"Great bookshops are..."

"Great bookshops are the heart of every literary culture, the chambers where life-giving material is exchanged and where writers and readers deposit and find their secrets. . . . The greatest bookshops set up a trade in books and passions, in the interplay of inquiring minds and the search for values. And so, the best bookshops in the world become centres of a way of life . . . because there is so little else around now that is like them. Independence is their creed but also their character: they seek to know what they are selling and to sell it with feeling."--Andrew O'Hagan describing "the perfect bookshop" in Britain's Guardian newspaper.

(This was emailed to us by a customer, who was kind enough to say that she "immediately thought of Durham's own great bookshop when I read it and wanted to pass it on.").

Is J.K. Rowling better than Milton, Shakespeare, William Gibson...?

Has J.K. Rowling lost her perspective on her Harry Potter creation? In a lawsuit heard in April (but yet to be decided at this writing) J.K. sued the author of a "Harry Potter Lexicon" for copyright infringement. The lexicon was to be a guide to the words peculiar to the Harry Potter books--words like Quidditch and Hogwarts. Lots of people took a dim view of Ms Rowling's lawsuit, including this most literary criticism from the Times of London, in an editorial entitled "J.K. Rowling may own Harry's world, but we own her words now."

"A generation has now grown up besotted (©Milton) with Quidditch and Hogwarts. However, it is not astonishing that J.K. Rowling is using a court case to remind the writers of a zany (©Shakespeare) Harry Potter lexicon, now making the jump from cyberspace (©William Gibson) to print, that it is not common property and she did invent it all. She may succeed in persuading the court that her copyright is violated by some parts of the proposed encyclopedia. Indeed, she may have a respectable commercial case, but not much of a cultural one. However, unless she employs a mole (©le Carré) to oversee our every conversation and written exchange, she should not try to suppress a collection of her invented words. For Voldemort, Muggles, Horcruxes and all Rowling's other serendipitous (©Walpole) coinages are ours now; it would be pig-headed (©Jonson) not to let us use them as we wish.

"English is so full of the neologisms of authors that if we had to credit each one, we would assassinate (©Shakespeare) our prose, and make readers chortle (©Carroll) mightily. Without being didactic (©Milton), Rowling can be assured that she is in good company in contributing words, gratis, to the language. The best she should hope for is that her words become as widely adopted as those of other authors. Perhaps the highest honour has been bestowed on the quark (©Joyce), used as the name for a sub-atomic particle. As there are quarks across the Universe, Joyce may be our most disseminated author. Rowling should be proud if Doxies, Thestrals or Butterbeer make it as far as a lexicon."

Playing defense for the First Amendment

These are not good times for those of us who support the first amendment. In the world of literature, a new low may have been reached in November 2006, the 50th anniversary of the publication of Alan Ginsberg's Howl. Howl, of course, was the subject of a famous 1950's court case that sought--and failed--to bar its distribution on the grounds of indecency. But fifty years later, WBAI, the long-time progressive New York public radio station, had to call off their plans to air an anniversary reading of Ginsberg's amazing poem. WBAI was afraid of incurring a financially devastating fine from the FCC for putting indecent material on the air. It's back to the future--in all the wrong ways.

And the puritans remain on the attack. The American Booksellers Foundation for Freedom of Expression (ABFFE) has alerted us to a couple of especially disturbing new laws. In Oregon, a new statute makes it a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail to allow a minor under 13 to view or purchase a “sexually explicit” work. The law does not include a requirement that a book or magazine be judged as a whole in determining whether it is illegal; such a test may exempt works that contain only a few sexually explicit images or passages. In addition, there is no exemption for material that has serious literary artistic, political or scientific value for minors.

And a new Indiana law requires any store that sells even a single "sexually explicit" book, magazine, video or recording to register with the state and pay a $250 license fee. "Sexually explicit" is defined so broadly that the law could apply to bookstores that sell mainstream novels and other artistic works with sexual content as well as educational books about sexuality and sexual health.

ABFEE has joined groups including publishers, individual bookstores in each state, and the ACLU in filing suits opposing these laws.

The Regulator is proud to be a "dues paying, card-carrying" member of ABFEE (the back of the card says "In case of First Amendment Emergency call" and gives two phone numbers), and money you spend here helps to fund our ABFEE contribution. For more information see www.abffe.com.

Not Our First Time...

You never know what you'll find when you google yourself. In order to see if this new blog of ours here at blogger would pop up on a google search I dutifully googled Regulator Bookshop. Strangely enough (probably not strange to those in the know re. how search engines work, but seemingly strange to one such as I who is way in the dark re. such complexities of modern life) this blog did not come up on the first two or three pages of hits. (Does anybody ever go beyond the 2nd or 3rd page of a search engine search?) But what did come up was an old blog of ours, which you can view here. I haven't had the chance to ask around amongst the staff to see who did that blog, but hopefully whoever did those posts back in September 2003 will be willing to write some over here at the new blog. We're still getting this going and so far I'm the only staff member blogging, but as time passes I know others will take turns putting their two cents in.
Looking at the old blog made me realize that I hadn't personally identified myself as the composer of our two previous posts. I'm most familiar with blogs that have one author, but here we will have multiple authors so we should each identify ourselves as we post. So, enough with the anonymity thing, my name is David Felton. I've been working at the shop since 1998. This year is my tenth here at The Regulator; how time flies when you're having fun. This week has been relatively quiet around here. We had Sarah Murray, author of MOVEABLE FEASTS, here last night, so if any of you missed her appearance and want to pick up a signed copy of her book just stop by and ask for one.
One of my favorite authors who calls Durham home, Haven Kimmel, stopped by the store last week and gave me an advance reader edition (AR for short in book biz lingo) of her forthcoming novel IODINE. Due out in August of this year IODINE is from the Simon & Schuster imprint Free Press. For a preview of the book check out what the Simon & Schuster website has to say here. Also new from Haven, and on shelves now, is her second book aimed at younger audiences (but well worth the time of all ages), KALINE KLATTERMASTER'S TREE HOUSE. For more on this title, also from Simon & Schuster, see here.
I'll wrap up this post now with a word of encouragement to any who read this to feel free to leave comments regarding what sorts of things you might want us to post about in the future, or anything else you have on your mind. Now is your chance to pick the brains of your friendly local booksellers. Thanks for stopping by, y'all come again.

Opened the doors in 1976. Beginning to blog in 2008.

Welcome to our brand new web log. We here at The Regulator Bookshop are starting this blog to give folks some more insight into the goings on here at the store.