Infinite Summer 2009: Skylight Can Help!

Some of you may have heard of this already, and others of you might be interested. People all over the country (and perhaps the world) are doing something you've been meaning to do for over a decade: READ INFINITE JEST. At the website www.infinitesummer.org, there will be a moderated discussion board where everyone can discuss the book. They even have it broken down for you: June 21st to September 22nd. A thousand pages (and lots of footnotes) ÷ 93 days = 75 pages a week. No Sweat.

At Skylight, we aren't going to be able lead a monthly book club for this, but we would like to support any of you who decide to participate. SO, mention "Infinite Summer" when you buy Infinite Jest at Skylight, and we'll give you a 15% book club discount. We will offer the store as a meeting place at some point in the middle (Late July? Early August?) so you can meet others in LA who are plowing through like you are. AND at the end, because heaven knows you all will deserve it, we will throw a party to celebrate Infinite Jest and your accomplishment. On September 22nd, there will be bubbly, there will be discounts, and good times will be had by all.

If you're participating in Infinite Summer, please let us know by e-mailing our book clubs coordinator, Emily. Let her know how we can help. And she'll tell you details on the gatherings. emily@skylightbooks.com

What does it feel like?

I can't believe that it has been almost a year since we opened up our new arts annex next door at 1814. And we're feeling pretty good about how it has turned out. We still have to explain that some of our sections are "next door" and yes, you have to go out the front of one store and into the front of the other. But is that such a huge inconvenience? See for yourself...

1814 to 1818: A Happy Accident from Emily Pullen on Vimeo.

(It also shows that I am still learning how to use a video camera, and how to turn it off when I'm done. :))

Adrian Tomine & Seth

Oh, Hello there!

This past Wednesday we here at Skylight were graced by a visit from graphic artists Adrian Tomine & Seth. Easily, one of the biggest events we've had, people were packed into 1814 shoulder to shoulder like a show at the Smell. Truly awesome.


The event itself was great: complete with power point projection, self-deprecation, and dead pan humor. Seth read fragmented sketches from his life, punctuated by the DING! of a bell used as transition. He shared anecdotes of his friendship with Chester Brown, and spoke about the work of local fav Joe Matt.



Tomine then took the stage, confessing that 32 Stories made him cringe. He feels he overdid it with the translation from zine to book form, and thinks it now works better in the original pamphlet format that had been collected into a little brown cardboard box. (...cough, cough Signed copies available now at Skylight Books, cough, cough...) The time period when he worked on the mini-comics that make up the collection, he considers to be the only time he has ever felt fully in control. They helped him survive high school.



Some choice tidbits from the Q&A (as transcribed by Skylighter Darren to twitter):

TOMINE: Comics translated into movies. Doesn't understand the slavish devotion to exactly replicating the comic.

SETH: would rather not write a screenplay, but has no problem with people adapting his work.

TOMINE: Gets a lot of requests from film students to adapt his work. Said he's read a screenplay that was better than the work itself.

SETH: Thanks the Canadian government for helping his career.

TOMINE: More Tatsumi stuff on the way...




Also from Arlo via Twitter, and this says it all: "tingling and pensive. receiving the aftershocks of this massive and gloriously massive event. (massive). pensive and tingling." Thanks to Adrian and Seth, and everyone who came out - it was a great time.

Why dicut covers are LAME!

Dear Publishers:

Sometime, a few years back, someone got it into their head that dicut covers are a good idea. That they look cool. That whatever extra cost is associated with them is totally worth it because of how amazing they look.

I, however, beg to differ. I think many booksellers will. They don't look that good, and they get damaged ALL THE TIME! The photo above is how books arrived in the store, in a carton, from the publisher. If they aren't damaged in the boxes en route, it takes 2 weeks, MAX, for them to get torn or bent in the store.

So if you could stop putting cut-outs on covers, that would be great.

TTYL KTHXBAI,

Emily at Skylight Books

Pride Window June 2009

Who says you need gay books to make a gay pride display?

Small tidbits from BEA 2009

I wanted to share a little with you all from the cool weekend I got to spend in New York at Book Expo America. It is an annual event where all the parts of the book business come together: booksellers, authors, publishers, librarians, and reviewers. I tend to zoom in and zoom out a lot, from micro-perspectives to macro-perspectives, so here are a few highlights from both sides.


I got to meet the authors of two of my staff picks, Eduardo Galeano and Wafaa Bilal, and I got to eat at one of Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio's restaurants on Ingram's dollar. Despite my interest in the publishing side of things, my favorite part by far is talking with other booksellers from around the country. Each time I go to one of these big events, I just feel like they are "my people." DORK! I know... One cool thing about talking with publishers at the booths, however, was that they all seemed to know who we are: they would glance at my badge and say "Ah, Skylight Books." And then they would tell some anecdote of visiting, or of an event that we did, or of the BEA party with City Lights that we threw last year. We all work and/or shop in a very cool place, you all know that already, but it was cool to hear it from publishers and booksellers from elsewhere as well.

Not surprisingly, one of the broad issues that popped up often was Going Digital. Many publishers, especially major ones, seem to believe that all of this discussion about eBooks, eReaders, eCatalogs and digital content is the MOST IMPORTANT THING HAPPENING IN PUBLISHING! Booksellers, on the other hand, are much less unified in their opinions. Most people I talked to don't think print books will die out and that we will all be reading exclusively from screens in 10 years. However, many were talking about just how indies might be involved. Sherman Alexie awesomely suggested that Kindles and eContent are inherently elitist, and you should check out this post and its comments if the topic interests you at all: Alexie Clarifies Elitist Charges.
I will soon be the owner of a Sony eReader, which I won by submitting a handselling pitch of "Last Night in Montreal" to Unbridled Books and NetGalley. Who knows whether this will change my opinion on things, but here's where I stand right now: I think that eReaders make sense for people in the book/publishing business (perhaps why ideas of their importance are inflated at events such as BEA). People who deal regularly in galleys and manuscripts and who hold more books in a week than many do in a year. But I don't think they'll become ubiquitous in the general public, even if they do become more affordable.

What do you think about eBooks and the role independent bookstores should play in their dissemination?