It's been a good run, McKay's.

I have blogged many times before of my love for McKay's Books in Knoxville. I don't know how much money I've left in there in the last decade, but it runs well into four figures, if not five. Many is the year when "books" may have been the single largest line-item expense in my personal budget except for...

...except for guns. And this sign seen on the front door today tells me that my money is not wanted there anymore.

With the new law in Tennessee, the same one that allows you to CCW into places that serve alcohol, these little signs at the door are no longer just a formality. If you were to not notice this little out-of-the-way sign at knee level off to the right of the busy entrance and walk past it with a Kel-Tec in your purse, you would be committing a misdemeanor in the Volunteer State.

I wonder if McKay's realizes how many of their customers they may be turning into criminals with this sign? I mean, something roughly like one in twenty Tennesseans has a toter's permit, and the number trends higher in the hills and hollers of East Tennessee. Eighty thousand more Tennesseeans joined the ranks of the legally armed in the first six months of 2013 alone, and every single one of them is going to know to leave their gat in their car if they want to buy a used copy of Fifty Shades of Grey from McKay's?

Further, the sign is a slap in the face to logic and reason. The only guns it's going to keep out are the ones being carried by people who've been fingerprinted and background-checked, tested on basic marksmanship and knowledge of Tennessee's self-defense laws. The bad guys? The ones who would do harm with a handgun? They'll walk right through that sign like it was made out of paper.

I'm sorry, McKay's. We used to have something special going on, but we're all broke up now.


PS: Since I moved to Indy, I'm only in McKay's eight or ten times a year (2 visits/trip, one with Gunsmith Bob and one with Staghounds) but those of you who live locally and were weekly or monthly customers can politely express your dismay at (865) 588-0331.

Overheard in the bookstore...

In something rapidly approaching tradition, on my visits to Knoxville I meet my friend Staghounds for lunch at Calhoun's and a trip to McKay's used book store.

McKay's is pretty coherently laid out, and we were over in what would have been the 300's had they actually been using the Dewey Decimal System, pointing out interesting books to each other (going to a used book store with another avid reader of similar tastes is the best way to find new stuff) when I hear him say "'Selling Women Short'? I didn't know that women were traded on the futures market..." which caused a fit of giggling that took a few minutes to bring under control.

I found some interesting books, but McKay's is big enough that I'll be able to make another stop there with Gunsmith Bob before I head back north of the Ohio. I've never been in that place when it wasn't jumping and the parking lot wasn't packed like they were giving dollar bills away inside. I've never left without spending at least $20, and the average is closer to $50. When Peter of Bayou Renaissance Man fame would visit, he'd usually earmark at least a C-note specifically for an afternoon-long visit to McKay's and head back to Louisiana with a couple boxes full of books. Whatever their business model, they need to license it to a store in Indy...

The cries of my people have been heard...

Seen in comments to the McKay's post today:

Unless there's another McKay's I Knoxville with the same paint scheme and trashcan arrangement (with free zine rack in background), the sign is gone.  

So Gunsmith Bob and I ran by there this evening to see. Sure enough, the offending sign was gone!

The market has spoken.

Thank you for being so quickly responsive to customer feedback, McKay's! We immediately went in and rewarded you in the best capitalist fashion: With green pieces of paper.

Darnit.

While in K-town, I stopped at the awesome used book Mecca of McKay's. While there, I picked up a copy of War Made New by Max Boot, and I'm now about halfway through it. It's a good read, and dovetails nicely with Victor Davis Hanson's Ripples of Battle, which I'd just finished.

What I'm kicking myself over is the fact that I'd walked past The Savage Wars Of Peace at McKay's dozens of times, and never bought it. Given the wildly polarized reviews, I wanted to see what the fuss was about for myself. We stopped at Half Price Books out in Castleton yesterday, but despite a good military history section, they had bupkis by Boot. Boy, I'm bitter.

A day in the life...

I filled the tank in the Zed Three yesterday, from bone dry to brim-lippin' full, with 89 octane gas for less than $20. That's the first time I've done that since... well, before I started blogging, at least.

I met Staghounds for lunch at Calhoun's and corrected the horrible dietary deficiency I've developed (BBQ ribs contain an enzyme necessary for life; lack thereof causes one to say "you guys" instead of "y'all".)

Went by McKay's (the best used bookstore I know of) but it was a madhouse, so I bid adieu to Staghounds, and went back to casa de Gunsmith Bob. We made a second assault on the North Face of McKay's later in the afternoon, and the crowd had thinned out somewhat. I picked up my first Stephen Hunter novel, some non-fiction stuff, and I decided to give Oh John Ringo No's Posleen universe another try, because everyone keeps telling me that Watch on the Rhine is a good read. Y'all better not be pulling my leg. I also tried to find some boxed sets of House on DVD. Fail.

I stopped by the outpost of the vast petroleum conspiracy at which I worked briefly, and had my old job offered to me again. It's nice to be missed; apparently good help really is hard to find these days.

Books: Weber's other 'verse, and gewehrs in Grantville...

David Weber is best known for his "Horatio Hornblower-in-space" Honor Harrington tales, but almost equally enjoyable are the books he co-authored with Steve White set in the Starfire universe. Normally books based on games simply suck, but these (Insurrection, Crusade, In Death Ground, and The Shiva Option) are cracking good, well-realized military SF. Good, memorable characters and an internally-consistant universe make for an enjoyable read.

I'm taking a time out in the middle of my re-read of The Shiva Option, however, to read a short story in the copy of The Grantville Gazette I picked up at McKay's today: Curio and Relic, recommended to me here, answers the question "Where the hell were all the guns in 1632?"

Also scored at McKay's today: Collateral and Way Of The Gun on DVD. Hooray!

"Yo! Homey! Is that my briefcase?"

Overheard in a car...

...somewhere between Calhoun's and McKay's:


Gunsmith Bob: "Have you ever been down partying on The Strip the whole time you've lived in Knoxville?"

Me: "Yeah, that's what I want to do; spend an evening surrounded by thousands of drunken, screaming college kids. We should go do that. Wait, I can think of something I'd rather do instead! Gouge out my own eyeballs with a broken beer bottle."

Gunsmith Bob: "I've never been, either."

Off the shelf...

Currently, I'm reading White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery And Vengeance in Colonial America. I saw it at McKay's and thought "Friend Jenn would want me to read that," and so I bought it and put it on the To Read pile at home.

What an ugly little war was fought in the backwoods of New England! (And what an ugly little war in command tents, headquarters, state houses, and the editorial pages of nascent American newspapers...)

What's shockingly familiar is the whole "Big Army vs. SpecOps" fight between the established line regiments and the overpaid, underdisciplined colonial rangers, where a private made double the daily wages of his line counterpart, was frequently AWOL, and knew that if he got busted for something, his buddies would take axes to the flogging post. There's even an incident where a garrison commander complains about the attached ranger company's incessant target practice being a waste of ammunition.

If I ever get back up New Hamster way, I've got a new list of places I want to see...

How I know an author's good...

Terry Pratchett has written how many books? A bazillion? Two bazillion?

The largest used bookstore in the region (McKay's) had exactly two, count 'em - two, Pratchett paperbacks in the shop: Guards! Guards! and Going Postal. There are damn few authors anywhere near that prolific that are that sparsely represented in the used book stacks (*coughHeinleincough*)


(PS: It was weird; today was the first time I ever carried books into a used book store. Whoever gets the copy of the 2nd edition of the Standard Catalog of Smith & Wesson that says "TAM" in Sharpie inside the front cover, use it in good health...)

(PPS: FireFox's integral spellchecker recognizes "bazillion" as a word. But not "spellchecker".)

Wokachika-wokachicka...

You know the sound: Stay up until the cable channels contain more pitchmen and Snuggie commercials ("Snuggie! The official uniform of depression!") than they do actual programming content, and then flip around until you find a cop drama from the '70s.

As our heroes slew their Pontiac Catalina to a halt and go shuffle-stepping their blowdried and wide-collared way down the alley towards the bad guys' lair, snubbie revolvers held up in the Full Sabrina, the soundtrack invariably goes "wokachicka-wockachicka-BOMP!-BOMP!"

Recently at McKay's, I picked up a copy of Law Enforcement Handgun Digest, 3rd Edition, circa 1980, and that soundtrack practically wafts up off every page.

Wow, Massad Ayoob looks young!

Jeff Cooper, on the other hand, was already old, but as far as I can remember, he always was.

Apparently, the most important qualification for being on a SWAT team in those days was the ability to rock a pornstache and some serious sideburns.

Teacup Weaver was apparently still an approved stance, as well as that thing where you use your support hand to grab your dominant wrist. I have never figured out how that latter stance is supposed to improve your shooting, and I reckon it started to fade about the time that people started seeing photographs of themselves holding the gun that way; it doesn't even look natural or comfortable.

Also, it appears that the shotgun was meant to be fired from the hip.

The article topics are a blast from the past, too:

"WHAT'S THIS THING CALLED SWAT? -This department uses time, talk and tear gas -firearms only when necessary."
Nooo! I'm from the future! Turn back now, before it's too late! Think of the kittens!

"THE .41 MAGNUM LIVES - This caliber still does hard duty with some law enforcement agencies."
Can we all agree that this cartridge was practically stillborn?

"A HARD LOOK AT AUTOS - These handguns arouse pros and cons among law enforcement types."
Buddy, are you in for a shock over the next ten years. Also, there's this Austrian plastics company you should look into investing with.

They do some ballistic testing of various defense rounds in .357 Magnum, .41 Magnum and, I guess as a lark, 9x19mm. Instead of 10% ordnance gelatin or wet newspaper, the target medium is a whole bunch of pillows stuffed into some trash cans duct-taped end to end, which is supposed to simulate... well, I'm not exactly sure, actually. (Although they also used two layers of lamb ribs and filled the cavity between them with frankfurters. Maybe not the most accurate tissue simulator, but you gotta admit it sounds like big messy fun.)

There's an article entitled "Waiting For SWAT" that shows what undercover or off-duty officers should do while waiting for the guys with the AR-180s and Colt Pythons to arrive. Then there's a picture of said SWAT team, all clumped in a stairway with weapons at either high port or the half-Sabrina, and every single trigger finger I can see is securely parked right on the trigger. If you tossed a firecracker into that room, the ceiling would have more holes than a Paul Krugman column.

Wokachika-wokachicka...

I'm gonna go read up on the pros and cons of the FBI Crouch now...

Overheard at the Book Store...

Whatever McKay's business model is, they should franchise it. I've never been there when the parking lot didn't look like they were giving dollar bills away.

They draw an oddly People of Wal-Mart crowd for a used book store, which contrasts (sometimes hilariously so) with the reliably goth/hippie/alt./nerdy staff that you'd expect to find at a mega used book store in a college town.

In there the other day, wending toward the front with a basket full of Flashman novels and back issues of MHQ, I passed the audiobooks section and saw two little old ladies poring over them. One, dressed in a teal pantsuit with a matching felt dumpling of a hat on her head (a hat that had what looked for all the world like a dead bird and a bunch of flowers affixed to one side of it,) sported the spackle-like makeup and hair dye of one determined to not go gently.

She turned to her friend and blurted, and not in her inside voice, mind you, "Edna! See if they have that Fifty Shades of Grey book!"

I am not often caught at a loss for words, but there you go.

A very Epicurean sort of day.

A trip to McKay's and lunch at Calhoun's yesterday with friend staghounds. Always a pleasure; a couple hours browsing the stacks, yummy BBQ, and conversation that leaves my brain feeling all stretched out and relaxed, like it's been doing T'ai chi.

Dinner last night at Brazeiros or, as Gunsmith Bob calls it, "The Meatening". It's like a movie title: Highlander VII: The Meatening. I can see Sean Connery and Clancy Brown dueling atop some ruined tower in a thunderstorm with big skewers of picanha, pausing only to bite off chunks of delicious sea-salt-crusted top sirloin. I know better than to be decoyed by the salad bar and sides: The objective at a churrascaria is to pack yourself with enough rare beef that you have to be rolled to the car.

Book addendum...

While I was at McKay's yesterday, Staghounds pulled a book off the shelf in the Military History section and said "You need to read this, it's excellent...", except I'd already read it.

By sheer coincidence, later that evening, Gunsmith Bob pulled the identical book off his shelf and said "I'll let you read this while you're here, but I don't want to lose the copy, so..."

Two recommendations, same book, same day. I'll therefore recommend it to y'all: My War Gone By, I Miss It So.

I first read it in the back of a minivan headed to SHOT Show in Orlando. I started on page one in the driveway in Knoxville and glanced up fifteen minutes later to see that we'd somehow already made it to Florida. I'd let y'all borrow mine, but I don't want to lose the copy, so...

Sorry for the delay...

While I was at McKay's, I picked up the last Jerry Pournelle novel that I needed to complete my collection (to the best of my knowledge).

I've had my nose in King David's Spaceship all day; more VFTP content tomorrow.

Fight the future.

So, when the Kindle eBook readers hit the market, I resisted. I already had a magic device that allowed me to read books: It was called "books". I mean, sure, the Kindles did some neat-o tricks but, and I am speaking here as a hardcore reader who goes through books at a pretty serious clip, they just really didn't snag me.

Similarly the iPad and its various Android-based tablet competitors got mostly a great big "meh" from me. Especially once I got a smart phone. I mean, I've already got a perfectly functional netbook and a smartphone, so explain to me again why I needed to shell out five bills for an Apple or Samsung gizmo that basically did the same stuff?

Then Amazon released the Kindle Fire: a little quasi-tablet that was linked into the Amazon storefront à la the classic Kindle, only you could stream movies to it and run Android apps like a tablet. Sure, it didn't have 3G and GPS and cameras and suchlike, but, uh, my phone already has all that stuff. And the Kindle Fire was only $199, which covers for a multitude of sins.

Bobbi preordered one, and it showed up last week. I was impressed. Impressed enough that, when I noticed that Target had two left (out of a shelf display meant to hold ten or a dozen) I bought one myself last Friday. This thing definitely hits right in the price/utility sweet spot. And the Amazon storefront is seamlessly integrated, causing me to yell from bed the other night "I just bought an out-of-print book! From bed! It's like having McKay's in bed with you! Do you have any idea how dangerous this thing is?"

Anyhow, yeah, I've been assimilated. The Kindle Fire has achieved 100% market penetration at Roseholme Cottage, being owned by two out of two adult residents. It's not going to replace dead-tree books in my life, but it's certainly a handy and versatile supplement. (And if you're an Amazon Prime member, you can stream old X-Files episodes for free! I just watched "Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man" for the first time in years.)

EDITED TO ADD: It seems Alan posted up a review on Saturday, which makes the some of the same points from the other direction. If you already have a tablet 'puter and a Kindle, why buy a Fire? I can't think of a reason, although as he points out, its size does make it pretty portable.

Off the shelf...

While on my last trip to Knoxville, a visit to McKay's revealed that someone had traded in their collection of Flashman novels. Huzzah! I picked up the first four and am currently enjoying Flashman itself. We're up to the part where the British under Elphinstone are about to begin the disastrous retreat from Kabul, with Flashy of course planning to leave them in the lurch as soon as things get sticky...

I cannot believe it took me this long to acquaint myself with these books.
.

Shopping.

I had lunch at Calhoun's with Staghounds yesterday and, as is traditional for my trips back to Knoxville, we went to that awesomest of used book stores, McKay's.

I managed to keep it down to a dull roar, but I still came away with two bags chock full of books, including the USMC close combat manual, a book called Biking to Work, and the first season of House on DVD.

Nirvana.

McKay's used book store in Knox Vegas:


A gigantic used book store in a former Oldsmobile dealership. The ground floor is all books, movies, and vidjo games, and an elevator leads to the mezzanine where the music is. Every time I'm down in K-town, I have to make two visits, one with Gunsmith Bob and one with staghounds, because the store is too huge to take in at one lick. If I get out of there for less than fifty bucks at a whack, I count it as a win...

Oh, thank gawd you're back!

I've missed you guys so much! The 'net just stopped responding, and I've been sitting here for the last 24 hours clicking "refresh" as my eyes slowly glazed over.

Well, that, and talking to Matt G on the phone. Hi, Matt!

I ran by Border's, got some books, and did a little bit of reading, too; more on which later.

Oh, and picked up my laundry from the laundry place.

...and stopped by McScrooge's for some Ruination and a bottle of Old Ruffian Barley Wine. I'll report on that last later tonight; I have high hopes. (Barleywines are kind of a new thing for me; so far I've loved Stone's Old Guardian and Rogue's Old Crustacean, been indifferent toward's Flying Dog's Horn Dog, and thought that Talon from Mendocino and Dogfish Head's Olde School were icky.)

And gunsmith Bob stopped by and we went to McKay's and I got more books, and then we stopped at Kroger so I could get some groceries and fresh citronella candles for the porch.

But other than that, I spent the whole time the 'net connection was down clicking the 'refresh' button and missing y'all.

"Well, I bet you thought your little book was pretty clever."

I wonder how one would tell that a conversation with the author had been ruined, given the levels of tedious finger-wagging pedantry to which he appears prone?

I kid... mostly, but come on, that cover was just like a red flag in front of a bull. Seeing just the title on the spine, I had scooped it up hoping for an instruction manual, not a lecture. It was begging for a blog post.

Anyhow, as a side observation, Tamara's Third Law of Used Bookstores is "The enjoyability of a read is inversely proportional to the likelihood of finding it on the shelf." Despite McKay having an inventory that would shame a middlin' city library, you're lucky to find three or four Heinlein or Pratchett books at any time. Florence King? Fat chance. I scoured the shelves on my quarterly visits for years, looking for Fraser's Flashman books in vain, until I lucked into the place the day after someone had apparently traded in their complete set.

That a book published so recently is so well represented on the shelf speaks volumes. Sure enough, the Amazon reviews bear out my suspicions: "This book has the dubious honor of being only the second book I have ever thrown in the garbage, so that no one else would waste a moment of their precious time reading my copy." Ooh-kayy... I'll wait until it's on TV, I guess.