This came to our attention through a posting by Kat Richardson:
Column: Sure, you could buy that book online for $15. But here’s what that book really costs us.
It still resonates with us even though the shop has been long closed. The echoes, we assume, come from the many posts we put up about the economics of bookselling, from 2011 through 2017. Here’s where we started (scroll down to the bottom) and you can move forward clicking on the tiny arrows at the bottom of the pages.
At that time, we still hoped against hope that we could make a difference and save the shop…
Two former Amazon employees open a Seattle bookstore. The tiny new Madison Books will be powered by personal connections.
Want to save small businesses? Fix WA’s tax code
Odds N Ends
The 2019 Thriller Award Nominations are out. Here are the nominees for all categories. The winners will be announced on July 13, 2019 at the annual convention.
From the Washington Post, a podcast about Frank Hamer, the former Texas Ranger who lead the hunt for Bonnie & Clyde. At just shy of 7 minutes, it isn’t a big commitment.
From LA: Working as a librarian gave me post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms
You can buy advance tickets online to the bigger Spy Museum, which opens May 12
‘Killing Eve’ asks women what they want in a crime drama — or who they want to see killed
Part spy thriller, part Game of Thrones with footnotes: A book critic reviews the Mueller report as literature.
A Book Critic’s Take on the Mueller Report
Words for the Month
collusion (n.): “secret agreement for fraudulent or harmful purposes,” late 14th C., from Old French collusion and directly from Latin collusionem (nominative collusio) “act of colluding,” from colludere, from assimilated form of com “with, together” (see com-) + ludere “to play” (see ludicrous). “The notion of fraud or underhandedness is essential to collusion” [Fowler].
ludicrous (adj.): From the 1610s, “pertaining to play or sport” (a sense now obsolete), from Latin ludicrus “sportive” (source of Old French ludicre), from ludicrum “amusement, game, toy, source of amusement, joke,” from ludere “to play.”
This verb, along with Latin ludus “a game, play,” is from the Proto-Indo-Eurpean root *leid- or *loid– “to play,” perhaps literally “to let go frequently” [de Vaan], which is the source also of Middle Irish laidid “impels;” Greek lindesthai “to contend,” lizei “plays;” Albanian lind “gives birth,” lindet “is born;” Old Lithuanian leidmi “I let,” Lithuanian leisti “to let,” laidyti “to throw,” Latvian laist “let, publish, set in motion.”
Sense of “ridiculous, apt to evoke ridicule or jest” is attested from 1782.
(thanks to etymonline.com)
Author Events
May 4: Seanan McGuire, Third Place/LFP, 6pm
May 6: May 4: Seanan McGuire, Powells,6pm
May 7: Patricia Briggs, University Books, 7pm
May 14: Jeffery Deaver, Powell’s, 7pm
Links of Interest
March 25: Harlan Coben on why even bestselling authors get those self-loathing writer blues
March 26: Waterstones says it can’t pay living wage, as 1,300 authors support staff appeal
March 26: The Yorkshire Ripper Files ~ a Very British Crime Story review: A strong case for why the 1970s police force failed
March 31: When America’s most famous actor went on trial for a San Francisco cop’s murder By David Curran
April 1: Justice for the Lyon Sisters ~ How a determined squad of detectives finally solved a notorious crime after 40 years
April 1: DNA Is Solving Dozens of Cold Cases. Sometimes It’s Too Late for Justice.
April 1: ‘My mission to make news less sad’
April 1: Harry Potter books burned by Polish priests alarmed by magic
April 2: What’s the new weapon against money laundering gangsters?
April 3: Malory Towers play: Why we give a fig for boarding school stories
April 3: Boy, 8, found after leaving home to ‘travel the world’
April 3: “Coffee Snobs” Who Don’t Live In Seattle…
April 4: The Cold-War Drink That Rivals Cola
April 4: Microsoft’s eBook store: When this closes, your books disappear too
April 5: Corpse found at Oregon home of missing Disney Mouseketeer
April 6: WW2 codebreaking machine reconstructed
April 9: How Accurate Is ‘The Highwaymen’? The Historical Netflix Film Doesn’t Glamorize Bonnie & Clyde
April 9: Belgian twins freed by court amid confusion over identity
April 10: Archaeological dig of early whisky distillery
April 11: Computer Analysis Says ‘Beowulf’ Is the Work of a Single Author
April 11: “Book of Lost Books Discovered in Danish Archive. The index is part of the Libro de los Epítomes, an effort by Christopher Columbus’ illegitimate son to create a searchable index of the world’s knowledge”
April 12: The Battle For SPECTRE – The Rights War That Complicated James Bond For Decades
April 12: Why is brown snow falling in the US Midwest?
April 12: Ai Weiwei unveils Lego portraits of missing Mexico students
April 12: Dozier School for Boys: Dozens more suspected graves found
April 13: Shakespeare home in London, where he wrote ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ found by historian
April 14: GCHQ cracks Frank Sidebottom’s secret codes
April 15: The Beatles in New York: Police logs detail band’s first US visit
April 15: Dog rescued 220km from Thai coast by rig workers
April 15: Crime fiction: Revisiting the tale of Lizzie Borden
April 16: Pulitzers: Capital Gazette wins for coverage of newsroom massacre
April 16: What would Florence Nightingale make of big data?
April 17: Notre-Dame fire: Booksellers urge Hunchback publishers to donate
April 17: ‘Why I write fake online reviews’
April 17: George Lucas names Jar Jar Binks as his favorite character
April 17: Charlotte Brontë’s hair found in ring on Antiques Roadshow, say experts
April 18: Spider named after The Very Hungry Caterpillar author Eric Carle
April 18: ‘Giant lion’ fossil found in Kenya museum drawer
April 18: A tale of 2 bookstores that proves Portland isn’t going away
April 18: Poems by Daphne du Maurier Found in Photograph Frame
April 20: CIA warns Britain over Huawei spying
April 20: CIA spy Virginia Hall is about to become everyone’s next favorite historical hero
April 20: Helvetica, The Iconic Font Both Loved And Loathed, Gets Its 1st Redesign In 36 Years
April 22: ‘Lost’ book of exquisite scientific drawings rediscovered after 190 years
April 22: The Making of the White City Devil: How H.H. Holmes Became a Serial Killer Legend
April 23: del Toro and DiCaprio will team to remake Film Noir Classic, “Nightmare Alley”
April 24: Hollywood Cops ~ On Sunset Boulevard, a lunch break isn’t much of one at all
April 25: Robert Durst’s HBO confession wasn’t what it seemed
April 25 : A Horrorshow Find: – ‘Clockwork Orange’ Follow-up Surfaces After Decades Unseen
April 25: Nora Roberts files ‘multi-plagiarism’ lawsuit alleging writer copied more than 40 authors
April 25: Australia’s Daily Telegraph prints rival’s pages by mistake
April 26: The Story of Writing in 12 Objects
April 27: 18 Bookcases That Make Us Feel All Warm And Fuzzy Inside
April 27: Denise Mina: ‘I don’t think there’s any such thing as an apolitical writer’
April 29: Fraudster poses as Jason Statham to steal victim’s money
April 29: In Classic Children’s Books, a Window to Childhood in Past Centuries
April 30: Writer Jonathan Metzl on the moment Neo-Nazis invaded his booksigning and discussion of “whiteness”
Words for the Month
hilding (n): A mean, worthless person; a base, menial wretch. Cowardly; spiritless; base: as, a hilding fellow. (thanks to wordnik.com)
RIP
April 1: Tania Mallet, Goldfinger actress, dies aged 77
April 5: So not exactly a mysterious but…Dan Robbins: Paint-by-numbers inventor dies
April 9: Seymour Cassel: Character actor dies aged 84
April 10: Charles Van Doren, a Quiz Show Whiz Who Wasn’t, Dies at 93
April 16: Georgia Engel: Mary Tyler Moore Show actress dies aged 70
April 16: Warren Adler, who examined family dysfunction in ‘The War of the Roses,’ dies at 91
April 18: “James W. McCord Jr., a security expert who led a band of burglars into the shambles of the Watergate scandal and was the first to expose the White House crimes and cover-ups that precipitated the downfall of the Nixon administration in 1974, died on June 15, 2017, at his home in Douglassville, Pa. He was 93.
The death went unreported by local and national news organizations at the time. It was apparently first reported by the London-based writer and filmmaker Shane O’Sullivan in his book “Dirty Tricks: Nixon, Watergate, and the CIA,” published last year. The news of the death surfaced again on March 31 on the website Kennedys and King.”
April 21: David Picker, Studio Chief Who Acquired James Bond Novels for UA, Dies at 87
April 24: Dallas TV star Ken Kercheval dies aged 83
April 29: John Singleton: A Cinematic Gunfighter
Words for the Month
baffoon (n): From the 1540s, “type of pantomime dance;” 1580s, “professional comic fool;” 1590s in the general sense “a clown, a joker;” from Middle French bouffon (16th C.), from Italian buffone “jester,” from buffa “joke, jest, pleasantry,” from buffare “to puff out the cheeks,” a comic gesture, of echoic origin. (thanks to etymonline.com)
What We’ve Been Doing
Amber
Don’t Forget to check out my blog – Finder of Lost Things!
Last week Phoebe ended up in the doghouse for trying to run up Pumpkin Mountain….This Friday she encounters morning people before her first cup of coffee!
Death Wears A Mask & A Most Novel Revenge – Ashley Weaver
Have I told you about the Amory Ames Mysteries yet?
They are absolutely fantastic! Death Wears A Mask starts with a small, simple theft of a broach which quickly escalates into a high profile murder. A Most Novel Revenge finds Amory’s embroiled in a murder mystery rooted in another death seven years prior. A murder in retrospect you might say, a very Christie kind of plot, and yet Weaver still managed to surprise me in the end!
Both of these mysteries feature very classic English country house mystery themes, and yet Weaver still manages to breath new life into them. Weaver’s reworking of the plots accompanied by interesting details and a clever heroine all help to make these well-loved plots regain some of their luster.
But the best part of these books is the backdrop of Amory’s marriage to Milo. Unlike most duos, due to Milo’s infidelity, Amory has some serious trust issues with her partner (to the point she accused him of committing murder). However, these marital problems rather than distracting from the mystery (which is the point of the book) adds to the narrative. These problems make Amory relatable, never sounds whiny.
The unfolding of these problems and the slow evolution of Milo and Amory’s relationship help add an element of growth to these books as they are never in precisely the same spot (so far) in each story. Which helps add depth to the plot.
I would recommend this series to anyone looking for a new 1930’s historical mystery (it’s set between WWI and WWII as I’ve read so far). I cannot say how much I’ve enjoyed reading them so far and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book!
Fran
“What made the Little Crocodiles different was their founder Professor Geoffrey Wheatcroft, DD, DPhil, FSW, and fully qualified wizard. The FSW is the giveaway. It stands for Fellow of the Society of the Wise, otherwise known as The Folly – the official home of British wizardry since 1775. And if this is coming as a shock you might want to consider doing some background reading before you continue.”
This is the warning Peter Grant (as written by Ben Aaronovitch in the latest of the “Rivers of London” series, Lies Sleeping, hardback only at this point) given at the beginning of his latest adventure, and he’s serious. I figured, since I’ve read the previous 6 books at least three times now, I’d be fine just jumping in.
Nope. Not even a little. So I went back, snagged Midnight Riot, and went through them all again. And, as I have from the beginning, I picked up something new in each book. Ben Aaronovitch is just that good. Believe Peter and believe me, a refresher doesn’t hurt, and the series is great anyway.
All I’m going to say plot-wise is that this book is simply jam-packed with all kinds of interesting people, including a River we haven’t met before, and you’re gonna love Foxglove. You get the feeling all the way through this is going to be the showdown between Nightingale and the Faceless Man, and there are certainly fireworks. Let’s just say that Peter’s habit of damage to the structure of London continues unabated. And there are all kinds of incredibly funny observations and asides, and I’m absolutely positive some of the pop culture references went right over my head. I’m okay with that.
It’s a must read if you’re into this series, which is wickedly intelligent, funny as hell, and a minor treatise on architecture and history that I fin fascinating. My only grump – and it’s a fairly major one – is that if I’m paying for a hardback, then I bloody well want a proofreader to have done more than smile at it. There are egregious typos in there that drove me nuts. Seriously, DAW, step up your game here!
Otherwise, start with Midnight Riot, and when you’ve finished Lies Sleeping, let’s talk. I wanna know what you think is coming next!
JB
I should’ve been doing this all along but I don’t know that anyone else would care.
Since the shop closed, I’ve been having regular dreams about the shop. No real surprise since it was a central part of my life for nearly thirty years. I’ve often related them to Amber and Fran. Sometimes they’re about moving the shop, sometimes they’re about re-opening the shop (one was about Amber and Fran reopening it without me, and it had a grand circular staircase from the area of library tables in the basement to the sales floor – they did a very nice job on the place!), sometimes they’re in new spaces, one was that we’d decided to reopen it but 117 Cherry was no longer vacant… So it goes.
In early April I had one in which I was trying to teach two new people how to triage books for a signing. [That’s the term we borrowed from medical emergencies to mean culling through a shipment to find the hardcovers in the best condition for collectors, the copies that were fine for readers, and to see if any were damaged beyond putting out for sale.] Neither Fran or Amber were in the dream, which is why I was trying to teach it to others. I couldn’t get the guy to understand what was and was not a copy for a collector and it was so important to get it right as this was going to be a big signing, and our last, so I had to keep going back over the piles of books to find the best copies…
I’ll try to note future shop dreams. They’re always strange, vivid, and somewhat sad.
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