Judy Wheeler owner and bookseller at Towne Center Books, Pleasanton, if it wasn't there life would be much sadder!
I stumbled across this article in The Guardian UK today, and it reminded me of the lovely bookstore in Nottingham with its piles of books and funny little corners that I loved spending my time dawdling in, and how when I revisited it ten years later it had a very uncomfortable cafe at the top with bright white lights and cold dry cheese sandwiches which once snapped in a microwave became stale glue-cheese sandwiches. That was my research trip of cake and coffee because I couldn't find or afford much else to eat! It was of course a Waterstones.
I feel blessed to have a great indie bookstore near by, but hear stories from many writers on their books being vetoed by the sales team even after the editors and marketing have made their minds up to take it on, or the book is set in England which at the last editorial meeting become just too big a stumbling block, after all whoever heard of books set in England selling to the US market?
I have to say though I don't believe, as this article suggests, that the Kindle etc. will bring about the death of books, I think it will coexist happily in fact expand the audience and maybe inject some new inventive life into the publishing market. I adore books as objects, as wonderful companions to be stuffed into bags, under the bed, on top of the loo and passed forward from fried to friend and back again, but the Kindle offers a portable experience and instant gratification and if someone wants your book right now in the palm of their hand and they can get it, and you get paid what's so wrong about that -- environmentally too we do use an awful lot of trees, though I'm not sure if mass production of Kindles is very green either.
But back to the plot, I fantasize about having a two story bookstore, children's books, travel and non-fiction, cupcakes and coffee downstairs, wine and desserts upstairs with literature, poetry and plays. An soft couches everywhere somewhere in a city like Boston, or Winchester -- now if only I could find a sponsor!
On the saga of Jake, now titled Surviving Peaceville,I'm on chpt 31 and all is upside down. I've given it a good shaking heading up to the climax. My goal is to finish it this week.
The Graveyard Book Party competition ends today -- the posting of pictures etc at eats and the results come out on the 16th of November keep your fingers crossed for our party at Towne Center Books!
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