By Lynn Willoughby
The Last Bookstore in America ~ Amy Stewart
I seem to be on a binge of Amy Stewart books. This novel is hilarious, is a true character study. If you enjoy Carl Hiaasen, Christopher Moore and their sense of humour, you will like Stewart. As Moore says, in Practical Demonkeeping: “If you think anyone is sane you just don’t know enough about them.”
This is a comic novel about the future of books, bookstores and authors of books. When Lewis inherits The Firebreathing Dragon bookstore from his eccentric uncle, he and his wife Emily travel to Eureka, California with plans to sell it, his Uncle’s house and all his properties. After all it is a community shrouded in fog most of the time. It is a rundown mill town where everyone they meet is peculiar. They chalk it up to the “unique, homegrown horticultural industry” in the area, where everyone seems to grow pot. Lewis and Emily are the only ones in town who don’t know that when one comes to buy a book for $100 – that’s code for how much of the bookstore’s “specialty” pot that you will be taking home with your book. Eventually, customers all seem to make a trip back to the Firebreathing Dragon, return all their books, and start buying them again!
With the electronic “Gizmo” – which can store all the books throughout history, no one really wants dusty old bookstores sitting around but no one can figure out why the Firebreathing Dragon is such a success.
Eventually corporate executives from Gizmo, reporters, land developers and the FBI come to town and in the end…………well, you’ll have to read it to find out. Enjoy!!
Who Knew?
The value of oysters and oyster spawn produced in Humboldt Bay, is more than $6 million annually!