— पांच हजार आठ सौ अट्ठानवे —
Not much to report on today . . . Shobhit and I had Diwali dinner leftovers (delicious, especially the
lentil karachis he made using the last of the dough) and watched three hours of television: two episodes of
The Diplomat on Netflix and one episode of
Slow Horses on Apple TV.
After watching just the first episode of
The Diplomat and having chai, we decided to walk over to
Twice Sold Tales. We both had something to look for there: Shobhit wants to buy a copy of Larry Shue's play
The Foreigner, which Shobhit has been offered the lead part in at the State Theater (Harlequin Productions) in Olympia, with performances in March; and I was hoping to find a used copy of Frank Herbert's
Chapterhouse: Dune, the sixth in his
Dune series, which I am currently reading from the library but is already two weeks overdue. The most frustrating thing about this is that the last book,
Heretics of Dune, has several copies at the library which allowed it to auto-renew
twice and give me plenty of time to finish it. This one, for some reason, they have only
one copy of; there are seven holds on it; and when others have holds on a book they won't allow check-out renewals. So basically my account will be suspended soon, and if I don't return it within a month of its due date they'll charge me the value of the book. I don't think I'm going to get it finished in that time.
I don't go to Twice Sold Tales often, but I always enjoy it when I do. They're very well-known locally, and there was a great deal of sadness when the construction of the Capitol Hill Light Rail Station meant their original location would be redeveloped. Within relatively short order, though, they relocated to the corner of Denny & Harvard, just one block off of Broadway. That was several years ago and it makes me happy to see them still going. I don't know that they're still going
strong, but, they're still going.
They're still very well known for their cats. I could swear I've been there in the past when they had only one or two. I was surprised by how many were there last night. They seemed to be all over the place. I asked the older guy running the place how many cats they have, and he gestuered to a large poster on the wall right in front of my face:
Meet Our Cats. Basically a giant infographic, about each of their
six cats.
Anyway, they didn't have the book I needed, or the play Shobhit was looking for. They did have two
other Dune books, and a few other Frank Herbert novels, but not
Chapterhouse: Dune.
— पांच हजार आठ सौ अट्ठानवे —
— पांच हजार आठ सौ अट्ठानवे —
I don't think about this often, but by today's standards, it's pretty fantastic that Capitol Hill has two full-sized book stores—one that sells books new, and one that sells them used. There used to be even more, ages ago (including gay book stores, like Bailey/Coy Books, which used to be on Broadway). There are no longer any bookstores on Broadway, but there are two that are close: Twice Sold Tales, and the one I suggested we go to on the way back home just to see what we could find:
Elliott Bay Book Company. That one had originally been an anchor business in Pioneer Square, where it had been since 1973; they moved to Capitol Hill in 2010. I'm really glad they did, given the loss of other bookstores on Capitol Hill (Bailey/Coy, for example, closed in 2009; to a degree, though not a queer bookstore, Elliott Bay filled the void).
Not even Elliott Bay Books had Shobhit's play. They did have the option of special ordering it for him, which he did not do. At least not yet. They
did have
Chapterhouse: Dune, but as I expected, it was too expensive to be worth it: a paperback for $18. I checked Amazon and people were selling used copies of it for over fifty bucks! That's insanity. The compromise I may have to go for is paying ten bucks for an ebook to read on my Kindle reader. It may be my only viable option if I want to finish the book. And I do! This is the greatest series of novels I have ever read, and it makes Harry Potter look like toddler fiction.
By the way, there actually are still other retail bookstores on Capitol Hill—just none at the same scale, with the kind of inventory, as Elliott Bay Books or Twice Sold Tales. The closest would be
Ada's Technical Books and Cafe on 15th. It's much smaller, though, located in basically a small house.
Anyway we walked back home, had our dinner, and watched
Slow Horses and then I washed the many dishes before we watched one more episode of
The Diplomat—which I am really riveted by—and then I went to bed.
— पांच हजार आठ सौ अट्ठानवे —
[posted 12:31pm]
