Around the Bookstore: THE BATHROOM and other things

Because I'm not sure I have the stamina to write a second book review today, I'm instead going to write a post about my bookstore and some of the goings-on there.  Mostly I'm going to write about our staff bathroom, but before then, I want to share a photo I snapped in our essays section a couple of weeks ago:

This triumvirate of ladies with pink & white books caught my eye for various reasons, not least for the color scheme.  I also happen to have read all three collections of essays (well, with the case of Roxane Gay, I'm actually still making my way through), with varying degrees of appreciation.  But what I really love is how they look on the shelf together and how all three of these women have hit the indie bestseller list (concurrently, even).  I mean, it's unusual enough that female authors hit the bestseller lists for nonfiction, but for all three to be feminists, and for one book to even declare it proudly, makes me a little bit misty-eyed.  America is facing lots of problems right now, but the readers who put these books on the best seller list make me feel better about it.

And now for something completely different...

Many, many years ago, Anne Rice did a signing at my bookstore, the momentousness of which was marked with a small, shiny gold plaque on the wall:

And then that rascally writer Ben Fountain, author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, visited the store a few years ago and started something amazing when he wrote that Anne Peed Rice Here. We didn't know right away that he had done this, but we knew something was up when he walked out of the bathroom with a shit-eating grin on his face. (Pun absolutely intended.)

Since that first desecration of our staff bathroom wall, it has become a badge of honor for authors and illustrators to sign more than just their books when they're here on tour. It's unquestionably now one of the greatest bookstore bathrooms in the US.  My only concern is what's going to happen when we run out of space--I shudder at the thought of painting over all of our great signatures on the wall.  Maybe we'll hang shelf paper and just keep peeling it off...

Anyway, we've had both big names and small writ large on our bathroom stall.  Here are a few that I snapped photos of to share with you:

Multiple cookbook author Virginia Willis shows her skill with more
than one kind of cast iron skillet

Some, like Chrysler Szarlan, class it up with a bit
of poetry. This is from Tennyson and a reference
to our crack'd mirror on the bathroom wall.

Garrison Keillor told us that "[we] look good enough. Back to work"
You can see the crack'd mirror here, too.

The children's picture book authors really set the bar
pretty high when they started adding illustrations, too.

Emily St John Mandel wasn't daunted, though,
and she added her own sweet penguin to the mix. 

Who doesn't love a good nar-wall/narwhal pun?  And Gregory Maguire
didn't disappoint when he left a sketch of one of his Wicked witches.

Naturally Mo Willems added his own brand of humor by drawing on the
actual toilet. He forgot to write "DO let the pigeon flush the toilet," though.

Now the first thing I do every morning after an author event is head to the bathroom to see how quickly I can spy the latest additions.  

That's that for now.  I'm totally amazed at how much easier this post was to write than a book review.  I clearly need to take this way out more often, because now I have so much more time to curl with a book and READ!