It's payday, so you know what that means. That's right, I went to the bookstore.
Now most of the time when I go to the bookstore I have no idea what I want, I just go to browse.
First, I go to the new arrivals, and if there's anything I like I take a mental note, because new arrivals are usually in hardcover which means they're too expensive so I'll buy them online for a discounted price.
After that, fiction. I look for covers, titles, even author's names that stand out. I'll give the blurb on the back a once over and can usually tell immediately if I want to get it or not. I'll take a look at where there review quotes came from. One of the books I got today has The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe, Newsweek, and The New York Times (No idea what the difference is between the Times and the Times book review). It doesn't exactly mean the book is good, but it means it was good enough to come across some high profile critics.
If there are too many author quotes, especially authors you have never heard of, that means they practically begged their author friends for quotes so they could have something, anything to put on their book.
Review quotes from high profile authors are good, it means that an established author is going out of their way to say, "If you like my stuff, you'll probably like this."
Covers are kind of tricky. If it's a well known publisher you can tell how much faith they have in the book by how well done the cover design is. Some books, like The Raw Shark Texts have awful covers but it's not a high profile publisher so they probably didn't have the advertising budget to go all out.
Now all chick-lit books look the same. All of the blurbs are the same. They're all about a woman, late 20's, mid 30's, single in New York City, working for a high profile magazine or advertising agency. They're all about the "heroine" and her inability to find the right man, and something about a quirky friend with a problem, but you can also substitute random family member. The covers all look the same as well, lots of white backgrounds, bright colors, upbeat titles. Easy to find, easy to ignore.
If you find a short story collection by many authors, don't think you have to read each and every story. If there's a story that you don't like, skip it. If you buy a short story collection by one author, read everything. You'll get to see what their strengths and weaknesses are, what type of stories they are really good at, and which ones were just put in as filler. Sometimes you'll get lucky and every story will be great, for that I recommend Amy Hempel's complete short story collection and How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer.
Pay no attention to author photos. Look at Joyce Carol Oates. She's well into her 60's now but in her picture she's maybe in her 30's or 40's. It's a rule among authors to get those headshots while you're young, it creates the illusion that the book you're reading is by someone youthful and full of imagination, not someone in adult diapers. Stephen King always has updated pictures with his books, and the man looks downright creepy. Also, Joyce Carol Oates writes so well that she could put a picture of a mummified corpse and I'd still buy the book.
Mass market books, say a Tom Clancy novel or Danielle Steel are the easiest to recognize. The authors name is in huge letters, and the title is in equally large letters. This takes up the entire cover and leaves little room for anything else. Maybe a simple background behind the Godzilla words. If the book could talk every time you walked by it would yell, "Buy me goddammit!"
Movie-tie-in covers are easy to recognize. If a book has been turned into a movie they will reprint the book with a new cover (The movie-tie-in cover), usually with a picture of whoever the lead is in the movie, and a little sticker proclaiming that the book is "Now a major motion picture." If you want the book, maybe you liked the movie, find the original cover. Do your bookshelf a favor. It'll make it look like you bought the book before the movie came out and you can tell all of your friends that you read the book well before the movie came out. So what if you're lying?
So today I walked away with four books, all by Lorrie Moore. Who is Lorrie Moore? Don't know. Never heard of her. The first book I looked at was her short story collection, Self Help. It's got a cool looking cover, the inside of someone's medicine cabinet. It's published by Vintage Contemporaries, meaning it's not a new book (published in 85, so it's as old as me) but they also publish the Bret Easton Ellis novels so I know they're good. It's got blurbs from The San Francisco Chronicle, Vanity Fair, People, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Newsday, The Village Voice, and The Guardian.
The blurb goes as such, "In these tales of loss and pleasure, lovers and family, a woman learns to conduct an affair, a child of divorce dances with her mother, and a woman with a terminal illness contemplates her ext. Filled with the sharp humor, emotional acuity, and joyful language Moore has become famous for, these nine glittering tales marked the introduction of an extravagantly gifted writer."
It's short, it's simple, it's sweet, and I really want to find out about those characters. What's so special about a woman learning to have an affair? Why is she doing it, what makes her do it? I want to know! What kind of impact can something as simple as dancing with her divorced mother have, I don't know but I want to find out. A terminally ill woman thinking about how she's going to go out? It's sickly voyeuristic enough for me to want to read and find out.
So I bought two of her novels, Anagrams and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and two short story collections, Self Help and Birds of America. I have no doubt that they're going to be insanely good books, and well worth the 60 bucks.
Like I say, books first, rent later.
Now most of the time when I go to the bookstore I have no idea what I want, I just go to browse.
First, I go to the new arrivals, and if there's anything I like I take a mental note, because new arrivals are usually in hardcover which means they're too expensive so I'll buy them online for a discounted price.
After that, fiction. I look for covers, titles, even author's names that stand out. I'll give the blurb on the back a once over and can usually tell immediately if I want to get it or not. I'll take a look at where there review quotes came from. One of the books I got today has The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe, Newsweek, and The New York Times (No idea what the difference is between the Times and the Times book review). It doesn't exactly mean the book is good, but it means it was good enough to come across some high profile critics.
If there are too many author quotes, especially authors you have never heard of, that means they practically begged their author friends for quotes so they could have something, anything to put on their book.
Review quotes from high profile authors are good, it means that an established author is going out of their way to say, "If you like my stuff, you'll probably like this."
Covers are kind of tricky. If it's a well known publisher you can tell how much faith they have in the book by how well done the cover design is. Some books, like The Raw Shark Texts have awful covers but it's not a high profile publisher so they probably didn't have the advertising budget to go all out.
Now all chick-lit books look the same. All of the blurbs are the same. They're all about a woman, late 20's, mid 30's, single in New York City, working for a high profile magazine or advertising agency. They're all about the "heroine" and her inability to find the right man, and something about a quirky friend with a problem, but you can also substitute random family member. The covers all look the same as well, lots of white backgrounds, bright colors, upbeat titles. Easy to find, easy to ignore.
If you find a short story collection by many authors, don't think you have to read each and every story. If there's a story that you don't like, skip it. If you buy a short story collection by one author, read everything. You'll get to see what their strengths and weaknesses are, what type of stories they are really good at, and which ones were just put in as filler. Sometimes you'll get lucky and every story will be great, for that I recommend Amy Hempel's complete short story collection and How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer.
Pay no attention to author photos. Look at Joyce Carol Oates. She's well into her 60's now but in her picture she's maybe in her 30's or 40's. It's a rule among authors to get those headshots while you're young, it creates the illusion that the book you're reading is by someone youthful and full of imagination, not someone in adult diapers. Stephen King always has updated pictures with his books, and the man looks downright creepy. Also, Joyce Carol Oates writes so well that she could put a picture of a mummified corpse and I'd still buy the book.
Mass market books, say a Tom Clancy novel or Danielle Steel are the easiest to recognize. The authors name is in huge letters, and the title is in equally large letters. This takes up the entire cover and leaves little room for anything else. Maybe a simple background behind the Godzilla words. If the book could talk every time you walked by it would yell, "Buy me goddammit!"
Movie-tie-in covers are easy to recognize. If a book has been turned into a movie they will reprint the book with a new cover (The movie-tie-in cover), usually with a picture of whoever the lead is in the movie, and a little sticker proclaiming that the book is "Now a major motion picture." If you want the book, maybe you liked the movie, find the original cover. Do your bookshelf a favor. It'll make it look like you bought the book before the movie came out and you can tell all of your friends that you read the book well before the movie came out. So what if you're lying?
So today I walked away with four books, all by Lorrie Moore. Who is Lorrie Moore? Don't know. Never heard of her. The first book I looked at was her short story collection, Self Help. It's got a cool looking cover, the inside of someone's medicine cabinet. It's published by Vintage Contemporaries, meaning it's not a new book (published in 85, so it's as old as me) but they also publish the Bret Easton Ellis novels so I know they're good. It's got blurbs from The San Francisco Chronicle, Vanity Fair, People, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Newsday, The Village Voice, and The Guardian.
The blurb goes as such, "In these tales of loss and pleasure, lovers and family, a woman learns to conduct an affair, a child of divorce dances with her mother, and a woman with a terminal illness contemplates her ext. Filled with the sharp humor, emotional acuity, and joyful language Moore has become famous for, these nine glittering tales marked the introduction of an extravagantly gifted writer."
It's short, it's simple, it's sweet, and I really want to find out about those characters. What's so special about a woman learning to have an affair? Why is she doing it, what makes her do it? I want to know! What kind of impact can something as simple as dancing with her divorced mother have, I don't know but I want to find out. A terminally ill woman thinking about how she's going to go out? It's sickly voyeuristic enough for me to want to read and find out.
So I bought two of her novels, Anagrams and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and two short story collections, Self Help and Birds of America. I have no doubt that they're going to be insanely good books, and well worth the 60 bucks.
Like I say, books first, rent later.