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Published Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2008 | 4:05 p.m.
Updated Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008 | 2:14 p.m.
The approaching closure of the Reading Room, Las Vegas' only independent bookstore, in Mandalay Bay has the community grieving. But at least the store is going out with a bash.
Its last scheduled author appearance is Beth Lisick, the Bay area writer, whose humorous collection of essays, "Everybody into the Pool," had us laughing through a narrative stream of tales about precarious jobs, gigs and housing.
Lisick followed that New York Times bestseller with "Helping Me Help Myself" (William Morrow, Jan. 2008) another book of essays in which she plunges into the big-money world of self help by consulting national self-help experts and authors, including a cruise with Richard Simmons.
On March 10 Lisick, who is also an organizer for San Francisco's Porchlight Storytelling Series, will read from and sign copies of "Helping Me Help Myself." Joining her will be local writer and NPR commentator Dayvid Figler.
For more information, contact the Reading Room at (702) 632-9374 or visit Lisick's Web site.
Hmmm. What about Gambler's Book Shop, the independent bookstore at 630 South 11th Street? Doesn't that qualify as an independent bookstore? Did someone just rewrite a Mandalay Bay press release, taking it for fact; is author Peterson not into fact checking; or is author Peterson too new to the area to realize that 44 years selling new books in the community qualifies as an independent bookstore? And how about the dozen or so used bookstores that populate our city? Is there some definition that excludes them from independence?
Exactly. Google "bookstore" and "Las Vegas" and the first entry is Gambler's Book Shop. But if you don't want to include a specialty book store (although I would), how about If Books Could Kill, formerly Albion, on Desert Inn at Eastern or Dead Poet on Rainbow at Charleston?