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On the other side of the equation, I did spend a few pre-Amazon years calling up bookstores and asking if they had books in stock by ISBN. At least a few clerks were confused by the whole ISBN thing which confirmed my own experience that while working in a bookstore can be great, there's a very good chance you won't be trained in anything relevant. Ah well.
One of the best days of my life was realizing that there are whole forums devoted to finding old, vaguely remembered books, seeing as how my brain literally keeps me up at night remembering old books and fervently wishing I could find and read them again. This is, of course, all for the best because now I don't have to troll bookstore phone lines pestering the employees if they remember the name of a book from the 1980s that was about a boy and there was another boy that looked like him and there was pie. Not that I would be tempted to do that.
This is an Open Thread. Starting topics: working in a bookstore, experiences with bookstores, and books that you can't find or remember. Derail away!
48 comments:
I'd just like to put in a note of respect for Oprah's booklist. Sometimes people like to run it down, but there's some jolly good books on that list, and anything that promotes good books is fine by me.
Derail away!
Ok.
So, NaNoWriMo. I haven't written anything since the 13th according to the site thingy. (That might not be accurate, I think I had some words on the 14th that I haven't updated my count to reflect, but definitely not many.) Some of that is school (Latin, Greek, Sophocles, Apuleius, oh my) some of that is that I haven't been sleeping quite right and thus have been tired. Anyway, the big thing is that now that I don't have things in my way (though I'm still tired) I can't seem to get back into it.
The five day gap seems to have completely removed my enthusiasm, drive, and whatever. I'm not sure how to go about getting restarted. Anyone have any advice?
My friends who have worked in bookstores would argue that the green slice is usually just a subset of the blue.
I was working in a bookstore on the boardwalk the summer of 2004. At this point, I was really used to women of a certain age coming in, asking for whatever Oprah had recommended, and leaving happily without so much as glancing anywhere else int he store: we actually set up a shelf with Oprah recommendations across from the register for exactly this reason.
That summer, her chosen book was the latest translation of Anna Karenina.
I took a perverse glee in seeing the women come in, asking for the Oprah book...and their faces falling as they wondered why Oprah would do such a thing to them.
I am fortunate that my phase of what-is-that-book-I-know-I-read-once was largely restricted to a younger age; I haven't had it happen in years, thanks to an uncontrollable capacity for memorising irrelevant details. I do get it happening with music, but for some reason I never hear music store employees getting asked to identify an album via a customer humming a few bars or describing the cover art.
The five day gap seems to have completely removed my enthusiasm, drive, and whatever. I'm not sure how to go about getting restarted. Anyone have any advice?
I've been obsessive about not letting a full day go by without some writing, even if it's far short of the expected count, but I have found myself stalling a bit since the halfway point. Mostly because I'm into the range where I no longer always have a clear idea of what's happening. I try to distract myself without actually distracting myself - sitting in front of the computer staring at the last sentence I wrote is a recipe for disaster, but I'll go wash dishes and force myself to think about what I'd enjoy reading next, what kind of feel I'd want to get. Or I'll think about the next good scene that I know is out there in the unwritten part of the book, and then try to figure out an interesting way of getting to there from here. I try very hard to not dwell on whether I have lost my way and am doomed to failure; those thoughts dance around in my head, but I remain steadfast on the principle that if I can write another couple hundred words, I'm still winning. (Just aiming for a few hundred is also good, because eventually I look at my wordcount and find I have stumbled further ahead than I meant to.)
I'm currently several hundred behind, because Wednesday was an unproductive day, but I did get a full 1700 yesterday, so I'll just have to catch up on the weekend. It's probably time to have the mind-control conspiracists step up their game, plus Lukas and Théo need more time to be adorkable, and the younger heroes should each be well on the way to their respective breakdowns.
I really really must do NaNo one year. Let's say next year.
Will, music shops do get people look for Wet Noodle albums, though.
TRiG.
I loathe the way graphic novels and manga are treated in bookstores and libraries. They're almost never cataloged (at least, in the ones I've been to), so if you're looking for one, either the librarian/book store clerk will refuse to help you, or has to physically check the stock, and that's if it's been put back correctly.
I am currently about a day ahead of schedule on NaNoWriMo (I have just over 45k words). I'm getting excited, because as the book nears the end I can start killing off characters and otherwise putting them through the ringer, plus I have a couple set pieces I'm really eager to get to (including Berglund's Villain Rant, Ashaz's paean to chess, the depraved William Nolt and his smug student Micheli Risibi receiving their comeuppances (but not before getting a few good blows in themselves), Natasha Razanov revealing exactly what her 'Soviet training methods' entail to a captive audience, and of course the final chess match which will determine whether or not chess continues on or is destroyed).
Ways to break a writer's block that I've heard are effective:
1. Write an interview with one of the characters, asking their thoughts on the situation and such.
2. Have a friend write the next ~500 words or so, particularly if it's a monologue or glimpse into a character's mind. They will inevitably get some things wrong, which (theoretically) will spur the original writer to rewrite it, getting the things right, and in the process discovering more about the characters (which makes later writing easier).
3. To quote Vonnegut, 'Every character should want something. If one doesn't, make him want a glass of water.' Have one of your characters become thirsty/hungry/itchy, or need to use the restroom. That can get you a few hundred words of character study, describing their thoughts as they take action.
4. Cut to the next scene you're confident in, even if you don't know how to get there. Write enough of it to restart your writing process, then go back later.
NaNo!
I've already confessed that I'm cheating and just counting whatever I write because my first attempt fizzled out, but...
I found my fresh wind by starting a new story. Maybe you could keep your story going with an influx of a new point of view? :)
I like this site: http://logan.com/harriett/stump.html Can you solve any?
My problem isn't with remembering books: I remember them quite well--just not the titles. Both are Spanish-language* children's picture books which managed to bore their images into my cerebral cortex better than anything has since. The first was a rather large book with cardboard pages, which had a little handle so you could carry it around like a suitcase. It contained several self-contained mini-stories, one or two pages in lenght, which all built up to a larger story with dozens of characters beginning with woodland creatures, then expanding to include gnomes and then dragons. Eventually the gnomes and woodland creatures went to war with the dragons, and then they made up and it ended with a huge celebration.
The second one was a book featuring Disney characters, and I remember it being rather complex in plot, for the target audience-- it wasn't until years after it was first given to me that I was actually able to follow it. Basically, Scrooge McDuck hires Gyro Gearloose to build him wristwatch-looking time-machines. Before he can complete them, though, Peg-Leg Pete and some other baddie I can't identify hire the Beagle Boys to kidnap Gyro and force him to build the time machines for them. Mickey and Goofy (I think--this part I can't quite remember) eventually get him back (getting Pete imprisoned in the process) but not before Gyro finishes the first prototypes. Eventually, Gyro, now back with Scrooge, completes the time machines. Scrooge and his nephews try them out, only for Gyro to realize that, due to the shoddy parts he was forced to use in the time machines' production (Scrooge is one of those who prefer things done cheaply rather than well), there is no way to actually control the time travel process, or to return the time travellers home. Worse still, the one version of the time-watch that might actually work is the prototype built for Pete, since ironically, the baddies' version of the project was much better funded than Scrooge's. Unfortunately, that time-watch disappeared with Pete, who managed to get hold of it while in prison and used it to escape. And then, as Gyro heads to his lab to try to think of some sort of solution to this predicament, the book ends.
In retrospect, it seems obvious that this was the first book in a series. Unfortunately, the story's continuation never really fell into my hands, and by the time I was actually able to search for it, I had completely forgotten the title. And given the sheer amount of Disney material in print, not to mention how many Scrooge McDuck tales involve time travel, Google isn't much help at all. So basically this a cliffhanger whose resolution I've been waiting for for some fifteen years, and which I might never find, unless there happens to be some sort of Disney database like the one I know exists for the comic books.
I want these book back soooooo much.
* At least, the versions I read were. I have no idea if it was the works' original language, or what that language was.
I found my fresh wind by starting a new story. Maybe you could keep your story going with an influx of a new point of view? :)
Oh god, the points of view. I want to do chapters from everyone's point of view, and I may end up doing just that if it feels like it will help me hit 50K in time, but I'm sure it would be far too jumbled for a reader's preference.
The strangest thing I've found is that when I'm writing from someone's (third-person) POV, they tend to fade into the background a bit because they're focused on the people around them - I was worried that my general was just a camera view for watching other people, so I put her alone in a room with a map to brood on things. I start to feel like the 'main characters' shouldn't be the POV characters, but that would be dull sometimes too, when the main characters are getting things done and the POV character would just be watching.
Wow, that's some major fail, there. I've worked in two bookstores and a library, and not only were/are graphic novels and manga (okay, the first book store was pre-manga influx, but it did have graphic novels) were catalogued/in the system, just like everything else. And someone refusing to help a customer/patron is all kinds of not acceptable. Things not being put back correctly, though, that's unfortunately just the way it goes. Short of having staff looming over ever bookcase, checking the shelf will always be a necessary (and walking people to the shelf and putting the book in their hand is "how it's done" at Barnes and Noble, even if it's a book they've got an entire table of).
Why wouldn't they catalogue graphic novels and manga? Bzuh? That makes no bloody sense. *shakes head over weird incompetent people*
The Evil Librarian seconds dezipan above, Rowen. We catalogue all of our graphic novels to the hilt, and place them in their own clearly marked section. Anyone refusing to help a user find something would likely be hanging off the gallows as soon as such a thing were made known.
More generally, though, I run into a lot of the blue category in my work, considering my clientele often doesn't have the greatest of memories about such this as authors and titles.
Last night I left the most recent George R.R. Martin novel...on the bus. (Yes, Martin again.)
I was about halfway through. My husband is two-thirds through. I had to get on the bus and then right off again as a result of a series of unfortunate events involving my bus card not having a enough money, and I stumbled off, trying to figure out where the money went, and...the book got left behind. My husband was going to be disappointed and impatient. I had had a lousy day. I was not happy.
I was not accepting this from the universe, so I stomped toward the Barnes and Noble up the street. "Excuse me, do you have "Dance With Dragons"?
"Yes ma'am...right over here...no, wait, this is just a display of every other book in the series. Let's look on the shelf...no, every other book in the series...let me check the computer...oh, it's on the octagon table in the front...no...not there.....huh, I guess we're out. Would you like to order a copy?"
It was at this point that my eyes filled up with tears, and in a tone appropriate to a person about thirty years younger than myself I said, "No, I need a copy right now!"
The poor guy disappeared for five minutes and came back with a copy. "Here we go! Last one in the store. Do you mind that the top is a little scuffed up?"
I think I actually clutched it to me as I was thanking him.
My stupid bookstore story--which makes me sound a bit more of a featherheaded twit than I actually am most days.
On another note, some years ago, I walked into Stacey's, looking for a birthday present for my dad.
I called my mother and consulted with her briefly, then told the clerk--becoming part of the green pie slice--"I'm looking for a recent book about the Clinton administration, written by a former staffer. but not the awful one bashing HIllary."
He nodded, went to the shelf, and got the exact one my mother was talking about down and handed it to me.
It's like magic!!
And my editing job has killed NANO this year. I just don't have enough time.
Maybe I'll do a mad dash over Thanksgiving.
Was it All Too Human by George Stephanopolus?
Echoing depizan and Silver Adept here. You betcha all our comic books / graphic novels / manga are catalogued AND classified and properly shelved, and any staff member who refused to help someone for any reason other than "I'm sorry, I need to dispose of this rapidly ticking explosive device, I'll be right with you after I summon the bomb squad" will soon by an ex-staff member.
(You should see my "Graphic novels are a FORMAT not a GENRE" rant, complete with sock puppets, a kazoo orchestra, and fire-breathing giraffes at the climax)
But I love love love the "umm, it was a about a girl, and there was a dog or dogs or something, and the girl has a plaid dress?" questions. It is such a hoot to say, "Was the dog's named Sonny? Did the girl want to be an artist? Could it have been Betty Cavanna's GOING ON SIXTEEN?"
They look at you in awe, and slight terror, like "omg, the librarian can see inside my brain"
Of course, there are the ones you can't figure out. I have a patron who comes back every few months to ask, "Did you ever find that book about the coroner and the girl who gets buried alive?" and I have to shake my head and say, "Still looking..."
(You should see my "Graphic novels are a FORMAT not a GENRE" rant, complete with sock puppets, a kazoo orchestra, and fire-breathing giraffes at the climax)
Yes. We should. Put it on youtube so that we might see this thing.
Seriously, I had the same thought: I would totally freaking love to see this. :D
Question to librarians/bookstore workers:
Do you ever have people looking for a book and it turns out what they were thinking about was a movie or tv show?
I don't know if I've ever done that, but I know there have been times where I tried to figure out, "What movie was that?" and it turned out to be a book. (Though I can't think of what book or books it was/were.)
Ha! My cataloguers have seen it enough; they could probably sing along in harmony.
Do you ever have people looking for a book and it turns out what they were thinking about was a movie or tv show?
Not that I can recall, but then I'm not as familiar with movies or television, so that may account for some of the ones I've never been able to solve.
People do confuse fiction and non-fiction all the time though (more often thinking of fictional stories as real events they want us to document, although sometimes it works the other way). And they mash up the plots and characters of two or three books all the time, and not just similar ones; they'll remember the plot of the animal story their third-grade teacher read to them, cross-pollinated with plot elements from something from ANIMORPHS they read in high school, with character names from that thriller they read last year...
... and they are remarkably resistant to believing you when you finally untangle all this.
I'm doing Nanowrimo-Light, and I'm still behind on writing. But I'm hoping to have better luck tracking down an old children's book for my Mom -- I have almost half a dozen bullet points about her memories of it, and there are dozens of communities for this now.
Hrm. Weird. Both here in NYC and back in Houston, I've had the damnedest time getting a hold of certain things. The easiest was stuff like Fables or the Sandman, which I think they HAD to make sure was cataloged, since it's pretty popular. Recently, I've been buying the Sailor Moon/Sailor V manga rereleases, and the stores I've called up have been all "Um, lemme check, oh, um, *long sigh* I need to check the shelf *long sigh, pause, hold music for 15 minutes*
and the last time I used the Houston Public Library (this was a few years ago) they didn't bother to put them in the card catalog/database, so whatever you could find on the shelf was it.
So weird. At the library I work at - in a city much smaller than Houston - everything's cataloged. We couldn't check it out if it weren't. (I mean, yes, we have a work around for things that accidentally somehow fell out of the system, but that's for fixing oopsies.) What are they smoking there?
And the sighing bookstore needs new management. And some fish slappings. At Barnes and Noble (and defunct local chain), we had to make sure we really, really had it, but that just meant we all had to be good at finding stuff while making small talk. It should go something more like "The computer says we have it," *starts walking toward section, continuing to talk* "now to make sure it isn't lying to me. Lovely/terrible/interesting weather we're having, eh?" or "You know, I keep meaning to get around to reading Sailor Moon, it's such a classic." or other small talk topic followed by either finding it or offering to order it if the computer was a lying liar.
50,323! Huzzah!
Tomorrow, the introduction of the much talked about William Nolt, and his game against Washington. Now? Bed. :)
...of course, I'm only just under 2/3 of the way through the book, so I still might not finish the whole book for NaNo. But at least I hit the wordcount. :)
There is this book I wanted to reread and it's driving me up a wall because I just can not remember the title. It was about interstellar traders, and the main character was this linguist(?) who was along on the trading missions for reasons I can't remember. She wasn't interested in trading at all. BUT she kept being instrumental in figuring out clever ways to defuse diplomatic situations among the various aliens they were trading with, which kept earning her honorary trader ranks which annoyed her because that wasn't the profession she wanted to be doing and getting accolades for. She was damn good at it, though. One situation involved an alien war, which she defused by fabricating an extremely clear and extremely convincing omen of one side's victory. (Reflecting light onto the planet's moon such that it formed the exact image of the one side's flag, which was psychologically devastating to the other side. Morale is hard when the moon itself is saying you're going to lose.) Also, the language they spoke was called "Spanglish" and they referred to our modern 21st-century English as "Middle English".
I'll probably take this to the forgotten-book-tracking forums if nobody here happens to recognize it - I've been meaning to for a while, but since this post is here...
(Also, hi! I'm a Slacktilurker.)
Hi, Lyssie. Would you consider to change the secont part of your nickname? "Derp" is an ableist, offensive term.
The book sounds very intreresting, I wish I knew what it is.
Yeah, I already have - Disqus doesn't seem to want to change it retroactively, though. I didn't realize it was ableist, sorry. :(
It's updated on my end. :)
I did not know that was an ableist term. (I learn something new every day.) I need to research why it's ableist, because then I'm more likely to remember and not accidentally use it. I thought it was just a nonsense sound like 'doy'!
Thank you.
I wasn't familiar with the term, but I looked it up, and it originates from some movie where a character was sniffing a woman's underwear and then wandered off saying "derp".
Lyssie -- Could you possibly be thinking of a collection of short stories / novellas? If so, the book might be one Sheila Finch's set in THE GUILD OF XENOLINGUISTS series.
Otherwise, do you happen to remember when you read this book? Did you buy it, or find it in a library? Was it an "old" or "new" book then?
Do you happen to remember any of the characters' names? The name of the ship?
Are there any details you remember of the cover?
When I was 7 I read a book that was written from the perspective of a horse but wasn't Black Beauty and I think the horse might have been white. The horse has a hard life but runs away in the end and is freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. and that's all I remember. It may or may not have been a children's book, and if it was a children's book it was probably middle grade or young adult because I would've been bored by something aimed at seven year olds. I was reading an 8th or 9th grade reading level by then.
And they mash up the plots and characters of two or three books all the time, and not just similar ones; they'll remember the plot of the animal story their third-grade teacher read to them, cross-pollinated with plot elements from something from ANIMORPHS they read in high school, with character names from that thriller they read last year...
... and they are remarkably resistant to believing you when you finally untangle all this.
Well of course they are, it was a great book and now you're telling them that it doesn't exist.
I wonder if anything ever comes of that sort of thing. Someone thinks, "If this book doesn't exist then it is necessary to create it," so the person sits down to write that non-existent thing they remember.
The book was lying around the house, if I recall - we're a family of bibliophiles, so I was always finding some book or other of my parents' that looked interesting. So I couldn't tell you the age, alas. :( I do recall reading it somewhere in the age range of early high school, though.
No cover details or names though, alas and alack. Though there was another plot in the same book (it may well have been an anthology, now you mention it) where there was a (felinoid?) race that FOUND THEIR LONG-LOST ANCESTORS OMG except they had evolved two totally different methods of reproduction and each found the other's method intolerably depraved. So the resolution to that involved figuring out how to keep these two divergent groups from killing each other over how they had sex.
If that helps.
I'll check out the Guild of Xenolinguists lead, thank you. Here's hoping!
Hah, that sounds like the script I use when confirming that something is in fact here, both in person and over the phone, including the accusation of the computer of being a lying liar when it turns out not to be.
And yes, any bookstore that doesn't have people enthusiastic to help people find books, regardless of their personal opinions about the books being looked for, is in the wrong profession.
I think the worst I do is I'm looking for an author I don't remember the authors name but I DO know they wrote this book can you tell me the name of the author please? Usually I go in knowing what I'm after. If I have to ask it is more do you carry this book by this author and is it in stock or can I order it?
But I love love love the "umm, it was a about a girl, and there was a dog or dogs or something, and the girl has a plaid dress?" questions. It is such a hoot to say, "Was the dog's named Sonny? Did the girl want to be an artist? Could it have been Betty Cavanna's GOING ON SIXTEEN?"
They look at you in awe, and slight terror, like "omg, the librarian can see inside my brain"
I can do that with episodes of television.
I've had so many people, unable to remember the name of an episode, insist that I won't be able to help them figure it out because they don't know the plot, or the season, or pretty much anything about it. And after my fifth "No, really, just tell me anything you remember..." they'll say "Well, Frasier gets out of a bath and he's wet."** and I'll promptly say "Oh, that's an episode from season 1 - first episode featuring Bebe Glaiser, actually. And it's not a bath - it's a spa. Want to borrow it?" and they'll look at me like I'm very freaky.
___________
** Actual quote from my sister, a week ago.
Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! Do you know the one where Daphne and Martin are in the elevator and they're talking to each other like Daphne is on the run from the mob (Martin says, "He'd never recognize you under all that plastic surgery!") while the 3rd passenger listens on in increasing uncomfortableness. And then when the passenger gets off, Daphne and Martin laugh uncontrollably. Do you know the name of that one? I love that one!
According to the Google it is The Impossible Dream (Season 4 Episode 3.)
Thank you!! Now I just need to find a clip on YouTube. Best scene ever. :D
Heh. I love that bit. :)
This reminds me of my brother, who can give a plot synopsis of any TNG episode within the first ten seconds of the show, often before anyone has spoken a word of dialogue. Sometimes before we've seen anything other than the outside of the Enterprise drifting in space.
I briefly dated a girl who claimed to be able to do the same thing, and to this day am disappointed that I never got to stage a showdown between the two of them. It would be like Jeopardy, except you'd have to state your answer in the form of a Captain's Log.
Huh. I dated a guy who could do that, but only with Star Trek: Original Crispy episodes.
It was!!! You are so awesome!! I've been wanting to re-see that for years.
http://youtu.be/q525LBsfCEs?t=9m50s
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