Nerdfighters in the Store!

Dear Reader,
Do you like this book? If so, you are probably a NERDFIGHTER! Don't be alarmed— this is a good thing! Go to youtube.com/vlogbrothers (John Green's youtube channel with his brother) to find out more. ♥ Your Neighborhood Nerdfighter

If this picture and note are meaningless to you, let me be the first to tell you: There are people in this world called Nerdfighters. They are made of awesome, and they fight worldsuck. They are also known to leave notes in John Green's books, since he and his brother started the Nerdfighter community via their mindblowingly awesome video blog series Vlogbrothers. See their introductory video (made long after they started to clue new folks in on all the in-jokes) here. I love when we find these notes, and I never take them out. The Green brothers started their video project as just that, a project, and it evolved into a worldwide community that has many permutations, supports various charities in creative ways, and generally reminds me that the internet has the potential to facilitate things that I love (instead of just helping me keep tabs on people who were on my elementary school soccer team and giving me the ability to know virtually any song lyrics that I forget).

And if you are a nerdfighter, two things: first, DFTBA, And second, you should know that we have multiple nerdfighters on staff, if you ever want to talk about nerdfighteria. Just saying. We might even own t-shirts...

-Anna, Kids Books


Links to John's books:
Looking for Alaska
An Abundance of Katherines
Paper Towns
Let it Snow
Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Banned Books Week: Wednesday

Okay, so the last post was all dramatic and stuff. This one's mostly just fun. John Green, the author who's the focus of our department's longest-running author crush (no offense to Sherman, Markus, Scott, Cory, etc. etc. etc.) is a video blogger as well as a young adult author. This gave him a great forum in January of 2008, when his first novel—the fantastic, beloved, and award-winning Looking for Alaska—was challenged at Depew High School in New York. He made the following video, and as he is articulate, funny, smart, and the author, I really have nothing to add. Enjoy.

So... What Kinds of Books do Booksellers Buy?

In honor of our Employee Shopping Day, I though I'd finally put this post up. A while ago, I interviewed a bunch of coworkers because of a question that I get from customers all the time: You obviously love books if you work at a bookstore– how do you not spend your whole paycheck right here? How can you hold yourself back?

I know, however, that we don't spend our whole paycheck on books. As Jason reminded me, “Yeah, for the first few weeks, when you realize you've got an employee discount, you just buy stacks and stacks. And then you realize: oh, right. Bills.” But more than that, I think booksellers are particularly picky about what books we buy. We're around books all the time, and browse a lot, and are usually pretty devoted library patrons. It seems like only the cream of the crop make the cut to come all the way home and sit on the shelf, permanently. There's only so much shelf space in a book lover's home, although I actually know of some great workarounds fellow booksellers use– storing books in a never-used oven, for example, or making piles of books into bedside or coffee tables.

So I asked people what books they absolutely have to buy. What kinds of books can you not help yourself around? What takes a book from a library list to the employee hold shelf? Is it genre, emotional attachment, physical beauty? There were a lot of answers, some that popped up repeatedly, some very unique ones. When I tried to pull them all together in one cohesive post, it was impossible. So instead, I'm going to spread 'em out over a few posts.

#1 – Self interview (Anna, in Kids)

I love to buy autographed books. Some people couldn't care less, but I love to see that mark–or inscription, even better–and know that the author held the book, touched it. In the time I've worked here I've gotten signed copies from (among many others) John Green, Lois Lowry, Jon Scieszka, and Judy Blume. (I got Forever, okay? Life-changer.) The other place where I have no self-control is with beautiful old used children's books. If it's from the 1950s or earlier, if it has line drawing illustrations, or color plates, or deckle edges, or a leather cover, or some funny outdated language in the title, it's only a matter of time before it comes home with me.

More to come...