One of My Ideas is Executed--Our Case of Cuiosities is Filled with Old Bandage Tins

One of the things I inherited from the Downer Schwartz were two glass cases. These were used for expensive rare books, and perhaps before that, for expensive sidelines.

They were currently not usable because both locks were gone. It seemed like a bad idea to put things in an unlocked glass case. I can only imagine theft and breakage, a combinage that gives me nightmares.

Thanks to Urich, locks were ordered (from Europe!) and they now pretty much work. Well, at least the one on the right--the one on the left is a little tempermental.

But at least for now, my idea is to display things not for sale, but for show. Collections of various sorts dazzled my imagination. Of course I had one of my own to start things off. Below is my explanation that hangs alongside the case...

Assorted Bandage Tins

It was the mid 1980’s when I realized that the ubiquitous bandage tins I saw everywhere would soon disappear. There was a distinct trend away from metal in all things packaging.

The bandage tin, however, is a beautifully designed container. Homage has been paid in the retro Accoutrements tins filled with bacon and pickle shaped bandages. And yes, I have a few of these.

I love place and I love retail. When you think of cities, you might think of baseball teams or landmark buildings. I think of old retailers. I saw the regional food and drug chains consolidating at a rapid pace, and I panicked…and started collecting.

The march against the bandage tin reminds me of what the soothsayers pronounce now for the book. And the examples I have remind me of the somewhat lost vibrancy of regional retailing.

All of which explains a bit why I chose to open an independent bookstore in Milwaukee. Enjoy the collection.

A Man Walks into a Bookstore, Asks for Colette...

Actually, a man and a woman walked in. I was going for cliched opening here.

I can't find the short story collection they're looking for. We find one Colette book on the shelf. They buy it and leave.

Meanwhile, they obviously wanted Cheri, as the film it is based on was playing down the block at the Downer Theater. We had several copies on our film table.

Oops. If you read this, Mr. and Ms. Customer, I apologize.

Here's the Journal Sentinel review and the Landmark Theatres site for times.

A Little Memory of Book Browsing with my Mom

When I was a young child growing up in Queens, my mom liked to take the train to Manhattan to walk around. We'd window shop, perhaps have lunch at the Stouffer's on 53rd and Fifth (I have a vivid memory of eating chicken croquettes, for some reason), go to a museum.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art was always popular because admission was "pay what you wish", and I feel that when I was young, there was no admission charge at all. Correct me if I'm wrong in "comments"! Also, I was a big fan of From the Mixed-up Files of Basil E. Frankweiler, which I only know now was brand new at the time.

We might even buy something. Another vivid memory is of The Brown Fairy Book, a collection from Andrew Lang that seemed so captivating in my youth, as I'm a sucker for anything defined by color. Of course, in my practical way, I went for the volume that was neutral in tone. We bought this at the Doubleday on 53rd and 5th. This branch was modest compared to the flagship several blocks north, but it was conveniently located near Mom's preferred Fifth Avenue subway stop.

We might walk over to one of the other bookstores, Scribner or Brentanno's. I remember the latter having things like vases. Even then, trying to help the margin with sidelines!

We'd stop in the Donnell Library to browse for a while. They were one of the few libraries I knew of that had a subscription to Billboard Magazine. Most people think of the lions of 42nd and 5th when they think of the New York Public Library. For a kid not doing research, that was a bit intimidating.

And of course we went into a department store or two. There's a legendary story in my family of me crying for hours about something or other--perhaps not being able to get a toy I wanted. I'm still embarrassed.

By the time I was a young adult, the Stouffer's was a B. Dalton, while the Doubleday across the street was a museum store. There was talk of rebuilding the Donnell with a hotel above and a small branch below, but that's supposedly now on hold.

Anyway, Mom's now in Brookline, just blocks from Brookline Booksmith. Finally she lives near an indie bookstore, not that this was something she yearned for. She's currently reading The Memory Keeper's Daughter, which she said is a pretty fast mover.

Happy birthday, Mom!

Carl travels with Milwaukeean Joe Caldwell to promote The Pig Did it and sequel

So it turns out that Joseph Caldwell, of The Pig Did It and The Pig Comes to Dinner, is from the Milwaukee area! Carl Lennertz of HarperCollins, who was travelling around with him in New England, and writes about it on Shelf Awareness, called a couple of weeks ago and mentioned that Joe would love to come by, say hi, and sign stock today.

Alas, we already have Fran Slayton speaking in the back of the store, for her book When the Whistle Blows. ( That's tonight, Monday, at 7 PM. Read more here).

In the front of the store, I am leading a discussion of Aleksander Hemon's The Lazarus Project, also at 7. (Note: I ran into Carolyn, a regular customer, on my way to get soup for lunch, and she told me she was enjoying it. It's going to take a year to build this book club into something respectable. Hemon's appearing on Friday at 7. Read more here. Also, an interesting Q&A was featured in the Cue section of Sunday's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. He's still coming on Friday, July 10th, at 7 PM.

So anyway, Mr. Caldwell is stopping by with his sister today. We'll have signed copies of The Pig Did it and its sequel, The Pig Comes to Dinner. Next time, I hope to have a full-fledged reading.

Here's a taste of Caldwell's book from their web site:

What the pig did – in Joseph Caldwell's charmingly romantic tale of an American in contemporary Ireland – is create a ruckus, a rumpus, a disturbance . . . utter pandemonium.
Possibly the most obstreperous character in literature since Buck Mulligan in James Joyce's Ulysses, Mr. Caldwell's pig distracts everyone from his or her chosen mission. Aaron McCloud has come to Ireland from New York City to walk the beach and pity himself for the cold indifference of the young lady in his writing class he had chosen to be his love. The pig will have none of that.

Read more here.

Newsweek's "What to Read Now and Why" Display

Sharon, our magaczarina, was quite taken with Newsweek's "What to Read Now and Why" list in the July 13th issue. It's a really interesting collection of titles, that whether old or new, reflect on some issue of interest today. It's great to see Anthony Trollope's The Way We Live Now at #1, a classic novel of financial and moral crisis.

#2 is Lawrence Wright's 9/11 book, The Looming Tower. Prisoner of State is the controversial Chinese memoir at #3. But did you expect William Faulkner's The Bear at #5, "The best environmental novel every written?" Or how about Ayelet Waldman's Bad Mother at #25? (We sold a copy of Waldman's book this week off the display (below). No Great Gatsby for this list.

Sharon was particularly excited that The Elegance of the Hedgehog was at #45.

We made a snappy display, including a snappy sign. We've got a number of the fifty titles on hand, and several more on order. But where is American Journeys, by Don Watson? Seemingly out of print. And lots more is out of stock.

So in the old days, if this took off, titles would be reprinted, buzz would continue, all would be well. But what if the rights only go to Sony readers or Kindles and there is no printed copy, except for perhaps a print-on-demand, nonreturnable, short discount version? Eeks.

If nothing else, I'm hoping this display sells through my draw of Newsweeks. Hey, Michael Jackson's on the cover and it should already have flown out the door. But People is doing far better--we're already in double digits, which is pretty good for us.

I was hoping to link to the list, but it's not yet posted--you have to buy it! Good for them. Here's a link to Newsweek's site.

Shoplifter's Notebook, Volume 2

I'm not going to whine about every book or sideline I discover missing. It, was, however, a bit ironic that we got in a new batch of bookplates from Saturn Press (and some really beautiful letterpress cards too), including one that says "Stolen From."

Ha, ha, ha! That kills me.

Later on I discovered a missing space in our new Bananagrams rack. We waited for a sale (that's happened before) or for a banana lounging around somewhere in the store, to no avail. Schwartz sold B-grams quite well, and we might have moved onto something new, but there is a book coming from Workman next month and it seemed like a good idea to restock. Now the idea is less good.

There is that booksellers adage, the less something looks like a book, the more it is stolen. I guess Bananagrams could be mistaken for a game, which has better resale value, or nice, delicious fruit, which has better nutritional value.

I'm still trying to balance the relaxed store atmosphere with my shrinkage. It's a cost of doing business. However, I do have my eye on a good mirror.

Oops, I've got to get back on the floor now. We decided we'd be really dead today so Jason, Sarah and I are doing the full July 4th shift at the store. July 3rd turned out to be busier than we expected, and best part of all, a good percentage of the biz is out-of-town visitors. I was thrilled to see two ex-coworkers, Eugene from New York and Liz from Las Cruces, now lawyer and librarian respectively. Eugene is very hot on the Colin Cotterill series, the newest of which is The Merry Mysoginist.

I'm a Foodie who Doesn't Cook, but Likes a Good Book on the Subject

I'm celebrating because I actually read seven books in June. That's my best total since February. Some folks said I'd never have time to read again but:

1. I do still have a 30 minute bus ride every day and

2. I have all these events and like to read as many of the event books as I can.

So the sad truth is that I'm reading, but the books are being somewhat dictated to me. That means less books in advance, which means less voting for books on the Indie Next list. And that bums me out.

But the latest book I read wasn't an event book, at least not yet. It was Andrew Coe's Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States. The title's a bit misleading, since 40% of the book (the first 100 pages) takes place in China. But that's actually about the perceptions of American traders in China, so perhaps that's also part of our history. I found it all quite interesting and readable, and the only part of the book that's clearly Oxfordian is that the notes and bibliography are included.

Aside, did you hear about the to-do Chris Anderson caused over Free because his publisher Hyperion decided not to include his notes and therefore he didn't properly cite information he gleamed from Wikipedia. Or something like that--I apologize for possibly getting it slightly long. Pretend you are overhearing me in an elevator. Needless to say, I'm don't argue the premise of the book, but I'm not thrilled with it either. That's why it amuses me to cite the blog Plagiarism Today so that you can read more on the controversy.

Anyway, that's a mistake Oxford wouldn't likely make. It's good to know that both Asians and Europeans thought the others smelled bad on first meeting, though for different reasons. And I really, really needed someone to sort out the truth from the lies regarding the century's old "chop suey hoax."

But most of all, Andrew Coe's book made me realize that we could really, really, really, really use a good Chinese restaurant on Downer Avenue. Hey, there's a Chinese church only about 5 blocks north of us. And by good, I don't mean another branch of #1, though I do like their house special soup and their steamed dumplings.

So I'm finished, and what to tackle next? Back to events--I'm starting Mark Caro's Foie Gras Wars, a balanced look at stuffing animal livers. Coincidentally, Coe was one of the writers on Michael Ginor's Foie Gras: A Passion, an oversized love letter to the delicacy from '99.

A Quirk of our Web Site's Search Engine

When you search our Boswell Books website, it is really only titles available at Ingram. Books we stock that Ingram doesn't carry (like our recent event Snickeyfritz) will not show up. We can sell them, but we've got to create the ISBN ourselves with a link to the shopping cart.

This is also true for the sidelines/nonbook we post on our site, as well as most bargain, and second-hand titles. In order for you to order an autographed title, we need to create a new item code as well. This is a continuation from the way things are at Schwartz. The system has since been updated, however, so that we can create the fake codes ourselves.

I wish there was a way to put this caveat on the site. I've talked to customers about this and most are convinced they are searching our inventory. Someday we'll figure out how to program well enough that we can attach a text box with an explanation. But for now, at least you read it here.

We'll try to post these titles as quickly as possible. Most of them are regional in nature. One title we've been selling well for years is Tom Tolan's Riverwest. It's a lovely picture book, very modestly priced, and the proceeds go to help the COA (Children's Outing Association).