Jennifer Silverberg for RFT

Michelle Barron at the Book House.

That was quick.

On Monday we reported that the Book House, a beloved local shop, could soon be homeless as developers and the city of Rock Hill explore the possibility of demolishing the historic property to make way for a large storage facility. The out-of-state developer Great Northern Development LLC and Rock Hill officials both told us that talks are very preliminary at this point.

Two days later owner Michelle Barron received her formal eviction notice.

"For the first time, I actually broke down crying," she tells Daily RFT. "The time I've been dreading...has happened."

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Jennifer Silverberg for RFT

Michelle Baron.

If city officials approve, developers may demolish a beloved book store in a historic Rock Hill house -- and construct storage facilities on the site.

Michelle Barron, owner of the Book House, is trying to spread the word and stop developers and the city from moving forward with a demolition and redevelopment plan that she says could destroy her business.

"There's a lot of history in this house. It's one of the oldest structures remaining in Rock Hill," she tells Daily RFT. "I don't know what we're going to do."

The developer, however, tells us that plans are very premature at this stage -- and that he will do everything he can to help the Book House stay alive.

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via Facebook

St. Louis birthed a superhero.

Jack Dorsey is definitely a source of pride for St. Louis -- and now, we have one more reason to be extra proud.

He's a superhero. The Twitter cofounder and richest, coolest St. Louis celeb ever (sorry, Jon Hamm), is now the superhero star of a comic book, because...why not?

A company called Bluewater Productions that apparently does tech and celebrity comic books released its newest comic-book biography last week featuring Dorsey. And hashtags. And the St. Louis Arch!

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T.D. El-Amin

T.D. El-Amin's debut novel takes place in Italy and St. Louis but was birthed in Montgomery, Alabama. Specifically the federal prison camp in Montgomery where El-Amin served nearly eighteen months in 2010 and 2011 for soliciting and taking a bribe as a Missouri state representative.

"For me, writing was a way to express myself and my desires," El-Amin tells Daily RFT. "In prison you have to create a world for yourself, and that world has to sustain you. The characters in my book did that. They kept me company."

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At $4.99, "Show Me" offers a lot of bangs for the buck.

A live reading of St. Louis erotica started down an appropriately dirty path Friday night when author Jade Melisande took the stage at Shameless Grounds coffee shop to share a story about hiking au naturel at Castlewood Park.

"I leaned over to tie my hiking boots, making sure to bend far enough that my panties-less butt was exposed as he rounded the end of the car and came up behind me," began Melisande. "'Molly,'" he said again, grabbing my skirt and tugging it down over my bare ass. He could be so very tight-laced. But his hand lingered there a moment and I glanced over to see that look that he got when he was thinking about sex."

Melisande's romp in the woods is one of ten stories in the new anthology Show Me that aims to showcase -- and promote -- sex in the Midwest.

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Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending February 17, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books, Subterranean Books and The Book House.

This week The Book House in Webster Groves begins reporting sales to the St. Louis bestseller list. Also this week, local authors appear in force on the St. Louis bestseller list. Coincidence? Well, probably not.

At the top of the adult list is The Fallen, the second part of a trilogy of supernatural thrillers that began with The Light Bringer, the longtime bestseller by local authors and former cops Chris DiGiuseppi and Mike Force. (The Light Bringer itself comes in at number three.)

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Is there anything more that needs to be said?

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending February 10, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books and Subterranean Books.

If you heard a strange exploding sound recently, it may have been the combustion of the minds of our city's science fiction geeks upon the discovery of this week's number-eight bestseller: Doctor Who: Shada: The Lost Adventure by Douglas Adams by Gareth Roberts.

Let's parse this for a second. Apparently once upon a time, Douglas Adams, author of the canonical Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy wrote a script for the equally-canonical TV series Doctor Who. The script was intended to star Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor, but it was never produced. Instead if languished in obscurity...until now! It wasn't enough to publish the script, though. Instead the publisher decided to publish a novelization of said script, another classic form of science fiction writing, by Gareth Roberts, a master of the form.

Has there ever been a greater confluence of geekiness?

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Comedic erotica novelist Alice Clayton enjoys pickles, Bloody Marys, and "a good pounding."

Update 2:38 p.m.: Alice Clayton called us hours after this post was published to share some exciting news: She's signed with Simon & Schuster. The publisher acquired her three previously published books and the fourth one that she is working on now.

Erotic novelist Alice Clayton doesn't write your typical, love-at-first-sight romance novels, with sex on the beach and meaningful eye contact. Her characters worry about their unshaven legs, and one gets pooped on by a seagull before she ever gets the chance to have a roll in the sand.

"For me, real life is the cat throws up on the floor in the middle of it," Clayton tells Daily RFT. "You get shit on by a seagull, you absolutely do. The dog starts howling, the kid's knocking on the door. And if you can keep going, that's a keeper. That's adult romance."

Clayton, who is based in St. Louis, has published three novels in the comedic erotica vein, and is currently writing her fourth. In her spare time, she's also working on a travel show concept called Have Boobs, Will Travel.

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It's like eating at Annie Gunn's, only you're safe at home.

Here's your weekly St. Louis bestseller list for the week ending February 3, as compiled by the St. Louis Independent Booksellers Alliance and based on sales at Left Bank Books, Main Street Books and Subterranean Books.

If disappointment in the dream of romance has turned your heart into a black, wizened lump of charcoal, look no further for your Valentine's Day reading than this week's number-one bestseller, Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, a portrait of the marriage from hell. Well, since it is the number-one bestseller, what might we surmise about the state of love and romance in our fair city?

New to the list this week are a couple of local titles: St. Charles: A Postcard History by Valerie Battle Kienzle with the St. Charles County Historical Society and Rook Cooks: Simplicity at Its Finest by Lou Rook, a cookbook by the chef at Annie Gunn's.

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Greg Fisher: Had a wife, but couldn't keep her.

Valentine's Day is not a holiday most divorced men look forward to. But then most those guys have yet to read Crestwood author Greg Fisher's new book, The Divorced Men's Survival Guide.

In it Fisher dispenses all kinds of advice for men emerging from a failed marriage, including tips on how to cook, maintain good hygiene and budget their finances. There's even a chapter titled "How to Get Laid."

Fisher's advice for his fellow male divorcees looking to get lucky this February 14?

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