Corner Bookstore • Winder, Georgia

On WIMO radio this morning, I ran through a list of 9/21 releases, including teen books – Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, I Am The Dog by Daniel Pinkwater, and Twelfth Grade Kills by Heather Brewer – usually more of the same in their current series(es) – A new stamp reference book from the postal service, and Miscellaneous other mentions on Children’s books.

I mentioned that store hours would be shortened for the rest of the week while I go the SIBA meeting in Daytona Beach.  We then discussed the value of  bookseller conventions to promote local authors and really good “regional-interest” books that otherwise might get ignored by the national publishing industry.  Remember names like Pat Conroy, Lewis Grizzard, Terry Kay – and more recently local folks like Clyde Bolton and Dana Wildsmith – that gain greater recognition because of these regional meetings.

One of the other benefits for the bookseller is the access to ARC’s.  An Advance Reader Copy (ARC) is the way publishers get new material in the hands of booksellers and media reviewers before the book is released.  When we get them, we generally read them and sometimes write reviews or comments to the publishers and authors.  ARCs might be passed along to libraries or other book industry people, but are NOT EVER supposed to be sold.  They may or may not be close to the final release version of the book and have no long-term collectible value.  One of the dark secrets of the book industry is that these ARCs show up on ebay and Amazon all the time.  The publishers and authors hate this and are greatly reducing the availability of ARCs to even honest, rule-following local folks like us.  The fast-buck shady operators have destroyed another collegial system among  literate professionals.

I will quit my rant and get back to business.  Clyde Bolton was at the Statham Library last week to sign his new book, Hadacol Days, a memoir of his teenage days in Statham.  Hadacol was a “tonic” or “patent medicine” a century or so ago.  North Georgia was dry, and good religious people that would never consider having a drink of  “demon alcohol” would take a daily tonic like Hadocol (12% alcohol) to feel better about things.  When Clyde was attending Statham high school during the first half of the 20th century, at least one of the school cheers mentioned Hadacol as a reason to feel good about the team and that prompted the title of his new book.

That’s it for now, more next week about the SIBA gathering.