Back-2-School Books!

The new school year holds a great deal of importance for the average Bostonian, given that we're a college town with a particularly hazy definition of where "the Boston local area" begins and ends. This is to say, on generous days we have more students than sticks, a statistic larger than one should shake a stick at* and on other days, the student to air ratio is crazy, and you wonder how anyone can breathe with that much AXE in the atmosphere. The facts are, that the return of the students, both college and k-12, is an important signal to the ecosystem that it is time for change, and like in any season, we must steel ourselves. 

 

 

You've seen it; subway cars full of children, ads for college-ruled notebooks, and geese who are angrier than usual because they're having to share the playground 6+ hours a day. All of these phenomenon and more** are caused by the beginning of the school year, and since Pandemonium exists within the area known as "the Boston local area," we feel that it's our civic duty to offer you some books that we think would help in very real and very perilous situations that might arise given the season. Without further ado or explanation, here are some potential scenarios, and the complimentary books that will save your life.

 

• The college students have just discovered that your favorite dive bar has betrayed you, and is now offering a "student special." All of the good seats are taken, and none of the booths have good lighting. Place a copy of The Life of Pi on the floor within sight of the front door, and wait. Within fifteen minutes, at least one seat will be free and you can snag it. Way to go you!
• A stampede of horse girls with PSLs is about to run you down on Comm Ave. How do you know they're horse girls? From the hooves of course! You can use your pocket copy of Behooved to redirect them into a story of assassins, love, and you guessed it... horses! 
• Its 10 AM at the MFA, and a field trip has descended on the Monet gallery. They don't understand the hay, and it maddens them. They froth with an urge to know and no words with which to ask the hard hitting question of "why hay?" Get out now. There is no book that will help you in this situation.
• I lied. Make them horse girls by giving them Behooved too.

 

 

• Somehow you've been roped into substituting remedial home ec, or maybe you're just taking an evening course to improve your shakshuka. If you are the student, immediately arm yourself with A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking. If you are not the student, and you like your fingers where they are and also not on fire, divert anyone who's overly confident with a copy of Interstellar Megachef. Yes, you on your couch could bake it better than the contestants, but now we'll never have to risk you trying. If it is too late and you need to staunch anything, grab your handy copy of 1984. Its relevant, and absorbent! 
• You're Allston Christmas shopping and from among the couches and boxes of trash appears a wild sixth grader. They've got murder in their eyes, and maybe also some sawdust. At this point in their metamorphic cycle, they can still be buried under the complete works of Terry Pratchett. This will stop them in most cases, but in case their arms are still free, you can put a choose your own adventure in each hand, and then resume your looting in peace. If that doesn't keep them busy, I don't know what will...
• <shudders>
  
• Anyways, in this next scenario, imagine yourself and a friend are in a library and some fresh nosepicker is ragging on Douglass Adams. He's just absolutely trashing the man's name for no good reason, saying that "Hitchhiker's Guide was for babies," like his opinion is so vital that they've replaced lighthouses with it. Give them John Dies at the End. This doesn't help anyone, and you're probably a bad person for doing this, but the brain spiders from book two told you to, so it's fine.

 

 

• The shelves at Sephora are empty and the last pack of your favorite rehydrater is in the hands of a fifteen year old who's social media insists she needs it if she's going to look younger than 90 at the school dance next week. You can tell her she's going to be fine, and also hand her a copy of A Treachery of Swans. Once she cracks the cover it will be too late and the book will steal what's left of her youth! Or, if you don't feel like choosing violence, you can offer to trade it for The Neverending Story, which will do the same thing as the other book, but neither of you will feel bad about it.
• If all else fails, or if you'd like to make peace with the next batch of Bostonians, we can't recommend Martha Well's Murderbot series highly enough. Its relatable, and you could be too, (you should also get comfortable saying things like "mood," and "type-s***) if you get on board with this series. It'll be the first step of many in welcoming your future neighbors and coworkers into the world of adulthood and compartmentalization!

So there you go! Plenty of great reads to get you out of the situations specifically caused by the beginning of a new school year, or POGRTGYOOTSSCBTBONSY for short! I hope you feel safer, and better prepared already, and that you're already thinking about other awesome books that are ready and eager to help you out of a jam!

 

Ben Doane has been a member of the Pandemonium Team since 2019, and has been playing wargames, rpgs, and tcgs since 2004 and earlier. When not blogging, Ben runs the wargames and mailing departments, and also puts together the store's newsletters. Her current favorite card is Finwife for Sorcery Contested Realms.

 

*statistics can sometimes exhibit violent behavior when confronted with sticks. In most circumstances, it is best to make yourself bigger than the statistics so that they hesitate instead of attack. Statistically, this is the safest way to deal with statistics.

 

**other phenomenons that correlate and are undoubtably caused by the beginning of the school year include but are not limited to: sticky doorknobs, ocelot attacks, drone conventions, the death of the $5 slice of pizza, janitorial malaise, crank calls, toilet paper mummies, shrinky dink migrations, disappearing monuments,  flat stuff in the road, bad slam poetry, novelty socks appearing on your floor, penguin depression, dating apps getting worse again, flat tires, loud theaters, scabies outbreaks, and performance art.

 

***this isn't actually a footnote, but was instead an attempt to cover up some PG-13 level profanity. I didn't want to leave you hanging though, so here is a fun fact about me: my first Magic card was an Ichorid that I found in my locker at the beginning of 6th grade. It wasn't until 2 years ago that I finally found a deck to put it in: a Golgari Premodern deck that didn't do much of anything <3 That's all for real this time folx, thanks for reading!