Conjure This

I picked up a copy of Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife on Amazon. Yes, I went for the dead tree edition for six bucks rather than a $7.69 e-copy. I'm still that guy. If the price was $3.99 or less on Kindle, maybe... but that's beside the point.

I'm a good twenty pages in, and it's a fine book, but the cover troubles me:

This woman is not Tansy. Not in my imagination. Not from a book published in 1943, no matter how dark the fantasy. The hair, her dress, the gothed-out eyes... Not to mention the words at the bottom of the cover: "The Classic of Urban Fantasy". What? Urban Fantasy wasn't even a phrase one used in 1943. Was it?

This is marketing, sure, disguising a classic horror novel in trappings of the now to sucker new readers. Not unlike slapping a Twilighty cover on Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, and Pride and Prejudice:

Oh yes they did.

Does the cover effect my reading of the book?  The jury is still out, but if I'm thinking about the cover instead of the content, I'd have to say all signs are pointing to YES. What about you?

Dead Trees and Electrons, or Book Polygamy

I love books.

I don't want to send the wrong message with yesterday's post. Remaindered books are not sad for the reader at all. It's just the gluttony of publishing which bothers me. I buy plenty of clothing from the clearance racks, so I guess I should get over it, huh?

At Hastings (I was a book manager in Lawrence years ago), we called them "hurt books". That was the official company title: hurt books. Hardbacks were code 51, trade paperbacks 55, mass markets, 50, and "hurt books" 54.

Sounds a little sad, doesn't it? Hurt books. They weren't wounded at all.

My wife gave me a Kindle for my birthday. I love it. I love the number of books I've been able to slap on that bad boy for a few bucks. I love changing the font size so my eyes don't strain at all. I love the built-in dictionary. I don't love the highlighter so much. (So, how do I turn off other people's highlights?)

But I love physical books, and I always will. Here's the other end of the spectrum: I've recently joined the Library of America. If you're unfamiliar, they produce high quality, durable editions of classic American literature. So far, I've received American Fantastic Tales (2-volume set), Raymond Carver: Collected Stories, and H.P. Lovecraft Tales. I'll have these books for a lifetime of reading. Poe, Shirley Jackson, Raymond Carver, and Langston Hughes are all in the queue.

There is a place for the e-reader and my love for real, tangible books, but I'm past my e-fears, folks. E-reading is here (in my life) to stay, just like those beautiful, cloth bound LoA editions.

Now, I just need a set of sweet digital bookends...

Back from the Dead for Halloween: The Bottom Feeders

Look what's back from the "dead" in time for Halloween.

Download The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories for Kindle.

Download The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories for Nook.

Download The Bottom Feeders and Other Stories at Smashwords.

(You can even download a shorter version for free at Smashwords.)

...and The Bottom Feeders would like to be your friend at Goodreads.

How Many 'O's in My Last Name?

Yeah, I like this meme. I enjoy looking at me books. Thanks, Cate.

The rules...

From the biggest bookcase you have, pick out one book whose author’s last name starts with each letter of your last name. If you have no books by an author whose last name starts with a particular letter, go to the next letter. If you have two of the same letter in your last name, get two separate authors, not two books by the same author. Bonus: If you can, pick the first book you haven’t read off your shelf, unless you’re one of those people who’s read all the books you own.

- Post the first sentence of each book, along with the author and title. Feel free to skip prefaces and such, especially if they’re by a different writer.

A Midwestern town. (Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge - awesome book, even if the first line is a fragment)

First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha, a junior at Mount Sebastian College in New Jersey. (The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien – one of the finest books about war, like ever. Read it now.)

I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of gods. (Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis – okay, another book you have to read. Amazing retelling of a classic myth.)

Plaxy and I had been lovers; rather uneasy lovers, for she would never speak freely about her past, and sometimes she withdrew into a cloud of reserve and despond. (Sirius by Olaf Stapledon – a brilliant work of science fiction by an author who isn’t read enough.)

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. (1984 by George Orwell – yep, Orwell. I have two Os in my name, after all.)

Fear is fun. (How to Write Horror Fiction by William F. Nolan – yeah, I thought I could figure it out by reading a book. Darn. Great book though, and the only one on my shelf written by anyone with a surname starting with N.)

This is fun because the first line is so important. I like to walk around the classroom and read the first line from books my students are reading. One of my favorites, from Love Sick by Jake Coburn: "I'm a slut for a good rumor." So I tag everyone. On the planet. Dooooo it!

Books I'd Love to Give You

Bestsellers might make an author famous, but used books help propel their work to immortality.

Here's the current list of books I'd like to give away for the cost of shipping them to you ($4 in the U.S./$6 international--includes a padded mailer):

Fiction

1. Afraid by Jack Kilborn (mass market paper)

2. Dying to Live by Kim Paffenroth (trade paper)

3. The Final Solution by Michael Chabon (hardcover)

Non-Fiction

1. The Ghost Next Door by Mark Alan Morris (trade paper)

Email me if interested: aaron_polson (at) hotmail (dot) com

I will update the list as necessary. First come, first serve.