Used Book Sale

        The flow of used books slowed down over the winter. But once Spring cleaning/garage sale season began, the used books have been pouring in by the carload. We’ve having a used book sale to try to reduce our supply.
        All used books will be 20% off, whether you have a discount card or not. The sale includes used paperbacks, used hardcovers, used magazines, used gaming books, and bagged books.
        Because we have so many used audiobooks, we will be selling all used audiobooks at $5.00 each, whether cassette or CD.
        The sale runs Friday, June 3 through Sunday, June 12. That gives you two weekends to take advantage of the sale.
        This sale will be for customers shopping in the store–it does not apply to mail orders. If you’re thinking about bringing in lots of used books to sell to us during the sale, expect a longer than normal wait.

Award News

        The winner for the Nebula Award for Best Novel is Uprooted by Naomi Novik ($16.00). The other finalists are Raising Caine by Charles E. Gannon ($17.00), The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin ($15.99), Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie ($15.99), The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu ($9.99), Barsk: The Elephant’s Graveyard by Lawrence M. Schoen ($25.99), and Updraft by Fran Wilde ($25.99).
        The nominees for the Hugo Award for Best Novel are Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie ($15.99), The Cinder Spires: The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher ($27.95), The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin ($15.99), Seveneves: A Novel by Neal Stephenson ($35.00 signed hc or $17.99 trade pb), and Uprooted by Naomi Novik ($16.00).

        The Agatha Award winners included Best Contemporary Novel to Long Upon the Land by Margaret Maron ($7.99) and Best Historical Novel to Dreaming Spies by Laurie R. King ($26.00 signed hc or $16.00 tr pb).

        The Edgar Allan Poe Awards included Best Novel to Let Me Die in His Footsteps by Lori Roy ($26.95, $16.00 trade pb early June), Best First Novel to The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen ($16.00), Best Paperback Original to The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney ($14.99), and Best Critical/Biographical to The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards ($27.99 hc or $15.99 tr pb).

Signed Books

        We are taking advance orders for signed copies of Alliance of Equals by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller ($26.00), the next novel in their Liaden Universe series. The book is a July release, and if you place your order no later than Wednesday, June 1 you can request a personalized copy. Sharon & Steve will be signing the books in Maine and shipping the books to us, and will not be visiting Uncle Hugo’s this time around.
        We are taking advance orders for Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold ($25.00), a 184 page novella in the universe of The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, and The Hallowed Hunt. Lois will be signing at Uncle Hugo’s on Saturday, June 11, 1-2 pm, so you can request personalization up to the time of the signing, or just show up for the signing.
        We are also taking advance orders for Monster Hunter Memoirs; Grunge by Larry Correia and John Ringo ($27.00). The book is an August release, and if you place your order by Friday, July 1, you can request a personalized copy. The books will only be signed by Larry Correia, not John Ringo. The publisher is not sending Larry on tour this summer, so Larry will be signing the books in Utah and then shipping them on to Uncle Hugo’s.
        We just received signed copies of Rick Riordan’s The Hidden Oracle: The Trials of Apollo Book One ($19.99). We still have signed copies of Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor ($19.99), The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King ($28.00),Crimson Shore by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child ($27.00), The Bone Labyrinth by James Rollins ($27.99), Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear ($26.99), and hundreds of other titles listed on our website.

New T-shirts & Sweatshirts

        Every 2 years we re-order Uncle Hugo’s/Uncle Edgar’s t-shirts and sweatshirts, and our latest order just arrived. Some shirts have Uncle Hugo’s on the front and Uncle Edgar’s on the back; others have Uncle Edgar’s on the front and Uncle Hugo’s on the back.
        The prices for the t-shirts are $14 for adult Small through XL and $17 for XXL. The colors for the new batch are ash (light grey), black, gold, kelly green, light blue, purple, retro heather coral (sort of like cantaloupe), royal blue (dark blue), and red. We also have a lot of light pink and intense pink left over from 2 years ago. The prices for the sweatshirts are $27 for L and XL and $30 for XXL. The colors for the new batch are ash, kelly green, purple, and royal blue. We still have a lot of forest green (dark green) and red left over from 2 years ago.
        The display of shirts with Uncle Hugo’s on the front is near the checkout area for Uncle Hugo’s. The display of shirts with Uncle Edgar’s on the front are to the left as you walk through the archway into Uncle Edgar’s. If you want to order a shirt for mail order, e-mail to UncleHugo@aol.com and Don will walk you through the procedure.

How’s Business
by Don Blyly

        I was startled when I recently completed the income tax stuff for the Uncle’s. It was even worse than I expected. We did have some unusual expenses last year, like about $9,000 to repair the roof and having to buy a complete new computer network. But my total income from the store last year was about $1500, and that’s from working 70-80 hours per week. And the debt level on our ready reserve line keeps going up. So, we will be increasing the minimum price for used books from $3.00 to $4.00 on July 1. If you primarily buy used copies of recent books (with original prices of $7.99 to $9.99), this won’t really have an impact on you. But if you want to fill in gaps in your magazine collection, in your Perry Rhodan collection, or a bunch of other older stuff, you’ll save some money if you stock up before July 1.
        The Minneapolis city council passed the law to ban plastic bags and make merchants charge for paper bags. A few city council members insisted that the city has REAL problems that they should be working to solve, but a large majority jumped on the band wagon to ban plastic bags, with some exceptions. Fast food outlets can continue to hand out plastic bags with handles, but nobody else can. The earlier version of the law required merchants to charge 5 cents for the large grocery size paper bags, but allowed them to give out smaller paper bags without charging for them. The news reports I’ve seen about the new law simply say that there will be a 5 cent charge for paper bags–but a merchant can get around this by giving a proper contribution to an approved charity. The new law is supposed to go into effect in the summer of 2017, but nobody knows what department of the city government will be stuck with filling in the fine print and enforcing it, how much it will cost to enforce it, what the penalties will be if (for example) a patient from the nearby hospital comes in on crutches, buys a book, and I give him a plastic bag with handles to get his book back to the hospital. In 42 years, I’ve never bought a plastic bag to give to customers, but we do reuse plastic bags by giving them to customers who request them (as often happens on rainy days). Years ago, almost everybody wanted a bag, but now I’d guess that only about 25% of our customers ask for a bag. It’s clear that society is changing, but not fast enough to suit some members of the city council, so they decided to pull out a big club and apply it to the merchants, who will then have to deal with the angry customers.
        I thought I was done with medical problems, but I’m now “looking forward” to a hernia operation. Moving heavy boxes of books with a hernia is not fun (or recommended). Since I’ve been moving heavy boxes of books for decades without a problem, I’m blaming the hernia on Ecko, the store dog. I had a complete physical in January, and no problem. I went back in February with a lot of pain, and the hernia was found immediately. When I take Ecko for a walk, she is so excited that she tries to drag me down the street for about the first block and a half, then calms down enough to walk at a reasonable speed for another block, and then slows down enough to start sniffing around. But if she sees a squirrel or (especially) a rabbit, she’s back to dragging me down the street. I think that trying to control a very muscular 50-pound dog is probably what did the damage.