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August 8, 2025

The Ghoulish Times | 08.08.25

BEFORE WE PROCEED ANY FURTHER, WE HAVE FINALLY FINISHED RELOCATING OUR BOOKSTORE FROM SELMA TO DOWNTOWN SAN ANTONIO AND OUR GRAND RE-OPENING IS TOMORROW (SATURDAY, AUGUST 9) FROM 12-8PM.

FIRST 50 CUSTOMERS GET A FREE BOOK. FIRST 25 GET A FREE TOTE BAG. CALAVERAS TATTOOS NEXT DOOR WILL BE OFFERING A GHOULISH FLASH SALE. IT’S GOING TO BE A TON OF FUN. WE HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE.

OKAY HERE’S THE REST OF THE NEWSLETTER I’VE BEEN ATTEMPTING TO WRITE FOR OVER A WEEK NOW…


Hello and welcome to the latest issue of The Ghoulish Times. My name is

Sorry that’s as far as I got before our very old, mostly-senile dachshund decided to poop on a rug and then walk in it. I have since lost my train of thought.

Oh yes my name is Max Booth, and this is our free spooky newsletter. This is the newsletter of Ghoulish Books, which is both a small publishing company and an indie bookstore, operated by myself and my partner Lori Booth.

Our bookstore, located in Selma for the last 2 ½ years, has finally finished its move to downtown San Antonio. We are now officially open.

A reporter from MySanAntonio came down to the shop and took a bunch of pics and asked us questions and wrote up this great article about the re-opening.

Read it HERE.

That wasn’t the only time I was in the news this last week, and not just for the bookstore stuff. I also appeared on, like, live televised news at one point, but before I get into that…a brief anecdote from yesterday at the bookstore, written in second-person for extra dramatic flair:


A BRIEF ANECDOTE FROM YESTERDAY AT THE BOOKSTORE, WRITTEN IN SECOND-PERSON FOR EXTRA DRAMATIC FLAIR

Okay

—uhhh, so after writing “Okay” I was once again interrupted. This was back on August 2nd. It is now August 8th and I am attempting to continue this newsletter. This no longer happened yesterday, is what I’m trying to say. Wow, this is going great so far.

Okay, so imagine you have just pulled off a soft opening for the bookstore you’ve started with your partner. First, try not to think about how disgusting of a term “soft opening”—or, maybe, try to think more about it, if that helps. Think about nothing else but the term “soft opening,” you absolute pervert. Are you finished yet? Good.

Okay so you’ve just opened your new shop, the relocation is finished, you’ve gone through a nightmarish series of city inspections that you’ve already started recycling into a new Safdie brothers-esque novel tentatively titled The Mess of it All, and now AT&T has arrived to set up your wifi, because for the last couple days you’ve been relying on your cellular data signal to conduct sales. But also, you’re so so hungry, you haven’t eaten anything in you can’t even remember how long, and your partner has just showed up with delicious chicken strips. The problem is there is hardly any room in this shop, and it’s absolutely PACKED with customers and the internet technician, so you take your chicken into the back office so nobody can see you wolfing down food. There is another problem. Your back office is also your bathroom. This is a very tiny room, There are two shelves, a cart, a toilet, a sink, and for some goddamn reason, a shower. (A lawyer used to have an office in our spot, and he occassionally slept here.) There’s also a very steep set of stairs leading to a door that opens behind our building, which we try to keep locked whenever possible, of course. There is not much room to have a meal. There are no seats. Well, besides the toilet. So that’s where I sat. Greasy chicken in my lap, sitting on a toilet, feeling more and more like a raccoon despite the fact that I’ve never seen a raccoon sit on a toilet before and in fact I’ve never heard of such a thing ever happening not even once. Not with raccoons. Cats, maybe? Cats can use toilets. But I didn’t feel like a cat. I felt like a raccoon. Accept it. Wait a second. This is supposed to be in second person. You’ve already fucked it up. You absolute dumbass. Stick. To. The. Prompt. Do. Not. Break. Consistency. So you’re on the toilet. You’re eating chicken. You’ve done both of these things before many many times in the past but never together. It feels weird. You don’t know if you love it but you don’t know if you hate it, either. Suddenly the office door opens. The AT&T technician walks in, heading toward the back yard where he needs to do whatever it is AT&T technicians do in back yards. He stops and notices you. He freezes. He doesn’t know how to comprehend what he is witnessing. You nod your head and go, “Uh, hey,” and continue eating chicken. He nods and doesn’t say anything and goes outside. The two of you do not say another word to each other for the rest of the day.

Anyway that was the toilet chicken incident. I hope it helped improve your life somehow. I’m sorry if there are typos. I do not have time to proof any of this. Everybody is waiting on me to do something. What that something is I can’t remember. I’m sure it’s very pressing, though. I’m sure it can’t wait another possible moment. I’m sure of everything, especially of nothing.


Now here are some more instances of…

GHOULISH IN THE NEWS

So, I’ve weirdly been interviewed several times this last month about the death of Ozzy Osbourne? For those who don’t know, I wrote a movie (based on my book) called We Need to Do Something. It was filmed in 2020 and came out in 2021. Ozzy did the voice of “Good Boy”. Only a single line. Nothing crazy. But he still did it. According to the internet, it’s the last movie on his filmography? Feels weird! Haha. Anyway local news decided it was worth talking to me about this for some reason.

KENS 5 came out to the shop and interviewed me for the NIGHTLY NEWS. Like, on video? I had no idea it was going to be video until I saw the giant-ass camera. You can watch it below:

Please don’t put too much thought into the news calling me a “SA writer.” Please.

I was also interviewed a bit more in-depth about the whole thing via the San Antonio Express-News HERE.

Earlier in this newsletter I shared the great interview conducted by MySA. Since then (remember, I kept getting interrupted writing this newsletter) I was also interviewed by The San Antonio Current and I think it does a fantastic job of talking about our press and the bookstore and really educating people about Ghoulish. It also features a very funny photo of me holding a cartoonish stack of books.

Read it HERE.

Okay I think that’s everything for right now. I’m currently more overwhelmed than I ever have been in my life, but it’s good stuff. Lots of good stuff. The bookstore is already doing better at its new location than it ever did back in Selma. We actually get foot traffic now. I feel like a legit bookstore for the first time. It’s great. But I’m also severely behind on publishing work, and freelance editing, and bookstore duties, and whatever semblance of a writing career I’ve basically temporarily abandoned, so I gotta go ahead and send this newsletter and move on to the next thing.

I hope to see you at the grand opening!

Here are some (but not all) of the flash sale sheets you can expect to find at Calaveras Tattoos tomorrow:

Our new address and hours:

GHOULISH BOOKS

628 S SAINT MARYS SUITE 102, SAN ANTONIO TX 78205

MON - CLOSED

TUES-THURS - 12-7

FRI-SAT - 12-8

SUN - 12-5

—max

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