Come on Chuck! Lie to us. Tell us that you are nailing 95 banned passages to the front door and the reanimated corpses of both Barnes and Noble will be there to object to all the bad words.
Oh the bookseller stories... The Rachel Maddow fans trash and hide the Ann Coulter books, and vice versa. People demand to know why certain books get a "face out" while others do not. You can't begin to imagine the politics involved. Entire mega churches will order a certain book to put it on The Times list, then return every copy of the book two weeks later. It can be a thankless business.
I heard rumblings of politicians buying a bunch of their books to get on best seller lists. Had no idea mega churches were hoping onto the same train and then returning them. Brutal. You never see the politics as a consumer. Bookstores seem so nice and quiet when you hang out in the history section.
The best place was Stacey's Bookstore on lower Market Street in San Francisco. The basement was geared toward doctors and police investigators. Incredible textbooks about facial surgery and forensic investigation. Alas, it is no more.
@rpg elise: record labels had done this for years by sending in street teams all over the country, arming them with cash and buying up their artists latest releases. I guess a lot of these folks weren’t confident enough in their own product to rely on their fans. Even in the new era of digital downloads, I believe the practice is still in place.
When I worked at Borders— people would put books in the toilet often. Rushdie was often given a swirly. Strange the books that ended up in bathrooms. Tom of Findland was ALWAYS in there.
When a book is returned, does that reverse the sale count on the NY Times list? Probably an , well, an un-informed question…Just curious ;-) Thanks either way !
This might be another first for you, Chuck - remember that Denver Tattered Cover you just hit on tour? It’s closing its doors, so maybe you were the last author to do a signing there?
I'd heard that. The Tattered Cover had changed hands recently and reorganized. On this last go-round it was fascinating to meet a new generation of booksellers. Long-time stores such as Lemuria in Jackson, MS and Garden District in NOLA have been taken over by a younger crew. It's wonderful to see people pick up that torch.
Awesome! They closed my favorite Barnes and Noble by me a few years ago, unfortunately. They had a big rotunda before you got into the actual store, mostly full of marked-down books in big carts, and sometimes I'd end up spending more time there in the lobby.
The store went through the standard "process of decomposition" that brick and mortsrs all seem to go through now, first serving as a seasonal store, then dark and vacant for a few years, and finally, resurrected in the form of a Value City furniture depot.
I'm in New Jersey unfortunately, so Salem, OR is a bit of a hike, but congrats on being asked to do the ribbon cutting Chuck! That's really cool.
"They put a parking lot on a piece of land where the supermarket used to stand. Before that, they put up a bowling alley on the site that used to be the local pally..." Gotta love The Kinks.
Our old Borders books became a Spirit Halloween shop a few times before getting taken over by another corporate shop. Always sad when book stores close up, especially locally owned spots.
A friend at the huge independent, Powell's Books, told me how they only used hard, wooden benches. Long ago they'd considered stuffed chairs, ala B&N, but covertly measured the germ count on those chairs. The germs were through the roof, so Powell's opted for wood.
Well wood typically has anti bacterial properties to a certain extent. The surface dries quickly which prevents bacterial growth and the lignin that interconnects the fibers together is antibacterial. That is also why you should use natural wood for cutting boards over other materials like plastic
And yeah the Kinks are great. Weirdly enough, on the topic of the Kinks and abandoned buildings, back when I used to longboard, one of my favorite spots was a parking lot outside a closed-down movie theater in my town. I made a short skate video there with The Kinks' "Celluloid Heroes" as the backing track. Rolling past all these blank white squares on the outside of the building where coming attraction posters used to hang.
Talk about morphing your objects! In writing 'Not Forever' I got to go around looking at sex dolls (yet again). Talk about a lot of plastic. 'Generation X' writer Doug Coupland used to complain about how ski boots were a non-biodegradable product. A sex doll is about 80-100 lbs. of plastic.
That’s fascinating about Barnes and Noble. I take my son there every week to read, but I admit it has lost a lot of it’s special atmosphere compared to 10-15 years ago.
Interesting idea. (big secret) I'm working with a big-name animation company and have lobbied for them to develop 'Geek Love' as a feature film. They're reading it right now.
I live in a town in North Dakota that can’t manage to keep a bookstore running. Our college bookstore used to be a partial Barnes and Noble, but that half eventually left and it’s now just a college bookstore. My husband and i purchased Bait there.
The mostly used bookstore in town that replaced the B. Dalton and Waldenbooks is now closing. Supposedly another bookstore-esque company has purchased them, so maybe we will get lucky.
Our closest bookstore otherwise is a Barnes and Noble in Fargo. I love books. The death of bookstores is such a sad thing.
Have fun in Salem! Someday I’ll come back to the PNW.
Wish more people would read books to keep the book stores open.
I love used book stores. Always a treasure hunt. The one here puts all the new books in book piles and they let us go through. Nothing is organized by genre in the new piles. You never know what you will find.
Last week I found a hard cover of Stephan King's book on writing. Found out the previous owner was a muncher while they read. There was something that looks like Cheeto crumbs between pages and god knows what running along the side of the pages when the book is closed. Wonder if there are any tricks for cleaning up paper stains like that. I need to take a better look at books when I get excited about a good find.
I am super anal about the used books I buy. Generally never found anything incredible at the store here. Lots and lots of Stephen king (husband had most of his books when we met). I never saw any of chuck’s books there, but we also have all of his because he’s my husband’s favorite. He’s fast become mine as well actually. I found some old hard covers of Anne Rice’s there and bought those. She’s lovely.
They had a small selection of new books too but never anything I really had any interest in. I love bookstores. Just not a terribly huge amount of options for them in North Dakota.
The book you found sounds both lovely and disgusting haha.
I look forward to finding out what the new bookstore here will be like. Hopefully it’s charming.
Anne Rice is also good! Watched a great interview with Ann and her son Chris recently. They both write and discussed the topic of writing. It is titled: Anne Rice in conversation with Christopher Rice at Live Talks Los Angeles. She was also on the write what you want to write train. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d9o0F40JJE
I’ll have to give that a watch. She was my first favorite author of what I would consider adult fiction when I discovered her in high school. Before that I was very much an R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike, and L.J. Smith fan.
I was determined to get all of her books in hardcover when I moved to where I am now, and I acquired most of them at the used bookstore that is now closing. I have a lot of catching up to do with her writing. But I do greatly enjoy her.
Which brings me to the fact that she was brought up on the tour for Not Forever, But For Now. It made me very happy even though the reason was somewhat sad.
I read so many Goosebumps and then Fear Street books when I was a kid. lol
That is awesome Anne was brought up during he book tour. I have been going through the vampire chronicles again after reading them back in my early 20s. It is cool noticing different things now that I have an older brain.
I am planning on doing the same thing eventually. I started with interview when I was 15 about 22 years ago so I’m about due for another read through. She’s got some books I haven’t read yet that I want to read as well.
I’m currently working my way through Chuck’s books though. I’ve read Fight Club and Invisible Monsters. Working on Choke and Snuff now.
The smell of a used hardcover always transports me to being 18 years old, haunting old stores for copies of 'Wallflower at the Orgy.' Which isn't as dirty as it sounds.
Less dirty than a sweaty German bed interview and inflatable sex dolls? I’ll have to look it up!
I do enjoy the smell of a used hardcover. It’s one of the things that keeps me from going full kindle. Though I do love the idea of reading in the dark, nothing really beats the real thing.
It's a collection of Nora Ephron's early nonfiction. Funny and chatty, with loads of voice. You might also look for old copies of her book 'Crazy Salad.'
Sounds worth checking out. Thank you for the recommendation! I sometimes struggle to step out of my comfort zone when it comes to finding new things to read.
Used book stores are the best. I recently found out about a “books and pickles” store here (NYC). You can bring in used books and exchange them for a jar of pickles. I love stuff like that more than I can say.
Originally we had a huge hen house with dozens of hens. As they passed we got our second dog, so she assumed the name "Chick." As more songs were recorded with lyrics based on my work, we had to establish a music publishing company in order to receive ASCAP payments. Thus, we own 'Henhouse Music' which brings in a whopping $100 per year.
Dibs one of those sex dolls
Those dolls -- and the dog -- are long gone. Sadly.
This is one of those situations where the Like button isn’t quite right.
Snuff was a whiiiiile ago. Hope the dog — and the dolls — had a long happy life.
Chick was very very cute!! ♥️
She was. RIP
What's the tradition for christining book stores? You smash a hot latte on the brick wall outside to a crowd of people?
or read select passages from banned books.
I'll let you know (shrug).
Come on Chuck! Lie to us. Tell us that you are nailing 95 banned passages to the front door and the reanimated corpses of both Barnes and Noble will be there to object to all the bad words.
Spilled black tea latte.
Lost cell phone.
The book is in stock, but no one can find it.
"I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve." is scratched into a bookshelf.
Then it is a real book store.
Oh the bookseller stories... The Rachel Maddow fans trash and hide the Ann Coulter books, and vice versa. People demand to know why certain books get a "face out" while others do not. You can't begin to imagine the politics involved. Entire mega churches will order a certain book to put it on The Times list, then return every copy of the book two weeks later. It can be a thankless business.
I heard rumblings of politicians buying a bunch of their books to get on best seller lists. Had no idea mega churches were hoping onto the same train and then returning them. Brutal. You never see the politics as a consumer. Bookstores seem so nice and quiet when you hang out in the history section.
When I see empty spaces on the book shelf I like to forward face my favorite books. Had no idea I was messing with their political system. lol
All writers secretly give their books face-outs.
The best place was Stacey's Bookstore on lower Market Street in San Francisco. The basement was geared toward doctors and police investigators. Incredible textbooks about facial surgery and forensic investigation. Alas, it is no more.
That sounds like a really cool section. I really like books written by FBI profilers, like O'Toole. Sad it is no longer there.
@rpg elise: record labels had done this for years by sending in street teams all over the country, arming them with cash and buying up their artists latest releases. I guess a lot of these folks weren’t confident enough in their own product to rely on their fans. Even in the new era of digital downloads, I believe the practice is still in place.
They do it with ticket sales for movies also.
When I worked at Borders— people would put books in the toilet often. Rushdie was often given a swirly. Strange the books that ended up in bathrooms. Tom of Findland was ALWAYS in there.
YOU HAD TOM OF FINLAND BOOKS?!? AT A BORDERS? Wow.
Sure did. They were HUGE books!!
They'd have to be, to fit all the various huge parts
But to be honest I'm more of an Etienne fan
When a book is returned, does that reverse the sale count on the NY Times list? Probably an , well, an un-informed question…Just curious ;-) Thanks either way !
Nope. The trick is to return the book after the first two weeks of sales. That lands the book high on The List so it gets the perks and exposure.
This might be another first for you, Chuck - remember that Denver Tattered Cover you just hit on tour? It’s closing its doors, so maybe you were the last author to do a signing there?
Oh, no. Sad to hear that.
I'd heard that. The Tattered Cover had changed hands recently and reorganized. On this last go-round it was fascinating to meet a new generation of booksellers. Long-time stores such as Lemuria in Jackson, MS and Garden District in NOLA have been taken over by a younger crew. It's wonderful to see people pick up that torch.
Sorry to hear. : (
A frist, you say?
What?
Are you playing coy with me?
Whatever do you mean?
Oh I think you know what I mean
I wish I could be there... I am waiting for you in Italy as soon as possible! Are there any plans?
Maybe without the bed thing.
Awesome! They closed my favorite Barnes and Noble by me a few years ago, unfortunately. They had a big rotunda before you got into the actual store, mostly full of marked-down books in big carts, and sometimes I'd end up spending more time there in the lobby.
The store went through the standard "process of decomposition" that brick and mortsrs all seem to go through now, first serving as a seasonal store, then dark and vacant for a few years, and finally, resurrected in the form of a Value City furniture depot.
I'm in New Jersey unfortunately, so Salem, OR is a bit of a hike, but congrats on being asked to do the ribbon cutting Chuck! That's really cool.
Was it a Spirit Halloween yet? Or a church?
"They put a parking lot on a piece of land where the supermarket used to stand. Before that, they put up a bowling alley on the site that used to be the local pally..." Gotta love The Kinks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRUE0aAI5o8
Our old Borders books became a Spirit Halloween shop a few times before getting taken over by another corporate shop. Always sad when book stores close up, especially locally owned spots.
A friend at the huge independent, Powell's Books, told me how they only used hard, wooden benches. Long ago they'd considered stuffed chairs, ala B&N, but covertly measured the germ count on those chairs. The germs were through the roof, so Powell's opted for wood.
I sat is so many of those cushy book store chairs too. Whoops! With all the bed bug invasion stories in the news lately, Powell's made a good call.
Well wood typically has anti bacterial properties to a certain extent. The surface dries quickly which prevents bacterial growth and the lignin that interconnects the fibers together is antibacterial. That is also why you should use natural wood for cutting boards over other materials like plastic
Haha you guessed it - Spirit Halloween it was.
And yeah the Kinks are great. Weirdly enough, on the topic of the Kinks and abandoned buildings, back when I used to longboard, one of my favorite spots was a parking lot outside a closed-down movie theater in my town. I made a short skate video there with The Kinks' "Celluloid Heroes" as the backing track. Rolling past all these blank white squares on the outside of the building where coming attraction posters used to hang.
Do you have a sex doll room in your house? I don't have the square footage!
Talk about morphing your objects! In writing 'Not Forever' I got to go around looking at sex dolls (yet again). Talk about a lot of plastic. 'Generation X' writer Doug Coupland used to complain about how ski boots were a non-biodegradable product. A sex doll is about 80-100 lbs. of plastic.
My stepson from the UK is studying at Willamette. Dropped a subtle hint in the hopes he might go 😂🤞
A sweaty hotel bed in Berlin sounds like a very different kind of filmmaking.
Right?
So jelly! That sounds like so much fun!
Might have to play hooky from work and drive up to Salem.
Oh, yes, it will be fun and glamorous. Not.
It will be weird like the Galaxy Quest cast members opening big box stores in the movie of the same name.
Did you get Chick before Egg? Or Egg before Chick?
Chick, then Egg. Argh. Mike's pun.
Ah, so now I see the theme, and the old riddle has been definitively addressed, for those who still hadn't worked it out.
That’s fascinating about Barnes and Noble. I take my son there every week to read, but I admit it has lost a lot of it’s special atmosphere compared to 10-15 years ago.
Oooh Is Chick named after Geek Love?
Interesting idea. (big secret) I'm working with a big-name animation company and have lobbied for them to develop 'Geek Love' as a feature film. They're reading it right now.
Animation would be the only way. Although Henson-style puppeteering would be wild…
Not to name names...
I live in a town in North Dakota that can’t manage to keep a bookstore running. Our college bookstore used to be a partial Barnes and Noble, but that half eventually left and it’s now just a college bookstore. My husband and i purchased Bait there.
The mostly used bookstore in town that replaced the B. Dalton and Waldenbooks is now closing. Supposedly another bookstore-esque company has purchased them, so maybe we will get lucky.
Our closest bookstore otherwise is a Barnes and Noble in Fargo. I love books. The death of bookstores is such a sad thing.
Have fun in Salem! Someday I’ll come back to the PNW.
Wish more people would read books to keep the book stores open.
I love used book stores. Always a treasure hunt. The one here puts all the new books in book piles and they let us go through. Nothing is organized by genre in the new piles. You never know what you will find.
Last week I found a hard cover of Stephan King's book on writing. Found out the previous owner was a muncher while they read. There was something that looks like Cheeto crumbs between pages and god knows what running along the side of the pages when the book is closed. Wonder if there are any tricks for cleaning up paper stains like that. I need to take a better look at books when I get excited about a good find.
I am super anal about the used books I buy. Generally never found anything incredible at the store here. Lots and lots of Stephen king (husband had most of his books when we met). I never saw any of chuck’s books there, but we also have all of his because he’s my husband’s favorite. He’s fast become mine as well actually. I found some old hard covers of Anne Rice’s there and bought those. She’s lovely.
They had a small selection of new books too but never anything I really had any interest in. I love bookstores. Just not a terribly huge amount of options for them in North Dakota.
The book you found sounds both lovely and disgusting haha.
I look forward to finding out what the new bookstore here will be like. Hopefully it’s charming.
Hopefully you get a good one in town!
Anne Rice is also good! Watched a great interview with Ann and her son Chris recently. They both write and discussed the topic of writing. It is titled: Anne Rice in conversation with Christopher Rice at Live Talks Los Angeles. She was also on the write what you want to write train. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d9o0F40JJE
I’ll have to give that a watch. She was my first favorite author of what I would consider adult fiction when I discovered her in high school. Before that I was very much an R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike, and L.J. Smith fan.
I was determined to get all of her books in hardcover when I moved to where I am now, and I acquired most of them at the used bookstore that is now closing. I have a lot of catching up to do with her writing. But I do greatly enjoy her.
Which brings me to the fact that she was brought up on the tour for Not Forever, But For Now. It made me very happy even though the reason was somewhat sad.
I read so many Goosebumps and then Fear Street books when I was a kid. lol
That is awesome Anne was brought up during he book tour. I have been going through the vampire chronicles again after reading them back in my early 20s. It is cool noticing different things now that I have an older brain.
I am planning on doing the same thing eventually. I started with interview when I was 15 about 22 years ago so I’m about due for another read through. She’s got some books I haven’t read yet that I want to read as well.
I’m currently working my way through Chuck’s books though. I’ve read Fight Club and Invisible Monsters. Working on Choke and Snuff now.
The smell of a used hardcover always transports me to being 18 years old, haunting old stores for copies of 'Wallflower at the Orgy.' Which isn't as dirty as it sounds.
Less dirty than a sweaty German bed interview and inflatable sex dolls? I’ll have to look it up!
I do enjoy the smell of a used hardcover. It’s one of the things that keeps me from going full kindle. Though I do love the idea of reading in the dark, nothing really beats the real thing.
It's a collection of Nora Ephron's early nonfiction. Funny and chatty, with loads of voice. You might also look for old copies of her book 'Crazy Salad.'
Sounds worth checking out. Thank you for the recommendation! I sometimes struggle to step out of my comfort zone when it comes to finding new things to read.
Used book stores are the best. I recently found out about a “books and pickles” store here (NYC). You can bring in used books and exchange them for a jar of pickles. I love stuff like that more than I can say.
That is awesome!!!
Weird question, but what’s with the poultry-themed dog names?
Originally we had a huge hen house with dozens of hens. As they passed we got our second dog, so she assumed the name "Chick." As more songs were recorded with lyrics based on my work, we had to establish a music publishing company in order to receive ASCAP payments. Thus, we own 'Henhouse Music' which brings in a whopping $100 per year.
Cha-ching!