Just in Wellington for the day. While there, I was able to squeeze in a visit to the new Borders and acquire a copy of Charles Stross' The Atrocity Archive, which I have been seeking for some time.
Normal bloggage will resume when I've had a chance to find out what's been going on in the world.
What does it say about my life that I need a blogger from Palmerston North to tell me there's a new bookshop in my own damn city? Ughh!
ReplyDeleteThat you don't get into town enough, and skim the advertorial-style stories in the Dom-Post?
ReplyDeleteIt's actually quite good, at least as far as the SF collection goes. Not as highbrow as Dymocks, or as trash-focused as Whitcoulls, but the fact I was able to find The Atrocity Archive there where I hadn't found it anywhere else was good. I'll be back... sometime.
I was impressed with the literature section - I found a copy of Turgenev's Sketches from a Hunter's Album which I had been looking for for yonks. However the history and politics sections didn't seem as good as Dymocks and Unity.
ReplyDelete"Not as highbrow as Dymocks"...
ReplyDeleteYou are from Palmerston North, aren't you??
123: I am talking about the SF section. I used to live in Wellington, and become intimitely familiar with the SF sections of its better bookshops; Dymocks was where I first encounted authors such as Ken MacLeod, China Mieville and Alastair Reynolds; they stocked Ted Chiang, Max Barry, and various other authors I associate with the highbrow end of the market (I'd add Michael Marshall Smith, but he was actualyl in Whitcoulls - in the "literature" section because they didn't want to admit it was SF).
ReplyDeleteUnity also does experimental SF, but it is literally a niche market for them, and they don't have the range. Wheras Whitcoulls does your basic everyday Macaffrey / Pratchett / fat fantasy / vampire porn.
(Bizzy Bee's import section is also good, but has too much Baen and military SF. OTOH they're good if you're looking for second-hand classics to round out your collection)
Two questions:
ReplyDeleteDoes Borders have a good politics section?
Have you read The Baubles of Office: The New Zealand General Election of 2005? You should do as you are even noteworthy enough to be in the index!! It has a good chapter on blogging in the 2005 election campaign.