A Reading Odyssey

Audio book review: Juliet by Anne Fortier

2012-02-13T13:13:00.000-05:00

I actually borrowed this audio book from my mother, for whom I had bought it about a year ago when I saw it on the bargain table at my bookstore. When I was visiting her over the Christmas hols I noticed that she hadn't listened to it yet, so I helped myself to it. Much as I love David Sedaris and Bill Bryson, I was growing a mite weary of re-listening to their audios on my daily commute, week in and week out.

The story turned out to be surprisingly satisfying, not least because Cassandra Campbell is a very good reader for this story. I did think that it was a touch over-long, and if I had been reading the physical book I definitely would have skimmed over a good bit of it, but despite that, I give it a solid recommendation.

There are two storylines that eventually come together; one is a modern day young woman named Julie Jacobs, an American who travels to Siena to track down a mysterious inheritance that her mother may have died trying to protect, and the other is the story of Giulietta Tolomei, whose doomed love for Romeo Mariscotti haunted 14th-century Siena and was the inspiration for Shakespeare's famous play. I far more enjoyed the earlier storyline, with its intrigues and betrayals, than the modern one, where Julie seems a little whiny and ineffective.

Medieval curses, hidden statues, lying scoundrels, mystical rites, horse races, precious heirlooms, family feuds, the Mafia, and yes, two pairs of star-cross'd lovers, all have their roles to play, and while most readers (or listeners) won't have much trouble guessing the various plot twists, there's no denying that this is a frolicsome book.

Now, of course, I have to plan a trip to Siena to visit all of the fabulous places described in such loving detail and I've got an unanswerable hankering to delve into more books with an Italian setting. It's been years since my one and only visit to that country and this book makes me yearn to return.

~Emily

They Don't Get Better Than This: The Fault in Our Stars

2012-02-09T11:21:00.000-05:00

I met John Green a couple of weeks ago when he was participating on a panel for Winter Institute and was one of the big draws at the author receptions. Up until then, I had only read Will Grayson, Will Grayson, a book that he cowrote with David Levithan, and while I knew he was a beloved author, I really had no clear idea why until that time in New Orleans. On his panel he kept talking about his horrifically tragic books, but he himself was so damn funny (and WG, WG tipped decidedly toward the funny end of the scale, not the tragic one) that it was difficult for me to feature.

I left work on Thursday with a signed copy of The Fault in Our Stars tucked under my arm, winging a comment back to my colleague Marika as I left that I was looking forward to the emotional ride. Little did I know! I was barely into Chapter One before the bed was shaking with laughter and my husband sniffed at me from over the top of his own, decidedly-less-funny book, The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy. My cats didn't seem to mind, though my sweet Murray did start licking my face when the laughter abruptly shifted to tears. I'm telling you, this book chewed up my heart and spit it back out again, but I had an absolutely Grand Time for the duration.

You know the movie Steel Magnolias? I love that movie, not least for its eminent quotability, and one of the first lines I committed to memory was one of Dolly Parton's: "Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion." Well, this book is the pure-dee embodiment of that sentiment. There were times my shoulders were a-shakin' and I'd be very hard-pressed to determine if it were more from the tears or more from the laughter, for I could suppress neither for very long.

Probably most of you who are reading this review know exactly what this book is about, but for my mom and my husband, and those of you who don't, perhaps, have your fingers on the pulse of YA publishing, here's a short summary: two teenagers meet and fall in love. So far, so good. But it's where they meet that shapes this book's content--at a support group for teens with cancer. The reader absolutely knows from the beginning that the book cannot end well, but that doesn't keep the reader from hanging herself with the hope rope. (Or maybe that's just me.) Augustus and Hazel wouldn't be your typical teens even without their missing or weakened body parts. They're smart, curious, snarky, and introspective. Their cancer has taken them beyond politeness to that realm where fools are not suffered gladly and where the concept of pussyfooting around topics other (read: normal) people find uncomfortable is unfathomable.

The dialogue is exactly what dialogue should be in real life, if only we got to rehearse and make it perfect yet authentic. The pathos in the book is a fitting tribute to the title's source: nothing less venerably tragic than Shakespeare's Julius Caesar ("The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,/ But in ourselves").

There's book talk, video games, a friend who goes blind, some mild vandalism, a trip to Amsterdam, Two Very Important Venn diagrams, and an asshole of an author, and throughout it all the book boils down to narrative perfection. My two main critiques of the book have nothing to do with the content and everything to do with design: 1) the cover design is not very good, and in fact it's hard to read the text underneath the white cloud, and (2) The lovely-to-look-at typeface which is also, in fact, easy to read, is never identified.

Really, I cannot recommend this book enough. Just read it, y'all!

~Emily

What We Talk About When We Talk About Good Books

2012-02-08T12:04:00.002-05:00

Nathan Englander's new book, taking the iconic Raymond Carver story as an exercise in both homage and one-upmanship, debuted yesterday and already the book world is abuzz with it. It's made all kinds of lists of books to look forward to in 2012 by People Who Matter, and we're happy to let our Odyssey customers out there know that it's really quite excellent and that it lives up to the buzz. Here is just some of the praise he has received for What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank:

"Courageous and provocative. Edgy and timeless. In Englander's hands, storytelling is a transformative act. Put him alongside Singer, Carver, and Munro. Englander is, quite simply, one of the very best we have." --Colum McCann

"Englander's new collection of stories tells the tangled truth of life in prose that, as ever, surprises the reader with its gnarled beauty . . . Certifiable masterpieces of contemporary short-story art." --Michael Chabon

"A resounding testament to the power of the short story from a master of the form. Englander's latest hooks you with the same irresistible intimacy, immediacy and deliciousness of stumbling in on a heated altercation that is absolutely none of your business; it's what great fiction is all about." --Tea Obreht

Mr. Englander will be doing a reading at the Odyssey on Tuesday, March 6th, at 7:00pm and this new collection of stories is our First Editions Club selection for that month, so come check out the book that Diana, Elli, and Emily are already enthusiastic about. We hope to see you there! Please see our website for full details.

~Emily

The Many Covers of A Wrinkle in Time

2012-02-07T13:56:00.000-05:00

You may have heard that this year is the 50th Anniversary of Madeleine L'Engle's science-fiction classic A Wrinkle in Time. L'Engle received tons of rejection letters for her book which many editors thought was not a children's book. However, since publication, it has won the Newbery and had handfuls of different covers. Rebecca Stead's 2009 Newbery Award-winning book When You Reach Me is even an homage to L'Engle's classic. My mother's bookshelf has three copies of this book- each with a different cover. Check out the covers below...which did you grow up with and which are your favorites?

This is the original cover. If you take off the dust jacket of the hardcover 50th Anniversary edition, this is the cover you'll find underneath.

The most recent paperback cover. The entire series was released with covers by the same illustrator, and they're all wonderful. I love the texture of the prints.

A pulpy, sci-fi classic sort of cover. I know my mom has one of these.

A cover by Peter Sis. I think it captures a surrealistic quality in the book.

This cover has the feel of a classic fantasy novel .

A cover by Leo and Diane Dillon. I love all their work and have the set with their covers. I think this cover works well for both adults and children.

A more realistic, classically children's, cover. My mom has a copy with this cover, but it's never been a favorite of mine.

I'd never seen this cover until today, and I think it paints a very happy, idealistic image at odds with what's actually inside.

Also a cover I'd never seen before.

And, finally, the dust jacket for the 50th Anniversary edition. The rings are highlighted with gold and the type is raised. I love this cover and the original (printed on the boards beneath the dust jacket).

What do you think? Which covers are your favorites?

-Marika

We Are All Korean: A (borrowed) Guest Blog Post by Adam Johnson

2012-02-06T11:51:00.004-05:00

If you've been in the bookstore over the weekend, you probably noticed large carts full of one particular book, The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson, which is the Odyssey's First Editions Club selection. We weren't quite able to get Adam to the store for a reading, much to our disappointment, but our heroic sales rep, Michael Kindness, was able to figure out a way for us to take books to the author instead. Yay--we have signed first printings for sale now!

I met Adam at Winter Institute in New Orleans a few weeks ago and have been following media on his book since its publication in mid-January (it's *amazing* and one of those books that really stays with you). I was delighted to see the following guest blog post at Lemuria Bookstore's blog that Adam wrote for his author appearance at that fine store, so I asked the good folks at Lemuria if we might be able to use his guest post, too. With Lemuria's and Adam's blessing, here it is:

"We are all Korean”

Upon arriving in Pyongyang, one of our first stops was the National Museum of Korean History. It was a large museum with no one in it. To save electricity, which was quite scarce, the museum used motion sensors that turned out the lights when you left a room and flashed them on when you entered the next, so the cavernous journey was taken one flashing glimpse at a time. The first exhibit they showed me was what they claimed was an old skull fragment. It was displayed in a Plexiglas box atop a white pedestal. They informed me that the skull was 4.5 million years old and that it had been found on the shores of the Taedong River in Pyongyang. I was new to such tours, so my brain was filled with dissonance. I asked the museum docent, a middle-aged woman wearing a beautiful choson-ot, if humanity didn’t originate in Africa. “Pyongyang,” she said. I’d taken a course on human origins when I was an undergraduate, and a hazy memory came to me. I said, “So is this a skull fragment from an australopithecine?” She said, “No, Korean.” And I understood that she was a person trained to give a tour and recite prescribed information, not a scholar or curator. In North Korea, whenever evidence is lacking for something, they use a big painting or an elaborate diorama as proof. They had both on hand to explain via arrows and diagrams, how humanity had originated in Pyongyang, with the following Diaspora moving north into Asia and west into the Middle East and Europe. Finally, according to the diorama, humans populated Africa and North America. We had several minders with us, all watching my response to this new information. Finally, our tour guide concluded her lecture by informing me that the World was Korean (by which she meant North Korean) and by informing me that I was actually Korean. A friend of mine, a fellow professor on the tour with me, turned to me and said, “Did you hear, Professor Johnson? You are Korean. Do you feel suddenly Korean?”

I pat my arms and sides. “Yes,” I said, “I feel a little more Korean.”

He said, “You look a little more Korean.”

I rubbed my cheek and chin. “Yes,” I said, “I believe I’m a little more Korean.”

Our tour guide and minders all nodded, with some gravity, at my dawning realization.

So the lesson I learned in the National Museum of Korean History was that there was no irony in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

* * *

Adam Johnson is Associate Professor of English with emphasis in creative writing at Stanford University. A Whiting Writers’ Award winner, his fiction has appeared in Esquire, Harper’s, Playboy, Paris Review, Tin House and Best American Short Stories. He is the author of Emporium, a short-story collection, and the novel Parasites Like Us, which won a California Book Award.

~Emily Crowe

Situations Matter

2012-01-21T17:49:00.000-05:00

A few months ago I had picked up an advance reader's copy of Situations Matter by Sam Sommers, meant to write a blog post about it and then got entirely too busy. Now that it's been published and is in the store, I've remembered how long I've been meaning to write about it and made some time to finally get it done.

The author, Sam Sommers, is a psychology professor at Tufts who specializes in examining how situations change us and our decision making. He argues that many of our assumptions about human nature are wrong, and can be explained by a closer look at the situations around various actions. Whether we're aware of it or not, all sorts of things can change how we act, from standing in a crowd to being the only person of your ethnic background in the room.

The chapter examining our assumptions about innate gender differences is fascinating, especially when he takes on the controversial statements made by former Harvard president Larry Summers on math and science ability in women. The way researchers have been able to erase or exacerbate the "gender gap" in math just by changing the circumstances of the test made sure I will never look at claims of innate ability in any subject the same way again.

I think this book does a great job of explaining the power of context, which goes a long way to assist us in our understanding of ourselves and others. While not a self-help book, there are many things in this book that can help you use knowledge of situations for your own benefit. For example, I'm in a band that plays at various places throughout Western and Central Massachusetts, and some crowds just aren't into the music as much as they are their beverages. After reading about the man who makes a living pretending to be a normal fan cheering like crazy at sporting events, I make sure to have a few friends in the audience that will dance, sing along, and help get the party going. The tip jar definitely shows the difference!

Dreaming of a Better World

2012-01-16T19:58:00.000-05:00

I thought that on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day it was appropriate for me to blog about one of the most exciting books I've read recently, Dream of a Nation: Inspiring Ideas for a Better America. This book is a collection of writings by a whole lot of people who have done some amazing things, and have great ideas on how to improve the world we all live in. (Full disclosure time: I also work at National Priorities Project. NPP was founded by Greg Speeter, who wrote one of the chapters, so I am 1/62nd biased. I won't review his chapter but I will say I think it's great!)

I think it's pretty safe to say that most people have concerns about the way we are living. If you've ever found yourself wondering if living in a democracy should be about more than voting and shopping, or what can be done to make sure all children get equal educational opportunities, read this book. The chapters cover such a wide range of topics that everyone is sure to find something they are passionate within these pages. The best feature of this book is that almost all of the chapters not only inform about widespread problems, but offer suggestions of things all of us can do about them.

Some of these tips can have staggering benefits. For example, switching just the five most used lightbulbs in your home with compact fluorescent bulbs can save you about $90 a year, and 662 pounds of coal worth of energy. Changing to independent news sources may not have that same quantifiable dollar figure, but will certainly help you get a different perspective on the world. I thought that "Key Steps for a Healthy Nation" was one of the most memorable segments of the book, with the statistic that 40% of premature deaths in the United States are due to personal behavior patterns. However, on the very next page it details the four healthy habits that can cut risk of diabetes by 93%, heart attack by 81%, and stroke by 50%.

While you could sit down and read it in one go, I think it's set up perfectly to keep handy for reading in small increments over a long period of time. Keep this book on hand for all those nights where you've got 15 minutes before dinner comes out of the oven. Instead of checking your email or Facebook again, flip to a new chapter and get ready to be inspired!

When I saw this book for the first time, it reminded me of one of favorite textbooks from college, which was a collection of essays about environmental issues. However, the interior could not be more different. Instead of a bunch of essays with the occasional black and white chart of rising temperatures, this book is colorful, appealing, and beautifully designed from cover to cover. I've had a great time reading this book, and I hope you enjoy it too! -Sheila

2012 Resolution... To be and stay informed!

2012-01-02T16:22:00.000-05:00

If your new year's resolution is to be more informed in 2012 then you are in luck because at the Odyssey we can help you out with that!

I've become lax in my keeping up with current events since my college extemporaneous speaking days. And while I do read several online newspapers in an attempt to stay abreast of what is going on in the world, books are always better at giving one an in depth understanding of news trends.

Currently we have several books (on display on the first floor counter) covering the Occupy and protest outlash phenomena that dominated news coverage and will, arguably, continue to do so.

Here are a couple of books on my reading list and some publisher excerpts explaining why you might want to put them on yours too:

From the publisher's descprition:

In the spring of 2011, Wisconsinites took to the streets in what became the largest and liveliest labor demonstrations in modern American history. Protesters in the Middle East sent greetings and pizzas to the thousands occupying the Capitol building in Madison, and 150,000 demonstrators converged on the city. In a year that has seen a revival of protest in America, here is a riveting account of the first great wave of grassroots resistance to the corporate restructuring of the Great Recession.

From the publisher's descprition:

We Are the 99%. The Occupy Wall Street movement named the core issue of our time: the overwhelming power of Wall Street and large corporations-- something the political establishment and most media have long ignored. But the movement goes far beyond this critique. "This Changes Everything" shows how the movement is shifting the way people view themselves and the world, the kind of society they believe is possible, and their own involvement in creating a society that works for the 99% rather than just the 1%.

From the publisher's descprition:

The world is facing a wave of uprisings, protests and revolutions: Arab dictators swept away, public spaces occupied, slum-dwellers in revolt, cyberspace buzzing with utopian dreams. Events we were told were consigned to history democratic revolt and social revolution are being lived by millions of people. In this compelling new book, Paul Mason explores the causes and consequences of this great unrest. From Cairo to Athens, Wall Street and Westminster to Manila, Mason goes in search of the changes in society, technology and human behavior that have propelled a generation onto the streets in search of social justice.

From the publisher's descprition:

In the fall of 2011, a small protest camp in downtown Manhattan exploded into a global uprising, sparked in part by the violent overreactions of the police. An unofficial record of this movement, Occupy! combines adrenalin-fueled first-hand accounts of the early days and weeks of Occupy Wall Street with contentious debates and thoughtful reflections, featuring the editors and writers of the celebrated n+1, as well as some of the world s leading radical thinkers, such as Slavoj i ek, Angela Davis, and Rebecca Solnit. The book conveys the intense excitement of those present at the birth of a counterculture, while providing the movement with a serious platform for debating goals, demands, and tactics.

What do you think?

Paz,

Nieves

Odyssey Staff Picks for 2011, part three

2011-12-21T15:59:00.001-05:00

In our ongoing series of year-end favorites, here are the rest of the Odyssey staff picks for best book of 2011:

Sydney Towne picked Design*Sponge by Grace Bonney for her top book of 2011 because not only did she use it at home, she used the DIY sections to make her Christmas and Channukah presents this year.

Joan says her pick is Harry Belafonte's My Song, because it is a remarkable memoir of not only a talented entertainer, but a peace and social justice activist from the Civil Rights movement, through anti-apartheid, right up until today.

Marika McCoola gets to choose two since she's our children's buyer. Her favorite picture book is The Sniffles for Bear by Bonny Becker because it is a hysterical story that is even better when it is read with all of the different voices. Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta gets her nod for favorite young adult novel.

And last but not least, Emily Crowe picks Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus because it is a rare book that allows you to believe in magic and makes you want to dye your hair red to commemorate the experience.

Odyssey Staff Favorites 2011, part deux

2011-12-20T14:01:00.000-05:00

Continuing from yesterday, here are the #1 picks from this year's reading from more Odyssey booksellers!

Sheila Heady picks Listen to This by Alex Ross because it's a great collection of music writing and it will give you endless fun facts to drop into conversations. (She should know--she was a music major at UMass.)

Sarah Etelman selected a book by one of her favorite writers: Save Me by Lisa Scottoline because it's a breath-taking roller coaster ride of emotions and suspense.

Sara Colglazier favorite was also a staff pick for many other Odyssey booksellers: The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson (it's also author Ann Patchett's favorite book of the year!) for Wilson's wonderful use of language and wacky imagination.

Chrysler Szarlan had a hard time deciding, but in the end there can be only one, and thus Geraldine Brooks receives top honors with Caleb's Crossing, the story of the first Native American to graduate from Harvard in 1665 because it is spectacularly imagined historical fiction.

Stay tuned for more year-end picks by the Odyssey staff!

Odyssey Staff Favorites of 2011: Part I

2011-12-19T16:03:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year when everybody starts to compile "Best of 2011" lists, and the Odyssey Bookshop staff is no exception. We've been talking about our favorite books all year long, but here are the books that have earned the #1 position in 2011 for each Odyssey bookseller:

Nieves Ayala: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline because it's one of the best adventure stories I've read in a long time--I didn't want to put it down AND I didn't want it to end, at the same time.

Diana Gurske: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach because I put the book down months ago and I still think about the characters.

Laurel Rhame: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett because it's not often that your favorite book of the year and the best book of the year are the same book.

Elli Meeropol: Quiet Americans: Stories by Erika Dreifus because these seven stories are bighearted, understated, and full of surprises; they are about generosity and forgiveness as well as atrocity and survival.

It's going to be a movie!

2011-11-28T14:47:00.000-05:00

Jean-Pierre Jeunet who directed Amelie will be teaming up with his long time collaborator, screenwriter Guillaume Laurant to make the film adaption of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, by Reif Larsen.

This was my favorite novel of 2009 and needless to say Amelie is a classic in the feel good category of film. What a delightful pairing! Like peanut butter and chocolate, or Laurel and Hardy. If you haven't read Larsen's debut novel, well then get thee to the Odyssey, we can sell you a copy. I seriously can't wait. I wonder who they will cast as Mr. Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet? Who would be your guess for a genius, 12-year-old, cartographer?

Paz,

Nieves

Book reviews, Good Reads, and Polls: Oh, My!

2011-11-22T11:43:00.000-05:00

It's been a quiet blogging month here at the Odyssey. Not too unusual for November, when the days get shorter, the darkness creeps in a little earlier each night, and our attention gets directed toward the winter holidays.

It has also been a relatively slow reading month for me, for all of the reasons listed above. (I'm sure it has nothing at all to do with the fact that my last two weekends have been dedicated to watching the BBC show Being Human, courtesy of Netflix streaming.) But I've done two bookish things in the last few hours that I wanted to share with y'all.

More recently, I voted in the final rounds of the GoodReads Choice Awards for 2011. Was I disappointed that The Night Circus didn't make it to the final round for "Favorite Book of 2011?" Sure. But I was also really, really happy to cast my vote for Deborah Harkness's debut novel, A Discovery of Witches, instead. Deborah, who is an alumna of Mt Holyoke College, launched her book tour with the Odyssey back in February and we knew then that she had a great thing going with her paranormal/historical/bibliocentric novel.

I was awake very early this morning, courtesy of my dog Roxanne who needed to go outside around 5:00 a.m. At first I grumbled about it but then I realized that in fact she gave me the perfect opportunity to finish reading a riveting new book I'd picked up a couple of days ago called Running the Rift. It's Naomi Benaron's Bellwether Prize-winning debut novel, set in Rwanda in the 1990s. I'd been reading it in 100-page chunks but I didn't want to push through to the end last night when I was so sleepy.

Well, it was a thoroughly engrossing read. I'll need to mull it over a bit before posting a full review 'cause right now I'm still reeling from it. It's one of those books where you know exactly what's going to be happen, even if you don't know the particulars, and the narrative tension builds both from within the story and from without, based on your own knowledge of actual historical events. Like a novel that opens in Honolulu in 1940, or one that features the Warsaw Ghetto in the late 1930s, you know what you're gonna get with a book featuring Rwanda of the early 1990s.

All I can say is, read it. The book releases in January from our good friends at Algonquin and Naomi Benaron will be at the Odyssey on February 2, 2012, for a reading and booksigning, and if you believe in the importance of literature in understanding the human condition and the role it plays in creating empathy & dispelling fear, this is an event you should attend.

~Emily

Goodreads Choice Awards: Have YOU Voted?

2011-11-16T10:38:00.000-05:00

Emily's write-in vote for Favorite Book of 2011

We're up to the Semi-Finals found at GoodReads for voting on the year's best books in tons o' categories. Have you voted yet? I have, and I can't wait to find out which books and authors will walk away with the awards.

The Odyssey Bookshop has hosted events this year with semi-finalists in almost every category, and in many cases we've hosted multiple authors in those categories. Did you read Erin Morgenstern, Deborah Harkness, Andre Dubus, Cassandra Clare, Tea Obreht, J. Courtney Sullivan, Jodi Picoult, Alice Hoffman, Steven Levy, Mira Bartok, Rick Riordan, Erin Hunter, Mo Willems, Anna Dewdney, or Lane Smith when they signed books for the Odyssey this year? What about the dozens of others titles that are up for awards?

Now's the time to vote to make sure that your favorite books and authors make it to the final round! Click here if you want to cast YOUR vote! (And if you're looking for more friends on GoodReads, please send a request my way.)

~Emily Crowe

I'll give you such a pinch!

2011-10-24T18:05:00.001-04:00

The last book I read was Pinched: How the Great Recession Has Narrowed Our Futures and What We Can Do About It, by Don Peck. Like most things being written about the current state of the economy, it's a bit depressing, but fascinating and important. The book opens up with a look back at other economic downturns in American history. I enjoyed the fact that when trying to put the Great Recession into a historical context Peck spent time not only on the Great Depression, but also on the Panic of 1893 and the stagflation of the 1970's. (I tend to think we could stand to see more comparisons to 1893 in the press, I would've bought this book out if only for that section!)

Since my other job is at a federal budget research group, I find myself surrounded with statistics detailing exactly how bad our economy is on a daily basis. While the statistics Peck points out are terrifying, I was more interested in the stuff I don't see every day, which was the psychological effects of recession and unemployment. Taking a look at what recession does to people's values explains a lot about some trends we see in politics today, with people more interested in immigration issues and less willing to have government money go to programs that help the poor. In a way it's almost comforting to step back and think about this trend of people becoming more self-interested as part of the normal life cycle of a recession.

The other part of the book I found fascinating was when he took a look at what effect the recession has had (and will have) on different age groups. I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I had a bit of a rude awakening when reading the section on my age group, those just out of college. I was reading about the ways the recession has changed the way "millennials" think, and of course believing that the downturn hadn't significantly changed my thoughts on my future career. Of course I realized that I was in deep denial and now value job security over my past plans of moving to another city and making a brand new start. I'm not sure if you'll have the same sort of revelation while reading Pinched, but it definitely prompted some soul-searching on my end.

It's not too long, so it doesn't go as far into depth as some subjects deserve, but the book probably would be unbearably long if it did. If you're looking for more about how exactly the Great Recession came to be, I would suggest 13 Bankers. Anyways, if you're looking for a nice overview of our economic situation, this is it. Enjoy!

-Sheila

An Odyssey Spouse Makes Shelf Awareness news!

2011-10-24T12:32:00.001-04:00

Review: Salomé

Odyssey Bookshop Spouse, Barry Moser, was featured in Friday's issue of Shelf Awareness, a daily emailing of news from the book industry. In it, John McFarland reviews the brand-new translation into English (by UMass professort Joseph Donohue) of Oscar Wilde's play, Salome. The University of Virginia Press has put into this book all of the beautiful design and production values that we expect from our university presses, and you can read all about Moser's illustrations below, but you can click here if you want to read the entire issue of Shelf Awareness.

Salome: A Tragedy in One Act by Oscar Wilde, trans. by Joseph Donohue, illus. by Barry Moser (University of Virginia Press, $24.95 hardcover, 9780813931913, November 2011)
During an 1891 sojourn in Paris, Oscar Wilde was inspired by discussions with Stéphane Mallarmé and other Symbolist poets to set himself a challenge: he would take a tale from the Bible and set it as drama, but he would write it in French, not English. Like the Symbolists, Wilde was drawn to tales of decadence and beauty and he couldn't do much better than the story featuring Salomé. A teenage princess of Judea, she became obsessed with John the Baptist, a prisoner of Herod, her stepfather, and ended up demanding John's head on a platter in exchange for performing the Dance of the Seven Veils. Wilde had a ball piling on out-of-control lust, family dysfunction, artsy striptease, beheading of a prophet and necrophilia for maximum theatrical effect. He did so, however, in highly stylized language that Joseph Donohue argues makes the drama in French one of "the greatest prose poems of them all."
While the play met with success at its French premiere in 1896 and captured the attention of Richard Strauss (who then composed his 1905 opera version), when a German translation from the French was produced in Berlin, Wilde was less well served by the Lord Alfred Douglas English translation that came out in 1894 and has since dominated all discussion of English versions, to the detriment of the actual worth of the piece. Before unveiling his new English translation, Joseph Donohue provides a fascinating essay on Wilde's serious errors of judgment on that score, and readers will take away lessons from Wilde's mistakes, including not hiring your boyfriend for a job when he has no experience and not commissioning Aubrey Beardsley to illustrate a tale that happens somewhere other than an opium den.
Donohue has set himself the task of rendering Wilde's French tragedy in "an up-to-date, colloquial yet spare English translation" that could be performed on stage today. His work reads smoothly, and he's breathed life back into the play (compare his version of Salomé's declaration before she kisses the lips of John the Baptist's severed head: "And that tongue, that red serpent spewing out poisons, it's not wagging any more, it says nothing now," with Douglas's 1894 "And thy tongue, that was like a red snake darting poison, it moves no more, it speaks no words"). The ominous Barry Moser engravings also establish the time and place mercifully free of a single Beardsley peacock feather. --John McFarland

Book Review: The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt

2011-10-23T18:51:00.001-04:00

Caroline Preston's book is a little unusual amidst the world of adult novels--the only reasonable comp I can think of would be the Griffin & Sabine books by Nick Bantock. It's not quite like the graphic novels we're already familiar with, but it's not entirely dissimilar, either.

It's a gentle book, an old-fashioned book, both in the best senses of the words. Frankie leaves home in Cornish, NH, in the 1920s and makes her way first to Vassar College, then to NYC and Paris, before she returns home to Cornish. The text is minimal; instead we get copious amounts of vintage memorabilia and ephemera to illustrate Frankie's journey.

Along the way sheltered Frankie encounters romantic love (doomed and otherwise), privilege, antisemitism, and modernism for the first time in her life, and she's also witness to many important events of the 1920s, such as the publication of Ulysses & The Sun Also Rises, Charles Lindbergh's trans-atlantic flight, and the bohemian expat life of Paris's Left Bank. (Frankie lives in an apartment above the iconic bookstore, Shakespeare & Co, and I was interested to read that its propietor, Sylvia Beach was the real-life godmother of the author's mother.)

This is an utterly charming adult novel that will have a wide crossover appeal for teen girls. I read an ARC, (advance reading copy) which is reproduced only in black & white, but I know the finished copy will be very pleasing to the eye with its full color spreads. Adriana Trigiani called this book "a literary bottle rocket--loaded with whimsy, pizzazz, and heart" and I concur. This book will be published in November by Ecco, and I received a galley of this book from my sales rep, Anne DeCourcey. I look forward to meeting the author when she's at the Odyssey Bookshop next month! Odyssey favorite author Elinor Lipman, who will be on hand to do the author introduction for us that night, said of this book: "There is magic here and genius. I marveled at every page: at first, just the astonishing collection of souvenirs and memorabilia and then the story—so wry and smart and literary and historically fascinating.”

~Emily

Hot Damned! It's a New Book by Chuck Palahniuk

2011-10-18T13:30:00.002-04:00

Are you there Satan? It's me, Madison. Thus starts each new diary entry from Chuck Palahniuk's latest novel. Madison is awkward, nerdy, privileged...and dead. She's narrating her story from the confines of Hell, and along the way she's trying to re-create the cast of The Breakfast Club from among her fellow damned. Intrigued yet? You should be. This tongue-in-cheek tale of the afterlife, with all of its cliques and demons, is a must-read for fans of the offbeat and unexpected.

P. S. Need coaching on how to pronounce this dude's name? It's like saying the two names, Paula-Nick. Or at least that's close enough for government work.

P. P. S. You want to get the skinny on the hottest author party this fall? It's all happening at my old bookstore, Lemuria, in Jackson, MS. It's gonna be totally awesome, and if you can't be at Hal & Mal's for this hootenanny to end all hootenannies, you can still reserve a signed book from them. I'm 100% bummed that I cannot make it!

~Emily

Hark, A Vagrant!

2011-10-13T19:16:00.000-04:00

I have to briefly gush about one of the books we have in right now, Hark, A Vagrant! Seeing it on the counter a few weeks ago was definitely one of the most pleasant surprises I've gotten working here. Hark, A Vagrant! in its original form is an excellent webcomic by Kate Beaton, and I had forgotten that it was being collected into a book. For those that have never spent entire afternoons going through Hark comics, they're mostly about historical figures and events, with a heavy dose of classic literature as well. Whether you're more into the history or literature side of things, this book definitely provides plenty of entertainment.

One my favorite things about Hark, A Vagrant! is the little notes on many of the pages giving some of the historical context behind the joke. For example, the strip about Edgar Allan Poe and Jules Verne is funny by itself, but is even better once you know that Verne wrote Poe "fan mail" - by way of writing an entire sequel to one of Poe's works. These notes are especially useful for the occasional Canadian history comic, as I have to admit I'm not exactly up to speed on the finer points of former Canadian prime ministers. At any rate, I wholeheartedly recommend Hark, A Vagrant! for anyone that enjoys both history and laughing, preferably at the same time.

-Sheila

A Letter of Introduction

2011-10-06T19:58:00.003-04:00

Hello! My name is Sheila, and I'm new on staff at the Odyssey. This post is to introduce myself a little bit, and to give you an idea of my usual reading habits so you know where I'm coming from if you see a post or shelf tag by me! (My first staff pick is definitely going to be Wanting Sheila Dead by Jane Haddam. I hear it's great.)

I grew up in Springfield, moved to South Hadley just before 8th grade, and have been around ever since. In May I graduated from UMass with a double major in music and political science, which are two subjects that will pop up frequently on my reading list. After graduation, I started an internship at the National Priorities Project, a federal budget research group based in Northampton, MA. At the end of the summer, I joined the staff there part time, and was luckily able to fill up the rest of my time with a new job at the Odyssey! Outside of my various jobs, I play a lot of music. The project I'm spending most time on right now is a Tom Petty cover band, Your Father's Mustache. We would love to play your uncle's birthday party, stop by the Odyssey sometime and we'll talk.

As far as reading goes, it was my favorite pastime when I was a kid, and have been a huge book lover ever since. I love a good novel, but mostly tend to read non-fiction. If a gun were pointed at my head and I had to pick three favorite books, they would be Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, Silence by John Cage, and The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross.

Invisible Cities is built around imagined conversations between Kublai Khan and Marco Polo, with Marco's descriptions of fantastic cities in the Khan's empire in between their discussions. It's a great book to keep in your bag to read in little spurts while you're waiting for the bus or the doctor simply because the divisions are so short, most of the cities are only a page or two. Each description of a city plays with something that we take for granted, for example the fact that cities stay in one place and that we breathe air and not dirt. The world Invisible Cities lives in has no restrictions from the laws of physics, and it's just so much fun imagining life in these mysterious places.

Silence is a collection of writings by John Cage, a still-controversial 20th century composer. You can walk into any university music department in the country and start an argument about his music and philosophies, with some people passionately defending his value and some saying that his music is not music at all. My tent has been firmly staked in the pro-John Cage camp ever since I read this book, and would love to discuss him with you if you find me at the Odyssey! I firmly believe that people should read this book with an open mind before making up their mind either way about him and his music. This book changed how I listen to the world, and the people that I've recommended it to have reported back the same result.

Alex Ross is the classical music critic for The New Yorker, and is a fabulous music writer. Whether it's his reviews and essays or either of his two books, his writing just makes you need to go listen to whatever he's talking about. Reading The Rest is Noise introduced me to more great music than I could possibly list, and his second book Listen to This has had the same effect. The Rest is Noise takes you through the music of the 20th century in a way that is completely accessible for everybody, not just those with a degree in music history or theory. The book gives insight into some of the most interesting stories from the last century of classical music, and puts it into context with the general history of each time period. One of the most gripping sections of the book deals with World War II, telling the stories both of Richard Strauss, who led the Reich Music Chamber for the Nazis to protect Jewish family members, and Olivier Messiaen, who wrote his most famous piece from inside a German prisoner of war camp. I would suggest this book to anyone, and especially to music and history lovers.

That's all for now! I'm currently reading Pinched by Don Peck, which is about the current economic turmoil we've found ourselves in. It's been fantastic so far, can't wait to finish it and write something up!

See you around,

Sheila

Book Review: The Language of Flowers (audio)

2011-10-03T14:47:00.001-04:00

Looking back over the list I've kept of the books I read each month, September has been surprisingly busy, topping every month except the summer vacation month of June with a whopping 18 books read (about which more anon). Four nights ago on my way home from work I finished the unabridged audio book of The Language of Flowers, written by Vanessa Diffenbaugh and read by Tara Sands. Even though it has been on the IndieBound Bestseller list for the last several weeks, I knew next to nothing about this book, and I certainly wouldn't have guessed based on the cover or the title that its characters would be distinguished by their misfortunes. So when a freebie copy arrived in the "White Box" from the ABA, I jumped at the chance to listen to it.

Summary, courtesy of the publisher: "The Victorian language of flowers was used to express emotions: honeysuckle for devotion, azaleas for passion, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it has been more useful in communicating feelings like grief, mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen, Victoria has nowhere to go, and sleeps in a public park, where she plants a small garden of her own. When her talent is discovered by a local florist, she discovers her gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them."

Yes, Victoria is a victim of the world, exposed to its caprices and cruelties both large and small. For one year in her life, she had a fleeting chance at happiness with her foster mother Elizabeth, but her inability to trust and love, combined with her finely-honed survival skills of hostility and a ten-year-old's reduced world view lead to disaster and heartbreak. While I never could quite identify outright with Victoria (happily--I've never had to doubt my family's love for me) or her choices, it was certainly easy to sympathize with her.

The novel mostly alternates the timeline every other chapter, starting the day Victoria turns 18 and "emancipates" from foster care with the narrative continuing onward from that day, and going back to Victoria's childhood, particularly the year she lives with Elizabeth, her last best hope to be adopted before being relegated to group homes for incorrigible foster children. About halfway through the audio it became pretty clear to me just how the earlier narrative would inexorably and heartbreakingly resolve into the later one. Neither narrative is particularly easy to listen to--it's hard to believe that the foster care system in this country fails to protect and care for so many children like Victoria, and her "adult" self is so misanthropic that frankly it's amazing that she makes it.

And yet there are points of beauty in this novel. The flowers themselves, certainly. Elizabeth is a devoted gardener who teaches Victoria the language of flowers, and after she emancipates Victoria gets a job working for floral designer, Renata (who, despite her Russian background, reminded me of nobody so much as Minerva McGonagall). But the small kindnesses Victoria encounters are also small points of beauty. Meeting Renata's mother and being drawn into that gregarious family for Christmas mark the first time Victoria can recall feeling wanted at any family holiday. She meets a young man of few words at the flower market who is the first person since Elizabeth left her life ten years ago who can read her flower messages.

To say more of the plot would give too much away, I'm afraid, but it must be said that this is a novel about giving and taking chances, it's about abandonment and love, forgiveness and making amends. In all, it was extremely satisfying. I also liked the sly social justice interwoven into this story, with its tales of the foster care system, both woeful ( plentiful) and redemptive (not as many as one might like for a happier ending, but probably realistic). Tara Sands did a very good job reading this audio book, pulling off the sullen adolescent tones of young Victoria and the eastern European inflections of Renata & her family with equal aplomb. I don't recall a single moment where I listened to the audio and wanted to rewind to enjoy a particular turn of phrase again, so I can't speak to the exquisite prose style very much on this one, but I can say that its strength lies in the fullness of the story.

~Emily

Before, After, and Really After, with Night Circus Bonus!!!

2011-09-22T22:47:00.001-04:00

This blog post is a little more personal than usual...so please pardon the intrusion. But there have been lots of requests to post photos of the Night Circus event, along with my new-but-temporary red hair, so here it goes. Thanks for reading and we welcome your comments!

BEFORE

Most of you don't know me in real life, but up until 48 hours ago, I had very long hair.

DURING: here's all 10-13" of my hair, all chopped off for donation

And up until 24 hours ago, the remaining hair I had was dark blonde.

AFTER

Now I'm a redhead, but not a red found in nature. And it was for a very specific purpose. Tonight the Night Circus came to the Odyssey Bookshop, where I work, and I got to visit with, eat dinner with, and then introduce one of the rising stars of the book world, Ms. Erin Morgenstern.

AFTER-AFTER. With my dog Roxanne in background

For those of you who haven't read the book, there is significance in this book in dressing in all black, with one token of red--a scarf, a flower, a brooch, gloves--and those are the reveurs. Reveurs follow the circus from town to town, continent to continent. I consider myself one of the earliest reveurs, having read and fallen in love with The Night Circus several months ago, so when we booked an author event with Erin just one week after publication, I knew I wanted to do something special: I would dress all in black, and my token of red would be my hair. The only problem is that hair of the particular shade I had in mind is not found in nature. It can, however, be found at Sally's.

I kinda like this placement of the glass vis a vis the dust jacket

If I had been truly hardcore, I would have bleached my hair and then dyed it Maraschino cherry red. But I wasn't confident that I could rock that look for the next few months, so I opted for the temporary color. My long-suffering DH helped me color it this morning, and because he's all artistic and stuff, he used two shades: a darker metallic red for the undercoat and then brighter red highlights sprayed on top. Good times! I've also discovered throughout the day that I'm covered in what looks like red metallic dandruff, and my ears and neck look eerily sunburned, no matter how many times I wipe them off, so I guess there's a price to pay for the glamourous look. And do you want to know something a little gross and not-so-glamourous? Every time I blew my nose today, the snot came out a diluted metallic pink color, even though I was breathing through a towel during the entire color application. That's some wicked (and tenacious) stuff, man!

Here you can see my husband's artistry a little better

But it was all worth it in the end. Erin seemed pleased with our Night Circus display in the store, which we fashioned with a budget of only $12. Good thing I had a skull, some vases, a red-swirly martini glass, and a giant sword at home to put to use! Erin read to a full house and answered questions both in-store and through a live Twitter feed, courtesy of our sales rep, Ann. We sold lots of books (including to our first editions club) and have lots of signed ones left over for sale. And they're all first printings--reserve yours today so that you can say you read Erin when....

And I think she also liked our enthusiasm for the book, not to mention my hair, even if I did shed a little metallic dandruff on her when we hugged good-night.

Ann Kingman, Erin Morgenstern, and Odyssey Staffers, minus Sydney, who was actually working when this photo was taken.


The Night Circus display arrives without warning...I'm kinda glad we worked both a skull and a sword in there

~Emily

Shazam--it's The Night Circus!!!

2011-09-13T10:00:00.006-04:00

...The Circus arrives without warning...

I do not usually have trouble writing reviews of books that I have loved, but this review is proving to be an exception. You see, it's rare that a book haunts me in a way that Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus did, and I want to make sure that my review is worthy of it; not only that, but I need to make sure that I get the tone just right, for like most books that I have a strong reaction to, this book is not for everybody.

Le Cirque des Reves (the Circus of Dreams) travels from city to city, from continent to continent, on no particular timetable, disappearing as quickly and as randomly as it appears. Operating from dusk to dawn and cloaked only in white, black, and silver, it offers the best entertainments of its kind in the world: acrobats, fortune tellers, animal acts, a magician--even the food concessions. For the extraordinary people who travel with it, year in and year out, it is more than their livelihood, it is their lifeblood. As the novel unfolds, the reader comes to realize that the circus is also the playing field where Prospero the Enchanter and another magician known mostly as "the man in the grey suit" observe, but do not interfere with, a game with deadly consequences that they set into motion long ago. Celia and Marco, their respective apprentices, bound irrevocably to their competition and each other, must use every reserve of power and imagination they possess to make sure the game does not play out according to the contract. Along the way we meet a cast of incredible characters: Widget and Poppet, twins born on the circus's opening night; Isobel, a reader of cards caught between her love of the circus and her love of Marco; Chandresh Lefevre, circus proprietor and host of exclusive midnight dinner parties; Bailey, an ordinary boy who just might be more than what he seems; Tsukiko, the contortionist, whose secretive past keeps her anchored to the circus with an interest that is both personal and forlorn; and many, many more.

There are some books that capture the imagination; this novel seems rather to set the reader's imagination free with all that's best of dark and bright. The Night Circus is precisely poised in that netherworld between reality and imagination, between wakefulness and sleep, casting the dreamer into the light of the dark black night. If you believe that The Shire is worth saving, if you believe somewhere in your heart that your Hogwarts letter will still find you, if you believe in tesseracts and kything, this is the book for you. More than anything else, this is a book that rewards those readers who know that true magic lies in the believing, not in the object of belief.

If you are one of those readers, I think you will find, like me, that once you pick up this book, every moment spent not reading it feels like a moment wasted. It is an intoxicating blend of reality and imagination.

The Night Circus arrives in South Hadley on Thursday, 22 September, at 7:00 p.m., and Ms. Morgenstern will be on hand to read, answer questions, and escort reveurs through her magical world. Books go on sale today!

~Emily

Terrific Tuesday: These T-Shirts are AWESOME!

2011-09-06T08:48:00.000-04:00

So, if you're a local Odyssey shopper, you've probably noticed that the long lines and high-energy buzz that come with textbook rush have returned. That's right--it's back to school time for Mount Holyoke College!

Which also means it's that time of year when we introduce new product lines into the store. And the one I'm most excited about right now is from the Out of Print Clothing Company. They have created a line of t-shirts that feature the original dust jacket of many works of classic literature, both new and old. And what's more, for every t-shirt that our store sells, the company will donate a book to a community in need. So you get to look great and feel great, all in one! I'm already the proud owner of the lovely Pride & Prejudice tee (don't you love the peacock?) and I'm pretty sure that A Clockwork Orange will be making its way to my house soon, too. Another cool thing is that most designs come in both men's and women's sizing, so if you like a slim silhouette for your tees, we've got you covered.

See a design you like but we don't carry yet? Leave a comment here or post on our Facebook page and the next time we order, we'll try to get it.

Terrific Tuesday Releases: Baseball & the Rapture!

2011-08-30T12:03:00.001-04:00

This week there are two outstanding books releasing today that we can't wait to share with you. On the surface they couldn't be more different, but upon closer look, they both explore with tremendous generosity the glorious foibles and small triumphs of people in their everyday lives.

What if the Rapture happens, leaving behind a few? Or what if it wasn't the Rapture at all, but something murkier, a burst of mysterious, apparently random disappearances that shattered the world in a single moment, dividing history into Before and After, leaving no one unscathed? Would some of us collapse? Would others of us go on, one foot in front of the other, as we did before the world turned upside down? That's what the bewildered citizens of Mapleton, who lost many of their neighbors, friends and lovers in the event known as the Sudden Departure, have to figure out. Because nothing has been the same since it happened--not marriages, not friendships, not even the relationships between parents and children.

Tom Perotta's The Leftovers is a startling, thought-provoking novel about love, connection, and loss, set in a progressive suburban town not entirely dissimilar from our own, where there's more than one kind of unsettling disappearance and no family is left untouched.

And now for something completely different...Chad Harbach's debut novel, The Art of Fielding, couldn't be more quintessentially American, with its trappings of a small liberal arts college setting, baseball diamonds, and Herman Melville's contributions to American letters. At Westish College, a small school on the Wisconsin shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended. Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life.

As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths. Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment--to oneself and to others.

The Odyssey staff (Neil! Diana! Nieves! Emily!) loved this book so much that it will be our signed first edition club selection for October, so we will have signed copies available in a little over a month. We'll let you know when they're available.

(To read Emily's review of The Art of Fielding, not posted here because of a few salty phrases, please click here.)

~Emily

Terrific Tuesday Releases: I Married You For Happiness by Lily Tuck

2011-08-23T10:30:00.006-04:00

A few months ago I attended BEA (that's BookExpo America) in NYC, and though most of my time was spent in appointments with publicists and marketing people at various publishers, I did manage to carry away with me a select number of galleys. And for the first time in my history of attending trade shows, I walked away with only what I could carry in one small Envirosax bag, but I suppose that is neither here nor there.

I finished reading Lily Tuck's novel one morning over breakfast shortly after BEA and I thought it was just wonderful. I had never read any of her work before, though her name was vaguely familiar to me when I picked up the book at the Grove/Atlantic booth from Deb Seager. She won the National Book Award for her novel The News from Paraguay and was shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Siam. If, like me, you're not already familiar with Tuck's work, please do yourself a favor and check it out--I Married You For Happiness debuts today!

What is the probability that a husband will arrive home from work in good health, yet die of heart failure before dinner? How does one measure a marriage or evaluate a memory? In this novel, Tuck attempts to answer all of these questions in a most poignant way. When Philip dies during a pre-prandial nap, Nina keeps quiet vigil with his body through the night, flooded by memories of their marriage ranging from mundane moments (playing tennis, taking a Sunday drive) to the most pivotal ones (the day they met, the birth of their daughter, her brief affair). Nina's artistic nature is contrapuntal to Philip's logical one, and her fascinating narrative detours into his class lectures on probability & statistics, together with her struggles to understand the fundamental differences in the man she loves, reveal their relationship to be as intricate and beautiful as any mathematical theorem. I think if I had to choose one word to describe I Married You For Happiness, it would be "intimate," for above all, this book is a private meditation on Nina's and Philip's life together, and there were times I felt it would be more proper to avert my gaze than to continue reading. And yet Tuck's prose is so lovely, and the transitions between the present vigil and the past memories so seamless, that I could not look away.

A random, parting thought: why do the two chairs on the cover seem to have two different sources of light to cast shadows at such divergent angles, yet only cast one shadow, which indicates a single light source? Is this bad photoshopping by the book's designer? Is it indicative of Philip & Nina's divergent lives? Discuss...

~Emily

Books on the Air

2011-08-17T12:14:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, I was on WAMC's the Roundtable talking about a few books I enjoy. If you missed the broadcast, you can stream it here.

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
(author reading/signing August 20th at 4pm) An adult novel.

The Fangs are performance artists and art is their life. Child A & B, pulled into their work, must come to terms with who they are as Annie and Buster, not as aspects of their parents artwork. A quirky, funny, and strange book. See Emily Crowe's post.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

(author reading/signing September 22nd at 7pm)

A fantastical story of illusions and magic. An adult novel but great for teen readers as well.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

This fast-paced science-fiction work is great for 80s enthusists, those interested in video games, or anyone looking for a fun read. An adult novel good for teens ages 15+.

Anya's Ghost by Vera Brogsol

A YA graphic novel about a girl who must come to terms with her Russian background, and the ghost that's following her. Incredible all-around.

Chime by Franny Billingsley

A historical, paranormal YA that I devoured. A great pick for a bookclub.

Marshall Armstrong is New to Our School by David Mackintosh

My current favorite back-to-school picturebook about a quirky new student. Funky collage illustrations adults and kids will enjoy.

Bad Island by Doug Tennapel

A graphic novel for middle-grade and teen readers about a family shipwrecked during summer vacation. Oh, and giant robot-like creatures from space.

Wiener Wolf by Jeff Crosby

A hysterical picturebook about a wiener dog who runs away to a national park to live with wolves.

The Witch's Guide to Cooking with Children by Keith McGowan

This middle grade novel is a modern retelling of Hansel and Gretel. Now in paperback.

-Marika

Terrific Tuesday Releases: The Submission by Amy Waldman

2011-08-16T10:34:00.002-04:00

I picked this book up because I was intrigued by the premise and the sly double entendre of the title. Two years after 9-11, a committee hand-picked by the governor of New York, including a woman widowed on that fateful day, selects a beautiful and peaceful garden design among the blind submissions as a memorial for the World Trade Center. Big Reveal the First: the winning designer, though American, is a Muslim man. Big Reveal the Second: the winning design may or may not be inspired by historic Islamic gardens thought to be the origin of the martyrs' paradise concept.

Although this book was not everything that I wanted it to be (it was mostly head, not as much heart) it was an interesting read throughout, and a timely one, too, with the tenth anniversary of the 9-11 tragedy fast approaching. Though the end in particular was not what I was craving (that is, for America & its politicians to do what I consider as the morally right thing), it was very realistic and satisfying in way I had not expected. Along the way we get multiple characters' perspectives: Claire, the widow on the committee; Paul, the chair of the committee; Mohammad ("Mo" to his friends), the winning designer of the memorial; Asra, an illegal Bangladeshi woman whose husband also died in the towers that day; Alyssa, a tabloid journalist whose ambition to scoop any aspect of Mo's story far outstrips her humanity; and a sad-sack fellow whose brother died in the towers and whose mother thinks the wrong son died. Although I suspect most readers who pick up this book will feel true sympathy for very few characters, Waldman does a very good job of presenting this varied cast with as much empathy as possible--all, perhaps, except for the tabloid journalist and the politicians whose machinations twist the brouhaha into something much uglier than it needs to be. I think Waldman, a journalist for over a decade, has carried off her debut novel with great credit to her profession

This book releases today from Farrar Straus & Giroux and I received an ARC of it at my request from my sales rep several months ago. The ARC cover, ivory, with cutouts of a garden as seen through a Moorish window, is vastly different from the final, more somber cover shown here, which puts me in mind very much of The New Yorker issue design immediately following September 11, 2011.

~Emily

Terrific Tuesday Book Release: The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

2011-08-09T16:13:00.002-04:00

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

Meet Caleb & Camille Fang and their children Annie and Buster, known at home and at large as Child A and Child B. They’re a family dedicated to making art, but not in a way that anybody would expect. The term performance art doesn’t quite do justice to what they do—it’s more like guerilla warfare aimed at a complacent public, and it’s not “good” in their eyes unless somebody ends up bleeding, broken, arrested, or worse. This book is laugh-out-loud on the surface, but the absurdity really only masks a darker level where children are valued only as much as the next prop and where the parents’ final performance is both devastating and liberating. This book is a marvelous find.

This book releases in hardcover today, but my Harper rep, the amazing Anne DeCourcey, handed me an ARC of this book several months ago and told me that I should read it. She was right, as she so often is. Here are some of the passages that resonated with me--either because of the writing, the humor, or my own self-identification.

On why there should be a third film in The Powers That Be franchise, in which Annie starred: "Yes, well, I think we can all agree that everyone loves watching Nazis getting hit with lightning bolts." Later on that page, Wilson describes a sip of gin: "So clean and medicinal it felt not unlike surgery under light anesthetic." My husband, a gin drinker of the highest order, couldn't agree more.

On how simultaneously funny and pathetic Buster is, upon the prospect of sex: "He could count on one hand the number of times he'd had sex and still have enough fingers left over to make complicated shadow puppets."

Buster again, after his sister has left home and he's alone with his parents, not knowing how to be around them without her: "His mother and father were laughing with such vigor, so genuinely moved, that Buster tried it out, to see what it felt like. He laughed and laughed and, though he did not yet know what the joke was, he hoped it would be worth the effort he'd already put into enjoying it."

These people are profoundly f*cked up. And profoundly funny. And profoundly disturbing. Just read it. Seriously.

If you read book blogs at all, you know that this book has been getting some major buzz in the blogosphere for the last few months. This is the book that will put Kevin Wilson on the literary map, and if you are hangin' around in western Massachusetts next Saturday afternoon, August 20, please stop by the bookstore to hear him read from The Family Fang. Beloved author Ann Patchett personally assured me that Mr. Wilson is one of the best writers we have in the US today and is one of the best guys ever, full stop. So stop by the store and meet him in person!

~Emily Crowe

New in paperback fiction: travel to Engand and Nigeria without leaving home!

2011-08-03T19:25:00.001-04:00

Summer is a great time to get caught up on your reading, and there are two books recently out in paperback that I raved about when they were first published. Each one is perfect for summer vacation reading, because even if you're not getting away someplace, these books will transport you.

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. This lush novel interweaves three separate stories that span the 20th century. All of the factors for a great English mood novel are present: a castle, a family whose creative streak is matched only by its madness, three spinster sisters, a quaint village, mysterious disappearances, ancient secrets, and a young publisher trying to sort fact from fiction in the local lore. The stories meander at a deliberate pace, all converging in the last chapter in a most satisfying way. This book is perfect for those readers who want to really sink their teeth into an atmospheric novel that will make them want to curl up for hours with a pot o' tea.

The Secret Lives of the Four Wives by Lola Shoneyin. You'd think that a book set in Nigeria about a polygamist and his four wives would feel exotic and exude a sense of "otherness," but this first novel feels so familiar that the characters might be people you know. When Baba Segi takes on his fourth wife, a well-educated young woman trying to escape her past, his first three (jealous) wives spare no act of deceit or vindictiveness to rid the compound of the new interloper. But will their efforts to keep a dark secret hidden result in tragedy for them all? A terrific first novel!

~Emily

Short Story Perfection: A Review of Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt

2011-07-20T10:02:00.000-04:00

There is one word that comes to mind when I think of Eric-Emmanuel Scmitt's new collection of short stories, Concerto to the Memory of an Angel--and I should stress that it is not a word that I commonly use when writing book reviews--and that word is "perfect." In the US, the short story seems to get short shrift and I'm not sure why. Of the various literary forms, I consider it to be among those most difficult to execute well. Great novels are a dime a dozen, but not so the great short story collection. They are far less common and thus all the more to be valued when I do come across one. This work has achieved a perfect and rare balance. To add or to take away anything would ruin it. I could continue to heap superlatives on it, but I'm fairly sure that, in my native tongue at least, "perfect" is pretty much the highest praise.

This is Schmitt's third collection to be translated into English from his original French, brought to American audiences courtesy of Europa Editions and Alison Anderson's fine translation (which surely adds much to the book's perfection). Full of philosophy and quiet moments of ephiphany, these stories range from a father's intensely private ruminations on the death of a child to a portrait of a celebrity marriage very much in the public eye. Each story leaves the reader a little bit slack-jawed with amazement that so much can be conveyed and accomplished with such efficiency. If you value fine writing and the remarkable execution of a difficult craft, this is a book you should purchase for your collection right away.

The only negative point I can think to raise is that despite Europa's very high production qualities overall, Scmitt's works suffer from dreadful jacket design and a tendency toward awkward book titles.

~Emily Crowe

Three Novels: Women and War

2011-07-18T10:29:00.001-04:00

I don't read many war novels, per se, with all of their action and violence and killing, though Andrew Krivak's excellent novel, The Sojourn, is a recent exception to that rule. No, I prefer to know the stories of the people who get left behind, or who are outside the immediate threat of battle. This means largely, but not always, the story of women and war. In the last couple of weeks I have read two novels about women during World War II, and each in its way reminded me of a book from a few years ago, which I loved--The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. If any of you dear readers loved Guernsey like I did, I think you might find something of interest in these other two. If you are not familiar with it, this epistolary novel, set just after World War II in London and the isle of Guernsey, is sweet, charming, and old-fashioned, in all the best senses of the words. Juliet Ashton is a journalist who begins a correspondence with the residents of Guernsey, and through their letters we get a remarkable portrait of a community's strength and perseverance during the Nazi occupation. It is a slender tome, full of both laughter and heartwarming moments, and overflowing with characters you'll wish you could call friends.

Sarah Blake's The Postmistress straddles two worlds: pre-war America and London during the blitz. When Emma's husband, a small town doctor in Cape Cod, MA, blames himself for a patient's death, she finds herself abandoned when he volunteers to work in a London hospital to make karmic amends. Iris is the titular postmistress in the same small town, who takes her official job as postmaster as seriously as her unofficial job of keeping her small community informed (or not) of the goings-on in the world. An ocean and a world apart, Frankie works for the BBC, desperately trying to tell her nightly stories in a way that will make the war seem real to her fellow Americans--real enough to sit up and participate, rather than dismiss it as something unfortunate that happens to other people. All three women cross paths after Frankie witnesses something in London and feels compelled to travel back to the US to find Emma and to confront Iris.

In the meantime, Blake does a great job of establishing how life must go on, whether you're waiting every single day for months to hear from your husband to know whether he is alive, or whether your home has been bombed and you have no place left to live. Most of all, though, she shows the importance of telling stories and bearing witness--that in the end, it's only our personal connections with other humans that will get us involved, either literally or metaphorically, in a way that will effect a change in this world.

Margaret Leroy's The Soldier's Wife takes place during the Nazi occupation of the island of Guernsey during WWII, and its third person narrative follows Vivienne de la Mare, a woman who must daily walk the fine edge between patriotism and practicality. After her husband enlists, it falls to her to keep her daughters and her ailing mother-in-law safe in a world that has suddenly become alien to her. When German officers requisition the house next door and turn out to be rather neighborly, Vivienne finds herself constantly second-guessing her actions under their scrutiny. Other islanders may be high-minded about fraternization, but Vivienne simply cannot afford those same scruples when her family's well-being is at stake. Only when food from their their own scarce supply goes missing and her younger daughter regales her nightly with tales of the ghost in the barn does Vivienne realize that there is a moral burden unfolding that might become too heavy for her to bear.

What I really liked about The Soldier's Wife is that unlike many wartime settings, it leaves room for people who are neither cowardly nor heroic, but somewhere in between. At first I was a little surprised about the rapport Vivienne develops with some of the German officers, but I think it is perhaps a more realistic presentation than the patriotic resistance narrated in The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society. It demands that readers reflect on what they would or would not do to preserve their family: Would you feed another starving human if it means your children will go without food? Would you risk your home as a safe house? Would you turn away from the torture or murder of a prisoner when interfering means deportment to a work camp? How do you raise your child to be a moral person when you cannot the example you want to, because to do so is to risk your life or your child's?

And there's always the smaller, garden variety dilemma. If the kind German officer across the street gives you medicine to save your daughter, are you morally required to show him gratitude when it's the German occupation that is causing the dire shortage of needful things? If so, how much gratitude? If medicine is okay to accept, what about a loaf of bread? Clothing? More than anything else, I would say that this book demonstrates that for most of us who aren't cut out to play the noble hero, the lines we draw in the sand between what we are and are not capable of doing are ever-shifting under the weight of our complicated humanity.

~Emily Crowe

Who's Afraid of The Last Werewolf?

2011-07-11T12:50:00.000-04:00

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan

I feel I should start by saying that this book is a departure from my usual reading. But then again, I've been saying that rather frequently lately, so maybe I need to re-evaluate what constitutes my "usual reading." Really, though, I normally wouldn't pick up most books with the word werewolf in the title, but most werewolf books aren't published by Knopf, the most literary imprint of all of Random House's imprints, and most of them aren't chock full of human insight and literary allusion.

Jacob Marlowe is the last surviving werewolf on record, helped along by his covert human familiar, Harley. When the book opens, it's not likely that Jake will survive another moon cycle, as Grainer, a special-ops werewolf hunter, has vowed to track him and take him down, eliminating the last of his kind from the face of the earth. However, a wealthy socialite with dark appetites and an elite cabal of vampires have other plans; they want to abduct him and conduct experiments on him with the hope of curing their daytime curse. If this sounds like it's treading the same old werewolf/vampire/special ops territory, however, you couldn't be more wrong. The intelligent prose and Jake's existential philosophies make this a very smart book, indeed. It's fast-paced, sexy, graphic, and it will be the ruler against which all future werewolf books will be measured -- and found wanting. With no offense meant toward genre fiction, this is a novel that transcends its genre in a luminescent way. And which will completely redefine what it means to be "Team Jacob."

I dog-eared dozens of pages and noted twice again that many passages, some of which I've included here:

"I lifted her hair out of the way and worked her trapezius from scapula to occipital bone. Anatomical Latin's an unjudgemental friend if you have to rip people apart and eat them."

"One develops an instinct for letting silence do the heavy lifting. In the three, four, five seconds that passed without either of us speaking, the many ways the conversation could go came and went like time-lapse film of flowers blooming and dying."

"We were in bed, her lying with her wrists crossed above her head, me up on one elbow, caressing her nakedness. The flesh had infinity in it. I must have known every inch by touch, yet every inch renewed its mystery the instant my hand moved on. Delightful, endless futility."

"The point is I make no apology and ask no forgiveness. I'm a man. I'm a monster. A cocktail of contraries. I didn't ask to become a werewolf but once it had happened I got used to it pretty quickly. You surprise yourself. You surprise yourself, then realise even the surprise was a bit of a sham."

"I changed channels. American Idol. Transformation again, this time from Nobody into Superstar. Perhaps Jacqueline was right: humanity's getting its metamorphic kicks elsewhere these days. When you can watch the alchemy that turns morons into millionaires and gimps into global icons, where's the thrill in men who turn into wolves?"

"Filial honour. Forty years ago I killed and ate Grainer's father. Grainer was ten at the time. There's always someone's father, someone's mother, someone's wife, someone's son. This is the problem with killing and eating people. One of the problems."

Did I mention that the author is dead sexy?

The Odyssey Bookshop also is lucky enough to have a limited number of signed first printings of The Last Werewolf--Knopf did a beautiful job, with the top, bottom, and fore-edges are all stained a deep maroon and the phases of the moon on the front cover in a lovely, iridescent gold--so call us or drop by to reserve your copy while they last!

~Emily Crowe

Book Review: Turn of Mind by Alice LaPLante

2011-07-07T17:04:00.000-04:00

Turn of Mind, a debut novel from author Alice LaPlante, is not your ordinary literary mystery. Jennifer White is a retired surgeon suffering from dementia, who also happens to be the chief suspect in the murder (and minor mutilation) of her best friend and neighbor, Amanda. But how on earth can this crime be solved when the prime suspect cannot even remember her own children from day to day? Or when Jennifer is brokenhearted anew to learn of Amanda's death each time the detective comes by to speak with her? Jennifer's mind has good days and bad days, sometimes good hours and bad hours within the same day, and for the longest time it seems as if the mystery will go wholly unsolved, with Jennifer herself unsure of what happened on the day her friend was last seen alive.

This book is an extraordinary and gripping look into a once-sharp mind as it descends towards the terrifying alienation and the inaccessible abyss of memory that circumscribe dementia. Avowed mystery readers may see the end coming, but I myself did not. Despite the mutilation (Amanda's body is found with a few fingers severed, post mortem), this is not a gory or graphic book at all, and I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a good mystery or a good book about a complicated, brilliant, but not always likable woman who somehow is able to keep her head even while she loses her mind.

This book is published by Atlantic Monthly and it happens to be the #1 pick for the month of July, voted on by Indie Booksellers nationwide!

~Emily Crowe

Book Review: Pao by Kerry Young

2011-07-05T12:37:00.000-04:00

The eponymous Pao is only a small boy when he and his family emigrate from China to Jamaica in the wake of the Chinese Civil War and just prior to the outbreak of World War II. After settling into the Chinatown area of Kingston, Pao grows up in its shadowy underworld and eventually becomes the civic-minded leader of its organized crime, doing business and protecting the Chinese minority in the city. Using Sun Tzu's The Art of War as his conscience and guide, Pao's influence waxes and wanes against the backdrop of Jamaican politics, ranging from post-Colonial rule to Rastafarianism, from the Back-to-Africa movement to socialism.

I've long been a reader of books of Caribbeana, particularly the fiction of the region, but this book gave me a wholly fresh perspective amidst the black African diaspora, white colonialism, and Indian subcultures that I've read before. Race and class necessarily play a large role in this book, and while I wouldn't venture to say that Pao is a feminist, his dealings with women are largely well-balanced and even occasionally progressive for a man who is a product of his time and culture.

To wit: Although Pao moves to Jamaica in 1938, the book opens in media res in 1945 when Pao is beginning to earn his reputation as the go-to guy in Chinatown. A black Jamaican woman named Gloria comes to Pao to demand the justice that the law won't give her when a white sailor beats her sister almost to death. Pao's brother urges him to drop the matter because the sister is a whore and, thus, should expect to get beaten up a bit from time to time, and further, that "white men been beating Jamaican women for three hundred years." After much consideration, Pao's replies, "That is true, but this is the first time anybody come ask us to do something 'bout it." Thus marks the real beginning of Pao's unofficial career.

While I didn't always like Pao, he is one of the most fascinating characters I've encountered in a long time, and seeing his trajectory from young boy to old man made for a satisfying read. I'd recommend this book for readers interested in social stratification (class, gender, race), interesting character studies, or Jamaican politics. It's an extremely interesting novel, perfect for summer reading.

~Emily Crowe

Book Review: Thirteen Reasons Why

2011-07-05T09:35:00.001-04:00

I just started and finished my first book for this month. And if you exclude the moments I took to make myself some mint tea, and later to eliminate it, I read this book through in one sitting. Or more precisely, one lounging. Th1rteen R3asons Why is told in almost a call and response style (if you know gospel music or have heard any traditional Congolese songs, or if you've ever participated in a Roman Catholic or Anglican mass, you've experienced this), with Hannah Baker initiating the call and Clay Jensen picking up the response. Hannah is the new girl at school who has just committed suicide. But she is still very much a presence in the lives of at least 14 of her surviving classmates. You see, Hannah has left behind a collection of audio tapes in which she lists the thirteen reasons why she killed herself, each reason connected to a name. One day Clay receives a mysterious box in the mail with said cassette tapes tucked inside, with the instructions to listen to them and pass them along to the person named after him on the tapes--and that's, of course, where the story takes off.

Interesting conceit, no? And Asher pulls it off remarkably well. The story moves along at a brisk pace, and each time he turns over a cassette and pushes play, Clay both dreads and anticipates hearing his own name and the role he unwittingly played in her downward spiral towards suicide. I probably would have responded a tad more positively to this book if I hadn't read all of the accolades it has received since being published last year in cloth, but I felt there were times when the book fell a little flat--where the teen dialogue and interactions didn't quite ring true. Or at least not as true as other books I've recently read, such as Will Grayson, Will Grayson or Big Girl Small. And it was less affecting to me personally than Julie Anne Peters' fine novel, By the Time You Read This I'll Be Dead.

Still, I did essentially read it in one sitting, and since the reader knows at the beginning that poor Hannah kills herself, there is none of that angsty will-she-or-won't-she feeling as you're reading, so one can concentrate more on the story and less on anticipating the ending. This book is far more about the effect of Hannah's death on Clay, and to a lesser extent Tony, the poor boy who has been entrusted with a second set of tapes, instructed to go public with them if the 13 people Hannah names on the tapes don't follow through with her last request. One fervently hopes that the remaining 12 classmates come away from their listening experience changed, but Asher doesn't go there, and it is, sadly, unrealistic to hold too dearly to that hope. This is, of course, a book about unintended consequences and repercussions and being careless with other people's sense of self. It is, in short, a book worth reading, and I give big kudos to those teachers in our community who have already read this book and assigned it for summer reading!

~Emily Crowe

Summer Audio Book

2011-06-21T16:22:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I find that when I listen to a book I tend to phase out or go through tollbooths and miss something vital. However, I’ve always been fond of rereading books, and will often listen to books I’ve enjoyed reading. I recently picked up an audio copy of my favorite summer book, Beauty Queens. The author, Libba Bray, narrates the audio and does an incredible job at differentiating dialogue with accents, tone, and pitch.

Beauty Queens begins with the Miss Team Dream pageant, a beauty competition run by the Corporation. The breaking news: A plane full of Teen Dream contestants crash-lands on a deserted island. Gowns, make-up, and bodies litter the ground. The surviving contestants may be beautiful and talented, but can their collective abilities help them to survive?

From frank discussions of racism to the issues faced by a transsexual candidate, from girls who want to bring down the competition from the inside to ones suffering under pressures from parents and repressed feelings of sexuality, Beauty Queens covers quite the spectrum of topics facing teens today. But what really sets Beauty Queens apart from any other book trying to explore these issues is the humor and social critique Libba expertly employs. Any mention of the Corporation is hysterical, yet also terrifyingly realistic. Exploring social, economic, cultural, and political issues with humor, Libba creates a book that transcends its targeted teen audience. Teens and adults, women and men, will find a variety of discussion topics in the social satire and blunt look at stereotypes, making Beauty Queens a strong choice for book clubs. Issues, tempered by humor, combine with action-paced sequences and a dollop of all varieties of romance to create a summer blockbuster of a book.

During the summer, I often put off things like cleaning the house in favor of reading. But the truly great thing about audio books? Multi-tasking. This is an audio book that will have me finding more things to clean as an excuse to continue listening.

What audio books have you sitting in the driveway or refusing to remove your headphones?

-Marika

Book Review: The Sweetness of Tears

2011-06-19T20:41:00.001-04:00

The Sweetness of Tears by Nafisa Haji

In her second novel, Haji gave me all of the emotional involvement that I was looking for in The Submission but didn't find, so it was very interesting reading these two books back to back. This paperback original is a three generational family saga that spans the globe from California to Africa to the Middle East and back again, and like The Submission, religion and politics are the very heart of the novel. It's a story of both cultural prejudice and curiosity, family betrayals and forgiveness, and learning how to re-see your world when the truths you've always taken for granted are not just disrupted but completely uprooted.

Haji, who wrote the wonderful book The Writing on my Forehead, is a good writer who can get to the very heart of the matter--I never have trouble emotionally identifying with her characters and I trust her to take me on a ride that starts off difficultly but ends with redemption and satisfaction. I also love how much I learn when reading her books, whether it's food customs in Pakistan or religious traditions in Bangladesh.

In this book in particular I was also much drawn to some of her truisms about language and religion. Here are a few that I dogeared:

In an observation during the Shia Muslim holy time of Muharram and Safar, commemoratingKarbala: "Later, louder voices intruded on the quiet scenes of anticipation that the older women had set, as younger women, for whom the call of piety was of less immediate concern than the social need to be seen as pious…" Lawd, how many churchgoers did I grow up with who would have fit that definition to a T?!

A missionary exasperated with questions about how many souls she has saved when she's more concerned with the lives she has saved: "I guess [language] says something about the importance of family in some cultures. Something we could all stand to emulate Instead of just talking all the time, about family values--only thing I ever saw being valued when I've heard those two words getting thrown around is the act of not minding your own business."

And the same character, later: "Real faith is an action--a verb. It's truth unfolding…you can't drown it out, covering your ears while you shout out declarations of belief. That's not faith. that's cowardice--a fear of truth, which is only scary when you're fighting to keep yourself from knowing it."

On learning a second language: "Of course, the real test of proficiency comes when you get to the stage of poetry...Poetry touches on truth beyond words. Almost impossible, really, to ever fully understand poetry in a foreign language. Almost. It's too difficult to translate, you see, because there's so much more to it than the definition of words. In poetry, words are meant to bypass our normal ways of understanding--to skip the mind altogether."

This book was published by William Morrow earlier this month and I received a free ARC of it from my wonderful Harper sales rep, Anne DeCourcey. It also happens to qualify as my second book this year for the South Asian challenge.

~Emily

June is Audio Book Month, part deux

2011-06-14T13:10:00.001-04:00

Most of the audio books that I listen to on my daily commute (and longer drives, too, when I take them) are fiction. I need a strong narrative to pull me in and keep me interested, but as with so many other things in my life, Bill Bryson is an exception to that rule. Bill Bryson is my hero. I adore his books, to be sure, but I adore his audio books even more. (If you'd like to read about the wonderful day that I got to meet Mr. Bryson himself, check out this blog post from last fall.) My first encounter with his books was the audio version of A Walk in the Woods, his wondrously engaging tale of hiking the Appalachian Trail, and after that I was smitten enough to seek out the rest of his published works.

Bryson happens to read his own audiobooks. I do not usually condone the author's reading of his or her own work, as I find it more often than not disastrous (cue: Toni Morrison reading anything). But he is simply wonderful--he hits all the right notes ranging from wry humor to righteous outrage and everything in between. Moreover, he is as enlightening as he is entertaining. I'm constantly amazed at the random factual tidbits that I am able to work into conversation, of which his books are the source of my knowledge.

For longer trips, I tend to prefer Bryson's material that has a stronger internal narrative, which would be all of his travel books, but his most recent work, At Home, is great for shorter drives like my daily commute. I'm hard-pressed to choose between the aforementioned Walk and his book about Australia called In a Sunburned Country, as my favorite. I've listened to both of them multiple times and am, in fact, currently listening to Sunburned again this week.

I think if there were one writer whose style I'd most like to emulate, it would be Bryson's. It's the perfect blend of humor, information, and personal anecdote, with both understatement and overstatement used to great effect. His audio books are even better. You come away smarter and more thoughtful about the world than you were before, and you feel as if you've somehow made a friend along the way.

~Emily

New Picturebooks

2011-06-14T11:37:00.000-04:00

Picturebooks are my favorite books to leaf through when they come into the store. These three books came in this week and it's impossible for me to pick a favorite.

If Rocks Could Sing: A Discovered Alphabet
by Leslie McGuirk
Tricycle Press, Random House Kids

I'm often surprised at how literal some young children an be. If Rocks Could Sing: A Discovered Alphabet, will challenge these children, asking them to see subjects in seemingly abstract rocks. If the alphabet rocks were spotted on the beach, some might pass them by, but Leslie McGurik places them with text, and their purpose is immediately apparent. Other found rocks, which she uses in the illustrations for each letter, might be overlooked if not for the props and text McGuirk uses to hint at their role. Some children see subjects in rocks, leaves, and clouds already- If a Rock Could Sing will validate their creativity. For less visual children, If Rocks Could Sing will encourage them to really look at the abstract, and challenge their preconceptions. Ages 4-8

Edwin Speaks Up
by April Stevens illustrated by Sophie Blackwell
Schwartz & Wade Books, Random House Kids:
I'll admit it, I have to pick up every Sophie Blackwell book I see. Her combination of pencil and watercolor is soft, yet her colors are strong, her quirky and odd with fun details. The candy palette of Edwin Speaks Up is a mix of bright funky colors and softer shades that brings flair to her 50s inspired costumes and cars. The story, written by April Stevens, follows an absent-minded mother and her brood of children as they trek to the supermarket. The children, all but little Edwin, roll and tumble, wrestling about, while the mother forgets one thing after another- and no one listens to little Edwin's babble. But astute young readers will quickly decipher Edwin's messages, bringing laughter with each line.Ages 4-8

Blackout by John Rocco

Hyperion

When the city experiences a blackout, one family, and eventually the entire neighborhood, learns the importance of unplugging and participating. From seeing the stars to having a party on the street with the entire neighborhood, Blackout celebrates friends and family. And one family learns that you don’t need a blackout to enjoy time together.

John Rocco tells his story in a comic-panel format. His illustrations, and even the font, reference Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen, though his illustrations certainly have their own flair. Ages 5-10
-Marika McCoola

June is Audio Book Month!

2011-06-13T09:09:00.001-04:00

Unusually for me, I did not do a single post in May for National Short Story Month, but now that my coworker, Marika McCoola, has alerted me to this month's national book affiliation, I will blog my little heart out. Like Marika, I am another Odyssey staffer who lives for audio books, and I've got some great recommendations for you.

Unlike a conventional book, with an audio book, it's the performer who makes or breaks the book. I don't care how wonderful a novel is when you curl up in bed to read it, if it has bad or even just a mediocre audio performance, it's difficult for the story to rise above the performance. Conversely, a great audio performance will enhance poor or mediocre book, disguising its flaws and keeping you on the edge of your car seat (or wherever you happen to be listening).

Here is my first of a few solid recommendations for GREAT audio performances that you can take to the bank. Check 'em out of your local library or pop in to your nearest brick & mortar bookstore to pick 'em up.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett, read by Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer, and Jenna Lemia, with one "journalistic" chapter read by Cassandra Campbell. These women represent Aibileen, Minnie, and Skeeter, respectively. Aibileen and Minnie are two black maids working in Jackson, MS, in the early 1960s and Skeeter is the young white woman who wants to tell their story. Much of the narration and dialogue is written in quasi-dialect, which might challenge some readers of the conventional book, but with these three outstanding performances, you'll soon melt into their voices and picture yourself in the Deep South. I grew up in Mississippi and spent much of my adult life living in Jackson in particular, and I have to say that these folks do an outstanding job with the Southern accent. You'll laugh and cry along with these unforgettable women and the stories they have to tell, some shocking, some painful, and even a few that are heartwarming, but you won't easily forget them. I listened to this audio book three times over the last two years. Unabridged, this audio runs just over 18 hours. (Incidentally, I think this might be one of those instances where the audio version eclipses the written one!)

~Emily

Some New Graphic Novels

2011-06-11T10:57:00.001-04:00

I love graphic novels, even though they often take me longer to read than normal novels. With graphic novels, I get caught up in the illustrations, examining them panel by panel and then as a complete page. I check the backgrounds for clues, hints of back story, and little secrets. If you're confused by the format of a graphic novel, or would like to know the difference between Manga, comics, and graphic novels, or are really interested in form, I'd suggest picking up a copy of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. This book, itself a graphic novel, explains the terms, conventions, and history of the comic form and is an interesting and engaging read. For any student having difficulty convincing a teacher of the merits and importance of graphic novels, this is a book to add to your arsenal. But whether you've yet to pick up a graphic novel or are looking for something new, here are some graphic novels to try.

Page by Paige
by Laura Lee Gulledge
Amulet, Abrams (on shelves now)

When Paige Turner (her parents are writers) moves from Virginia to Brooklyn, she feels lost and alone. Her first companion in this new place is her sketchbook. It is through her relationship with her sketchbook, and the drawings, doodles, and messes she makes, that she comes to learn about herself. With the support of her new friends (and boyfriend) Paige begins to define her identity and her home, while learning how to support her friends in turn. Ages 14+

Super Amoeba No. 1: Squish

By Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm

Random House (on shelves now)

Let me just start off by saying my favorite graphic novel series for the 2^nd-3^rd grade crowd is Lunch Lady- hands down. But what do you give the kids who have exhausted that series? Squish is a great option, especially for teachers. Setting: a world much like our own, where kids read comic books, dream of being super heroes, and there’s always a class bully. The Catch: this world is populated entirely by amoebas. That’s right, our protagonist is a single-celled organism. The opening pages introduce amoebas, giving basic scientific facts that the narrator warns, “You’ll be tested on this someday so you’d better be paying attention.” And, most kids will be tested on this someday. So, fun graphic novel with a side dish of biology facts, what’s not to like? Arrows throughout the book contain snarky narrator comments for some additional humor. Ages 8+

Around the World
by Matt Phelan
Candlewick, October 11, 2011
Many local teachers have been using graphic novelizations of classic stories in their classrooms. Phelan's Around the World, though fiction, is grounded in historical fact and quotes from primary sources, proving an exciting base for history lessons or a path to the exploration of non-fiction. Phelan's book presents three famous individuals who each circumnavigated in the world in his or own way: Thomas Steves by bicycle, Nellie Bly by ship and rail, and Joshua Slocum by sail boat. The pacing and speed of each journey are captured by the graphic novel lay-out, which serves to combine writing, image, maps, and other materials, each adding a layer to the reader's understanding of the journey. Sprightly line drawings and colorful washes capture the emotion and drive of each character, bringing a rush of thrilling speed to each adventure. Ages 10+

Patrick in A Teddy Bear’s Picnic & other stories

by Geoffrey Hayes

Toon Books, Candlewick (on shelves now)

Toon Books are leveled beginning readers that use a comic book format. Comics, like true picturebooks, rely on both words and pictures in tandem to tell a story, allowing strength in one to foster comprehension in the other. Beginning readers will bond with Patrick, a little bear who knows that life is much too interesting for naps. Patrick’s adventures, run-ins with the frightening Big Bear, and family life are similar to the experiences of many children, yet hold many delightfully silly moments. Geoffrey Hayes packs Patrick with four stories- call the last three a sweet reward for making it all the way through the first one! Ages 4+

Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke
First Second (on shelves now)
One day while Zita and her friend Joseph are walking, they come across a small crater. Inside is a strange device, and Zita, being an adventurous button-pusher, hits it. A vortex opens and something reaches out to grab Joseph. Luckily, Zita is a good friend, so she hits the button again and disappears into the vortex after Joseph, only to land in an alien world. What follows are the adventures of Zita as she tries to find Joseph and return to Earth- before an asteroid destroys the planet she’s on, that is.

Though characterization can sometimes suffer in plot-driven graphic novels, Ben Hatke has managed to create a number of multi-faceted, dimensional characters. The Piper, who initially helps Zita, is not good or bad, rather self-protecting. Zita, too, isn’t without her flaws. Though she is brave, she is also stubborn and impulsive, yet stilling caring enough to draw helpful misfits to her.

We find a resolution at the end, but I can’t help but wish the next installment of Zita’s fabulous adventures were waiting on a shelf for me today. Middle grade readers, especially those who love Bone will fall in love with Zita the Spacegirl. Me? I'm happy to see a strong young female on character join the graphic novel shelf. Ages 8+

Anya’s Ghost

by Vera Brosgol

First Second (on shelves now)

Anya's Ghost is a wonderful coming of age graphic novel. The twists and the turns of the story pulled me in for a one-sitting read. Anya's experiences of frustration, both because of her immigrant background and the usual difficulties of not fitting in at school, are accessible to all YA readers- for who hasn't felt alienated at one point or another? However, the layer of Anya's familial background adds depth to the story. Each twist and turn of the story is adeptly foreshadowed, creating a richly spooky story that will have readers frantically turning pages (unless, like me, you have to stop and remark about how beautifully composed certain panels are). Ages 14+

Mangaman

by Barry Lyga

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 2011

A Manga boy falls from his fictional world into the world of a realistic high school graphic novel. What follows is an unlikely romance and an exploration of the differences between graphic styles. My favorite parts of this novel are the more metafictive elements- being hurt by motion lines, having thoughts actually appear over Mangaman's head, and movement between frames. Teen manga lovers will enjoy the comics-geeks-only humor. With its exploration of eastern versus western storytelling techniques the book also has a place in classrooms, perhaps as a visual example of portions of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. Ages 14+

-Marika McCoola

Book Review: The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating

2011-06-05T21:34:00.001-04:00

May I confess something? I only picked this book up last month for three reasons: (1) it was published by Algonquin, one of my favorite publishing houses, and (2) it looked short enough for me to read while on the train to BEA, thus bumping my monthly reading up by one notch, and (3) it's non fiction, and I like to make sure I read at least one nonfiction book each month. So yeah, basically I was reading this book to make my stats look better. I'm a little bit ashamed because it was *really* good, and despite all of my cunning, I did not finish it in the month of May, so it's going towards my June stats anyway. Since June is the month I take my summer vacation, it's the last month in the year in which my reading stats need any boosting whatsoever. So I reckon it just serves me right.

Anyway, this delightful bit of nonfiction by Elisabeth Tova Bailey was far more interesting than I bargained for. On a vacation in Italy, the author encounters a virulent strain of influenza that wreaks havoc on her body and her immune system. Very soon after returning home she becomes bedridden, then hospitalized. Somehow her mitochondria become compromised (I'm sure I'm not the only reader who envisioned Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door at this point) and she needs to move out of her farmhouse and into a studio apartment where she needs extensive daily care, if not quite round-the-clock care.

It's at this point in her life that a friend brings her a snail she found when rambling in the woods, and against all odds, this snail becomes Bailey's constant companion. She follows its movements avidly and researches with just as much gusto what the proper care and feeding of a snail might entail. I was surprised just how engaging this narrative would be--just as surprised, in fact, as I was about how interesting these molluscs, these gastropods (from the Latin for mouth-foot) could be.

As Bailey learns to deal with her circumscribed life, she observes this single snail, eventually creating a terrarium for it. The snail is frequently her only diversion in the long hours of daylight she spends alone, and at night she devotes countless hours to imagining its inner life. Each chapter is punctuated with excerpts from naturalists like E. O. Wilson, and poets like Elizabeth Bishop, who were all fascinated by the common snail. Along the way I learned a lot of natural history, such as found on page 87:

"Three and a half billion years ago, when life on earth began, the snail and I shared a common ancestor, some kind of simple worm that over time evolved into two animal groups. The protostomes, which in the embryotic stage develop a mouth first and then an anus, branched off into gastropods...And the Deuterostomes, which develop the same characteristics, though somewhat embarrassingly in reverse order, anus first and then a mouth, branched off into mammals, including Homo sapiens."

Other interesting facts I gleaned include the new development in colonoscopies, which mimics the movement of the snail to increase the patient's comfort, to develop a small robot that "can travel snail-like through the mucus-coated intestines of humans." And did you know that snails have over 2,500 teeth? (Tell me you didn't know-this was the first fact in the book that completely astonished me!) Yes, they have 80 or more rows of teeth with 33 teeth per row. With that many teeth, it's no wonder how Bailey came up with the title of this book!

And yet sometimes the narrative would take a poignant turn. It's easy to forget that Bailey was an invalid during the course of this book, unable to leave her bed even to walk to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. It's a wonder she didn't become more melancholy that she did. One of her thoughts that rather pierced my heart:

There is a certain depth of illness that is piercing in its isolation; the only rule of existence is uncertainty, and the only movement is the passage of time. One cannot bear to live through another loss of function, and sometimes friends and family cannot bear to watch. An unspoken, unbridgeable divide may widen. Even if you are still who you were, you cannot actually fully be who you are. Sometimes the people you know well withdraw, and then even the person you know as yourself begins to change (131).

If that is not a clear reason for despair, I do not know what is, and yet I never got the feeling that Bailey despaired of much. Her fortitude, derived almost entirely from the snail, according to this narrative, is something to behold. Clearly there is far more to this book than I initially imagined. I would encourage anyone with an interest in good, literary narrative non-fiction to take a look at it, too.

NB: The publisher sent me a finished hardcover copy of this book last year when it was published, but I am just now getting around to reading it. As of this writing I do not know when it is slated for a paperback release.

~Emily Crowe

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...except for my books!

2011-06-02T19:55:00.001-04:00

I'm at T-minus 12 days, 12 hours until my summer vacation begins, not that I am counting or anything...but if you know me at all, you know that picking my summer vacation reading is almost as much fun as picking my destination. I'll be heading for tropical climes, which meanslots of lounging, eating, snorkeling, swimming, reading. Rinse & repeat. And with long travel days bookending my trip (two planes and one boat transfer--ugh!), I will have plenty of time to read. I figure with 14 days, I'll need at least 16 books to take. My stack of possible titles is now around 30, so I'm spending my weekend winnowing that list. Who wants to help me decide?

Tom Perrotta writing about the Rapture? Yes, please! I loved Little Children and The Abstinence Teacher and I look forward to reading this one, too, in galley form.

Alice Hoffman's The Dovekeepers. Literary word on the street is that this is her most literary and ambitious novel yet. She switched publishers for this one, too, so I'm happy to have an ARC of it.

Lost on Planet China by J. Maarten Troost made my list for a couple of reasons. I loved his travel memoirs set in the South Pacific AND his middle name is the name of one of the islands I have to travel to in order to get to my destination.

The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant is one of the few books guaranteed a spot in my backpack 'cause it's the book my husband asked me to read for Christmas. Every year as a gift to each other we read one book by the other's choosing. Isn't that a great tradition? It started when I wanted him to read Harry Potter and he was reluctant to do so. One year he asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I replied, "I want you to read Harry Potter." Not much he could do in the face of that request, eh? (He ended up *loving* Harry Potter, btw.)

What else should I take? Let me know what books you're looking forward to reading this summer and maybe I'll read 'em, too!

~Emily

Two Birds with One Review: Great fiction releases this week!

2011-05-09T16:27:00.001-04:00

Today I've got two small book reviews, each of which features a bird in the title.

Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away by Christie Watson, published by Other Press (a small but great literary house) is a very impressive debut novel. First of all, I love the graphics of this cover. So minimalist, yet so evocative. Meet Blessing, a smart girl born to a world of relative privilege in Lagos, Nigeria, whose young life quickly becomes marked by hardship and loss. When her father leaves the family, she moves with her mother and beloved older brother to stay with her maternal grandparents in a remote village. Daily living takes on many new changes, full of both beauty and horror, and the reader gets an up-close look at the tragic exploitations and political fallout the oil industry wreaks on developing countries. Blessing's story of survival and hope will definitely move you as she and rest of her village realize that the power of Nigerian women lies in both their resistance and their resilience. A great companion read (and, I think, a better read) to Chris Cleave's Little Bee. Paperback original $15.95

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones is published by Algonquin, one of my favorite small publishers. Look out, folks, because this story will draw you in immediately with its opening line, "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist," and won't let you go. Dana, the daughter from the unrecognized marriage, and Chaurisse, the legitimate daughter, tell their parallel coming-of-age stories in Atlanta in the 1980s, but where Dana's entire life has been haunted by the knowledge of her father's double life, Chaurisse's has been utterly and blissfully ignorant. Things get interesting when the two girls meet at a science fair and Dana engineers a friendship between them. The real power of this story lies in the author's ability to convey so completely the secrets, alliances, agonies, and jealousies that define these girls' lives. Hardcover $19.95

~Emily Crowe

Caribbean Fiction at its Finest: Three new releases in paperback

2011-04-28T16:25:00.001-04:00

It's no secret among the staff that I am a serious Caribbean addict. From the food to the music to the people to the fiction of the region, I am a devotee. And that's why I am so pleased to tell y'all about three novels just out in paperback that span the Caribbean in space and time. [Drumroll, please]

Isabel Allende's Island Beneath the Sea is a beautifully written novel. Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarite -- known as Tete -- is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tete finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums she discovers through her fellow slaves.When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it's with powdered wigs in his baggage and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father's plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. It will be eight years before he brings home a bride -- but marriage, too, proves more difficult than he imagined. And Valmorain remains dependent on the services of his teenaged slave.Spanning four decades, Island Beneath the Sea is the moving story of the intertwined lives of Tete and Valmorain, and of one woman's determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances.

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle by Monique Roffey is a beautifully written, unforgettable novel of a troubled marriage, set against the lush landscape and political turmoil of Trinidad. Monique Roffey's Orange Prize-shortlisted novel is a gripping portrait of postcolonialism that stands among great works by Caribbean writers like Jamaica Kincaid and Andrea Levy. When George and Sabine Harwood arrive in Trinidad from England, George is immediately seduced by the beguiling island, while Sabine feels isolated, heat-fatigued, and ill-at-ease. As they adapt to new circumstances, their marriage endures for better or worse, despite growing political unrest and racial tensions that affect their daily lives. But when George finds a cache of letters that Sabine has hidden from him, the discovery sets off a devastating series of consequences as other secrets begin to emerge.

Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, Andrea Levy's The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation in Jamaica, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her “Marguerite.” Resourceful and mischievous, July soon becomes indispensable to her mistress. Together they live through the bloody Baptist war, followed by the violent and chaotic end of slavery. Taught to read and write so that she can help her mistress run the business, July remains bound to the plantation despite her “freedom.” It is the arrival of a young English overseer, Robert Goodwin, that will dramatically change life in the great house for both July and her mistress. Prompted and provoked by her son’s persistent questioning, July’s resilience and heartbreak are gradually revealed in this extraordinarily powerful story of slavery, revolution, freedom, and love. This book was a finalist for the 2010 Book Prize.

~Emily Crowe

My Name is Nieves... and I'm a cover lover!

2011-04-21T10:05:00.041-04:00

Poetry Lovers edition part dos.

This one brought by local Amherst College Professor Ilan Stavans. I speak of course of anthology he edited for Farrar Straus Giroux. The FSG Book of Twentieth Century Latin American Poetry, is serious business at 50.00. It is a veritable tome of bilingual (Spanish/ English) poetry. This anthology captures the varying ideas, thoughts and moods of different Latino poets, "during a century of extraordinary change, poets became the chroniclers of deep polarizations." *

The cover was what drew me to the book in the first place, but the subject kept me captivated far longer. Stavans is no stranger to Latino literature, having worked on numerous biographies and anthologies that include Pablo Neruda, Ceasar Chavez, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Read a selection below, or come in to see this and more of our extensive poetry collection!

Enjoy.

Paz,

Nieves

Poem XX: Tonight I can write the saddest lines

by Pablo Neruda.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

*from The FSG Book of Twentieth Century Latin American Poetry

April is... National Poetry Month

2011-04-20T10:40:00.035-04:00

One of my favorite poetry books to come out this year is a collection put together by Caroline Kennedy.

She Walks in Beauty, A Woman's Journey Through Poems, (Hyperion Books, 24.99) is a selection of poems honoring, exploring, and celebrating womanhood. It is an excellent collection broken up into the various facets of the human (and woman) experience. Kennedy has chosen some of my favorite poems and included some new gems! Pick up a copy at the Odyssey Bookshop to check it out for yourself. Read one of the poems picked below!

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

by e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Enjoy!

Paz,

Nieves

Book Review: Pulitizer Prize 2011 Winner--A Visit from the Goon Squad

2011-04-18T19:15:00.000-04:00

(NB: On the left is the hardcover/ARC edition and on the right is the new paperback edition. While I find the left one more visually appealing, the abstract pb cover art I think is more appropriate to the subject.)

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan has been earning so many accolades that I finally picked it up a few weeks ago to see what it's all about. The New York Times named it a Top 10 Book of that year and it's also the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award (incidentally, the prize I most respect out of the "Big Three" literary prizes in the US: the Pulitzer, the National Book Award, and the NBCC). Today the Columbia School of Journalism announced that it is also this year's Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction.

While I cannot say that I loved it, I can say that it's a pretty impressive and interesting novel. What none of the reviews I read mentioned, however, is that it seems to be less a cohesive novel than a full length work of disjointed stories. The key characters are so randomly interspersed throughout the book that it took more than a little effort to keep up with them, though admittedly that might have more to do with my attention span the week I read it. In most cases I just write up my own little cast of characters and chart them, but I didn't care enough about these people to do that. The book's description tells us that Bennie and Sasha are the main characters, but since they don't actually appear in most of the book, I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. Mostly the book jumps back and forth in chronology and we get various back stories and future stories for Bennie and Sasha, which means we're hearing more about their parents, children, uncle, spouses, bosses and significant others than we do about Bennie, a music mogul, and Sasha, his erstwhile assistant.

Along the way, Egan takes us for a ride through American pop culture with sidetrips to Africa for a safari, to Naples for a look at the city's underbelly, and to NYU for reasons that remain obscure to me. We get alternating first, third, and even second person points of view (used with only limited success) and sometimes it takes longer than it ought for the reader (and I figure I'm at least as astute as most) to figure out just who the heck we're dealing with and where (and when) in the overarching chronology of the book we are.

Which is not to say I disliked the book or think it's not good, despite the bizarre section near the end that is done in the style of a Power Point presention, presumably to show how an autistic child named Lincoln sees the world visually and compartmentally. By the time I closed the book and reflected on the ride Egan took me on, I was left feeling like this really is a novel of our time, reflecting the disjointedness and fragmentation of our society--and that is, ultimately, what the Pulitzer Committee is looking for ("For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life," according to the website).

Egan's prose is always serviceable and occasionally elegant. Here's a short passage that I liked, which I'd say is pretty representative of her style: "But eventually a sort of amnesia had overtaken Susan; her rebellion and hurt and melted away, deliquesced into a sweet, eternal sunniness that was terrible in the way that life would be terrible, Ted supposed, without death to give it urgency and shape." I think this may be the first time that I've encountered deliquesce as a verb, and it's a word worth using.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is, for me at least, a more interesting read than a great one, but I am quite glad that I went along for the ride. I recommend it for people who don't mind working a little bit at their novels and for those looking for something a little off the beaten track in terms of narrative and structure.

What about y'all? Have you read this one yet? Do you think it is deserving of the many accolades and awards that it has received so far? Do you think other books published in 2010 are more worthy? What has been overlooked, in your opinion? I'll put myself out there and say that I am disappointed that Karl Marlantes' mammoth novel Matterhorn wasn't at least shortlisted for any of the big awards, but I'd love to hear *your* opinion now!

~Emily

Book Review: The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak

2011-04-18T12:09:00.000-04:00

Coming from Bellevue Literary Press, the same small publisher that brought us last year's Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, Tinkers, is a tiny gem of a novel--The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak. I hope that because of the publisher's track record that the book will get more review attention, because it certainly deserves it and, I suspect, would otherwise get overlooked. Like Tinkers, it is a deceptively quiet novel filled with beautiful language and painstakingly crafted prose. While I did not love it (I need to care more about my characters for that), I think it is a very fine novel.

Jozef Vinich's life is marked by early tragedy when his father packs him up from the Americas and moves them both back to a small village in the Austro-Hungarian empire. Life gets even more difficult with an unpleasant stepmother and a harsh, subsistence life life as a shepherd. When he and his half brother enlist in World War I, little do they realize that their dream of escape from their impoverished rural life is about to become a nightmarish struggle for survival in the trenches. Round that off with the life of a sniper who is then taken prisoner and you'd think it would all make for some pretty exciting reading, right?

Well, actually not. It is a very deliberate book, holding the reader always at arm's length, and though the atrocities of war are not skimped on, it was hard for me to work up more than a vague horror at any given point, or for that matter, more than a vague relief when each unpleasant situation passed. The writing is beautiful, but more in a clinically precise way; the level of passion implied by the action never quite reaches the writing. This may sound like I'm damning The Sojourn with faint praise but that's not true. Just because I find it to be reserved doesn't mean I do not admire it. I do, in fact. And when customers talk with me about wanting a book that is finely crafted, whose writing is precise (Krivak always finds his mot juste), I will unhesitatingly recommend it (like Cold Mountain, or Tinkers,or Fugitive Pieces, where the writing is also beautifully lyrical).

Here's a sample of the writing. Krivak frequently writes paragrah-long sentences, (think Jose Saramago among the modern greats) and while they make take a bit more effort to read, the effort is certainly rewarded:

The northwestern Carpathians, in which I was raised, were a hard place, as unforgiving as the people who lived there, but the Alpine landscape into which Zlee and I were sent that early winter seemed a glimpse of what the surface of the earth looked and felt and acted like when there were no maps or borders, no rifles or artillery, no men or wars to claim possession of land, and snow and rock alone parried in a match of millennial slowness so that time meant nothing, and death meant nothing, for what life there was gave in to the forces of nature surrounding and accepted its fate to play what role was handed down in the sidereal march of seasons capable of crushing in an instant what armies might--millennia later--be foolish enough to assemble on its heights.

Lovely, no? And when read with a deliberate pace, really considering what he is putting forth here, one finds ultimately that it is worth reading. And worth the little extra effort. And if one comes away feeling less than fervent about the characters or the events and is moved more by the language itself, then so be it.

~Emily Crowe

My Name is Nieves... and I'm a cover lover!

2011-04-15T10:13:00.060-04:00

April Poetry Month edition!

Nobody loves tom foolery and epic nonsense like us booksellers here at the Odyssey Bookshop. So it goes without saying we love writers like Lewis Carroll. If you doubt me check out Marika's blog or click here.

But what convinces a reader to pick up a nonsensical and delicious epic poem ? Why the cover of course.

The Hunting of the Snark

by Lewis Caroll

British Library

19.95

The British Library has reprinted a complete facsimile of the 1st edition. And in the book's 135 years of existence it has had quite a few covers (see below). However there is just something to be said for the aesthetic appeal of gold on red clothe. Maybe it's my inner mocking bird that loves to collect shiny objects but I love this reprint!

From "The Hunting of the Snark"

by Lewis Carroll

"Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears!"
(They were all of them fond of quotations:
So they drank to his health, and they gave him three cheers,
While he served out additional rations).

"We have sailed many months, we have sailed many weeks,
(Four weeks to the month you may mark),
But never as yet ('tis your Captain who speaks)
Have we caught the least glimpse of a Snark!

"We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,
(Seven days to the week I allow),
But a Snark, on the which we might lovingly gaze,
We have never beheld till now!

"Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again
The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wheresoever you go,
The warranted genuine Snarks.

Enjoy!

Paz,

Nieves

April is... National Poetry Month

2011-04-13T10:11:00.065-04:00

I read this article on NPR from New York Times poetry columnist David Orr a couple of days ago. In the article Orr discusses his new book Beautiful and Pointless, Harper, 25.99. In it Orr looks at modern poetry and why reading it may, or may not matter.

The book's purpose was not to highlight his favorite poets per se but to encourage people to discover poetry and different themes and thereby find for themselves poets who inspire the reader to read poetry.

To buy his book click here. I can't help but agree that even if poetry is an under-appreciated (if not completely outdated) art form, when someone discovers for themselves the power of a poets words it can be a powerful thing.

Case in point:

What is Poetry
by Lawrence Felinghetti
art by Frederic Amat (see above picture)
House of Anansi Press
24.95.

Ferlinghetti's book was first published in 2007 as Poetry as an Insurgent Art, Amat has created art specifically to go with this limited edition book. It is a completely inspired way of looking at Ferlinghetti's words and drives home the point that when one discovers poetry or writing of any kind that resonates with the reader doors are opened and worlds are discovered.

Come down to the Odyssey and check it out, it really is one of the coolest books I've read this year!

Paz,

Nieves

Constantly Risking Absurdity (#15)

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti b. 1919 Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Constantly risking absurdity

and death

whenever he performs

above the heads

of his audience

the poet like an acrobat

climbs on rime

to a high wire of his own making

and balancing on eyebeams

above a sea of faces

paces his way

to the other side of day

performing entrechats

and sleight-of-foot tricks

and other high theatrics

and all without mistaking

any thing

for what it may not be

For he's the super realist

who must perforce perceive

taut truth

before the taking of each stance or step

in his supposed advance

toward that still higher perch

where Beauty stands and waits

with gravity

to start her death-defying leap

And he

a little charleychaplin man

who may or may not catch

her fair eternal form

spreadeagled in the empty air

of existence

April is... National Poetry Month!

2011-04-11T14:12:00.002-04:00

I love poetry. It gives one a shared understanding, a level of comprehension and compassion with the rest of humanity. Sometimes it is packaged in a silly rhyme:

Well, my daddy left home when I was three,
and he didn't leave much to Ma and me,
just this old guitar and a bottle of booze.
Now I don't blame him because he run and hid,
but the meanest thing that he ever did was
before he left he went and named me Sue.

~ from "A Boy Named Sue," by Shel Silverstein.

or as a wise old haiku:

So many things
they call into my thoughts--
cherry blossoms!

     ~Basho

Poetry has a way of bringing to light aspects that we might miss otherwise in the hurdy gurdy turmoil of day to day living. As Billy Collins says:
                 "Poems can inspire and make us think about what it means to be a member
                   of the human race. By just spending a few minutes reading a poem
                     each day, new worlds can be revealed."

And just in time for poetry month, Collins has come out with an excellent book of new poetry. Horoscopes for the Dead, Random House, 24.00.

This book is just another excellent example of Collin's wit, and superb lyrical style of someone who writes poetry for those who do and do not consider themselves poetry readers.

To buy his latest book of poems click here. But for now enjoy this selection!

What She Said

by Billy Collins

When he told me he expected me to pay for dinner,

I was like give me a break

I was not the exact equivalent of give me a break.

I was just similar to give me a break.

As I said, I was like give me a break.

I would love to tell you

how I was able to resemble give me a break

without actually being identical to give me a break,

but all I can say is that I sensed

a similarity between me and give me a break.

And that was close enough

at that point in the evening

even if it meant I would fall short

of standing up from the table and screaming

give me a break,

for God's sake will you please give me a break?!

No, for that moment

with the rain streaking the restaurant windows

and the waiter approaching,

I felt the most I could be was like

to a certain degree

give me a break.

I hope you enjoy!

Paz,

Nieves

April is... National Poetry Month!

2011-04-10T14:05:00.019-04:00

We have been very busy (and happily so) at the Odyssey with some great events in the past two months! If you have made the trip down to the Odyssey or South Hadley I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Of course you can check out our website to see what we have coming up next.

The unfortunate truth however is that I haven't blogged in over a month... yikes! And this month is probably my favorite literary month! National Poetry Month!

I'm going to kick it off with a poem from one of my favorite poets Elizabeth Bishop.

To buy her latest definitive edition of poems click here.

http://site.booksite.com/3369/showdetail/?isbn=9780374532369

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. --Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster. I hope you enjoy! Paz, Nieves

Must-Read Monday: New paperbacks you should check out now!

2011-04-04T12:07:00.000-04:00

Outside it's a dark and dreary day here in South Hadley, but inside the Odyssey, our countenances are quite sunny! That's because we have the inside scoop on all the great new books that are out in paperback now. Here are a few of them for you to consider:

The Architect of Flowers: Stories by William Lychack. There's a saying that those who have spent a lot of time in the dark have the ability to find great beauty in the smallest hints of light, and this book is a great example of this. This slim collection of stories will introduce you to a case of delicately developed characters facing heartbreak and disappointment. Lychack's skill is infusing the ordinary with special qualities: the softness of a summer's yellow morning light in a kitchen or the depth of a mother's longing for her adult son and what's willing to do to bring him home. It's a rare skill and one to be savored on a quiet weekend afternoon with tea and blankets. ~Sophia (signed copies available of this paperback original)

A Thread of Sky by Deanna Fei. Lin Yulan, a revolutionary and leader of the Chinese feminist movement, reluctantly returns to her homeland after a self-imposed exile for a guided tour of "the new China" with her two daughters and three granddaughters in an effort to heal their collective estrangement. Each woman arrives in China with her own agenda, and each discovers that some secrets are simply too heavy to bear alone. This powerful, intricately woven first novel is a meditation on grief & recovery, strength & vulnerability, and the urgency to leave one's mark on the world. A very promising debut! ~Emily

The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano. This is a beautifully written story of life taking a turn for the weose. The two characters of Alice and Mattia both have personal tragedies early on in their young lives that drastically define them and separate them from their peers. For Alice a skiing accident forever mars her physical self-esteem. Mattia, born a twin to her sister who is mentally retarded, is weighed down by the guilt of her sister's untimely death. Alice and Mattia meet in high school and this is their love story. Giordano writes with a sensitivity that is both beautiful and powerful. ~Nieves

Russian Winter by Daphne Kalotay. This narrative pas de deux binds Nina Revskay's mysterious past as the Bolshoi's rising young star with her reclusive present as a benefactor of the Boston arts scene. When a rash, youthful decision based on jealousy and insecurity sets events spinning out of her control, Nina spends the rest of her life guarding a dark secret. With this sweeping story of art, love, and Soviet politics come hints of intrigue and betrayal in a world where trust is a rare commodity and where even those with the most dazzling artistic talent cannot protect themselves against faceless accusations from Party informants. ~Emily

Remainders!

2011-03-19T11:02:00.000-04:00

It's Spring. Suddenly people are doing things again- probably because they can now open the doors to their houses. The weather is sunny and clear, just the sort of day to pull out a deck chair and laze about with a book. Luckily, we have hundreds of new remainders in the store, from popular fiction and nonfiction to gift books and cookbooks to children's picturebooks and pop-ups.

Two kids' books. Click, Clack, Quackity-Quack: A Tying Adventure by Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin. Half alphabet boardbook, half interactive keyboard, originally $14.99 now $7.99. Ton by Taro Miura is a simple math concept book and perfect for young vehicle enthusiasts, originally $15.95 now $5.99.

Diana and her favorite new cookbook, Best of the Best: the best recipes from the 25 best cookbooks of the year from the editors of Food & Wine, originally $29.95 now $8.99.

Adult fiction! The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker, originally $25.00 now $5.99, and Nieves' favorite The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen, originally $16.00 now $6.99.

History! American Creation by Joseph Ellis, originally $26.95 now $7.99, and Last Lion the Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy, originally $28.00 now $9.99.

Two interactive books on Princesses. Princesses of the World, originally $17.99 now $6.99, and The Secret Life of Princesses, originally $17.99 now $6.99.

Must-Read Monday: New in paperback!

2011-03-07T12:35:00.000-05:00

This week we are spoiled for choice when it comes to great new fiction releases. Tomorrow (Tuesday) marks the paperback debut of 2010's National Book Award Winner, Lord of Misrule. This literary dark horse (pun intended) from a small publisher surprised most booksellers when it took top honors, but after we got a chance to read it. Come pick up a copy of this to see for yourself why the New York Times called it "assured, exotic and uncategorizable...an incontrovertible winner, a bona fide bolt from the blue."

Next up we have David Mitchell's newest masterpiece in paperback, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. This novel earned more praise for its debut in 2010 than almost any other, including four starred reviews. From Dave Eggers, who praised this novel on the cover of the New York Times Book Review: "If any readers have doubted that David Mitchell is phenomenally talented and capable of vaulting wonders on the page, they have been heretofore silent. Mitchell is almost universally acknowledged as the real deal. [This book] confirms Mitchell as one of the more fascinating and fearless writers alive."

Come stop by the Odyssey or give us a call and we'll reserve one of these fine books for you.

~Emily

Brand New Picturebooks

2011-03-04T18:55:00.000-05:00

You can tell spring is coming by the almost daily arrival of new books. Though I love children's books in general, I must admit my favorite things are brand new picturebooks. Over the past few days the picturebooks have come flooding in, and you're sure to find something interesting among the mix.

Blue Chameleon
by Emily Gravett
Simon & Schuster
Poor chameleon feels blue and goes looking for a friend. But though he can change his color to look like a snail or a sock or a rock, none of these are willing to be his friend. Who can he find who will appreciate him for being a chameleon? This simple book is wonderful for very young children. Simple words on each page indicate the pattern or color of the chameleon and the object he mimics. But being a copycat is not a good way to make friends and, as chameleon learns, the best way to find a friend is to be your colorful self. For children one year plus, this book would make a wonderful baby gift- hopefully we’ll see it in board book form in the future.

Dear Tabby
By Carolyn Crimi, Illustrated by David Roberts
HarperCollins
Tabby is an alley cat, but with the help of a typewriter he’s also an advice columnist. Over the course of the book he hears from another cat, a parrot, a hamster, a skunk, a groundhog, an ex-circus bear, and a dog. Through letters and newspaper articles we trace the lives of these animals and how, over time, they eventually find happiness- including Tabby himself.

This wordy picturebook is perfect for those in early grade school to read to themselves. Readers will find themselves trying to figure out and patch together each animal’s story, something made especially fun by inserts of newspaper advertisements, posters, etc. Roberts’ illustrations are fun and balance the text well; I especially love his full-page spread of the runaway circus bear on her tricycle.

Red Wagon
by Renata Liwska
Penguin
Renata Liwska is the illustrator of the best-selling The Quiet Book. In Red Wagon, a little fox named Lucy takes her brand-new red to market. Even though this sounds a lot like chores, Lucy sets out. Along the way, the red wagon becomes all sorts of things as Lucy and her friends pretend. As it turns out, doing chores can feel a lot like playing after all! Lucy's imaginings build as the story continues, until the red wagon is illustrated as the rocket ship or truck of Lucy's imaginings. The cute critters of The Quiet Book are just as charming in Red Wagon; be prepared for them to become frequent storytime visitors!

On the Road & Busy Boats
by Susan Steggall
Frances Lincoln
These two books are perfect for the car, truck, or boat enthusiast in your life. Sparse text illustrated by intricate cut and ripped paper collage allows children to find larger stories in the illustrations. They'll love pointing out details in the background or identifying the names of the many vehicles whose names they know. On the Road is a light paperback, easy to tuck into a backpack for a car journey, while Busy Boats would be a wonderful gift for children headed to the shore.

Manners Mash-Up: A Goofy Guide to Good Behavior
by Leuyen Pham, Lynn Munsinger, Joe Berger, Judy Schachner, Adam Rex, Peter H. Reynolds, Tao Nyeu, Bob Shea, Kevin Sherry, Henry Cole, Sophie Backall, Dan Santat, Frank Morrison, Tedd Arnold
Penguin
Reading through the long list of author/illustrator contributors, I'm sure you've gotten an idea of the sorts of fun that await you inside. Yes, I just said fun in regards to a book about manners; this is no ordinary guide to etiquette. Each spread is illustrated by a different contributor and takes on manners for different occasions, including party manners, doctor's office manners, supermarket non-no's, etc. Children will laugh uproariously at the horrid behavior of the characters. Some of my favorite pages include Tao Nyeu's "Please don't pick in public" and Judy Schachner's "Party manners". Great fun for the all ages, from the rudest person you ever did see to the absolute angel.

Cloudette
by Tom Lichtenheld
Henry Holt
Cloudette is only a little cloud, which can be fun when it comes to hide-and-go-seek or watching fireworks, but when the big clouds make storms, Cloudette feels left out. After one particvularly big storm Cloudette finds herself in a new place, a place that once had a pond. And it is here that Cloudette learns how to make a storm. A story about finding one's place and learning new things, Cloudette is also great for tired parents. Side notes and comments hidden in the illustrations will hold the attention of both parents and children.

Animals Home Alone
by Loes Riphagen
Seven Footer Kids, Publisher Group West
One day, a little girl and her father go out, leaving fifteen animals alone in the house. In the wordless story that follows, the animals get up to all sorts of things. The book opens with images of all the animals and closes with the results of the animals' actions. These final images are paired with questions asking readers what happened to the animals over the course of the story. These questions are a good place to start, but careful readers will pick up many more adventures than the questions reveal.

-Marika

Teen book of the week

2011-03-03T10:30:00.003-05:00

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

In Lena's world, a person undergoes an operation at eighteen, effectively curing them of love. For if one doesn't love, there is no pain or loss, and everyone will be happy. Lena counts the days until she'll receive the cure and everything will be good and right. She'll be matched with her husband and together they'll live a safe, predictable life. But then Lena the perfect citizen, the good girl, finds someone to love. And things will never be the same.

Sometimes I feel that teen romances are taken too far, there is often a sense that this is the one, the perfect partner, despite the fact that the protagonist is but sixteen. Here, I don't feel any of that. Having your ability to feel (love, hate, everything inbetween) cut off at eighteen means young romance is the only thing that's even possible, let alone probable.

The world Oliver has created is so real. Her reliance on everyday objects, places and activities grounds the dystopian environment and cements the connection between the reader and Lena. The one scene that truly clinched my love of this book was when Lena went to the cell in which her mother had been held, and saw one word carved over and over into the walls, a word that was both her downfall and her savior. As Lena walked the halls to the cell, smelling the refuse and mold, I felt snatches of V for Vendetta run through my mind. At other points I couldn't help but think of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. From teen romance, best friends, high school, and illegal parties to a totalitarian government, Oliver seamlessly weaves a classic tale of love with the danger and despair of a dystopia.

-Marika

A Shaun Tan Collection

2011-03-02T13:03:00.000-05:00

Lost and Found
by Shaun Tan

Lost and Found is one of the most beautiful books I've ever seen. The reproductions are incredible; I found myself stroking some of the pages as if I might feel the texture of the paint. Each page is a marvel, with spaces that would be "empty" in other books containing layers of texture or related print. Shaun Tan's Arrival astonished me, but I've always found it difficult to get a hold of his other books in the United States. Now, there is no excuse. I have spent hours pouring over this book, dipping into a page or story, or reading from beginning to end, and I intend to spend many more hours marveling at the splendid work.

Each story has a weight to it, at once melancholic and fantastic, uplifting in its hidden details. The story of the rabbits is a dark, sad tale, based on our own history. The Red Tree more uplifting, finding magic in the world. The stories are deep, and the illustrations do them justice, extending and expanding them in unsuspected ways.

This is a book that needs to live on a table, not a shelf. Out where people can pick it up and become amazed by stories and images that will stay with them for weeks afterward.

Our copies have now arrived and I encourage lovers of picturebooks and graphic novels alike to take a few moments to sit with this incredible book.

-Marika

Terrific Tuesdays: Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

2011-03-01T09:00:00.030-05:00

So there's this writer named Jodi Picoult. Perhaps you've heard of her? Unless you've been living under a rock for the last decade or so, your answer is no doubt a resounding "yes." Her new book, Sing You Home, goes on sale Tuesday, March 1, and we want everybody to know about it. Includes a CD of original songs that Jodi co-wrote with her friend, folk musician Ellen Wilber, created especially for this novel.

Summary: Every life has a soundtrack. All you have to do is listen.
Music has set the tone for most of Zoe Baxter's life. There's the melody that reminds her of the summer she spent rubbing baby oil on her stomach in pursuit of the perfect tan. A dance beat that makes her think of using a fake ID to slip into a nightclub. A dirge that marked the years she spent trying to get pregnant. For better or for worse, music is the language of memory. It is also the language of love. Zoe Baxter has spent 10 years trying to get pregnant, and after multiple miscarriages and infertility issues, it looks like her dream is about to come true. But a terrible turn of events leads to a nightmare--one that takes away her unborn baby and breaks apart her marriage to Max. Zoe throws herself into her career as a music therapist. When an unexpected friendship slowly blossoms into love, she makes plans for a new life, but to her shock and inevitable rage, some people -- even those she loves and trusts most -- don't want that to happen. Sing You Home is about identity, love, marriage, and parenthood. It's about people wanting to do the right thing for the greater good, even as they work to fulfill their own personal desires and dreams. And it's about what happens when the outside world brutally calls into question the very thing closest to our hearts: family.

This book is a subject close to our hearts here at the Odyssey and in the Pioneer Valley--not only is it about reproductive rights, but it takes on the issue of gay rights, too. So we're extremely proud to host Jodi Picoult for a reading and booksigning on Monday, March 28. Ellen Wilber will also perform songs on stage from the CD written exclusively for Sing You Home. This event is free and open to the public, but we are asking people to contact us to reserve their free tickets in advance. Purchase of Sing You Home is required if you want to meet Jodi and get a book signed. You can find the full details at our website. We hope you'll join us for an exceptional evening!

~Emily

Must Read Monday: Beatrice & Virgil by Yann Martel

2011-02-28T11:25:00.001-05:00

This week's post for Must-Read Monday belongs to Yann Martel's novel, Beatrice and Virgil, which is now out in paperback. As with his previous book, Life of Pi, Martel puts animal allegory to good use again, layered over a very postmodern meta-fiction structure. Ostensibly about a writer who has lost his creativity, this book is actually an exploration of how inadequate words are to describe the Holocaust. This book is so haunting and provocative that I could not stop thinking about for days.

If you'd like to learn a little more about this book, check out this post about my chance to meet Yann Martel in person at the New England Independent Booksellers Association office -- it was a great day!

~Emily