Tag Archives: To Kill a Mockingbird

Dear John

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Let’s face it: we’ve had some good times, but they’re all in the past.

You made me laugh; you broadened my horizons; I ran my fingers down your spine and felt sexy and smart. We even shared some values. I will never forget weeping over A Time to Kill, feeling that I’d found my soul mate (not to mention this generation’s To Kill a Mockingbird).

But we’ve grown apart. Put more bluntly, you’ve changed. Try as I might, I just can’t get past Playing for Pizza. 

It’s over, John. Our bookstore won’t be taking any more Grishams–not paperback, not hardback, not written on vellum. I tried. Through the mood swings from The Testament to A Painted House, I stood by you. “He’ll find himself again,” I said to naysayers. “Really, he’s a sensitive ’90s guy; did you read Rainmaker?” And then I read The Litigators, and wondered.

Frankly, John, it’s just not worth it to me. Your hardbacks are clogging a desirable traffic area with the Pattersons and the Cornwells. (If it’s any consolation, she’s next, and you may find comfort under each other’s covers in the bargain bin; rebounds aren’t so bad if you have a traveling companion.)

You take up an entire shelf for your hardbacks, and they can’t lie sideways because of their height. Size does matter, dude.

So really, it’s not you; it’s me. You’re just… too big. Too many. Too out there. You throw yourself around to every Amazon, Dick and Barnes and Noble, and then you expect to come crawling in here and I’ll take you back. You’re not a cheap date anymore; I need the space for the next guy. You don’t just take up that hardback shelf; you’re all over the spaces under our shelves, in the discount section. I’m tired of cleaning up your messes every morning, after you party all night with the cats. You’re just too cheap and easy.

I know, I know; you want to talk about the past, the glory days when people couldn’t keep their hands off you. I get it. I should feel lucky to have you here, with me, now. But it doesn’t work that way.

The time has come. Let’s be adult about this–no blame, no regrets. Admit it; you had fun. So did I. Shake hands before you go? No, don’t kiss me. You’re dusty. Just get out.

Calm Chaos

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It’s a bit weird, isn’t it, that bookstores are such calm places?

Because books make such good agitators. They change our points of view, our lives, the world. Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath terrified politicians so badly they dissed it and him. To Kill a Mockingbird literally changed the way we do justice in America (Gott sei dank). Speak, We were the Mulvaneys… they and their sister titles gave voice to a group the rest of society considered illegitimate and wanted to shut down.

You don’t need a thousand other examples of titles that have left a lasting impact on us as individuals and societies to agree that books are revolutions in bound covers, waiting to unbind us.

Yet bookstores and libraries, the places where we access these whirlwinds of the mind? Calm, quiet, classical music playing in the background, librarians at the gate waiting to shush at the drop of a pin…..

Just another of the great ironies surrounding bookstore life; on the one hand nothing could be more relaxing than shelf-lined walls keeping out the bad stuff; on the other, we all know how much bad stuff is dissected in those pages.

I never have satisfactorily wrapped my head ’round the idea that in the midst of a maelstrom of literature advocating for change, the bookseller in his or her store sits like the eye of the storm, placidly passing out pieces of the Great Undoing.

But I really, really, like sitting in that eye….. :]

And now for something completely different: Don’t forget that the annual Big Stone Celtic Festival is gearing up for its usual mayhem and merriment. Held across the greater metropolitan area of Big Stone (four blocks) the festival is Sept. 22 this year. Even now the sheepdogs (and their sheep brethren) are working on their routine, the little Shetland ponies cleaning their hooves in anticipation, and the committee is going nuts trying to advertise with no money. So if you enjoy music, dance, story and/or food from the seven Celtic nations (Brittany, Cornwall, Galicia, Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland, Wales) c’mon down. Southern hospitality meets Celtic swords. It doesn’t get any better than this!