So here's the thing: I just spent the past two weeks collecting all the responses from LAist writers about their favorite bookstores in LA and why they love them. Cool idea, right? Share with the readers of LAist all the cool bookstores that are scattered throughout our fair city (I say "fair city" a lot...perhaps my fair city is akin to Kakutani's "limn"?) and talk about the vibe, the proprietors, the cats with or without tails (because there's always a cat but not always a tail), and generally raise awareness of independent bookstores.
Jump cut to this morning when I'm going about my blogging business (not that blogging is a business, at least not for me, do you see any ads? speaking of which, where are my ads? i'd like to have ads...), knowing that Thursday mornings mean new content at the LA Weekly. I setup this post, the one I'm typing right now. I opened it up, named it something like "LA Weekly Interviews" having known in advance (because I do know some things in advance) that the Miranda July interview would be featured. I sipped a bit of my coffee and I settled down to read the interview and whatever bookish things they also had on offer this fine Thursday morning.
So imagine my shock, my dismay, when I saw the whole issue is devoted to: The Bookish Set: Inside the Indie Booksellers. I wanted to scream, then cry, then laugh. If this were a normal post, a post not hi-jacked by the LA Weekly, I would spend the remainder of the post detailing their article, profiling the bookstores, telling you what they missed, etc.
But I don't have it in me. I'm feeling low about the whole affair. Here's what I can muster before I scurry away to focus on other writerly pursuits (in which I actually complete the fiction that is due, due, due instead of flogging myself for the non-fiction I should have posted, obviously, before their new issue came out today):
- Let us examine their use of the word "Bookish" -- I'm not saying it's a word I invented. I just use it every Monday morning in my LAist posts. Have been for months, as in "Get Your Lit On: The Week in Bookish LA." I feel like it's my word, sort of. At least when talking to the public about books. I know it's not my word, but, well. It sort of is. Mine. Mine. Mine. (Look, I told you I had nothing to give...)
- While they hit the obvious choices (and I would have too, it would be remiss to not mention them), Book Soup, Vroman's, Skylight Books and Dutton's are the heavy hitters. The obvious choices. What bums me out though, is that they also included Family and Malibu Diesel, two uber-hip, very cool stores that are newish (that one IS mine, you read it here first!) to the scene and doing a great job with author reading events.
- I had hoped, though, they would have missed the really small local stores so I could at least salvage that piece of my article. Not a chance. They even have a section called "A Few of Our Favorite Neighborhood Bookstores", which includes ALL of my picks, except for one, which I'm now going to hold extremely close to my vest and reveal only when the moment is right. But I'm pretty sure LA Weekly will beat me to that scoop too.
- This new "bookish" issue also has the interview with Miranda July (which led me to this sad, sad discovery) about her art and her new short story collection No One Belongs Here More Than You. I don't want to overstate the overstated, but the website for her book is fun in a way I haven't seen a website be fun in a long time. A little affected maybe, but it works. I also can't stop thinking about how much time it took her to make it. Like a good idea when you start out that then becomes woefully problematic but you press on anyway. Lucky for us, she pressed on.
- I don't have it in me to dissect the other books they review in their Fiction: New Voices section. I simply don't. I'd rather crawl back into bed with a good book or my short story that needs editing and forget this ever happened. You'll have to go see for yourself: Stephen Clark's Topsy the Elephant, Sandi Tan's Thwack! and Katherine Karlin's The Good Word.
- Whatever. They did a great job.
So, you know. I've had better days. I had to change the name of the post, the original one not reflecting the truly sinister nature of what befell me this morning. I also feel a little creeped - as if they're reading my mind, only reading it and then adding things on that make my own thoughts better than they were when they were just my own thoughts. Yet, even in my own pitiful "how could they possibly have beat me to the punch on this one?" wallowing, I can still see that any attention for independent bookstores is good attention. Much needed attention.
I just wish it had been me.
