ARTY BEES BOOKS NEWSLETTER

12th April 2004

Ahoy there, you scurvy dogs! Welcome to this month's pirate newsletter! (Why? Because I want to and I'm crazy!! Well… perhaps a little too much Pirates of the Caribbean, actually, but isn't Johnny Depp so cool?)

Anyway, suppose I'd better get on with it before I get walked off the plank — so what do we have for you this month? Well, I am pleased to inform you that stock-take is finally over — hurray! Matthew would like me also to assure you that no staff were maimed or killed in the process — well, no-one significant, anyway. A few brains were burnt out though, all that counting, ach, I tell ya! Cruelty, pure cruelty. Some of us may never recover from the zombie-like state — not mentioning any names, of course. (Dead men tell no tales…) Anyway, the whole traumatic thing is over with so you can once again inundate us with your boxes and boxes and boxes of books…

Hmmm, that sound familiar… oh, I know why — because we are currently awash in vast amounts of booty, me hearties! And no, I don't mean the Beyoncé kind, for those of you sniggering in the back (Heh-heh, she said, "in the back", heh-heh.) No, these great riches take the form, not of pieces of eight, but of seemingly unlimited boxes (well, about 80, actually, split between both shops) containing books mostly concerned with anthropology, archaeology, ancient history and languages. So all you aspiring Chomskys and Levi-Strausses, you can rub your hands together with yo-ho-ho glee! And because there is so much (and I mean so much, believe me) of this stuff, you don't need to panic, my dears. It will take quite a while for all of it to emerge from the back room so it won't all disappear at once, and there's certainly enough to go round. So no fighting — everyone's a winner!

In addition to all this we gained quite a few cool linguaphones — most of these are gone now, I'm afraid, but some remain, and there are heaps of cool language books still, on all sorts of crazy languages like Portuguese, Welsh, heck, even Mayan! (Now there's a way to impress the ladies! I swear! Works every time!)

Oh, and although it seems odd to be mentioning it in the midst of a such a nautical atmosphere (don't you feel like you're actually on board a pirate ship? It's jolly exciting, isn't it?) we also have a lot of aviation/helicopter stuff, going fast! So if you're a rogue helicopter pilot planning to swoop the city without meeting your untimely demise, take note! This could be your lucky day.

Now, I'm truly astonished to be informing you that once again, those crazed beggars have managed to somehow erect (heh-heh) more shelving — it makes me shake my head in amazement, it really does, and I simply have to reach for the italics button. So you can once again amuse yourselves by playing 'spot the new shelves' — not for prizes or anything, but if you can name the right ones I promise that we won't feed you to the sharks. How's that for a bargain, hard to resist, eh? And speaking of new shelves, our new detectives (Fifteen men on a dead man's chest) are soon to experience a big growth spurt and will be eating us out of house and home so we need good, brave, kind people to help take them away! This of course will necessitate the building of yet more new shelves — goodness, where will it all end?

As for new sci-fi, the new David Weber titles, March to the Stars, and the hardback 1634: The Galileo Affair have arrived and are going gangbusters, so if you're rabid about these books, as many people clearly are, it may be a bit of a warp-speed situation! (or knots, or something.) Of course, they can be re-ordered, but as they come from the US it can take about three weeks for them to arrive. Arrrrrr!

Finally, and on a more serious note, it has been truly sad and distressing to hear about Michael King's untimely death last week. It's such a terrible loss that it feels like it just wouldn't be right not to mention it here, especially considering his great worth to the literary community. So I'm sure everyone will agree when I say his love for this country was vast, the value of the work he contributed to us is also vast, and he will be sorely missed.

Well, thanks for bearing with me through this month's newsletter (it wasn't really all that pirate-y, was it? I guess I'm no Johnny Depp) and hopefully we'll have plenty more tales of daring and adventure to regale you with later! Farewell!

From Moo.

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February 2004
January 2004
September 2003
August 2003
June 2003
April 2003
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