Upholding Tradition

Commencement is just a couple of days away, so traditions are a big focus at the moment. One tradition we are currently upholding is promoting Oh, the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss (this is the book that Michael Scott attempts but fails to buy for his new boss Ryan on The Office). We have an appropriately Seussian ostentatious display set up for the promotion, and the book is selling for us. In counter-intuitive fact, traditional children’s books sell rather well for us, even though we are a college bookstore. Some popular titles do well for us as well (we had a tremendously successful Harry Potter release party last summer), but we can’t move the Gossip Girl books despite our coed customer base. That may be because they are embarrassed to buy You Know You Love Me along with their textbooks, or it may simply be that they aren’t the customers buying children’s books in our store. Children’s is a top five category for us however, so we know someone is buying them! Considering the success we have with traditional children’s titles, it seems reasonable to conclude that it is our university staff and faculty who are purchasing books for their kids and grandkids. In some nostalgic cases, they buy their own replacement copies of the books they loved in their youth.

With that in mind, I have been scouting catalogs for traditional titles to stock, and I’ve had some success along those lines. I brought in three copies of a new lavishly illustrated volume of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (Palazzo Editions, $19.95), and two copies have already sold.

Lesser known among my own generation are the Flicka, Ricka, Dicka and Snipp, Snapp, Snurr series by Maj Lindman (Albert Whitman & Co., $6.95), but we have received some requests for them. Initially I ordered one copy of three titles in each series, and two of the Flicka, Ricka, Dicka books were gone two days later! I have since ordered in the full lines of both series. I’m still on the lookout for more traditional children’s titles, if anyone has recommendations for me!

Introducing Robyn Scott

“The posters were all hung in the Union with care,

In hopes that Robyn Scott soon would be there!”

Robyn Scott, author of Twenty Chickens for a Saddle, will be speaking in the Saltair Room in the Union Building today at noon! Don’t miss out on this opportunity to meet a fascinating woman before she literally boards a plane back to London! Click on The Bookmark at the U link under my blogroll to read the guest blog she wrote for our store. At the bottom of the blog is a link to the podcast we produced to announce her appearance. Today’s the day!

Print-on-Demand won’t bow to Amazon’s demands

In response to Amazon’s demands that print-on-demand titles sold on their site also be published by their in-house publisher, PublishAmerica has cut prices in half on their own site. That means now is a terrific time to order a copy of Orlando and Geoffrey!  Never heard of it?  Never fear!  Click on the page Books by J.A. Clemens for more details.  Then click over to PublishAmerica and place an order before the sale ends on Monday!

National Poetry Month

In the spirit of Poem in Your Pocket Day today, here is one of my own poems:

Cherry Tree Elegy

The cherry tree out back

Fills my kitchen window

Like the world-ash Yggdrasil

It is all-pervading

In spring the bright blooms burst

Merry stars in green twilight

A fleeting Milky Way

A pure light so bright it

Extinguishes itself

Self-sacrificial allure

To possess is to defile

To pick is to destroy

To pollinate is death

One can only wait, hope

To see them bloom anew

J.A. Clemens, 2005

Lost in Books

This tends to be a busy season for a book buyer – it is for me, at least. We’re in the process of culling our inventory for the books that haven’t been selling as well as combing catalogs for books we think will fare better. Between the stacks of incoming catalogs and cart loads of clearance crammed into my work space, it’s pretty easy to get lost in the books! At home I’m usually reading a book, so my family acts like I’m not there. It’s as if my body is entombed at work and only my ghost makes it home!

There is a character in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (available soon in paperback) known as the boundary maven who ensures that the ultra-orthodox Jews of Sitka, Alaska do not cross any figurative or literal lines on the Sabbath. By creating, mapping, and maintaining a collective of eruvs the boundary maven is able to accurately guide the Verbovers through the world they inhabit. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is a book with so many layers I found myself wishing I had a book maven to help me keep it all straight!

I’d really like a book maven to assist me with all of my many catalogs, too. Typically I have an account rep going through the catalog with me, which is great, but what I need is one maven who knows all of the catalogs to keep me from getting lost in world of books I inhabit. Then a realization settled gradually and inexorably on my shoulders: I am my customers’ book maven. This is a significant responsibility, and one I do not take lightly. You’re in my world now!

Freakonomics

Last night I attended a lecture and book signing by Stephen J. Dubner, the journalist half of the Freakonomics author team. His presentation at the University of Utah was part of ASUU’s “Grand Kerfuffle,” and our store provided the books for the signing, which was followed by a reception with live jazz music and hors d’ouerves. If anyone wants to know what a “kerfuffle” is, all I can say is it has something to do with Freakonomics, live jazz, and finger food! Dubner spoke about behavioral economics, which strikes me as a pretty fluid field. By adjusting the parameters of a basic experiment repeated with the same test group, one arrives at widely divergent conclusions when it comes to human behavior. Economics may be an exact science, but human behavior is anything but! It was an interesting (if under attended) lecture, and I’ve already started reading the signed copy of the book I bought yesterday. I’m always a proponent of alternate viewpoints, but that doesn’t mean I agree when an economist theorizes that Americans should be paying more for a gallon of gas than we do now!

Second U2 Essay

My second U2 essay, with the highly original title “Satellite, Part II,” is now available as a separate page of this blog. This essay deals with issues of discovery and identity, particularly with regard to occupation. Catchy tagline, eh?  It’s not nearly as droll as it sounds!

What’s the big deal about Moleskine?

We recently started carrying Moleskine journals in our store, and we’ve been hearing this question a fair amount (more from employees than customers, who come in specifically looking for Moleskine).  Generally it’s the price point that raises the question.  Is it really worth paying more for Moleskine?  They have a stark presentation, yet they cost more.  Are they worth it?  You do get higher quality materials and design in a Moleskine, but ultimately it comes down to brand recognition.  The people who ask this question do so because they aren’t familiar with the grand history of the Moleskine journal, and explaining that Hemingway and Picasso used these journals doesn’t seem to sway their opinion.  I often resort to an explanation of why I bought one: not because I’m a fashionable guy, but because of my current writing project.  The narrator of my novel Grandpa Art is writing his story in a journal.  In order to get the proper tone, I am doing likewise, writing the first draft longhand in a journal.  My narrator is a nostalgia-prone nomad, so a Moleskine journal is a perfect fit!  There are many more reasons to purchase a Moleskine journal, of course, but that’s mine.  What’s yours?