Straight Outta London

Already hailed by the Sunday Times (London) as "one of the outstanding novels of the year," Zoe Heller's newest novel, The Believers, was released to an American audience last week. A follow-up to her acclaimed Notes on a Scandal, this novel again focuses on the frailties of the human character. In particular, as the title suggests, themes of faith and doubt are tested, leaving the novel's characters to question long held beliefs in marriage, family, religion, sobriety, love, morality, and life.

Heller was interviewed on NPR's Morning Edition this morning. If you missed it, you can listen to it here.

$1 BIKE!!!

Books On Wheels is heading back to New Orleans with thousands of free books and enough spare parts to repair dozens of bikes, but first we need to raise some money. One way we are doing this is raffling off a brand new Diamondback Della Cruz 1.0, a really cool cruiser that is ready to roll. Tickets are only $1, and we will be selling them everyday through March 29th. That night, we will have a fundraiser at New York Deli, at the end of which we will draw the winning ticket. This is a $275 bike, but could be yours for only $1. Or $10. Or $50. It just depends on how you want to play the odds. The important thing is that every dollar will go towards our trip to New Orleans. If you want to know why this trip is so important, you can talk with Shelley or Ward at the NY Deli fundraiser, or just read Books On Wheels' blog entries for March 2008 detailing the specifics of last year's trip.

Nathan the Intern's Last Blog!

Sorry it's late, but here's my last entry. Let's see what I can remember. I remember that at some point I organized some art books. I looked through photography. I shelved some African-American Studies. And then I had a lot of down time. I read some, mostly from this book about a supernatural detective. I listened to NPR a little. I learned that in the original book of Pinnocchio, Jiminy Cricket got squashed on page 9. At about 3, Ward let me go. Life is good.

Bukowski Flash!

All of the sudden we have so many used Charles Bukowski books! We can't even fit them all in one picture! We're talking about like 35 books, outta nowhere!

Hollywood!
Love is a Dog from Hell!
Pulp!
Screams from the Balcony!
Septuagenarian Stew!
Women!
selected letters!
etc! etc!

As always, we have select new editions of Bukowksi for sale as well. So come on by Chop Suey and check out both our New Books and our Beats section! (Hurry, before word of this windfall reaches the folks at New York Deli!)

That's Not Kosher

This is a menu from a new restaurant in our neighborhood.

I'm not sure about the legalities of making a "Friand" in France, but this is definitely the most illegal pastry in Richmond.

Typical French hot dog!

Nathan Blogs Again!

On his second to last day as an intern at Chop Suey Tuey, Nathan has these reflections:

Hey everybody! It's Nathan again, and I just realized that I forgot to tell you about what happened to me in Coppola's on Tuesday. I had just had a sailor sandwich, and I went down the steps to go to the bathroom. I closed the door to the tiny room behind me, and I figured I should lock it, just in case. A minute later, I turned around to open the door, and it wouldn't open. "Oh right," I said to myself, "the door's still locked." So I tried to unlock it, but the little thing on the doorknob wouldn't turn. I realized the severity of my situation. I called Chop Suey. Andrew picked up. "Hey, it's Nathan," I said. "I'm probably going to be late getting back to work."
"Why's that?" he asked.
"Because I'm locked in the bathroom at Coppola's."
He laughed at that. I probably stayed in the bathroom for about two more minutes before a guy with a key got me out.


Things are going really slow today. I've hardly had anything to do. I organized a bunch of books on art and photography, and shelved some African American Studies, but honestly I've mostly just been sitting around. There was this ten minute period where I watched a Triumph the Insult Comic Dog bit with Ward on Youtube. It was the one where he heckles all the guys at the Star Wars. It was pretty funny, even though I'd seen it before. All in all, I like this job. It's definitely laid-back, and I feel like I'm part of something important. That's all I can really ask for in a job.

Meet Nathan...Our Intern!

Nathan is a student at Trinity Episcopal School, and as part of his junior year he is required to work 30 hours at a business to gain a larger work/world experience. For some reason, he picked Chop Suey Books! While we do have access to the world wide internet, I'm not sure how much experience he'll pick up here. We'll see. For the next few days, we'll let Nathan tell us in his own words what working at Chop Suey Books has taught him:

Day 1: Ward started me organizing the upstairs. He told me not to work too fast. So I started straightening books, filling in the negative spaces on the shelves, etc. I've decided that Muddy Waters is probably the best old-school blues man I know. I've learned 2 things so far from organizing books. A: Bruce Lee actually wrote books on karate. Pretty sweet! B: Isaac Asimov wrote a LOT of books about robots. Things are pretty laid-back so far. I'm glad I chose this job.