Pile of Books

There is one excellent English bookstore in town -- Pile of Books, on Zentralstrasse. The proprietor Daniel Nufer is amazingly nice (and has proven to be the key networking link in the Swiss Miss editing business). His shop is tiny, his books are well-chosen, and the atmosphere is one of an extremely literary neighbourhood smokeshop. Hooray for an alternative to the Chapters/Indigo-like Orell Fussli!

I have yet to try out the public library, even though it is only a few blocks from the house, and I hear it is has substantial holdings in English... I have, however, been thinking more about libraries since I stumbled upon a delightful new blog: Awful Library Books. Yes, Bloggership, the thing to your right is an actual book, and it was approved by the Disabled Living Foundation and was written with the support of the Nuffield Foundation. Here, here.

Given my current employment status with the government of Zurich, I was also interested in this little gem: Good Housekeeping's Guide for Young Homemakers. I thought this might have been standard issue upon arrival here, or at least suggested as an excellent resource by my now-fired career consultant, but, alas, we can only imagine what kind of amazing (chicken-fried?) nuggets of wisdom are located within...

The news on my own book continues to be no news: the full ms has now been with with THE ANONYMOUS PUBLISHER for almost seven months (after being pitched five months before that), and there are no real signs of life... I am hoping that one very bookish friend's success with his debut collection will inspire the powers-that-be to see the commercial potential of the form. Or at least confuse them long enough to let me drive them into the ground with my first print run.