Showing posts with label Booksmith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Booksmith. Show all posts

Saturday, November 14, 2009

My TBR pile

When Walmart started the publishing price war, I upped my dedication to make each and every literary purchase that I could at an independent bookstore. I'm happy to say that since then, I've spent over $170 at indie bookstores. So I had to special order one tome at Booksmith, and I hope that it will be worth the wait.

We went to the store to pick it up on Thursday, and there was quite a commotion. There were kids bouncing around the store like Super Balls in a rubber room and their rude parents, who were just knocking over the unaware shoppers such as The Teen and myself, like sharks in an aquarium roundabout. Ah yes, you work so hard to teach your child some manners and to not walk through people, and then a bunch of adult idiots do their best to unravel that lesson.

There were five times as many people there as usual, I wouldn't have ventured in any further than the sales counter, but The Teen wanted to look at the manga section. We were in a hurry because I wanted to get back home in time for the Niner game. There was a small stage and quite an autograph line that was still going strong. So strong in fact, that I couldn't see who the author or authors were.

Yet, what do you care? You're more interested in the book I ordered, right? Here it is, "One Too Many Blows To The Head," which triples my "to be read" pile.



Oh, and the just who was the source of this hysteria? TMBG was there to do a quick gig and sign their new children's book. Of course I didn't figure that out until after I had left the store and saw a notice similar to this one in the window.


Wednesday, August 12, 2009

It's Going To Be A Noir Vacation...

Because I like to practice what I preach, Depeche Mode, I decided to give Booksmith another try. About four years ago, I ordered a book and...to put it politely and succinctly, I got a flaky clerk and a negative experience. So from there on after I went to Green Apple Books, Borders or neither store had it in stock, I would order it from Amazon.

The problem with Green Apple is that traffic is making it a bigger and bigger pain to drive across the park. Borders is nice and my favorite chain, but it is still a chain, and most of the money spent there leaves San Francisco. To keep a certain device that rhymes with "spindle" from taking over the world, ya gotta from your local store.

So Booksmith is a nice, brisk walk away if I avoid Haight and Stanyan, and all the junkies sprawled thereabouts. Not only do I get exercise, I get to support my local bookstore and this way the money stays here.

I put a book on order and they got it back to me in three days. The clerk was friendly this time and not only that, look at what they had in stock when I put the order in...



...that's right, I'm going to have a noir vacation...when I get to take a vacation.