Bookstore Moment

The phone rings. I pick it up, give my usual greeting. I'm juggling an armload of history books and watching more customers walk in the store with things to sell back. It's been crazy all day, and I'm stressed and sweaty and sore and I really need to get downstairs to check these history books because there are stacks of other things to be looked at and added up still waiting on the counter...and I'm really hoping that the customer on the phone just wants to know our hours or something because there's so much to do and I need to hurry up and do it...and do you know what the oh-so-pressing question is that this customer has? The question which was so important she had to call us up and make sure before she came all the way to our store?

"Do you carry John Grisham?"

...

Head + Desk = Satisfying Thud.

Yes ma'am, we carry John Grisham. In paperback and hardback, and in multiple copies. Or would you like a free collection of Grisham novels someone donated to the store this morning? Or perhaps the collection someone donated yesterday, which we've already thrown in the dumpster out back? (For that matter, check the dumpster down your street. Grisham novels have been known to spontaneously appear there.) We are, after all, a bookstore.

Gundam 00

Today was the day the first season was due to be released. I have credit built up from selling things back at Hastings. So, can someone tell me why it is 6 o'clock in the afternoon and I'm not at home watching Ritsuka-look-alikes (such a sour face!) and robots blow things up?

Because Hastings doesn't have my box sets.

BASTARDS.

I want my Gundam 00 and I want it now!

On a somewhat related note, this is why I love cosplay and cosplayers. It warms my heart a little.

Gackt!

Yes, today I not only bought a CD (which I never do- they've been proven to be Not Worth the Investment, in my opinion) but I totally scored a freaking Gackt import album for $8.92! I've NEVER seen one of these damn things for less than $20- ever. Ever, ever, ever. And believe me when I say I've been hunting for years... dammit. The album is Mars, and it contains the outstanding tracks Vanilla, Mirror, and Oasis, as well as a number of other songs I'm not as familiar with. I like what I heard on the little soundbytes offered on Hasting's website, though, though I do believe I will be thoroughly pleased when the disc comes in. (Holy cow, I just bought a CD! I haven't done that in AGES!)

In the meantime, here's a (translated!) video of a live performance of Vanilla...complete with Gackt in tight snakeskin pants, humping his guitar player (Masa) onstage. Life is good, people.

And have I mentioned how much I hate this man for being so damn pretty? Gah! Just look at him! It isn't fair!

Catbus

Seriously.
Yes.

Robots!

I've been absent for a while, what with moving and getting settled and all, so I've been neglecting my blog. I'm still a bit rushed, so for now I don't have a real blog post (though one on forms of mythology is on the way), so today you get stupid-cute robot cupcakes. Enjoy. (Click on the picture to see the whole thing.)

Best Twilight Review Ever

From respected fantasy writer Elizabeth Hand, published in the Washington Post. (And thanks to Hal Duncan for posting a link on his blog, where I found it.)

Awesome Video

Dr. Who Meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOuOTOl-3gA

(Since I can't figure out how to embed video, you must go clicky on the link.)

Kenzaburo Oe

I have found a new adorable old-man author for my collection. This is Kenzaburo Oe, a Japanese author whose fiction revolves mostly around the Post-WWII years (and especially post-Hiroshima) in Japanese history.

My favorite of his novels is Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids. It follows a group of young boys (juvenile delinquents, if their paranoid elders can be trusted) as they are shunted from one village to another, seeking shelter from the elements and the air-raiding armies. They are finally abandoned by their adult supervisors in a mountain village and left to fend for themselves for a few days, only to be punishedfor finding ways to survive when their supervisors return. I won't give away all of the surrounding circumstances or the conclusion, but I can say that I defiantly recommend the novel. It's a short read- I read it in about a day, and it's not even two hundred pages long. It's a bit of a mix between Battle Royale and Lord of the Flies without the campy flavor of the first or the...well, actually it's almost as disturbing as the latter, and it's a good study of the tension, paranoia, and social insecurity caused by war and the mistrust of youth.

I've also got a copy of his Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, which contains four short novels including a semi-autobiographical story about a man coming to grips with having a mentally challenged son (that is the PC term these days, isn't it?) and another story following the dying days of a man with liver cancer (which he's probably imagined).

Latest Fangasm

Guess what?!?!?!?!?! Guess what?!?!?!?!? Guess what?!?!?!?!

Eeek! There are TWO Gundam 00 mangas coming out this year, and those are just the ones that have been announced so far!

Also! Also! There's a lite novel due for release this December! Squee!

And I'll be able to figure out what the difference between these season one box sets is once they've been released this summer...all I can really tell is that they've got different cover art, and I have NO IDEA why one is more expensive than the other...

This show is my new Gundam Wing, and I'm having ISSUES, in case you haven't noticed. I have a feeling I'll be collecting everything 00 related like I do with Wing...and yes, I've definitely been lusting after those Gundam figurines. I have been for years now.

(And Flashback: I've watched the first half on Rurouni Kenshin, season two in the last two days. I'd forgotten how much I freaking love that show, and now I have to hunt down affordable copies of the other seasons.)

Latest Orders

Ummm... I'd do a "Latest Arrivals" post, but other than Gaiman's Mirrormask and Lorca's Selected Letters I can't actually think of anything I've brought home recently. So, instead, I've decided to post a quick list of those books I'm expecting to arrive soon! Also, no pictures this time, because I'm lazy.

First off is The City and the City by China Mieville. A murder mystery novel set in another one of Mieville's imaginative settings, this promises to be a great read on par with his earlier novel, Perdido Street Station.

I also got fed up with waiting for a copy to show up in any local bookstore and finally ordered Catherynne Valente's Palimpsest. I read a short story set in the same world as this novel and (as usual) fell in love with Valente's prose... which broke my will and forced me to bump this up on my reading list.

Another book I just had to have because of a short story- I read M. John Harrison's contribution to The New Weird anthology (edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer) and decided I had to have his novel, Viriconium. The book and the short story are, again, set in the same world. Roman culture meets high tech society. Sweet!

Kelly Link's Trampoline: An Anthology is also on the way. It contains stories by Christopher Barzak (see my blog on his book The Love We Share... here), Carol Emshwiller, Jeffrey Ford, Karen Joy Fowler, Christopher Rowe, and a number of other people. Link is a top-notch editor and writer, and several of the names in this anthology make me positively drool.

Speaking of Christopher Barzak, I've got his other book One for Sorrow in the mail. This one seems to be worlds away from his story collection, The Love We Share Without Knowing, and actually looks like it may have something in common with Steve Berman's YA gay ghost story, Vintage (which I have another blog on... here).

And... speaking of Steve Berman... Trysts: A Triskaidecollection or Queer and Weird Stories is also on the way. Again, I seem to be developing a fixation on a handful of certain authors. (No Hal Duncan in this week's shipment...Not even a short story. That's a first. Although I'm still stalking his blog.)