To maintain the book theme, I will start with my work experience in bookstores as well as my relationship with books.
As you may have noticed in my first post, I am slightly bitter toward my first bookstore employment. This is not because of the entire time I worked there, only the last 6 or so months I was there. That is when shit really started to roll down hill. When I first started working at Coles, in October of 2000, I couldn't believe how fortunate I was. I didn't have a lot of work experience, being just out of highschool and all, but I had an office job at my dad's office a few summers and had worked other summer jobs up at the lake a couple of times, but nothing retail related. Just food and office work. I don't think I got a single call back from anywhere else after I dropped off about a dozen resumes. If I remember correctly, I think the only reason I got the job at Coles was because someone had quit abruptly that day and an acquaintance from highschool (and would become a really close friend while we worked together at Coles) told the manager (who would also become a good friend) that if she hired me she wouldn't regret it.
In the first few years I made some great, long lasting friendships that I treasure so much. Frank (the one who recommended me), Lori (the one who hired me), Nikoline, Nicole L. (there was another Nicole that worked there for a short time that was painfully awful), Lyndon, and Sarah. On top of them, there are also a plethora of people who I have facebook friended and creep on occasionally. So Coles was not always a negative place to be. Later during my employment there, when all of the people listed above had left the company, things got awful. New managers that came into the store, with less seniority than me, tried to do things that we had tried in the past and didn't work for several reasons. I would explain these reasons, and be replied with an eye-roll or a blank stare or appeasing words that would be followed by comments to other staff about how difficult I was. I would explain, time and time again about why things worked best they way we were doing them, but it fell on deaf ears. I realized then that my experience was more of a liability rather than an asset, so I decided to go my own way and follow the lovely Nicole L. to McNally Robinson. This would be one of the best decisions I ever made...
TO BE CONTINUED...
(HAHA! Apparently my blog will be filled with cheese-iness all the time...)
~*~
I have decided in order to keep this blog legitimately bookish, for these first few posts where I do nothing but talk about myself, I am going to post one of the reviews I wrote a long time ago on a Facebook App called Visual Bookshelf. I LOVED this app. It was everything I wanted in an app to track the books I had read and make it public to others. When it got... disbanded? deleted? folded? cancelled?... whatever the term is when an app gets the boot... I was choked. BUT it gave me another site that it would upload all of my books to and save my reviews. This website is called GoodReads, and is also an iPhone app... it's not nearly as good as Visual Bookshelf was, so I didn't end up updating it as much as I did Visual Bookshelf. This fact had also contributed to the creation of this blog. So... enjoy!
This first book review posted to this site is one that was previously written on Visual Bookshelf. It seems fitting that it be the first book review posted to this blog because the book itself is about books, and bookstores, and book sellers.
The italic lettering is the description on the back/inside of the cover, the bold is my review as it was posted on Visual Bookshelf and GoodReads (this will be the format for all reviews on this blog)
EDIT: I forgot to post the title and author of this book (review fail!!) And I have also decided to include the cover, just to add a little flair to my otherwise boring blog.
The book is called Shelf Monkey by Corey Redekop.
Thomas Friesen has three goals in life: get a job, make friends, and find a good book to curl up with. After landing a job at READ, the newest hypermegabookstore, he feels he may have accomplished all three. All is not peaceable within the stacks, however, as discontent steadily rises, aimed squarely at talk show host Munroe Purvis, whose wildly popular book club is progressively lowering the IQ of North America. But the bookworms have a plan—plots are being hatched and the destruction of Munroe is all but assured. As Thomas finds himself swept along in the malstrom of insanity, he wonders if reading a book is all it's cracked up to be.
This book made me laugh out loud so many times by making me remember my days as a bookstore employee. However, when I read parts out loud to a family member or friend that has not ever worked in a bookstore, I got blank stares and fake chuckles.
As wonderfully amazing as this book is, it is of this writer's opinion that it is not for those who have never worked in a bookstore. Some of the common yet ridiculous questions asked, or books requested would be lost on those who have never worked in a bookstore (or possibly a library).
Another thing that may help would be a wide knowledge of classic and modern fiction. I found myself googling or wikipediaing classic novel character names so that I knew what was being referenced.
In summary, a wonderful novel for those with bookstore experience, but not for everyone.
This first book review posted to this site is one that was previously written on Visual Bookshelf. It seems fitting that it be the first book review posted to this blog because the book itself is about books, and bookstores, and book sellers.
The italic lettering is the description on the back/inside of the cover, the bold is my review as it was posted on Visual Bookshelf and GoodReads (this will be the format for all reviews on this blog)
EDIT: I forgot to post the title and author of this book (review fail!!) And I have also decided to include the cover, just to add a little flair to my otherwise boring blog.
The book is called Shelf Monkey by Corey Redekop.
Thomas Friesen has three goals in life: get a job, make friends, and find a good book to curl up with. After landing a job at READ, the newest hypermegabookstore, he feels he may have accomplished all three. All is not peaceable within the stacks, however, as discontent steadily rises, aimed squarely at talk show host Munroe Purvis, whose wildly popular book club is progressively lowering the IQ of North America. But the bookworms have a plan—plots are being hatched and the destruction of Munroe is all but assured. As Thomas finds himself swept along in the malstrom of insanity, he wonders if reading a book is all it's cracked up to be.
This book made me laugh out loud so many times by making me remember my days as a bookstore employee. However, when I read parts out loud to a family member or friend that has not ever worked in a bookstore, I got blank stares and fake chuckles.
As wonderfully amazing as this book is, it is of this writer's opinion that it is not for those who have never worked in a bookstore. Some of the common yet ridiculous questions asked, or books requested would be lost on those who have never worked in a bookstore (or possibly a library).
Another thing that may help would be a wide knowledge of classic and modern fiction. I found myself googling or wikipediaing classic novel character names so that I knew what was being referenced.
In summary, a wonderful novel for those with bookstore experience, but not for everyone.
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