Ye Olde Partners
Page
*A Collection of
Antiquarian Curios & Relics*
"This is a
war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may
be other universes
based on all
sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games . .
."
--William
S. Burroughs
THE
MAN IN THE LOW BASEMENT
Maybe it was the drugs.
Doctor Delay was in his basement
preparing for his local cable access show, Book Stalkers. Feeling
a little under the weather, he had downed a cocktail of decongestant pills and
aspirin with a shot of whiskey. He had been staring at the gold foiled
wallpaper directly behind his computer monitor for quite some time. In a
three foot by three foot section at eye level, he noticed striations of
glittering light begin to coalesce into a slowly swirling vortex. Then
there seemed to be a tear in the fabric of time and space itself, and through
this rent he could see and hear a neighboring parallel universe. A
well-coiffed Doctor Delay in a very expensive suit was seated on a TV set with
a large studio audience in attendance. Stoner Bill was nowhere to be
seen. David Baldacci was seated directly across from him and was
obviously recounting a story:
"So I'm in this restaurant
with my wife and this other couple has been watching us during the entire
meal. The other woman gets up, walks up to our table, and asks me,
"Are you that famous mystery writer?" And I reply, "Well,
as a matter of fact, I am." She turns around and yells across the
room, "I told you! It's John Grisham!" I nearly fall out
of my chair and correct her, "No, I'm David Baldacci." She
turns around again and yells, "You were right honey, it's that
Italian guy!"
Alternate universe Double D
laughed and said, "That was David Baldacci, folks! Make sure you buy
his new kid's book, The Keeper (9780545831949) 17.99!"
"By the way folks, you
haven't heard of next week's guest, yet, but Garth Risk Halberg's debut novel City
on Fire (9780385353779) 30.00 was bought by Knopf for over $2
million. It has already been on the New York Times Book Review's front
page, and B&N's CEO has made his title an unofficial handsell for the
upcoming holiday season. Hey, maybe he'll buy me lunch!"
(laugh soundtrack)
"Speaking of fire, our other
guests on next week's show will be YouTube sensations Dan and Phil, who have
written The Amazing Book Is Not on Fire (9781101939840) 18.99. I'm
not the demographic on this one, but apparently, it's what the kids are
into. We will be right back after these commercial messages . . ."
There was a blinding flash of light and Doctor Delay was once again staring at
his hazy reflection in the gold foil wallpaper behind his desk. Stoner
Bill tapped him on the shoulder and said, "We're ready to go on. You
better get into your pig costume."
Odds
& Sods
The winner of
the Man Booker Prize was announced today and the unanimous choice was Marlon
James' A Brief History of Seven Killings (9781594633942) 17.00.
The central figure is reggae musician Bob Marley. We should have more
stock, shortly . . .
Our favourite
author escort, Michele Pernia, brought Scott Westerfeld, Margo Lanagan, and
Deborah Biancotti in last week to sign our copies of their new young
adult title, Zeroes (9781481443364) 19.99. To no one's great
surprise, the movie rights have already been sold. As usual, it's first
come, first served . . .
No comments:
Post a Comment