I skipped a lot so someone might have already mentioned this but I just noticed that Barnes & Noble (in Santa Monica at least) has a Vampire Romance section. I bet they keep Meyers and LKH there.

I've run into something that looks to me like it is self published, but I want to be sure.

I is called "Wind Turbine Syndrome" and may well have a valid point. [link] It is edited by the author's husband

It is published by a publishing company called K-Select books [link]

Which has a four person board of directors, two of those board members are the author (Dr. Nina Pierpoint), and the author's husband (Calvin Luther Martin).

I cannot find any other books the publisher has put out. Nor can I find any independent web site for the publisher. All I can find is a web page on the author's own site.

But maybe the publisher HAS published other books, and is just not very web conscious. How do I double check to find out for sure whether this company is a real publisher or a disguised form of self-publishing?

Gar, most of the publishers who aren't very web conscious are still talked about by other people, so a quick google will find them. I couldn't find K-Selected anywhere else but there and in discussions of evolution. My first guess would be self-published anyway, since that's the new face of self-publishing for people who don't want to spend huge amounts.

Ages ago, the first time I read Skinny Legs and All, it slowly dawned on me during the course of reading that I had a conch shell sitting dusty and forgotten behind some books on a bottom shelf. Spiritually inspired, I dusted her off and gave her a place of honor on the octagonal table in the front room.

A couple years ago my nephew chose a Japanese steakhouse for his birthday dinner and I ordered one of those foofy drinks that come in a ceramic container you get to take home after the meal. Some time during the course of dinner my other nephew exclaimed, "are those his balls?!"

I examined my drinking vessel and it did indeed seem to be the likeness of a panda-bear looking dude with balls so ponderous they appeared to be brushing the ground. I took him home and realized he would make an excellent receptacle for my kitchen scrubbies. And there he sat, usually facing the disposal-switch and mostly forgotten, until I picked up a copy of Villa Incognito.

During the course of reading the first few pages, it slowly dawned on me that the main character of this book, Tanuki, was the little dude who minded my kitchen scrubbies.

So now I've had two kind of weird Tom Robbins related coincidences in my life. I wonder what the third one will be.

Hope it's not your thumbs growing.

I once read that Tom Robbins moved to Seattle for the climate.

Now there's a book freak for you--move instead of purge!

I also remember reading that Umberto Eco had so many books the floor of his apartment collapsed. Twice. And this was the library he had in his apartment in town - culled from his real library in his house in the country.

The branch library I worked at in the early 1990s had been converted (it was the town's Masonic Hall). One of the major things they did to the building was to reinforce the floors for the weight of the books and shelves.

Just finished Steig Larsson's The Girl Who Played with Fire. I'm jonesing to talk about it. Anyone? Anyone? Anyone?

Oh Kat, I just started it. I'll try and read fast! Probably won't help especially since I'm limited to my 40 minute lunch hour and it will be weeks before I'm finished. Stupid job. I blew through 2 books while we were on our cruise to Mexico just a scant 2 weeks ago. Oh and thank you all for the rec of Gil's All Fright Diner very cute read.

Kat, I read MOST of it at Barnes and Noble the other night, but not ALL of it...so, I have to finish it! :)