Winston Pei (he/they/il/iel)

@blackriders.com

300 Followers 846 Following

Book nerd, design fanatic, free range librarian, rookie book artist, musician, tech geek, bookseller, AFOL, professional generalist, and ridiculously proud parent. More at https://butterfliesandaliens.com and https://blackriders.com

Close up picture of a hand holding a red mug shaped like an apple, including a red lid with a green stem and leaf, but it’s no regular apple… nay, it’s a Richard Scarry Apple Car with two wheels protruding off the bottom of the Apple, two silver headlights above the wheels, and a large orange-coloured window in which can be seen Lowly the Worm in his signature green hat, red bow tie, blue shirt, green pants, and, most critically, the other end of his worm self wearing a red shoe while wrapped around a stick shift or control stick of some kind.
La photo montre une personne souriante vêtue d'un haut blanc et portant un cordon vert, debout devant une bannière vert foncé arborant le logo de l'Université de l'Alberta en blanc, entre deux colonnes de ballons verts, dorés et blancs. Picture shows a smiling person in a white top and a green lanyard standing in front of a dark green banner featuring the French logo of the University of Alberta in white, displayed between two columns of green, gold, and white balloons.
Picture of a bookseller in glasses and a burgundy top holding up a copy of “I Find Your Lack of Candy Disturbing: Halloween Greetings from a Galaxy Far, Far Away…” by Jeffrey Brown in front of his face while standing in front of the staff choices shelves and the rest of the main floor of Audreys Books in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Image is of the bottom two shelves of a shelving unit made out of dark wood, one labelled “Words, Grammar & The Writing Life,” with a bookseller in glasses peering in sideways from the left side of the photo because they were lying on the carpetted floor while taking the picture. Visible book covers include “The Language-Lovers Lexipedia,” “The Mother Tongue,” “Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian,” “enough is enuf: our failed attempts to make English eezier to spell,” “What Language Is (and What it Isn’t and What it Could Be),” “Book Indexing: A Step-by-Step Guide,” “Semicolon,” “Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder” by Salman Rushdie, and “Promote Your Book Workbook.”
Picture of my ID badge for the Stronger Together Library Conference! Proud to be representing Campus Saint-Jean here!
Picture of a bookseller with glasses and a dark orange top crouching beside a chalk sandwich board in front of Audreys Books in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The sandwich board reads “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has. Margaret Mead” above the burgundy Audreys logo.
Picture shows an excited bookseller in glasses and a burgundy top peering over the top edge of a copy of « Physics for Cats » by Tom Gauld, featuring a purple cover with a black spine and cartoon of an abstract 3D shape with several black cats walking along its edges. Book and bookseller are in front of a dark wood shelf full of books under a sign that reads « Unusual ».
Photo of a bookseller with glasses peeking in from the top of the frame while crouched in front of the bottom shelf at the end of the science fiction section at Audreys Books. Visible covers include Andy Weir’s Hail Mary, Martha Wells’ Murderbot books in paperback, hardcover, and omnibus editions, and John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids.
Picture of the cover of “The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand” edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene, introduction by Stephen King, and a story by Edmonton’s own Premee Mohamed. The cover is black with red all-caps lettering for the main title, tan for the subtitle, and also features the head of a crow looking up from the bottom right corner. A stack of additional copies is visible below.
Pictured is the open central stairwell at Audreys Books in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, framed in dark mahogany wood, with bookshelves full of books visible in the background upstairs, on the landing, and on the lower level visible past the landing. Flowing from the corner of the opening on the main level is a scroll of paper that goes up to the ceiling then loops down several times before flowing back up over the ledge of the opening.
Photo is a #DemonPotatoes version of the "How it started... How it's going" meme, with an inset photo on the left half of the image under the heading "How it started" showing two fresh new baby potatoes, one round and one pear-shaped, with faces drawn on them with marker consisting of two dots for eyes and a squiggly line for a mouth, and an inset photo on the right hand side under the heading "How it's going" showing the same two potatoes looking much more wrinkled and shriveled, with the skin on the pear-shaped baby potatoe also having turned much darker. Along the bottom, text reads: #DemonPotatoes https://www.butterfliesandaliens.com/stacks/something-awoke-in-the-garden
Picture of a human bookseller (bottom) peeking up from below the frame of the photos while a Yeti with white fur (actually a Yeti puppet but don’t tell them!) hugs the bookseller’s bespectacled head from behind.
Picture of a bookseller in glasses and a burgundy top peeking up from behind two copies of “The Möbius Book” by Catherine Lacey he is holding in front of his face, while standing in front of a dark wood bookshelf with additional copies of the book behind him. The book features a blue cover with white printing of the title, author name, and a line drawing of a möbius strip, as well as a barcode at the bottom left corner of the cover.
Picture shows a wide shot of the main floor of Audreys Books in Edmonton, with several rows of dark wood shelves filled with books, with a dark-haired bookseller wearing glasses peeking up from below the frame of the picture. The closest shelf behind the bookseller has two signs mounted above it, both of which that read “ISSUES” while the shelves below contain a variety of current event titles such as “The Internet Con” by Cory Doctorow, “Youth Care Chronicles: Reflections on Growing Up in the Child Welfare System”, and “War” by Bob Woodward.
Picture of a bookseller in glasses peeking in from the left edge of the photo while standing in front of a wall of tan-coloured wood shelving, four shelves high and two unit wide, featuring about forty dragon-themed books along with a pair of dragon stuffies
Picture of a bookseller wearing glasses peeking from below the frame of the photo, standing in front of a mahogany bookshelf and pointing at a poster that reads “Our Staff Picked Actually Interesting Read for Summer” and featuring a side view profile picture of a human-form robot or cyborg. The shelf also shows three of the Audreys Summer Picks books (on the top shelf of a six shelves, the rest hidden below the frame of the photo): “The Wild Robot On The Island” by Peter Brown, “Victor & Me in Paris” by Janice MacDonald, and “Soft As Bones” by Chyana Marie Sage.
Picture of a bookseller wearing glasses and a burgundy top peering over the top of a copy of “The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries” by Massimo Listri and published by Taschen, one of four bargain copies in store!
Picture of a bookseller with glasses leaning sideways half in a picture of the bottom level of a wood shelf featuring about twenty books. Face out are « How The World Really Works » by Vaclav Smil and « The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science » by Kate Zernike. Other titles include « The Book of Eels » by Patrik Svenson, « Frostbite » by Nicola Twilley, « Life As No One Knows It » by Sara Imari Walker, « Most Delicious Poison: The Story of Nature’s Toxins, from Spices to Vices » by Noah Whitenan, and « The Salmon Cannon and the Levitating Frog, and other serious discoveries of silly science » by Carly Anne York.
Picture of a smiling bookseller in glasses and a burgundy top peering out from behind two smiling Jelly Cat stuffies, one of a pina colada-style drink in a coconut with a blue striped straw and a flower coming out the top, the other of a desert island with a large palm tree growing out of it. (Sorry, always so hard to describe Jelly Cat stuffies!)
Picture is of a bookseller in glasses wearing a burgundy top peering over the top edge of “This Book is Dangerous! A Narwhal and Jelly Picture Book”, the latest from author/illustrator Ben Clanton. The cover shows the title above a picture of a frightened jellyfish against a black background with a row of eight large whitish teeth along both the top and bottom of the page… is Jelly inside a creature’s mouth? Are we looking out from inside the mouth ourselves? (Incidentally, the teeth glow in the dark so one can also simply picture two rows of eight white floating in the dark…)
Picture of a bookseller in glasses in a beige top holding up a copy of “Monk and Robot” by Becky Chambers (ISBN 9781250386335), a trade paperback omnibus edition that includes “A Psalm for the Wild-Built” and “A Prayer for the Crown-Shy” featuring a light green cover with the title in white handwriting-style lettering and a human hand reaching up from below and a grey robot hand reaching down from above.
Picture of the trade paperback edition of “Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda” by Becky Albertalli, being held at a slight angle so that the top and fore edge rainbow printing is visible.
Picture of a smiling bookseller in glasses wearing a burgundy shirt cheek-to-cheek with a white-furred yeti (shhh they’re actually a puppet but don’t tell them… the yeti, that is, not the bookseller) and both standing in front of a brick pillar and some wooden shelves.
Picture of a bookseller in glasses (yours truly) peeking out from behind stacks of Crave cookbooks, dark blue hardcovers with the title “Crave” in gold and a picture of a stack of their cookies.
Picture of a smiling bookseller holding up a newly restocked Star Trek Kirk and Spock Magnetic Wardrobe magnetic dress-up set, while standing in front of the @UnemployedPhilosophersGuild display at Audreys Books.
Picture of me, a bookseller with glasses and a beard, wearing a burgundy top, crouching in front of the “Unusual” shelf in dark wood at Audreys Books in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, featuring the section on Books About Books, Bookstore, and Writer’s Lives.
Picture of a bookseller wearing glasses and a white t-shirt with a burgundy vintage Puck graphic and the caption “Good books build character”, holding up an Edmonton Indie Bookstore Extravaganza passport in front of his face, while posing in front of his staff picks shelf.
Picture of a bookseller in glasses, also wearing a blue surgical mask, standing in front of the ‘Health’ section at Audreys Books and pointing at the ‘Health’ sign… hopefully? Ironically? The photo does not make it clear…
Picture of me sitting in on a brown donation chair, a composite tube running from my left arm to a white cabinet that is the platelet extraction machine, above which is hanging two bags of yellowish fluid, one each of platelets and plasma. I am smiling a bit goofily while holding up a sign that says “150 Donations” in my right hand.
Photo of a slide from Nerd Nite YEG 86, first presentation titled “Grow Food Not Lawns,” that reads “Colonized minds hear ‘ours’ and think of possession. Decolonizing minds hear ‘ours’ and feel connection. — Josie Valadez Fraire”
Picture of a bookseller with his Yeti puppet friend… both have white beards but the bookseller is wearing glasses and a burgundy top while the Yeti is not. The Yeti also has white hair all over the rest of his body while the bookseller does not. They are both smiling though!
Picture of me peeking into a shelfie of our Mixology section at Audreys Books!
Picture of me in front of my staff picks shelf, featuring a variety of fiction and non-fiction
Picture of the outside front of “We Will Rest: The Art of Escape” by Tricia Hersey, a hardcover book about 5” x 7”, no dust jacket, with brown background covered in a constellation pattern, mustard yellow cloth spine, and gold embossed title.
Picture of a bookseller in glasses standing in front of a red brick wall, holding up copies of “Meena and the Microbiome” by Dr. Majdi Osman and illustrated by Teresa Martinez, and “Space Brooms!” By A. G. Rodriguez in front of his face.
This is a poster for "One With The Show" presented by Korora Choirs. It shows an illustration of red curtains drawn open on a stage with spotlights shining down on the title of the concert, plus text that reads "Saturday February 22, 2 & 7 pm, West End Christian Reformed Church, Tickets $25 ($20 Students, $15 Children)"
Picture of a smiling bookseller in glasses standing in front of multiple rows of wooden bookshelves and more bookshelves lining the side and back walls.
Picture of a bookseller next to a purple and red display of “Blind Date With A Book” packages of books individually wrapped in purple fabric and with labels indicating which bookseller selected it and if it’s fiction or non-fiction. The pictured bookseller (that’s me!) looks pretty pumped about the whole deal!
Picture of a grinning bookseller crouched in front of a display of books, including “Dinosaur Friendship”, “The Antiracist Deck” by Ibram X. Kendi, “On Freedom” by Timothy Snyder, and “All Our Relations” by Tanya Talaga, among others!
Picture shows a white ribbon looped once and pinned on a black dress shirt with a University of Alberta Engineering pin
Video of me sliding a new copy of Gyula Gábor Tóth’s “Story of The Everything, The Nothing, and Other Strange Stories” in behind the existing shelf stack
Picture of me holding up a copy of “The Jolly Christmas Postman” by Janet & Allan Ahlberg while crouching in front of the winter holiday book section downstairs at Audreys Books in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Close up photo of two baby potatoes with felt-marker drawn faces as inspired by L. A. Cunningham’s “Demon Potatoes” mini-comic, now sprouting many tentacular shoots from the pear-shaped one, and still just one tiny single shoot from the forehead of the round one.
Picture of the cover of the University of Alberta Fall 2024 Convocation booklet, a white letter-size booklet featuring a full colour U of A crest on the cover above the title text.
Picture of me peeking from the side of the photo over part of the front window display at Audreys Books in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, featuring a variety of books as well as globe and snowflake ornaments hanging from above.
Picture of me with my hair down, wearing a black t-shirt with a rainbow-coloured Korora logo (the family of choirs I sing with), sitting next to the centrifuge I’m hooked up to that will spin off the platelets and plasma they need and return the rest through to tube inserted into my left arm.
Picture of four postcards featuring the artwork of Michael Whalen, plus an art catalogue lying on top of an order form and the envelope it came in, all laid out on the open book in which they were rediscovered.
A bookseller standing in front of brown wooden bookshelves full of children’s books is holding up a book titled “Book” by David Miles and illustrated by Natalie Hoopes. The cover illustration features a painting of floating islands over which has been pasted typographic cuttings from pages of books.
A picture of two baby potatoes with faces drawn on them in black marker, one round and one more pear-shaped, sitting in a blue Chinese ceramic plate, set on a shelf of funny books about death. The pear-shaped "demon potato" has sprouted, with one "tentacle" upwards over twice its height and multiple others rising around it.
Picture of a guy standing in front of a brick wall mostly hidden by a copy of Florilegia, Selected Poems by Brenda Gunn, a trade paperback with a picture of a dilapidated grey wood barn in a yellow canola field.