The Future

        Between climate change and the general state of the world, the future can be scary to consider. Where will we be in 10 years? 50? Will we make it another 100? 

     The answer is: most likely yes. With the rapid rate of scientific advancement, some good old human ingenuity, and a sprinkle of good luck everything should turn out fine. Once we've made it that far, though, things will have changed a good deal, and those changes can be scary to consider too. 

    Tender is the Flesh, by Agustina Bazterrica, explores one of these potential futures. When a virus that is lethal to humans infects the world's wildlife, humans choose to take the preventive measure of wiping out the animals. The world's population survives, but they are left with one big question: "What are we going to eat?" The answer for most is "special meat," otherwise known as human flesh, though going vegan is still an option. 

    The novel follows Marcos, the manager at a human slaughterhouse. Despite his occupation, he is one of the aforementioned vegans, and while he bears witness to the slaughter of countless factory-farmed humans he spends much of his time trying to actively dissociate. A lot of Tender is the Flesh's fear factor comes from the sheer amount of brutality inflicted on humans, but what's even more disturbing are the lengths to which the practices have been normalized. From Most Dangerous Game style man-hunts to in home coolers for storing live "head," also known as humans, for those looking for the freshest cuts.

    Throughout the novel, Bazterrica weaves a plot thread that might make you believe that there may be some sort of silver-lining to all of this, that reconciliation is still possible. Just as you are turning the final pages, though, the thread is severed. All hope is lost, you are left to wander in the dark. The future is scary.

    But it doesn't have to be that way. 

     Under the Eye of the Big Bird, by Hiromi Kawakami, looks even further into humanity's future. What exactly this future holds is revealed through a series of interconnected short stories, and the mix of intrigue and satisfaction that each story's reveal gave me made up for a large portion of my reading enjoyment. Even as time has passed, though, I still think about this book, so I can assure you that it's not all instant gratification. This is all to say that this book may best be enjoyed blind, so if you have any interest in reading it I recommend you call up Eagle Eye and order a copy (We probably have some on our shelves). Spoilers can't ruin the best stories, though, so feel free to read on regardless.

    Under the Eye of the Big Bird's stories follow humans in strange circumstances. Some of them use numbers for names. Others live in isolation, only being visited by another person occasionally for the purpose of procreation. People are occasionally visited by younger versions of themselves. The lucky ones have psychic powers. It's revealed about halfway through the book that all of them are part of a grand experiment to evolve humanity, one that started out of necessity millennia ago and will continue for millennia to come. 

    Kawakami takes full advantage of the story's time frame to both give us some glimpses into humanity's speculative future (my favorite potential evolutionary branch are the super chill plant people) and show us how the appearance of these extraordinary individuals might be received. Despite how far-fetched some of the ideas in the novel may get, what Kawakami is really looking to explore is human nature. What drives us? What scares us? How far will we go to secure our own future? Under the Eye of the Big Bird may not provide clean answers to these questions, but the ones it does offer are certainly quite interesting.

    The last story of the book follows the two final members of humanity. There's an inherent sadness in reading about the last two girls in the world growing up, but there's also something pure in those pages, something like serenity. The future Kawakami envisions is uncertain, but unlike Tender is the Flesh it is not without hope. 

    The future might be scary, but that's not all it has to be.

Why We Like to Be Scared

 

Scary movies, tales of ghosts, witches and goblins, and haunted houses dominate this time of year. It’s Halloween and time for all things scary – including scary novels, better known as Horror Fiction.

A quick Google Search indicates one of the first scary stories can be traced back as far back as ancient Mesopotamia to the Epic of Gilgamesh. Since then scary stories have only gained in popularity over time. Some of the most well-known scary stories include Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, a tale she started writing in 1816 at the age of 18. Another classic horror novel, Bram Stoker’s Dracula was published in 1897. Edgar Allan Poe, who is often referred to as the “father of horror” with his eerie and gothic poems and stories such as The Raven, Annabel Lee, and others, also made a mark in the horror genre. And then, current horror and bestselling author, Stephen King, with his hits like Pet Sematary, The Shining, It and many others have held readers’ interest in the horror genre.

In fact, the website bookinfluencers.com in the article dated July 2024, The Rise of Horror, states that according to Nielsen data,  the sale of books in the horror genre experienced a significant increase of about 54% in 2023, and a number of subgenres such as gothic, vampire, paranormal, dark fantasy, just to name a few, have been created to help readers narrow down their selections based on their chilling, thrilling, creepy or terrifying reading preferences.

So why is it that we like to be scared?

A Forbes.com article from Oct. 22, 2023 entitled The Science of Scared: Why We Love the Thrill of Being Afraid by Nicole F. Roberts says it’s not just one thing, but a number of things such as the adrenaline rush, escapism, a shared experience with others, and more, that allows humans to experience and enjoy the emotion of fear in a controlled environment.  

And a healthessentials article on the Cleveland Clinic website entitled Why Do We Like to Get Scared? states that “Our brains are hardwired to enjoy being scared,” but also adds, “as long as there’s no real danger.” Fear is an emotion that can cause a number of simultaneous processes to occur in our bodies when we’re frightened. Those processes can include the Flight or Fight response, an increased heart rate and blood pressure, goose bumps, and more.

Unlike films and haunted houses, if a horror story in the form of a book gets to be too much, the reader can always put it down to put some time and space between themselves and the story and then pick it back up when they’re ready. But we don’t suggest putting a book in the freezer like Joey Tribbiani did with his copy of The Shining in the hit sitcom Friends. A cold book is just that…a cold book.

Eagle Eye Book Shop has a number of horror titles and more. Visit eagleeyebooks.com online or visit us at the store for your next spooky read.

Enjoy the scare and Happy Halloween!

Coverage

One of the most exciting parts of working at a used bookstore is seeing all of the different books that people bring in. Besides allowing me to see lots of different books, it also means I get to see even more book covers. You may be wondering how I'm seeing more cover designs than titles, but the answer is simple: alternate covers.

Most traditionally published books have at least a couple of cover designs thanks to the International market. It's usually cheaper to commission new cover art for a book than it is to pay for the rights to use another, so publishers around the world will often use different covers for the same book. There are plenty of other reasons for the divergence in covers than use rights, though. One is that people living in different parts of the world may have different tastes, both in terms of what they enjoy visually and in their stories. Sayaka Murata's Vanishing World is a book that's covers illustrate these differences.

The novel is set in a world where sex has become taboo and children are artificially conceived & raised communally, with no single parental figure to latch on to. The themes grounding the story are quite dark, but Murata approaches things with an imaginative flair that lends the story some lightness. The American release (left), with its overflowing tub of baby dolls, highlights the almost comedic absurdity of the situation. The UK edition (middle) has biblical imagery that seems to be referencing themes of conception & the price of pursuing the forbidden. The German cover (right) dials in on the story's underlying darkness. 

The beauty of these book covers, and alternate book covers in general, is that no matter how much they differ they're all representations of the same text. One of the things that makes books special is their openness to interpretation, how two people can read the same words and be affected by them in completely different ways, and alternate book covers feel like the perfect visual metaphor for this.

The Classics section is another place where you'll find lots of different book covers, but for different reasons. The first is that many classics are in the public domain, meaning that anyone could print a copy and slap whatever they wanted on the cover. Most of the large publishers already have editions of older books in print, though, so you won't see as many of the Classics from smaller publishers. 

This leads us to the second reason for the variety of covers in Classics, which is that there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen. Different publishers will all put out editions of the same text, so a distinct cover is a good way to make an edition stand out without altering the content. 

Additionally, because many classics are quite widely read & people already have an idea of what they're getting into when they pick up the book, classics covers can afford to be a little more abstract. Penguin's cover's are a good example of this abstraction, where they'll simply feature a painting, usually tangentially related to the text, the book's title, and the name of the author. 

Fitzcarraldo, a British publisher, takes simple cover designs to the extreme. Their covers are all solid colors, blue for fiction & white for nonfiction, and besides basic information like author & title you'll find little else on the book (except, of course, for some blurbs).  

So whether you don't like the cover of your favorite new release or you're looking for a fifth copy of your favorite Jane Austen novel, the moral of the story is to never settle. What you're looking for is out there waiting to be found, you might just have to start looking a little further afield. 

Matt Dinniman and Chuck Tingle Close Out Eagle Eye Book Shop’s Summer Events

Eagle Eye Book Shop wrapped up its summer with two unforgettable events.

Matt Dinniman was in conversation with fellow author, Will Wight, in the store on August 27. During the conversation, 200 lucky fans and Eagle Eye customers were also treated to a reading of an excerpt from Matt’s upcoming novel, This Inevitable Ruin, read by Matt’s longtime narrator, Jeff Hays. After the conversation, both Matt and Will met fans and signed copies of their books for about 400 readers and fans in the Eagle Eye reading room.


Earlier that week, on August 25, Eagle Eye Book Shop held an event featuring Chuck Tingle offsite at the iconic Plaza Theatre in Atlanta. Chuck brought his upbeat personality, high energy, flamboyant style, and iconic face mask to the stage where he entertained about 200 readers and fans. People left the theater with candid photos taken with the author and Chuck’s newest title, Lucky Day, in hand.


During the busy summer, Eagle Eye Book Shop held a number of other events in the store with authors such as Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores of Happy Wife, a Read with Jenna pick from earlier in the summer. We also hosted authors Kathryn Wood, Ashley Poston, Ally Carter and more.


Fall events have already started with a bang at Eagle Eye Book Shop, including an early September author event with Julia Olivia signing her new best-selling novel, If It Makes You Happy. In addition, Eagle Eye Book Shop is looking forward to upcoming events with authors Elin Hilderbrand, Stephanie Perkins, and Jay Kristoff, just to name a few.


To learn more about the upcoming events at Eagle Eye Book Shop, visit www.eagleeyebooks.com/events.

Playing, Having Fun

    Has this ever happened to you? You're in the final pages of a novel and you start to feel a sort of melancholy fall over you. You've become attached to the world, the characters, the story itself, and you're not ready to let that go. You almost wish you could walk around in the world for yourself.

    Well, I've got good news! There is a fix for this (besides, perhaps, reading a sequel or something like that), and it's known as Role Playing. One of the most popular forms of Role Playing nowadays is through video games, but what these offer in visualization and accessibility they can lack in player freedom and general accessibility. Some prefer to get their role playing on in real life, examples of which can range for the renaissance fair to historical re-enactments, but the outfits can be costly to acquire and intensive to upkeep.

    But what if I told you there was a third option? One that can take you anywhere and lets you do anything. One that doesn't require any hardware or elaborate costumes, just a book, some friends, and a handful of dice. 

    Table Top Role-Playing games, or TTRPGs for short, hit the scene in 1974 with the release of Dungeons & Dragons, and have been capturing the hearts and minds of players for the past 50 years. But how exactly do they work?

     The first thing you're going to have to do is figure out exactly which game you want to play. If you're looking to dive deeper into the world of a beloved series, you can check if there's a licensed table top version of it. Dune, the  Blade Runner and Cosmere all have game books, though there are also gamified versions of more obscure IPs, like 2008's Leverage (which is, unfortunately, out of print). If you've already invested in a Dungeons and Dragons book and don't feel like shelling out any more cash, though, there's still hope. You can build your own custom setting using the book you've already got as a framework. 

    After you've picked a game, the next step is to learn the rules. These usually detail how encounters are organized and what exactly a player character should be capable of. Initially, learning all the rules can be pretty daunting, but luckily you don't actually have to follow the rules to a tee. Ultimately, this is your role-playing experience, and as Marie Kondo famously suggests: if it doesn't spark joy, get rid of it (though playing with restrictions can provide a more rewarding experience).

    Once you've got everything figured about what and how you'll be playing, the only thing left is to figure out who you'll be role playing alongside.  A playgroup usually consists of two roles: the Guild Master (or GM), who pulls all the strings of the game world, and the Players. Being a GM requires a pretty exhaustive knowledge of the rules, so for new players it can be better to start as just a player. Once you've assembled a group, all that's left is to play the game... but what exactly does that look like?

    While some games come with a game board, most of the time you'll be using your imagination to visualize what's going on. 90% of game play is talking, whether that be through interacting with non-player characters or hatching a plan with your party members. This aspect of the gaming experience can also make it a great avenue for socializing, not just because you are playing alongside other people, but that you're also having to actively engage with what their characters are doing and playing off it yourself. Everyone doesn't have an outlet to "play pretend" with others, and TTRPGs provide an excellent one because you can pretty much do whatever you want and the stakes are quite low (if you keep murdering imaginary townsfolk that might get on your friends' nerves).

    Now that we've covered what TTRPGs are, its time to go out and pick one up. As a fledgling roleplayer, I've had a great time with Dungeons & Dragons. It's position as the originator of the genre may lead you to believe it could be outdated, but they update the rules pretty often to keep the game play balanced. In fact, the newest edition just recently released so now is a great time to get in. Bob, Eagle Eye's patron saint of bookselling, recommends Paranoia, a game where you play as a group of clones living in a world controlled by artificial intelligence. As a group you must complete a series of mysterious tasks, though you'll come to find that everything is not as it seems.

Authors of Happy Wife visit Eagle Eye Book Shop

Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores, authors of the new novel Happy Wife, stopped by Eagle Eye Book Shop to sign copies of their book on June 24. Earlier that morning, Jenna Bush Hager announced Happy Wife as the coveted July 2025 Read with Jenna Book Club pick. Hager made the announcement on the Today Show, where she’s an anchor 

"This is such an honor," Shores said, about the debut novel being Hagar’s July pick. "It's such a gift. She's so supportive of writers and she really champions them in a way I don't think a lot of other people in her position would do...She picked us, and I feel like today we got confirmation that it's really real."

Lavender, with a background in film and television, and Shores, with a background in corporate communications, met while attending a function at their children's school, and eventually they became friends. It was during a walk together in a local park when Shores first mentioned her ideas for a story to Lavender. 

According to the authors, Happy Wife, is about the main character, Nora Davies, who becomes the second wife of Will Somerset, a lawyer. Once married, Nora finds herself navigating unforeseen challenges when she’s confronted with the reality that not everyone is going to be as happy for her as she is. Ultimately, she finds herself in circumstances where she has to figure out a way to save herself. The novel is set in the affluent community of Winter Park.

Shores said early on she knew she wanted the point of view to be from the second wife’s perspective, and she also knew she wanted the book to be a mystery. 

“I had all these pieces, but I didn’t know how to get past some of the barriers,” she said.

That’s where Lavender came in. 

"My brain immediately went into hyper-drive, and I could see it," Lavender said, talking about the discussion in the park when Shores shared her ideas about the novel. "I couldn't see the whole thing, obviously. We had to find that together."

And leaning on their previous collaborative professional experience in media and communications, they found it.

At its kernel core, Lavender said the story is about learning to stand your own two feet, relying on yourself, and finding your true north. But both authors agree that above all, they just want readers to have fun and enjoy the story.

Lavender and Shores said they were excited to get the phone call asking them to come to Eagle Eye Book Shop and talk about their debut novel. Shores recalled years ago when she lived in the area and shopped in the bookstore. Now she’s returned to sign copies of her own book.

"It’s a tremendous honor,” she said.

Shores also added that you never know where life is going to take you, and she shared the following advice.

“Don’t be afraid to lean into a good or even a bad idea. You’re going to learn something from it. Just put in your hours however you can,” she said.“I think we’re the luckiest example of how that can work out.”

What’s next for the authors? In July, Lavender and Shores plan to travel to New York City to speak with Jenna Bush Hager on the Today Show. And readers will be happy to know another book is already in the works.

If you missed this event, Eagle Eye Book Shop has more events planned. For details on upcoming events and tickets, visit the Events page on the Eagle Eye Book Shop website. 

Happy Wife by Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores is published by Bantam Books, a subsidiary Penguin Random House, and is available for purchase at Eagle Eye Book Shop.

Eagle Eye Birthday Party

    Eagle Eye was abuzz on Saturday, April 26th, when we celebrated both Independent Bookstore Day and our 22nd Birthday. 

    We pulled out all the stops to celebrate, from exclusive merchandise to activities throughout the store. Shoppers were greeted by a Prize Wheel, which they could spin to win anything from an in-store discount to a chocolate bar. There were also Eagle Eye themed bingo cards, which could be filled out for a chance at another prize or just to get more familiar with the store.

     Publishers joined in on the fun too, sending us special editions of books and indie exclusive merchandise. Highlights included a signed edition of the newest Diary of a Wimpy Kid entry, complete with faux-moldy cheese, and some pretty swanky tote bags. There were also snacks o'plenty, including a cookie cake, and the Eagle Eye staff have been happily enjoying the leftovers.

     Other bookstores around the city joined in on the celebration too, and there was even a city-wide bingo to encourage readers to visit multiple stores. The bingo items included "Bookstore near a college," "Bookstore that sells used books," and "Bookstore with a pet." The last one ended up being a surprise favorite of Eagle Eye shoppers who had never met Bonnie Ann, our bookshop dog, before, as she was around the store greeting shoppers throughout the day.

    Bonnie was not the only dog around the bookstore on the 26th, though. People brought in their dogs to come shop with them, something we are always happy to oblige as a dog friendly store. One gentleman even carried his furry friend around with him in a shopping cart!

    Eagle Eye did had over 280 unique sales on the 26th, so it's not a stretch to say it was a great celebration. We couldn't have done it without all of the wonderful shoppers who came to visit, so we'd like to extend an extra special thanks to everyone who came out!