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A continuation of last post...

3. 7th Anniversary of 9/11: Really, this whole country was affected, but not everyone was directly affected (didn't lose loved ones in the planes, twin towers, or Pentagon). This year, I decided to just say a little prayer to God for the continued strength of those who lost loved ones. I opted not to watch the shows that replay the images of that day. In the past, every time I watched the shows, my heart hurt. Listening to the frantic calls of the ones who didn't make it...seeing the towers fall...looking at the big hole in the Pentagon...learning that the passengers in United 93 decided to do something about the hijackers...I just didn't want to do it this year (watch the shows). The images are already forever etched into my brains. To me, it was the day America learned that she was not untouchable. I will NEVER forget that day - couldn't, even if I wanted to.

4. 12th Anniversary of Tupac's Death: Tomorrow, September 13th, will mark the 12th anniversary of Tupac's death. I felt it (in my heart) when I'd heard that he was gone, like, is this some kind of sick joke? He's not really dead...is he? And now, some magazine has listed Tupac as the most overrated person in music (link: http://news.yahoo.com/story//nm/20080903/music_nm/overrated_dc)! I mean, come on, really? I have to admit, I'd gotten tired of the "Tupac's really alive" comments that circled around since his death, BUT, to say he's overrated, in IMHO, is just plain...dumb. Pac is one of the best. His death didn't stop that. Now, he's not my all time favorite rapper (Nope, Jay Z has that title), but he is in my top 5. Overrated? I don't think so!

And last, but certainly not least,

5. Hurricane Ike: So, we're preparing for Hurricane Ike right now. It hasn't even made landfall yet, but Galveston is already having flooding issues. The waves have started crashing over the sea wall, built to protect Galveston from hurricanes. They've predicted that, after all is said and done, Galveston will be under water. I'm in Houston, which means we won't get the storm surge, but we will get the wind and rain (and, in some areas, the flooding). Thankfully, I don't live in an area that has bad flooding. We're just concerned with the wind and electricity going out. The reporters are comparing this hurricane with Hurricane Alicia, which devastated both Houston and Galveston in 1983. This is going to be weird for me. I've never been in a hurricane - always had the threat, like H. Rita - but never been in one. Hurricane Alicia hit here a year before we moved to Houston and Hurricane Rita skipped our area (although one of our windows blew out) and hit the areas about an hour or more away. My family's preparing, though. Got the food, batteries, gas, etc. The 'cane isn't set to hit 'til early tomorrow morning, but the sky's getting a little darker, and the wind is picking up on what would normally be a scorching, sunny day. My prayer is for all of us, especially those who have homes in Galveston. And, can you believe that there are still some people who refuse to leave? I'm not talking about people who can't leave. I'm talking about those who can leave, but are refusing to. Everyone (Galveston's mayor, reporters) is saying how imperative it is that they leave (even to the point of saying it's life or death) but they won't. I can't understand that. It's already flooding and Ike hasn't even hit yet. Those waves crashing above the sea wall? About 15 ft. Did I say that Ike hasn't even hit yet?

Galveston Seawall on a good day...see how far the water is?

Galveston Seawall today...15ft waves crashing against the wall.

Lots of fascinating book news in the world today... of which the below is but a tiny, arbitrarily selected portion.

AM New York has an article on a new Brooklyn bookstore I have not yet visited: Babbo's Books, a few blocks away from me in south Park Slope. Despite the article's incredulity about an indie bookstore opening and staying open, the shop seems to be doing well on a small scale, and proprietor Leonora Stein has ideas for making it better. A field trip seems in order!

In the indie-bookstore-makes-good category, a coalition led by ABA president Russ Lawrence of Chapter One Books has been influential in keeping Wal-Mart out of their Hamilton, Montana community. After watching the documentary The High Cost of Low Price I'm even more impressed by their efforts, especially since they admit not everyone in town was convinced Wal-Mart was a bad thing. But check out the Wal-Mart exec's explanation of the pullback for classic villain-retreating-while-proclaiming-victory...

Title Page TV is back with a new episode of their author interview podcast -- this one features David Hajdu's intriguing-looking comics history The Ten-Cent Plague, as well as Mary Roach's already much-loved sex science book Bonk and others. Not sure when I can sit for an hour to watch the whole thing (and now I have to go back and watch Episode 2 since Sloane Crosley AND Keith Gessen are reading at our store), but now that I'm down to just one job maybe I can actually take a lunch break...

Speaking of comics commentary, Matt Blind at ComicSnob.com has a very thoughtful post on an issue on the minds of many in the book industry: what's going to happen now that Borders is up for sale? He's done his research and has both some careful analysis and some "raw opinion", and his list of links at the bottom makes this a great place to go to get some insight on the matter.

For more thoughtful commentary, you can hear my bookstore coworker (and novelist) Cheryl Sucher on New Zealand radio here. Cheryl's married to a New Zealander and energetically involved with her adopted homeland, and she's got a great take on subjects as wide-ranging as our governor's recent indiscretions, the presidential race, and the most commonly stolen books at indie bookstores.

For a bit of laugh, check out the winners of the annual competition from British magazine The Bookseller of the "oddest title competition".

And if I can take a moment to love on something totally old and un-hip: this year marks the 100th anniversary of the first publication of Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. Margaret Atwood has a great reflection on the book's enduring popularity here. While I can see why some Canadians like George would feel a little eye-rolly about the whole Anne thing by now, I'll recommend not only the first book but the whole darn Anne series. I read those books straight through every summer from when I was about 11 to when I was 15 or 16, living through a whole life from orphan to beloved child to college girl to teacher to wife to mother, and even her children's adventures in World War I -- the last possible Anne story, it seemed to me, as the world just got too different after that, and uglier. I wrote a paper in high school defending Montgomery as a "literary novelist," though I'm not sure I would agree with that now -- as Atwood admits, the characters are mostly static, and the novels are more like fairy tales or romances than novels: the classic outsider who becomes the hero, wish fulfillment and fantasy. But, she adds,

This [wish fulfillment] is one of the reasons Anne of Green Gables has had such an ongoing life, but this in itself would hardly be enough: if Anne were nothing but a soufflé of happy thoughts and outcomes, the Annery would have collapsed long ago. The thing that distinguishes Anne from so many "girls' books" of the first half of the 20th century is its dark underside: this is what gives Anne its frenetic, sometimes quasi-hallucinatory energy, and what makes its heroine's idealism and indignation so poignantly convincing.

As one of those lonely, bookish kids, Anne opened up the world for me; gave me aspirations to virtue as well as self-creation. There were ugly things in the world, and difficult people, and things that you couldn't do anything about; but there was also deep friendship, and moments of beauty, and if you were lucky, as you got older, strings of happy ordinary days "like pearls slipping off a string." I can't quite do justice to the story; as with most things that influenced one strongly as a child, my feelings about it are strong but incoherent. But if you or some girl you know hasn't read the first book, pick it up with an open mind, and see if it doesn't have a kind of power, of imagination, and of the joys of ordinary life, and of old-fashioned unselfish love. Sure, it's a fairy tale -- but those are some of the most powerful stories we have.

Well! Happy Blogoversary to me! I know I've hit maximum overload when I plum forget that I've been at this here blog for the past 3 years. 234 posts later, Booktopia is still going strong!

So thanks to those of you who read this. Thanks to those who comment. And big thanks to those of you recommending titles.

“Is that Amy Lee from Evanescence?”

“That’s straight up Amy Lee from Evanescence, playing the guitar and singing about cartoons! What? Who? Where? What portal did we walk through this time?”

“It’s a LadyStar Video Alert! I got Talitha-chan to find us a fun video to put up so we could have a video alert like Acey-san!”

“Yeah it’s a LadyStar video alert. You savvy?”

“Ha! We’ve gone officially out of our own tree!”

“Heheheeee… see? We can do videos just like Gamepowa ’cause we got Talitha-chan and she’s super-smart about computers just like Acey-san!”

“That is just too cool for words. Rock on, Amy! Rock on, Professor! Rock on, LadyStar Video Alerts! We are OUT!”