My Week In Books (and Bookish Things!)

This past week has been a pretty good one on many levels.  Good for the store in terms of publicity, good for me in terms of acquisitions of books and bookish swag, a fun author dinner, and one very amusing customer encounter.

Because I am a bookseller, and because I am very, very lucky, I will receive anywhere from 5-20 books in any given week.  Sometimes these are finished books (i.e. new books) that are new in hardcover or paperback.  Most of the time these are ARCs (advance reading copies) or bound manuscripts. Even given the fact that most of these books I have no interest in reading, that's a pretty good gig, and it generally guarantees that I will always have more books in my possession than I will ever have hope of reading.  (In case you were laboring under the misinformation that booksellers can read at work, let me disabuse you of that right now. I work on average 45 hours per week and the only times I'm free to read are my lunch breaks.)

This past week, however, the best book that I received came not from the publisher, but from my coworker, Julie.  She had somehow managed to score the one bound manuscript of Amy Poehler's new memoir, Yes Please, that our sales rep had in her possession, and I wasted no time in begging her to be next in line to read it.  So tonight I will be taking to bed with me the bound manuscript of Ms Poehler's new book and God bless my husband for donning a sleep mask so that I can read into the wee hours next to him, without disturbing him.

You betcha, Amy!

This week was also, as I mentioned, a banner week for Odyssey staff profiles.  My coworker, Hannah Moushabeck, the indefatigable and wondrous woman who runs our children's department, was profiled in Publishers Weekly.  NBD.  Hannah is amazing, y'all.  I've never, and I mean NEVER, met a bookseller who could match her in energy, and the way she interacts with the bubbliest of babies to the surliest of teens is a sight to behold.  Also, she has "glitter consultant" on her resumé, for which I shall evermore be envious. Check out what PW has to say about her here.

In the meantime, Jen Campbell from the blog This Is Not the Six Word Novel interviewed me about Odyssey Bookshop as part of the lead-up to the publication of her new book on bookshops. Some of her questions were fun, but some of them were challenging to answer.  How do you sum up your bookstore in only three words? How can someone even as verbose as I am try to tell you what books and bookstores mean to me?  You can read all about my bookstore (and me, kinda) here.

This week I also had the amazing opportunity to have dinner with Jodi Picoult, along with about six other booksellers, plus another half dozen librarians from New England, plus a goodly number of people from the New York offices of Random House.  The downside is that I had to drive a total of five hours to participate in the 3-hour dinner at Paci in Southport, CT, but in the end, it was totally worth it.  I got to meet some nifty folks and eat some really excellent food (OMG, the insalata di anguria), but I also got to tell the author of a book I loved how much it meant to me.  I've read a good number of Picoult's books before, and I've liked a fair number of them, but none of those could have possibly prepared me for the depth of emotional connection I felt to this book.  I will post a review of the book later, but it's my hope that Leaving Time will do for elephants what the documentary Blackfish has done for captive cetaceans. 

Last but certainly not least, I got a bit of bookish swag in the mail this week.  Remember when I hosted that readalong for Caitlin Moran's new novel, How to Build a Girl? You don't? Really?  Well, you should really get out more. Anyway, as a thank you for generating lots of good pre-publicity buzz for the book, HarperCollins sent me this groovy t-shirt and mug.  (The photo shows two mugs because that's how you can see the whole design, but I only have one.)  I kinda love that my husband wants to keep the mug for himself to use at work -- he teaches at a women's college. 

Seriously, how great is this t-shirt?

Yup, it was a pretty good week.  Thank you, Julie and Hannah, for being awesome!  Thank you, Random House, for inviting me to all the cool clambakes!  Thank you, HarperCollins, for the absolutely nifty book swag.  *Mwah* to all of you!