At the bookstores

The Comicshop at 2089 West 4th is the sort of place that, like the Commercial Drive store that sells only one kind of sausage, could not exist outside a dense, inner-urban environment. The huge store full of comic books also offers specialty treats like The Frank Book, by Jim Woodring, Palestine, a political graphic novel by Joe Sacco, now in its seventh printing, and the surprisingly bitter and angry Darling Cherie by Walter Minus.
 
Surely the widest selection of magazines in the city is now at Does Your Mother Know, at 2139  West 4th. The effect of so much cover art and design is bewildering. Some new ones still stand out, though. Highrise magazine is pure style, from big architecture to nightclub wear, from bathrooms to watches. Worldwatch: Vision for a Sustainable Future has a cover story on Peak Oil (as everyone should). And Donna Hay: Turning Simple Into Special is a new-generation cooking, living, and entertaining magazine that finally escapes the cold, evil clutches of the blue-fingered Martha Stewart.
 
Duthie Books at 2239 West 4th Avenue is still there, and still offers a treasure trove of new titles as rich as ever. On the new-arrivals table, of particular interest, find Tony Judt’s Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945; Jay Ingram’s Theatre of the Mind: Raising the Curtain on Consciousness; and local author Hadani Ditmars’ Dancing in the No-Fly Zone: A Woman’s Journey Through Iraq.