Mea Culpa, Well Sort Of

     As you  know I've been stuck, crazy stuck, in my book reading.  I think it was an overload of good new releases.  Too much to read, too little time.  I am reading 4 books right now and haven't finished a damn one.  So I made a bold call.  I decided to finish Fifty Shades of Grey.  Yes, you read that last sentence correctly. To put it mildly, I was not a fan.  But damn it I needed to finish a book, good or not.  Onto Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed.  I did it, in 4 days I read both.  I even tried to hide it by reading them on my NOOK so that no one could tell.  I read good books, I don't read that crap.  But in 4 days I was done. 

     I felt dirty and ashamed that I bent down to the crush of non-readers who think this is one of the best books they've ever read.  I thought I was better than that.  Turns out I'm not.  Now I've said it, I need to defend myself.  I still think it's crap.  I still think it's terribly written.  It is truly fan fiction: not original, very predictable, and full of plot holes.  That being said, it's readable if you can get past her over use of "inner goddess," "heady" and my favorite phrase, "he rubbed my sex." By the time I got halfway through book 2 I started to skip the sex scenes because they were almost all the same, this stymied me seeing as how this was supposed to be the big deal about it. As I have said before, I've read dirtier much better written.  By book three I wanted to know more about the characters and less about the sex.  The problem is everything that happened in the book wasn't built up to, it wasn't alluded to it just sort of conveniently occurred when she needed her story to turn.  Something to throw off a flowing relationship let's drop in a pregnancy by running into your gynecologist on the street. . . .  really?  Need some drama no problem we'll throw in a kidnapping with a five million dollar ransom.  But when it was all said and done I was ,for the most part, entertained.

Mea Culpa. . . . well sort of :)

    

Where are the Bookstores Going?

     As you all probably know I manage a bookstore, I am a self proclaimed book guru.  I love books and always have.  Getting lost in a world someone else created is one of the greatest past times around.  I know that I sound old fashioned and maybe I am but a good book can take you places that are imagined by someone else.  In my opinion that's pretty cool.  That being said my world is threatened.  Bookstores, publishing, what we read and how are changing.  I am no fuddy-duddy.  I have a NOOK, in fact I have several as do the members of my family.  I love being able to take hundreds of books with me wherever I go.  I love not having to decide what 5 books to take on vacation with me.  I love that I can read anywhere.  But I also love walking in my front door and being surrounded by shelf after shelf of books, old and new.  I love books whatever format they come in, and I have them all.

     I get asked more times than I can count in a day "are you going out of business?" I want to scream out loud every single time I hear it.  But the truth is no one knows.  With some of the big box retailers that sell everything from toilet paper to windshield wipers trying to cash in on best sellers, selling them for several dollars cheaper, we lose business.  That's fine if you only ever read the 10 most popular books.  Where will you go when you want to look for a book?  Where will you go when you want someone to help you pick out a book or recommend one?  I'm fairly sure most employees as those big box will point you to their top ten display and tell you that those are good.  This will have no impact on those who don't enjoy reading and I understand.  To those of that do this is an uncertain time. 

     The changing business has also brought some wonderful perks.  We now have a direct line to some of our favorite writers through on line forums, twitter, Facebook etc.  You can drop one them a question and in most cases you'll get a response, it's awesome.  It has given authors that wouldn't have been picked up by a traditional publisher the means to get their book out there, to be a published author.  My point is, technology cannot replace all of the people who go into getting a book out there.  The writer writes it, it's edited and edited again, it's printed, shipped, unpacked, stocked on shelves and talked up by a bookseller.  There are hundreds of people that make a book happen.  So shop in a bookstore, ask someone who works there to recommend you a book they liked and I almost guarantee you'll find something you love.  The fortunate thing is, I'm not the only one who feels this way.  John Green wrote a small article on www.shelf-awareness.com called "We built this together", you should read it.