be appropriate for at work viewing)

It’s Smart Bitches Day and I’ve been knitting, a futile exercise to be sure. I’m trying to learn to do a drop stitch using microfiber and new needles.

Ask me how many times I’ve had to rip this scarf out. Go on, ask me. I dare you.

And then I dare me to remember because I lost count after the fifth time.

Argh! Why am I too stubborn to learn on normal yarn? Why must I be attracted to the pretty and the difficult?

Why must this translate into other areas of my life?

Er, anyway, enough about me, let’s get to some bitchery. Specifically Ellora’s Cave bitchery, because Jaid—may I call you Jaid?—we’ve got to talk about your company’s covers. ‘Cause their current state?

I. Can’t. Sell.

I can’t. Sure the copies aren’t collecting dust on my shelves—they’re very well thumbed through—but they sure as hell aren’t walking out my doors (after a legal purchase). Instead they are taking up much needed space that I could be using for something that does sell.

Something with a cover that is a wee bit less explicit (and seriously, get that man to a hospital because it looks like he had a run in with a woman named Lorena).

And I’m not being Miss Censorship, all hail Big Brother, over here. I’m being a business woman who knows my clients, and they aren’t buying. This is pure book whore speaking.

At my old store, the one in the ‘burbs, your company is doing great. Fantastic. You’ve got two whole bays devoted to your books, face-outs galore. In the Midwest stores I hear that they’ve practically built an alter in your name. I know that my local suburban store has woman pounding on the doors for the Tuesday new releases. Those are the people who take home multiply copies in their opaque white bags, so they can read each page at home at their leisure.

My store? Nary a demand from the customers. Why?

I’ve explained. It’s the covers.

My store is in an urban area, boxed in by the transit station. I’ve got trains running East and West and buses running North and South. I’ve got the courthouse three blocks away. I’m surrounded by office buildings. I sell books to people who need something for their lunch break, the train, the bus, or the jury pool. The book is there to help them get home, not as something that necessitates privacy.

This is not something a woman wants to be waving around our in public.

The first time one of your books shocked even me it was due to the unexpected. It came in a box marked inter-company transfer from another store. It was early in the morning, and I was still half asleep when I opened the box to find this.



I screamed just a little, followed it with a quick “Oh-my-God-what-the-fuck?”, and dropped the book back in the box. While I considered the fact that I might have to file a sexual harassment suit against the male manager that had sent them over, my boss came running up to see what was wrong.

“Did you cut yourself?”

“No. Look!” I pointed to the box. Silly woman reached right in and pulled the book out completely.

“Oh my God!” She dropped it too. “You just don’t expect to see that first thing in the morning.”

“Not unless you went to sleep with it the night before.”

Another coworker arrived, male, and wanted to know what we were staring at. We told him that it might constitute sexual harassment if we showed him. He waved all legal claims.

His thoughts upon viewing?

“Where’s the hair? There’s absolutely no hair? Was he born that way or does he shave his balls with that sword? Talk about hard to maneuver.”

“I think that the sword it supposed to signify something,” I told him.

“What? That he’s compensating for something?”

His guess was as good as any, only the cover artist knows for sure, and they’ll never tell.

Whatever the reason for the big sword or the cover at all, Jaid, I currently can’t get your product to move. Maybe that will change. Maybe people will loosen up when it comes to the covers of their reading material. Maybe this new audio book deal you’ve got going will work out well, so people can listen to their reading choices without the advertisement of the cover. Of course, having someone overhear what you’re listening to on the bus could bring about a whole new set of problems, but after the books leave my store they’re not my problem.

Just refrain from putting this on your audio book cover and we’ll all be fine (and perhaps more profitable). *

*Apologies if this does not live up to former entries, this knitting project will be the death of me.

Battling Blond Authorettes Brainsucking America

So first Paris Hilton came out with a book, Confessions of an Heiress, which gave the reading public such jewels as rule number two:

HAVE A GREAT NAME. If you are going to be an heiress, you can't have a normalname, unless you're British. All British people have plain names, and that works pretty well over there. But in America, you've got to have a name that stands out. I love my name. Paris is my favorite city. And Paris without the P is "heiress," isn't it? In sixth grade, people would make fun of me and call me "France" or "London." Well, I'm going to name my own daughter Paris! An heiress needs to have a glamorous — or a really cute — name. My sister Nicky's name is cute. An heiress's dog also needs to have a cute name. My teacup Chihuahua is named Tinkerbell, so she acts like a Tinkerbell. If you have a cute name, you will act cute. If you have a glam name, you will act glam. It's that simple. Future moms should make a note of that.

We renamed the book, Confessions of an Airhead, and tried to get over the pink whiplash caused by the cover.

Then Nicole Richie, former best friend turned nemesis of Paris, wrote her own book, The Truth About Diamonds (ohmigod, is that like a total slam against Paris? ‘Cause the bitch so had it comin’) whose literary brilliance could not be denied:

The nightclubs of L.A. are like soap operas, except they're not Days of Our Lives; they're more like Passions -- crazy stuff happens, and no one bats a fake eyelash. There's always some bizarre drama that plays out every night, and everyone in the cast -- I mean, everyone -- is great looking, stoned, and/or drunk. It's like a traveling freak show that stars the youngest and hottest in
Hollywood. It's about fun, and sex, and pseudo-danger.

Chloe Parker was practically born in a club. It's like she spontaneously generated one night in 1981 during a fourteen-minute remix. As a child, she could dance before she could walk and sing before she could talk. Dressed in a tie-dyed onesie and a tutu, her head a tangle of golden curls, Chloe was destined to haunt the clubs of her adoptive city as soon as humanly possible.

As my coworker, who fully admits her obsession with Nicole Richie, said, “I thought she would have a ghost writer or something, but why would you pay someone to write that badly?”

To one-up the ambitious blond that is your former BFF by being able to claim that you write fiction—albeit fiction so closely based on your real life that the only thing that makes it fictional is the whitewashing—perhaps?

Perhaps, but oh bobble-headed one have you not learned that even though she’s been killed on film to the celebrating cries of millions of Americans, she’s a hard one to keep down.

And lo and behold a few days later Paris Hilton’s “highly anticipated” follow-up arrived: Your Heiress Diary: Confess it all to me. Yes, now you can tell Paris Hilton all your secrets and they’ll be perfectly safe (unless her wireless phone gets hacked, then all bets are off so don’t go making any snarky comments about Jessica Simpson). You can let Paris guide you through your life’s foibles while learning what’s in an heiress’s diary!

Oh the excitement! It’s killing me.

I bet it’s killing Nicole Richie, too. Especially since someone seems to have placed both books right next to each other on a display shelf.

Oops.

I would wonder about the ethics about this, but I’m too busy laughing.

Just when you thought it was safe to go into my store: Catfights!

There was almost a fistfight in our calendar store yesterday.

I used to think that bookstores, like libraries, were quiet places to work. This was before I started working at one. I soon learned that there are people who not only don’t respect those around them, but they also view the bookseller as the lowest common denominator.

In fact, I don’t think I ever had anyone look at me like I was dirt before I started working retail. Something to ponder: when did trying to sell someone something make me the enemy?

Somehow, despite six years working in a bookstore, I still tended to view the calendar store with my old beliefs. Possibly because it’s so boring up there sometimes we let our workers take up books, but who could say for sure. Not I. So learning that there was a group of women screaming at each other? Not expected at all.

I really don’t know how it would have gone if another employee had been up there. At the time, it was my only male employee: an ex-Hawaiian surfer, vegan, lover of all things, Zen twenty-something. He just finished reading Cunt because he wanted to have a fuller understanding of the problems facing women. He’s now reading a fertility book because if he doesn’t want his girlfriend to “sully her body with chemical birth control” he needs to “understand what she’s up against.”

I remember being so earnest about stuff once upon a time instead of all jaded and cynical. What happened? Where did I go wro—oh wait, Book whore. That’s right. Moving on to the almost fistfight.

So Zen and the Art of Surf Board Maintenance calls down to ask me how to do a mall employee sale, and as I’m walking him through the steps I hear yelling in the background. Now yelling for yelling sake is not that uncommon. Often you’ll have parents yelling at kids or each other, or people yelling to others out in the mall and it just comes in the door. I asked him if everything was all right and he said yes, and that he had a handle on this employee sale thing, and hung up.

Five minutes later a girl from Mimi Maternity shows up in my store with a day planner. “You’re guy from upstairs said that I should just come down to the bookstore and buy this from you.”

“You bought the planner from upstairs?” The cold meds have made me a little slow as of late, so I think that my tone gave her the wrong idea.

“Oh, yes. He said it was okay. I left him my information and everything so he would know that I wasn’t trying to steal it, but then the lady lunged across the counter—”

“Wait a minutes, someone lunged across the counter?”

“Yes, for a second time, and…”

At this point I just kind of tuned her out. I know she was still talking, but it didn’t matter. Looking to the coworker who was standing equally wide-eyed next to me, I said, “Call the calendar store and see if he needs help…or security.”

What went down was this—and these are in his words, so it was like pulling teeth trying to get actual quotes (which I didn’t) as well as examples of what was said (which I also didn’t) or anything that didn’t sound so watered down that your seventy year old grandpa would say it in front of you when you were five—apparently the coworker was working the store, making jokes with a group of forty-year-old ladies and generally being congenial. This group of ladies took that as a sign that they could over-run the store and do anything they wanted including going behind the counter.

Knowing the coworker, I doubted he cared.

Enter Mimi Maternity girl who wants to buy her planner. As the coworker goes to ring her up (and call me) the group of calendar store ladies came whisking back behind the counter to grab a piece of paper to use as a measurement for a calendar. This piece of paper was sitting on a stack of calendars on the back counter.

This piece of paper had importance few were aware of.

Just as one of the ladies picks up the paper, another woman who was in her seventies comes diving across the counter “totally blindsiding all of us,” the coworker reports. “She must have been lurking around the bookstore for awhile, but I’d never seen her.”

That piece of paper was the hold slip for her stack of calendars back there and the hell she was going to let them use it when it signified that those calendars were hers.

“Harsh words were exchanged,” the coworker related as we were getting ready to leave last night.

“Harsh words?” Another coworker laughed. “All you can say is harsh words?”

“Hey, I kept them from coming to blows, but it was close.”

Yep, he actually said “coming to blows.” Seventy-year-old to a five-year-old, I’m telling you.

“So then what happened?” third coworker asked.

“Well the group of ladies bought stuff, basically to spite the older lady and left, but she stuck around and tried to make a joke out of it. I think she was pretty embarrassed, but by the end she just seemed crazy.”

“Crazy how?”

“Well first she asks who was in charge up there and when I said me she said, ‘No, you’re not,’ and then kept on like she hadn’t insulted me, and then she started asking how long her calendars were held until. [Other coworker] had written on the slip ‘hold until end of day’ which I showed the lady and she started going off on until the end of what day?”

“The day. Today. There are only one day holds up there.”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “I know that, and that’s what I told her. So she starts saying how that’s not written on the slip and she doesn’t see that posted anywhere, so I wrote today late in large letters under her name. She finally left then.”

Other coworker: “Did she come back?”

“I was already to close at 8:30 when I saw her circling the second level. She circle, sit down, circle again and then sit down. I was so freaked that she would show up two minutes to close, but she didn’t.”

Big sigh of relief from all of us.

So there you go: we almost had a fistfight in the calendar store. I can now add that to my list of stories which includes the time a woman threw a Robert Jordan paperback at my head, another woman screamed at my coworker that he didn’t have the intelligence to work in my store, and some old guy tried to intimidate me into giving him a discount he wasn’t eligible for by leaning over the counter and getting in my face.

Oh retail, how I love thee. Let me count the ways…

Call Your Mutha

The other night I called my mother while waiting for the train, interrupting her Lost viewing time, to complain about my various ailments. “And my throat hurts, and my ears hurt, and my—”

“Have you been Vicksing your chest at night?”

“Um, well, no.”

“Have you been taking your Airborne? You know handling all that dirty money means that you should be taking Airborne the moment you start to feel sick and not waiting.”

“Yeah, Mom, I know, but—”

“But you haven’t been doing it, have you?”

“Um…”

“You haven’t been taking it.” Long sigh. The disappointment. Oh, the disappointment, which was not what I was going for at all. I was going for sick kid who has a dirty apartment and whose house elves or brownies or whatever they are left nothing but a note saying something about not doing windows and dusting. Oh, the guilt on my part.

Okay, she wasn’t disappointed with me at all. She knows the stuff tastes nasty, but I’m trying to go somewhere with this guilt thing because lately I have been feeling guilty.

Really guilty.

We have no Jewish calendars up in our calendar store, you see.

We’ve put in for them, requesting a shipment each week for the last three months, but we’ve got nothing.

And when your store is in the 20 block proximity of three synagogues, you hear about it. First it was just a well placed, “So when are your Jewish calendars coming in?”

Perfectly reasonable.

Then it was, “You know, all our calendars are going to run out soon, right?”

We made some calls, talked to some people. Still nothing.

“What do you mean you don’t have that calendar? Mine just ran out! Why no Jewish calendars when you’ve got one of everything else around here?”

Yep, the conspiracy theory came next. Not long after we had a woman accuse us of being antimilitary because we didn’t have a Marine calendar, so the poor girl up at the store was already on edge. To have yet another woman yelling at her about being part of the anti-Jewish conspiracy was almost too much. Thankfully she was never down stairs when we were accused of being anti-Republican, so we haven’t lost her yet.

But oh does she feel guilty.

Now all we hear are long sighs. We get the disappointed glances. The customer who opens her mouth to say something, then stops, shakes her head, and walks away.

So to assuage everyone’s guilt, especially my own because we still don’t have those calendars and by the time we do get them no one will want them. Here are a few books to check out. If only to get a better handle on Yiddish.

Born to Kvetch by Michael Wax ($24.95)

I say:

Check out this book. Sure the kid on the front looks like a little rascal, but the book itself is a funny exploration of Yiddish words and origins. Nothing is sacred.

Publisher’s Weekly says:

Starred Review. Fortunately, despite its title and cover photo, this is not a kitschy book about a folksy language spoken by quaint, elderly Jews. It is, rather, an earthy romp through the lingua franca of Jews, which has roots reaching back to the Hebrew Bible and which continues to thrive in 21st-century America. Canadian professor, translator and performer Wex has an academic's breadth of knowledge, and while he doesn't ignore your bubbe's tsimmes, he gives equal time to the semantic nuances of putz, schmuck, shlong and shvants. Wex organizes his material around broad, idiosyncratic categories, but like the authors of the Talmud (the source for a large number of Yiddish idioms), he strays irrepressibly beyond the confines of any given topic. His lively wit roams freely, and Rabbi Akiva and Sholem Aleichem collide happily with Chaucer, Elvis and Robert Petrie. Academics, and others, will be disappointed at the lack of source notes, and a few errors have crept in (the fifth day of Sukkot is not Hoshana Rabba, for instance). Overall, however, this treasure trove of linguistics, sociology, history and folklore offers a fascinating look at how, through the centuries, a unique and enduring language has reflected an equally unique and enduring culture. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz. Translated by Nicholas de Lange. ($26.00)

I say:

I’m usually against translations, but de Lange does an excellent job of capturing what makes Oz an amazing writer. This tale of his life and what it was like to be a small child in newly formed Israel is not to be missed.

Publisher’s Weekly says:

Starred Review. This memoir/family history brims over with riches: metaphors and poetry, drama and comedy, failure and success, unhappy marriages and a wealth of idiosyncratic characters. Some are lions of the Zionist movement—David Ben-Gurion (before whom a young Oz made a terrifying command appearance), novelist S.Y. Agnon, poet Saul Tchernikhovsky—others just neighbors and family friends, all painted lovingly and with humor. Though set mostly during the author's childhood in Jerusalem of the 1940s and '50s, the tale is epic in scope, following his ancestors back to Odessa and to Rovno in 19th-century Ukraine, and describing the anti-Semitism and Zionist passions that drove them with their families to Palestine in the early 1930s. In a rough, dusty, lower-middle-class suburb of Jerusalem, both of Oz's parents found mainly disappointment: his father, a scholar, failed to attain the academic distinction of his uncle, the noted historian Joseph Klausner. Oz's beautiful, tender mother, after a long depresson, committed suicide when Oz (born in 1939) was 12. By the age of 14, Oz was ready to flee his book-crammed, dreary, claustrophobic flat for the freedom and outdoor life of Kibbutz Hulda. Oz's personal trajectory is set against the background of an embattled Palestine during WWII, the jubilation after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine and create a Jewish state, the violence and deprivations of Israel's war of independence and the months-long Arab siege of Jerusalem. This is a powerful, nimbly constructed saga of a man, a family and a nation forged in the crucible of a difficult, painful history. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

And because we need to have something a little off beat and fun:

Yiddish with Dick and Jane by Ellis Weiner and Barbara Davilman. ($14.95)

I say:

We laughed so hard reading this that customers bought it just to see what the commotion was about. The boss lived in South Florida for years so whenever we “didn’t get it” she would explain, but there is also a lovely glossary of terms in the back. I recently sold this to a man who planned on giving it to a couple he knew who’d just had a baby. So the baby could “Start learning early,” he said. Somehow I think the parents will get more enjoyment out of it, but whatever. The book has taught me that I must “Schmooze, Dick, schmooze!”

Publisher’s Weekly says:

Dick and Jane are all grown up, and they're living in the real world-and it's full of tsuris (troubles). That's the premise of this hilarious little book, which functions both as a humorous tale and a genuine guide to a language with a sentiment and world view all its own. Jane is married to Bob and has two perfect children. Dick schmoozes with business people over golf: "Schmooze, Dick. Schmooze...." Their sister, Sally, who teaches a course in "Transgressive Feminist Ceramics," can see that life is not perfect, even though dear Dick and Jane cannot. Their mother has a stroke ("Oy vey, Jane," says Dick when he learns the news). Bob's best friend's wife is having an affair because the best friend himself is gay ("'Tom is more than gay, Sally,' says Dick. 'He is overjoyed.'... 'Oy Gotenyu oh, God help us,' sighs Sally.") And purse dealers take advantage of the gullible. The brief story is priceless, but the equally funny glossary is a great reference to which readers can return any time they need the right Yiddish word-or whenever they need to determine whether the jerk they just saw is a putz, a schmo or a schmuck.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Hmmm, still feeling guilty. Perhaps I’ll call mom and apologize for maligning her to the internet. You should too.

Call your mother, that is, not mine.

I’ve gotta lay off the cold meds.

Count the books in my bookstore...and other lessons from the wise master.

I’ve got a cold and a headache (and I’ve exhausted all my other attempts at intelligence over at Smart Bitches), so instead doing the book suggestion hidden within a long story I’ll just relate a short story.

Coworker who works exclusively in our calendar store came into work the other day and found the boss and I working in the back. He immediately pulled off his hoodie and turned around. “Is this shirt okay?”

We looked up from our paperwork to see in big block letters across his back “Consumerism Kills.”

“You better leave your sweatshirt on while you’re up there,” the boss answered in a very diplomatic tone. I don’t know how she does it.

After he left I turned to her. “How could he ever think that’s okay? Didn’t his mother teach him that if you have to ask that question the answer is probably “no”?”

The Boss laughed. “I once had to send a guy home to change at my old store for wearing a shirt that said “Eat the Rich”. He was so mad. Kept saying “it’s just a t-shirt!””

“Just a t-shirt. Right. Just like they’re just customers. Customers that can go spend their money somewhere else! Am I the only one living paycheck to paycheck?”

“Ah young one,” my boss said, adopting the tone of a badly dubbed martial arts film, “you have lost the art of not caring, essential to one your age, and replaced it with the art of practicality. You are wise beyond your years, but burdened by your art.”

“So I should count the pebbles in your hand or something?”

“And check every once in awhile to make sure [the coworker] keeps his sweatshirt on. The last thing we need is an irate customer.”

“Yes, Sensei.”



Ahhhh, talking like bad kung fu movies, like poorly planned t-shirts, a staple in bookstore culture. Also a sign of acute exhaustion tempered with too much caffeine.

Book Sense 101: Wishful Thinking or “Of course this is not out in paperback yet! Gawd!"

As a bookseller I get asked a lot of questions. A lot of questions.

“When’s the next Patterson book going to be out?”

“Do you have a date for the next Harry Potter?”

“What do you mean you don’t have it in stock?”

“I have to walk a block to get this book?”

Most of the questions are reasonable (we all want our favorite author to produce now, now, NOW), some are plaintive (it’s just one frickin’ block people and we’re a small store, what do you expect?), but I find there’s one question that comes up more often than all the rest:

“Is this out in paperback yet?”

Inevitably when this is asked the customer is holding up a book that just came out. I had people asking me for the paperback version of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on the day of its release!

Just in case you’re wondering the answer to that is a big ol’ fat NO.

Of course it’s not in paperback yet; it just came out! Doesn’t everyone know this?

Apparently not, so in the interest of educating the public and ridding this question from your lexicon, I hereby call to order the first class of Book Sense 101, an ongoing series in which I teach you how not to piss off your local bookseller.

Everyone ready?

Okay. Shut up, sit down, and pull out your notebooks. There will be a quiz after this lecture and if I ever catch you asking a bookseller this question during the first week of a book’s release again it will be demerits all around.

Got your pencils, pens, gel rollers, or laptops ready?

Good.

Here’s the lowdown. It usually takes eight to twelve months for a book to make the transition from hardback to paperback (whether that paperback is a mass market or a trade is up to whoever owns the printing rights). The reason for this is to let public anticipation drive sales for the hardback and for the hardback’s reviews and public interest to drive sales for the paperback.

It used to be that reviewers would only review hardbacks—it was prestige thing—so if you wanted your novel or nonfiction work reviewed by the New York Times, etc, publishing in hardback was your only option. At the time, due to the cost of Smythe bindings (when a book is bound together using thread instead of glue. It’s incredibly durable, and the preferred binding for any book meant to lie flat) as well as additional costs incurred by deckled edges and gilt, hardbound book production produced little to no profit for the publisher. The sales and the reviews of the book were all to drive sales of the paperback, which, with its lower production costs, had a higher profit margin. The success of well-reviewed and bestselling hardback book meant a better chance of the company selling off subsidiary rights (movie, play, international rights) to regain lost revenue.

Nowadays publishing companies don’t sink as much money into book production and the creation of a quality, long lasting hardbacks. The book is bound with glue, not sown, the cover is created from cardboard and not covered with cloth (the cover is not to be confused with the dust jacket—the paper with the title and picture on it that protects the book), gilt and embossing are rarely used, and page paper quality itself is much lower (which is why you may have hardbacks that have yellowed pages).* This doesn’t mean that the cost the consumer pays has gone down at all, simply that the publishers have found a way to turn a profit on a hardback.

And since they are now turning a profit, there is no reason to put out the paperback sooner.

The eight to twelve month rule is a pretty hard and fast rule that falls more in the twelve month range than the eight most of the time. Sometimes a book will take longer to come out (Harry Potter hardbacks have been traditionally released in the summer, but the paperbacks aren’t released until around November: fifteen to sixteen months after the original release), but rarely does the paperback release appear before the eighth month mark. The instances where the paperback version was released early usually can be traced to marketing (both Franken and Moore’s publishing companies released their books to paperback early to coincide with the election in 2004), or to a deal/experiment with the author (Nora Roberts has negotiated a quick turn around—between four to six months—for some of her J.D. Robb books, and Mary Janice Davidson’s last in hardback will be out in paperback next month I believe).

So, armed with this knowledge, next time you are in a bookstore and you see a hardbound title you’ve never seen before by your favorite, Oh-My-God-I-Could-Just-Have-His-Or-Her-Babies author stop and look at the copyright page. If it just gives a year but no date, saunter up to your nearest bookseller and ask when it was released.

When it was released people, not when the paperback is going to be out!!

Your bookseller will either tell you the date off the top of their head while trying not to look pained because “it totally came out yesterday, you idiot, haven’t you been reading the paper?” or they will go check their almighty computer. If the date is before the eight month mark then you can make the reasonable assumption that it is not out in paperback yet. Also booksellers rarely, if ever, leave the hardback on the shelf after the paperback has been released because the demand for the hardback becomes almost non-existant.

At this point it is perfectly acceptable to say, “So I’ve got X (fill in the blank with however many months your excellent subtraction skills have deduced for you) months ‘til this is out in paperback, huh?”

The bookseller will either respond, or if knowledgeable, reveal whether or not the book is one of the exception books.

It is not acceptable to say to the bookseller, “Gee, guess this is not out in paperback then, huh?” followed by a big wink and a cheesy grin because chances are you are going to really weird that poor person out. She or he will be telling tales about you in the backroom for months.

“And then he winked at me! Winked! Like this was a total aside to the audience in a movie, and I barely stopped myself from saying, ‘No shit, asshole!’ Hello!”

Trust me; you don’t want to be backroom fodder. Booksellers are merciless. Being asked the same question over and over again five million times will make even the nicest person turn.

So to recap:

It’s an eight to twelve month turn over to paperback unless otherwise specified.

The otherwise specified is usually caused by a big event (like an election), or by a deal/experiment by the author (the best place to find out about these things is directly from the publisher or the author).

Don’t try to be cute, it’s only annoying and you will be made fun of For-Ev-Er (can you hear that kid from the Sandlot in your head? Because you should). For-Ev-Er, people.

You can only be cute if you are drop-dead gorgeous because yes, we do judge books by their covers, but that’s a lesson for another day.

Class dismissed!


*Those of you who’ve invested in the hardback Harry Potter books as part of your collection will soon be discovering this. Scholastic, in an effort to boost profit for their shareholders and cut costs, produced some of the cheapest hardbacks known to man. Seriously. I would say that their not worth the paper their printed on, but their printed on really cheap paper, so let me instead state that their not worth the paper your money is printed on.

And that’s sad.

Holiday Ideas #1: Make a difference, save a bunny

They’re protesting bombs, war, and fur at the train stop up from my mall. Combine that with the fact that it was Veteran’s Day on Friday to honor those who’ve fought for this country, and I was struck by the need to make that this entries theme.

Fair warning: I’m me, so I’m going to have to totally twist this and make it both book related and commercialistic, but hey, you get good Christmas present ideas.

And Christmas ideas are where it’s at, yo. Or should that be ho…as in ho, ho, ho? Eh, whatever.

Now, I know there are those who like to give money in another’s name as a gift—make a donation to save an endangered species, the environment, or feed starving children. All well and good and altruistic even if it does have a whiff of buying your way into heaven for some, but let’s face it, the person you’re buying for could also do this for themselves. They could also just as easily save an ocean, learn to recycle, or write a soldier (in honor of Veteran’s Day and all). Besides how does this support our materialistic, capitalistic society…and more importantly: how does this sell books.

You’re right, it doesn’t. Luckily I have an alternative. Yep, I have the perfect gift for that hard to buy for, twisted soul who used to sit under the hot sun and hold a magnifying glass over an ant hill. Finally, the perfect gift to combine your altruistic motives, need to gift give, and solution to his/her black humor needs all at once!

All you have to do is buy Save Toby!

Here’s what Brian and James, the two authors of Save Toby, have to say about why they wrote their book:

(from the back cover)

Congratulations on your purchase of Save Toby! You have just contributed in an important way to the survival of the greatest bunny of all time and maybe even the greatest in all the animal kingdom, or phyla. Every book counts toward the goal of 100,000 sold (net!) that will save Toby’s life. You are also contributing in an important way to the book publishing industry, which might be in even more trouble than Toby! But before Toby’s life depended on selling 100,000 copies of a book, his life was ransomed on the Internet for $50,000. That didn’t work out so well, but not because people didn’t want to save him. You see, certain grouchy people petitioned PayPal, saying mean things like, “You can’t let this crime against God and humanity continue.” Then the nice, caring people who wanted to save Toby couldn’t donate because the Save Toby! account was frozen. The grouches almost prevented Toby from getting saved. But then we got another idea--there’s no way PayPal can freeze a book! It’s one last chance to save Toby, and it’s so crazy it might work. But if it doesn’t Toby will be butchered and eaten; so maybe you should pick up two or three copies?

Hey, and PayPal rejecting them? Isn’t that against free speech? Wouldn’t that mean that by buying this book you would be protecting the first amendment?

Wow, talk about a Christmas gift that does it all: supports the economy (‘cause you’re buying it), fights for free speech, fulfills someone else’s sick sense of humor, and saves a bunny from a horrible fate.

Not to mention that it celebrates that good ol’ American ingenuity.

So make with the bunny savin’ already. Do not deny this face…or its possible fate.

Only you have the power to save Toby!

“It’s just suburban porn!”

It’s Smart Bitches Day, and an old entry of Beth’s got me thinking about underwear.

Do you ever have those moments where you’re just walking along, minding your own business, and you overhear or see something so out of the ordinary or just plain funny that you must immediately share it with everyone from work to your friends to your third cousin twice removed?

I’m not talking about moments like when some chick who’s protesting something (God knows what) decides it’s too cold outside to protest in the nude and instead streaks through your mall. That’s too obvious. I’m talking instead about those times when you hear or see something and the person saying or doing it seems so out of character or it's so unexpected that you get that little gurgle laugh in the back of your throat that somehow ends in a snort. You know what I’m talking about, right? In that moment you are completely frozen by the randomness of human nature and the natural absurdity of life and you think to yourself, “They couldn’t even make this stuff up.”

Early this year as I was fighting my way through the mall crowd I walked by an older couple coming the opposite direction. They were in their sixties, possibly older, bundled up in their jackets and hats (it was not yet spring) as they strolled by the window displays. As we came upon each other at the Victoria’s Secret, I watched her husband’s head turn to take in the draped bras and panties in the window. The wife was not as appreciative of the display.

“Oh Bob,” she said with disgust, “that’s just suburban porn!”

I almost spayed my macchiato on the person in front of me.

Suburban Porn? Excuse me?

Okay, now I too had a little brother who would run off with the Victoria’s Secret magazine before my mom or I got to browse through it. And yeah, their current window display is reminiscent of a Las Vegas cat house (I mean, the full mannequins don’t look so hot in the low rise satin bikinis when they have their JOINTS showing and don’t even get me started on the thongs!), but at the time it was a cute display of their bikini-cut cotton underroos and such. Nothing scandalous at all. It was the antithesis of scandal.

For the love of all that is undergarment, it was cotton!

Not that there is anything wrong with cotton. I love the stuff. And it’s not that it can’t be sexy…

Or can it? I mean, c’mon, how many romance novels do you read where the heroine is all “unawakened,” and the author chooses to illustrate this through her large collection of plain white cotton panties and bras. There is no acknowledgment that some comfortable things can be sexy, or that it is really damn hard to find a plain white cotton bra that is completely unadorned that isn’t also a training bra!!!! Not to mention the fact that most of these characters are in their early to late twenties which means they grew up with Victoria’s Secret as a constant in most malls. Hell, Vickie’s even has a brand aimed directly at teens and preteens now called “Pink” as part of their attempt to become completely brand identified.

Yet somehow, someway, these innocent and pure heroines avoided ever going into a Vickie’s their entire life and instead continue to buy the Hanes Her Way three pack because that’s what Mom’s been getting them for years! As the author has the character step into her granny underwear and bind herself into the straight-jacket like white bra, does the thought even occur that though Missy Girl here is sweet and proper, she still might want to get herself something fun to wear?

Half the joy of cute underwear is that you know you are wearing it and others don’t! It’s a self-esteem thing, a little motivator, and a safety thing for in case you are in an accident and the paramedic who is hot, hot, HOT has to rip off your clothing for some reason to save your life!

Your mother always told you not to leave the house without clean underwear.

Okay so that last one about the paramedic is more outwardly focused, but the self-esteem, the secret feeling, is all about you.

A white bra does not purity make, in fact, if Vickie’s has its way, the white bra will become non-existent. That’s right, people, Vickie’s is preaching the way of the anti-white bra. I went in to get a bra fitting and some new bras with a friend who used to work for the company. Acting as my personal bra fitter, she asked me what I was looking for. “I don’t know, I need a new white one, and a black one, and—”

“You don’t need a white one.”

“Um, yeah, A. I do. Mine’s falling apart. I’ve been relying on shelf bra tank tops. What else am I going to wear under light colored shirts?”

“Always having a white bra on hand was your mother’s advice. With all the strap baring shirts and tanks these days what you need is a skin toned beige bra instead.”

I guess Miss Manners or someone had a say in this. Who knew?

Not I. Certainly not those plain white bra and undies wearing heroines! Perhaps along with someone to help them with the action scenes and crime facts, romance writers should also have a undergarment consultant. The woman wouldn’t have to work for Victoria’s Secret. Someone from Nordstroms or the Bon or JC Penny’s would do just as well. I would just like to one day open up a romance novel where the heroine goes to her drawer and pulls out psychedelic cotton undies with colorful swirls, little boy cut shorts in bright red, or soft pink satin bikinis. The lack of white granny panties wouldn’t make her any less virginal but it would go a long way to showing us that she’s got a sense of humor, or style, or taste all of her own.

Prove that she’s not just vanilla, but vanilla with sprinkles.

And please, when trying to show an adventurous heroine, or one with an underlying audacious side, please get over the crutch of using a thong. It’s one thing to wear it under a dress if you don’t want lines (although there are other options out there), but quit trying to get us to believe that the heroine absolutely loooooves them, and finds them the most comfortable thing in the world.

That’s just lying to your reader.

Nobody loves them (except maybe the men who get to see them, and even then a caring guy has got to realize that if it looks uncomfortable, it probably is uncomfortable, or so I would like to believe), not really. They are a necessary evil, and about as far from comfortable as you can get outside giving yourself a wedgie, especially if you have this person working a movement intensive job all day.

Don’t even get me to try and believe that after some headboard-knocking, so-you-just-got-back-from-your-tour-of-duty, multi-orgasmic sex all night long your heroine is going to blissfully slide on her thong and go about her business without some, “Gee, that chafes,” or “Good frickin’ Lord, I think I’ll just go without; breezy is better than squeezy” thoughts. Unless it’s to go home to her soft cotton granny underroos she keeps just for that occasion because the area down there got a real workout and granny underroos in that case are the equivalent of a warm, comforting, non-chafing blanket. They do not judge, they do not bind, they just accept and cover.

So I guess what I’m suggesting, romance authors—and yeah, I know you’re all dying to hear my opinion—is a change up. Rid your virginal heroines of their white fetish and allow them to embrace color and style. And as for your fast girls in your hot novels, let them have their thongs, but let them also adopt the granny undies from their pure counterparts so they have something to wear during the inevitable “Big Misunderstanding.”

Oh, and hie thee to an undergarment specialist, pronto. Not only can they give you some options when it comes to color and cut (like I said, there are thong alternatives, you could start a trend), but they can also fit you for your own beige bra.

Eighty percent of American woman are wearing the wrong size anyway, so consider this entry my public service announcement.

My Arch-Nemesis is the Mysterious Blue Book

The first time it happened, I thought they were joking.

“I’m looking for a book,” the customer said.

“Do you have the title, or author, or ISBN?” I asked, ready to be super-computer girl.

“No.”

Ooookay. Perhaps not so super-computer girl.

“But I know it’s blue.”

Yes. Blue. “Just blue?”

“Do you have it?”

No other distinguishing characteristics. Nothing but the basic color and a belief that out of the millions of books in my store my psychic mind reading abilities will allow me to find the exact book she was looking for.

Just a hint, “Well, thank goodness we color-coded the store!” is not an appropriate response.

Which I did NOT say out loud to the first customer, or even the second. I think it was the forth or fifth person who asked for a blue book that got that response.

This did not happen in the same day. They were not all looking for the same book—in fact, I’ve never had a repeat—and they were not asking for Harry Potter. One woman wanted Lucky, another Bel Canto. The gentleman and his wife were looking for a book by Sylvia Brown. Another man wanted a business book we never found. All of the books were different, unrelated, but they shared one common theme: they were blue.

And that’s all the customer could remember.

Why blue? Of all the things to latch onto, I understand why color might be a good indicator, but what is it about blue that made it the thing—the only thing—the my customers could remember?

According to About Psychology blue is the most favorite color for American consumers. Although (as a color) it represents “solitude, sadness, [and] depression” it is also associated with “wisdom, trust, [and] loyalty.” Apparently that wisdom, trust, and loyalty makes us want to consume!

Yum, books good. Lots of fiber. Er, I mean, consume as in buying, not as in eating, because About Psychology warns that “blue-colored food is repulsive to humans because when our ancestors searched for food, they learned to avoid toxic or spoiled objects, which were often blue, black, or purple. During experiments, when participants were served with food dyed blue, they lost appetite.” *

(Please note that it would probably not be a good idea to market your edible book in a blue color. You have been warned.)

Blue also has the power to make us relax (but not our throats) while becoming more productive. Perhaps this combination of productivity, relaxation, and loyalty (with just a dash of dedication) comes across in the covers of these mysterious blue books. This could be why the customer remembers the feeling the color evokes even after they’ve forgotten what it was about or why they wanted to read it.

Subconsciously they’re thinking: Why it’s relaxing, yet productive! Loyal and true. This book won’t let me down, but make me a better person!

If the subconscious spoke in full sentences (fine, partial. It’s my style people) and liked exclamation marks.

Maybe we should color code our store, or at least have a function on our computer like this site. How amazing would it be if I could just hit a button and come up with a list of blue books we could work from instead of relying on my own (nonexistent) memory and ability to read minds?

Of course, for it to work it would have to be inputted correctly, and there we run into a problem. I’m sure the data services people would start abbreviating, and I’d only get a partial list when I hit the blue button because the rest would be filed under BL, or BLU, or the word in binary (don’t make me do the 0s and 1s, please don’t), and the customer would stand there and look at me like I’m an idiot because I couldn’t magically produce the book they want RIGHT THAT MOMENT, and c’mon, you have a computer how hard can it be to find what they want!?

Maybe I should just focus on not laughing hysterically** when they ask, “I’m looking for a book…it’s blue. Do you have it?”

* * * * * *

*It would be interesting to see the stats on how the blue M&M is doing. Does it back up About Psychology’s claims or are they just another unaccredited internet site?

**Especially when I fall back on their bad habits and find myself thinking, “I can’t remember what Clay Aiken bought, but it was blue,” in response to a question posed before. For the record the book was People of Sparks (he also bought City of Embers), and I’m a big old nerd because it bothered me enough (the it being not remember the book except for the color, not the not remembering what he actually bought) to go look in the section.

I Am a Book Whore: Confessions of a Sleep-Deprived Bookseller

I just proposed to my pizza delivery guy. This is the third time in the last two weeks. This is also the third new pizza guy. I’m starting to get a complex.

This is not the reason for my whoredom (the proposals, not the complex. The lack of response and the sheer confusion at the proposals is starting the complex and…I need to stop now). I don’t want y’all to get the wrong idea. My “love the one your with” attitude stems not from my morals standards (loose though they may possibly be), but from the biological reaction of my primal instincts.

Yep, it’s biological, baby. It’s in my genes. Built in Twinkie defense. Secretly I’m looking for a hunter to gather my pepperoni, black olive, mushrooms, onions and green peppers onto one fabulous bready crust (with mix of cheese and sauce to help blend the flavors). And really, deep down isn’t that what everyone is looking for?

Well, that and a cold beer.

Ahh, beer. I didn’t have the proper respect for you in college, wrote you off as not worth my time due to my introduction to your pale cousins. I apologize for my lack of attention will make up for it with haste.

If for some reason you can tell, I’m exhausted. I tend to get a wee bit flowery. I apologize in advance.

I’m not drunk though. I’m smart enough to stay away from the computer when drunk. But sleep deprivation is a way of life, and it puts me in the right mental state to relay a simple truth to you: that I am a book whore.

I come from a long line of different whores: land whores (not that it turned out well, never marry into an indigenous people and expect that they are going to keep their land when obviously there are tons of settlers and miners and what-nots that need it more, more, more), money whores (the transcontinental footrace was a great idea, running off with the entrance fees and the cash prize not so much), and most recently a plant whore.

I grew up on a nursery, you see, where my father cultivated Japanese maples, dogwoods and various weeping varieties. Japanese maples are amazing trees, available in a variety of shapes, colors and variegations. Total visual smorgasbord. The leaves would change from white to pink to red to green. They would be spotted, or stripped, or flowered. While my friends all complained that we wouldn’t build a tree house in the trees (and really, what good was a tree if it couldn’t hold a tree house?), I loved it all: running through the rows, jumping in the leaves, watching the colors change.

Very idyllic.

I became slightly possessive, however, of the trees around the house. They fit just perfect under the eves and against the windows. The looked like they belonged. Who cares if the trees in the fields would come and go, the trees around the house were ours, damn it!!! They were part of the family!

Apparently it’s okay to sell off parts of your family if they come from the Plantae kingdom. Who knew? Not I. Not until the beautiful Weeping Atlas behind the basketball hoop disappeared one day while I was at school. It mattered not that they’d come from my grandfather’s nursery (and were old enough to be my grandfather), that I’d practically memorized the limb structure and how it looked like a bent over old man, or that I’d bled for that plant every time I had to duck under the limbs to get the basketball. No, my father had sold them all (there were four, I believe) because someone had offered enough money.

I was heartbroken. Shocked! Where once there had been trees there was now just pits in the ground.

“But they were our trees,” I wailed to my mother.

“I know, baby, but someone bought them. They’re going to a good home.”

“But they were ours! How could have sold something that was ours?”

“Well, because your father is a plant whore, honey. I learned a long time ago not to get attached.”

A plant whore, by my family’s definition, is a man or woman who will sell any plant if the money is right, even if it is a family heirloom. Conversely a palmatophile is a person who collects trees (specifically the acer palmatum or Japanese maple).

Palmatophiles love my father, and I’ve learned not to get attached.

Using the above definition, a book whore would then be someone who would sell any book as long as the money was right. This would be correct except for the small fact that booksellers don’t get a commission. Not at all. Despite what some of my customers think. Because the possible commission on a book? Not enough to pay for my internet connection. Therefore the definition must be tweaked to conform with the restrictions of the job. The new (and more widely accepted) definition of a book whore is a bookseller who will say anything to get you to buy the book.

There are times where it’s my picture you’ll see next to that definition.

I am not a full-time book whore, or even a part-time one. My book whore moments are just that, moments. These moments are usually preceded by a customer who I know wants desperately to buy this one title but they can’t make up their own mind so they ask, “What do you think about it?”

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. This is a really stupid question to ask a bookseller. I know that it doesn’t seem like it. On the surface it seems completely reasonable. I mean, hello, book…bookseller. The word is part of the title!

If it were that simple, that innocent, that open of a question, it wouldn’t matter what I said or how I answered because the customer would be genuinely interested in my response. Me saying, “No, I haven’t had a chance,” would be completely accepted.

Most customers don’t want to hear that, can’t even fathom it. “But you work at a bookstore? What do you mean you haven’t read it?”

Well, let’s see. There are twenty-four hours in a day. I work eight hours shifts. That’s eight hours that I’m not being paid to read, but to shelve, to help you, to receive new product and to merchandise. Three days a week I also go take a class which is an hour long (why? I don’t know. I had this crazy concept that I might like to embrace linear thought again. Hah!). I have friends and family that I like to hang out with. I have to prepare food (the house elves don’t come and do it for me). I have a slight addiction to crime dramas. And even when I do get the time to read, in between work, school, friends, food, TV, and homework, it is not enough time to catch up on every single book out there, especially when thousands of new books are being published each year.

I will not live long enough to read every book out there, and I accept that. Often my customers, however, do not. “But this is supposed to be (fill in the blank with: a classic, a great one, a well reviewed one, an Oprah pick, the most popular book in America, a bestseller, etc)!”

At which point I fall back on the slight canned response of, “It’s on my reading list,” “I just haven’t had time,” or “I just need to finish the book I’m on.”

Even then the customer looks at me like I’ve let them down, failed at my job, because I have not read THIS BOOK, and don’t I know that it’s my job to read whatever book this customer might pick so I can tell them about it?

Because the world revolves around the customer, you know. It’s a wonder we don’t all get dizzy and fall off, what with all the different revolving it must do around each person.

Not everyone does this, and some genuinely do want to know if I’ve read it or not. For those I answer truthfully.

For those who just want a yes woman to pacify their own inability to make up their minds or to pat them on the back for making the acceptable choice? I lie like a rug, baby.

I embrace my inner book whore. I embellish the truth.

I tell them what they ultimately want to hear.

“It’s great!” really means “My other customers think it’s great!”

“It’s a very involved plot,” means, “I can’t remember what the review said at all other then something about layers.”

“There’s interesting character development,” means “there must be characters in the book, and they must develop. That’s basic plot structure.”

And on it goes. I’m not going to recommend a book if I’ve heard (overwhelmingly) that it sucks. I’m not going to lie to every customer. But if the customer only wants to hear that they are right, and I’m tired enough and aware enough that I need to make plan, an average unit per transaction, and average dollar per transaction (the things that actually do contribute to what I get paid), I’m going to tell them what they want to hear.

My book whoredom doesn’t extent to my home, my friends, my blog or my outside world. It is simply a response to the stimuli found only in the store environment as fostered by the materialistic society that we live in. People often not only want to buy stuff, but want the assurance that others will covet that which they buy.

So if I’m tired enough, irritable enough, and you’ve got that look in your eye, I’m totally willing to prostitute bookselling integrity to convince you that the book in your hands is the best of the best, the winning literature lottery ticket, and the hottest thing since the DaVinci Code rolled all into one.

And I’ll do it with a smile because this is a socially acceptable practice among booksellers. We all do it: from my blunt coworker to my boss to my president. It’s what some of the public wants to hear, otherwise they don’t want to hear anything at all (and last time I checked we’re not supposed to just walk away from a customer).

Perhaps that’s why I like this blog so much. I don’t have to embellish because I’m not being held to any goal or being paid to move product. It’s just me and my opinions (the content of which is why I’m retaining anonymity), suggestions, and wacky sleep-deprived confessions.

Which may not be exactly what you want to hear. But they are the truth (even if they do take a long, convoluted path to get there), so ask yourself, are you always truthful or above temptation?

What’s your inner whore? C’mon admit it. Don’t be shy (Unless you’re a car whore who works for a car lot because that’s kind of a given).

*******

Apologies for the mistakes and missing words (I’m sure they’re many), but the pizza and the beer have conspired to overcome my last bit of energy and it’s now bath and bed time. Thank God for Lush body products. And this link? Not a whoredom moment. Nope this is open and honest sharing, and necessity, because pizza boy obviously did not stick around to rub my feet, massage my back and make me all warm and toasty. I guess he was under the impression that his job was just to bring me my pizza. Silly boy.

Worse than Meth: Robert Jordan, Christine Feehan, and McDonald’s fries.

Hello all you friends, romance readers, Aiken-ites who may still be lurking, Food porn aficionados, and those who randomly clicked on this because of the title!

According to Beth, it’s Smart Bitches Day once again which means all you have to do to participate is bitch, post, and notify her of said bitchiness. Or in my case, tell a random story that meanders on for pages until it finally gets to some equally random point that has little or no resemblance to the topic paragraph and call it good.

I can just feel your anticipation now, and since I’m a big believer in instant gratification (it’s what makes me an American), here we go!

We have a customer at my store we call the “No Fries” guy (I just can’t seem to remember his real one, not that he would want it plastered all over the internet anyway). Quite odd, I know, but his name stems from an incident years ago. He was a frequent customer even then, and we were do for a customer service review any day, so feeling hyper-vigilant I tried to get him to finally invest in our (former) company card because he really would have saved money (I’m not just saying this, he came in enough), and the walls had ears or eyes or whatever, and I was not going to get marked off for not trying. So try, I did, and try and try with him shooting me down at every point…and then my coworker at the time got into the act.

Me: It will save you ten percent off of all your purchases here.

Him: No.

Coworker: I don’t know, he looks like a tough sell.

Me: But if you buy just fifteen books a year that’s enough to pay for the card, and you do—

Him: No.

Coworker: Oooh, close one, but not quite. You’ve got to work harder. Harder! This is not a man who will be led around by his pocketbook.

And on it went with me saying something, him saying no, and the coworker throwing out pithy comments like she didn’t have anyone to wait on. His eyes kept bouncing back and forth between us, whether waiting for me to crack up or her to shut up I’m not sure, but he seemed pretty entertained. After I’d exhausted all possible avenues trying to get him to buy the card, or at least buy a chocolate to up my units per transaction, he launched into a speech: he didn’t hate us for having to say the card schpeel—he loved us, that’s why he shopped here—but he hated the corporate mentality that forced us to hawk cards, chocolates and our souls to make the bottom line, etc. As speeches go, it wasn’t the longest I’d hear, or the most virulent (those involve politics or religion), but it stuck in my head.

The whole incident made him pretty memorable as did the fact that when he came in the next week, he didn’t even wait for me to finish taking a breath before he said, “No, I don’t want the card, another book or a chocolate, and I don’t care if you’re having another sale. Thank you.”

“Okay, but how about fries?”

“Fries?” He looked confused.

“Do you want fries with that, sir? I think that’s the only option we haven’t covered.”

He laughed. “No, no fries with that.”

And thus the name was born. It’s become a store joke, something that I hadn’t anticipated, but not that surprising since we’ve all tried to upsell him on something and probably have all received the same lecture. He’s aware of it, too. Every time one of us passes him in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section, our inner smartass will kick in, and out comes, “Any fries today, sir?” or “We’re all out of fries, sir, hope you’re not disappointed,” or just “Hey, it’s the No Fries Guy!”

His reaction has been to rub his hands together, smile, and say, “Excellent, my reputation precedes me,” or to just start laughing. Other customers look at us like everyone involved must be nuts.

The other day I walked into work, and my boss waved me over to the counter.

“The No Fries Guy was in today.”

“He get anything besides a paperback?”

“He bought a hardback this time.”

“Really?” He never does this. Never. Sometimes when he wants to throw us a curveball he’ll get a chocolate with his mass market, but never if we mention the chocolates. I was intrigued. “Which one?”

“The new Robert Jordan.”

“Oh dear.”

According to the boss, this is how it all went down.

“No fries today, right?” she asked as he approached the counter.

“No, no fries.” He placed his book on the glass.

“Wow, Robert Jordan. You’re really going all out,” the Boss commented as she went to ring it through the computer.

“Yeah, Robert Jordan.”

“You don’t sound too happy about that.” And we hate it when someone doesn’t sound too happy about a sale because nine times out of ten they will return that book and the paperwork (though now streamlined) is a pain.

“It’s just…” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want you think that this is directed at you—It’s not directed at you. Just let me get it out of my system because I’ve got to talk to someone and I’m sure you’ve heard it all before so…”

And on he went. Not about our customer service or the guidelines our company makes us adhere to. Not about whether or not he wanted fries.

No, here was this short, well-groomed man with his khakis, tucked in polo shirt, and goatee, going off about Robert Jordan.

Yep, that’s right, Robert Jordan the author of the Wheel of Time series.

No Fry Guy was incensed, enraged! The man just kept writing books and books and not finishing the series and it hadn’t been any good since the fifth book, or at least that’s when No Fry Guy stopped caring, but he kept buying them because what if he didn’t buy them and they got better or the series actually got finished, he would never know and that would be horrible so he just kept buying them in hardback because he had to know and he’d never been good at waiting but it just continued to be a train wreck, a complete and total train wreck, but he KEPT READING! KEPT BUYING, DAMN IT! It was like a sickness, a disease. No! It was like a drug! Robert Jordan was meth and he was addicted even though he knew it was wrong for him, but he just couldn’t stop! Just like those meth users who kept telling you how wonderful the drug was even as their teeth were falling out and they were scratching at the open sores on their face and…

Wow, he felt a lot better having gotten that out of his system.

The Boss kept laughing as she told me this story. It is one that we’ve heard a lot from Jordan readers, a refrain repeated with each book sold. They don’t know why they are buying it, they’re just going to be disappointed, but they can’t help themselves!

I’d consider it a lack of willpower if I didn’t have first hand experience with issue. You see, my addiction of (non)choice is Christine Feehan (see, eventually this got around to romance).

The woman drives me nuts. Nuts! Her writing style, the way the Carpathians all sound EXACTLY alike, her sentence structure, the fact that some of the series are still going! You name it; it annoys the hell out of me. That she can take a perfectly wonderful plot and get it lost somewhere in the He-Man antics of her characters just makes me—

Argh!!!!!

And yet, whenever I open a box and see her newest book sitting on top, I can’t help myself. I must read it. I must read it now! Maybe it’s gotten better. Maybe I can just enjoy. Maybe the Carpathian version of manliness will not invade the Drake sister—whoops there she goes with Oceans of Fire! Swear to God, I spent the whole book expecting the Russian agent to be all, “My family is descended from a noble line from the Carpathian Mountains, baby.”

It would have been the Perfect. Freaking. Capper!

But I must derive some enjoyment because when the newest Ghostwalker book came out, Night Game, I stayed up until 1:30 in the morning reading. Of course, I kept reading because I expected there to be sex, gratuitous sex immediately and there wasn’t so I kept reading because, hello, shocking change up in writing style. Perhaps my reading all these years hasn’t been for naught. Perhaps this was the shining moment. The payoff for carrying on.

Perhaps it wasn’t like a drug after all!

Um, yeah. No.

Of course, if she is a drug, there’s always counseling, treatment centers, and other drugs, but like the bumper sticker said:

I’m no quitter.

So all I really have to say is this:

Dear Christine,

Can I call you Christine? I feel like we’ve been through a lot together with all those wacky Carpathians, the leopard people line that I thought you’d abandoned only to have you bring the Carpathians into it, the Ghostwalkers and the Drake Sisters (whom I love despite the inherent cheesiness in anyone trying to write spells, which is not your fault because I even laugh when Nora Roberts does it). We fundamentally disagree on your writing style (is it too much to ask for you to embrace a little lyricism?), your concept of manliness, and what makes characters different from one another (and no, I don’t think changing the name is enough of a difference), but despite all of this, I’m addicted to you.

Rather backhanded in the whole compliment arena, I know, but I own all of your books and it has caused me physical pain when I’ve had to sell some off to a used bookstore.

What I’m saying is if you keep writing, I’ll keep reading—buying the first day even—so maybe you can throw me a bone or two. You know, change up those male characteristics, give me some of the Drake Sisters as opposed to the Carpathians, slice and dice that sentence structure that you’re so in love with a little to give me some sentences that flow, anything! It doesn’t have to be big. You don’t have to do it throughout a whole book (unless it’s a character issue, then it has to be consistent). It’ll just be between the two of us, our secret. And I swear, if I see it, even catch a glimpse. It’s Bellinis on me, baby!

Unless, of course, writing vampires for so long has made you partial to Bloody Marys, in which case I’ll provide the jalapeño vodka!

Because this about growth: your growth as a writer, our growth together, the growth of my addiction, and I’ve got to believe it’s happening for some reason, any reason at all, because I’m afraid that tomorrow I’m going to find myself in the romance section with my teeth falling out and my face covered in sores as I handsell your book to the unsuspecting lover of the paranormal like a dealer on the corner. “C’mon, try it! You’ll never be the same…”

And that alone makes me deserving of a little love, right? Or at least an ARC of the next Drake book. Pathetic, I know, but I never claimed I couldn’t be bought.

Sincerely,

Your alcoholic book-meth addicted bookseller

Food Porn

I make it a habit to call someone as I get off my train at night and start walking towards my apartment building. There is a small stretch where the streetlights are few and far between and the shadowy hiding places prevalent; a great area for muggers, rapists, and murderers (oh my!) to lurk while they wait to mug, rape or murder. The act of calling someone is less a defense against the dangers of the night and more a “Here’s where to find my body if something happens.” Morbid, I know.

The other night as I was walking home I decided to call the folks, and see how everything was going. Usually my mother is attentive, asking where I am exactly every fifteen seconds or so, but that night she was distracted. “I can call someone else if you want?”

“No, no. It’s fine. We’re just watching the Food Network. Have you ever seen the Food Network?”

“I don’t have cable, Mom. Remember?”

“Well, there’s this man on and he’s making shrimp burgers. Shrimp Burgers! You’re father is drooling.”

He wasn’t the only one drooling, but let’s leave the woman some dignity. I’m sure it’s hard to stay strong when being tempted by shrimp burgers, especially when you are a hardcore seafood lover. Besides, it was all becoming clear to me.

“That’s because you are watching Food Porn, Mom.”

Yes, Food Porn. No, not like that scene out of 9 ½ weeks. And no, I did not come up with the title, though I find it appropriate, a friend did that when I remarked that she sure had a lot of cookbooks.

“That’s because they’re food porn.”

“Food porn?”

“They arouse a sensation and an emotional response.” She shrugged. “Hence food porn.”

Who knew? Definitely a unique way to look at the mouthwatering, oh-dear-god-I-must-have-that-dish-NOW sensation I get whenever I see the cover of Cooking Light (last month’s issue with the potato leek soup and the toasted cheesy bread on the cover almost did me in, I had to go eat something immediately). And perhaps it explains America’s fight with obesity. We are compelled to eat. It looks to good! I know some people who would choose food over sex, and if that doesn’t make food pornographic, I don’t know what does.

I mean, look at this. Really look.



We sold almost 20 copies of this book last Christmas, and I’m sure we’ll sell more this holiday. I heard a rumor that the photography won some sort of award for the photos within. I’m not surprised. Don’t you feel the need to go get some chocolate, any chocolate right now!!! Even though you know that it won’t have the same rich, smooth consistency of the chocolate on this front cover. It’s a need, planted inside you, a craving for something, anything to make that ache go away.

The Food Channel doesn’t need sex to sell its products and cookbooks, to get subscribers for its channel; it just uses close-ups on the dishes prepared by Rachel Ray, Emeril, Bobby Flay, and others.

Loving close-ups of sizzling meat, cool creams, and frothy confections.

Long pans of tables laden with dish after dish of Southern home cooking.

Montages of desserts layered with chocolate and fruit and nuts and more chocolate...

Each picture flashing before your eyes, entering your brain, releasing serotonin, making that dull ache in your stomach cramp in on itself because you want, no NEED that dish or something really similar and my goodness how did you not realize you were hungry? Starving!

It’s a powerful thing. I’ve seen the pictures on the cover of cookbooks convince a person that they had to have that particular book, now damn it! Along with directions to the nearest steak house, seafood place, dessert maker. The actual Food Network has convinced my father that he must find andouille.

Cooking Light’s potato leek cover has the power to make me weak at the knees, a drooling mess of a bookseller.

Food Porn, I’m telling you. Pure Food Porn.

Now if only I could get my boss to let me re-label the cooking section as such.