Avast, books about pirates! Heave to and prepare to board B&N!

She had it in her hands, and I told her we already had it. We don't.

That's not good.

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You sir, are my new hero! - Trifan 11/13/2008

Casey, you are a wise man - blueraider_mike 11/13/2008

Casey, This is an astute observation. - Slowbern 11/17/2008

Just read Big Dig to my 4 year old last night! Good book, I assume it is for your child....right?

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I'm just a 10 cent rider on a $2,500.00 Bike

Yeah . . . yeah, it's for the kids. Sure. It's not like Mrs. Vitus were sitting around playing with it after they went to bed or anything . . . *ahem.*

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

She had it in her hands, and I told her we already had it. We don't.

That's not good.

In my defense, we have a volume of Tolstoy's works which includes an abridged version of Karenina. Mrs. Vitus has gotten all snooty on me, and only the unabridged version will do.

Besides, it's a good excuse to go back to the bookstore. Her book only costs 8 or 9 bucks, and that leaves me with thirty dollars to play with.

Recommendations?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Greatest feeling the world. I love scoring at book stores. We have a store in Dallas called Half Price. Everything is used and of course half the price. Me and the kids love too take hours looking through it and coming out with boxes of books.

Your kids now need a book on ninjas to balance out the pirates.


Ninjas are mammals.

Ninjas fight all the time.

The purpose of a Ninja is too flip out and kill people.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

Mrs. Vitus has gotten all snooty on me, and only the unabridged version will do.

Recommendations?

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus?

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You sir, are my new hero! - Trifan 11/13/2008

Casey, you are a wise man - blueraider_mike 11/13/2008

Casey, This is an astute observation. - Slowbern 11/17/2008

I'm only up to the 87th thing I Should Know About Pirates - NO SPOILERS!!!

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

101 is ninja will kick a pirate's ass 110% of the time.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

Dude, your post was so awesome I just punched out my Mom!

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An Outside Chance by Tom Mcguane (If you're interested in fishing, hunting, and conservation-type thingies, this is a classic).

Anything by Bill Bryson.

And there's a 25th or 30th anniversary edition containing the best writing from Outside Magazine that i really enjoyed.

Lance Armstrong's War.

None of this will win you any prizes for snootiness, but it's all great reading.

Yer crazy. No ninja in his right mind is going to mess with these pirates:
http://i1.tinypic.com/mhvb55.jpg

The big one there successfully engaged Frankenstein's monster with that cutlass to clear the way for the small one to plunder some booty. You think some mamby-pamby ninja is going to do that?

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Just imagine what you could find at your local library!

The Devil's Teeth, by Susan Casey. A fascinating non-fiction about the white sharks that hang out at the Farallones.......kj

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Awww, Katy's not all THAT evil. Only slightly evil. In a good way. - JasoninHalifax

Just imagine what you could find at your local library!

Oh, that's a whole 'nother thread, lemme tell ya. I love libraries. They tend to develop a dislike for me over time. (Only those that aren't sufficiently capitalist in their outlook. They make a healthy profit off my late fees, usually.)

I'm currently waiting for a copy of "Who is my Neighbor: Personalism and the Foundations of Human Rights," by Thomas Williams, to arrive at the Post Falls Library. Mrs. Vitus was going to get me a copy for Christmas, but it costs 70 smackers. She went to the library, and of course they don't have it. But they were able to borrow it from some regional law library, so it should arrive pretty soon. Mrs. Vitus tried to convince the library to buy its own copy, but they said it looks kinda spendy, so . . .

In addition to the local library, I now have access to the library at North Idaho College. I checked out three books before I took my first class. (One of them was the collected works of Flannery O'Connor. It works out nicely because the version I borrowed has all her personal letters in it, and the version I bought doesn't, but has an introduction by her agent and friend, and another bit by a different friend.)

Of course, in order to get Gonzaga to release my records to NIC, I had to pay my overdue library fine. SEVENTY FOUR DOLLARS! Mrs. Vitus was not happy, and it took some doing to convince her not to revoke my library privileges altogether.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

"Who is my Neighbor: Personalism and the Foundations of Human Rights," by Thomas Williams

Yikes, let me know how it turns out. I'm gonna assume that you're not interested in my list...

Plunder some booty.....LOL!!

You're lucky. I can't stand B&N in New York City. This used to be a town of small bookstores with very knowledgeable staff, albeit at full price.

B&N came, opened up big stores, and brutally underpriced the competition with discount books, running most of them out of business.

But the kicker was that after most competition disappeared, B&N's prices miraculously, almost instantaneously, went back up to full retail, with few exceptions. I'm frankly surprised they were never busted by anti-trust advocates in NY, because it seemed to me to be a textbook case of predatory pricing, which is illegal. Not to mention I'm pissed that I don't shop there anymore. Amazon.

Are B&N stores outside of NYC largely discounted books or largely retail?

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"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" - Benjamin Franklin
"Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here." - Alvy Singer, "Annie Hall"

Are B&N stores outside of NYC largely discounted books are largely retail?

Oh, don't kid yourself. The B&N here is likely identical to yours, these days. Of course, Spokane was probably never a town of small book stores like NY, so I gotta take what I can get.

Most of the store is full retail, I guess. They have a pretty good selection of the "classics" that are quite inexpensive- eight or nine bucks for hardback. On the other hand, a softback copy of "The Power and the Glory" cost 14 bucks, which seems kinda high. The cookbook, which feels like it has about a four and a half thousand pages, was on sale for half off, and the Chronicles of Narnia was 20% off. Most of the kids' books we bought were on sale, too- I guess they're clearing out a little after the holidays.

Funny you should mention Amazon. As we were driving over to B&N, I told Mrs. Vitus that it would be better for us if people gave us gift cards for Amazon, instead- I like to shop from their used books. Good deals.

On the other hand, I suppose Amazon is just as predatory as B&N or Borders, when it gets down to it, and besides, the kids like going to B&N- the grandmother takes them there when she visits, and makes a big event out of it to encourage them to love books.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Actually, I find that Amazon's prices on books are uniformly good, although not as good as they once were, but that's life.

Barnes & Noble actually started here as a book warehouse type operation. I used to love to come in with my parents years ago and peruse this enormous book building, basically, and pick out what I wanted, and have it all be very cheap. Then they started chaining out to grocery stores, but they still remained a discount bookseller. Then they closed the main store and went retail expansion, where they are now, selling mostly at retail. It disappoints me a bit.

Ironically, I went to school in Ann Arbor, where the original Borders was located. It was a great small store, with great staff. It was only after I left that it evolved into the behemoth it is today.

I think the only small stores we have left is one or two Shakespeare Books (the setting for When Harry Met Sally) and some very famous used bookstores (The Strand). It's nice living in a city that has such respect for reading, which I guess was one of the reasons I didn't like LA.

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"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security" - Benjamin Franklin
"Don't you see the rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes and I live here." - Alvy Singer, "Annie Hall"

Reading Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner in high school made me realize I was really born to be a Southerner.

nice post

Phillip Pullman - His Dark Materials

This trilogy scored in the top 10 of a recent BBC poll of favourite books. it was competing with Narnia, Harry Potter etc yet for some reason is not that well known.

it's a bit like Harry Potter but a little darker and more edgey

Barnes & Noble is a freakin great store