2013 street fund and books

After we closed the bookstore, I began reading for pleasure instead of production. Now that I don't need to keep up with current releases and hot sellers to make informed recommendations to customers, my numbers are down. In 2013, I read 60 books, down from 104 in 2012 and way down from the all-time high of 129 in 2010.

In 2013 I read a lot about orphan trains and the street kids of New York City in the 1880s. Most of the books on orphan trains were crap: they sounded eerily like English and seemed to be of interest only to amateur geneaologists eager to prove that they were indeed adopted, and that's why the rest of the family is certifiably nuts. My three favorite books were

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell;
The Secret History by Donna Tartt; and
The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders.

got books?

The street fund was down also. I found $9.72:

92 pennies,
6 nickels,
20 dimes.
14 quarters, and
3 dollar bills.

I blame the slow economy.

Next year P-Doobie will use an accomplice to trip people outside the ATM.

Street funds and books, 2012

Here's the annual summary of the books I read in 2012 and my street fund, money that I've found on the streets, parking lots, floors, and highways and byways of this great land of ours.

Street fund
In 2012 I found 106 pennies, 49 nickels, 47 dimes, 22 quarters, 3 dollar bills, and 1 20-dollar bill for a grand total of $36.71. I also found a Canadian loonie, which I will give to my friend Marion the next time I see her. Since 1996, the year I began the street fund, I have found $336.47.

Books

I read 104 books in 2012. Many of those were "production reading" associated with the store: I'd read the new and noteworthy titles so that I could give our customers informed recommendations, or read kids' books to the little folks during story time. I read only two novels in translation (Spanish) and one biography, so I'd like to read more biography and more literature in translation in 2013. When we went to Las Vegas and Wagon Mound on Saturday, I got Marmee and Louisa: the Untold History of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother at Tome on the Range, so that will be my first book to read this year.

Here are my faves for 2012.

• Pogo: Into the Wild Blue Wonder, Walt Kelley
• The Handmaid's Tale (aka The tea party's America), Margaret Atwood
• State of Wonder, Ann Patchett
• Bel Canto, Ann Patchett
• We Learn Nothing, Tim Kreider
• In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick

Now that we no longer own a bookstore, I get to read whatever I want for my own pleasure. Woo-HOO!

Street fund and books 2012

Here's my annual summary of my street fund, money I found on the streets, in parking lots, and on floors, and of the books I read in 2011.

Street fund

In 2011 I found 70 pennies, 14 nickels, 18 dimes, 11 quarters, and a 5-dollar bill, for a total of $10.95, which brings my total for the past 15 years to $336.47. I am going to invest it in steel mills when I retire.

Books

In 2011, I read 108 books in the following genres

• 3 biographies,
• 10 children's books,
• 1 epic,
• 8 collections of essays,
• 28 graphic novels,
• 12 histories,
• 14 memoirs,
• 22 novels,
• 4 plays and
• 6 books for young adults

These are my favorites for 2011.

• A Prayer for the Dying (novel) by Stewart O'Nan
• Fire Season (memoir) by Philip Connors
• Lost and Found (graphic novel) by Shaun Tan
• The Tiger's Wife (novel) by Téa Obhreht*
• Ghost World (graphic novel) by Daniel Clowes
• The Iliad (epic) by Homer, tr. Stephen Mitchell
• The Sense of an Ending (novel) by Julian Barnes*

*My top favies

Street fund and books, 2010

Here's my annual summary of my street fund of the money I found and the list of books I read in 2010.

Street fund total $25.01

101 pennies

10 nickels

40 dimes

14 quarters

6 $1 bills

1 $10 bill

1 diez centavos coin from Mexico, which I will put at Dad's grave

Books

In 2010 I read 129 books. I began the year with Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar and ended with James Barrie's Peter Pan. Peter Pan creeped me out of existence, and Pan is a mean-spirited, narcissistic little snot. I think that, to protect young readers, we need to keep Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland out of the hands of us adults, who are more easily traumatized than kids.

Some of the cool books I read in 2010 include these.

• Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann. I loved the beautiful structure and language in this novel.
• Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz. Horwitz revisits the Civil War in the unvanquished South (although I kept saying to myself, "You lost. Get over it.")
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly. This is a very funny coming-of-age story in which Calpurnia struggles against gender roles in 1899.
• Skippy Dies, Paul Murray. Skippy dies five pages into the book, and the rest of the story is told in flashback. Among the topics the kids are concerned with are time travel, M-theory, bungee jumping, and the true meaning of Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken."
• Room, Emma Donaghue. This is my favorite book of the year. It knocked my socks off. Izzy, you should read it!
• It Was the War of the Trenches, Jacques Tardi. I love the graphic genre. This account of daily life in the trenches in World War I is very affecting.

Street fund and books, 2009

You probably recall that I keep track of the money I find on the streets and the number of new books I read every year. Here's the summary for 2009.

Street fund

• 105 pennies
• 10 nickels
• 31 dimes
• 12 quarters

That's a cool $7.66. I didn't find any folding money, though. Nor did I find any Canadian coins; Marion, I can't take you for some ice cream. The grand total, 1997-2009, is $300.51.

Books

In 2009 I read 102 new books. I usually surpass my pre-owning-a-bookstore goal of 25 new books a year in mid April. I resolved in 2009 to read more literature in translation, and I accomplished that goal with eight books (my faves in blue):

• Novels in Three Lines (Félix Fénéon), The Man Who Watched Trains Go By (Georges Simenon), and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Dai Sijie), translated from French;
• Club Dumas (Arturo Pérez-Reverte), The House of Bernarda Alba (Federico García Lorca), and The Angel's Game (Carlos Ruiz Zafón), translated from Spanish;
• The Housekeeper and the Professor (Yoko Ogawa) and A-bomb Drawings by Survivors (Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum), translated from Japanese.

The best books I read in 2009 are

• Arrival, by Shaun Tan, a beautiful wordless book about the immigrant experience;
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer, about the World Trade Center disaster and the search for family;
• Watchmen, a richly textured and sophisticated graphic novel by Alan Moore;
• Columbine, by Dave Cullen, about the Columbine High School shootings;
• The Book of Genesis Illustrated, by R. Crumb; and
• Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy; the first three pages are so beautifully written that I had to walk away from the book for a while.

What is the first book you'll read in 2010?

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?--Henry Ward Beecher

Street fund and books

Some time ago, I wrote about my street fund, the money I find on the streets, under counters, and in other places. Here's the tally for 2008:

• 117 pennies
  
• 11 nickels
  
• 23 dimes
  
• 12 quarters
  
• 1 $1 bill
  
• 1 $5 bill
  

The total for 2008 is $13.02. (I also found two Canadian nickels and a Canadian dime. Marion, the ice cream's on me!)

For years now, Izzy and I have made it a goal to read 25 new books a year. The past several years I've averaged in the low forties. Customers at the store say, "Heh, heh, I suppose now you that you own a bookstore, you don't have time to read." I always reply, "I read a lot. Reading is my job." This year I read 89 books. Here's the breakdown. Click on a chart to enlarge it.

The best books I read in 2008 were

• The Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón
  
• Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
  
• The Kingdom on the Waves, M. T. Anderson
  
• Fine Just the Way It Is, E. Annie Proulx
  
• A Mercy, Toni Morrison
  

Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?--Henry Ward Beecher

The scariest Halloween costume

Every year the Chamber of "Commerce" sponsors "Trick or Treat on Main Street," an event downtown that provides a safe venue for the kids to get their candy fix. Otowi Station participates, and this year we handed out about 70 pounds of candy and all our glow-in-the-dark monster fangs, skeletons, and tops. (And what is it with sour Twizzlers? The smell of them made me gag, but the kids snatched them up, and, even more interesting, actually ate them.) We also had dog cookies for the pooches. Pet Pangaea sponsored a Hallow-wiener constume contest for dogs.

One mom dressed as Sarah Palin, and her bodyguard kids were dressed in suits and sunglasses and were wearing earphones. Indiana Jones was out in force, as were men dressed as nuns. The kid wearing the scariest costume of all was dressed as the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

AUGGGGGGHHHHHH!

I swear, if I'm signing a contract to give them a lifetime supply of ice cream, all five are grounded until they're 70.

Here's Mom signing the purchase agreement yesterday. Vernon and Bettie signed today. Woo-HOO!

P-Doobie's Auto Body and Fill Dirt

I was walking past Sophie in the carport and accidentally bumped her boo-boo. The sound was sort of plasticky, and I felt the panel give a little. I pushed it hard, and it popped right back into place! TA-DA! I didn't have to take her to the body shop after all. And, using P-Doobie's Law of Compensatory Cash Flow, I now have $400.00 to spend that I would have spent on repairs.


Sophie says, "Except for a cosmetic scrape, I'm as good as new!"

Two pieces of exciting news, and one piece of exciting possibility

The Otowi Station website is live! Send congratulatory notes and praise to michele@otowistation.com. She did yeoman's work! Woo-HOO!

I paid off my car! I've given myself a $573/month raise.

Sophie is mine, all mine.

We also have an opportunity to get the space next to us at the store. The mortgage company that was our neighbor went belly-up. We talked with our landlord yesterday, and he's very interested in having us expand; he will reduce the rent and throw in new flooring. We need to talk with our banker, find out how much a remodel would set us back, and consider other issues. The staff is excited by the possibility. Becky said, "I can finally live out my dream of living in a bookstore! Oh, and can we have a candy room?"

These are exciting times for us.

Tossing off the high C's and C notes

Saturday Michele and I went to the Lensic in Santa Fe for the last live broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera's season, La Fille du Régiment. We were in the next-to-the-last row, so I couldn't wear my custom-designed suction cups, catapult myself to the screen, and attach myself to Natalie Dessay, my ultimate hug-honey after Michele. Juan Diego Flórez has received some fairly ecstatic press for nailing all the high Cs in Ah! mes amis (including a solo encore). You may have to subscribe to the online NYTimes (free), but you can also hear an excerpt of the aria at his website. The opera was a delight; the singing and the acting were superb.

Natalie Dessay as Marie, la fille du régiment

Before the opera began, we enjoyed listening to the people sitting behind us.

"Do you speak French? It looks like we're in for a lot of French today."

"I don't speak French."

"Well, we're in for a lot of French today in this opera by Donizetti. Wait. Donizetti. That's Italian. Then why are we in for a lot of French?"

They then started talking about their travels. "No, they're not dead people! What they are is mummies." I was glad to have that distinction clarified.

At all the operas at the Lensic, I noticed a woman who seemed to know everyone, and everyone appeared to know her. I figured I should introduce myself, just in case we should know each other. So I went up, introduced myself, and shook her old cow hand. She introduced herself to me. Well, the woman is richer than God. She raised $9 million to renovate the Lensic, owns the Eldorado Hotel, and does other philanthropic work. I thanked her for all she does. Yep, she's someone worth knowing.

IRS . . .

. . . the last three letters in THEIRS. And that's all I have to say about that.

Workin' at the karma wash

Today I picked up some valuable karma points but missed a significant sale on out-of-print books.

A requester from Los Alamos National Laboratory wanted two copies of a book on explosives published in 1980; he was pretty vague about the title, didn't know the author, knew that "LASL" was in the title somewhere, and provided nine digits of the 10-digit ISBN. I told him that the book was probably out of print but that I'd be glad to search for a used copy of whatever it was.

So I got online and within a few minutes apparently found what he was looking for. Perry then stuck his head in the office and said the guy called back with the names of the editors. I was looking at the exact title he wanted: it was published in 1980; the names of the editors matched; the title of the book and the title he gave me were in the same alphabet. Woo-HOO! I used Google to find more about the book and found a site where he could download all 400+ pages in .pdf format for free, so I called him and gave him the link.

Then, just for fun, I consulted the websites of some of our third-party out-of-print vendors and found two copies of the book for $250 each, plus our surcharge. I was bummed because we could have made some serious coin on the sale, but I felt okay because the guy might spread the word that we were nice about finding what he needed.

(God, I hate being noble.)

A penny saved is a penny earned if invested in tax-free munis

For the past 11 years I have been keeping track of how much money I find on the streets, under counters, in parking lots, and in similar locations. I call it my street account. Since 1997 I have found the following:

• 1603 pennies
• 159 nickels
• 346 dimes
• 147 quarters
• 24 one-dollar bills
• 2 five-dollar bills
• 4 ten-dollar bills
• 1 20-dollar bill
• 1 100-dollar bill

That's a total of $279.83. It takes nothing to keep me entertained.