Pegasus Downtown

DAVE EGGERS SIGNING BOOKS THIS MONDAY 12/14 at 1pm

2009-12-12T20:52:00.000-08:00

Need I say more?
come get your Zeitouns, your Wild Things, your Panoramas signed for Christmas
2349 shattuck ave.
ONE PM (note weird time, please)

Lierre Keith reading from The Vegetarian Myth: Tomorrow (11/19) at 7:30pm

2009-11-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

This one will be good. Already, The Vegetarian Myth has gotten a ton of publicity; it's been reviewed by Alice Walker, Derrick Jensen, Noam Chomsky. Lierre Keith has been on KPFA, NPR, and the like. I've heard customers railing at this woman and totally praising her.
Join us for guaranteed good debate and conversation.
TOMORROW, THURS. NOV. 19th, 7:30pm at Pegasus Downtown
-rachel

p.s. - stay tuned for information about Dave Eggers and Raj Patel doing in-store book signings.

Aimee Bender

2009-11-14T14:54:00.000-08:00

Look, I know I'm disappointing you by never updating this thing, so let me make it up to you: Aimee Bender, probably the greatest living genius in the world, has a tiny little new book available at the Madras Press website. I just ordered one, so I can't vouch for it, but trust me: it will be awesome. W00t

November Events!

2009-11-03T15:47:00.000-08:00

Hello Blog Followers

We have lots of events in November

we had a great event with Chad Sweeney, Russell Dillon, and Cammille T. Dungy on Sunday.

This is what we have coming up this week
Wed. Nov. 4th: Peter Beren and Dan Jacobson reading and discussing California the Beautiful
A beautiful book of California photography taken by Galen Rowell and essays on California's natural beauty by famous writers edited by Peter Beren.

Sat. Nov. 7th: Loren Rhoads reads her favorite stories from Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues
a collection of sometimes shocking, occasionally gruesome, and always fascinating stories.

more events posts to come
hope to see you
-rachel

2009-10-25T17:20:00.001-07:00

We have a weird cat.

Kim Stanley Robinson and Terry Bisson read Tonight at 7:30pm

2009-10-20T09:54:00.000-07:00

Join us for renowned science fiction authors Kim Stanley Robinson and Terry Bisson

PM Press has reissued Robinson's story The Lucky Strike and Bisson's The Left Left Behind as part of their Outspoken Author Series

Robinson and Bisson will read from these stories and discuss their larger works. Don't miss this exciting literary event!

-rachel

Bryant Terry leads a cooking demonstration from Vegan Soul Kitchen. TONIGHT! 7:30pm

2009-10-14T10:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, not only is this book about VEGAN SOUL FOOD, but it also has, in addition to 150 recipes: full-color photographs; an original song; new poetry; suggested soundtracks for each recipe; and book, art, and film recommendations. Whoa. Bryant Terry is definitely one of our favorite chefs and food writers at the store. Move over, Alice Waters!

Come join us for a sumptuous cooking demonstration and talk by this awesome, Oakland-based chef.

TONIGHT. 7:30pm. hope to see you.

-rachel

TONIGHT!! Frank Portman reads from Andromeda Klein, 7:30pm

2009-10-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

Frank Portman is one of our favorites at Pegasus. The author of King Dork and singer/guitarist of the Mr. T Experience is out with his long-awaited, second young-adult novel, Andromeda Klein. You will not want to miss this event. If you missed Frank Portman at the store a few years ago, here's your opportunity to see him again. There will be music, food, and lots of fun.

and, here's a little bit more about the book, since Anneli Rufus from the East Bay Express says it better than I can...

Tarot-card images appear in dreams to skinny, hearing-impaired teenager Andromeda Krystal Klein, who ponders their meanings while invoking ancient Egyptian deities and encountering otherworldly entities, including the spirit of her dead best friend. Given to saying "oh my gods," Andromeda is the irresistible heroine of Frank Portman's new young-adult novel Andromeda Klein.

p.s. - King Dork is slated to be released as a movie in 2010!

hope to see you all tonight
-rachel

TOMORROW, 7:30pm: TAO LIN: Shoplifting from American Apparel

2009-09-29T09:19:00.000-07:00

Tao Lin, author of Bed and Eee Eee Eee reads from his latest book, Shoplifting from American Apparel. Set mostly in Manhattan—although also featuring Atlantic City, Brooklyn, GMail Chat, and Gainsville, Florida—this autobiographical novella, spanning two years in the life of a young writer with a cultish following, has been described by the author as “2 parts shoplifting arrest, 5 parts vague relationship issues,” and “An ultimately life-affirming book about how the unidirectional nature of time renders everything beautiful and sad.”

This is going to be a big deal, don't miss it! but, if you do miss Tao Lin at Pegasus, he will also be reading at the Alphonse Berber Gallery on October 4th at 7pm along with Jesse Nathan and Chris Janzen, who will be reading poems from Dinner

see you tomorrow,
rachel

2009-09-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

I know I've been letting you down on the update front, but I have something good for you! Via bookslut, here is Choire Sicha on the Lost Symbol.

TOMORROW: Wed. 9/23, John Curl reads from For All The People

2009-09-22T10:27:00.000-07:00

This one is for all you Berkeley hippies...

Longtime scholar and active member of cooperatives, John Curl, reads from For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America. Seeking to reclaim a history that has remained largely ignored by most historians, this dramatic and stirring account examines each of the definitive American cooperative movements for social change—farmer, union, consumer, and communalist—that have been all but erased from collective memory.

hope to see you all tomorrow!
-rachel

TOMORROW: Thurs. Sept. 17th, Rachael Brownell reads from her memoir Mommy Doesn't Drink Here Anymore

2009-09-16T15:39:00.000-07:00

We've had quite an amazing series of memoir readings recently at Pegasus Downtown. I'm looking forward to hosting Rachael Brownell, reading and discussing her memoir Mommy Doesn't Drink Here Anymore: Getting Through the First Year of Sobriety

Part recovery, part self-help, and all real, raw stories of waking up for the sake of your self and your children, Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore follows one mother’s journey from cocktail mama to sober mama. Both heart-wrenching and inspiring, this is Brownell’s true-life story, from the first thirty days to the year mark. Mommy Doesn’t Drink Here Anymore is not a book that preaches or simply takes the reader through the Twelve Steps. It provides hope and motivation to get into a program and balance your life as a mother and a recovering alcoholic.

hope to see you all tomorrow night!
-rachel

TONIGHT, 7:30pm, Sophia Raday reads from and discusses her memoir Love in Condition Yellow

2009-09-10T09:38:00.000-07:00

I'm super excited about this event tonight- a woman's memoir about marriage across vast political differences. It should provoke a lot of interesting discussion. see description below...

The last thing Berkeley-dwelling peace activist Sophia Raday expected was to fall in love with a straightlaced Oakland police officer. As someone who had run away from cops dressed in riot gear at protests, Sophia was ambivalent, to say the least, at the prospect of dating Barrett, who was not only a cop but also a West Point graduate, an Airborne Ranger, and a major in the Army Reserve.

During their courtship the two argued about many of the matters that divide the United States, things like drug policy and race relations. Startled by the freedom she found in a relationship of differences, by the challenge of sparring with Barrett, and by his steadfast acceptance of her, Sophia unwittingly fell in love.

hope to see you all tonight
-rachel

Wendy-O Matik leads a workshop on radical love and redefining relationships TONIGHT! 7:30pm

2009-09-03T09:31:00.000-07:00

Of Redefining Our Relationships, Hakim Bev says "Wendy-O Matik's how-to guide for the emotional road blocks and liberatory possibilities of polyamory reads like a punk rock Ann Landers channeling Emma Goldman and Victoria Woodhull."

At this workshop, Wendy will show us how polyamory can be for everybody. Wendy presents the major concepts and challenges that we face trying to re-invent our relationships outside the dominant social paradigm. Radical love is the freedom to love whom you want, how you want, and as many as you want, so long as personal integrity, respect, honesty, and consent are at the core of any and all relationships. Radical love primarily focuses on love and intimacy, not sex and sexual conquest. At the heart of this work are three components: feminism, social activism, and revolution. The workshop is followed by Q&A.

Cat

2009-09-02T18:52:00.000-07:00

Parit is having a difficult time with the hot Berkeley September weather.

A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit

2009-08-30T18:29:00.001-07:00

In a just world,
Rebecca Solnit would be a hundred times more famous and popular than Chuck Palahniuk.

Instead, we live in this stupid world.

Also, Chuck Palahniuk rules, which should give you an idea of how much Rebecca Solnit rules: she rules x 100.

-ip2

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

2009-08-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

Nabokov said “You read Turgenev because you’re reading Turgenev. You read Tolstoy because you cannot stop. “

I can’t possibly think of a better way to put it. This book feels like home. If you could create the perfect book…you couldn’t because Tolstoy already did.

--ck

LOVE AND ROCKETS collections: Music For Mechanics & Chelo’s Burden

2009-08-30T16:56:00.002-07:00

There are many imitators, but only one brothers Hernandez. Love & Rockets is the original, the classic, the best in punk comics.

AMT

THINGS THAT FALL FROM THE SKY by Kevin Brockmeier

2009-08-30T16:56:00.001-07:00

Look carefully at this cover and you’ll see a baby carriage falling from the sky. Isn’t that cool??

Most of the stories in this book are, yes, about things that fall from the sky. Literally. Isn’t THAT cool??

AMT

You’re an ANIMAL, Viskovitz! by Alessandro Boffa

2009-08-30T16:53:00.001-07:00

To the delight of biologists and biologiphiles everywhere who read, this funny little book follows the vignetted adventures of one Viskovitz, an anthropomorphish fellow who metamorphosizes, every few pages, to hilarious effect, into a different animal.

“I felt a chill in my hemolymph, and my palleale cavity stiffened. I extruded my esophagus in a spasm of horror.”
-from Don’t You Ever Think of Sex, Viskovitz?

AMT

Animal Husbandry by Laura Zigman

2009-08-30T16:52:00.001-07:00

I liked this book a whole lot better than I thought I would. I expected it to be kind of contrived — you know, that whole man-as-bovine metaphor. Guess what, though? It wasn’t at all contrived. It was fun, light but not idiotic or inane, better than Bridget Jones’ Diary, and a great gift for female friends who are feeling bad about how they’ve been treated by those nasty bulls...I mean men —

— L.W.

Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje

2009-08-30T16:50:00.000-07:00

An enticing story about human rights in Sri Lanka, a brilliant forensic anthropologist as the heroine (one of the few great women characters created by a man!), and a tale of adventure that’s spun like a web make this book impossible to put down.

Angels Flight by Michael Connelly

2009-08-30T16:49:00.001-07:00

Michael Connelly has become the poet of the police procedural, creating a bold, richly textured canvas out of Los Angeles that serves as backdrop for his Detective Hieronymus Bosch. In Connelly’s hands, the LAPD becomes an almost feudal landscape—like those of his protagonist’s namesake—complete with an unseen king, political intrigue, spies, backroom deals, warring factions, and a shining glass castle called Parker Center. And through it all walks Det. Bosch trying to solve the cases no one wants solved.
This time, practically every detective in L.A. is a suspect, when a Jonnie Cochran-like attorney who specializes in burning cops is found slain, and Det. Harry Bosch has to solve the case before Los Angeles burns—again. And if it does, Harry might burn along with it.

---c.m.j.

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

2009-08-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

somebody threw away my first blurb for this book.
does it matter? people will read it anyway. but maybe YOU don’t know about it. look at the ambigram at the beginning of the text: the book lives up to it., and to his subsequent book,
THE DA VINCI CODE.

s.

Anatomy of Insects and Spiders by Claire Beverley and David Ponsonby

2009-08-30T16:39:00.000-07:00

Glorious insects! Segments and exoskeletons, wings and antenna! This guide to exotic crawly creatures is illuminated with Victorian engravings and tales of entomological adventure.

This is the guidebook to Beauty!

--lb

TONIGHT at 7:30 Lisa Jervis discusses her new book Cook Food: A Manualfesto for Easy Healthy, Local Eating

2009-08-26T15:15:00.000-07:00

Bitch magazine co-founder Lisa Jervis has a new book out about cooking food and eating locally. Who doesn't want to learn how to do those things? Plus, this nifty little book packs in inspiring stories, local eating tips, and scrumptious recipes in a small paperback for only $10! want another reason to come to this reading tonight? there'll be FOOD.
hope to see you all tonight at 7:30pm
-rachel

An Italian Affair by Laura Frasier

2009-08-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

This book has all the essential elements of a great escapist read—exotic locales, great food, and a wonderful romance. And, it’s all true! An inspiring story told with honesty, intelligence, and humor. I couldn’t put it down.

An Invisible Sign of My Own by Aimee Bender

2009-08-22T10:30:00.001-07:00

If there is another young author out there who writes with the blessed skill and precision of Aimee Bender, then I would certainly like to know about it. As a reader, I affectionately call her my “one-day wonder” because I’ve dedicated one entire day to reading each of her books. In The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, the reader was introduced to Bender’s mind-boggling ability to craft startling tales of contemporary magical realism. In An Invisible Sign of My Own, this unique talent is greatly expanded upon, with main characters fleshy and whole, emotions puzzling and poignant, and actions shocking and surreal. There is superstition, disbelief, aching, discovery, and redemption. And above all else, there is a sense of wonder that I, the reader, am left with as my day closes and I quietly turn the final page.

-JD

Among the Thugs by Bill Buford

2009-08-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

So, get this: The editor of Granta (I’ll repeat that for effect—Granta) decides he’s gonna investigate the world of British football hooliganism—the drinking, fighting, rioting, racism, the particular kind of madness of this kind of crowd—by joining it. Among the Thugs is horrifying and hilarious, mystifying and vivid, unflinching and sincere. This is not Harry Potter’s England, and this is not quiddich.

-cm

The Amazing Bone By William Steig

2009-08-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

This may be my favorite children’s book ever. Steig’s writing, as always, manages to be both witty and very sweet, and his illustrations are nothing short of enchanting. Pearl, with her demure frock and dainty handbag, is one dear little pig, and if you want to be happy right now, look at the illustration with the butterflies in the middle of the story. –MD2

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

2009-08-22T10:19:00.000-07:00

The 2001 Pulitzer crew definitely chose well this year. I held off reading this because of all the hype and because it was about comic book artists. What do I know from comic books?
I loved Amazing Adventures…! The characters are great, the plot never stops (though it makes some odd detours—even through Antarctica), and the writing is original and deeply wonderful.
A rich and delightful read.

--ES

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

2009-08-22T10:17:00.000-07:00

The author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Wonder Boys puts his lyrical spin on a corner of American history so rich it’s a wonder no author has previously seen fit to examine it. The era of classic comics and World War II New York is brought fully alive in this story of two young Jewish men who create a popular fascist-bashin’ superhero out of their wartime anxieties. A graceful and rewarding book.

JC

Smash the Church, Smash the State!

2009-08-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

This Thursday (8/20) at 7:30pm, Tommi Avicolli Mecca will read from this new anthology about the early years of the Gay Liberation Movement, published by City Lights.

Celebrating the truly radical elements of the Gay Rights movement, Smash the Church, Smash the State includes essays, personal stories, manifestos from the 1960s and 70s as well as essays about where we are going today.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore calls it "Full of brash, contradictory, intoxicating dreams, the essays in this anthology invoke the sexual flamboyance, intellectual rigor, activist trouble making and communal possibilities of a different era while simultaneously offering bracing critiques."

This event will pack more gay history than Milk, so don't miss it!

Sshhhh! by Jason

2009-08-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

Something I don’t know: Who the heck this Jason is.

Two things I do know: 1.These stories are refreshingly lovely.
2. A duck’s quack is the only noise that doesn’t echo and nobody knows why.

-Tim

All Over But the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg

2009-08-16T20:38:00.000-07:00

A heart-wrenching story about growing up white trash. Bragg writes about his upbringing with a richness that will leave you laughing and crying. Highly recommended.

Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund

2009-08-16T20:37:00.002-07:00

I loved reading as a child because I loved being immersed in another world—that feeling where I’d go down to dinner never fully awakening from the fictional world I had been visiting. It happens more rarely for me as an adult.
Ahab’s Wife had this effect on me. There is an epic scope to this novel set in the mid-19th century (the author was inspired by a brief passage in Moby Dick referring to Captain Ahab’s wife) but the protagonist, Una, is so fully drawn that her humanity is recognizable and compelling. We follow Una as she moves from her childhood home in rural Kentucky to live with her relatives on a barren island on the Atlantic seaboard where they tend a lighthouse, then as she ships out dressed as a boy on a whaler.
Una is so curious and inventive about life that she made me want to live on the island with her and go to sea with her (though maybe not on a whaler after reading the vivid descriptions of the kill and its aftermath) and, later, live on Nantucket with her.
This novel reminds me of The Shipping News and Cold Mountain (two of my favorite books of all time) –it shares those books’ descriptive powers, engrossing protagonists and, in the case of Cold Mountain, the astonishing historical detail. It is an amazing accomplishment and deserves all the critical acclaim it has received.

—es

Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami

2009-08-16T20:37:00.001-07:00

This is the other Murakami, the one your mom warned you about. Speaking of moms, read the first sentence. If you find this kind of thing interesting, this is a book for you. Now think about getting some help. Ya sick f***.

-Josh

Against Civilization by John Zerzan

2009-08-16T20:35:00.002-07:00

This book contains an abecedary against order, and essays by authors as diverse as Ivan Illich and the Unabomber, Ursula LeGuin and William Morris. Stock up on water and bullets, honey. There ain’t gonna be a world left for the meek to inherit.

-Josh

Against Love: A Polemic by Laura Kipnis

2009-08-16T20:35:00.001-07:00

Love is like oxygen. Love is a many-splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love!

I absolutely delighted in reading this. The writing is witty, brainy, and swift. Needless to say aggressively controversial, unsparingly and unflinchingly one-sided. Beware, please. Yet it made me think. The book made me think quite a lot, and I felt somehow…ennobled.

(Possibly savagely ironic and secretly pro-love …)

CHB

Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror by Richard Clarke

2009-08-16T20:33:00.001-07:00

Don’t be put off (as I was initially) by the Tom Clancyesque first chapter. For some reason Clarke felt he had to woo us with snappy dialogue and an action movie opening for what is otherwise an articulate and insightful account of the defense policies and operating styles of three different administrations. It’s both a detailed history of what was known about al Qaeda (and more importantly when it was known) and a fascinating study in how things get done—or not—in the White House. As a key player in this drama Clarke clearly has his biases. But he makes a persuasive case for them, and an even more persuasive case for the kind of roll up your sleeves and enter the fray presidency of Bill Clinton vs. that of the sequestered and protected George W. Bush.

--MD2

Afterwards, You’re a Genius: Faith, Medicine, and the Metaphysics of Healing by Chip Brown

2009-08-16T20:32:00.001-07:00

Chip Brown is funny, a phenomenally great writer and oh so smart that I must give this bright, thoughtful tour of the spiritual and healing world to my friend who’s gone back to graduate school to study religions and healing

-Gina

After Long Silence by Helen Fremont

2009-08-16T20:30:00.002-07:00

If this memoir were a novel I’d put it down as too contrived and unbelievable to read. It’s an amazing story of the secrets kept for decades by Helen Fremont’s parents—Jews pretending to be Catholics to escape the holocaust. As an adult Fremont became curious and started researching her family and discovered a heart-pounding tale of changed names, cross-European flight, Gulag incarceration and death.
It reads like a thriller but the reader is repeatedly brought back to the contemporary moment as Fremont and her sister wrestle with how to discuss their revelations with their parents.

Would bringing up the past be too psychologically shocking for their parents to stand? Would it be worse to pretend they don’t know the truth about their parents’ identities? This is a moving story about family secrets and their ability to protect and harm ourselves and those we love.

The Ægypt Cycle by John Crowley

2009-08-16T20:30:00.001-07:00

This extraordinary tetralogy (including The Solitudes, Love & Sleep, Dæmonamania, and Endless Things) interweaves a subtle thread of fantasy with historical fiction, philosophy, and a thoroughly engrossing plot to form a rich, complex fictional tapestry. Through an ingenious conceit about the malleability of history, Crowley links the sixteenth century John Dee and Giordano Bruno with a small community of people in upstate New York in the seventies. Crowley’s formidable intelligence makes these novels a delight simply for the play of ideas, but it’s his deep compassion for his characters that keeps you transfixed to the end. With their superb dialogue, their intricate, credible psychologies, Crowley’s characters take up residence in your heart and reward you lavishly for their stay. A masterpiece.

-Marjorie

Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau

2009-08-16T20:28:00.002-07:00

All the fun of a kids book, but for grown-ups!

Zazie is a precocious, ageless, foul-mouthed, ’pataphysical child with insatiable desires. Uncle Gabriel is an absent-minded, endlessly tolerant, grenadine-drinking, part-time drag queen. Raymond Queneau is a neologiphilic, imperturbable, smart and funny storyteller.

-Adam

Almost No Memory by Lydia Davis

2009-08-16T20:28:00.001-07:00

Complex short short stories, in short complex sentences. Defamiliarizing candor and sophisticated, punchy narrative. Lists and lists in a conversational prose. The most accessible and vital experimental fiction on the scene. “Mice live in our walls but do not trouble our kitchen.”

-Adam

Acme Novelty Library by Chris Ware

2009-08-16T20:27:00.000-07:00

Believe the Hype. There’s a reason Chris Ware has been the “in” cartoonist of the last eight years. It doesn’t take a genius to pick up one of his books and see that his art and design are unparalleled in the comic industry. What truly sets Mr. Ware apart from the copout “graphic memoirists” (don’t get me started) is his ability to tell a brilliant and story. After all, isn’t that why we read books?

-Tim

About a Boy by Nick Hornby

2009-08-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

t isn’t really a secret that girls mature faster than boys - in some cases, much, much faster. Nick Hornby has built his entire career on this. About a Boy is actually about 2 boys - Marcus (age 12), and Will (age 36) - who, whether they know it or not, desperately need each other’s help to grow up. Marcus, just entereing high school: can’t dress, doesn’t know who Nirvana is, actually likes Joni Mitchell, sings aloud to himself when he doesn’t mean to, and, on top of all of that, has a mother who’s been known to go off the deep end. You just can’t go through high school like that. Will, on the other hand, is a good-for-nothing who doesn’t like kids, doesn’t even like people who have kids, but figures that single-parent support groups are a great place to meet women.
It’s a perfect match. And Hornby delivers it with growing maturity.

— C.

The Disappointment Artist by Jonathan Lethem

2009-08-16T20:13:00.001-07:00

You seriously have no excuses for not reading Jonathan Lethem. He’s written surreal mysteries (Gun, With Occasional Music), serious contemporary novels (The Fortress of Solitude), short stories (Men and Cartoons), and now autobiographical essays. If you’re not into one you have to be into the other. Just pick something up and read it or else you’ll be missing out. This collection offers a glimpse into Lethem’s history (“Identifying with Your Parents”) and obsessions (“You Don’t Know Your Dick” about, um, Philip K. Dick). The guy’s a good writer, give ‘em a shot. Start now.

501 Minutes to Christ by Poe Ballantine

2009-08-16T20:08:00.000-07:00

I never judge a book by its cover. Sometimes I judge a book by its craftsmanship. There’s something about a well bound book full of bright sturdy paper that shows me a publisher who cares about its product first and money second. Hawthorne Books out of Portland, OR clearly choose to publish writers they love and think the world needs to read. Poe Ballantine is a literary hobo. He’s a man who has lived in about 50 different towns, worked 150 different jobs, and experienced 1.25 million adventures. Each of these essays is about a different moment in his life. His stories are light and funny one moment and intense and sad the next. Ballantine is a raw and cerebral writer. His experiences are a treat for us “normal” people, never leaving our comfort zones, with our one job, blah, blah, blah.

-Tim

100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed by Melissa P.

2009-08-16T20:07:00.000-07:00

Wow. No exclamation point, just, Wow. This is a book that any female who is experiencing or has experienced adolescence would find interesting. This girl’s young—real young and her sexual escapades are shocking. You’ll be completely absorbed because, yes, it’s erotica, but of the sort that is subtly painful. She’s just so young and willing, and most of her experience is not with other young ones, but rather older, gross dudes. So to witness this innocent, young one being used and taken advantage of is slightly disconcerting. But remember, you’ll be sucked in. It’s small, quick and engaging.

-Isla

5 Spices, 50 Dishes by Ruta Kahate

2009-08-16T20:06:00.000-07:00

Local author Kuhate has created a wonderful introduction to the world of Indian cuisine. With a simple five-spice template, these delicious, simple recipes give you a basic understanding of Indian food, which, to me, has always seemed intimidating.

Minimal ingredients, clear instructions, and well-adapted for American kitchens, this one is highly recommended.

Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen

2009-08-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

The Corrections was the kind of book that readers either absolutely loved or absolutely loathed.
For those of you who loved it as much as I did, Strong Motion is a “must read” (as they say). This book, Franzen’s second novel, shows him hitting his stride in developing emotionally flawed protagonists who find redemption in the author’s classic way – quietly and hard won.

For those of you who hated The Corrections, Strong Motion is a worthwhile second chance because of the warmth he gives the screw-ups you hated the first time around and the enthralling plot lines.

A stellar modern novel.

-Carla

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

2009-08-16T20:03:00.000-07:00

After years of curiosity, I finally picked this book up. Wary at first of the religion factor in the story, I pushed ahead and now have no recollection of what was going on in my life as I was reading it. Octavia Butler created a world that is such a realistic extension of our world that it even appeared in my dreams and confused me upon waking, as I could not remember if it was the news or a nightly hallucination that was haunting me. Set in California in the 2020’s and 30’s, we can see how the landscape of this book did not spring full-grown from its inventor’s head; rather, it sprung from the world we currently inhabit and which alarms and sometimes terrifies those of us that are watching our progress as a nation. I’ve run out of space for more praise.

-Katie

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Márquez

2009-08-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

This book is the most popular of Márquez’s books, and for good reason. One is transported to the humble beginnings of a town and follows the history of not only the town but a family as well. Márquez proves himself a genius in his character description. You can’t help but love or loath the characters but regardless are compelled to react in some way to his descriptions. This book feels mystical and enchanting but is also very, very human. There are many times in this book where you are bound to be emotionally involved.

I love this book. It rocks and I wish everyone in my family would read it. My mom did… and when I spoke to her about it, she quickly and exclusively fell into speaking Spanish. She didn’t notice she had done that, but I did. It shows how influential this book can be.

-Isla

Reservation Blues by Sherman Slexie

2009-08-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

I was fully convinced of the genius of Sherman Alexie’s writing before I even bit into this beautiful novel, and since then I think about it practically every day and have taken to accidentally calling good things Sherman.

-Katie

Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite

2009-08-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

Using the same whiskey-laden lust, fury and grotesque humor of the best Tom Waits songs, Poppy Z. Brite turns scary into sexy with her new school horror. I could make a bunch of ridiculous statements in an attempt to explain how much I love her gritty and sultry style. Instead I’ll just make two.

Drawing Blood’s psychological scariness and punk aesthetic took horror fiction in an entirely new direction.

Drawing Blood is hotter than Georgia asphalt.

-Carla

Isn’t It Romantic: 100 Love Poems by Younger American Poets edited by Brett Fletcher Lauer, Aimee Kelley, and Charles Simic

2009-08-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

Sick of the trite garbage written about love? Me too.

These poems are a modern take on what really makes a romance: innocence, pain, lust, pride, and partnership.

Ugh, even I make it sound lame, so I’ll leave it to this new generation of poets and their musical counterparts (who provide the stellar soundtrack.)

Food Court Druids, Cherohonkees, and Other Creatures Unique to the Republic By Robert Lanham et. al

2009-08-16T19:46:00.002-07:00

Like its predecessor, The Hipster Handbook, this cheeky little book proves how ironically impossible it is to be unique in today’s America. Apparently it was too easy for this crew of writers and artists to merely look around Brooklyn and see the absurdity of the post-art school set, so this time they ventured into suburbia to bring human subspecies such as “the Holidork” and “the TGIF” to the light of reason. Maybe you know someone like the poor shlubs in this book. Perhaps they are hiding out in and office park, chain restaurant, shopping mall or rec. room off a six-lane highway somewhere. With the gift of this book, you can show them that you love the, but sometimes they look really, really stupid.

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

2009-08-16T19:46:00.001-07:00

I read a review of this book titled “Harry Potter meets Jane Austen.” For the last year now, all I’ve been able to read is Harry Potter, over and over and over. Working in a bookstore makes me all the more aware of how…well, reading only Harry Potter isn’t so…advancing for the self??? WELL!!! I needed to move onto other things, and this book has been perfect for that. It’s super, super long. So you’re stuck to it for awhile, hence some character development that is akin to an Austen novel. It is filled with lots of magical occurrences, hence the Potter, and is very, very British – which both Potter and Austen have in common. It feels almost like a Bronte novel and kind of like the Secret Garden. It’s a picture of old England struggling to regain its magical past. It’s an engrossing novel that is definitely British and I like it a lot.

-Isla

Adventures of Pipu: Friends Forever by S & K Goblin

2009-08-16T19:39:00.000-07:00

A pocket-sized Pipu graphic novel, including Pipu's Great Escape, Pipu's Moustache, The Little Peach Pipu, Pipu's Antarctic Adventure, and Pipu's Halloween Treat. "Jacques and Lily had question marks on their heads. 'Where did you come from?'"

Palestine by Joe Sacco

2009-08-16T19:38:00.001-07:00

Based on several months of research and an extended visit to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the early 1990s (where he conducted over 100 interviews with Palestinians and Jews), Palestine was the first major comics work of political and historical nonfiction by Sacco, whose name has since become synonymous with this graphic form of New Journalism. Like his Safe Area Gorazde, Palestine has been favorably compared to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, by Art Spiegelman, for its ability to brilliantly navigate such socially and politically-sensitive subject matter within the confines of the comic book medium. Sacco has often been called the first comic book journalist, and he is certainly the best.

Sci-Fi Western by Sunny Buick and John Clute

2009-08-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

Cowboys and science fiction together at last. This fine combo is the best marriage to grace our sweet world since peanut butter and ham came together on May 19, 1961. Or what about the time when I bent over so much that my nose touched my butt and then my nose smelled my butt and it stunk. That was totally grody.

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

2009-08-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

Reasons that Ella Minnow Pea curls my toes:

1. Islands
2. Phonics
3. Insurrection
4. Courtly love
5. The dying art of polite correspondence
6. The thin line between reverence for tradition and fascism
7. Graceful wordsmithing

It is fast, meaty and delightful. More fun than a cheeseburger and full of nippy little inside jokes – what’s not to like?

I Like You by Sandol Stoddard and Jacqueline Chwast

2009-08-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

Because I Like You was out of print for so many years (it was originally published in 1965), my friend Rachel and I actually xeroxed the entire book twice, so we could each have a copy. For years afterward, we quoted lines from the book to each other. Our favoritie was:
If you find 2 4-leaf
clovers
You give me one.
If I find 4, I give you 2.
If we only find 3,
We keep on looking.

— Lisa

Sleepwalk by Adrian Tomine

2009-08-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago I decided to try to sell comics at our store. I was really insecure about whether or not anyone would have any interest in this small sample of some of my favorite cartoonists (one of whom was Adrian Tomine). A couple of weeks later, I received a letter in the mail from one of our regular customers. He had written about how excited he was to see us selling great comics. The letter was from Adrian Tomine. I was giddy like a schoolgirl! I realize now, the need for “regular” bookstores to carry alternative reading material like comics. If only comic stores carry comics, how do the regular folk discover them? I’ll tell you: by shopping in distinguished bookstores like Pegasus Downtown. Everyday I see people discovering books like Sleepwalk and it rules. Now it’s your turn.
-Tim

Bad Habits by Cristy Road

2009-08-16T19:19:00.000-07:00

I totally fuckin love Cristy Road. I've always loved her art but her writing was kind of, just like, yeah! But with this thing, move her to the front of the goddam class. The closest thing I can think of is Kathy Acker- maybe the most brilliant genius ever- even though she's really nothing like Acker. The comparison comes from the excited butterfly feeling I get in my chest when I read both of them. I mean, Bad Habits is a love letter to post-Giuliani New York, right? From the perspective of a non-native New Yorker. Been there! Love that! It made me miss New York, and I already miss New York kind of all the time. But it made me miss, like, specifically, riding my bike around Brooklyn at night when it was misty. Being depressed.

Mostly this book is about being depressed and taking drugs and having sex because you're depressed, which, really, is there any other subject worth writing about? (And I guess Kathy Acker's not that far off the mark, when I phrase it that way.) And it's about maintaining access to furious teenage emotionality, self-consciously, well after you turn twenty. Love that too.

-Imogen

The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel

2009-08-16T19:18:00.000-07:00

Amy Hempel is the sort of author you either love or hate, and this single volume contains the entirety of the four books she published between 1985 and 2005. She’s notorious for her concise, piercing stories; she’s like a superconcentrated tincture made of sweet little Lorrie Moore and mean ol’ Mary Gaitskill. Look at the single-paragraph story “Housewife” on page 221, or the two-page “Weekend” on page 199 and try not to have feelings.

There is also a 68-page epic called “Tumble Home.”

If you are the sort of person who hates the sort of writer Amy Hempel is, though, I can’t do anything for you. Maybe you should buy an economics or sports magazine, or a book of pictures of cats?

-Imogen

Pie & Tart Williams-Sonoma Collection by Carolyn Beth Weil and Chuck Williams

2009-08-16T19:15:00.000-07:00

Homemade pies send most people back into memories of holidays spent with loving family members, lazy fun-filled summers, and other stuff they probably made up. Unfortunately, most cookbooks, even dessert cookbooks, only feature a couple of pie recipes. If you have pie ambitions, this is the cookbook for you. Weil and Williams catalogue all of the classic pie recipes, pies for holidays, and explain how to make a tasty flaky pie crust. The recipes are easy to follow and alter to suit your tastes.

This cookbook is ideal for anyone who is trying to win the affections of a pie enthusiast or wishes to impress their imaginary friends and loved ones.

-Evelyn

Pulp by Charles Bukowski

2009-08-16T19:13:00.000-07:00

“Can you recommend a good brain candy book?”

I’m always stumped by this question, because I’ve never read a mystery, fantasy, or romance novel. I haven’t read a young adult book since I was a young adult. But I did read this book when I was very sad and whenever I read it cheered me up to the max. This was Bukowski’s last published novel before his death. It features a hilariously incompetent private dick who is hired to find Celine by Death, even though Celine has been dead for hella days already. Death takes the form of a jiggly walking piece of sex. And there are space aliens. That’s right! It’s a bit of a dark comedy but truly hilarious none the less. Just the thing to take your mind off of Michael Jackson’s passing, and the migrating pythons.

kisses,
Evelyn

Update

2009-08-16T19:11:00.001-07:00

We have about a billion staff recommendations for books bumping around on our computer, so I'm going to put them all online. It's going to take a while and ultimately there are going to be, y'know, hundreds of blurb posts, but then think how much more book enthusiasm there will be on the internet! Books are great.

(You're not the first person to think I'm a nerd, and you won't be the last.)

Sweet! by Mani Niall

2009-08-16T19:08:00.000-07:00

Most of us fatty Americans rely on a dose of sugar to get us started in the morning, and often another to power us through the afternoon. Usually those café bought treats are made with granulated white sugar. How unfortunate, since there’s a whole world of sugars with unique flavors and nutritional value. In this cook book, professional baker Mani Niall teaches the reader about the entire variety of sugars available to bakers, from Agave syrup to Turbinado sugar, and offers recipes that showcase each sweetners best use. Additionally, Niall explains the molecular structure and history of sugar, including an acknowledgement of its role in the American slave trade, and the current exploitation of child labor in African countries. Finally, this cookbook is not to be missed because the recipes are at once accessible and imaginative. Mint Julep Cake with Bourbon Buttercream? Dulce de Leche Sandwhich Cookies? Pomegranate Marble Ice Cream? Good god. Niall also includes an exciting chapter on using sugars in main dishes such as Chile Rubbed Agave Chicken and Tamarind Glazed Mahimahi. Mm.

-Evelyn

A Paradise Built in Hell

2009-08-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

I love Rebecca Solnit. You should love Rebecca Solnit, too. She is a local hero. I got obsessed with her when I stumbled into her collection of linked essays A Field Guide to Getting Lost a bunch of years ago while I was working at another book store, hid in the bathroom and read the whole goddam thing. She's fantastic; as Padma Viswanathan points out in the interview I'm about to link, "To read one of her books is to slap your forehead and say, 'How could I, and everyone else, have missed this?'" She's also one of the most impossible authors I know to figure out where to shelve. She's often writing political science, she's often writing about California (and the West), but sometimes she's writing sociology, and sometimes she's just writing about walking, which fits into pretty much every category. I'm hoping we can have her come in and read someday so I can ask HER where we should shelve each of her books.

Anyway, here is a link to an interview the Rumpus did with her about her new book, A Paradise Built in Hell. As you can see, she is a fantastic genius. And I'm lucky enough to have an advance reader copy of it! Except my girlfriend took it, so I haven't read it yet.

Homelessness: Illegal

2009-08-10T11:07:00.001-07:00

There are a lot of folks living on the street in Berkeley. It makes sense: the weather is absolutely gorgeous all year, there's a history of progressive social justice that makes for a (theoretically) safer environment in which to be homeless (although I've watched about a dozen police handle a situation in which a street person was smoking something), and- probably most importantly- Berkeley's famous as a good place to live on the street, if you're going to live on the street, so folks come here. Cultural momentum.

Anyway, notorious badass Barbara Ehrenreich has a piece up at the New York Times about how it's becoming more and more illegal to be homeless in America, and it's great.

“Can you imagine?” asked Eric Sheptock, the homeless advocate (himself a shelter resident) who introduced me to Mr. Szekely. “They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless.”

Kindles.

2009-08-07T15:46:00.000-07:00

Over at the Rumpus, there's a pretty pretty fantastic article about Kindles. I'm pretty sure, even though this is only like the tenth post on this blog, I've already told you how I feel about Kindles: that they are for people who hate books. Mostly I base this assumption on the fact that I've only seen a Kindle once, when somebody next to the person next to me had one, which they read for twenty minutes before the plane took off and then spent the rest of the flight watching a movie on his fancy laptop, while I read long-ass ol' Neal Stephenson the whole goddam twelve or whatever hours it takes to go from Iceland to New Hampshire.

Anyway, like I said, this is a fantastic article. It's Alan Beatts, proprieter of the fantastic Borderlands Books in San Francisco, talking about the logical next steps that could happen, in the context of the recent fiasco wherein Amazon sucked all the Orwell books people had bought back out of their Kindles. You should read it.

"Indie Bookseller Weighs In On The Kindle"

Satchel Paige

2009-08-06T15:21:00.000-07:00

Look, I don't know anything about baseball. I mean, I know how you play it, and I know how to sit in a bar and drink beer and watch it (my girlfriend is, ah, and enthusiastic Red Sox fan), so I'm probably not the best person to tell you about this. But a new biography of Satchel Paige- Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, by Larry Tye- is shaping up to be the sports book of the summer. The fall? I guess we're getting to the end of summer, although not really in Berkeley, since- if you've never spent much time here- the weather here is so perfect and beautiful all year round that it makes you feel totally weird.

Anyway. Terms like "definitive biography" are being thrown around. I guess Mr. Tye's goal was to bust through all the myths and legend in the stories that have been handed down in the generations since his legendary run first in the negro leagues and then, starting when he was the Major League's oldest rookie, at age 42.

So why Tye's book? Well, I don't know. I don't really know much about sports books. Flipping through it, though, it looks like Tye does do a good job of what he sets out to: with impeccable scholarship, he lets us know exactly what happened in Paige's life: Negro Leagues. The pros. Baseball in Cuba. And, indirectly, America in these times: racism. The other folks in these leagues. Family, building an unlikely empire.

I don't know. I'm reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon right now, which is a long book, so I'm not keeping up on recent stuff. New Pynchon! Chuck Palahniuk is working on a new thing abut Lillian Hellman! It's just that, when I look up from my little cryptography hole, ths Satchel Paige book is what's going on right now.

...

Here are Satchel Paige's Rules For Staying Young:

1. "Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood."
2. "If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts."
3. "Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move."
4. "Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society—the social ramble ain't restful."
5. "Avoid running at all times."
6. "And don't look back—something might be gaining on you."

2009-08-01T14:53:00.001-07:00

I'm finally getting around to reading Kaya Oakes's rad new book Slanted and Enchanted, and there we are! On page 7, Pegasus books. She writes about how independent bookstores and independent publishers have a symbiotic relationship, which is true. Symbiotic! Kaya has read here a few times and we love her, but I wasn't here last time when she was promoting Slanted & Enchanted. I meant to be though! Maybe I was sick or at band practice or something.

Ban Comic Sans

2009-07-31T12:46:00.000-07:00

Oh man, Ian just told me about this website: Ban Comic Sans. Ian is kind of a design nerd, so this is the sort of thing he would know about: basically, Comic Sans is a font that does a bad job of imitating comic book lettering. I feel like there are lots of good reasons for hating it, although mostly the "Band Comic Sans" website just talks a bunch of, y'know, smack. The S word.

Also my friend Calamity Jon Morris, who is a brilliant artist, has gone off about it more than once- here are two parts of a comic he made called "My Plea For Hand-Lettering:"

Part One

Part Two

I would reproduce them here, but I didn't ask him. I bet he would say yes, though. Anyway. There you go. Eff comic sans.

-Imogen

PS Ian is also a brilliant artist.

Americca

2009-07-30T11:38:00.000-07:00

Oh, also- Tin House has a new story from Aimee Bender, titled Americca, and it's as weird, funny and sad as all her other stories. I'm not sure how long it'll be up, but there you go.

Imperial

2009-07-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

Well, I am doing my best not to flip out completely over the fact that California has decided to cut funding completely for all its domestic violence shelters, so to distract myself I'm going to tell you about William Vollman's new book, which just came in. It's called Imperial and it's about two thousand million pages long- which Vollmann fans know is a good thing; Vollmann can write.

He's taking on, basically, the history of American imperialism, through the lens of Imperial county, California. "For generations of migrant workers, from Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl of the 1930s to Mexican laborers today, Imperial County has held the promise of paradise - and the reality of hell. It is a land beautiful and harsh, enticing and deadly, rich in history and heartbreak," reads the jacket copy. The more-or-less notorious quote from Sam Anderson that's been going around for the last couple days goes:

"Imperial is like Robert Caro’s The Power Broker with the attitude of Mike Davis’s City of Quartz, if Robert Caro had been raised in an abandoned grain silo by a band of feral raccoons, and if Mike Davis were the communications director of a heavily armed libertarian survivalist cult, and if the two of them had somehow managed to stitch John McPhee’s cortex onto the brain of a Gila monster, which they then sent to the Mexican border to conduct ten years of immersive research, and also if they wrote the entire manuscript on dried banana leaves with a toucan beak dipped in hobo blood, and then the book was line-edited during a 36-hour peyote séance by the ghosts of John Steinbeck, Jack London, and Sinclair Lewis, with 200 pages of endnotes faxed over by Henry David Thoreau’s great-great-great-great grandson from a concrete bunker under a toxic pond behind a maquiladora, and if at the last minute Herman Melville threw up all over the manuscript, rendering it illegible, so it had to be re-created from memory by a community-theater actor doing his best impression of Jack Kerouac. With photographs by Dorothea Lange."

Anyway, yeah. William Vollmann. Obsessive, tends to write very long books, very impressive to have read. We have his new book. It's a big deal.

More about Vollmann and Imperial:

McSweeney's profile

The whole Sam Anderson piece

An article from the Independent

Forgotten

2009-07-29T10:07:00.001-07:00

Via The Rumpus, this is hecka cool: Forgotten Bookmarks Dot Com.

It's like a much more specific version of our friends Found Magazine.

Baby Be-Bop

2009-07-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

According to the American Library Association and, more editorially, this article at Feministe, a group of folks are trying to have Francesca Lia Block's fifth Weetzie Bat book Baby Be-Bop literally burned so that kids can't read it.

Baby Be-Bop despite having kind of a stupid name, is one of the prettiest, saddest books I've ever read about being teenage and queer. Bummer.

Amazon Doesn't Pay Taxes

2009-07-27T09:32:00.000-07:00

Via The Rumpus- a blog about pop culture that one of our favorite authors, Stephen Elliott, started a year or so ago, with lots of illustrations by our own Ian Huebert- Amazon doesn't have to charge sales tax. It's pretty evil stuff; basically they're like, "if you make us pay taxes, we're moving somewhere else," and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is still, surreally, the governor of California, was like, "Okay, sure! No taxes."

Meanwhile, California is about to go bankrupt, and more importantly, Cody's Books is closed. Black Oak is in kind of a weird limbo. Book stores are closing, Arnold! And book stores are good, book stores aren't trying to sell people anchovies or GPS systems.

Adrian Tomine, who we love, totally nailed it in this cover for the New Yorker (via Drawn & Quarterly).

I think that, if you're excited about getting your books online, at least go to abebooks.com, where you're probably going to be buying them from an independent- and they'll probably be cheaper than they are at Amazon. Plus, Mr. Schwarzenegger, if you're reading this? I would like not to charge sales tax at our store, too. Thanks bud.

-Imogen

Brevity

2009-07-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

Man, Lorrie Moore. I've got an advance reader copy of your new book- the one I mentioned all us book nerds are excited about in my last post- and it is SO GOOD. Like, normally, when I think of writers who are funny, I think of writers who are annoying. I mean, clearly, David Sedaris can get away with being funny, and I may be in a minority thinking that Dennis Cooper can be hilarious, but Lorrie Moore, man. There's something bleak and awkward and perfect that she nails in this way that maybe nobody else comes close to.

There's an adoption in A Gate at the Stairs that goes awkwardly, and then at the end of the scene the adoptive mother ponders out loud, "I wonder if there are any Hitlers in the phonebook." I don't know, I suspect you're going to have to read it in its context for it to be properly hilarious.

Anyway, the only other person I can think of who works- or worked, because for all the concentratedness of their brevity, neither of them publishes anything very often- is Amy Hempel. The cliche is that Amy Hempel "bravely crams more into a three-page story than most authors can into a whole novel," which is not a real quote from a real person. But it's a true cliche! She can break your heart into pieces, stomp on it, put it back together, and then light it on fire in three pages.

I know that I should be showing you instead of telling you, but it's early on a Saturday morning and I didn't get here early enough to get a coffee before we opened, so you're just going to have to trust me.

Or trust Pif Magazine, which has Ms. Hempel's story "The Harvest" available for you to read online here. It's short.

In regard to Lorrie Moore, the New Yorker has her story "Debarking," from a few years back, here. It's longer than the Amy Hempel story.

-Imogen

First Post

2009-07-23T12:57:00.001-07:00

Last night I was invited to meet Dan Chaon at the CAV Wine Bar in San Francisco, and we talked about our dogs for a second. Then he signed my copy of Await Your Reply and talked to some other folks. He was very sweet! His dog makes the same horrible sound mine does.

Anyway, after he started talking to some other folks, I ended up talking with a bunch of folks from Books Inc for a long time, and then with Aggie Zivaljevic from Kepler's Books, and she was like, "Our book store has a blog." Then everybody talked excitedly and unanimously about how excited we are for a new Lorrie Moore novel.

I got all red and jealous of Aggie's blog and resolved to start a blog for us at Pegasus, too. Even though, really, what are we going to talk about here? Maybe books?

-Imogen