A Tale of Woe
Welcome back to our website! We have just had a nightmare-ish
three weeks. Our web site crashed at the end of February. We contacted
our web host to find out why. A few days later they returned an
email saying:
The server your site is located on had severe hardware
problem
yesterday. We are working on the problem. Sorry for the trouble,
we are doing what we can ...
Regards,
A---
Strauss Technical Support.
A week later they still hadn't got the thing working again.
Hi,
Sorry for not answering you promptly; we are dealing with 230
unhappy
customers.
Regards,
A---
We lost all email going to our regular address, our mailing
list*, and all feedback and orders people tried to place through
the site. Our host Strauss
Software in the meantime were not answering the phone and
after March 8th, not replying to email. Then on the 14th their
website disappeared! It was pretty horrifying to receive this,
as of the 22nd, their final response:
Hi. This is the qmail-send program at mail3.straussoft.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following
addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work
out.
<support@straussoft.com>:
Sorry, no mailbox here by that name. (#5.1.1)
With the help of our webmaster we found a new host, Shore, a privately held local company with
a very solid reputation. On St.Patrick's Day, the 17th, the rewritten
site debuted. Great sighs of relief all round.
* Our monthly email newsletter At The Margin did not
go out last month. It should be going out soon. If you do want
to be on the mailing list you can sign up here. If you had signed
up on line, please sign up again, as Strauss has not returned
our mailing list. Yes, we should probably sue for loss of business
and stop these folk from heading over state lines and starting
up again under a new name. Who can be bothered though? We've got
a business and lives to get on with. Hmm. Online Fiction
We were signed up and ready to have Stephen King's short story
online, but with no host and no website we couldn't do it! Watch
out for other stuff like that on the site in future. And you can
also try our Stories
page Two New Features
This month I had planned to launch two new features of the newsletter; one occasional, one regular. The regular feature will be a spotlight on an item from our rare book collection. The occasional feature will be from our collection of ephemera: photographs, papers, tickets, bookmarks, anything that we find in books or pick up in the various ways that things come to us (and fill our
basement and our warehouse).
This month's ephemera is a great photo that I don't want to return to the shop (or even the owner, if they happen to see it!). Looking at the picture this giggling baby would probably be at
least 80 by now and more likely over 100. I've been reading a book called LIVING DOWNSTREAM by Sandra Steingraber (Vintage, $11.25). In it she states something I've read - and everyone's witnessed - before, that children today have a much higher levels of asthma than their forebears - although adult-onset asthma is
also rising. To quote, "...the national incidence of asthma has jumped 40% in the past decade; it is now the number one cause of absenteeism for American schoolchildren. And asthma is also
becoming more deadly: mortality is rising as swiftly as incidence, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control."
It is a powerful and disturbing book. Strange to look at this baby photo and think about the dirty world the child grew up into. Did he/she fight in any of the centuries wars? Did she/he marry?
Live in Boston? In a city, the country? The photo gives no clues.
What a smile, though.
Awards, Recommendations
The National Book Critic's Circle Awards were announced on March 13th:
Fiction: Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
General Nonfiction: Time, Love, Memory: A Great Biologist and
His Quest for the Origins of Behavior by Jonathan Weiner
Biography and Autobiography: The Hairstons: An American Family
in Black and White by Henry Wiencek
Poetry: Ordinary Words by Ruth Stone
Criticism: Selected Non-Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
Can you believe the critics? Well, it's a good sign that last
year's winner was Alice Munro. Here's our review of the fiction
winner from our October 1999 Newsletter:
New Titles of Note: As noted Jonathan Lethem's MOTHERLESS
BROOKLYN is gathering steam as the author dashes around the country
on an extensive signing tour. In the hands of a lesser writer
this could have been a disaster in any of a hundred different
ways. Lionel (say it like it rhymes with vinyl) Essrog is a Minna
Man, one of four junior detectives in a detective agency that
is slim |
cover for a small mob operation. When Frank Minna, the
founder and operator of the L&L Agency is murdered it falls
to the four Minna Men to find out the who and they why of it.
This could be the start of yet another painful mystery series,
Lionel Essrog, Tourette's Detective, his ongoing syndrome symptomatic
of each case he gets involved in. But not in Lethem's hands. Lethem
has spun novels in many genres and is unlikely to get sucked down
into the mire - unless Brooklyn itself is genre or mire inescapable
of itself.
The rhythms of the book go beyond Lionel's rhythmic tics and exclamations.
Sometimes it felt like reading Vonnegut at his prime the writing
shifted here and there into subtle perceptive asides, lists, notes,
then back into the flow of the narrative. Watching Lionel and
the manner other people have of dealing with him you begin to
agree that Tourette's is the lens that we can view life through.
If this is an accurate portrayal then the syndrome may be latent
in many of us, only needing a small push to go appear full blown.
Unlike many recent novels I've read Lethem manages the ending
well. It is satisfying, leaves you wanting to follow the characters
further but doesn't leave loose ends all over the place in an
obvious set up for a sequel. Maybe not The Great American Novel,
but certainly a Very Good one.
Recent Recommendations
Sean Stewart moves to a new level with his American
fantasy GALVESTON (Ace, $19.25). Neal Stephenson says, "Stephen King meets Ibsen. Trust me." Other people use words like "vivid," "finely observed," & "tightly focused." I say it's just a damn good book. The USA needs more books like this, not in an everyday way, but on a deeper, mythical level. In the best parts it reminded me of John Crowley's
LITTLE, BIG. can't say better than that.
Iain M. Banks latest exploration in science fiction on the grand scale, INVERSIONS.
Terry Pratchett's first three Discworld novels (THE COLOR OF MAGIC, THE LIGHT FANTASTIC, and EQUAL RITES) are back in print at only $3.99 (our price $3.25) each! How about a little web package deal, buy all three for $14 including UPS shipping (usually $4.50 for the first title, $1 per book after that). Sure, I'll go for that. Vintage Magazines
Last month we put our Life Magazine database online. (Search).
You can go to the Search page, put Life Magazine in the Title field and a date if you know what you're looking for and Voila! There you go! No pictures yet, but it will tell you who's on the cover. The range is from about 1940 - 1980. We do have some before and after that so if it's an anniversary date, a famous face or just a whim send us an email and we'll see if we can find it.
Every month we hope to add another magazine, Sports Illustrated, Time, National Geographic, Playboy, Saturday Evening Post, The New Yorker are the main titles but we have thousands more. Eventually they'll all be up here! (Wanted, data-entry imps. Detail oriented
to work 24 hours a day on the cheap!!). Traffic Advisory
We've been here on Newbury Street for 25 years (Anniversary
in October!) but there was a week there in February where we were
beginning to wonder what had happened to this, the 'nicest' street
in the world. Not only is Staples in final negotiations for the
Exeter Street Theatre building formerly occupied by Waterstones,
but there were two fistfights outside our store! Nevil Shute fans
fighting over first editions? Cat-lovers wanting to be the first
to pet Blue, our shop cat? Perhaps a disagreement over the contents
of our Best Books of the Millennium window display? Sadly, none
of the above. Both fights were over parking places. Parking in
the Back Bay is crazy: there are something like 4000 permits and
800 spaces. Tourists, visitors, workers and residents fight over
the few available. Perhaps it's the hidden reason why internet
shopping is taking over - no parking spaces and even when you
do think you have one some drunk or rude lout might slip in ahead
of you. Doesn't it make you feel safe and warm there on your chair,
just a click away from us? The only threatening thing in sight
either the coffee you might spill on your keyboard or your approaching
boss. Fancy A Cruise?
In case you missed it before here's something that may catch your fancy... a cruise with comic creators. From April 9-16th next year the newest and largest ship ever to sail the Mexican Riviera (can you tell I'm quoting?), the Elation will leave Los Angeles and travel south to Mexico, calling at Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas and Mazatlan on the way. They're calling it the
Making Waves cruise and it's a fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Guests include Jules Feiffer, Neil Gaiman, Will Eisner, Frank Miller, Neal Adams, Jeff Smith, Dan Clowes, Jeff Smith, Brian Pulido, Evan Dorlin, Matt Wagner, P. Craig Russell, Mark Waid, Kurt Busiek,
Adrian Tomine, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez with more to be announced. There'll be cocktail parties, slide shows, seminars and many more unofficial and unregulated activities in the bars,
lounges, whirlpools and waterslides! The price for this extravaganza? Cabins start at $1099 and go up to however much you want to donate to the fund! What a great idea! For a brochure and booking information call 1-800-992-2533. More Bookshop News
In the last 2 years 7 bookstores have closed in the Back Bay Area:
- Waterstones
- Rizzoli
- Doubleday
- Lauriat's
- Buck-a-Book
- and the latest, the Globe Corner Travel Bookstore on Boylston Street (who moved out to make way for a bank)
while only one has opened: Brentano's. What's happening? We can't take up all the slack, someone open another bookshop, quick! We have expanded the travel guide for all the itchy-footed (and just plain lost). Also, we're stocking a lot of Phaidon titles (beautiful books!) for the art, architecture
and design crowd (when you drop by the shop remember to visit the Boston School
of Architecture on the corner of Hereford and Newbury Street. They always have an interesting exhibition on the street level.
If you have any suggestions or titles you'd like to see email
me and I'll see if we can get them in. |
