Yesterday was the first day of my Houston Indie Bookstore Crawl circuit, and I came home with four books, some excellent contacts, and a ton of ideas.
My friend Allison and I hit four stores: CLASS, Good on Paper, Murder by the Book, and Kaboom Books. Allison picked up something at CLASS, a book by the musician Gucci Mane. The rest of what’s in the photo is on me. Three of the books are exactly what you’d expect from someone opening a science fiction and fantasy bookstore, and all three authors will have a strong presence at Multiversity.
- Going Postal by Terry Pratchett — I love Pratchett. As far as I’m concerned, he could do no wrong. I haven’t read all the Discworld books yet, but I’m getting there. This was from Kaboom Books.
- The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch — This has been on my list for a while, and it caught my eye at Murder by the Book this morning. I’ll likely make it my next read when I finish A Court of Thorns and Roses.
- Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman — Grabbed this one at Good on Paper. I’m a huge Dungeon Crawler Carl fan, but I’ve only read the audiobooks. This is the second book in the DCC series, and it joins the first in my TBR stack. Audio’s great (better than great in this case), but print does hit a little differently, and the Ace hardcovers include bonus content that provides some context for the upcoming eighth book.
The fourth one was a nice little find.
The Great Comic Book Heroes, compiled and annotated by Jules Feiffer, came out in 1965. The perspective is wild. It treats Superman and Batman almost as distant classics. That’s the kind of impact those characters had, even then. There’s a reverence in the writing. And yet, those characters were only about 25 years old when he wrote the book. They’re pushing 90 now.
On top of the commentary, the book reprints character origins from the companies that would eventually become Marvel and DC (it’s complicated). Also, Will Eisner’s The Spirit. I feel like The Phantom should’ve been included, but any number of classic characters could have made the cut.
It’s a great little time capsule and exactly the kind of thing I love having on my shelf.
The Houston Indie Bookstore Crawl runs throughout April, featuring 31 independent bookstores in the greater Houston area. Blue Willow Bookshop has the details. Go find your haul!
Leave a Reply