Sakura of DOOM

Bought for the bookstore again today. On one hand, having to get up early (aka, before noon, since I have a horrible sleep schedule) wasn't so great. On the other hand, we didn't have too many plans for the weekend, and it was nice being back and sort of hanging out and having fun there. Although my feet hurt like crazy now because I'm not used to eight hours on my feet anymore. But, oh, it was so nice being around all those books again.

Some strange books seen today:
- How to Sell Footwear
- a book for biology students that put various important processes (photosynthesis, making urea, etc.) to the tune of songs like "Battle Hymn of the Republic." That one made me giggle for quite some time.

Also met one of the new employees there, hee. He's still figuring out all the sections and whatnot. I remember when I used to get totally confused when a customer would ask me stuff, and now it's just, "Oh, real estate? That's in aisle 18, bottom two shelves of the first bookcase on your left, right after the break in the aisle."

And I hunted around the bookstore and found Pamela Dean's The Dubious Hills (whoo!) and Greer Gilman's Moonwise and Geoff Ryman's The Warrior Who Carried Life, because I was going through old LJ entries and realized someone had recced Ryman. Unfortunately, no Unconquered Countries, which had been the specific rec. I also forgot to look for Swanwick's Iron Dragon's Daughter, oh well. Maybe next time. But I am very happy, especially about Dubious Hills, which I've been looking for for a while now.

I've found I'm really sort of addicted to used bookstores now. One of the bookstore people mentioned getting really depressed looking up books online because they were all going for fifty cents or so used, which devalued the book. But then, I almost never buy used books online. I only do if I've hunted for it for quite some time and am getting really impatient for it to show up (i.e., the Cuevas books). Otherwise, I love sort of hunting through the stacks of used bookstores and looking for out of print stuff. And it's great because you never quite know what you're going to get. New bookstores all carry fairly similar stock (which is good in a whole 'nother way), but I really enjoy the hunt itself.

So, that awesome buy that I talked about last week? The guy came back. With 33 more boxes of books. SQUEE!!! And I got to go through all of them again! It's almost embarrassing how happy I get when confronted with gorgeous new books. There were stacks of them! Stacks! Taller than me! (granted, piled on the counter, but still!) I was extremely restrained and only put my name on about ten books or so. They had all these reprinted DWJ books (of which I stuck my name on), Gaiman and McKean's The Wolves in the Walls, the new Allende YA fantasy, the new Clement-Davies YA fantasy, and many other such wonderful things. Did anyone by the way know that Gregory Maguire has also written a bunch of YA fantasy short stories? It's the new black, I tell you ;). So yes, I squeed quite a lot over them and vastly amused my bosses as to how many books I was already putting my name on.

I really was very restrained though.

I then (finally) cleared out part of my locker, so now I have a book on the rats of Manhattan, Robin McKinley's Sunshine, a Georgette Heyer, and very pretty copies of Juniper and Wise Child. Even though I already had a copy of Wise Child. But see, these two match!

Yes, I am a dork.

Anyhow, if anyone wants a copy of Wise Child, leave a comment and I'll mail it to you!

Day two as a book buyer: Coolness!!

I am quite happy that now instead of hovering over the buyers and surreptitiously checking out all the books in the order while trying to clear the table and everything, I am now the one going through all the piles of books ^_^. Imagine that. They are paying me to flip through tons of books. Wow.

It's reinforced a lot of things that I knew before from working behind the buying counter, though, and it's just so fun seeing the different books people have. Actually, the majority of people have really boring books, but that makes the nice orders that much cooler.

It perpetually amazed me that the people who always ask for cash or a combination of cash and trade credit will almost invariably be the people who have musty books from the seventies and eighties on topics that go rapidly out of date. Or they will be people who always underline and highlight their books and wreck the spines in the process. Or they will have an order of books that they've left outside for six months or something, so that the books have been rained on and all sorts of nasty molds and insects have had a chance at the books. Or they will have thrown all their books in a garbage bag so even if the books were nice beforehand, by the time they've gotten to us, they're wrinkled and bent and dented.

And it's amazing that these people all have the same kinds of books -- lots of old self-help books and old, cheap cookbooks (not even the pretty kinds with glossy pictures, or nifty ethnic cookbooks), old success psychology or business books. I get bored just flipping through them.

Or they will have stacks of CDs that look like they've been played with a record player, they're that scratched.

Then there are people who keep their books in pretty nice shape, but unfortunately read (or get sick of) the exact same books that everyone else reads and gets sick of and sells back to us. Then I get to cart around armfuls of bestseller genre books or general fiction to see if we need them. And I always feel kind of bad turning them away, because a lot of the new customers think, "But these are nice books! Why don't you want them?" and I have to tell them that we see about twenty of them a day.

And then there are the orders that make me drool -- beautiful, pristine picture books in gorgeous colors and dust jackets, young adult hardcover and paperbacks in like new condition, fat and expensive art books from Abrams and Rizzoli. And once in a blue moon, there comes a person who has absolutely beautiful fantasy books in great condition, and (the big surprise) it's stuff I read. That's when I get a little nuts and start putting my name on everything ^_^. We almost never see Emma Bull or Patricia A. McKillip's non-Riddlemaster books.

It's just so much fun trying to keep track of all this stuff in my head.

(and it doesn't hurt that the boss says I am picking it up quite well, although I still feel like I mess up very often)

Questions from double_helix:

1) You want to own a scifi bookstore! Cool! Tell me your dream version of it.

Ooooo... Um. First, it has to be well-lit. Because while dark corners are great for fantasy atmosphere, it sucks to try to read books like that! Also, I'm wondering if I should do scifi/fantasy and romance, or just sci-fi/fantasy... although after seeing Borderlands, I'm a bit more certain that there are enough books for a bookstore for just sci-fi/fantasy. But I'm also all for promoting romance and making it not the genre-of-shame that it is. It's got to have a section full of comfy chairs and sofas for reading, because I want it to be a place people feel comfortable in. I was thinking maybe that area would be a little separate from everything else so I could make people take off their shoes or something before sitting on the couches, because I like curling up in the chairs and B&N. There's got to be a used book section -- depending on how many used books I would get, I would consider limiting it to out of print stuff. Graphic novel section because I refuse to own a bookstore that doesn't sell Sandman. Little fantasy knickknacks and merchandise lying around (Sandman statuettes, posters, etc) and for sale. It'd be cool if I could team up with a local cafe for a cafe in the store, with wireless access. Employees who know what they're talking about, and who hopefully specialize in different things (hard core/golden age scifi, me and my fairy tale fantasy, etc.). I would want something like "___ is reading ___ right now" things up, along with lists that each employee would make up, including their favorite books and other book recs in a certain vein (ex "If you liked ___, try ___"). Lists of Hugo and Nebula and Mythopoeic winners. Hopefully itty bitty card sized reviews of more obscure books we want to bring attention to (no little cards for Ender's Game, despite how much I love it).

And I would want some sort of online store. I don't know if we'd sell stuff online (depends on viability), but I would want some sort of online storefront that included forums. I'd have employees drop by, I'd drop by, hopefully there would be much discussion and mutual recs of books. I want my store to be something like a community, getting people of the community in for readings or book club type discussions, getting authors in for talks, and having the online stuff going as well. I want it to be something people can participate in. Heh, that was a giant answer. And of course, all this pretends that there's no such thing as money!

2) I know you've lived in several places. Which do you think you'll choose for long-term living? Or do you want to keep moving and trying new places?

Taiwan. Barring Taiwan, probably California... but I know if I ever have kids, I want to drag them back home. It sounds kind of sappy, but I want them to know Chinese and to have some sense of that culture. I really, really, really don't want to keep moving and trying new places -- I'm absolutely horrified of moving. I think the four years of packing and unpacking rooms each year to move to a new dorm in college was about all the moving I can take. Plus, I tend to get very attached to places where I live. I mean, I know the boy wants to kind of float around and try living in Japan and stuff, but eventually, I want to settle down in Taiwan.

3) Rec me some good fantasy. I need to branch out. *g*

Ooo, what have you read? I rec Diana Wynne Jones to everyone -- she writes young adult books kind of in the vein of Harry Potter, but she's been doing it waaay before JK Rowlings. I particularly like her Fire and Hemlock and the Chrestomanci books. Robin Hobb's got great world-building AND good characters AND a good epic feel, although some of my friends find her a bit depressing. I read Steve Brust and Emma Bull's Freedom and Necessity and bit back and absolutely adored it. It's a Victorian epistolary novel, on the border of fantasy, and great fun. Plus, I love the characters. I really loved Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest trilogy, which is a take on the seven swans fairy tale combined with Celtic mythology. And everyone who likes Monty Python should read Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens. Firebirds, an anthology of short stories by some very good YA writers, is out, edited by Sharyn November. And that's just the tip of the iceberg ;). Now I'm slightly afraid you've already read most of these!

4) What got you into fandom and livejournal? What keeps you here?

Fandom -- wow. I had pretty much just gotten the internet back in tenth grade and was trolling around for online fiction, thanks to a giant lack of English books in Taiwan. Instead, I kept running across this weird thing called fan fiction, and I noticed a lot of it was for the X-Files. Didn't pay much attention until a girl in my class started watching X-Files. I got curious, read a few stories, and got absolutely hooked when I hit Madeleine Partous' Shadow Puppets (all the talk of a Cancerman and black oil worms was reeeaaally confusing). I decided at that point that I had to watch the show, and watched the third and fourth season in bits and pieces whenever I could catch them on TV. I'm still pretty impressed they aired in Taiwan. I was a lurker for X-Files, then I got into anime fandom with Gundam Wing -- started a webpage, wrote some fic. Then I discovered Buffy junior year watching FFL ^_^.

I think I found LJ after noticing some of the blogs I had been reading stopped being updated because the people were moving to LiveJournal. I trolled about in LJ for a while, and finally decided to get one last February, mostly because I wasn't in the best of emotional places at the time and wanted a diary that I would write in more than my paper one, since I type a lot faster than I write.

5) Who's your favorite fictional character of all time? (Or at least one of your top three). Rave about him or her to me.

Ender! This is partially based on the sheer length of time I've "known" him. Plus, of most of the fictional characters I adore, he's one of the ones who is the most delineated and explored, unlike, oh, say, Eowyn, who I adore, but who is not exactly center stage in LotR. I read Ender's Game in seventh grade, and it was an absolutely wrenching experience -- could not be parted from the book and wandered around in a bit of a daze for a few days after reading it. I love how Card brings me into Ender's head, and I love Ender's compassion and his brilliance, and his mixed desires to win so that no one will ever hurt him and his hatred of himself for that very desire. And while I do love adult Ender in Speaker for the Dead and beyond, it's kid Ender, stuck in Battle School, who I love the most. I think I love him so much because I used to be a kid like that -- not that brilliant, but smart enough so that there was a definite barrier between me and other people. And while I liked it, I also got the loneliness that comes of that.

The Rules of the Game

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1 - Leave a comment, saying you want to be interviewed.
2 - I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
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4 - You'll include this explanation.
5 - You'll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

NB: Will limit myself to the first five people as well, in case there are more.

Found a gorgeous book at work today -- not as pricey as the $600 potential one, but just gorgeous. It's a French book called Aventures Marveilleux Huon (something something, and I probably spelled everything wrong), by G. Paris, oversized. Probably published around the late 1800s or early 1900s. Bound in some sort of maroon leather, with a beautifully elaborate gilt drawing of a knight on the cover, with the title in a very medieval looking script. And the inside, the text was all printed in a dark green, on nice glossy paper that looked as though it could have been published in the 70s.. not much foxing or anything. Plus, you could kind of feel the texture of the words, thanks to some printing technique. And each page had a border about an inch wide, around the top and edge, really elaborate animals, flowers, etc. And each border was different. I think I sat there for a while just kind of petting it. Cheapest one on ABE going for about $230.

Sometimes my job is awesome.

Well, one of the managers got back from vacation today so more training to be a book buyer will commence. I think they've finally decided what to do with me -- apparently I won't be spending much time in the San Jose warehouse at all, although they'll train me for that too so I can go down there and help if they're ever overworked. This is probably good, as the place is half an hour away, in a kind of skeevy area not close to any nice park I can go eat lunch in. Plus, I would have to go on 101 to get there, and 101 is just horribly congested perpetually. Kind of like my nose ;). It's also good because book buyer is higher paying ^_^. Apparently tomorrow I'll start being trained to do research.. not quite sure on what, but probably on book prices on the internet. So if I'm using the computer, hopefully I will get to sit down once in a while!! Yay! Plus, I am a bad worker because I'm already thinking that maybe I can check in on LJ every so often...

Anyhow, this is good because shelving computer books was starting to drive me nuts. So today I reorganized the college section (study guides, etc) and got quite nostalgic looking at all these books advising students on how to study well and how to survive freshman year. Plus, ran across even more books I want to read -- one is a study on twenty Stanford students and what they did after they graduated to see how a good education affects people's lives, some are questioning liberal arts, some are questioning colleges and universities. I'm already predisposed to disagree with them, but they look interesting anyway.

Hied myself to the library during lunch break (and had a cappucino with caramel... must break self of expensive coffee addiction!) and got another Nora Roberts for fuzzy value, the next two Butler books in the Lilith's Brood/Xenogenesis trilogy, Connie Willis' Doomsday Book just because I keep seeing it around and I figure I should read more female scifi writers. Yup. Couldn't find Otherland 2 there... hopefully they have it.

Oops, forgot to add that I did an incredibly stupid thing yesterday. I walked out at six, signed my little timesheet and everything, and decided to call the boy from the car. Opened my cell phone and discovered that my cell phone clock read 5:12! Well, I thought, maybe it got off by an hour. Looked down at my watch and found my watch read 5 too. Somehow I completely misread the time and almost ending up leaving an hour early. Shuffled back in with great embarrassment and hoped no one had seen me leave with my purse....