04/21/04 WED:
---Good to see a new Consumer Guide - by Robert Christgau (We Got A Lot: Kvelling over damn near a dozen meanings of life, their average length close to an hour), although it does mean another hit to the pocket book, as well as that I now get to buy Courtney Love’s new CD.

---Disc Log:
- HEADS UP Collections I-V (5CD) - compilations from a label I had nothing from until a the latest Ladysmith CD, which contained an offer to get these five sampler CDs as well as a CD-ROM for $20. The sound seems to be of audiophile quality, like they really care, but it seems to be mostly light jazz, which is okay as a background--too many of the discs I have been playing lately seem to demand conscious listening anywy--but nothing here gives me a hankering for more; but then I am not in the market for finding much in the way of new things anyway, having a surfeit of what I already have. Even so, this stuff can be mighty insipid and a trial to put in the time to get through. Lots of facility and accomplishment in the playing, but precious little that breaks through to inspiredness, at least to my ears. Some doddering old fool might nod their head in appreciation, in tempo to the music, but myself I find it extremely enervating. The occasional spaces of light soul music offer occasional respite, but “I don’t have the answers but one thing is for sure: love is the cure” is fine sentiment but hardly worth expressing in song or otherwhere (agaiin). It is hard to think where Ladysmith fits into their stable of artists, listening to the first three discs. They would be fine for a euthanasia clinic.

04/20/04 TUE:
---Here today from TTA:
THE THIRD ALTERNATIVE #37, spr/04, (UK magazine; Extraordingary New Fiction, Film, Art, Comics; Le Guin, McKinley, etc.), new 7.00

---Also, from Not One of Us:
NOT ONE OF US #31, 4/04, John Benson, (Strange Guest issue), new 4.50

---Stood at the copier reprinting a couple Drumm Booklets I can hardly remember now.

---Disc Log:
- The Go-Betweens BRIGHT YELLOW BRIGHT ORANGE (Xgau: B Plus)
- Jon Langford and His Sadies MAYORS OF THE MOON (Xgau: A Minus)

04/19/04 MON:
---Text to follow.

04/18/04 SUN:
---Super windy today. I was afraid to turn on my computer, not that Sunday is ever a day I can get much done anyway. To think it was once the day used to get my catalog ready to take to the printer on Monday. I am really starting to settle in as a non-print catalog bookseller--or is that non-profit? Maybe if I got my ass in the saddle I would feel the need to get another one put out again.

---Disc Log:
- Outkast SPEAKERBOXX/THE LOVE BELOW (2CD) (Xgau: A Minus)
- The Dandy Warhols WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE (Xgau: A Minus)
- Rhett Miller THE INSTIGATOR (Xgau: A Minus)

04/17/04 SAT:
---Finally caught a good rainfall overnight, although its slanting angle meant having to sop numerous towels on the front-porch window sill. And now the grass will really start to grow. Hopefully, too, the morel mushrooms we had under our pine tree last year.

04/16/04 FRI:
---Here today from Borderlands Press:
Lebbon, Tim FEARS UNNAMED: 4 Novellas, Borderlands '04, one of 350 SIGNED copies, (one original; also: White, Naming of Parts & and The Unfortunate), new in dj 40.00

---Tomorrow is city-wide junk pick-up day. At Amy’s behest I hoisted the thirty concrete cinder blocks we had so discretely stashed behind our garage out to the end of our driveway. Even with my two-wheeler it was a back tester. I hope they take it away. I also got rid of the cases of empty erstwhile returnables I used for the dozen or thirteen years I made homebrew. Sad to see it go, but the couple batches of explosive bottles produced toward the end--after such a succession of successful and succulent batches--made me think it might be a best to finally hang up my carboy. It is missed--the dead storebought (pasteurization mandated), even fancy microbrews or importeds, would never be able to replace it.

---Later today I have to crank up the lawnmower, also at Amy’s behest. Except for a few patches that are growing pretty good by now, I don’t quite see the need yet. But I know better by now than to think I have any veto power.

04/15/04 THU:
---Here today: CEMETERY DANCE #48.

04/14/04 WED:
---Text to follow.

04/13/04 TUE:
---Word from Golden Gryphon:
Greetings from the Gryphon:

THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES, by Charles Stross, is now available!

The Listener at the Gate . . .
In Charles Stross’s world of “The Atrocity Archive,” Alan Turing, the
Father of Modern Computer Science, did in fact complete his theorem on
“Phase Conjugate Grammars for Extra-dimensional Summoning.” Turing’s
work paved the way for esoteric mathematical computations that, when
carried out, had side effects that would leak through some kind of channel
underlying the structure of the Cosmos. And out there in the multiverse were
“listeners” – and sometimes these listeners could be coerced into opening
gates: Small gates through which minds could be transferred and, occasionally,
large gates through which objects could be moved.
In 1945, Nazi Germany’s Ahnenerbe-SS, in an attempt to escape the
Allied onslaught, performed just such a summoning on the souls of more than
six million. A gate was opened to an alternate universe through which the SS
moved men and matériel – to live to fight another day, as it were. But their
summoning brought forth more than the SS had bargained for – an Evil,
patiently waiting all this time while learning the ways of humans, now poised
to lunch on our galaxy, on our very own Earth.
Secret intelligence agencies, esoteric theorems, Lovecraftian horrors,
Mid East terrorist connections, a damsel in distress, and a final battle on the
surface of a dying planet – in “The Atrocity Archive,” Charles Stross has
written a high-octane thriller, and readers need to buckle up and hold on with
both hands!

“The Atrocity Archive” is a 78,000 word novel, previously serialized
in the U.K. magazine Spectrum SF, and now published for the first time in an
archival-quality hardcover. This volume also contains a new, previously
unpublished novella, “The Concrete Jungle,” that features the further
adventures of Bob Howard, the reluctant hero in “The Atrocity Archive” – a
wisecracking, occasionally insubordinate, computer-hacker desk jockey,
whose just itching for some field ops. Bob works for “The Laundry,” a British
ultra-secret intelligence organization – and in “The Concrete Jungle,” a power
struggle erupts between management, and Bob is unavoidably caught in the
middle.

With an Introduction by noted British SF author Ken MacLeod, and an
Afterword by Charles Stross in which he explores the distinction between the
spy thriller and the horror story.

The Atrocity Archives
by Charles Stross
cover art by Steve Montiglio
ISBN 1-930846-25-8 / $24.95 (Trade hardcover)
273 pages
---endqoute.

---I will have to check to make sure I have this pre-ordered. If so, it should be here in a week or so.

04/12/04 MON:
---Still trying to get a handle on everything needing to be done. If you are waiting on me for an email answer or an order confirmation, rest assured that I am trying to get to it.

04/11/04 SUN:
---Being Easter and being at my mother-in-law’s house in Des Moines, I was unable to get much done beyond the usual Sunday house cleaning and five-mile run.

04/10/04 SAT:
---Here today from Sarob Press:
Richards, Tony POSTCARDS FROM TERRI, Sarob, 2/04, 1st edn, (supernatural novella; Ramsey Campbell intro; author bibliography; 112 pages), new no dj as issued (pictorial boards) 37.50

04/09/04 FRI:
---Text to follow?

04/08/04 THU:
---Text to follow?

04/07/04 WED:
---Here today from Hippocampus via Lightning Source:
Joshi, S.T. & David E. Schultz AN H.P. LOVECRAFT ENCYCLOPEDIA, Hippocampus, nd, (reprint of 2001 Greenwood hc edn; exhaustive, essential), new 20.00

Lovecraft, H.P. COLLECTED ESSAYS Volume 1: Amateur Journalism, Hippcampus '04, 1st edn, (writings concerned with amateur affairs; Joshi [ed]; 440 pages), new 20.00
---COLLECTED ESSAYS Volume 2: Literary Criticism, Hippocampus '04, 1st edn, (second volume of complete nonfiction exclusive of letters), new 20.00

---All are trade paperbacks. The hardcovers of the Collected Essays will be ready in about three weeks, according to the publisher.

04/06/04 TUE:
---Text to follow.

04/05/04 MON:
---Another beautiful day. Temperature is supposed to reach 70 today. But the number of orders and emails I am behind on makes it even more imperative than usual that I get down in the cellar and get to work. Too many distractions already without the weather too!

04/04/04 SUN:
---Good to see a new posting on Neil’s website, now that he is relocated in California.

04/03/04 SAT:
---Ends up Vic wins the NCAA picking competition. He had three of the four Final Four teams and both teams in The Finals. Whether or not his choice Georgia Tech goes all the way, he has won. Both Dave’s Finals picks are out now. I picked UConn for The Finals but my other team and championship pick, Okla. State, has gone down. But that is probably an inapt way to put it, considering the plane crash that befell some of the team a few years ago, reinforcing the fact that tournament games are not life and death. What they ultimately mean to anyone outside the participants is hard to figure--but so too, I guess, are religion and nationalism, especially to those on the outside looking in.

04/02/04 FRI:
---Received a sample copy of THE STRAND magazine. I will catalog it and if more than just the one copy sells, maybe I will start to carry it:
THE STRAND MAGAZINE, 2-5/04, (mystery magazine; fiction & features), new 5.95

04/01/04 THU:
---Spent too much of the morning with a stack of used books listing the ones on half.com that do not look they belong in my regular catalog.

---Word from Hippocampus:
Dear Chris.

The first two volumes of Lovecraft essays are now available in both hardcover and paperback. Since your last order, we have also released a paperback of the H. P. LOVECRAFT ENCYCLOPEDIA. Full blurbs are below.

Best regards,
Derrick Hussey
http://www.hippocampuspress.com

COLLECTED ESSAYS, VOLUME 1: AMATEUR JOURNALISM
by H. P. Lovecraft
Edited by S. T. Joshi
March 2004: 440 pp.
Cloth: ISBN 0-9721644-1-3: $40.00
Paper: ISBN 0-9721644-2-1: $20.00

Discovering the amateur press in 1914, Lovecraft immediately flooded the many small papers of his friends and colleagues with contributions discussing the nature, purpose, and future of amateur journalism. He also edited his own magazine, The Conservative (1915-23), filling it with additional essays. In these articles Lovecraft discusses the conflict between the United and the National Amateur Press Associations; the “halcyon days” of the amateur movement (1885-95); and the “needs and betterment” of the amateur cause. We read of Lovecraft's bitter feuds with his fellow amateurs; his exhaustive critiques of their writing; and, most poignant of all, his touching affirmation of “What Amateurdom and I Have Done for Each Other,” in which he concludes simply: “What Amateur Journalism has given me is—life itself.”


COLLECTED ESSAYS, VOLUME 2: LITERARY CRITICISM
by H. P. Lovecraft
Edited by S. T. Joshi
March 2004: 248 pp.
Cloth: ISBN 0-9721644-4-8: $40.00
Paper: ISBN 0-9721644-9-9: $20.00

Lovecraft's writings in the realm of literary criticism are unfailingly acute and cover a surprisingly wide range. Besides his authoritative early essay on “The Literature of Rome” (1918), other works condemn free verse and simple spelling, and devote attention to neglected poets. Discovering weird fiction as his chosen field, he produced such scintillating essays as “Lord Dunsany and His Work” (1922) and “Supernatural Horror in Literature” (1927), along with essays on Frank Belknap Long and Clark Ashton Smith. Late in life Lovecraft codified his grasp of weird literature by writing such trenchant pieces as “Notes on Writing Weird Fiction” (1933) and “Some Notes on Interplanetary Fiction” (1934). One of his last writings, “Suggestions for a Reading Guide” (1936), is a comprehensive discussion of world literature.

AN H. P. LOVECRAFT ENCYCLOPEDIA
By S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz
May 2004: 0-9748789-1-X: $20.00
At last, an affordable, quality paperback edition of this indispensable volume is available! For this edition, the authors have corrected some errors and made numerous revisions to incorporate references to editions of works by Lovecraft and works of Lovecraft scholarship published since the first edition of this book.
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