When you see someone in a store with SYWTBAW, what do you do?

[wizardsrreal]

I've never seen anyone with SYWTBAW in a store or anywhere else!!! but the day after I found it in the library, I told my friend about it!!!!!!! She said that she read that book!! (or at least part of it. she started reading it that she went to something else!!) and now i have read the whole seiries(all 7)an so h as she!!!

[Gryphon]

I'm guilty of that crime. I put down SYWTBAW to read some of Tamora Peirce's books, and then, when I had nothing else to read, I brought SYWTBAW along on a camping trip. After that, I decided it was worth it to read, and the following books were definitely worth the money I spent on them.

Though I wish I had gotten Wizard's Holiday not in paperback. It's taller than the others on my bookshelf. Meh.

[EWizard11]

*reminisces* I was first exposed to the books when I listened to a Recorded Book of High Wizardry. I loved it so much I immediately went looking for the rest of the series. Luckily my library had them. My library in Ohio was soooo good...*mourns* Unlike the libraries here.

[Ankaa]

I have tWD and WH in hardcover, and poor little aWA is sandwiched in between them, a lowly paperback. all my others are paperbacks (I own the whole series; It's worth it because you can read the books over and over and get more out of them each time).

[Kathy Li]

I love hand-selling (which is what the whole process of convincing someone one-on-one to buy a book is called) books I love to folks. I don't think I've ever hand-sold DD, but I did manage to handsell Connie Willis to someone who never read science ficiton. We were standing in line for a Laurie R. King signing, and it helped that there was a Laurie R. King pullquote on the cover of To Say Nothing of the Dog

I think I need one of one of these when I walk into a bookstore.

The weirdest time I ever hand hand-selling, though, was when a woman and her kid were looking over the SF/F racks, and trying to find something "as Christian as the Narnia series." And I gather she wanted it to be as overt as possible (sigh). Now, if she'd said Mormon, I could have pointed her to Ender's Game. And unfortunately, this was in the "dry" period of YW, so I couldn't point to Deep Wizardry and say, "It's like Paradise Lost but with whales..."

[Peter Murray]

Klingon #6 said:
a woman and her kid were looking over the SF/F racks, and trying to find something "as Christian as the Narnia series." And I gather she wanted it to be as overt as possible (sigh).

I don't suppose Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man would have been quite what she was looking for, despite the theme of a time traveller going back to watch the Crucifixion?

*looks at Thinkgeek shirt* Heh. I don't think I need that for any shops I go to at the moment.

[semiramis]

There's also Terry Pratchett's Small Gods from the Discworld (tm) series... of course, that's probably not Christian in the way the woman intended...

*gets mauled by Poot*

[Kathy Li]

Yeah, I was pretty stumped. Sadly, the only thing I could think of was to point out the Lewis SF series that nobody ever reads. I didn't want to subject the poor kid to The Screwtape Letters.

[Peter Murray]

Oh, I liked those as a teenager. Well, Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra more than That Hideous Strength.

Huh, it just occurred to me that I used a head that can talk in a fanfic, without remembering that (and before seeing the PoA film, too).

[Ankaa]

There's a place like ThinkGeek...
NerdParadise store
I got a shirt from there as a present that says, "If you can read this you need to get a life!"

[meteorite]

*tries not to wince* Well, my business is not to criticize people's taste in reading materials. If they are looking for overtly Christian children's books, they can try a series by Frank Peretti. They might also look into the Left Behind: the kids series by Tim LaHaye. There is a third children's series, but I can't remember the author without more research. There is also a children's version of Pilgrim's Progress called Hart's Feet in High Places.

There are plenty of well-written children's books that have good moral underpinnings without the "holier than thou" attitude sometimes encountered in blatantly Christian books.

[Kathy Li]

meteorite: it took everything I had not to wince visibly. I did manage to slip in a comment that Tolkien had been Inkling about with C.S. Lewis though, and tried to plant a LoTR-is-ok! message into my verbal tapdancing, as well as a possible noodge in the Dorothy Sayers direction, but no idea if it took root. Didn't know about Charles Williams's stuff at the time. Suppose that might have been best.

If I see someone asking about Harry Potter, though, I'll generally steer 'em DD and Diana Wynne Jones-ward. If I see someone waiting for a Phillip Pullman, I'll steer 'em to Nix and vice versa.

No idea what I'd do if I saw someone Gormenghast-jonesing, though... maybe Eddings?

[wizardsrreal]

Hahahahaha that would be funny!! I would probly need one too!

[Lady Rhiannon]

Heh, I finally convinced my best friend to read SYWTBAW. And she's completely hooked.

See, my family isn't the typical Christian family. My parents don't tend tend to read fantasy, but dad is a SF buff, and most doesn't because it's not really her tastes. They don't restrict our reading at all. They're also anit-book-banning.

It's nice, especially when I hear stories about people telling their kids what they can and can't read, and about "concerned" parents trying to ban books.

None of my friends at church have raised any concerns about me reading books with the word 'wizard' in the titles. I think that a few bad apples can ruin the entire bunch, and that's why come people think a lot of Christians tend to freak at SF/F books. Which some of them do, until you get them to read a book, and then they realize that they're really not that bad.

I keep trying to convince people to read SYWTBAW, and they keep finding excuses...

[alla]

Hehe... Its not to DD books, but I have - hopefully - steered a kid in the right direction to gradually get there

There was a lady in the book shop the other day trying to choose a book for her kid - without the being there. Of course no 'generic' australian bookshops have the YW books, and I was looking at the YA books too. The lady was looking at the really kiddy ones, like the Captain Underpants ones and whatever and I was just browsing in the hope that something would catch me. I casually asked what age she was looking for and she said that the girl was 12 and had just finished the Harry Potter books. I pointed out a couple of titles. The Old Kingdom trilogy and the Tamora Pierce books and the lady bought the first two Alanna books Hopefully that will nurture the girl's love of fantasy

Hehe. I know what you mean miLady ( don't mind me I'm in a weird mood) But not personally. Dad was raised Catholic, but his entire family was right into reading SF/F books thats were our library comes from .

I keep trying to convince people to read SYWTBAW, and they keep finding excuses

I know what you mean. But here most people havent heard of them anyway. The only bookshops that actually have them are Borders and a few scifi specialty ones I managed to convince Amelia (see photos in TOGR ) to read them and she loves them. *shrugs* I'm gonna try and convince people at uni to read them... hehehehe