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geekwayne's review against another edition
4.0
A wonderful anthology of sf and horror stories all about bookstores. There is something here for anyone who enjoys treasure hunting in the stacks of bookstores.
With an introduction by Neil Gaiman, and stories from the likes of Gene Wolfe, Ramsey Campbell, Charles de Lint, and Jack Williamson (among others). There is something here for just about anyone. Particular favorites were the one about the demon stuck in a chain bookstore, and the one about the owner of a burned bookstore in Nazi Germany. There are bookstores that appear when they wish to be found, bookstores that offer danger or protection, and books that seek out particular owners. And, of course, there are cats.
As independent bookstores become more rare, stories that celebrate them and infuse them, and the joy of reading, with magic are especially welcome, and this anthology will have you in the mood to find the local stores in your area. Definitely recommended.
With an introduction by Neil Gaiman, and stories from the likes of Gene Wolfe, Ramsey Campbell, Charles de Lint, and Jack Williamson (among others). There is something here for just about anyone. Particular favorites were the one about the demon stuck in a chain bookstore, and the one about the owner of a burned bookstore in Nazi Germany. There are bookstores that appear when they wish to be found, bookstores that offer danger or protection, and books that seek out particular owners. And, of course, there are cats.
As independent bookstores become more rare, stories that celebrate them and infuse them, and the joy of reading, with magic are especially welcome, and this anthology will have you in the mood to find the local stores in your area. Definitely recommended.
montigneyrules's review
slow-paced
1.0
#readingchallenge2023 (my extra books!)
not a single interesting story. not much else to say.
not a single interesting story. not much else to say.
old_tim's review
4.0
For many readers a trip to an old fashioned bookstore is an opportunity to indulge in certain childhood fantasies. It is an opportunity to enter a world of wonder and opportunity, to find that book you’ve been searching for, or the one that you never knew that you desperately needed.
Shelf Life manages to capture that feeling. Originally published in 2002, it contains 15 short stories focusing on books and wondrous bookstores. Like a good collection of fairy tales, the stories themselves are sometimes comforting and sometimes dark and scary. Ketter has collected tales from top grade talent, including Gene Wolfe, Ramsey Campbell, Charles de Lint, and Harlan Ellison.
As with an anthology, you may find that some stories resonate with you more strongly than others. Personally, I felt that the weaker stories were entertaining at worst, and the best stories seem to have stayed with me.
Shelf Life manages to capture that feeling. Originally published in 2002, it contains 15 short stories focusing on books and wondrous bookstores. Like a good collection of fairy tales, the stories themselves are sometimes comforting and sometimes dark and scary. Ketter has collected tales from top grade talent, including Gene Wolfe, Ramsey Campbell, Charles de Lint, and Harlan Ellison.
As with an anthology, you may find that some stories resonate with you more strongly than others. Personally, I felt that the weaker stories were entertaining at worst, and the best stories seem to have stayed with me.
noramjenkins's review
4.0
It is nice to find others as captivated with bookstores as I am—particularly used bookstores, which are all slightly magical.
groundedwanderlust's review against another edition
4.0
Most anthologies, with a few rare exceptions, consist of a group of mid-level stories periodically punctuated by a gem of great writing. This anthology was one of the rare exceptions. However, this was not apparent to me at first and I sometimes forgot that it was exceptional as I read. This was due to the numerous spelling and grammar mistakes I found throughout the various stories/forward/introduction, the most glaring of which was the repeated misspelling of J.R.R. Tolkien's last name in One Copy Only by Ramsey Campbell (he spelled it Tolkein). All in all, this is an excellent anthology. In the end, I loved most of the stories but I was sad that the book ended on such a low note. The best way to describe the stories is; when they were good, they were excellent, when they were bad, they were horrendous. There were no middle-of-the-road stories.
~From The Cradle by Gene Wolf
I did not like this story at all. I found it tedious to read, hard to follow, and ultimately uninteresting as a whole.
~A Book, By Its Cover by P.D. Cacek
This was an interesting story but I did not like the how the premise was portrayed and I therefore ended up not liking the story as a whole.
~The Hemingway Kittens by A.R. Morlan
The first of my favorite stories from this anthology, The Hemingway Kittens was very interesting and well put together. Rik was horrendous, but his character worked in this story. Plus, books and kittens, what's not to love?
~Lost Books by John J. Miller
This story was the second of my favorite stories. I love the premise; history meeting the present in such a seamless poetic way. The characters seem so real to me, almost as if I had met them in real life. This story alone is almost enough reason for me to buy this book.
~One Copy Only by Ramsey Campbell
Glaring spelling mistakes aside (Tolkein, really? Come on!), this was a curious story that caught my attention with the first paragraph and did not let go until the last. I really liked it!
~Pixel Pixies by Charles de Lint
This story was made up of an interesting premise, likeable and relatable characters, and excellent writing! One of the best stories in the anthology.
~Blind Stamped by Lisa Morton
I liked this story. There were some confusing elements that were never really fleshed out, but the overall story came out well.
~Shakespeare & CO. by Jack Williamson
This story started out good and was very interesting. However, the ending was very abrupt and felt rushed. This idea might have been better served as a full fledged novel instead of a short story in an anthology.
~Ballard's Books by Gerard Houarner
Even though the initial idea of this story was engaging, I did not like how the story was staged. This, coupled with my dislike of the main character, caused me to heartily dislike this story.
~Books by David Bischoff
This story was just alright. The writing was good, but the story was not very interesting and the main character was a jerk.
~Escapes by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
I really loved this story! Some parts were confusing or a little on the darker side as stories go, but it was beautifully written and staged.
~"I Am Looking For A Book..." by Patrick Weekes
I could not even force myself to read this whole story. I thought it mind-numbing.
~The Glutton by Melanie Tem
This story, like "I Am Looking For A Book...", was extremely boring.
~In The Bookshadow by Marianne de Pierres
I did not finish this story either. Even reading the first paragraph was like watching paint dry.
~Non-Returnable by Rick Hautala
This story started with an interesting idea but got more and more confusing as it went on.
~The Cheese Stands Alone by Harlan Ellison
It took me a long time to finish reading this story because I kept losing interest in it.
~From The Cradle by Gene Wolf
I did not like this story at all. I found it tedious to read, hard to follow, and ultimately uninteresting as a whole.
~A Book, By Its Cover by P.D. Cacek
This was an interesting story but I did not like the how the premise was portrayed and I therefore ended up not liking the story as a whole.
~The Hemingway Kittens by A.R. Morlan
The first of my favorite stories from this anthology, The Hemingway Kittens was very interesting and well put together. Rik was horrendous, but his character worked in this story. Plus, books and kittens, what's not to love?
~Lost Books by John J. Miller
This story was the second of my favorite stories. I love the premise; history meeting the present in such a seamless poetic way. The characters seem so real to me, almost as if I had met them in real life. This story alone is almost enough reason for me to buy this book.
~One Copy Only by Ramsey Campbell
Glaring spelling mistakes aside (Tolkein, really? Come on!), this was a curious story that caught my attention with the first paragraph and did not let go until the last. I really liked it!
~Pixel Pixies by Charles de Lint
This story was made up of an interesting premise, likeable and relatable characters, and excellent writing! One of the best stories in the anthology.
~Blind Stamped by Lisa Morton
I liked this story. There were some confusing elements that were never really fleshed out, but the overall story came out well.
~Shakespeare & CO. by Jack Williamson
This story started out good and was very interesting. However, the ending was very abrupt and felt rushed. This idea might have been better served as a full fledged novel instead of a short story in an anthology.
~Ballard's Books by Gerard Houarner
Even though the initial idea of this story was engaging, I did not like how the story was staged. This, coupled with my dislike of the main character, caused me to heartily dislike this story.
~Books by David Bischoff
This story was just alright. The writing was good, but the story was not very interesting and the main character was a jerk.
~Escapes by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
I really loved this story! Some parts were confusing or a little on the darker side as stories go, but it was beautifully written and staged.
~"I Am Looking For A Book..." by Patrick Weekes
I could not even force myself to read this whole story. I thought it mind-numbing.
~The Glutton by Melanie Tem
This story, like "I Am Looking For A Book...", was extremely boring.
~In The Bookshadow by Marianne de Pierres
I did not finish this story either. Even reading the first paragraph was like watching paint dry.
~Non-Returnable by Rick Hautala
This story started with an interesting idea but got more and more confusing as it went on.
~The Cheese Stands Alone by Harlan Ellison
It took me a long time to finish reading this story because I kept losing interest in it.
wealhtheow's review
3.0
A collection of short sf/f/horror stories about bookstores. There is already a glut of tales about magical bookstores with wise old booksellers who always know exactly what book to give each customer, and this collection has a bunch of those sorts of trite tales. But it also has a few interesting and weird takes on the subject.
"From the Cradle," Gene Wolfe: Michael is obsessed with an old and priceless book kept in his bookshop, which contains a new allegorical tale precisely tailored to him every time he opens it to a new page. I didn't liked the allegories, and I didn't much like Michael.
"A Book, By its Cover," PD Cacek: an old bookseller saves Jews in Germany in 1938by turning them into books .
"The Hemingway Kittens" by AR Morlan: Two adorable kittens with hand-like paws start living in a bookstore. The bookseller begins to suspect that they're reading the books at night. I really hated this because it's far too long for such a simple idea, and because there is no possible way on earth thata geneticist would decide to leave gene modded animals of this kind with a random bookstore. If you want to teach kittens to read, teach them in a monitored, controlled environment! It's not like the geneticist needed to hide his work, either--after the kittens teach themselves to read at the bookstore, he takes them back to the lab and writes papers about them. I bet the papers are pretty crappy, though, given that he's missing data on several months' development of his only two test subjects! So bothersome.
"Lost Books" by John Miller: A fantasy author (who wrote just one book) suffered terrible tragedy, roams the US, and then starts working at a used book store. There, he falls in love once more, but also begins to suspect that the store's proprietor is more than what he seems. This story bothered me, both because every damn character tells the main character how much they luuuuuved his one book (a random example from small talk between two people who don't know each other: "'The prose is cool and evocative, the characters are great. And the story!'" Sounds totally natural and realistic!) and because the idea ofatoning for letting the Library of Alexandria burn by opening up a bookstore completely misses the fact that there's a very large difference between a library and a bookstore. Providing books for a fee is not the same as providing books for free, and it's stupid to pretend that they're equally helpful to people.
"One Copy Only" by Ramsay Campbell: A judge finds a used bookstore in which unwritten stories can be read. She finds a great book by an author who writes grimdark fantasy doorstoppers nowadays, but the author denies ever writing it. The dialog felt unnatural. And for all the narrator's supposed problem with cycnical characters and gloomy endings, she's really unpleasant about other people: describing one man as having "a senile pony-tail", decries her supposed fave author because he has a weak chin and isn't as tall as his characters, etc. The author who writes the grimdark fantasy doorstoppers also drives a brand new Jaguar, which I find rather unlikely.
"Pixel Pixies" by Charles de Lint: A hobgoblin tries to save a bookstore from an infestation of pixies. Cute, though no substance to it.
"Blind Stampbed" by Lisa Morton: A bookseller finds out that his favorite customer has died and is now haunting the bookstore. A nice mix of creepy and sweet.
"Shakespeare & Co." by Jack Williamson: In the far future, the written word has been nearly stamped out. A boy's pawnbroker grandfather secretly supplies books to his family--and to the rebellion. I was pleased to find a sf story in here, but the revolution is summed up very rapidly and vaguely, which left me unsatisfied.
"Ballard's Books" by Gerard Houarner: Haunted by a conversation he overhears about a magical bookstore as a child, a man spends his entire life searching for it. When at last he finds it,he is kicked out almost immediately for trying to write inside his own biography . The main character is a selfish dimwit, and I had no patience with him. I liked finding a magical bookstore that, for once, was not good or evil.
"Books" by David Bischoff: An upleasant software developer kills some time in a bookstore that is clearly magical to the reader. He doesn't intend to read any of the books, but he does plan on selling the mint condition first editions he finds there. Turns out, he's dead and this is his afterlife. What the hell kind of afterlife is a bookstore? Why not a library, since all the patrons just sit around reading anyway and can never leave?
"Escapes" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman: A young woman starts working in a magical bookstore. Its magic is her only protection against the creepy abusive boyfriend she's trying to leave. Good. I particularly liked that the other employees didn't immediately trust or like the main character--it made the story feel more natural, and the main character even more sympathetic.
"'I am looking for a book...'" by Patrick Weekes: Gorhok the Inmitigable searches for the book of power he needs to complete his dark and unholy ritual. But the magical bookstore has been bought out by a large chain store (with a coffee shop and all) and none of the employees know what Gorhok is talking about. Hilarious, and easily my favorite of the collection.
"The Glutton" by Melanie Tem: The other stand-out of the collection. Phoebe feeds on the stories of others, becoming their muse even as she sucks their essence dry.
"In the Bookshadow" by Marianne de Pierres. An employee at a bookstore begins to be haunted by terrible phantasms.Eventually, she realizes that these dreadful images are attached to "soulless" books written just to make a buck. She makes one last attempt to stop a customer from buying these books, then joins the ranks of the homeless, insane, or otherwise strange people who wander into bookshops and act as "self appointed Guardians of the soul." I wish this had been written a little more clearly.
"Non-Returnable" by Rick Hautala: Manda has trouble getting rid of a book on psychic black holes, and each time she tries to return the book, she loses something else: a rug, a cat...a life.
"The Cheese Stands Alone" by Harlan Ellison. Cort is a disaffected dentist who finds himself in a strange town. All the shops are closed and dark except one: a bookstore in which every person stares fixedly at a single page in a book, never turning the page. I really liked the conceit here, in which people are trapped by their burning curiosity, but then the main character starts ranting in such a classic Ellison style that it broke the spell for me.
"From the Cradle," Gene Wolfe: Michael is obsessed with an old and priceless book kept in his bookshop, which contains a new allegorical tale precisely tailored to him every time he opens it to a new page. I didn't liked the allegories, and I didn't much like Michael.
"A Book, By its Cover," PD Cacek: an old bookseller saves Jews in Germany in 1938
"The Hemingway Kittens" by AR Morlan: Two adorable kittens with hand-like paws start living in a bookstore. The bookseller begins to suspect that they're reading the books at night. I really hated this because it's far too long for such a simple idea, and because there is no possible way on earth that
"Lost Books" by John Miller: A fantasy author (who wrote just one book) suffered terrible tragedy, roams the US, and then starts working at a used book store. There, he falls in love once more, but also begins to suspect that the store's proprietor is more than what he seems. This story bothered me, both because every damn character tells the main character how much they luuuuuved his one book (a random example from small talk between two people who don't know each other: "'The prose is cool and evocative, the characters are great. And the story!'" Sounds totally natural and realistic!) and because the idea of
"One Copy Only" by Ramsay Campbell: A judge finds a used bookstore in which unwritten stories can be read. She finds a great book by an author who writes grimdark fantasy doorstoppers nowadays, but the author denies ever writing it. The dialog felt unnatural. And for all the narrator's supposed problem with cycnical characters and gloomy endings, she's really unpleasant about other people: describing one man as having "a senile pony-tail", decries her supposed fave author because he has a weak chin and isn't as tall as his characters, etc. The author who writes the grimdark fantasy doorstoppers also drives a brand new Jaguar, which I find rather unlikely.
"Pixel Pixies" by Charles de Lint: A hobgoblin tries to save a bookstore from an infestation of pixies. Cute, though no substance to it.
"Blind Stampbed" by Lisa Morton: A bookseller finds out that his favorite customer has died and is now haunting the bookstore. A nice mix of creepy and sweet.
"Shakespeare & Co." by Jack Williamson: In the far future, the written word has been nearly stamped out. A boy's pawnbroker grandfather secretly supplies books to his family--and to the rebellion. I was pleased to find a sf story in here, but the revolution is summed up very rapidly and vaguely, which left me unsatisfied.
"Ballard's Books" by Gerard Houarner: Haunted by a conversation he overhears about a magical bookstore as a child, a man spends his entire life searching for it. When at last he finds it,
"Books" by David Bischoff: An upleasant software developer kills some time in a bookstore that is clearly magical to the reader. He doesn't intend to read any of the books, but he does plan on selling the mint condition first editions he finds there.
"Escapes" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman: A young woman starts working in a magical bookstore. Its magic is her only protection against the creepy abusive boyfriend she's trying to leave. Good. I particularly liked that the other employees didn't immediately trust or like the main character--it made the story feel more natural, and the main character even more sympathetic.
"'I am looking for a book...'" by Patrick Weekes: Gorhok the Inmitigable searches for the book of power he needs to complete his dark and unholy ritual. But the magical bookstore has been bought out by a large chain store (with a coffee shop and all) and none of the employees know what Gorhok is talking about. Hilarious, and easily my favorite of the collection.
"The Glutton" by Melanie Tem: The other stand-out of the collection. Phoebe feeds on the stories of others, becoming their muse even as she sucks their essence dry.
"In the Bookshadow" by Marianne de Pierres. An employee at a bookstore begins to be haunted by terrible phantasms.
"Non-Returnable" by Rick Hautala: Manda has trouble getting rid of a book on psychic black holes, and each time she tries to return the book, she loses something else: a rug, a cat...a life.
"The Cheese Stands Alone" by Harlan Ellison. Cort is a disaffected dentist who finds himself in a strange town. All the shops are closed and dark except one: a bookstore in which every person stares fixedly at a single page in a book, never turning the page. I really liked the conceit here, in which people are trapped by their burning curiosity, but then the main character starts ranting in such a classic Ellison style that it broke the spell for me.
readingisadoingword's review
3.0
A mix of stories, some more engaging than others but a fun themed read.
pogue's review
4.0
I love reading anthologies. Finding authors that I have not yet discovered and what could be better than a book full of stories about book stores. Some of the stories were a bit disturbing but as this is listed as part horror I was not surprised.
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