Gah! You send people my way when I'm the Typo Queen in that post? Dear lord, must we make it more obvious that the ability to spell is not a requirement for working in a bookstore only that Sesame Street taught us our ABCs (which is how you can tell you are in a bookstore, by the way, because inevitably one of us will be shelving and whispering under our breath, "A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K...That's right, J is before K!"). Your use of the word "interesting" worries me though, possibly because I often use it when customers ask me if I liked a certain book. Interesting = well I wouldn't say it sucks, but...

I'm joking, and hopefully the post is slightly less typo-friendly than it was yesterday. Thanks for the linkage.

L

and P.S. the penis story? Boggles the mind, and I'm not just talking about his dimensions! I imagine that model will end up in a Ripley's Believe It or Not one day. That or Ebay.

I scoff at typos. I cough in their general direction. Really, not important.

And interesting = worth reading (in my book). Because I've always had this fascination with what goes on behind the scenes in retail, especially in bookstores, and you provide a great peep hole.

Somehow that doesn't sound right, but you know what I mean.

Peep hole might be more appropriate than you think. Not only do bookstore employees indulge their high degree of potty humor alarmingly often, but we have our own personal wall of shame. Someday I'll remember to bring a camera to work and take a picture. Of course then I will have to photoshop in little numbers so that I could explain everything. That might take some of the fun out of it, but I'll give it a try.

L

Your comment about battle scenes made me snicker because in my humble opinion, the only good battle scene is a short battle scene. You're going to put a lot time and effort into that battle scene, and I'm glad that you understand that I'm probably still going to skim it.

Norma -- I do understand that, because I'm the same way. It's a fine line to walk, doing it justice but not too much justice.

I'm probably not telling you anything new. In my experience, battle scenes I've skimmed didn't launch from a point of view I was grounded in. It's as if the writer kept all the battle scenes (and we've talked of this before, love scenes too), for some separate writing moment, and forgot to put the scenes in the context of what was happening immediately before. I don't think I've read a good battle scene that began a chapter, for example. Some great battle scenes I've been surprised to get sucked into were found in works by Elizabeth Moon. Mind you, being an ex-marine probably doesn't hurt her ability to put the reader in the thick of it. Or maybe it's because she writes female characters in battle actions that gripped me. Didn't want to analyze it too much because they were fun to read. She has a website if you google her.
If it's a character-driven book, all I need to know of a battle, as a reader, is how the character I'm with is living through it. I guess what happens to them becomes representative of what the entire battle must have been like, so I don't need to get the panoramic view unless the character was on a hillside looking over it. Wow would that be a hard viewpoint to write engagingly.