Down the Stretch, and Percy leads Vonnegut by a nose, with Bradbury and Huxley closing in!

We are now eight days away from Christmas (as I am reminded several times a day by my nine-year-old daughter, and those of you in the Greater New Orleans area have one more opportunity to buy directly from Deep South Samizdat Books, at the expanded Elysian Fleas market, at 527 Elysian Fields, on the corner of Chartres St. While Elysian Fleas typically takes place on the third Saturday of the month, you will have two opportunities this weekend, Saturday and Sunday, from 11-5. And, as the Saints will be taking on the Dallas Cowboys (otherwise known as the personification of evil) Saturday night, there will be no Sunday conflict with the game. But what about the weather, you say? It's a lot of trouble building bookshelves into the walls of an ark, you say. I hear you, but the forecast is for sunny skies, with a high of 53 Saturday and a balmy 60 on Sunday.

Just as important as the holiday shopping, this weekend should be the last opportunity to cast your vote in the Greater New Orleans Market Bestseller List. To recap, I have been keeping meticulous records for all of 2009, tabulating sales for all of the markets I have participated in, and periodically publishing the results and providing you, the reader, with a cross-section of the literary preferences of the New Orleans community, arrived at through the democratic act of supporting your favorite local guerrilla bookseller. Here, then, is the expanded list, for your perusal:

1. Walker Percy
2. Kurt Vonnegut
3. (tie) Ray Bradbury
3. (tie) Aldlous Huxley
5. (tie) Hermann Hesse
5. (tie) George Orwell
7. (tie) Albert Camus
7. (tie) Henry Miller
9. (tie) Edgar Rice Burroughs
9. (tie) James Joyce
9. (tie) J.D. Salinger
9. (tie) Star Trek
13. (tie) James Lee Burke
13. (tie) Joseph Campbell
13. (tie) Robert Heinlein
13. (tie) Ayn Rand

I'll leave it for future graduate students to draw conclusions based on that data ("The Marketgoer: Literary Consumption and Identity in post-Katrina New Orleans"). But I can guarantee that multiple volumes by each of the above authors will be available, so there is still room for movement within the list. And, sometime after the first of the year, the final list for 2009 will be published, amid great fanfare.

Until next time, my friends, take care of yourselves and each other. Merry Christmas, war is over if you want it, and all the rest--Parker