"People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do . . ."1) THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE . . . I like to think of myself as a literary ascetic, spreading the gospel of the book to people and places both high and low. From high atop my stylite, I sermonize to the faithful about old and new titles that may slip through your store shelves like a snapped rosary necklace between your fingers. I leave the John Grishams to the big boys. The titles that I've caught, I pass on to you, and one of those books was Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies (9780805090031) 28.00 which won this year's Man Booker Prize. I'm a bit of an Anglophile, so this one was a no brainer. Hilary won in 2009 for Wolf Hall (9780312429980) 16.00, so with her win we have two books to sell for the price of one. She's still working on the third title in the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, and hopefully, when it releases, it will bring her the Booker Prize trifecta. Can I get an Amen!
--Isaac Asimov
2) MURDER AT THE ABA . . . If you're a wanted man, I suggest you don't hide in a movie theatre that is screening Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged Part Deux. You won't have any other moviegoers to use as cover. The new movie based on Atlas Shrugged (9780451191144) 9.99 has bombed. So unless you're a teen white male or apparently, as I gather from today's Book Brahmin, Nelson Demille, author of The Panther (9780446580847) 27.99, you will eventually learn that Objectivism looks great on paper, but much like Communism, it wouldn't work well in the real world. However, there are some movie tie-ins that you will genuinely need to keep an eye on in the upcoming weeks, including: Antonio Mendez's Argo (9780670026227) 26.95, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (9780812984415) 15.00. Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower (9781451696196) 15.00 has been released, but it is still a bestseller...
3) YOUNG MONSTERS . . . And sort of cinema related. The season three debut of The Walking Dead devoured the competition this past Sunday, it had by far the highest ratings ever for a basic cable drama. The ratings may scare the hipsters away, but I must admit that I gorged myself on their gorey smorgasboard of entrails. And we got some new books. We had both the The Walking Dead Compendium V2 (9781607065968) 59.99 and The Walking Dead: The Road to Woodbury (9780312547745) 24.99 shamble in here this past week. Hopefully, this will give me something to sink my teeth into until next week's episode . . .
On this day in Byzantine History (October 18)
In 1081, the Byzantine Army was defeated at the Battle of Dyrrhachium by Normans led by Robert Guiscard.
Odds & Sods
We have some new regional titles for your perusal. For Cleveland Browns fans, we have former defensive back Handford Dixon's Day of the Dawg (9781598510928) 14.95 in stock. Handford lives in the Westlake and he does local commentary for high school football.
Speaking of football, we have yet another new Green Bay Packers title, Lombardi's Left Side (9780983695264) 26.95 by defensive linemen greats Herb Adderley and Dave Robinson. With a forward by Bill Cosby, it isn't too much of a leap to see this as a Wisconsin bestseller.
Also, we have received Gavin Schmitt's Milwaukee Mafia (9780738594439) 21.99, which is the latest offering in Arcadia Publishing's Images of America series.
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