What I’m Reading: Life As We Knew It

Just finished Susan Beth Pfeffer‘s YA, end-of-the-world novel Life As We Knew It. In the book the moon is knocked by a massive meteor hit and settles into a new orbit that brings it closer to earth. This plays havoc with the atmosphere, drowns the coasts of the world, and cuts off energy supply lines and most forms of communication.

I’m not giving much away as this all happens in the first couple of chapters.

What makes the book memorable is that it’s written as entries in a 16-year-old girl’s diary. The narrator’s self-centered focus (and the lack of dependable information sources) gives the reader suggestive hints of what’s happening globally but keeps the narrative on a poignant, human scale. We follow one family as they make very difficult, and cold-blooded choices about how they’re going to live in the face of extinction.

The book strongly evokes two other classics written from a young girl’s perspective: The Little House series (in the fierce battles with the elements) , and Anne Frank’s Diary (in it’s emphasis on small victories over hopelessness). I wonder if the author was consciously riffing on either of these books?

I finished at about 4AM this morning and spent the entire day under a stifling, wintry cloud– terrified about my dwindling supplies (this is on a 90 degree day in July, so that’s quite an accomplishment).

Bookthink Profile

Bookthink just posted a profile of me and there’s been a heartening outbreak of red stars over my visitor map. Yay! Welcome to the new readers. I hope you will chime in. If you leave a comment on this post (and you have a web presence), I will add you to my blogroll.

To the readers who don’t know about Bookthink, my subscription to their newsletters was one of my smartest purchases as a bookseller. They provide a wealth of book-buying and business tips, with articles from notable collectors and sellers across the field. Plus lots of flashpoints and discussions of hidden gems and cult authors. I credit Bookthink with helping me take bookselling full time.

Harry Potter Counterfeits

I heard a fascinating report on BBC radio this morning about Harry Potter in China.

Licensed and accurate translations of the Potter books are expensive and time consuming to produce so unauthorized publishers sell “creatively” adapted versions that beat the official releases into the stores and are offered at a much lower price. Also, at least one entirely original HP adventure (with Rowling’s name on the cover) Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-To-Dragon has been released. Apparently the book draws heavily on Chinese mythology and martial arts and features HP turning into a dwarf after a ‘sour-sweet rain’.

MSNBC covered the phenomenon here.

Cervantes (the first global phenomenon novelist) also faced this problem. After the first volume of Don Quixote was released, an unauthorized sequel was published: The Second Volume of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha: by the Licentiate Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda of Tordesillas (pseudonym). Fearing the loss of his character, and damage to his reputation, Cervantes finished the concluding volume of Don Quixote just a few months before he died. In it DQ confronts the author-imposter in a Pre-Modern, Post-Modern throwdown that boggles the mind.

Does anyone have images of Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-To-Dragon? or more details about the plot? I think I want to start a collection of HP fakes.

My favorite piece so far is the Brad Neely dubbed, What’s Up Tigerlilly-style accompaniment to the crappy first movie. It’s called Wizard People, Dear Reader. You can find the whole thing in snippets on YouTube.

Field Report

It was so hot this past weekend that I completed neglected stoop sales…or going outside for any reason whatsoever, so this is more a “crap that showed up at my door” report.

Thank god for eBay, the 24-hour garage sale.

Picked up a very nice assortment of high-grade Dell Mapbacks that will be creeping into my inventory over the next few days. Also an interesting mixed lot of romances that contained some HTF gothics and ghost titles that I didn’t know about until now (Anne Stuart’s first novel Barrett’s Hill, and Ghost in the Swing by Janet Patton Smith). GITS looks like a creepy novel from a kid’s perspective about being haunted by a dead sister. People must have very vivid memories of this book, since it’s a just a mass market from the ’70s but commands around $100. I’ll probably give that one a read if I find a lower grade copy.

Also on the paperback front, I also acquired a couple of very rare transgender pulps from the 50s; Half by Jordan Park (aka Cyril Kornbluth), and Man into Woman by Niels Hoyer. Lastly Gore Vidal’s pseudonymously penned thriller Thieves Fall Out, which I’ve been trying to land for a while.

Good stuff. Ah, the humble paperback…Don’t they look like candy, all stacked up like that?

Film Noir Miis: Peter Lorre

I’m currently devouring the Peter Lorre biography The Lost One by Stephen D. Youngkin. 50 pages in (out of nearly 600) and Lorre’s already addicted to morphine and has suffered a series of health and mental breakdowns. I can’t wait to read more.

Thought I’d make another noir Mii to commemorate:


I’m only semi-satisfied with this one. Without flop sweat and a dangling cigarette, It’s hard to capture Lorre’s essence.

I used to just plow through a director’s filmography and figure that actors were incidental, but lately I’ve been working my way through the noir regulars (Mitchum, Stanwyck, Lorre, etc). Maybe it’s the cult of pretty and the lack of great character actors in contemporary Hollywood that’s sending me back, but it’s fascinating to watch the development of these great faces and personas throughout their careers.

Metal House

My aunt–who’s an Upstate Indiana Jones of auctions and abandoned houses–sent me this photo of a residence(?) in Greenfield, New York.


This is the most unsettling building I’ve ever seen. What the hell is it for? I’m betting it’s a black-ops torture barn (with recycling bins for people bits)…either that or a very poorly disguised Decepticon.

She’s promised me more photos from her adventures so stay tuned…

The estate sale that got me started

Almost 3-years ago, when I was laid-off from a bookstore in Park Slope (that’s about to lay itself off…heh, heh), I started selling used books online and trolling Craigslist for estate sales. I hit the jackpot with this one:

The owner had been a printer, a publishing production manager, and a packrat of Collyer Brothers proportion. His estate comprised a Soho apartment and three houses in upstate New York filled to the rafters with junk, beat-up antiques, and ephemera of every sort.

After two days of sorting through the initial apartment, the arbiter and I came to an agreement: I could take what I wanted (within reason) provided I help get the estate into something like showable condition. This turned into a month and a half of urban archaeology, compensated via sweat equity.

With the help of my father and a friend, we removed five dump truck loads of trash from the main house, down to what most people would consider a semi-normal estate (rather than a health and architectural hazard) and in the process I learned a lot about packrat psychology (and this guy in particular).

At first the owner stockpiled, buying multiples of everything–overkill but kind of understandable. He was also a compulsive auction-goer and it looks like he tried to establish a presence on eBay. At some point he went through a messy divorce and was joined by his brother, who mirrored his accumulating but in Bizarro fashion; filling closets–and whole rooms–with cheap stuffed animals, carefully labeled burned-out lightbulbs, and borderline correspondence with public officials. Eventually their personalities seem to blur into a sad folie à deux. In the end the owner died and his brother was committed.

This estate produced many of the items from my “11 Wonderful/Horrible Things Found While Bookscouting” essay (printed in LCRW #20 and continued here) plus numerous life and sanity threatening moments. One night a blizzard forced me to spend the night in one of the houses, resting atop a hope chest, eating stale Rollos washed down with ancient airplane booze mini-bottles (not one of my prouder moments). On another trip there was flash flooding in the next town that sadly claimed the life of at least one person.

I’m a third generation packrat and several members of my family make some portion of their income on eBay. The experience of belonging to one family of packrats digging through the remains of another provided many valuable life lessons. Now I can’t pick up an item, no matter how cool or unique, and not think about the pile I’m going to leave when I drop dead.

If you are morbidly curious, I just uploaded a flickr photoset here. Looking through these pictures I have a hard time telling which way is up (and that’s not solely due to my lack of photography chops).

Another Antiquarian Titan

The Heritage Bookshop of Los Angeles, CA is closing its doors after 44 years in business. Never set foot in the store myself but it sounds and looks like it was a worthy spot for a pilgrimage.

In contrast to the flaming, Jerry-Bruckheimeresque wreck of the Gotham Book Mart, the Weinstein brothers (Brooklyn natives) are closing their store happily and voluntarily.

Despite uninspiring claims that “neither one of them is intellectual or a reader” and their own statement that they “didn’t enter the business because [they] wanted to pursue knowledge” it’s heartening to see someone bring a graceful close to a career spent in rare books.

The Brothers reference library comprising “12,000 volumes, including bibliographies, auction records and books on books….will remain intact at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library.”

Erottery & Sexeramics

Somehow I’ve started an accidental collection of erotic pottery and ceramics. Thought I would share. This pin-up girl ashtray is one of my favorite things in the world. If someone put a cigarette out on her, I would kick their f***ing ass.

When I found these chinese figures, they had been kept outside in a garden or something and I had to really get in there with a Q-tip to clean them up. They are VERY detailed.


Notice that the Manchu-era couple have a healthy sex life while the Maoist is a eunuch. Not sure if there is some kind of political commentary implicit.