Recommend a book & win a prize!
 

Here's how it works:

Pick a book you love, (it has to be in print in the UK), and write a very short review for it (25 words maximum).

I'll put it in the recommends section in my bookshop. Whichever one sells the most copies in the space of a month is the winner.

The prize? A great deal of satisfaction because you've enriched people's lives.;)

Deadline: asap, I'll need to order the books in time to start on 1st May.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

A teen who keeps his whereabouts a secret, writes to a stranger. And tells us what it is to be a teen.

Ok. I'll think of a real prize.

crime and punishment which is the best murder story ever written.

i want a real prize too. maybe a free 7" (record)

Is that your review?

y
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s
s
o
t
h
e
r
e
.

25 words... hm... are you looking for fiction/non-fiction/poetry/cooking/anything in particular?

and: will you be displaying our reviews? if so-- will you correct the american spellings of "color" & such other words? heh. but no, im serious if you want just a reason why the book is good or a real mini-review ready for reading.

The Picture of Dorain Gray by Oscar Wilde

A masterpiece of late nineteenth century literature. A book that casts into sharp relief the excesses of modern life and one those who succumb to them.

26 words, counting articles

ha ha, i just realized how few just 25 words are... ha ha ha... sorry nevermind. i'll compose some lines like that hopefully today.

"Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas" by Hunter S. Thompson

Two guys travel to Las Vegas to find the heart of America. One realises that the 60's dream is dead, both get fucked up anyway.

harry potter & the latest mistery or whatever.

best seller! buy it before it's gone! the rest of the words we need here are meaningless!! one, two, three, four, five, six, seven!

----

^^ ha ha that would win based on sheer number of sales in spite of the crappy review. ive never read harry potter btw. this is a joke post.

BUT-- i'll think of some books.

Amulet, by Roberto Bolano.

Oh, I'll give you 25 words at a later time. Just trust me on this one.

HOUSE OF LEAVES - Mark Danielewski

How does a man and his family cope with the unthinkable? How does a book about a memoir about another book, written in experimental prose scare the crap out of me?

"The Bible", exact author unknown.

A bunch of fairly uninteresting crap happens, all allegedly "real". Everyone's a sinner, except this one guy who makes mean shelves. He dies, apparently.

Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5

I can't review it because I haven't finished it yet, but it'll sell well seeing as he just died and has been in the news.

hah, exactly 25 words!

'Drugs Are Nice' by Lisa Crystal Carver

One of my favorite books of all time is the best autobiography / memoir I ever read, 'Drugs Are Nice', by L.C. Carver. It puts all other lives to shame. She's been a rock star, a prostitute, a magazine editor- but besides that on the whole she's lived an amazingly interesting life and her retrospective writing on it is superb to the point that you almost feel like you are living with her. Features cameos from equally interesting folks such as Bill Callahan and Boyd Rice and GG Allin, all with whom she had 'relationships' with.

I can't reccomend it enough. I can't fathom how many middle-of-the-night revelations this book gave me about my own life. At least five. You'll not put it down from start to finish. It's special.

Thats not 25 words but you could cut it down.

pookie, it would help to know, what kind of bookstore is this and who are your customers? btw, is this YOUR bookshop, or do you just work in it? if it's your bookshop, i envy you in a good way-- i mean i have no ill will i just oh i would love to own a bookshop. if you just work there, ha ha, same thing. especially in one where you get to pick the selections.

Kangaroo Notebook- Kobo Abe

Man discovers radish sprouts growing out of his legs - drugged by a Sexy vampire nurse - rides hospital bed through the underworld - aborted babies etc. Horray!


I'm going to lose!

ok, here is one for the win. book cover by penguin; "review" a little over 25 words but potent, as you will see:



A young Alabama lawyer told Tocqueville in 1831, "There is no one here but carries arms under his clothes. At the slightest quarrel, knife or pistol comes to hand."

---------
if that doesn't sell a few copies this week i don't know what will, judging by the recent british perplexity at the lack of gun control in the us (i thought this was obvious for my choice of "review" but some people need explanatons).

naked lunch by william s. burroughs greatest work of fiction since the bible

Any time of book, as long as it's in print in the UK. Obviously I don't expect everybody to know if something's in print, but I'll just let you know.

And the reviews will be displayed. I'll correct any spelling, otherwise we'll get every other customer pointing out that lots of words are missing letters.;)


I wouldn't worry too much about the type of customer we have. The good thing about doing recommends is that you can forget your market for a while. It's just about trying to enthuse people. It's really surprising and satisfying to sell books that you wouldn't consider to be your market.

And I run two bookshops, but they're not mine.

By the way, some selections are going to have an advantage (at the moment: Naked Lunch, Crime & Punishment, Picture of Dorian Gray, Fear & Loathing, House of Leaves), because they sell well anyway. But I'll give more prominent space to the more unusual selections to make up for it!

i want daily reports and graphs/pie charts and predicted sales figures.

so would i really automatically win if i pick the latest harry potter, whatever that is?

or else... something like this!



wouldn't that cover alone sell millions? i think so!

but anyway...

actually i don't care for mass appeal (yuck), if i get just 1 person to buy "democracy in america" i'll be proud. maybe i'll change the review to something less opportunistic, but... it's sales after all!

might shoot you other reviews later. i'm thinking about what...

oh, and... sweet job you have! congratulations.

I have this book! And yes, it sells really well anyway.

Unusual books are good. So far, the only book out of the ones people have written reviews for that I won't be able to stock, is Kangaroo Notebook.

which book shop is it you work for?

Do you think I'm going to tell you that? So you can use your friends in the south (ie sonicl) to sabotage other people's reviews.

no no no. i was genuinely enquiring.

I had to sign the Official Secrets Act before he'd tell me.

(Although the identity of the bookshop that he works at wasn't actually the secret that he was aiming to keep me from exposing)

And the review?

I stopped eating meat after I read that one.

Option nr. 2



:rolleyes:

Baby massage books are very popular. We took our daughter to baby massage classes.

They say it works wonders.
I'm to afraid to read it, 'cause the photo's sound dodgy.

There's a very good method for releasing wind (bottom wind no less), which we always found handy. We will be telling her boyfriends about this when the time comes.

Review:

Why go around life following trite proverbs? Throw caution to the wind and JUDGE THIS BOOK BY ITS COVER! Our favorite Domestic Goddess won't disappoint.

James Herbert's The Rats: Classic '70s brit sleaze that was read by everyone when I was at school - mostly for the dirty bits (oh yes ... and the section where the rats eat the puppies!) Big with unemployed metalers, for some reason.

 

So which books have you decided on Pookie?

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Absolute classic piece about the rise and fall of communism on a farm.