"We tend to defend vigorously things that in our deepest hearts we are not quite certain about. If we are certain of something we know, it doesn't need defending."
-Madeline L'Engle
Literary Fight League
The annals of literature are laden with surly, rambunctious authors who would just as soon punch you in the mouth as read a poem. In an effort to separate the ferocious from the frauds, we at READ Books have decided to start taking nominations for the surliest authors in history. Once enough nominations have been accumulated, we will create a simple seeding system (think March Madness), and begin pairing authors up in a kind of fantasy fiction fight league. Results will be reported in subsequent newsletters. So who is the toughest author ever?
Early Nominations: Bukowski, Camus, Dostoevsky, Hawke, Hemingway, Jones, L'amour, London, Mailer, Mamet, Palahnuik, Plimpton, & Seuss.
NEW ITEMS
NY Times: This ain't new. We've been carrying the best newspaper in America since you were in diapers, but the locals seem to prefer buying it from Starbucks. Fight corporate hegemony, support the small folk, and buy the NY Times from us. Tell your neighbors before it's too late and our supplier cuts us off as if we were penniless junkies. If they treat us like junkies, we're liable to start acting like 'um... in your neighborhood.
Signed Books: We still have several signed copies of Gary Marcus's Kluge, and Ricardo Vicente Reyes's The Dreamers.
Tote Bags: Spacious READ Books tote bags will help you help the environment help you. Stop using plastic & paper bags, bub. Stuff it with a READ Books gift certificate.
Book Lights: For your bedside reading pleasure, we now carry book lights that allegedly "light up both pages at the same time," which probably means you'll be able to read twice as fast. Hell! I believe you can! Get the kids away from the boob tube and into bed, where they belong, with a book and a light.
1st ANNIVERSARY PARTY
In February, READ Books became a whole year old. To celebrate our slobbering foray into infancy, we hosted a weekend sale and a big-ass party that featured food, people, books, limousines, and fist-fights.
OTHER STUFF
Need Tutoring? We got, er, we have tutoring. We offer one-on-one in-store tutoring in language arts & mathematics (up to Algebra) at a decent price.
Story Time, a (mellow) dramatic reading of stories for children aged 1-5, continues unabated. Story Time happens every Saturday from 11:00-11:30. Come by in May and join our celebrity child, Velouria "Brittney's Buddy" Perez, on the red carpet of literature.
- Would you like to receive updates on Story Time, book clubs, writing clubs, book signings, and whatnot? Go to "Contact Us" page, email us your email address, and we will add you to our entertaining, passive-aggresive MAILING LIST. No pressure. None at all. Decent people listen to their conscience.
   
DECEASED AUTHOR UPDATE
- Check out our "Recently Deceased" section. Honored authors include: Lloyd Alexander, William F. Buckley, George Carlin, John Gardner, David Halberstam, W.C. Heinz, Raul Hillberg, Molly Ivins, Robert Jordan, Mercedes Lambert, Madeline L'Engle, Norman Mailer, Magdalene Nabb, Grace Paley, Margaret Truman, & Kurt Vonnegut.
- Arthur C. Clarke, author of one of the greatest sci-fi novels, recently died an untimely death at the youthful age of ninety-something. Nobody saw it coming. Don't lose faith... you could still be the one to guess the next author to expire and win Ethan Hawke's epic novel, The Big Grief-o-rama.
- We're currently taking suggestions for an "Authors Soon to be Deceased" section. The first person to accurately foresee a literary death will receive Ethan Hawke's novel as a reward. Does it really matter what the title is? Please submit predictions via our CONTACT US page.
- Those who write about sports are likely to have harbored a desire to participate in athletics at the level they professionally contemplate. Too many journalists observe their famous subjects through either envy-tinted spectacles, or an obeisance that they can barely mask. W.C. Heinz, who died on February 27th at the age of 93, respected the athletes he wrote about for their admirable qualities, as he appreciated their human flaws as a part of their whole portrait. His prose often reflected the humor of human foibles, celebrated the heroic, and sometimes demonstrated the disconsolation of those who were lost and confused. His most well-know work, the Korean War novel M*A*S*H, was written under the pseudonym Richard Hooker. Some of his best essays can be found, if you look hard, in collections such as Once They Heard The Cheers and The Book of Boxing. He also wrote one of the two great boxing novels ever writen, The Professional, and if you ask nicely, I might sell you my Advance Reader's Copy of it.
ASTBD Tally
Gore Vidal: 3
Ray Bradbury: 3
Beverly Cleary: 2
John Updike: 2
Tom Wolfe: 2
Kirk Douglas: 1
Ethan Hawke: 1
Sid Fleischman: 1
Daniel Pinkwater: 1
John Wooden: 1
J.D. Salinger: 1
Walter Cronkite: 1
*Norman Mailer: 1
Christopher Paolini: 1
Saul Bellow: 1
Philip Roth: 1
Ann Coulter: 1
Art Spiegelman: 1
George R.R. Martin: 1
* Vote cast subsequent to author's expiration.
In Stock:
Signed Copies 1st Editions
Authors include: Titles include:
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Amis, Martin
Bailey, Pearl
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A Death In The Family (Agee)
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Baker, Nicholas
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America and Americans (Steinbeck)
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Block, Lawrence
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Andy Goldsworthy
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Bogosian, Eric
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Angle of Repose (Stegner)
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Bunker, Eddie
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Bosch (Hieronymous)
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Byatt, A.S.
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Betting on the Muse (Bukowski)
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Coen, Ethan
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Degenerate Art
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Cohen, Leonard
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Doctor Faustus (Mann)
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Cornwell, Patricia
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Fat City (Gardner)
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Davies, Ray
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Flash and Filigree (Southern)
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Ellroy, James
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From the Heart (June Carter Cash)
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Frazier, Joe
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Getting Even (Allen)
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Gray, Spalding
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Herzog (Bellow)
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Hollandersky, Abe
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Intuition (Fuller)
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McCartney, Paul
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James Norris and the Decline of Boxing
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Mailer, Norman
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Jewish Boxers Hall of Fame (Blady)
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Limon, Graciela
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Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Child)
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Mamet, David
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Naked Lunch (Burroughs)
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McCabe, Patrick
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Oh What A Paradise It Seems (Cheever)
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Mosley, Walter
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Portnoy's Complaint (Roth)
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Palance, Jack
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The Basic Eight (Handler)
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Rushdie, Salman
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The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood)
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See, Carolyn
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The Jicarilla Apaches (Gunnerson)
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Spiegelman, Art
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There Once Was A Slave (Graham)
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Local Authors in Stock
Ricardo Vicente Reyes: The Dreamers (signed)
Jack Maeby: The Thorazine Mirrorball (signed)
Carol Tanzman: The Shadow Place (signed)
Charles Fisher: Highland Park
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