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Until very recently, LGBTQ+ narratives have been slyly coded in literature rather than joyously explored, particularly in children's books. Finally, our and our queer forebearers' efforts have come to fruition.

I'm so pleased to be discovering such a bulk and variety of queer books for kids, books that explore the intersectionalities and multiplicity of identity, that feature developed queer kid characters as well as queer adults, and that include not only gay but also gender-queer persons.

Last year I was motivated by assignment and delivered Eight Tips for Getting More from Reading and Books to City Weekly and the Weller Book Works Textblock. During the year, I copied these tips for several persons. They’re still good so I offer them again for 2020 without my former elaborations.

Here are eight ways to improve one’s relationships with books:

Ask the most impressive persons you know which books are most influential in their lives and read those books.

Read every day.

It is hard to believe that we are two decades into this new millennium. And I only barely became able to think of “the teens,” as the 2010s, the reference is so long associated with World War I, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Dada of the 20th century.

Happy Holidays readers. You are synthesizers of culture, voices of reason and creative vectors. Let your civility and wisdom envelope your community. We are mirrors and lenses. Human experience is vast. Position the facets of reading correctly and cast joyous prisms of light.

The History of a Family Bookstore

The culture shifts that parallel our 90-year bookselling journey are quite dramatic. Founder Gustav Weller would hardly recognize the contemporary environment of our industry. His era of bookselling occurred after the industrial/capitalist revolution permitted the growth of an educated middle class, after we discovered how to make cheaper wood-pulp paper from trees with machines and long after we automated the printing press, but before television had mesmerized and dulled our senses. Despite these luxuries, Gustav’s term was burdened by the Great Depression. Sam and Lila Weller would have different experiences.

by Tony Weller

My father Sam Weller’s methods of teaching were momentary. He was a man of action and I took as much knowledge from him as he offered me. I had assisted him with house calls to buy book collections since childhood and one day in the late 1980s, without fanfare, he said, ‘I think you’re ready to make book deals without my help now.’ Wow, did persons who know so little really get to do this stuff?

by Tony Weller

Last month, Scott Renshaw invited me to share thoughts about New Year’s Resolutions with City Weekly readers. I’m not qualified to make resolutions for others but I can share some suggestions and thoughts about getting more from books and reading. Here are eight ways to improve one’s relationships with books.

by Red Emma

When I began this series so many weeks ago, I promised to discuss whether anyone has cause to believe the Old Ones are real entities.

The Old Ones are the beings from the void, the chaos of the universe, who are malevolent only in their indifference to the fragility of life on Earth. I’ve discussed Azathoth in a previous week – Lovecraft’s incarnation of a senseless, uncaring universe, the progenitor of all life who does so without purpose or meaning. That we are a cosmic mistake or joke is the most powerful blow Lovecraft could ever have delivered to the delicate human ego, and the true horror of his stories often derives from the full frontal exposure to our own meaningless in the vastness of the cosmos. Cthulhu, his most famous creation, is an Old One, as is Nyarlathotep.