in which I continue to buck the trend by reviewing more books that have been out for a long time

Well, maybe you like those fancy schmanzy book review pages with their "this just in" cutting edge new book reviews. But I own a used bookstore, so most publishers don't grant me the honor of pre-release copies anymore. I do, however, keep right on reading the thousands of millions of books that are already available to the public (often for several years) so in case you are as behind the curve as I am, or you just like to hear my opinion on things (I'm betting on #1) here are reviews for:

Jim Butcher's Dresden Files Ghost Story

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Interestingly, when I pulled the image for this book onto the blog I also spotted this pic of Ms. Fey looking utterly fantastic:

Seriously, this is a really fantastic picture right?

So let's talk about her book first. Bossypants is a series of essay style chapters that are part memoir, part stand up riff. Think of it as Fey performing Weekend Update on the topics of her personal and professional life. Fey's writing is always fresh and funny, her humor is dry and sarcastic and self-deprecating. There's not a lot to pull apart and look at with this book, if you like her, you'll love it. If you don't like her, this book isn't going to change your mind. I happen to think she's one of the funniest people on the planet, so I laughed out loud repeatedly and had a great time reading it. It's also not a deeply confessional book, although there are some juicy behind-the-scenes moments from Fey's TV shows I never really felt like I got to know the author better. I was very impressed that  one of the final chapters each of the 30 Rock writers gets a mention as well as a bit of what the author considers their best writing. (One writer penned the line "Never follow a hippie you just met to a secondary location"...truer words were never spoken) It was both classy and unexpected...like Tina Fey herself.

Jim Butcher's Ghost Story is up next...normally, I'd quickly catch up the reader who doesn't know the series on where we are in the story line but in this case, it's pointless. The series is now thirteen books in. While some books are more directly tied into the core plot than others, this one is entirely predicated on past titles, past alliances between supernatural factions and character development based on incidents that happened many books ago. I can't even explain enough to make a basic plot summary make sense. So here's what I can tell you: Harry Dresden is dead (this happened at the end of the last book, aptly titled Changes) and he is now responsible for finding his own killer so he can move on to some kind of afterlife. Everything else? Well, you'll just have to go read ALL the books. 

If you are a fan of Laurel Hamilton or Charlaine Harris, you could think of The Dresden Files as the male counterpart to their supernatural investigation series. Butcher writes a better magic-users world, in my opinion. His magic follows what could be recognized as some kind of logical, physical laws and also would be more palatable to the real, human breed of magic user than some of the aforementioned authors. Like Hamilton's Anita Blake books, the writing cries out for a continuity editor, but unlike Hamilton, Harry Dresden's storyline never descends into soft-core porn, so points for that. In short, if you haven't started the series and you are the least bit curious about it, I think you should run out to Eljay's (or call us) and get the series.

**If you have not read the series and you want to, please stop reading now (and come back to this after you read books 12), spoilers ahead***

For those of you who have already read the preceding books,  I'd rate this one slightly below the average quality. A lot happens, which is always good in a plot-driven book. Molly gets a major character-angst upgrade and so does long-suffering Murphy. Having wiped out the Red Court, Dresden has closed-out a huge number of storylines from earlier books...Susan, their daughter, Mab's pursuit of Dresden as the Winter Knight, all resolved. 

***end spoilers***

This combined with Dresden's lack of physical presence give the whole book a bit of "nowhere to go" feeling. Dresden has always been a bit neurotically-stuck-in-his-own-head for me, but when all he is amounts to his thoughts (and most of his thoughts amount to "oh no, I have no body!"), it's downright annoying. While the end of the book is satisfying and opens a whole new set of problems and character paths for Dresden, Molly and Murphy, I can't help feeling like this would have made a great short story or even a novella rather than a full length book. Still, I'm happy to hear that a contract for many more book was just signed, especially since rumors abounded a few years ago that Ghost Story would be the series finale. 

The seven things I wish every customer knew

1) If you want a bookseller to find a book for you give them any or all of the following: The author, the title, the ISBN (a 10 or 13 digit number usually printed on the back or copyright page of the book). If you don't have one of those three things, it will be extremely hard to find your book (contrary to long standing myth, books can not be located solely by color.)

2) If a book is in a place you can get to it, it's for sale, even if it's the last one or located in a window display.

3) If you use books as a place to lean, set your purse, pad the charge slip you are signing, or set your beverage on a bookseller may burst into tears. Don't make the bookseller cry.

4) Booksellers thrive on conversations about books, and we learn a LOT from our customers. If you are browsing and you spot something you love, see if your bookseller has read it yet. Tell them why it is awesome.

5) There's an unwritten code among booksellers and librarians. We don't judge you by what you read. Just ask us for the books you want and let us help you read what you want to read. Believe me, we're a widely read bunch and you're not going to shock us with your reading choices.

6) If a store doesn't have the book or author you are looking for they most can likely order you a copy. When a shop doesn't have what you are looking for, give them a chance to compete with Amazon for your affection.

7) Booksellers do not get to read all day (we get this question a lot) and if we did it would indeed be really cool.

"She Makes Me Smile" Makes Me Smile and Then, Shiver a Bit

So the last time we chatted I mentioned a situation with a certain writer and a certain publisher. Today Mandy DeGeit's She Makes Me Smile went on sale on Amazon (in its original form) for 99 cents. GO BUY IT HERE!!!

It's a great short story! Short stories are so hard to write...in my opinion, much harder than long fiction. And this one's very short but it works really well; it's very tightly packed. It's also pretty disturbing (like short form fiction, pulling off a genuinely disturbing tale in today's jaded world is harder than it looks). I consider myself a fairly wimpy reader, and I squirmed a whole bunch...and kept right on reading. I can't really tell you what it's about or why it's so nice and creepy, there's really no way not to spoil it for the readers. All I can tell you it that I enjoyed it.

Mandy is using proceeds from this short story to hire a lawyer to help other writers regain control of their stories currently held by the unpleasant publisher. It's a noble and worthy cause, and I'm happy to support it. However, having read this story I now know that I can NEVER nap with this woman in the same room as I am.

Publishers To Watch Out For!

Full disclosure before I start this: I am a freelance editor and I also work for a publisher who focuses on zombie and horror fiction. None of that has anything to do with this, but I don't want anyone to think I am sneakily slamming the competition. I am openly slamming someone who happens to be in the same business as I am.

Now the details:

An author named Mandy DeGeit wrote a short story that was picked up by Undead Press, an imprint of Library of the Dead. There were some problems with the printed version of her short story, and now I will ask you to please CLICK HERE for an eloquent explanation straight from the author of what went wrong (and then, what went even wrong-er).

Having now read the author's explanation (you didn't read it? GO READ IT) of what happened, and the disturbing response from the publisher, you are probably pretty much where I am emotionally. The changes made by the editor are not only ethically questionable, the ones cited by DeGeit are poor editorial choices. Now I just found THIS which contains an interview with the editor (who, it turns out is not the same guy who put in the lurking errant apostrophe, so props to him...but who also has a kind of "sorry but I was just following orders" mentality I can't get behind)

There's nothing else to say that hasn't been said by others, notably Nelson W Pyles. (Go read his blog. Now.) But I do want to take a moment to remind my readers to be EXTREMELY careful when choosing a publisher, signing a contract, etc. Your words (and your money) are too valuable to be wasted on lousy editing or publishing.

I can now sleep soundly knowing that all four of my readers are aware of a horrible wrong that was done to a fellow book person. As GI Joe teaches us, knowing is half the battle. The other half, it seems, is apostrophe placement.

April Events at Eljays!

Thoughts on the headline: Is 50 too old to go bare "down there"?

I originally posted this on Facebook as it really has nothing to do with books, but in the end I decided that here was better than on my crafting blog. I certainly review books with a feminist slant, so here is my commentary on a news website I follow.




So a few weeks ago, I was a little bothered to see that the usual stream of "look at this celebrity in a great/ bad/ unintentionally privates-exposing photo" type articles (yeah, unfortunately there's a lot of that mixed into the news) begin to morph into something a little more sinister. One article asked me to sound off on whether or not a certain celebrity was wearing an outfit I liked. Okay, I'll pass. Then, a few days later, a headline asked me to share my feelings on whether or not a young actress was wearing an inappropriately mature outfit. Then, a few days further on I spotted an article asking the readers to comment on whether or not a particular celebrity, an adult this time, was showing too much skin. ("Too much skin for *what*?" I asked myself..."are we suddenly imposing a moral code on the women we constantly strip down in movies and magazines?")

I started to get annoyed. Obviously celebrity news gets hits, and hits are what Huffpost survives on. So it makes sense that soliciting the opinion of the readers makes more people click on that headline. But why is the message so consistently one of sitting in judgement of *females*? It seems to me that one of the best ways to perpetuate the idea that unlike men, women are answerable to society for their personal choices (fashion, sexuality & reproduction to name just a few) is to give them a vote on it on a regular basis. Today, Huffpost is featuring a blog post from a writer who thinks that she needs the world's opinions on whether or not a 50 year old woman can keep "it" shaved without horrifying others. That bugged me on a deeper level. I get that the discussion (between the blogger and a friend) on the respectability of a shaved hoo-ha later in life was amusing and a good blog topic. Why is she soliciting opinions from random strangers on whether or not it's "okay". Will she be sharing it with them? Will she be applying for some high level public service position where the grooming habits of her boudoir will be a qualifying matter? I don't get it.

So here's my point. All of this, the question of what we wear, what we shave (or don't), who we sleep with and how we get down is completely personal. It's no one's business unless we want to share it. It's no one's (except our partner's) business to comment on it. It *really* doesn't matter what anyone (except our partner) thinks. Really, really, really doesn't matter. As women, if we want to stop being subjected to a war over who controls our bodies we need to start denying the premise that there's a battle to be fought.

Oh look, I own a bookstore!

So it's possible that my two readers (you know who you are) may not BOTH have heard that I am now the  co-owner of Eljay's Books in Pittsburgh's South Hills.  You can bet I'll be plugging the store here all the time, and I'm going to start by posting my March Events calendars here for you to read...

Sorry it's not bigger, I'm working on creating a link to a full-page calendar. You can also visit my store HERE. And if you're in Pittsburgh, you can visit us anytime you want! We're having a big party to kick off my partnership on March 16th at 6pm. We'll have food and drinks and possibly some live entertainment...I hope to see you there!!