Pain to Pleasure

From: Roost

"Writers, like all artists, are Platonists. We have an inkling of something perfect and ideal, which haunts our imaginings and prompts every stroke of the pen or keyboard. We are aware that with a great effort of attentiveness, formulating and reformulating, listening closely to our own voice, modulating it into more tuneful harmonies, we might do something not just good, but perfect. And occasionally in phrase or sentence or paragraph we do just that. But I know of no writer who is not, finally, just that little bit disappointed with the final product. (Well, I know some who are not, but they are never the good ones)."

— Rick Gekoski, The Guardian
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 "This year’s 20th anniversary Publishers Weekly Bookstore of the Year Award goes to Square Books on the historic town square of Oxford, Miss., the center of the fictional Yoknapatawpha County in William Faulkner’s novels. Founded by Richard and Lisa Howorth in 1979, the store has grown into a trio of store fronts over the past three decades. It hosts 'Thacker Mountain Radio' show, a live radio show with author readings and musical performances that airs on Mississippi Public Radio, and the annual Oxford Conference on the Book. Later this month it will hold its second annual Camp Square Books for adults—four days of author talks, lectures, hikes, and meals.
     'I love the place,' says author John Grisham, a Square Books regular. 'When you walk in the front door you can smell books. Time stops, and you want to browse and read and gossip and drink coffee upstairs on the balcony for the rest of the day. If you want a book, it’s somewhere in the store.
 If you want to know something about a book or an author, Richard or one of his staff will have the answers. If you want to meet authors, they’ll stop by soon enough.'”
— Judith Rosen, Publishers Weekly
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