Dimming the lights at the "Lobster"

I just finished reading Stewart O'Nan's Last Night at the Lobster, and I have to say that I am pleased. Pleased that I read it, pleased that I will recommend it, and pleased that I went through some of what the characters experienced, except mine was pizza.

The story follows Manny DeLeon, the manager of a Red Lobster, as he is about to close the restaurant for good. He must contend with the life he has had as manager, the new one he will begin at Olive Garden, and the staff that he has had to babysit. If closing the restaurant was not enough to struggle with for Manny and staff the area is dropped upon by a snowflake atom bomb.

O'Nan has the power to create simple vignettes and feelings with his characters. Manny has stepped over the unpainted line of work relationships to dating one of the hostesses, who has a boyfriend, while he decides what to do about his girlfriend who is pregnant with his child. Sounds like soap dirt to most but I felt empathy for these characters. As the snow piles up outside the "Lobster" Manny must decide to stay true to the ideals of management and corporate ownership by staying open until the end. I was in these situations earlier in life when I worked at a local pizzeria in Cincinnati. The joys, camaraderie, loathing, mediocrity, and ho-humness of working in a minimum wage job in food are all felt in this ode to the middle class-the best class in the class.

Pass the lemon, I'm wanting more "Lobster".

Embrace the ignorance

It's okay to admit that we are ignorant about certain things, whether they are areas of history, science or human nature. Now there is a book out that allows us to embrace our ignorance, and to be properly educated in the process. Harmony Books, an imprint of Crown Publishing, a division of Random House, three-quarters of the book belly, has just released The Book of General Ignorance:Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson.

This is the perfect hoilday, birthday, and fare-thee-well book for anyone who thinks they know everything, or nothing, about anything.

Questions presented are from the various left fields of history, science, politcs, literature, and food. Do marmots kill people? (Yes, they cough them to death.) What Edison invention do English speakers use every day? (The word "hello".) What was the first invention to break the sound barrier? (The whip.) What's three times as dangerous as war? (Work.) These questions and many others are just waiting to be explored.

Read it all at once, read one question at various intervals, learn something new every day.

The best of '77-movie wise

I saw an article via one of my favorite sites to visit-imdb.com-that came up with the outrageous idea that 1974 was the best year for movies. With all due respect to 1974, and 1939-the golden year of film-I submit that 1977 was the best year for film, in my experience.



This was the year of Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Annie Hall. Come on. '77 had popcorn gems like King Kong (Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges), Orca and Rollercoaster. Roger Moore spooned Barbara Bach in The Spy Who Loved Me. Paul Newman made a comedy about hockey with Slap Shot. And The Hill Have Eyes as well.



We were also treated to The Kentucky Fried Movie and Smokey and the Bandit. Animated classics like The Hobbit, Wizards, and The Rescuers were released. And John Travolta strutted across the electric floor in Saturday Night Fever.



Hollywood take note-these are classics-please don't remake them. (Too late for King Kong.)

The Island of Misfit Toys would love remainders

A book need not stop being viable just because it is sitting on a remainder table. What would King Moonracer say if you ignored a book just because it wasn't new anymore? If you see a remaindered, or bargain, book for sale you might want to think of it as the best book deal around. Where else can you get recent titles, perhaps some that are one or two years from the original publication date, for the cheap? Remainders can be your best friend if you have a $25 spending cap at the holidays. And you give a book a second chance to be loved, like the "cowboy who rides an ostrich."



They might be titles that you were interested in when they first came out but decided to wait awhile to read. I am the remainder buyer for the branch store that I work at and I enjoy shopping the sites and talking to reps to fill our tables with the best there is to offer. Not the 3-books-in-1 specials you might see at some box stores, or reprints, but the original manifestations of the book-the ones with the unfortunate black slash through the price (which incidentally is done by the publisher, not the bookstore.)



I treat my remainder tables as if they were my own store front, with different subjects highlighted and generous quantities to choose from, should you desire. Buy them when you see them, you never know how long they will be around.

Backlist baby

I love the backlist...especially during the holidays. Recommending new titles is always fun, but the challenge and true joy comes when I tell a customer about previous titles that an author has written.



I had a customer interested in new books of the Civil War. After highlighting the recent releases I told her about Tony Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic. Intrigued she bought a copy.



After discovering that our store had not sold any copies of William Manchester's brilliant A World Lit Only by Fire in three years I promptly ordered more stock. We have now sold 17 copies since April. Not bad for a book that came out in 1993.



Last holiday, I pulled 30 titles from Nancy Pearl's Book Lust recommendations, ordered 3 copies of each book and displayed them near our book information counter. We sold at least one copy out of the 30 titles, and over 80 books for the total.



Testimony to the power of what was once written still has selling power today.

The joy of movies is book divine

With the annual announcement of the Golden Globes nominations it is always with anticipation as to which books were utilized to create some of the lucky noms. Atonement, No Country for Old Men, Charlie Wilson's War, Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Into the Wild all had a foundation in the book world before they were expanded to the celluloid universe. As is the case with most book adaptations a film can struggle when it gives sight to the words voice. Characters are compressed, details morphed into visual nausea, and the personal interpretation that we all feel when reading the book can become lost. We have already cast the film version in our minds. (Would your mind allow Keanu to speak Shakespeare?)



View the movie as primer...a brief glimpse into a story waiting to be read.

Buying from Peter to sell to Paul

With the continuing buying thrist for Eat, Pray, Love, and the lack of stock at regional distributors, one has to do strange things. Like buying mass quantities from a shopping club warehouse to sell in the bookstore that tries to coexist with the shopping club warehouse. Strange times indeed.