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Get to Know Clara

On September 18, 2015

Pssst. Drew Daywalt (author of The Day the Crayons Came Home) will be at Lemuria on September 15 at 3:30!

How long have you worked at Lemuria? In my current position, I’ve been at Lemuria for 1 year, although I worked here in the summers in high school. It is definitely the best job I’ve had and I’m glad to be back.

What do you do at Lemuria? Most days I’m Dorothy who has been spit out of the tornado. On good days I’m Glinda the Good Witch, and on AWESOME days I’m the Wizard of Oz. Oz, for those of you not familiar with Lemuria, is our children’s book section! I order all the books for newborns all the way up to teens. I also arrange for authors who write books for kids to visit Jackson. You can catch what children’s books I review each Sunday in The Clarion Ledger!

Talk to us about what you’re reading right now.

I just finished Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff. For every 10-20 children’s books I read, I try to read one adult book, and this one was a winner.

Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit. A WW2 story told from Anna’s perspective, who at the beginning of the story has just turned 7. Her father, an intellectual linguistics professor in Poland, leaves for work one day and never returns. The Swallow Man finds her and an incredible journey ensues.

Drowning is Inevitable by Shalanda Stanley. Four teens find themselves in a heap of trouble in Louisiana and set off to New Orleans. A little Kate Chopin, a lot of Southern Gothic, and I love it.

After Alice by Gregory Maguire. We all know the story of ALICE, but what happened to the other girl listening to Carroll’s story, Ada? This is her story, and the book will be out just in time for the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands. Kevin Sands will be at Lemuria September 18! This is a fast-paced adventure and mystery story set in London, and Christopher Rowe is an apprentice to Master Benedict Blackthorn, an apothecary. When Master Blackthorn is murdered, Christopher is left behind to unlock the key, or code. Really fun, and I can’t wait for the event.

I know it’s difficult, but give us your current top five books. THIS IS SO HARD. This fall in particular there are so many debut authors whose books I am obsessed with, so come talk to me about them because the list is too long.

1. Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (out in October!)

2. Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell

3. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie is always in my top five and

has been ever since I read it in 5th grade. It’s his only children’s book.

4. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

5. The Nonsense Show by Eric Carle

What did you do before you worked at Lemuria? I was a student at Vanderbilt University in Nashville (anchor down!), a student in Florence, Italy, a substitute teacher, a Spanish tutor, a painter at Old Tyme Commissary, a hostess, a research intern at the Mississippi Museum of Art, a magazine editor for Mississippi Magazine and a receptionist in a doctor’s office.

Why do you like working at Lemuria? When you take an author to a school and see the effect they can have on a child, it’s wonderful. Also, finding that perfect book for the perfect person is all the more rewarding when it’s a child who has just discovered reading.

If we could have any living author visit the store and do a reading, who would you want to come? J.K. ROWLING!!! I think I would die.

If Lemuria could have ANY pet (mythical or real), what do you think it should be? Hedwig!! I would love receiving mail by owl post.

If you had the ability to teleport, where would you go first? You mean apparate? Hogwarts, duh. Except not in Hogwarts (nobody’s able to apparate into Hogwarts grounds) but I’d apparate to Hogsmeade.

S.C. Gwynne provides riveting, smartly crafted history of Civil War’s end in ‘Hymns of the Republic’

By Guest Author

On November 6, 2019

In Civil War

By Jim Woodrick. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (November 3)

In his second inaugural address, delivered in March 1865, Abraham Lincoln expressed his hope that “this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away” but also allowed that it might yet be God’s will that “every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.”

As it happened, the war would finally draw to a close a little more than a month later, but the nation could hardly have paid a steeper price in blood than had already been shed in the final, horrific year of the Civil War. Lincoln himself would, of course, be among the war’s last victims at the hands of an assassin.

Author S.C. Gwynne, who has previously written an acclaimed biography of Stonewall Jackson Rebel Yell, offers a fast-paced and engaging look on the last year of the Civil War in Hymns of the Republic. In his book, Gwynne focuses initially on Grant’s Virginia campaign which evolved into a series of battles that produced long lists of Union casualties but made little headway in winning the war.

The stalemate in Virginia, along with William T. Sherman’s struggle to capture Atlanta, gave renewed hope in the South that an increasingly war-weary North would turn against Lincoln in the November elections and choose someone willing to let the Confederacy go. But it was not to be.

With the fall of Atlanta on September 2, 1864, the war took a dramatic turn. Not only had prospects brightened for Lincoln, but a new style of warfare emerged. Sherman, who the author describes as a “restless, nervous, fidgety, kinetic” man, would use his army in the subsequent March to the Sea and into the Carolinas not to take and hold territory but to destroy the Confederacy’s ability to wage war, and, perhaps more importantly, to destroy the South’s will to continue the struggle.

In Virginia, Phil Sheridan slashed and burned his way across the Shenandoah Valley with similar goals. Caught in the crossfire were countless civilians, both slave and free.

Gwynne’s military narrative closes with a compelling account of Appomattox and explores a number of long-held myths about the surrender of Lee’s army. Throughout, Gwynne pays particular attention to the increasingly important role of African Americans as Union soldiers and as a political and moral force in shaping the outcome of the war.

Gwynne is perhaps at his best in bringing to life the main characters in the unfolding drama. While he is fairly critical of Grant’s tactical skills, or lack thereof, he draws a parallel between Grant’s ability to overcome setbacks, both personal and professional, with his determination to keep up the pressure on Lee in spite of a chorus of critics in Washington.

Robert E. Lee, meanwhile, is presented as a somewhat tragic figure who sacrificed everything for a cause and country that could no longer be sustained. Lee, he writes, was a man increasingly burdened by “sadness, frustration, unhappiness and loss.”

Yet Lee, like Grant, seemed to understand that the game had to be played out, even if it resulted in thousands more lives sacrificed on Virginia’s blood-soaked fields. Readers will also gain fresh insight into Sherman’s character, along with Phil Sheridan, Clara Barton, John Singleton Mosby, Salmon P. Chase and, of course, Lincoln.

There are certainly more in-depth studies on the campaigns of 1864 and 1865, most notably Gordon Rhea’s multi-volume work on the Overland Campaign, but Gwynne’s book includes just enough detail on the movements of the armies to satisfy military historians and appeal to those who might not otherwise read a book on the Civil War. Hymns of the Republic is a riveting and beautifully crafted story and would be a valuable addition to any library.

Jim Woodrick is the Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer at MDAH, the author of The Civil War Siege of Jackson, Mississippi, and a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Vicksburg National Military Park.

Lemuria has selected Hymns of the Republic its November 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Nonfiction.

Author Q & A with S.C. Gwynne

By Guest Author

On October 27, 2019

In Civil War

Interview by Jana Hoops. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (October 27)

If you haven’t given much thought to the American Civil War lately, bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize finalist S. C Gwynne offers some compelling thoughts on the country’s current state of division as he examines–in depth–the fourth and final year of the War Between the States.

Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War chronicles the events, people and politics of the U.S. in 1864–a time when almost no one, including Abraham Lincoln himself, thought the president would win re-election. The book traces the rough roads Union General Ulysses S. Grant and his counterpart Robert E. Lee traveled as each drove toward victory; the triumphs of nurse Clara Barton; the role that 180,000 black solders forged as they donned Union uniforms, Lee’s ultimate surrender at Appomattox; and finally, the assassination of Lincoln.

Gwynne’s previous books include the award winning Empire of the Summer Moon, Rebel Yell, and The Perfect Pass. As a former journalistic, he served as bureau chief and national correspondent with Time and as executive editor for Texas Magazine, among others.

Today he and his wife, the artist Katie Maratta, live in Austin, Texas.

Hymns of the Republic begins with Washington D.C.’s 1863-64 winter “social season” in high gear as the Civil War dragged on–and the nation’s leaders were given an infusion of hope when Ulysses S. Grant was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general over the Union forces. Please explain what that meant to Washington and the war effort.

S.C. Gwynne

When Grant arrived in Washington, he inspired a hopeful, almost joyful feeling in the North that the war might soon be over. Here was the great and glorious warrior from the “west,” victor of Shiloh, Fort Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga. Here, at last, was someone to challenge the great Robert E. Lee.

What happened next was the opposite of hope and joy. Within a few months of Grant’s arrival, he and Lee would unleash a storm of blood and death that beggared even the killing fields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville. And there would be no great northern victory. It was, in fact, Grant’s failure to beat Lee–which opened the large possibility that Abraham Lincoln might not re-elected–that really set the stage for the war’s dramatic final act.

The next presidential election lay ahead, and it seems that Lincoln himself had doubts that he would win. Potentially, what could his loss in the election have meant for the war’s outcome?

In the summer of 1864, it was hard to find anyone in the country, North or South, Republican or Democrat, including Lincoln himself, who believed the president would be re-elected. If he had lost, I believe there would almost certainly have been some sort of negotiated peace, probably with slavery intact in the South. The Civil War would still have to be fought to a close–because the fundamental issue that had caused it in the first place, whether the new territories and states would be slave or free, had not been resolved–but that final action would have been delayed by many years. That’s just my opinion.

Tell me briefly about the contributions that former slaves made to the Union efforts in the war.

Most people have lost track of this, but 180,000 black soldiers fought for the North in the Civil War, most of them in the final year. Some 60 percent of them were former slaves. This meant that men who had been held in bondage one month–without any legal rights, including the right to marry, to hold assets, to buy real estate, to use the courts to settle grievances, to travel, to hold a job–were suddenly wearing uniforms. They had jobs. They earned salaries. They had weapons. Their numbers, and their success as fighters, did much to tip the scales in favor of the Union.

If you look at troop strength, North and South, it always seems as though the Union has a large advantage. But because the North was trying to hold and control so much real estate, as well as garrison Southern cities and protect its supply lines, its advantage on the battlefield was less than it seemed. Black soldiers amounted to an astounding 10 percent of the Union army.

Briefly explain the comparisons you draw between Lincoln and Confederacy President Jefferson Davis as the war was coming to a close.

The two men were so radically different. They shared traits of stubbornness and deep conviction, but otherwise came from different planets. Lincoln was kind, tolerant, forgiving, and personally warm. Davis was brittle, unforgiving, thin-skinned, and grudge-holding. His public persona was often stiff, cold, and unemotional. Both men arguably held their countries together because of their unwillingness to compromise. Lincoln insisted on full restoration of the Union and the abolition of slavery as his basic terms for peace. Davis insisted on the full sovereignty of the southern nation.

Your book examines that last year of the U.S. Civil War in a great deal of detail. What lessons does this documentary of that period hold for Americans today–and why should we still be considering the history of the Civil War today?

The most basic lesson is that the United States of America is, and always has been, a deeply divided country. In the Civil War it was divided by region, state, and race. It still is.

Look at a map of red and blue state America. Read any newspaper to see the often-bitter national debate on race. The Civil War, in which 750,000 people died and huge sections of the South were destroyed, was this divide at its most extreme.

As grim as those statistics are, you can look at the history that followed as the United States somehow muddled through. We are no longer killing ourselves at the rate we did in 1864. Our democracy is messy and imperfect. We are still muddling. Today I read in the paper that the president of the United States in October 2019 was predicting a Civil War. But I draw some small hope from my reading of history.

S.C. Gwynne will be at Lemuria on Monday, October 28, at 5:00 to sign and discuss Hymns of the Republic, in conversation with Donald Miller. Lemuria has selected Hymns of the Republic its November 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Nonfiction.

Roger Stolle’s ‘Mississippi Juke Joint Confidential’ goes straight to the source of blues music

By Guest Author

On August 2, 2019

In Blues, Southern Culture

By DeMatt Harkins. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 28)

Over the past century, blues music has evolved while nonetheless retaining its core elements and purpose. In Mississippi Juke Joint Confidential, Roger Stolle, accompanied by photographer Lou Bopp, demonstrates this is equally the case with its archetypal venue.

Early in the millennium, Stolle moved from St. Louis to Clarksdale to open Cat Head music shop. Since then, he has gone on to start the annual Juke Joint Festival, produce several artists’ records and tours, become a contributing editor for Delta Magazine, deejay locally and on satellite radio, helm a trio of blues documentaries (We Juke Up In Here, M is for Mississippi, and Hard Times) and host the web series Moonshine and Mojo Hands.

In his follow-up to Hidden History of Mississippi Blues, Stolle begins by clarifying that self-declaration does not a juke joint maketh. Spots such as the Blue Front Cafe in Bentonia, Roosters in Sardis, Junior Kimbrough’s in Marshall county, The Subway Lounge in Jackson, The Do Drop Inn and Sarah’s Kitchen in Clarksdale, and Po Monkey’s out from Marigold all earned the distinction. These clubs are less refined, more raw. Many may not be up to code, let alone legal businesses.

Juke joints initially popped up as the lone secular, social outlet during Mississippi’s sharecropping era. They hosted such legends as Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, and Son House. Today’s equally sensational Mississippi juke joint musicians live practically off the cultural grid. But that doesn’t mean they don’t pack ‘em in.

While patrons most certainly feel the music in a Mississippi juke joint, they may not necessarily be able to see the band. As Stolle points out, contemporary juke joints tend to be paeans to resourcefulness. With that comes architectural and design anomalies. The band may be around a corner from half the crowd, or even placed in front of a bathroom. Not to mention, the look of the place may be spare or a collage of bygone marketing campaigns, amateur signage, and Christmas lights. Despite unconventional layouts and incongruous styles, juke joints function as the means to a musically euphoric end.

At the heart of Mississippi Juke Joint Confidential is a pair of chapters sourced from many of Stolle’s interviews with owners and musicians. The raconteurs include T-Model Ford, Terry “Harmonica” Bean, Sam Carr, RL Boyce, Lightning Malcolm, Mary Ann Action Jackson, Robert Belfour, Sarah Moore, James Super Chikan Johnson, LC Ulmer, and the legendary Honeyboy Edwards, among others. Collectively they paint a vivid picture of this underground musical scene—often with head-shaking hilarity.

Most people have seen guitars played on stage. Few have seen them used to defend a mid-performance knife attack. Also presented here is sage advice against chugging a pint of gin, right before playing the first song. Which juke joint is referred to as The Bucket of Blood? And perhaps everyone needs to visit the juke joint whose house chicken dances and drinks beer.

In addition to the high jinx, also evident are hard workers simply trying to provide a service to the community. Proprietors such as Red Paden and Sarah Moore echo they are not in it for the money. They recognize everybody needs a place to let it all hang out.

Several of Stolle’s subjects reminisce about juke joints’ days of yore. John Horton explains his preference for the old solo acoustic acts because it’s a greater feat to hold an audience’s attention, all night, by yourself. Along those lines, Jimmy Duck Holmes points out why blues was hollered—musicians were contending with a full room of revelers without the benefit of a sound system. And one can only imagine how raucous the Harlem Club in Inverness became when young David Lee Durham was relegated to peeking in the window to catch a set by Howlin Wolf or Muddy Waters.

Stolle additionally expounds on the cultural significance of moonshine, the profound history of Clarksdale’s Riverside Hotel and Bay St. Louis’ 100 Men DBA Hall, Bilbo Walker’s long journey from musician to juke joint operator, and the ins-and-outs of traveling internationally on blues tours.

Although juke joint music is known around the globe, Stolle and Bopp offer not only a peek into, but also an itinerary for what cannot be replicated outside of Mississippi.

DeMatt Harkins of Jackson enjoys flipping pancakes and records with his wife and daughter.

Roger Stolle will appear at the Mississippi Book Festival August 17 as a participant in the “Mississippi Blues” panel at 4:00 p.m. at the Galloway Foundery.

A story of love and loss and hope in ‘Haunting Paris’ by Mamta Chaudhry

By Guest Author

On June 24, 2019

In Fiction

By Seetha Srinivasan. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (June 23)

In the end a lifetime is not enough, the heart yearns for more. Who can reason with desire? The heart has its reasons that reason cannot know.

One day Sylvie will push open that curtained door to come to me, and despite all that I have known, at the sight of her I will finally believe that all losses are restored and sorrows end.

These words of Julien, the spectral protagonist of Mamta Chaudhry’s Haunting Paris, begin and conclude the novel, the crux of which is the story of the Jewish psychologist Julien and his lover, music teacher Sylvie. Haunting Paris is set in 1989 and recounts Sylvie’s search for Julien’s sister Clara’s daughter who vanished in war-time Paris. Clara and another daughter perished in the Holocaust. Julien, wracked with guilt for not being able to save his sister and her family, is convinced that one of his nieces is alive and spent years searching for her. After his death, a chance find of a letter impels Sylvie to continue Julien’s quest.

This is the barest outline of the plot. Like all fine fiction, it is in its unfolding that Haunting Paris captivates.

We witness the romance of the upper-class married Julien and his sensitive lover Sylvie, the lives of his children and his wife Isabelle (who will not give up Julien), Sylvie’s discovery of the letter that allows her to trace the lives of Clara and her daughters, and the fortuitous encounter that brings their story full circle.

Chaudhry narrates with sensitive attention the lives of her main characters and brings the same skill to drawing portraits of her entire cast, among them: the kindly concierge Ana Caravalho, sisters Marie and Mathilde who protect Clara and her daughters only to unwittingly betray them, and Sylvie’s American lodgers Alice and Will with their experiences of life in Paris.

The novel moves easily between its setting during celebrations of the bicentennial of the Revolution and the horrors of war-time Paris and Nazi atrocities. Chaudhry’s ability to sustain this structure even as she risks having a ghostly narrator is impressive.

The city seems almost a character in itself, and Chaudhry’s evocation of Paris is superb. Her ability to render telling details and convey the sights, sounds, and the very texture of life puts the reader at its center. Those who know Paris will revel in this marvelous re-creation; those who do not will finish the novel wishing to visit.

It is primarily through Julien’s eyes that we view Paris and its history. “But when the Bastille fell into their hands, they discovered half-a-dozen prisoners in the fortress, seven to be precise, and the faces of the freed men gaped at their jailer’s severed head, both wearing identical expressions of astonishment at this shift of power from the grasp of kings into the hands of the people.”

On the Eiffel Tower: “I admire the way its sequined lights shine like early stars in the dark, the filigreed ironwork making it seem to float weightlessly, for all its substance, an inspired emblem for the city of light—in both senses of the word—not just luminosity but also lightness, which we prize above all, in wit, in art, in life.”

Haunting Paris, with its complex and intriguing structure, carefully researched historical details woven with adroit and meticulous care into the narrative, deeply sympathetic characters whose story moves between mysteries of past and present showing the myriad ways in which the past never loses its hold, is indeed, as Kirkus noted: “an elegant debut.” It is also an absorbing must-read.

Seetha Srinivasan is the director emerita of the University Press of Mississippi.

Mamta Chaudhry will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, June 26, at 5:00 p.m. in a joint event with Alex Ohlin (author Dual Citizens) to sign and discuss Haunting Paris.

The Timelessness of Classical Music in Chris Cander’s ‘The Weight of a Piano’

By Former Lemurians

On January 22, 2019

In Fiction

by Julia Blakeney

Chris Cander’s book, The Weight of a Piano, is ultimately about the relationship several people have with a single, beloved object: an antique, all-black, upright Blüthner piano. The book begins by describing how this particular piano was conceived of and built, which was incredibly cool to read. Cander imagines this process and executes it wonderfully, with the creator, Julius Blüthner, heading out into the forests of Romania himself to hand-select the trees that will be cut down and used for his unique instruments.

a 1924 Blüthner piano

This novel is also about the connection made, through the piano, between two women. Clara, who owns the piano after Katya is forced to give it up, has no idea who the previous owner is and discovers over the course of a few days why the piano is so special to Katya, and how she is connected to her.

The connection and the way it plays out are well-done, but what really interested me about this book when I first picked it up was the music. Classical music is often seen by those who play it and appreciate it as a language of its own, one that defies normal verbal or written description. I think that Cander does a great job of describing classical music in a way that anyone can understand, often by describing Katya’s feelings toward the piano and the music.

The Weight of a Piano surprised me in the amount of technical detail Cander used when describing musical technique and the titular piano. It is so easy to see Katya’s love of music throughout the novel, which is portrayed by Cander’s poetic description of the piano and the music played on it. I was easily able to relate to Katya and the way music brings her joy and conveys her feelings, as well as the way music connects characters to one another, even across time, because I often feel this way about classical music. As a classical musician, it also felt extra special to be able to understand Katya’s emotional connection to the piano and the music she plays on it.

In this beautifully written novel, Cander explores how an object can connect people across generations, bringing them together for better or for worse. I was enraptured by this novel from start to finish and I enjoyed every minute of reading it.

Below is a YouTube playlist for all the classical pieces mentioned in the book:

Chris Cander will be at Lemuria on Wednesday, January 30, at 5:00 p.m. to sign copies of The Weight of a Piano. She will be in conversation with Knopf editor Gary Fisketjon at 5:30 p.m. The Weight of a Piano is Lemuria’s January 2019 selection for its First Editions Club for Fiction.

Staff Nonfiction Favorites for 2018

By Lemuria

On January 10, 2019

In Nonfiction

Before Christmas, we shared with you our favorite fiction books of the year. At the time, we also polled the staff about their favorite nonfiction books of the year. The only parameter was that it had to be published in 2018. In the holiday rush, we forgot to share! We are here to rectify that today. Maybe you can come to the store and pick up a great book in the down time after a busy holiday season, or find your favorite for 2019. Either way, we’ll be here to help.

John Evans, bookstore owner – Black Flags, Blue Waters by Eric Jay Dolin
Black Flags, Blue Waters is the swashbuckling reality of pirates in the early period of colonial formation. It’s a must-read for anybody going to the islands this winter. This book is big fun.
Kelly, book buyer and events manager – The Dinosaur Artist by Paige Williams
Austen, operations manager – 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan Peterson
Lisa, first editions manager – The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman
Hillary, front desk manager – The Meaning Revolution by Fred Kofman
Clara, former Oz manager – Congratulations, Who Are You Again? by Harrison Scott Key
Abbie, fiction supervisor – Educated by Tara Westover
Educated is a captivating and inspirational memoir about a girl breaking free from her eccentric family’s ideals to pursue an education. It will stay with you for a long time; it’s perfect for fans of The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls.
Guy, First Editions Club supervisor – Disappointment River by Brian Castner
Brian Castner’s Disappointment River is both a vivid history of early North American exploration and a reflective travel memoir following the author’s own retracing of a failed route through the Canadian wilderness.
Andrew, blog supervisor – The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington
Before I read The Cadaver King, I suspected it was going to be well-written, but I was surprised by how engrossing it also turned out to be. Mixing infuriating stories of injustice for Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer along with policy wonk details of Mississippi’s broken death investigation system, this book is not only good, but also important, if it can get people to pay attention to an important but neglected issue.
Aimee, bookseller – I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
I am a true crime junkie; my favorite podcasts include My Favorite Murder, Criminal, and Last Seen. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is about a previously unsolved case concerning the Golden State Killer. McNamara expertly weaves evidence, witness statements and police files to create the full picture. (Fun fact: I wrote a blog about this book earlier in the year and we unknowingly posted it the same day the news broke that the Golden State Killer had been caught.)
Hunter, bookseller – The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte
A wonderfully accessible tale of some of the beasts that lived long before us, as well as a creative take on the story of how these creatures are discovered and studied, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs makes science fun and reawakens the fascination and curiosity about dinosaurs that exists in many.
Trianne, bookseller – Sick by Porochista Khakpour
In a world where physical illness is often ignored or misunderstood, Sick does not shy away from the reality of Lyme disease. Khakpour’s refreshingly irreverent memoir chronicles the progression of her sickness and brings a fractured beauty to the harsh truth that we all are bound by physicality.
Jack, bookseller – Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back) by Jeff Tweedy
Jamie, bookseller – Heavy by Kiese Laymon
The scope of this memoir is truly American: race, violence, poverty, food, tenacity, deceit, honesty hope, fear, fearlessness, love. The honesty with which Laymon writes is heartrending, and his prose is impeccably gorgeous.
Norris, bookseller – The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Staff Fiction Favorites for 2018

By Lemuria

On December 17, 2018

In Fiction

It’s time to return to our annual tradition of sharing our recommendations for our favorite books that were published this year. We’ll start with our fiction selections. While many of these were selections for our First Editions Club for Fiction, it seems like most of our booksellers had different personal favorites!

John Evans, bookstore owner – Varina by Charles Frazier
Varina is a beautifully written Civil War novel about the Confederacy’s First Lady and her relationships with her husband, her children, and her friends. Literally, Varina the character filters the aristocratic South before, during, and after the Civil War through her unique feminine perspective.
Kelly, book buyer and events supervisor – Fire Sermon by Jamie Quatro
In Fire Sermon, Quatro plumbs truths about the gratification and restraint of desire, about the intimacy and estrangement of marriage, and about the steadfastness and inconsistency of faith. In anyone else’s hands, the level of empathy might not be as strong; Quatro adeptly depicts a messy situation with flawed people in a way that connects us with our own shortcomings.
Austen, operations manager – The Fighter by Michael Farris Smith
Lisa, first editions manager – Waiting for Eden by Elliot Ackerman
Hillary, front desk manager – Waiting for Eden by Elliot Ackerman
Clara, Oz manager – Bridge of Clay by Markus Zusak
Abbie, fiction supervisor – Florida by Lauren Groff
Florida is the best short story collection I’ve read in a long time. Groff expertly crafts micro-fiction that pulls you in from the first word and refuses to let go. A great book to read between holiday festivities.
Guy, First Editions Club supervisor – A Shout in the Ruins by Kevin Powers
In this story, Kevin Powers looks piercingly at the American South whose savage history he carefully traces. A masterful novel, A Shout in the Ruins is a timely powerhouse full of seething violence and remarkable humanity.
Andrew, blog supervisor – Ohio by Stephen Markley
Told from the perspective of four narrators returning to the misbegotten Midwestern hometown, Ohio is a story full of longing, lost innocence, national malaise, and personal regret. The characters and setting are drawn as masterfully as they come.
Aimee, bookseller – My Year of Rest and Relexation by Ottessa Moshfegh
My favorite fiction pick for the year is My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Despite a cast of unlikable characters, together they form a bizarrely relatable story. I mean, who wouldn’t want to turn off the world and hibernate for a year? It turns out strange things happen when you take the medicine that the worst psychiatrist in New York City prescribes for you.
Hunter, bookseller – The Stars Now Unclaimed by Drew Williams
The Stars Now Unclaimed is an incredibly fun space opera that doesn’t fall prey to many of the clichés that plague modern sci-fi. Readers can immerse themselves in a massive universe that intrigues and excites.
Trianne, bookseller – An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
American Marriage is, first and foremost, a story about people. Romance, injustice, family, and racism is all just the backdrop of the thoroughly contemporary story of a woman, two men, and a wrongful prison sentence.
Jack, bookseller – Waiting for Eden by Elliot Ackerman
Ackerman’s Waiting for Eden is a strong story dealing with the heaviness of indecision and human suffering. It gives the reader the opportunity to grapple with an ethical dilemma posed by a ghost narrator, and will inspire reflections on one’s own mortality and the importance of communication with those we love.
Pat, bookseller – Virgil Wander by Leif Enger
Kyle, bookseller – Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
Haruki Murakami’s newest novel, Killing Commendatore, is an engulfing, meandering, and gloriously Murakamian affair. Musical allusion plays its usual role as a character in and of itself, as does the author’s favorite theme of the surreal curiously coexisting with the rest of reality. A forlorn artist seeks meaning, direction, and inner peace on the top of a mountain. With the help of a few otherworldly happenings and an extensive collection of classical records, he manages to brush against those ideas–he even gets to talk to a few of them.
Jamie, bookseller – Anatomy of a Miracle by Jonathan Miles
This was a hard one. It was a toss up between Ackerman’s Waiting for Eden and Miles’ Anatomy of a Miracle. Both books deal with the destructive nature of war by looking at individual loss, and both make us question where good begins and exists in the world. Ackerman does so with serious, slow prose while Miles’ writing is quicker and with more levity. In fact, I’ve decided to leave this blurb noncommittal. Read them both.
Norris, bookseller – My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Julia, bookseller – Southernmost by Silas House

Southern secrets haunt ‘The Good Demon’ by Jimmy Cajoleas

By Former Lemurians

On September 18, 2018

In OZ: Young Adult Fiction

By Clara Martin. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (September 16)

“And, soft as a moth wing, out slipped a torn scrap of paper that fluttered to the floor.
I picked it up. Scribbled in Her handwriting, all bubbly and little-girly, the way She made my hand move whenever She wanted to write something:

Be nice to him

June 20

Remember the stories.”

This is the first clue left behind by Clare’s demon in The Good Demon by Jimmy Cajoleas (Amulet Books). In an unnamed Southern town, Clare has been delivered from her demon by a preacher and his son. One month later, she finds messages hidden in old books she doesn’t remember taking to Uncle Mike’s Used and Collectible, the thrift shop in her town. Clare’s demon was her friend, and she’s doing anything she can to get Her back, even if it means befriending Roy, the boy who separated Clare from her demon in the first place. Their friendship will lead them to uncover other mysteries in their town, specifically regarding Uncle Mike’s missing daughter, Clea, and a wooden box filled with secrets worth $1000.

A spooky psychological thriller and mystery, Jimmy Cajoleas’ young adult novel debut will have readers on the edge of their seat. In The Good Demon, there is no doubt that Cajoleas is a powerhouse of a writer in this atmospheric novel with an undercurrent of fear and faith. Featuring three-dimensional characters who keep generations of secrets from each other, the reader isn’t quite sure who to trust. If you like to be scared in broad daylight, if you want original writing and the kind of quirky and complex characters who occupy the nooks and crannies of the South, then The Good Demon is for you.

Jimmy Cajoleas is originally from Jackson, Mississippi and graduated with an MFA from the University of Mississippi and now lives in New York. He will signing and reading The Good Demon at Lemuria on Wednesday, September 19 at 5 p.m.

Cheap chapbooks still relevant today

By Lisa

On July 25, 2018

In Lisa's First Editions, Reading

By Lisa Newman. Special to the Clarion-Ledger Sunday print edition (July 15)

“If you want to buy, I’m your chap!” was the cry of peddler at the market, on the street corner, or door-to-door in country towns.

The term “chap” comes from the Old English céap, meaning “to deal, barter, or do business”. These chapmen sold all kinds of things, but they were known for books made for cheap distribution called chapbooks. One of the most famous chapbooks in the United States is Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” (January 1776), considered to be the single most important piece of writing to influence the declaration of independence.

Anti-establishment groups of the modern era have also employed the utility of the chapbook.

In the 1950s, the Beats adopted the form to publish poetry, most famously “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg and issued by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Lights books in San Francisco. The Pocket Poet Series introduced avant-garde poetry to the masses and is still in print today. Broadside Press in Detroit supported the writers of the civil rights movement, publishing Margaret Walker’s “Prophets for a New Day” (1970) and “October Journey” (1973) in addition to works by Alice Walker and Nikki Giovanni.

Small literary presses have adopted the form as an inexpensive way to promote unknown writers. These chapbooks might include one short story or an excerpt from an upcoming novel. The first publication by William Gay, the late Southern Gothic writer from Hohenwald, Tennessee, was a chapbook titled “The Paperhanger, the Doctor’s Wife, and the Child Who Went into the Abstract” (Book Source Press, 1998). Limited to a print run of 250 and signed by Gay, this short story chapbook is a fine example of a collectible literary debut. Other presses have used the chapbook as a way to celebrate the success of an established literary writer.

John Updike’s “The Women Who Got Away” (William B. Ewert, 1998) is an example of an embellished chapbook illustrated with woodcuts by Barry Moser. “Gwinlan’s Harp” by Ursula K. Le Guin (Lord John Press, 1981) and “Black Butterfly” by Barry Hannah (Nouveau Press, 1982) are beautiful examples of decorative hand-made paper and hand-stitched binding. All of these books were issued in limited number and signed by the author. “On Short Stories” by Eudora Welty (Harcourt Brace, 1949) was issued in decorative boards as a celebration of the short story and as a Christmas holiday memento.

Some people think that the chapbook has evolved into online blogs. However, as the internet has become common and screen fatigue a daily headache, the physical chapbook could be revitalized. The handmade papers, the attention to detail heightens the tactile pleasure and the desire to add a rare book from a favorite author to your bookshelf. The number of books and classes on handcrafting books has also increased with poets publishing their own books they call zines.

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Get to Know Clara

S.C. Gwynne provides riveting, smartly crafted history of Civil War’s end in ‘Hymns of the Republic’

Author Q & A with S.C. Gwynne

Roger Stolle’s ‘Mississippi Juke Joint Confidential’ goes straight to the source of blues music

A story of love and loss and hope in ‘Haunting Paris’ by Mamta Chaudhry

The Timelessness of Classical Music in Chris Cander’s ‘The Weight of a Piano’

Staff Nonfiction Favorites for 2018

Staff Fiction Favorites for 2018

Southern secrets haunt ‘The Good Demon’ by Jimmy Cajoleas

Cheap chapbooks still relevant today

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