I call my store Someone Else's Books because my mentor, a man named Nelson Kendrick, owned a store by that name. He believed that the used books in his inventory were never really his.
"They belonged to other people," he told me, "and I keep them until they belong to someone else. These are always someone else's books I'm caring for."
People think owning a used bookstore is romantic. Let me assure you: it isn’t. You spend your days sneezing from dust mites, explaining to people why their “collector’s edition” John Grisham paperback is worth less than a gas station burrito, and hauling boxes of Danielle Steele hardbacks that multiply like rabbits in the wild.
Now, add aliens.
Yes, you heard me right. Somewhere between stocking the poetry shelf and arguing with a customer about the difference between sci-fi and fantasy, I wound up in the business of protecting humanity from an invasive race of lizard bullies called Herpezoids who can’t stand reading. They are literally afraid of books. It's a thing with them. I've seen their phobia in action. A whole story can be told as to why and how this bibliophobia came to be and persists, but flashing a pulp fiction paperback at a Herpezoid is the equivalent of a crucifix to a vampire. It's why you should always carry a book.
When a Herpezoid sees a book
There are no men in black. I don’t have a black suit, I don’t wear sunglasses at night, and my “high-tech weapon” is called a Multiblaster, which sounds like a discount cleaning product. Its batteries sometimes fail me. Most days, I’d rather be eating nachos than saving the planet. But then again, if I don’t, who will? That's why I didn't want to involve my book club in this nonsense. Imagine a room full of people armed with casseroles, wine, and bizarre opinions about the latest cozy mystery. These are everyday people with jobs and mortgages. Now imagine handing them alien tech. We’re either the Earth’s last hope or its biggest liability.
We're not this cool.
Still, maybe there’s something poetic about it. A bunch of nobodies sitting around a stack of paperbacks, turning the tide of intergalactic conquest. Books have always been powerful. And book lovers know this. Maybe that's where we get our courage to face these Herpezoids.
But if you come into my store asking for a first edition Stephen King and then try to pay me in coupons, I’m letting the aliens take you.
— Kevin Raulston
Again, we're not men in black and we don't rap. We're not that cool.
NOTE: A couple of times on the old blog I posted thoughts after bingeing a TV series. I called it "Binge & Purge." I thought I'd bring the concept to this new space. What follows here is not so much a review of a show's quality, but how it left me feeling in this moment in my life. If you've not watched "Ted Lasso," be warned. Mild spoilers lie ahead. ***** Ted Lasso operates from the theory that we're all dealing with something and only through meaningful human relationships can we adequately overcome it. Sometimes you need to watch a show at just the right time to fully appreciate it. We were late to the party on Ted Lasso. There is only so much room on my plate for the buffet of streaming services. Apple TV+ was not an investment I had made much to the chagrin of those who implored me to watch Ted Lasso. Not wanting to repeat the peer pressure that came with not watching Breaking Bad , we borrowed our son's Apple TV+ subscription and dove...
CHAPTER ONE (MONDAY): A CUP OF JOE The Perpetual Egg isn’t a diner so much as it’s an anomaly. A backwater dimension you’ve never heard of occupying space and time in ways you can’t fathom. They serve eggs that taste like rubber gloves and an open-faced roast beef sandwich that will leave your digestive tract asking what it had done to piss you off. You could spackle the side of a Herpezoid Junkcruiser with the mashed potatoes. That’s something Herpezoids would do. The Perpetual Egg is the kind of place frequented by men with pockets full of expired metaphors, women who speak fluent déjà vu, and one guy who swears he's the original concept of the weekend before it got commercialized. But I didn’t frequent The Perpetual Egg for its culinary malfeasance or its clientele. I came for only one thing: a cup of Joe. *** I slid into my usual booth at this eatery wedged between dimensions and overdue health inspections. The lighting was fluorescent and unkind, like a truth-telling ex-wife...
From the back cover: Saving the world was never on the reading list. Kevin Raulston wants to keep his life simple, at least as simple as one can as a used bookstore owner who hunts extraterrestrials for a shadowy private organization known only as Corporate. But it is the year of Y2K and the world is on edge, fearing the worst. When an extraterrestrial crashes his book club meeting—leaving behind a missing book club member, a mysterious serum, and a very confused married couple, Chris and Suzanne Pershing—Kevin is pulled into a Y2K conspiracy involving mutated humans, a secret lab beneath a ghost town bank, and a potential romance with his bartender crush. To survive, Kevin must do the unthinkable: train the all-too-eager and thrill-seeking Pershings to fight aliens. People who haggle over the plot points of books like The Rapture of the Follies are now armed with glitchy weapons, metaphysical theories, and a disturbing level of confidence. Along the way, the book club will face ...
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