Jack Vance

The New York Times has an article up about Jack Vance, a sci-fi writer-- aged 92-- whose literary talent is hidden by his genre (whereas Michael Chabon, after achieving literary success, is free to explore genre writing in books like Kavalier and Clay. Or is it Cavalier and Klay...???). For Vance, "The rocket ships are just ways to get characters from one cogently imagined society to another." 

He has two new books coming out: a memoir, very well titled, called This is Me, Jack Vance! and a collection of stories written by other authors and set in a future of his imagining. 

Ask us about our small but nice collection of rare editions by Jack Vance. 

I think a Wellington Square Bookshop sci-fi book club might be a good idea... anyone agree?

Whichbooks.net-- a site for recommendations

Jolie just found this site. It allows you to characterize the kind of book you want to read: just slide a dial between categories like happy and sad, easy and demanding, conventional and unusual, or safe and demanding to generate a list of books that meets your description. Books in the database are published after 1995 and appear with a short user description. Oh, and you can also describe the type of characters, plot or setting that you'd like to read about. The recommendations are created by a team of 150 specialists who read all the books! (So this is sort of like Pandora radio's Music Genome Project, perhaps?) 

I asked for a gentle, disgusting and funny book and was offered White Powder, Green Light by James Hawes and Brass by Helen Walsh. 

If you live in Great Britain you can follow a "borrow" link from any book to request it from a local library. 

Changes in Comic Art

The Onion AV Club has a list of 21 comic artists who changed the medium for better or for worse. I've never read superhero comics but I love Lynda Barry (who is having trouble with windmills) and David B. Archie, I was simply obsessed with: my uncle gave my sister and I a box of Archie comics from the 60s and 70s and we reread them for a year until my father finally secretly threw them away. I miss them. 

We at the shop are also VERY EXCITED for Asterios Polyp to arrive! It's a graphic novel about an award-winning architect who has never built a building and reviewers love it.