Politics is getting too depressing. I'm contemplating a news blackout, to be spent reading actual books.
Speaking of which, Mr. Johnson directed me to this fine blog which among other attractions provides a London echo of my own True Customer Tales, entitled this is not the six word novel.
Customer: I do find it odd that people manage to make a living out of writing books for children. I'm sure any mother could do it.
Me: Why don't you try it yourself?
Customer: I always mean to, but I'm very busy right now with my pottery class.
Many of her tales strike a chord that feels like memory, although she seems to intersect with more genuine eccentrics and fewer mentally ill street people.
Must be the weather.
And still on books, we visited a dying bookstore during our Gilroy swing, Garlic City Books. The retail environment for books is so hostile these days even strong stores in 'good' locations are flaming out left and right, but a quick swing through the shop revealed serious stock problems. Given the ongoing 'all books $1' sale the place was still about 1/4 full. I did a quick pass and found a few things for the shop, but mainly it was pure junk- lots of book club stuff, lots of ex-library lit, lots of outdated business books. The sort of thing you expect to come across in a thrift store, not a respectable shop- at least not in such large quantities.
They had a great space, but Gilroy didn't strike me as a particularly book crazy town- maybe having spectacular stock wouldn't have made much difference.
And a bookeeping note, I just figured out how to mass-tag posts so all the True Customer Tales I titled as such are available at the click of a link.
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