The Written Nerd

So I'm sick. And it makes me slow. Like zombie-slow. So slow it took me like ten minutes to find the name of a story in Kelly Link's new book Pretty Monsters (it's "The Surfer") in which a worldwide flu pandemic leaves a slightly jerky kid in a quarantined warehouse in Costa Rica. It's really good science fiction, the kind where the science part is secondary to the fiction, and the characters are more interesting than the world-building exercises (though those are interesting too). And I also have stuck in my head -- and had all of a very long night long -- a line from an Ani DiFranco song (I think it's "Garden of Simple", though I could most certainly be wrong) that goes "the bacteria are coming to take us down, that's my prediction / it's the answer to this culture of the quick fix prescription..." So apart from the mildly interesting sense that I'm at the juncture of a zombie film and a sci fi future and a dystopia...

Okay, I'm foregoing my usual link madness to get a little wonky this morning. Sarah Rettger at the ABA's Omnibus blog had a great link yesterday (what are you doing working Sunday, Sarah??) ( Update: while Sarah noticed the link, it's Dan Cullen who deserves credit for posting on Sunday) that I think deserves some analysis and some action. The link is to a site called Copyblogger , which has columns and advice about how to be a better blogger or online marketer. This particular column, " How to Change the World Using Social Media ," seems especially timely after an exciting presidential election that used online media and social networking to make great things happen. It also has a lot to do with my optimism schtick around here, and I think it has the potential to be an inspiration to independent booksellers. The key term here is social proof , which Wikipedia defines as "a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people a...

I'm reading Francine Prose's wonderful novel Goldengrove , in which the main character's sister has died. She describes the recurrent sensation of remembering the terrible news over and over, after somehow forgetting. The last couple of days feel like the opposite of that. I keep remembering something wonderful has happened. Zan at A Cup of Tea and a Wheat Penny describes the almost silly sensation of joy: " Oranges look oranger. Sweaters feel warmer. Rain? Who cares!" I respect Barack Obama all the more for emphasizing from the very first moment that this only the very beginning of a very long, hard road. But it's good to bask in the glow of something good for a moment. There has been dancing in the streets! I feel like my Pollyanna-ish optimism is suddenly in fashion again. There is much good writing and reflection about all this, and one of the best (and briefest) is the New York Times' poetry op-eds . My favorite is Joshua Mehigan's , whi...

Things are kind of teary and giddy around here today. I crashed early, hopeful but not sure, but this outside our window assured the ALP and I that hopes have been answered. Now we all get to go to work, glowing.

I usually try to avoid overt politicizing around here, but it's the moment where everyone can be forgiven for announcing their endorsement, just once. It probably comes as no surprise that I, like many of my fellow progressive-minded indie booksellers, support Barack Obama for president in the election tomorrow. There are lots of reasons why -- I agree with the man's policies and actions (for the most part), and he's an optimist and an idealist, as well as practical about what needs to be done -- obviously I admire that. I want to propose another reason for voting for Obama, though, appropriate to this venue: he's a man of the book. Hence today's link madness... First, of course, he wrote a book , then another , that have been on the bestseller lists for many months, making him a friend to bookstores everywhere. I'll admit I've only read bits and pieces, but I've heard his speeches, and the man can write . As the New Yorker recently pointed out , s...

Soon, very soon, I'll be heading to McNally Jackson to prepare for our Second Annual Literary Halloween Party ! It promises to be a blowout this year -- even the New Yorker has taken notice . We've got monsters telling stories for kids at 4:00 (dude, they are gonna LOVE our Frankenstein and Dracula, and guest author Siobhan Vivian's vegetarian vampire from Vunce Upon A Time ) and grown-up shenanigans at 6:30, including a Scary Story Slam (three minutes to wow us with your true ghost story or Poe reading or whatever) and Literary Costume Contest. And of course we're welcoming guest authors Doug Dorst, David Wellington, Stuart Moore, Joe Harris, and comic artist fan fave Bill Sienkiewicz. You know you're totally invited -- hope to see you there! If you need inspiration for the Literary Costume Contest, check out the Flickr group here , or the New Yorker's gathering of ideas . We'll definitely be taking photos tonight to submit, so it's your chance ...

You know how some books take over your life, so when you're not reading them you're thinking about them, and looking for spare moments to sneak in a few more sentences, and all kinds of other projects fall by the wayside? The last book that did that to me was Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao , which took over three or four days I had set aside for other work and left me stiff in weird places from being immobilized in my bed reading (or actually, lying on my stomach with the book on the floor and my head hanging over the edge of the bed -- I didn't intend to stay that way, but once I started reading I couldn't stop to change positions). Before that it was Adam Mansbach's The End of the Jews , which didn't make quite the splash in the larger world that Oscar did -- no Pulitzer or anything. But one's own obsessions are not always everyone's, and I wrote here about the effect that book had on my social life. The book currently ruining...