Okay, here it is folks, the Christmas Book!
You know, the Book that all publishers run out of during the crunch time of the holidays? The book they loosely grapple with their fingers, sending sporadic stock now and then goodnaturedly so you pounce on each box with aplomb?
The Book that is a friggin' scarcity the ten shopping days before Christmas but becomes a stocking nightmare on the 27th of December when you have no other books on your bare shelves ( as bare as the cupboards of the unsuspecting Whos prey to the Grinches Christmas eve massacre ) but fifty thousand copies of the selfsame, now viciously obsolete, Book.
Yep kids, last year it switched from Marley and Me to You: The Owner's Manual to Case Histories by Kate Atkinson ( trust the World's Biggest Bookstore to pull that one off ). This year it's Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Dr. Vincent Lam, the Atwood propaganda worthy of the Giller prize ( did I mention Lam is represented by Anchor Canada whereas every other nominee on this year's "where the hell did that come from?!" list was published by small Torontonian avant-garde presses that no one has ever heard of ) and our utmost attention. We've sold out four times. And, pending a huge shipment next Tuesday, we'll have to spend the weekend in the throes of improvization: you know the same propensity that allows you to sell Jack Absolute to Da Vinci-coders:
"He solves codes. Really he does. And I think if you look really, really carefully you'll see the Illuminati in the background. A little lacking on the italics, mind you, but they are indeed, the darkest con of man!"
2 comments:
I own Lam's book, and haven't read it yet. Maybe I should since others are breaking down the doors to own it and mine has been looked at, but that's about it...
It never ceases to amaze me which books become 'the' book that the masses just have to possess. Part of the amazement probably comes from the fact that I generally don't read those books and lament the fact that authors whose books I adore don't always meet with that same kind of success, mostly because publishers don't market their books with the same effort that they put behind the latest 'it' book.
I used to work in a bookstore and I loved the Christmas madness. I really wish I could make my current salary at a bookstore, that was the best job I ever had!
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