Gail Carriger, RETICENCE (Orbit, Hardcover, $26.00) Tuesday, August 6th at 6:00 pm
Michael Blumlein, LONGER (Tor.com, Trade Paperback, $15.99) and Paul Park, A CITY MADE OF WORDS (PM Press, Trade Paperback, $14.00) Saturday, August 10th at 3:00 pm
Writers With Drinks (at the Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd Street, San Francisco) with authors Lynn Breedlove, Sarah Rose Etter, Vanessa Hua, Seth Katz, Brandon Melendez, and Namwali Serpell, hosted by Charlie Jane Anders! Saturday, August 10th at 7:30 pm
CANCELLED - Seanan McGuire, THE UNKINDEST TIDE (DAW, Hardcover, $26.00) Saturday, September 7th at 5:00 pm
Fonda Lee, JADE WAR (Orbit, Hardcover, $26.00) in conversation with Megan E. O'Keefe, VELOCITY WEAPON (Orbit, Trade Paperback, $15.99) Saturday, September 14th at 3:00 pm
Chad Stroup, SEXY LEPER (Bizarro Pulp Press, Trade Paperback, $13.99) Sunday, September 15th at 3:00 pm
SF in SF (at the American Bookbinders' Museum, 355 Clementina Street, San Francisco) with authors Mike Chen and Hannu Rajaniemi, hosted by Terry Bisson, Sunday, September 15th at 6:30 pm
Dana Fredsti and David Fitzgerald, SHATTER WAR (Titan, Trade Paperback, $14.95) Saturday, September 28th at 3:00 pm
Annalee Newitz, THE FUTURE OF ANOTHER TIMELINE (Tor, Hardcover, $26.99) Sunday, September 29th at 3:00 pm
August 07, 2019
August Building Update
by Alan Beatts
Last month I mentioned that I was going to be meeting with a specialist contractor about removing the flooring in the new store. The flooring itself isn't a problem, but the tile and adhesive on it is. Both contain asbestos, as is pretty typical for old tile. Though one solution would be to simply cover it up with a new floor, I don't really want to go that route for a couple of reasons. First off, adding a layer to the existing floor will (obviously) raise the height. That increased height becomes a problem because we need to meet the sidewalk outside the shop without too much of a slope because of accessibility requirements. At the current floor height we can just make it without having to build a ramp and add a handrail. If we add even 3/4", I don't think we can manage it.
Secondly, asbestos is not very nice stuff. There aren't a whole lot of construction materials that give me the creeps but asbestos is one of them. If we don't take the floor out now, there's never going to be a good time to do it. On top of that, any time we need to work on the floor in the future (like drill a hole through it for an electrical line or some speaker wiring) we'll have to deal with the asbestos risk.
The estimate to remove the floor is around $9000. Adding the cost of a new, lovely fir floor (much like what we have in the current store), the total is probably going to be around $20,000. That's a steep price-tag but I think I'm going to do it. The floor is probably the absolutely hardest thing to replace after we open and so I feel like getting a truly permanent job done is in our best interests. The schedule for that job is a bit up in the air since I need to figure out how it'll fit with the other work we're doing. I expect that it will happen after we have the bathroom framed and the light well closed up. Having those two jobs done will make the asbestos removal easier and it will also make it much simpler to clear everything out of the place (because we can store a bunch of the stuff inside the bathroom rather than moving it to the back yard).
Speaking of the bathroom, last weekend we got a huge amount of work done on the framing. Almost all the walls are in place (and they all fit properly, thank goodness) and I'll be working on the final touches all this week.
Also on the bathroom topic, my meeting with our plumber, Brian Fusco, went really well. He's a total pro and I'm looking forward to working with him. He also gets our goal of really making sure that everything is in solid shape from the outset, even if it'll cost a little more. So, it's looking like we'll have, for the first time ever, a shop with a completely top-notch electrical and plumbing system. Oh, and a roof that doesn't leak. I'm not sure that, after the past 20 years, I'll know what to make of that.
Before you ask, sorry, but still no opening date. There are still too many moving parts for anything I say to be better than a wild-ass-guess.
Last month I mentioned that I was going to be meeting with a specialist contractor about removing the flooring in the new store. The flooring itself isn't a problem, but the tile and adhesive on it is. Both contain asbestos, as is pretty typical for old tile. Though one solution would be to simply cover it up with a new floor, I don't really want to go that route for a couple of reasons. First off, adding a layer to the existing floor will (obviously) raise the height. That increased height becomes a problem because we need to meet the sidewalk outside the shop without too much of a slope because of accessibility requirements. At the current floor height we can just make it without having to build a ramp and add a handrail. If we add even 3/4", I don't think we can manage it.
Secondly, asbestos is not very nice stuff. There aren't a whole lot of construction materials that give me the creeps but asbestos is one of them. If we don't take the floor out now, there's never going to be a good time to do it. On top of that, any time we need to work on the floor in the future (like drill a hole through it for an electrical line or some speaker wiring) we'll have to deal with the asbestos risk.
The estimate to remove the floor is around $9000. Adding the cost of a new, lovely fir floor (much like what we have in the current store), the total is probably going to be around $20,000. That's a steep price-tag but I think I'm going to do it. The floor is probably the absolutely hardest thing to replace after we open and so I feel like getting a truly permanent job done is in our best interests. The schedule for that job is a bit up in the air since I need to figure out how it'll fit with the other work we're doing. I expect that it will happen after we have the bathroom framed and the light well closed up. Having those two jobs done will make the asbestos removal easier and it will also make it much simpler to clear everything out of the place (because we can store a bunch of the stuff inside the bathroom rather than moving it to the back yard).
Speaking of the bathroom, last weekend we got a huge amount of work done on the framing. Almost all the walls are in place (and they all fit properly, thank goodness) and I'll be working on the final touches all this week.
Also on the bathroom topic, my meeting with our plumber, Brian Fusco, went really well. He's a total pro and I'm looking forward to working with him. He also gets our goal of really making sure that everything is in solid shape from the outset, even if it'll cost a little more. So, it's looking like we'll have, for the first time ever, a shop with a completely top-notch electrical and plumbing system. Oh, and a roof that doesn't leak. I'm not sure that, after the past 20 years, I'll know what to make of that.
Before you ask, sorry, but still no opening date. There are still too many moving parts for anything I say to be better than a wild-ass-guess.
July Bestsellers
Hardcovers
1. Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
2. Fall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson
A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay
3. Exhalation by Ted Chiang
4. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
5. The Grand Dark by Richard Kadrey
6. The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
7. Atmosphaera Incognita by Neal Stephenson
8. Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
9. The Knife by Jo Nesbo
10. Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
Trade Paperbacks
1. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
2. The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, translated by Ken Liu
3. Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe
4. The Power by Naomi Alderman
5. A People's Future of the United States edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams
6. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
7. Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky
8. All Systems Red by Martha Wells
9. The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin
10. Hexarchate Stories by Yoon Ha Lee
Mass Market Paperbacks
1. Dune by Frank Herbert
2. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
3. Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
4. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
5. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
6. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
7. Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
8. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
9. Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
10. Neuromancer by William Gibson
1. Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey
2. Fall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal Stephenson
A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay
3. Exhalation by Ted Chiang
4. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
5. The Grand Dark by Richard Kadrey
6. The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders
7. Atmosphaera Incognita by Neal Stephenson
8. Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter
9. The Knife by Jo Nesbo
10. Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
Trade Paperbacks
1. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
2. The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin, translated by Ken Liu
3. Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe
4. The Power by Naomi Alderman
5. A People's Future of the United States edited by Victor LaValle and John Joseph Adams
6. All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
7. Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky
8. All Systems Red by Martha Wells
9. The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin
10. Hexarchate Stories by Yoon Ha Lee
Mass Market Paperbacks
1. Dune by Frank Herbert
2. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
3. Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
4. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
5. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
6. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
7. Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
8. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
9. Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch
10. Neuromancer by William Gibson
August News
* Overheard in the Bookstore:
"I'm sorry, but you need to leave RIGHT NOW, because you're not actually wearing pants."
"He looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, as possessed by the spirit of Ernest Hemingway."
"She's a library."
"She works in a library?"
"No, she IS a library."
"What is the duck for?"
"I think it's just a Breast Cancer Awareness duck."
"You _can't_ just go to the bathroom at Jurassic Park in the rain."
"Schadenfreude isn't just a river in Egypt."
"Right. [pause] Wait; what?"
"It's the best pop-culture writing of the last 30 years -- it's got a zombie ska band!"
"Tom Waits is mid-life crisis music for goths."
* A decent article about the creative things San Francisco comic stores have done to survive, with a dire headline: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/SF-comic-book-sellers-hang-on-hoping-each-laugh-14092674.php
* Speaking of doing creative things to survive. . . Probably because we had just announced that we were closing the Cafe and people were understandably distracted, a bunch of folks missed this link when we first posted it. Freethink Media created an awesome video on Borderlands' and Mission Comics and Arts' respective sponsorship programs and our survival models for unconventional retail! Watch it (among other excellent reasons) to see Alan looking Very Serious Indeed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=mQD1y2yORPQ
* A really lovely post by Jud Meyers (of North Hollywood's Blast Off Comics, which sadly closed at the end of July) about the rewards of being able to give the gift of books (and comic books), and secondarily about why there were never any posters obscuring Blast Off's windows: http://www.blastoffcomics.com/2019/07/four-letter-words/
* Beloved author James A. Moore could use some financial help for medical expenses, if you can assist: https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-help-author-james-a-moore
"I'm sorry, but you need to leave RIGHT NOW, because you're not actually wearing pants."
"He looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger, as possessed by the spirit of Ernest Hemingway."
"She's a library."
"She works in a library?"
"No, she IS a library."
"What is the duck for?"
"I think it's just a Breast Cancer Awareness duck."
"You _can't_ just go to the bathroom at Jurassic Park in the rain."
"Schadenfreude isn't just a river in Egypt."
"Right. [pause] Wait; what?"
"It's the best pop-culture writing of the last 30 years -- it's got a zombie ska band!"
"Tom Waits is mid-life crisis music for goths."
* A decent article about the creative things San Francisco comic stores have done to survive, with a dire headline: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/SF-comic-book-sellers-hang-on-hoping-each-laugh-14092674.php
* Speaking of doing creative things to survive. . . Probably because we had just announced that we were closing the Cafe and people were understandably distracted, a bunch of folks missed this link when we first posted it. Freethink Media created an awesome video on Borderlands' and Mission Comics and Arts' respective sponsorship programs and our survival models for unconventional retail! Watch it (among other excellent reasons) to see Alan looking Very Serious Indeed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=mQD1y2yORPQ
* A really lovely post by Jud Meyers (of North Hollywood's Blast Off Comics, which sadly closed at the end of July) about the rewards of being able to give the gift of books (and comic books), and secondarily about why there were never any posters obscuring Blast Off's windows: http://www.blastoffcomics.com/2019/07/four-letter-words/
* Beloved author James A. Moore could use some financial help for medical expenses, if you can assist: https://www.gofundme.com/f/please-help-author-james-a-moore
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