tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45078694728758818882011-11-11T01:10:55.378-08:00News and reviews from the indie booksellers at Changing Hands Bookstore.Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.comBlogger471100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-50135803832899300902009-12-04T12:34:00.000-08:002009-12-04T13:40:43.047-08:00

Rain. It happens. Even, occasionally, in Arizona. As luck would have it, it may happen on Monday night, during our first-ever outdoor event: a talk and booksigning with Postsecret's Frank Warren.If the weather proves particularly foul, we may be forced to move the whole shebang back to the bookstore. We'll know for sure Monday morning, so please spread the word and stay tuned to our Twitter feed

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-83815100740186588762009-11-06T11:42:00.000-08:002009-11-10T10:51:35.458-08:00

Because I handle most of the social media duties at Changing Hands, a lot of book-related articles land in my inbox every day from RSS feeds, Google alerts, and helpful friends and coworkers. But one article in particular shows up with striking regularity, at least once a week, often with a prefatory note that can best be paraphrased in one word: Ha! Which is to say, take that, lit snob.The

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Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer25% off in NovemberI know what you’re thinking, but this isn’t just another anti-meat book. Eating Animals is a father’s meditation on family, the power of big business, and the consequences of not asking questions. It’s a look into one of our largest, most ecologically destructive and secretive global industries. With the same literary brilliance of his

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And you thought texting while driving was dangerous.

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-41980703797433293802009-09-11T08:37:00.000-07:002009-09-11T12:18:52.960-07:00

There's been lots of discussion today about post-9/11 novels -- which of them are good, which are bad, and which are timeless. In that final, transcendent category of literature built to last, Ian McEwan's superb Saturday and Joseph O'Neill's lyrical Netherland seem to be the clear leaders, while the rest remain a mixed bag of hotly debated also-rans: Don DeLillo's Falling Man, John Updike's

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Today in Tempe, Arizona, it was 88 degrees. The orange blossoms are still blooming, the birds are still singing – but I recognize that this is a temporary condition. When temperatures are above 80 in early April, it’s impossible to pretend that Spring is anything other than fleeting. In a matter of weeks, the Sonoran desert will revert to a desiccated wasteland capable of causing heat stroke in a

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In case you missed it, Neil Gaiman was on The Colbert Report last night, talking about his Newbery Award-winning novel The Graveyard Book. Hee-larious . . .The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30cNeil Gaimancomedycentral.comColbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorMark Sanford

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Nina arm-wrestles the poet.D. Hamilton Doggett. Now that’s a name worthy of an immense granite tombstone. Of course, the man behind the name isn’t anywhere near extinction, and even if he were, he’d likely prefer his ashes resting in an urn on his mantel, in snug proximity to his homemade samurai armor. Until he gives up the ghost, though, he’ll continue his pursuits as writer, poet, and master

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-55889039412007138602009-02-16T14:26:00.000-08:002009-02-16T14:37:39.745-08:00

Jimmy Carter visited the bookstore last Friday with his book, We Can Have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work. Changing Hands co-owner and American Booksellers Association President Gayle Shanks offered him a warm welcome:

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Last Tuesday, we hosted a booksigning for Christian Lander, author of the blog and subsequent book Stuff White People Like. A sizable and enthusiastic crowd stopped in to hear Lander talk about his unexpected rise to Internet fame, and then joined him afterward for drinks next door at Mac's Broiler & Tap, and even later at Four Peaks Brewery. He was generous enough to sit down with us

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In his Scent Notes blog, New York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr (yeah, me neither) lowers the boom on Danielle Steel, queen of the bodice-busting romance novel. He gives her fragrance, “Danielle,” a zero-star, Do Not Inhale rating, describing the juice thusly:“For the first four seconds it smelled sort of vaguely like a kind of flower that you get in a gallon of floral-scented laundry

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-31284779707875729802009-02-05T14:03:00.000-08:002009-02-06T13:49:48.595-08:00

When Barack Obama was elected President, I was sitting at a party with a circle of friends, sobbing at the television. I had no words to describe what I was thinking at the time. As a person who rarely shuts up, it was unusual to find myself so inarticulate. All I could think, as I watched the poll numbers roll in, was that Americans had done something right. It just meant so much. So a

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-90352929371330856302009-02-02T16:10:00.000-08:002009-02-02T16:38:41.257-08:00

Today is the birthday of James Joyce. So raise a pint, sing a measure, dance a jig, and resolve anew to someday pick up Joseph Campbell's heroic skeleton key and try -- I bloody dare you -- to read Finnegan's Wake.- Brandon

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-57345834118526256142009-02-02T11:50:00.000-08:002009-02-02T13:38:00.229-08:00

Coming in April from Seth Grahame-Smith, the man who brought you The Big Book of Porn and The Spider-Man Handbook:"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty

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Just ran across this longish CNN segment with Christian Lander, author of Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions. I never realized how much he resembles "Bananas"-era Woody Allen, an enviable hipster credential if ever one existed, at least for those of the Caucasian persuasion. Lander will be here next Tuesday for a talk and booksigning, so stop by, say hi,

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-49114759018479777022009-01-29T09:41:00.000-08:002009-01-29T09:58:01.550-08:00

This Super Bowl Eve (Saturday 1/31) we're hosting Kim Bobo, founder and director of Interfaith Worker Justice, who will be speaking about and signing her new book, Wage Theft in America. The book addresses a problem that is disconcertingly widespread and sadly under-discussed. Wage theft occurs when a worker doesn’t receive full compensation for work they perform. It happens when Wal-Mart

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-20055595012598468602009-01-27T12:53:00.000-08:002009-01-29T09:53:46.792-08:00

JOHN UPDIKE, 1932 - 2009“Preparing his cup of Sanka over the singing kettle, he wears his usual expression: that of a man beset by an embarrassment of delicious drolleries. The telephone starts ringing. A science magazine wants something pithy on the philosophy of subatomic thermodynamics; a fashion magazine wants 10,000 words on his favorite color. No problem — but can they hang on? Mr. Updike

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Turns out Ray Bradbury was right about wall-to-wall televisions. But 2001 has come and gone, and still no pneumatic people tubes!-Brandon

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-19922359739997648852009-01-14T15:48:00.000-08:002009-01-17T12:06:06.963-08:00

The Morning News today announced the contenders in their fifth annual Tournament of Books, a punishing competition in which the editors “take 16 of the most celebrated and highly touted novels of the year, seed them in a March Madness-type bracket, conscript them into a ‘Battle Royale of Literary Excellence,’ and, in honor of David Sedaris’s brother, present the author of the winning book a live

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The book blogosophere is abuzz this week with the encouraging news that, according to a recent NEA study called "Reading On the Rise," fiction readership in America has risen for the first time in a quarter century. As a reader, I’m pleased. Thrilled, even, especially at the fact that young adults (that elusive 18- to 24-year-old demographic) show the most rapid increase in so-called “literary

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-86810968384933289182008-12-31T10:45:00.000-08:002008-12-31T13:59:02.626-08:00

A paper man takes a stroll through a city made of books -- a literally literary town -- in this wonderful video from 4th Estate. It's not unlike working in a bookstore, really, where daily proximity to books and routine immersion in the sum total of the world's creativity and knowledge become commonplace but never dull. It's rated G, but squeamish bibliophiles take note: Several books were harmed

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As a kid, I went through all the drug abuse resistance programs a kid ought to. I still remember Officer Austin, the D.A.R.E. representative for our district. He would come in and crack a few jokes, ham it up through the mandatory all-school assemblies, and then sigh and give the boys noogies. We loved him, dearly, and every one of us promised him we would never get on his bad side.That didn’t

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-24409408368224937252008-12-07T08:32:00.000-08:002009-01-15T15:32:46.409-08:00

If you haven’t read World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks, you are missing out. It has everything. Desperate battles, the near-annihilation of the human race, and, of course, zombies. World War Z is the book I recommend to every red-blooded male between the ages of 18 and 40. But when those same males inevitably return to the store looking for more of the same, I’ve always

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-85846947792967457052008-12-06T11:25:00.000-08:002009-01-15T15:47:27.850-08:00

When I first read The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger, I was about 14 years old. Reading the book, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking that finally, somebody got me. Only Holden Caulfield understood how phony the rest of the world was, and he recognized how I loved my family even while I wanted to break away from them. That narrator – he was a genius.It wasn’t until I re-read the book in

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-48905457532450613542008-12-05T08:15:00.000-08:002008-12-06T11:31:29.603-08:00

I never read comic books when I was a kid. I didn’t have a brother and the boys on my street were more interested in video games than serials. Truthfully, it wasn’t a genre I knew anything about until I turned twelve. During an exploration of my Grandmother’s house, I discovered my father’s childhood collection of The Green Lantern.Over the years, my love for the genre has changed. After a lot of

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-29389125096990959462008-11-28T13:07:00.000-08:002008-11-28T13:17:37.427-08:00

I pride myself on being an experimental chef – I rarely make the same thing twice, and I frequently don’t need recipes. I inherited this trait, in part, from my mother. Growing up, she would experiment with all kinds of exotic, healthy foods. I grew up eating tofu, drinking soymilk, and knowing that whether you called it a chickpea or a garbanzo, it was disgusting. This early level of

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-82435298682992960412008-11-20T08:50:00.000-08:002008-11-20T09:19:20.034-08:00

The holidays are coming, and sometimes it’s nearly impossible to find the perfect gift. Luckily, there’s a book out there for everyone – even the people on your shopping list who hate to read. We’ve asked our staffers – who probably read more than they should – to give us some input about their favorite books. Until the holidays (and possibly a bit beyond), we’re going to publish their

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From a forthcoming interview in Nashville Scene with novelist John Irving:I said to my wife, after watching Palin’s debate with Senator Biden, that I could only think of one question that woman might not duck—one she actually might answer, even with enthusiasm. Here’s the question. I have never field-dressed a moose, but in my deer-hunting days I have field-dressed deer, and I would have liked to

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A little Halloween folding fun from Paper Toyz. Download E.A. Coobie by Goobeetsa here.-Brandon

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-13133899469511734762008-10-21T11:58:00.000-07:002008-10-21T13:03:55.893-07:00

“All literary men are Red Sox fans. To be a Yankee fan in literary society is to endanger your life.” - John CheeverArizona has become baseball country. The Diamondbacks have been competitive since their inception eleven years ago, and they’re finally drawing a respectable crowd. With the Cincinnati Reds slated to move Spring Training to Goodyear in 2010, we’ll officially split the pre-season

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-45631146449540529302008-10-09T16:29:00.000-07:002008-10-09T17:22:09.724-07:00

A woman came into the store recently, saying that two years prior she had seen a TV special on how Changing Hands was a great place to meet people with romantic promise. Two years and the pheromone trail had finally completed its feedback loop, bringing her into our store. As she walked away to pursue her mission, I gazed out on the floor, wondering whether the bookstore environment, despite its

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-45489539180760968382008-10-09T08:57:00.000-07:002008-10-10T11:07:29.554-07:00

Swedish literary dilettante Horace Engdahl emerged, Punxsutawney Phil-like, from his bauble-stuffed burrow in Stockholm today to award the Nobel Prize in Literature to French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio.The handful of Americans who actually care acknowledged that Philip Roth was robbed, while the rest of us remained cheerfully ensconced in our Diet Coke-flavored iso-bubble of ignorance

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-11925857933389495542008-10-05T11:43:00.000-07:002008-10-05T12:21:02.039-07:00

The Twin Hickory Public Library celebrated Banned Books Week with a cross between a living museum diorama and a carnival side show. Volunteers sat in the display and read banned or challenged books while trying, I suspect, not to appear self-conscious. Or fall asleep.-Brandon(Via boingboing.)

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-90958033242884176942008-10-03T18:31:00.000-07:002008-10-05T08:06:33.802-07:00

To anyone who’s ever wondered, as I have, why Philip Roth has yet to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature -- or Don DeLillo, or Thomas Pynchon, or John Updike, or Joyce Carol Oates, or, or, or -- wonder no more. It turns out that the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, Horace Engdahl, a member of the 16-person panel that confers the prize, is a literary bigot. There’s no other way to put

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Last Saturday, writer Steve Almond appeared at the bookstore to give a reading. It’s an event that I anticipated with a level of glee that threatened my studied facade of literary snob detachment. I had to school myself to avoid unflattering comparisons to thirteen-year-old girls at their first Avril Lavigne concert. Which is why I determined not to blog about the event: I wanted to avoid looking

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You may have heard about the controversy surrounding The Jewel of Medina, a novel about the life of A’isha, the child bride of the Prophet Muhammad. Ballantine acquired the manuscript by American author Sherry Jones in 2007, only to drop it in May after a handful of advance readers suggested, unsurprisingly, that it might be offensive to Islam. (Evidently Western sensibilities were of less

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-53339757612236128872008-09-29T13:17:00.000-07:002008-09-29T16:51:37.786-07:00

Over a year ago Gayle and I were invited to dinner at the home of some friends. There we were introduced to Steve and Elizabeth Wiley, friends of our friends from across the street. In the course of the evening we listened with great interest to the story of Steve and his partner Kristian's music and DVD store, which had been located in the ASU Memorial Union until a fire on November 1, 2007.

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-38744517698614269462008-09-27T14:46:00.000-07:002008-09-29T16:58:49.567-07:00

I love this. Carefully arranged "book clusters" from artist Nina Katchadourian's Sorted Books project. From private homes to public libraries, the curatorial process is the same: "[C]ulling through a collection of books, pulling particular titles, and eventually grouping the books into clusters so that the titles can be read in sequence, from top to bottom."The results can be touchy-feely:

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-76346130652804656342008-09-26T17:41:00.000-07:002008-10-05T12:27:54.575-07:00

Tom Moon, longtime critic and music aficionado extraordinaire, has committed a cardinal sin. It might not be listed on any stone tablet, but its confession managed to make an entire audience of audiophiles groan collectively -- something even a reference to Britney Spears can rarely do. Moon admitted, with a lamentation and an imp-like grin, that he had sacrificed his entire collection of vinyl

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-26016269262512941352008-09-25T12:31:00.000-07:002008-09-29T17:15:37.955-07:00

I arrived at the bookstore this morning and found a copy of the just-released New Times "Best of Phoenix" awards on my desk. After blinking for a moment at the issue's befuddling cover and then thumbing past citations for "Best Bathroom" (Geisha A Go Go), "Best Place to Dress Like a Freak" (Easley's Fun Shop), "Best Local Law Firm Commercials" (Lerner & Rowe), and my personal favorite, "Best

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-84631031122961037342008-09-24T16:20:00.000-07:002008-09-26T17:05:09.635-07:00

If I’ve learned anything from 50-year-old women, it’s that they're hardly different than my friends and me. How do I know that these "mature" women and my 23-year-old cohorts are so much alike? I have the opportunity to meet groups of women older than my own mother when I host Changing Hands' Ladies’ Night Out events and my bookclub, the Devouring Divas.Over the past months, I’ve discussed things

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-12328039684737774012008-09-23T14:27:00.000-07:002008-09-29T17:37:15.790-07:00

British poet laureate Andrew Motion told an audience at the Ealing Arts Festival in London this month that the Queen has given him writer’s block. "The job has been very, very damaging to my writing," Motion said. "In fact, I dried up completely about five years ago and can’t write anything except to commission."Unlike Motion's American counterpart, the British poet laureate is responsible not

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-83440592400946492932008-09-22T16:15:00.000-07:002008-09-26T16:16:58.703-07:00

I agree with William Smith at Hang Fire Books. This 1947 Encyclopedia Britannica video on book-making brings together some of my favorite things: books, more terrifying metal than my own CD collection (in which King Diamond and Slayer figure prominently), and a work environment hazardous enough to give an OSHA inspector a cerebral hemorrhage.And the best part? The voice-over actor’s cloying,

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-40861593798219833922008-09-19T12:13:00.000-07:002008-09-26T16:19:22.836-07:00

My copy of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest weighs three pounds and contains 981 pages of narrative, 96 pages of "Notes and Errata," and plenty of exhaustingly long sentences. Even the simplest synopsis of plot shows its absurdity. The novel follows the kids at Enfield Tennis Academy, who face the standard pressures of growing up, along with twice-a-day tennis practices and preparations for

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-12259412251789960492008-09-05T11:32:00.000-07:002008-09-26T17:04:24.666-07:00

I emailed author Laurie Notaro last week to see if she could sign some books for a fan who was unable to attend her recent event here at Changing Hands (for Laurie's story collection The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death). Her response was just too weird and wonderful to keep to myself. Here's our exchange, reproduced with Laurie's permission, of course:Laurie:Ooooh, potential disaster

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-84024463523405352012008-09-04T16:44:00.000-07:002008-09-26T17:08:10.026-07:00

Over the course of an average day here at the bookstore, I'm reminded of how specified books have become. A survival guide for shopping at Costco? Check. A pictorial of the most preposterous tattoos ever inked? Check! How about guidelines for healing your dog through the ancient art of Reiki? Of course, check. I suppose the lesson to be learned is that there is a book suitable for every

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4507869472875881888.post-6337834551494701882008-09-02T13:48:00.001-07:002008-09-26T17:10:46.474-07:00

People often tell me, as I ring them up at the register and ask them whether they'd like a bag with their purchase, that I must love working at Changing Hands Bookstore. I tell them it's far better than the last job I had working in a Soviet-style sock puppet factory. Some people laugh at that. I worry about the others. I do enjoy working here. Considering my co-workers and the people I meet on

Changing Hands Bookstorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14370540074206059494noreply@blogger.com1