I work in a Big Corporate Bookstore. This isn't as bad as one would think, really. Yes, it's retail, and retail does indeed kill your soul off in wee pieces.

(And yes, I'm anti-consumer culture, if you couldn't tell.)

It's got its downside. Usually at least once a day, I get a customer that looks at me like I'm the idiot when they say, "I'm looking for this book, don't remember the title or author, but it was about dieting and the cover is white and it was on Good Morning America last week..."
Or the belligerent preteens who think they're really slick shoplifting crap manga...
Or the annoying Momzillas who read Cosmo while their kids chew on the picture books...
Or the glaring conservatives who look down their noses at me (femmestached, messy-haired, dykey Harry Potter lookalike dressed in clothes from Good Will) while buying tripe by Pat Buchanon or Anne Coulter or Glenn Beck...

But it's got its good points too. For every one of the demonspawn customers, there's a regular who chats with you while comparing Elmore Leonard to Raymond Chandler. There's the kids who are polite and happy when you can give them the next book in the series they're obssessed with. There's the ancient couples that pull you into their literary arguments. There's the adorably shy students asking for poetry by Mary Oliver or Pablo Neruda. Best of all, there's the people who ask for your recommendations, and actually listen to you.

In the last nine months, I've found myself falling back into the literary habits I had before college. I'm reading 4-5 books at a time, finishing some in weeks and others in hours. I've found myself staying up until 3am to finish a novel. I'm trying new authors, series, and genres that I never touched before. Mostly, I'm having a great time.

It's a good habit. So I thought I'd start to share it. I'll be doing reviews and recommendations in this blog, with added geekery on authors and sub-genres and pretty much anything else I can think of relating to books.