Nothing too exciting, but a nice essay.

The summer heat has us moving a bit slower. If we seem to have a vacant look in our eyes, it is likely that we are dreaming of sandy beaches with big umbrellas, drink in one hand a book in the other. There seems to be no shortage of activities in town during the summer. Turkeyrama, Starry Night, IPNC. Party over here, part over there. It is sort of nice.

I have two neat little essays to share with you. The first I read last night in the Book Review section of the New York Times. You can read it here. Gary Shteyngart's funny little love affair with his "iTelephone" and how it relates to actually conversing about books. The other article is from yesterday's Oregonian. Brian Doyle, essayist extraordinaire, has a lovely piece about the joys of reading in bed. Sadly, I am unable to find a link to it online, but go dig up the book section of the Oregonian from the recycling and give it a read. It is worth getting a little ink on the fingers. The timing was perfect. With the slightly cooler morning, I woke up to a snuggly cat (she really only likes my husband, not me) and a desire to read in bed a bit. Such a guilty pleasure, reading before the day starts, not at the end!

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

No, we will not be blasting David Bowie in the store as a reminder to people that we moved things around a bit. I think that some of the changes we made will be obvious (big wall of sale books!) Others more subtle (I can't actually think of an example right now). We like to keep ourselves on our toes and shake it up a bit. We moved the cooking, gardening and crafts sections to some new bookcases along the front windows. We created the aforementioned wall of sale books, and we now have an entire bookcase at the beginning of lit dedicated to staff recommendations. So far, we like these changes. You?

Oh, New York and BEA was great. Met up with some old co-workers of mine, quite by accident! Attended a breakfast event that was moderated by Jon Stewart and hosted Condoleezza Rice, John Grisham and Mary Roach. It was a funny and irreverent way to start the day! Saw some great titles for this fall (I am reading a neat one about home canning at the moment) and walked, a lot! Will post more soon.

-Sylla

Buying for fall

I am in the process of ordering books for this fall. Usually it is especially hard to be thinking about Christmas in May because the weather is so gorgeous. This year, the stretch is not as hard to make. This chilly weather has been sending me to bed early, so I have been getting lots of reading done. Some of them are advanced copies of books that will be out this fall (look for Mr. Toppit!) others are just things that have been sitting in my pile for a long time. I am currently working my way through an advanced copy of the next Donna Leon, and Bill Bryson's new book. I recently read Chef - a thoughtful narrative about an chef who is an officer in the Indian army and the time he serves in Kashmir cooking for a general. I also finished the first two mysteries of a relatively new series A Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam and A Good Thief's Guide to Paris. Light, but not too fluffy books. I wish that they were a tad more atmospheric, but if that is as close to Amsterdam and Paris as I am going to get this year, I'll take it.

Next week I am off to New York City for Book Expo America. I will be wondering the long aisles of the Javits Convention Center in mid-town. My arms will be tired from lugging around galleys that publishers insist I must read. My feet will hurt because they just will. They hurt now just thinking about all the walking I will do. But I don't care because I will be in bookseller's lala-land, nirvana, heaven - surrounded by the written word, talking to passionate booksellers, publishers and authors. Can't wait!

The Passage by Justin Cronin

The Passage, due out June 8th, is getting a lot of pre-publication buzz. I finished an advance copy yesterday and I have to say it was pretty good. I'm usually hesitant to read books that garner this much attention. Way back in 2007 the unfinished manuscript for this novel sold to a movie studio for a nice $1.75 million (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/movies/11vamp.html). And there's lots of assumptions about how much Cronin sold The Passage and the two subsequent books in the series for. I have to admit though, in this case it may have been worth it.

It's almost impossible to distill this 750 page novel into a short review, but here is a bit of the story line. When a secret government experiment, titled Project NOAH, goes horribly wrong with the escape of twelve test subjects a horrific virus is set loose in the United States. The thirteenth test subject, a six-year-old girl named Amy, and the FBI agent who rescue her, flee to Oregon and take refuge in the mountains. The after effects of Project NOAH lead to a new United States which is ruled by fear and the need to survive.

The Passage was outside the range of what I normally read, but the writing is excellent and the characters and plot line so well developed I kept expecting to look up from my reading and see an entirely new world outside my living room window.

If you need a good, long summer read I highly recommend this book. Look for it June 8th!

- Angela

Publicity

Lately we have been receiving a fair amount of very nice publicity. A few weeks ago we won the McMinnville Downtown Association's Outstanding Business of 2009 Award. The News-Register did a lovely piece about us and all the other winners at that awards ceremony. Then this past weekend, News-Register writer Karl Klooster wrote about the events that we host at the bookstore. Walking through town these last few weeks, going about my regular routine, I have had many compliments about the bookstore. How deserving we were of the award. How great our events are. I just wanted to take a moment and say a few words. One: none of this would have happened without the great people who work at Third Street Books. I am very lucky to have such wonderful people working with me. Everyone brings a unique personal experience to the store that I think helps us become better booksellers for you. Two: none of this would have happened without the continued support of this community! Seriously! If you all stopped shopping here, we wouldn't be able to survive - so THANK YOU! I share all this kudos with you!

-Sylla

Barry Hannah, RIP

"Who?" you ask. While perhaps not popularly know, writer Barry Hannah was one of the great southern writers of our times. His recent death at 67 is a loss to the literary world. I have not read a lot of Barry Hannah, but I was deeply touched by his style. Yonder Stands Your Orphan is part literary mystery, part investigation in evil. The swamps of Mississippi never looked so bleak. His books are not for everyone, but if you are a fan of great writing and a dark tale, you should pick some Hannah up. Sadly, I can't even order some through our distributor right now. I am hoping that is because his death has sparked a renewed interest in this great American writer.

"One of those young writers who is brilliantly drunk with words and could at gunpoint write the life story of a telephone pole."--Jim Harrison on the late Barry Hannah. (from Shelf Awareness, Thursday, March 4th, 2010)

-Sylla

We will never do this to you . . .

In the battle of the e-readers, publishers have fallen to Amazon's mighty sword more often then they would like. Amazon has determined the price of e-books, (generally around $9.99) and wants publishers to play the game and lower their prices too. At the moment, Amazon is not making any money by selling e-books at such a low price, but if they have anything to say about it, that will soon change.

This past weekend, I was reading about deals between Amazon and Macmillan, and wondered who would prevail. It seems as if Macmillan came out on top, of only for a little while. Read this article here in today's New York Times for a bit more background. Basically, Amazon told Macmillan that if they didn't meet Amazon's price demands, Amazon would cease to sell any of their books, electronic or print editions. Starting last Friday, you could not buy anything published by Macmillan (while not the largest publisher out there, they are definitely part of the Big Six). This includes the most recent Man Booker Prize winner, "Wolf Hall" but Hilary Mantel.

After the "1984" debacle last summer you would have thought that Amazon had learned that playing big brother is not ok. But I guess if you are one of the largest retailers in the world, you get to play the game by any rules you want. At Third Street Books, we will never censor what you buy, not allow you to purchase a title because we have decided not to carry anything by that author or publisher, nor will we come into your homes and take back the book that you have already paid for.

-Sylla