Percy Jackson, my new favorite thing.

Having seen the trailer for Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Lightning Thief and listened to the kids behind me talk about how much they enjoyed the books, I decided to take the plunge. I hadn't read them before since they hit when I was either in college or just starting out in bookselling and was so overwhelmed that I didn't have time for them. Being the good book buyer that I am, and by my compulsion to be knowledgeable about the things that I am ordering and also recommending, I jumped in. All I can say is WOW. Seriously, if you have a brain in your head and a funny bone in your body, you will laugh and laugh hard. Rick Riordan has taken what can be stodgy and imperialistic and made it modern and smart. His characters are full of heart without being fake, his plots are well thought out with loose ends tied up for the most part (but not always the way the reader expects which is nice), and his treatment of the various Greek myths and Gods/Goddesses is thought-provoking and hysterical. His characterizations of each of the Gods/Goddesses is spot on with plenty of "in" jokes for those in the know. The best part is that even if you have a working knowledge of Greek myths, you still want to go back and rediscover the stories that he is referring to (I've also seen this first hand with many of his younger readers; we usually stock classic mythology texts very close to the Percy Jackson books because of the constant need for them) just to find all the nuances and allusions. I mean, whoever thought to describe Poseidon as sporting cutoffs, Tommy Bahama hawaiian shirts, flipflops, and week-old stubble? It works, but isn't necessary dignified for a major player in the myths. But it makes him, as well as the rest of the Gods/Goddesses, accessible for the young reader and hilarious for the older ones. I'm so pumped about getting back into Greek myths that I am even considering picking up Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series (recommended by a sales rep friend who shall remain nameless so as to protect her guilty pleasure . . . you know who you are!) which also plays on the different myths, but with a vastly different effect. I just don't know how to explain those titles to my husband while they are laying around. Dark Lover, etc. Hmmm.

Julie/Julia and the impact of a book

So, what they don't tell you about being the parent of young children is that you will only see the movies you want if you rent them (and usually only get to watch them if said children are gone, and in my case, the husband too!) which is how I ended up watching Julie & Julia this morning to my delight. Very cute and Meryl Streep is delightful as Julia Child. The thing that struck me the most, and I must admit that I haven't read either book that the movie was based on (Julie Powell's or the bio on Julia Child) so I don't know any hard facts, was the way that Streep played Julia Child -- she was so full of joy that she looked like she was going to burst. How many people do you ever see that are so full of joy like that? And that joy was something that translated to those around her via her cookbook or her show. People could intrinsically sense that she loved what she was doing and wanted you to love it too. That "joy through osmosis" from her cookbook was able to help Powell through a rough patch in her life, like many books are able to do. Isn't that why we (the "lifers") are in the book business, either on the writing side, the publishing side, or the bookselling side? We believe that books are life changing -- they have the power to affect people's lives in a profound way. As a bookseller and a book buyer, you dream (at least I do at times) of being able to be find the right perfect book that a person is looking for at just the right time. I get excited at the start of every publishing season because of all of the things that are coming, and the possibilities for each. The impact doesn't have to be huge, it could just be a few minutes of blissful escapism, or it can be something so shattering as Randy Pausch's Last Lecture has been for millions of people. But each one has the possibility for that kind of change, and that is an amazing thing.