The Obsessions of an Incidental Bookseller

blue feathers...

2009-08-20T16:40:00.006+10:00

Who says books don’t have an impact on your life? About thirty years ago, I read the follow up to Richard Bach’s book Jonathan Livingston Seagull called The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. It was the first time I really heard the concept that you create your own life and that the creation of that life begins in your mind. In this book, the Messiah, a mechanic who can do miracles and assures

...on elephants

2009-08-20T16:12:00.005+10:00

The other day, a writer friend of mine came into the Incidental Bookshop. I took her photo and told her that I keep a blog and that she was about to star in it. I haven’t got around to writing her up yet but I think of her all the time now because when I mentioned the blog to her, she said, “A blog about the bookshop? What on earth do you find to write about?”Man, I wish I had TIME to write about

district 9

2009-08-16T21:15:00.008+10:00

I love a good sci fi movie. Oh, jeez, okay, I admit it - I've been known to love even a bad sci fi movie. And so it was that I have been looking forward, with saliva dribbling from my mouth, to the arrival of District 9 at my neighbourhood cinema.I went along to see it tonight and what can I say? It's as good as the word of mouth told me it would be. And all the better for the fact that for the

everything is over-rated...

2009-08-13T15:48:00.007+10:00

Today a guy came in looking for a calligraphy set for his daughter. He was a funny man and we kind of chatted a little as I tried to find the set for him amongst the piles of new stock that came in yesterday. "It should be in the craft section," I said.He said, "Oh, I've already got craft."I raised an eyebrow at him, not really understanding what he was saying. "Craft. Can't Remember A Fucking

... false arrest

2009-08-07T21:38:00.006+10:00

So anyway, Sir Punk's name is Jeremy and he's from Woollongong. He told me that he settled on buying Les Miserables because he played Gavroche in a stage production when he was a kid. We had a great little chat and before he left, I gave him the address of the blog so he could check himself out.What I didn't give him amongst all the chit chat was his receipt of purchase.Five minutes later,

a punk in the 21st century...

2009-08-05T20:56:00.008+10:00

I was sitting in the Incidental Bookshop this morning, tapping away on my laptop and thinking about how I should be be doing more with The Obsessions of an Incidental Bookseller, when into the shop walked a goddamnned punk. Yeah for real. Not the Clint Eastwood Do-you-feel-lucky-today-well-do-ya-punk type punk. The Sid Vicious type punk. The Vivian-off-the-young-ones type punk. I thought to

some timely advice for book designers...

2009-07-20T15:56:00.002+10:00

Note to book designers:No matter how pretty it looks, and you will get no argument from me that it is undeniably pretty, no matter how tempting, how clean, how GOOD it looks, DO NOT MAKE YOUR BOOK COVER WHITE. Most especially do not make it WHITE MATTE. Like anything white - white carpet, white dresses, white sand - they don't don't stay white for very long once exposed to the world of man. Oh,

the trolly wars part II...

2009-06-16T20:02:00.000+10:00

You don't really get life until you understand the importance of shopping trolleys in a big shopping centre. They weave the very fabric of whatever civilisation exists in those woeful hellholes that some call malls, criss-crossing the various corridors, rolling helpfully here and there, and just generally making life easier for everyone. Think about it. Just as the earliest humans leaped up the

for terminator fans only...

2009-06-12T15:17:00.004+10:00

I saw Terminator Salvation tonight and lo! It was good. I just took a quick spin by Rotten Tomatoes to see what The Critics are saying and sadly most of them aren't saying anything too much good. For example:The ingenious plotting of the first two Terminator films, and the skill and visceral energy with which James Cameron directed them, are a thing of the past. David Stratton of At The MoviesAnd

update ...

2009-06-11T15:18:00.006+10:00

My next blog was, of course, supposed to be part 2 of 'the trolley wars...' but what can you do? Life happens and you must either record it or let it go by without so much as a 'how's yer father?'. Nope. Not for me, the unexamined life. I blog therefore I am. Anyhow... Yesterday, The Princess Bookaholic did the afternoon shift. It was actually her turn to do the coveted morning shift - we both

the trolley wars...

2009-06-07T13:05:00.003+10:00

Like I said, stock day is a big day - not least because of the voluminous amounts of heavy books you have to get from the pallets at the front of the shop to the tables all over the rest of the shop. By voluminous, I mean lots. Big big lots and then some more on top of that. The stock is delivered at 7:30 a.m. and has to be unpacked and hidden away from the delicate eyes of the public by 9 a.m.

stock day...

2009-05-29T22:08:00.005+10:00

Every two weeks, a very special thing happens at the Incidental Bookshop.Princess Bookaholic, Sir Laurence the Indispensable and The Incidental Bookseller arise at the crack of dawn and hurry on down to the Incidental Bookshop where a parade of strange men deliver, with varying degrees of competence, a couple of pallets of new stock.Oh, the stories I could tell of Stock Day!But I'm tired and my

wraapt in plaastic...

2009-05-27T18:27:00.000+10:00

It was a big day today in the Incidental Bookshop. We gave the old girl a bit of a face lift. You think I mean 'a bit of a face lift' in a manner of speaking, don't you? Well, in fact I mean we literally gave her plastic surgery. You see, the company I work for is like the SAS of book sellers, the Green Berets of the publishing world. We sell books at prices other book shops couldn't because

did you really have to bring that up?

2009-05-26T20:53:00.001+10:00

Today, a small girl vomited all over the floor of my shop. I was on duty by myself and I heard a plaintiff voice cry out from the depths of our cavernous shop, "Excuse me, could I have some assistance down here?" In the very back aisle of the store, a small grandma type woman was struggling under the weight of the heaving retching child in her arms. Ugh. I hurried to her side and instinctively

the whole Harry Potter and Twilight thing...

2009-05-23T23:45:00.002+10:00

I know I'm late to the Harry Potter discussion but for Book People it's a debate that never really goes away. It raises its head again nowadays with the gobsmackingly popular Twilight series. I haven't read it myself - I don't do vampire romance (or Kills & Wound as I like to refer to it) but my daughter is a bookaholic who has to try every new book she sees and she tells me that Twilight sucks

self help books and the psychiatrists who loathe them...

2009-05-22T08:10:00.000+10:00