Hello and cheers and how-de-doo. I missed my Friday post last week (my first post, so I already have a fantastic track record here!) so I though I’d post on the longest day of the year! This is NOT the longest post of the year, rest assured.
A lot of my days and nights are spent at The Wise Owl, my bookstore, shelving and rearranging and inputting titles into inventory and goodness all the dusting. But in-between those times I manage some of reading. That’s the fantasy everyone has about bookstore owners and booksellers: that somehow we just sit around all day and READ and the store just runs itself while we’re off in Narnia or Oz. Not so, I’m afraid, though I wish it were. The business-end of books is the most exasperating, and makes you second-guess yourself and your ideas more than anything. A book sells well one week, but not the next. You move a book one shelf over from where it’s been for months and suddenly you sell out! There’s no rhyme or reason and you spend a lot of time worrying that everything is in it’s optimal place.
But BETWEEN all that, I do read. A lot. At home, in the tub, in bed, on the couch, at the store, on my head if I could although I don’t know why I would…
Right now I’m reading two books: an advance reading copy of HORTEN’S INCREDIBLE ILLUSIONS by Lissa Evans, a sequel to the fantastic middle-grade reader book HORTEN’S MIRACULOUS MECHANISMS, about young S. Horten who inherits his mysterious great-uncle’s magical workshop. The first was lovely and quirky and fun and the second promises to be exactly the same!
I’m also reading CALIBAN’S WAR by James S.A. Corey. This one’s a sequel too — I love science fiction, and the first one was a combination of a gritty detective noir story and an epic space opera. It also happens to be co-written by somebody I know so it makes me extremely happy that his novels are getting the attention and accolades they deserve! I’m about 50 pages in (out of 595) and it is already a thrill-a-minute, a real edge-of-your-seater. A great, exciting read for a long summer day!
