From: Ralph Lewis (rlewis@csulb.edu)
Date: Wed Jul 01 1998 - 21:47:16 MDT
FYI
If you are in Los Angeles there is a good SF/fantasy store in Sherman Oaks.
Dangerous Visions-- And they do seperate their collections. They also have a
WEB site:
www.readsf.com
Best Ralph
At 01:30 AM 7/1/98 EDT, you wrote:
>Today I was traveling eastbound on Interstate thirty in Texas and I passed a
>"Books a Million" on the right hand side of the interstate near the state line
>in Texarkana. Cursory examination at sixty miles per hour revealed that it
>was eighteen wheeler accessable so I pulled in.
>
>I was running low on books.
>
>Immediately acquiring a cup of overpriced coffee (hazelnut from the yuppie
>coffe salon)...I begin to browse the stacks. Since I was time limited I only
>looked into the Science Fiction and The Science and Technology shelves. Which
>didn't take very long.
>
>Happily this was one of the few stores that I've seen that seperates the
>Science Fiction from the Trekkie stuff AND from the blatant fantasy (elves,
>swords, dragons and such drivel) Unhappily the drivel outnumbered the Science
>Fiction by probably two to one.
>
>Still...I managed to find a couple of books...including one by Peter Hamilton.
>I looked for Banks but to no avail
>
>It took quiet a search to find the Science section...it was so tiny. I doubt
>there were fifty books all told. Even so I managed to acquire on that looks
>interesting. "Visions" by Michio Kaku.
>
>But I also got angry. (not an uncommon occurance for me...my "contempt"
>runneth over all too often.
>
>There...sitting next to the Feynman lectures on Physics....was the
>"Quickening" by Art Bell.
>
>I couldn't let this slide and after some reflection I went and complained to
>the manager. I told him that it would be no less insulting to put say...the
>Bible in his Girlie Book section (I dunno if he even had one...but I was
>digging for a comparison)...I told him that "The Quickening" had no more to do
>with Science than Tinkerbell had to do with astrophysics.
>
>He was somewhat taken aback and seemed suprised that I should be upset. I
>further told him that there were probably five or six stacks devoted to such
>nonsense and only one or two SHELVES devoted to Science...so I'd appreciate it
>if it were kept "pure"...and not contaminated with such nonsense.
>
>He told me the classification came from "corporate".
>
>It figures. A college degree can do wonders.
>
>EvMick
>
>
Ralph Lewis, Professor of Management and Human Resources
College of Business
California State University, Long Beach
Long Beach, California
rlewis@csulb.edu http://www.csulb.edu/~rlewis
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