Normal's Books & Records

10/22/2026

Much missed Courtney still getting it done in the book world.

For this week’s staff recommendation, we’re featuring Courtney’s picks, collected into a nice little display by the trading counter. He’s got great and often unusual taste, informed by decades of reading and handling books.

Courtney’s a fan of unpredictable, convention-defying genre novels, stories told in an avant-garde manner but with heart. He reads a lot of international fiction, but is always championing forgotten American authors too. If it’s dark but humorous, Courtney’s probably interested!

📚🌎✍️

10/21/2026

From the good folks inside the Zone of Totality, “Hazard Communication”, the second album by surf punk group . With glasses and glossy printed insert!

10/20/2026

Ann Hornaday, the longtime film critic at The Washington Post, died Sunday at her home in Baltimore following a battle with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer. She was 66.

https://trib.al/WDZHpwV

10/19/2026

The liminal months are here! Decreasing sunlight & tears between the dimensions letting your bill collector from 1993 slip through. Eat lots of veggies and soak up lots of good music & books.

10/17/2026

We’ve got your needs covered! Plus some essential restocks. The “Deep Red” soundtrack comes with a mask of everyone’s favorite mad puppet!

10/17/2026

Beware travellers! Tomorrow is the giant marathon that ties up traffic like the daily news twisting up sensitive bowels. Proceed on foot and many great new treasures await you. We won’t be buying because who knows what traffic and human flow will be like and we’ve got a ton of new records and books still to catch up on pricing.
Just in: first edition hardback of Blues Legacies & Black Feminism by , five bricks of Karl Ove’s Struggle for you to measure your struggle up against, (with the good old covers, not the p**s poor fake naive drawing current ones), “Unwatchable” catalogue by Father Waters, Visual Music by , 2 by (My Life in the CIA already sold), New Musical Resources Something Else Press first edition hardback by Henry Cowell.

10/16/2026

A momentous day! Long ago kind musician & bon vivant gave to us this extremely cool gift - a Harmony guitar signed by David & Jad Fair of 1/2 Japanese and Coo Coo Rockin Time. I was torn as to the best spot for it and how to display it there. Luckily metal worker/carpenter/half of The Grand Boys, had some time and ideas. Today he hooked it up & I am swooning. Not many humans burst with sweet human like David. Artist, musician, creator of fun.
Eric said all he wanted in payment was a copy of “Metal Machine Music”. One happened to come in two days later! Metal work for Metal Machine Music. Thank you Paul & Eric. And of course David for your powerful soul generator.

10/15/2026

Some of the that’s hit the racks the last few days. OG with inner, Division of Liberty , with Evan Parker, 1970 ABC/Impulse of Coltrane’s “Meditations”. The Moondog has already sold.

10/14/2026

Some new vinyl hitting the racks tomorrow. Including a two lp expanded version of an album critics universally (with Charlottesville critic Compact D Ford abstaining from vote) hail as one of the greatest albums of all time, “Comme à la Radio” by . Plus a new album. One of ‘s best, Beach Boys’ “Smile”.