Shame

English authors confess the books they are most ashamed of having not yet read:



Filmed at the Way With Words Festival.

In the spirit of sharing, I've never read Moby-Dick.

And it eats me up inside.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

Every Saturday I drive to work and park in a lot behind an abandoned grocery store. Due to construction on the freeway this morning, I was late. Not terribly late, but late enough that I assumed I would miss seeing a gentleman who has become part of my Saturday morning routine. Every Saturday an elderly fellow, in a greasy windbreaker of indeterminate color and a safari hat of similar long usage, stands in the parking lot I use and feeds the birds. I have come to count on seeing him there, fair weather or foul, most Saturdays, surrounded by pigeons and crows and seagulls and starlings. There's nothing remarkable in someone tossing breadcrumbs to the urban avian population. There is, however, something notable in the method employed by this particular old fellow, and watching him has become a reliable pleasure to me. From a full loaf of the kind of bagged white bread we are no longer encouraged to eat, he extracts as many as three slices in a dip and then tosses these slices whole over his head. His pitching style is a jerky underhanded softball throw that bespeaks age and weariness more than aggression, but it looks angry even if it isn't. Each fist-full of white bread flies up but so far before at least a few birds are airborne. Only the crows ever seem to catch anything. The rest wait to fight it out on the ground. Only the starlings seem willing to work in any kind of concert; darting in waves to gather crumbs tossed off in battles among the larger birds, otherwise the scene is a loud, flapping, wheeling kind of chaos. The bird feeder seems to take little pleasure in his labors. Having methodically worked his way through a loaf, he does not stay to watch the birds. Instead, he carefully folds the plastic bread-bag before shoving it into the pocket of his jacket, and then, without a glance at the birds, he simply stomps off, having, presumably, done his duty.

Even though I was nearly thirty minutes late this morning, I managed to catch a glimpse of the last pitch as I pulled into the lot. I parked and watched the old man walk away. Am I wrong in supposing that his distinctive, stiff-legged march has slowed? Is that why he was still about his business even as I came late on the scene? Or am I sentimentalizing? As with so many characters encountered in the U District, my curiosity actually extends no further than my glance.

There are dozens of such eccentrics in the neighborhood: buskers and beggars, full-throated gospel singers and self-appointed city-sweepers, the little man in the summer suit who plants religious tracts in the men's room at the bookstore, whistlers and dog-walkers and the grown man who dresses daily like an elf, though I haven't seen him for some time.

Lifelong Seattlites, while traditionally tolerant of the strangers among them, seem to despair of the growing urbanization of the University neighborhood, invariably waxing nostalgic about the University Bookstore of their childhood, where Grandpa rented skis from the Sporting Goods Department the streets were -- at least in memory -- clean, and where the ladies wore gloves in the summertime.

But as a more recent arrival from another city I won't trouble the locals by naming, I am comforted by the mix of humanity that only a big city provides. People make a landscape more interesting. And the mix of people in and about the bookstore is extraordinary. So much so that on the same recent afternoon I watched three boys from three races performing capoeira just outside the front door of the store and then, later, listened to a couple sing a Johnny and June Carter Cash duet in the doorway of an untenanted building across the street. And this morning, in just the first hour of business, I've admired a parade past the Used Books Desk of beautiful babies of every description, all out in their strollers for a summer airing, and ladies wearing broad-brimmed summer hats, and couples with baskets of fresh greens and fruit from The University District Farmers' Market, and families -- "traditional" and otherwise -- hunting out bargains together from the Summer Book Sale tables in the lobby.

I would suggest, should the reader of this be unfamiliar with either the bookstore or the U, or skeptical of coming back this way after many years elsewhere, it is well worth coming to the best bookstore in Seattle, not simply for the bookstore itself, but also for the varied pleasures of the people to be seen hereabouts. And if the place is not as you remember, or if it is unlike the suburban mall located, weirdly, just over the hill, you must trust me when I tell you that that is not necessarily such a very bad thing.

THE SUMMER BOOK SALE! (as seen from the Used Books Desk)

The annual summer book sale has begun. Regular shoppers at University Book Store will be met by the full tables in the lobby and, presumably, rejoice. In addition to discounted titles from our regular inventory and Bargain Books, the discerning book buyer will also notice a large number of discounted Used Books. Just a word about those Used Books...

Buying used books is not unlike running an animal rescue shelter. There are always new homes available for the most popular, owner-friendly sorts—all glossy and familiar, recognizably "just right" for the kids or dear old Aunt Ruth. But what makes used book buying interesting are the exotics, the mutts and the crossbreeds, the very rare birds and the one of a kind. It is for love of these that buyers enthusiastically return each day to the desk. And for these, there is not always an owner... immediately.

An old fashioned used books dealer, sitting in his own dusty little shop, can display his quirkier purchases proudly for years, secure in the knowledge that, sooner or later, the right reader will happen in, and willingly pay the price asked to complete his collection of books about—19th Century ichthyology? patterns of Chinese migration? the aesthetics of truck mudflaps?

For those of us working in, shall we say, a more commercial environment—where new books come in constantly and where used books are only one part of our huge inventory—patience has its limits.

And so comes the Summer Book Sale. So if your interest in used books tends to the more interesting, less common kind of book, now is your moment! Lost treasures and rare pleasures await you, in great heaps of hardcover and soft! Move quickly, or that one other person in the world with your exact interests will be taking home your perfect pet book.

Most Stylish Man

Okay, so, here's the thing, Blayne. That "Seattle's Most Stylish Man" contest? We and our friends from Seattle Metropolitan magazine hosted it here at University Book Store to celebrate the release of Tim Gunn's book Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste, and Style. And while you were one of the finalists in the contest, you were not—as this bio suggests—named the Most Stylish Man by a panel of judges. Gopi was.

Hey, maybe the people who wrote the bio got it wrong. That's a possibility. Just wanted to set the record straight. That's all. Gopi was named Seattle's Most Stylish Man. I was there. Let's give the man his due.

The New Yorker Cover

Victor LaValle—one of my favorite contemporary writers—on The New Yorker cover. (From Maud Newton's fine, fine blog.

Berry Spectacular Tomorrow!

Looking for something to do tomorrow, Saturday, July 12? The U District Farmers Market is having a Berry Spectacular to celebrate the arrival of local berries.

We'll be there with a table full of local cookbooks and a book signing by Debra Daniels-Zeller, author of Local Vegetarian Cooking. The market runs from 9am to 2pm at 50th and University Way. Support local farmers and your local independent bookstore at the same time!

Ragged Edge

Years ago, I had a customer approach me and tell me that a book seemed to have "a rather ragged cut for $24." He held the book up to me, topside pointing in my direction, the plane of the pages opposite the binding at eye level. And, yes, the edges were not trimmed clean. They dipped and rose in hills and valleys.

This was early on in my shelving/bookselling career, and I didn't really have the lingo down. I think my response was a meek little: "No, they meant to do that." He gave me a look of incredulity and moved on.

Later, I learned to refer to said untrimmed edge as "deckle." Said with enough authority ("Oh, sure. That's a deckle edge. It's a design choice."), it placates customers.

Powell's blogger, why must you muddy my waters?

Our geeked-out conversation about fore-edges led, of course, down the dark bibliographic road to the term "deckle edges." John Carter defines the term as "the rough, untrimmed edges of a sheet of hand made paper....Much prized by collectors."

Deckle is not merely "untrimmed." It is sort of "untrimmed" on steroids. Here's what deckle edges look like:

(Check the full post for accompanying images.)

I suppose I should go back to saying "untrimmed edge," but "deckle" sounded so much more...official.

A darn shame

Tom Disch, author of some really powerful books, committed suicide on July 4.

As this post says, go find a copy of On Wings of Song and read it. Amazing, amazing book.

Here's an obit from Locus.

UPDATE:

Ed Champion and Thomas Disch in conversation.

ANOTHER UPDATE:

An obit from The New York Times.